less persons who trusted in him. What befell them and their husbands after this period is not said; but there is no doubt that the same God who had guided them hitherto, would continue to be their guide even unto death.

The paucity of anecdotes regarding the Covenanters who resided in Kirkbride is rather remarkable, considering the firm hold which, from an early period, the principles of the Reformation had of its inhabitants; and their spirited conduct respecting the curate shows that these principles had not been abandoned. The want of traditional incident, however, by no means proves that the good people who tenanted this locality had either swerved from their constancy or were overlooked by their enemies. The likelihood is, that the tales of interest respecting their persecuted ancestry have died out with the people of a former generation. This, at least, has been eminently the case in other places not far from the scene of this narrative, where, within the last few years, scores of instructive rehearsals respecting our covenanted worthies, which nobody thought it worth the while to arrest in their progress to oblivion, have departed irrecoverably with a few aged men lately deceased. But though names and occurrences are forgotten, principles live -principles which are indestructible, and principles which are destined to rectify and keep in order the whole framework of society, and finally to pervade the entire living mass of mankind throughout the world. The immediate benefit which resulted from the successful contendings of our forefathers was at first confined only to a single point of the geographical surface of the earth; but from that point, as from a centre, the truth has radiated, and shall ultimately spread abroad among all nations. The attempt to suppress the truth of God in Scotland by persecution was the very means, in the hand of Providence, of reviving that truth, and of diffusing it more widely around. The persecution which commenced in Jerusalem with the martyrdom of Stephen, was the occasion of the dissemination of the Gospel, not only throughout the land of Judea, but also throughout other countries. It was then that the waters of the sanctuary began to swell and rise like a mighty flood, dispersing themselves far and wide through all lands. Persecution opened the sluices through which issued, in copious floods, the streams of those sacred waters which had been pent up within the walls of the holy city, and then the full river of God flowed in majestic current far onward into the sterile regions of Heathenism, which it refreshed and fertilized, causing "the

desert to rejoice and blossom as the rose." In our beloved land the claims of civil and religious liberty were neither so well understood nor so warmly appreciated as after the attempt made to suppress them. The rude blasts of persecuting violence, however, made that fair and stately tree under whose spacious boughs we now repose strike its roots deeper, and take a firmer hold of the soil; and now, like the tree which Nebuchadnezzar saw in vision, which “was strong, whose height reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to all the earth; whose leaves were fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in which was meat for all; under which the beasts of the field dwelt, and upon whose branches the fowls of heaven had their habitation;" like this tree it shall be "in the midst of the earth," and it shall eventually overshadow all lands, and shall continue without decay unto the end.

CHAPTER XXIV.

James Harkness-Scene at Biggar-Curate of Moffat.

A WHILE after the commencement of the persecution in Scotland, James Harkness of Locherben, with a number of others, it is said, left his native country and took refuge in Ireland. It was in the Emerald Isle that they looked for that repose from the vexatious harassings of their persecutors which they could not find at home. In Ireland the refugees from the south and west of Scotland frequently found an asylum in the day of the Church's tribulation. It was to this country that the venerable Peden sometimes resorted, when he wished to retire from the bluidy land, as he termed Scotland, when the sword of persecution was bathed in the blood of the saints. James Harkness, however, did not feel himself at ease in Ireland; he began to view himself in the light of a deserter from the ranks of that noble band of confessors who were jeoparding their lives on the high places of the field, in maintaining the standard of Zion in the day of conflict. The loud wailings of his brethren in their native land were wafted across the seas, and his heart was stirred within him, for he felt himself identified with the afflicted remnant, and he hastened back to help to "support his fainting mother's head" in the day when her enemies were sorely incensed against her, and when they were passing over her prostrate body, and treading her down like the mire on the streets. He therefore embraced the first opportunity of returning to that scene of suffering and of conflict from which he had for self-preservation withdrawn. Some of his friends and acquaintances who had accompanied him to Ireland, remained in the land of their refuge, where, having, it is said, acquired possessions, they became permanently resident. James Harkness and

his brother Thomas, however, returned to their native land, where the one suffered martyrdom, and the other acted a prominent part in the memorable rescue at Enterkin.

