innocent daughters and the virtuous wives of
their bosoms,--all by the fruit of laws and edicts which had issued from
the councils of Charles Stuart, and were enforced by men drunken with
the authority of his arbitrary will.

But though my spirit clove to theirs, and was in unison with their
intent, I could not but doubt of so poor a handful of forlorn men,
though it be written, that the race is not to the swift nor the battle
to the strong, and I called to my son to bring me the Book, that I might
be instructed from the Word what I ought at that time to do; and when he
had done so I opened it, and the twenty-second chapter of Genesis met my
eye, and I was awed and trembled, and my heart was melted with sadness
and an agonising grief. For the command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac
his only son, whom he so loved, on the mountains in the land of Moriah,
required of me to part with my son, and to send him with the
Cameronians; and I prayed with a weeping spirit and the imploring
silence of a parent's heart, that the Lord would be pleased not to put
my faith to so great a trial.

I took the Book again, and I opened it a second time, and the command of
the sacred oracle was presented to me in the fifth verse of the fifth
chapter of Ecclesiastes,--

"Better is it that thou shouldest not vow than that thou shouldest vow
and not pay."

But still the man and the father were powerful with my soul; and the
weakness of disease was in me, and I called my son towards me, and I
bowed my head upon his hands as he stood before me, and wept very
bitterly, and pressed him to my bosom, and was loath to send him away.

He knew not what caused the struggle wherewith he saw me so moved, and
he became touched with fear lest my reason was again going from me. But
I dried my eyes, and told him it was not so, and that maybe I would be
better if I could compose myself to read a chapter. So I again opened
the volume, and the third command was in the twenty-sixth verse of the
eight chapter of St Matthew,--

"Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?"

But still notwithstanding my rebellious heart would not consent;--and I
cried, "I am a poor, infirm, desolate, and destitute man, and he is all
that is left me. O that mine eyes were closed in death, and that this
head, which sorrow and care and much misery have made untimely grey,
were laid on its cold pillow, and the green curtain of the still kirk
yard were drawn around me in my last long sle