171.Several of the young men who intended the ministry, went over to Holland and studied medicine, and took degrees, and thus got their education without taking tests; but they had contracted a liberality (or, as it was termed, a looseness) of sentiment with regard to the rigid principles held by the wanderers, which occasioned a separation between them when they returned. The wanderers were naturally more wedded to the principles for which they had suffered so much, and which they had seen so many seal with their blood. The others had met with a variety of sects in Holland living in harmony, and were not over zealous for the uniform profession even of their beloved Presbytery:—on this they split at the Revolution.
171.Several of the young men who intended the ministry, went over to Holland and studied medicine, and took degrees, and thus got their education without taking tests; but they had contracted a liberality (or, as it was termed, a looseness) of sentiment with regard to the rigid principles held by the wanderers, which occasioned a separation between them when they returned. The wanderers were naturally more wedded to the principles for which they had suffered so much, and which they had seen so many seal with their blood. The others had met with a variety of sects in Holland living in harmony, and were not over zealous for the uniform profession even of their beloved Presbytery:—on this they split at the Revolution.
171.Several of the young men who intended the ministry, went over to Holland and studied medicine, and took degrees, and thus got their education without taking tests; but they had contracted a liberality (or, as it was termed, a looseness) of sentiment with regard to the rigid principles held by the wanderers, which occasioned a separation between them when they returned. The wanderers were naturally more wedded to the principles for which they had suffered so much, and which they had seen so many seal with their blood. The others had met with a variety of sects in Holland living in harmony, and were not over zealous for the uniform profession even of their beloved Presbytery:—on this they split at the Revolution.
On the 17th, Sir George Mackenzie was restored to his lord-advocateship; but no criminal informations were lodged during the short time that intervened between his appointment “and the glorious Revolution,” though several petty vexatious harassments showed that the tiger was only asleep, not dead. The Rev. Thomas Cobham, a native of Dundee, was, on the 23d May, imprisoned for having performed family-worship at his cousin Mr Smith’s, in that town, and both were committed to jail for the offence. About the same time, the council issued a proclamation, forbidding booksellers to disseminate any treatises tending to alienate the people from his majesty, or vend any translations of “Buchanan de Jure Regni,” “Lex Rex,” “Jus Populi,” “Naphtali,” “The Apologetical Relation,” “The Hind let Loose,” and the treasonable proclamations published at Sanquhar, or those issued by the late Monmouth or Argyle. At Edinburgh, one of the councillors went into the shop of Mr Glen, a firm Presbyterian, to search for the proscribed books, but having found none, when retiring, asked the bookseller if he had any books against the king’s religion. Mr Glen said he had a great many. The councillor asked to see them, and was immediately carried to where a goodly stock of Bibles were lying. “O! these are Bibles!” quoth the councillor. “True,” replied the other, “and they are all against popery from the beginning to the end.” For this the bookseller was summoned before the council, where he appeared the same afternoon, and was, we are told, brought to some trouble.
In nothing, however, did the ruling powers relax with regard to the wanderers. Having learned that a Mr David Houston had been proposed by the societies to succeed Mr Renwick in his perilous labours in the fields, he was apprehended in Ireland and brought prisoner to Scotland. Being ordered to Edinburgh, a general meeting which had convened at Lother’s, heard of hisseizure, and fearing he would be murdered as Renwick had been, determined “to relieve him from these bloody murderers;” and immediately a few friends, armed, attacked the party escorting him at Carbelpath, and, after a sharp skirmish, in which some soldiers were killed, succeeded in rescuing him; but he having his feet bound under the horse’s belly, was knocked over in the scuffle, and his head trailed some time on the ground before he could be unloosed, by which he lost his teeth, and was otherwise so much wounded about the head, that his elocution was rendered very indistinct. So he returned to Ireland, and there died. The last whose blood was shed, was George Wood, a youth about sixteen years of age, who was wantonly shot, without any questions being asked, by one John Reid, a trooper, whose only excuse when challenged for it, was—“He knew him to be a Whig, and these ought to be shot wherever they were found!”
Shortly after, the news of William Prince of Orange’s landing in England reached Scotland; and to the honour of the persecuted, be it recorded, the Revolution was accomplished without bloodshed, or any one act of retaliation being inflicted by them, notwithstanding all they had suffered.
THE END.
THE END.
THE END.
EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY HUGH PATON, ADAM SQUARE.
EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY HUGH PATON, ADAM SQUARE.
EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY HUGH PATON, ADAM SQUARE.
Transcriber’s Notes:New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.Typographical errors were silently corrected.Unbalanced quote marks were fixed when the location of missing close quote was clear.Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book.