The notoriety which the two brothers acquired in the cause of the covenant, pointed them out to their enemies as individuals that were particularly obnoxious. James they denominated Harkness with the "long gun," and Thomas they styled Harkness with the "white hose." The importance of the two brothers, as leaders of the covenanting party, is sufficiently obvious from the fact, that Clavers frequently attempted, by means of his emissaries, to negotiate with James, with a view to gain him over to the ruling party, and promised him, as the price of his compliance, a captainship in the royal forces. Every lure of this description, however, was indignantly rejected by him, and he preferred suffering to worldly honour and emolument, when, by compliance, the claims of conscience must necessarily be disregarded. It was not to be expected that one who had suffered persecution for the truth's sake, would himself become a persecutor, and plot the ruin of that cause and of those friends he so ardently loved. But when the object of his enemies-which was, by means of solicitation and fair promises, to gain him to their party-failed, they were determined to seize him and his associates by force, and where they could not bend the will, to punish the person. As he and his friends were skulking among the wild mountains and solitary glens of Nithsdale, they were surprised by a party of dragoons, who hastily surrounded them, and took them prisoners. It was in vain to resist; they were in the firm grasp of the powerful foe, from which they could not extricate themselves. The commander of the party who apprehended them, was a man of a fiery and cruel disposition, and he used them with great harshness. It appears that prisoners were frequently treated in a very barbarous manner by the soldiers who conveyed them to their place of destination. They were permitted to act as they pleased, no superior authority offering to control them; and, indeed, the rigour exercised on their part, so far from giving offence, would be regarded with approbation by the officers. Of this rigour we have an example in the case of the good Cargill, whose feet Bonshaw tied below the horse's belly, in a way so hard and painful that the worthy man was obliged to remonstrate with him on his cruelty.

When they arrived at Edinburgh-to which place they were conveyed to be tried-they were put into a place of confinement, from which, before they were brought to trial,

they succeeded in making their escape. They then proceeded homewards with all the secrecy and despatch they could, and passing Biggar, where the leader of the party who conducted them to Edinburgh happened at the time to be resident, they resolved to visit him. Their design in waiting on him was to put in execution a project which they had devised for the purpose not of injuring, but of frightening, one who had caused them so much trouble and inconvenience. As they approached his house he observed them, and at once knew them to be the prisoners who were recently under his charge. He could not understand how they had possibly got free, and, dreading mischief from them, he hid himself. At the door they asked civilly for the captain, and said they wished to see him on particular business. His wife, who had been apprised of the character of her visitors, said he was not at home. Harkness began to fear lest their intention should be defeated, when a little boy standing near said: “I will show where my father is," and forthwith conducted them to the place of his concealment. They instantly dragged him out, as the soldiers used to do the Covenanters from their hidingplaces, and appeared as if they were going to take his life. They imitated in all respects the manner in which the dragoons shot the wanderers in the fields. Having furnished themselves with a musket, probably from his own armory, they caused him to kneel down, while they tied a napkin over his eyes, and desired him to prepare for immediate death. The poor man, in the utmost trepidation, was obliged to submit. He bent on his knees, and, being blindfolded, he expected every moment when the fatal shot would be poured into his body. Harkness, after an ominous silence of a few seconds a brief space, doubtless, of intense anxiety and agony to the helpless captain-fired, but fired aloft into the air. The innocuous shot went whizzing over the head of the horror-stricken man, who, though stunned with the loud and startling report, sustained no injury. Having then, by way of chastisement, succeeded in making him feel something of what the poor Covenanters felt when their ruthless foes shot them without trial or ceremony in the fields, they took the bandage from his eyes, and raised him up, almost powerless with terror, to his feet. The circumstance made a deep impression on his mind; he saw he was fully in the power of the men who had thus captured him, and that, notwithstanding, they had done him no harm. Surprise and gladness took the place of the fear of death and of the anguish of despair, in the grateful man's bosom. He confessed that the