afflicted with hunger, he observed a large wild-fowl that alighted very near the mouth of his cell, and deposited an egg among the heather. This was done every morning, and on this provision he was sustained during the time of his concealment in the cavern; and in this way, as the Lord preserved the life of his prophet by the brook Cherith, when the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening, was this good man, who trusted in God, supported. In the one case the supply was miraculous, and in the other not; still the hand of a guardian Providence was as much concerned in the one case as the other. In ordinary circumstances we are not to expect that the Lord will supply our wants in any other way than in the use of means; and, therefore, while we pray, "Give us this day our daily bread," we are at the same time to labour with our hands to earn an honest subsistence; for the exercise of faith and the diligent use of means are to be combined. In those cases, however, in which we are precluded from using means, we are authorized to trust in God, believing that he will supply our wants in one way or in another; for he will sooner rain bread from the clouds, than suffer the confidence of his people to be defeated.

Adam Clark, who was a robust and active young man, and well acquainted with the locality, issued, with one or two of his companions, from their hiding-place in the night season, for the purpose of providing a meal for the rest who remained in the shieling. He obtained his errand, and returned in safety before the early dawn, congratulating himself and his friends on his success. The party, amounting in all to twenty-eight persons, having with grateful hearts participated of the welcome viands which He who provides for the wants of all his creatures had set before them, were reposing securely within the hut, when Clark, and his brother Andrew, standing near the door, observed a ewe pass with startling haste, and then another, pursued by a swift and powerful dog. "What means this?" exclaimed Andrew. "It is one of Morton's dogs," replied Adam; our retreat is discovered, and the troopers will be here instantly." The party within were roused to a sense of their danger, and every man had his defensive weapons in readiness. Scarcely had they accoutred themselves when the dragoons in thundering haste surrounded the hiding-place. The friends within rushed simultaneously to the bent, for the purpose, if possible, of making their escape. The leader of the troopers commanded them to seize Clark, come of the rest what might. He was instantly attacked by

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a powerful dragoon, and Clark, having caught his horse by the bridle reins, pushed him backwards till he stumbled and overthrew his rider. The dragoon was now fully in his power, but he spared his life, resting contented with having come off victorious and unscathed in the perilous scuffle. In the meantime his attention was directed to another quarter, where he saw his brother Andrew prostrated in a moss, and a gigantic dragoon standing over him, and about to hew him in pieces with his ponderous broadsword. Adam sprung to his assistance, and in a moment was at his side. The dragoon turned round to defend himself from the attack of his new opponent, and left Andrew uninjured. In the conflict Adam wrested the sword from the hand of the soldier, and having thrown him on the heath, descended with his companions into the ravine or deep gullet, formed by the rushing of the mountain torrent, in the bosky recesses of which they found a retreat from the vengeance of their foes, who dared not venture after them, lest they should receive a fatal shot by the party unseen, from the heart of the dark bushes in which they were hid. Thus did Providence defend this little band of Christian patriots; and while it must have been a matter of thankfulness to them, that no one of their number was missing, nor any of them seriously hurt, it must have been no less satisfactory, that they had left none of their enemies dead on the scene of conflict. Their object was not to destroy the lives of others, but to preserve their own; and if at any time in selfdefence they took away life, it was not because they had pleasure in it, but because necessity compelled them.

Many years after this, when the Revolution Settlement had made foes friends again, Adam Clark, now a peaceful storefarmer among the hills of his native district, happened to be in the city of Edinburgh, to which place he had driven a flock of sheep for sale. As he was strolling along the streets he was accosted by a tall and strongly built man, who asked him if he did not recognise him. No," ," said Clark, "I do not know you; you seem an entire stranger to me." "I know you, however, having once met with you in circumstances which I shall not easily forget." "To what do you allude?" replied Clark. "Do you not remember," said the man, "the onslaught at Bellybught? Do you not remember the dragoon from whom you wrested the sword, and whom you left prostrate in the moss?" "I do," answered Clark; "and are you the man?" "I am; and to you I owe my life, for you had me completely in your power. I am beyond measure happy that I now have the opportunity of rendering to you my cor

dial thanks for your clemency; and I trust that God, in opposition to whose cause I then fought, has in his graciousness turned my heart to himself. From the moment I escaped from you with my life, I never lifted a weapon on the side of persecution, and I most sincerely regret that I ever enlisted in that cause; but I, like Paul, did it ignorantly and in unbelief." Clark was astonished; he grasped him by the hand, and hailed him as a brother, and rejoiced that, having left the path of the destroyer, he had found the way that leads to peace and everlasting life. "Have you still the sword," asked the reclaimed trooper," which you twisted so yarely from my grasp?" "I have," replied Clark, "and I intend to keep it as an heir-loom in my family." Keep it, then, you bravely deserve it; and let it never more be employed, but in an honest cause." There is something exceedingly agreeable in an occurrence of this kind. Two men who once met in deadly strife on the battle-field, meeting again in times of peace, and meeting with hearts united in the same bonds of Christian fellowship, attached to the cause of the same common Lord, and sharers of the same common salvation, is indeed a circumstance worthy of notice, and delightfully illustrative of the power of the Gospel on the heart.

