od, or
the laws of the country."

Bear this remonstrance of Defoe's in mind, and though it is the fashion
of the day to jeer and to mock, to execrate and to contemn, the noble
band of Covenanters,--though the bitter laugh at their old-world
religious views, the curl of the lip at their merits, and the chilling
silence on their bravery and their determination, are but too rife
through all society,--be charitable to what was evil and honest to what
was good about the Pentland insurgents, who fought for life and liberty,
for country and religion, on the 28th of November 1666, now just two
hundred years ago.

EDINBURGH, 28_th November_ 1866.

FOOTNOTES:

[22] "Cloud of Witnesses," p. 389; Edin. 1765.

[23] Kirkton, p. 247.

[24] Kirkton, p. 254.

[25] _Ibid._ p. 247.

[26] _Ibid._ pp. 247, 248.

[27] _Ibid._ p. 248.

[28] Kirkton, p. 249.

[29] "Naphtali," p. 205; Glasgow, 1721.

[30] Wodrow, p. 59.

[31] Kirkton, p. 246.

[32] Defoe's "History of the Church of Scotland."

SKETCHES

SKETCHES

I

THE SATIRIST

My companion enjoyed a cheap reputation for wit and insight. He was by
habit and repute a satirist. If he did occasionally condemn anything or
anybody who richly deserved it, and whose demerits had hitherto escaped,
it was simply because he condemned everything and everybody. While I was
with him he disposed of St. Paul with an epigram, shook my reverence for
Shakespeare in a neat antithesis, and fell foul of the Almighty Himself,
on the score of one or two out of the ten commandments. Nothing escaped
his blighting censure. At every sentence he overthrew an idol, or
lowered my estimation of a friend. I saw everything with new eyes, and
could only marvel at my former blindness. How was it possible that I had
not before observed A's false hair, B's selfishness, or C's boorish
manners? I and my companion, methought, walked the streets like a couple
of gods among a swarm of vermin; for every one we saw seemed to bear
openly upon his brow the mark of the apocalyptic beast. I half expected
that these miserable beings, like the people of Lystra, would recognise
their betters and force us to the altar; in which case, warned by the
fate of Paul and Barnabas, I do not know that my modesty would have
prevailed upon me to decline. But there was no need for such churlish
virtue. More blinded than the Lycaonians, the people saw no divinity in
our gait; and as our t