more resolutely did the leal-hearted and brave
among them resist the oppressors. It is ever thus. It ever _should_ be
thus; for while an individual man has a perfect right, if he chooses, to
submit to tyranny on his own account, he has no right to stand tamely by
and see gross oppression and cruelty exercised towards his family, and
neighbours, and country. At least, if he does so, he earns for himself
the character of an unpatriotic poltroon. True patriotism consists in a
readiness to sacrifice one's-self to the national well-being. As far as
things temporal are concerned, the records of the Scottish Covenanters
prove incontestably that those long-tried men and women submitted with
unexampled patience for full eight-and-twenty years to the spoiling of
their goods and the ruin of their prospects; but when it came to be a
question of submission to the capricious will of the King or loyalty to
Jesus Christ, thousands of them chose the latter alternative, and many
hundreds sealed their testimony with their blood.

When at last the question arose, "Shall we consent to the free preaching
of the Gospel being suppressed altogether, or shall we assert our rights
at the point of the sword?" there also arose very considerable
difference of opinion among the Covenanters. Many of those who held the
peace-at-almost-any-price principle, counselled submission. Others,
such as Richard Cameron, Donald Cargill, and Thomas Douglas, who
believed in the right of self-defence, and in such a text as "smite a
scorner and the simple will beware," advocated the use of carnal weapons
for _protection alone_, although, when driven to desperation, they were
compelled to go further. Some of the ejected ministers, such as
Blackadder and Welsh, professed to be undecided on this point, and leant
to a more or less submissive course.

Matters were now hastening to a crisis. A lawless Government had forced
a law-abiding people into the appearance, though not the reality, of
rebellion. The bands of armed men who assembled at conventicles became
so numerous as to have the appearance of an army. The council,
exasperated and alarmed, sent forth more troops to disperse and suppress
these, though they had been guilty of no act of positive hostility.

At this crisis, Cargill and his friends, the "ultra-Covenanters," as
they were styled, resolved to publish to the world their "Testimony to
the cause and truth which they defended, and against the sins