fused the Indulgence as a
presumptuous enactment, which cut at the roots of both civil and
religious liberty, as implying a right to withhold while it professed to
give, and which, if acquiesced in, would indicate a degree of abject
slavery to man and unfaithfulness to God that might sink Scotland into a
condition little better than that of some eastern nations at the present
day. Thus was the camp of the Covenanters divided. There were also
more subtle divisions, which it is not necessary to mention here, and in
both camps, of course there was an infusion, especially amongst the
young men, of that powerful element--love of excitement and danger for
their own sake, with little if any regard to principle, which goes far
in all ages to neutralise the efforts and hamper the energies of the
wise.

Besides the acts of Indulgence, another and most tyrannical measure,
already mentioned, had been introduced to crush if possible the
Presbyterians. _Letters of intercommuning_ were issued against a great
number of the most distinguished Presbyterians, including several ladies
of note, by which they were proscribed as rebels and cut off from all
society. A price, amounting in some instances to 500 pounbds sterling,
was fixed on their heads, and every person, not excepting their nearest
of kin, was prohibited from conversing with or writing to them, or of
aiding with food, clothes, or any other necessary of life, on pain of
being found guilty of the same crimes as the intercommuned persons.

The natural result of such inhuman laws was that men and women in
hundreds had to flee from their homes and seek refuge among the dens and
caves of the mountains, where many were caught, carried off to prison,
tried, tortured, and executed; while of those who escaped their foes,
numbers perished from cold and hunger, and disease brought on by lying
in damp caves and clefts of the rocks without food or fire in all
weathers. The fines which were exacted for so-called offences tempted
the avarice of the persecutors and tended to keep the torch of
persecution aflame. For example, Sir George Maxwell of Newark was fined
a sum amounting to nearly 8000 pounds sterling for absence from his
Parish Church, attendance at conventicles, and disorderly baptisms--iueu
for preferring his own minister to the curate in the baptizing of his
children! Hundreds of somewhat similar instances might be given. Up to
the time of which we write (1678) no fewer tha