at the immorality of that
drunken loyalty was less outrageous and offensive to God and man among
them, and that although we did submit and were commanded to commemorate
the anniversary of the King's restoration, it was nevertheless done with
humiliation and anxiety of spirit. But a vain thing it would be of me to
attempt to tell the heartburning with which we heard of the manner that
the Covenant, and of all things which had been hallowed and honourable
to religious Scotland, were treated in the town of Lithgow on that
occasion, although all of my grandfather's stock knew that from of old
it was a seat and sink of sycophancy, alien to holiness, and prone to
lick the dust aneath the feet of whomsoever ministered to the corruption
abiding there.

Had the general inebriation of the kingdom been confined only to such
mockers as the papistical progeny of the unregenerate town of Lithgow,
we might perhaps have only grieved at the wantonness of the world; but
they were soon followed by more palpable enormities. Middleton, the
King's commissioner, coming on a progress to Glasgow, held a council of
state there, at which was present the apostate Fairfoul, who had been
shortly before nominated Archbishop of that city; and at his wicked
incitement, Middleton, in a fit of actual intoxication from strong
drink, let loose the bloodhounds of persecution by that memorable act
of council which bears the date of the 1st of October, 1662,--an
anniversary that ought ever to be held as a solemn fast in Scotland, if
such things might be, for by it all the ministers that had received
Gospel ordination from and after the year forty-nine, and who still
refused to bend the knee to Baal, were banished, with their families,
from their kirks and manses.

But to understand in what way that wicked act, and the blood-causing
proclamation which ensued, came to take effect, it is needful, before
proceeding to the recital, to bid the courteous reader remember the
preaching of the doctrine of passive obedience by our time-serving
pastor, Mr Sundrum, and how the kirk was deserted on that occasion;
because, after his death, which happened in the forty-nine, godly Mr
Swinton became our chosen pastor, and being placed and inducted
according to the apostolic ordination of Presbytery, fell, of course,
like many of his Gospel brethren, under the ban of the aforesaid
proclamation, of which some imperfect sough and rumour reached us on the
Friday after it was fra