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On another occasion, a company of troopers who were on their way to the wilds of Crawford Moor, for the purpose of surprising a conventicle which was to be held in that solitary retreat, called at Glenim, which lay directly in their route, to ask a guide to conduct them over the heights. When the party drew up before the door, Adam Clark went out to meet them, and in stooping, as the story tells, to draw one of his shoes more firmly on his foot, being newly roused from his bed, as it was in the dark of the morning when the soldiers arrived, he was jostled by one of the horses, and nearly thrown down. In recovering his position, his temper being a little heated, he struck the animal a furious blow on the face, which made him retreat rather hastily and awkwardly for his rider, who instantly presented a pistol to Clark's breast, with the apparent intention of shooting him on the spot. The commander of the party seeing the mischief that might befall, interfered, and, presenting the broad side of his sword to the dragoon, prevented him from fulfilling his purpose, declaring that they had come with no hostile intent, but simply to request the assistance of a guide. This occurrence, it is probable, took place prior to the affair of Bellybught, and near the beginning of the persecution, when the sentiments of the Clarks, both of Auchengrouch and Glenim, in

reference to public matters, were not generally known. When order was restored, and parties had come to a better understanding, Clark consented to conduct them across the wilds. When they came to a place on the west side of the Lowther Hills, not far from the mining village of Wanlockhead, called the Stake Moss, it occurred to Clark that now it was in his power to occasion them some inconvenience, which might probably retard their progress, and prevent them from accomplishing their intended mischief. This moss presents an irregular surface, with here and there deep hags, and some marshy springs. These springs, or cold wells, as the shepherds term them, are, some of them, in the moorland districts in the south-west of Scotland, of great depth, reaching occasionally from six to twelve feet, and in some cases to a much greater depth. Their breadth is sometimes found to be about two or three feet, and their length more than double. The water in these wells rises to a level with the surrounding heath, and its surface is generally covered with long grass and aquatic weeds. A dragoon on horseback stumbling into one of these larger wells, the ordinary springs being much less in dimensions and in depth, would inevitably perish; and this amply accounts for the tradition respecting the occasional and entire disappearance of some of the troopers, man and horse, in the moors. It was in the dusk of the early morning when the party arrived at the Stake Moss, and the obscurity was favourable to Clark's design. They had followed him in safety for several miles; and, having no suspicion of their guide, they rode behind him in perfect confidence. At length, having reached the morass, Clark, being on foot, pressed forward, leaping the mossy ditches with a nimble bound; and the horses plunging after, one after another stuck fast in the sinking peat ground. When Clark saw that the party were fully bemired, and that there was little chance of their getting themselves extricated for a considerable time, he made his escape over the dark heath, and left them to help themselves. It is said that he often regretted his conduct on this occasion; both because he deemed it treacherous, seeing the commander of the party treated him honourably, and because it would tend to exasperate the enemy, and subject all the friends throughout the district to still more rigorous treatment; and his suspicions were not groundless. The more injury the Covenanters, in self-defence, inflicted on their opponents, the more severe did their own sufferings afterwards become; for their enemies delighted in nothing more than in an opportunity of retaliating with seven

fold vengeance. It appears that Adam Clark, from the time that he led the troopers into the moss, was regarded as a dangerous man, and one whom, on the first opportunity, they were determined to apprehend. This determination was amply manifested in the tragic scene which had wellnigh been fully acted on the bent before the house of Auchengrouch. It seems that young Andrew Clark of Auchengrouch bore a striking resemblance to his cousin, Adam of Glenim. One day the dragoons met Andrew in the moors, and believing him to be the identical person who guided them into the moss, apprehended him, and carried him to his father's house. The commander of the party is said to have been Colonel James Douglas, to whom, as Wodrow informs us, an ample commission, with a justiciary power, was granted, for the purpose of harassing the west and south. The poor captive was interrogated respecting his principles, and especially in reference to his conduct at the moss. He declared that he was not the person to whom they alluded, and that, however strong a resemblance there might be between him and the individual who had done them the injury of which they complained, he was entirely innocent. The soldiers, however, positively affirmed that he was the very man who, in the grey of the morning, conducted them along the heights, and left them in the morass, where they sustained no small damage-having, as they asserted, lost some of their best horses, whose legs were broken in the moss. In those days the execution of a man after his impeachment was but the work of a moment; and Andrew was immediately brought out to the field before the house, to be instantly shot. He was allowed time to pray-a favour which, in similar circumstances, was not granted to every one. He knelt down on the bent, and, in the presence of his enemies and of all his father's household, in the presence of angels and before Him for whose truth he was now bearing testimony, and ready to seal that testimony with his blood, he prayed. In the immediate prospect of death, he poured out his soul before the Lord, and made supplication to his Judge. With a melting heart, and in the confidence of faith, he sought acceptance through the great Intercessor, and the remission of all his iniquities through that precious blood which was shed for the sins of the world. He prayed for support in this trying hour: and besought that, as God had brought him to witness publicly for his truth, he would now comfort his heart with the joy of that truth, and enable him to triumph over the fear of death, and submissively, if not exultingly, to surrender his life at