hom Patrick Walker records the following passage: "That
night after his wife died, he spent the whole ensuing night in prayer and
meditation in his garden. The next morning, one of his elders coming to
see him, and lamenting his great loss and want of rest, he replied,--'I
declare I have not, all night, had one thought of the death of my wife, I
have been so taken up in meditating on heavenly things. I have been this
night on the banks of Ulai, plucking an apple here and there.'"--
_Walker's Remarkable Passages of the Life and Death of Mr. John Semple._
NOTE F.--PETER WALKER.
This personage, whom it would be base ingratitude in the author to pass
over without some notice, was by far the most zealous and faithful
collector and recorder of the actions and opinions of the Cameronians. He
resided, while stationary, at the Bristo Port of Edinburgh, but was by
trade an itinerant merchant, or pedlar, which profession he seems to have
exercised in Ireland as well as Britain. He composed biographical notices
of Alexander Peden, John Semple, John Welwood, and Richard Cameron, all
ministers of the Cameronian persuasion, to which the last mentioned
member gave the name.
It is from such tracts as these, written in the sense, feeling, and
spirit of the sect, and not from the sophisticated narratives of a later
period, that the real character of the persecuted class is to be
gathered. Walker writes with a simplicity which sometimes slides into the
burlesque, and sometimes attains a tone of simple pathos, but always
expressing the most daring confidence in his own correctness of creed and
sentiments, sometimes with narrow-minded and disgusting bigotry. His turn
for the marvellous was that of his time and sect; but there is little
room to doubt his veracity concerning whatever he quotes on his own
knowledge. His small tracts now bring a very high price, especially the
earlier and authentic editions. The tirade against dancing, pronounced by
David Deans, is, as intimated in the text, partly borrowed from Peter
Walker. He notices, as a foul reproach upon the name of Richard Cameron,
that his memory was vituperated, "by pipers and fiddlers playing the
Cameronian march--carnal vain springs, which too many professors of
religion dance to; a practice unbecoming the professors of Christianity
to dance to any spring, but somewhat more to this. Whatever," he
proceeds, "be the many foul blots recorded of the saints in Scripture,
none o
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