dice, or
from having cast in their lot with transgressors, suffer them not only to
pass at liberty through the land, but to sit in the high places, and dye
their garments in the blood of the saints, is it not well done in any
brave spirits who shall draw their private swords in the public cause?"

"I have no wish to judge this individual action," replied Morton,
"further than is necessary to make you fully aware of my principles. I
therefore repeat, that the case you have supposed does not satisfy my
judgment. That the Almighty, in his mysterious providence, may bring a
bloody man to an end deservedly bloody, does not vindicate those who,
without authority of any kind, take upon themselves to be the instruments
of execution, and presume to call them the executors of divine
vengeance."

"And were we not so?" said Burley, in a tone of fierce enthusiasm. "Were
not we--was not every one who owned the interest of the Covenanted Church
of Scotland, bound by that covenant to cut off the Judas who had sold the
cause of God for fifty thousand merks a-year? Had we met him by the way
as he came down from London, and there smitten him with the edge of the
sword, we had done but the duty of men faithful to our cause, and to our
oaths recorded in heaven. Was not the execution itself a proof of our
warrant? Did not the Lord deliver him into our hands, when we looked out
but for one of his inferior tools of persecution? Did we not pray to be
resolved how we should act, and was it not borne in on our hearts as if
it had been written on them with the point of a diamond, 'Ye shall surely
take him and slay him?'--Was not the tragedy full half an hour in acting
ere the sacrifice was completed, and that in an open heath, and within
the patrols of their garrisons--and yet who interrupted the great work?--
What dog so much as bayed us during the pursuit, the taking, the slaying,
and the dispersing? Then, who will say--who dare say, that a mightier arm
than ours was not herein revealed?"

"You deceive yourself, Mr Balfour," said Morton; "such circumstances of
facility of execution and escape have often attended the commission of
the most enormous crimes.--But it is not mine to judge you. I have not
forgotten that the way was opened to the former liberation of Scotland by
an act of violence which no man can justify,--the slaughter of Cumming by
the hand of Robert Bruce; and, therefore, condemning this action, as I do
and must, I am not unwilli