|
SOME thirty-five hundred
years ago, one who was not without experience of what wealth and high
position were worth, “esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches
than the treasures of Egypt.” At a later date, one with a similar
experience sung: “Thy (God’s) loving-kindness is better than life and,
at a still later date, a noble confessor said: “Let fire and the cross,
let the companions of the wild beasts, let breaking of bones and tearing
of limbs, let the grinding of the whole body and the malice of the devil
come upon me, so that I may enjoy Jesus Christ.” And in every succeeding
age there have been those who have, in like manner, estimated the love
of God their Savior, and rather than forfeit it, they have been ready to
go to judgment, prison, and death.
It was this estimate of the precious love of the Savior that nerved the
hearts of the Scottish martyrs, represented in the frontispiece, and
which enabled them to sing his praises amid the gurgling waves as their
life ebbed away. On the 11th of May, 1685, might be seen a troop of
horsemen guarding the two helpless prisoners, Margaret McLaughlin and
Margaret Wilson, to the beach, where the water of Blednock meets the
sea, on the west coast of Scotland. They were intent on the execution of
a sentence passed on these helpless women by their cruel commander,
Major Windram, viz., that they should be “tied to stakes fixed within
the flood-mark, and there be drowned by the returning tide.”
A cruel sentence. What had they done to deserve such a doom? They had
done much, in the estimation of ungodly despots. They had contended for
the right to worship God in accordance with the dictates of their own
conscience; they refused to subscribe to the doctrine that the authority
of the Church was derived from the king. They even held the opposite
doctrine, that the Lord Jesus Christ was the source of the Church’s
authority; and this was regarded as treason by the king and his minions.
Hence their cruel sentence. But what was accounted treason by the king
of Britain was, they were persuaded, counted loyalty to the King of
heaven, and they preferred his favor—they knew that it was life, and
that his loving-kindness was better than life. Hence, with brave hearts
they had gone to prison, as they felt, upon their Master’s service and
now, with firm step, they march to the place of execution. The elder,
Margaret McLaughlin, was first fastened to the stake farther down the
beach than her younger companion, that her death, if she refused to
retract, might have that effect upon her more youthful friend.
But their persecutors knew nothing about the power of principle, or the
influence of the love of Christ on the hearts of Christians.
Accordingly, when the tide was rising, she was besought to give up her
principles and acknowledge the supremacy of the king; but she replied:
“Unless with Christ’s dear servants we have a part, we have no part with
him and then she encouraged herself, singing the old Psalm: “To thee I
lift my soul, O God.” And Margaret Wilson, instead of being frightened
by the sight of her fellow-sufferer’s death, was only emboldened to hold
fast her profession. Said she, looking upon her dying friend: “What do I
see but Christ in one of his members wrestling there? Think you that we
are the sufferers? No, it is Christ in us; for he sends none a warfare
upon their own charges.” Brave words from so young a martyr; but she was
inured to suffering, for though now only eighteen years of age, she had
for five long years been a wanderer from home and friends for the cause
of her Master. Like the martyrs of old, she had wandered about in dens
and caves of the earth the greater part of the time since her thirteenth
year, that she might escape the wrath of the enemies of Christ and his
truth, and she is not now likely to desert it; consequently, when the
water had reached her face, and she had been loosed and asked to disavow
the doctrine of Christ’s supremacy and acknowledge that of King James,
she replied: “I will not—I am one of God’s children—let me alone.” Yes,
she was a child of God, and nobly was she acting in her high position,
and bright will be her crown in the kingdom above.
Thus died those noble martyrs in the cause of truth—in behalf of the
crown rights of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In Christian lands no king would now claim the prerogatives that were
claimed by King James; and how much we are indebted to these humble
martyrs for the increased religious liberty—aye, and civil liberty, too,
for both will stand or fall together—which is now enjoyed in
English-speaking Christian lands, we can not tell; but the seed thus
sown and watered with blood was doubtless not in vain. And their story
still teaches and inspires its readers with loftier purpose and
increased determination to live and witness for Christ and his truth. |
