es: "Behold, I will allure
her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her;
and she shall sing as in the days of her youth." The Covenanted Church
was now in the wilderness; the Lord had brought her hither, that He
might woo her back to Himself, and revive her first love. Here He spake
to her heart the words that rekindled the fires of her earliest and
strongest devotion to the Covenant, that holy contract of her marriage
to the Lord.

The loving fidelity of the 40,000 Covenanters, or more, who had been
deprived of their ministers by King Charles, was severely tested. The
Lord Jesus, in His crucial providence, was to them as a refiner's fire;
their love was sorely tried in the terrible heat.

The first question that appealed to the heart was concerning comfort and
convenience. Their churches were occupied by other ministers. There the
people could have preaching, hear the Word, listen to prayers, sing
Psalms, and receive baptism and the Lord's Supper. True, the services
were spiced and ornamented with details, which the Covenanters disliked,
because they were unscriptural. But could they not find hidden manna on
the sand, and kernels of wheat in the chaff? Could they not get
sufficient food in the new ministrations to sustain their souls? Could
they not reach heaven by the new road as certainly as by the old? Such
were the inquiries that appealed to their love of ease. These sturdy
sons of the Covenant said, "NO." They said it, too, with emphasis like
the lightning that strikes the oak. They said, "Public worship, not in
all parts according to the Book of God, is corrupt; we will not
participate in such services, for the Lord has said, 'Cursed be the
deceiver, that sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing.'"

The second question was concerning the imminent dangers that attended
their own services. Their meetings were held in distant places; in the
lonely mountain, on the homeless moor, in the swampy moss, in the dark
glen, among the rugged rocks, and in the dreary cave--just wherever they
could find a place to worship God in peace. They had no roof for
shelter, no walls to break the storm, no fires for heat. Attending these
meetings involved travel, weariness, hunger, exposure, loss of sleep,
shivering in the cold, every physical strain, besides the risk of life,
liberty, and property, at the hands of the enemy. These heroic sons and
daughters of the Covenant said, "We will go; if we perish, we