ns in readiness to
sustain the government in its legitimate work.

The nation that keeps Covenant with God shall dwell in safety, grow in
power, and enjoy enduring prosperity.

Such was the Solemn League and Covenant.

Have the principles of Civil government ever had an enunciation so
candid and heroic, so sublime and comprehensive, so ennobling to man and
honoring to God? These principles were not flashes of a high-wrought
imagination; they were practical. The Covenanted fathers reduced them to
practice. These nations embodied them. The time was short, yet long
enough for a demonstration.

What dignity rests on the State that is federally and loyally connected
with the empire of the Lord Jesus Christ! How great the security and
excellence of the government that abides under the banner of Christ! How
powerful and happy the people who are exalted into favor with heaven by
a Covenant that binds God and man! Such was the ideal entertained by
the Scottish fathers; and by heroic self-sacrificing effort, they
exalted the three kingdoms into the untrodden heights. These nations
caught glimpses of the glory, basked for a season in the brilliancy,
tasted the sweetness of the banquet, breathed the exhilarating air, then
fell back. By the perfidy of man the vision was shattered and the
idealization wrecked.

We shudder at the loss incurred by these kingdoms in their decline from
their Covenant. What would have been their eminence among nations had
the terms of the Covenant been fulfilled? What would have been their
power and prestige had they, by keeping their Covenant, been sheltered
for the last two and a half centuries from the ravages of rum and Rome,
misrule and tyranny, the violence of unscrupulous men and the wrath of
the offended Lord? What numerous posterity! what fruitful fields! what
prodigious wealth! what industrial prosperity! what educational
institutions! what unparalleled progress! what inexhaustible resources
for development at home and achievements abroad! Enjoying the glorious
millennium two hundred and fifty years ahead of the rest of the
world--what such a start would have done for the British Isles is past
finding out.

Priest-ridden Ireland failed because at that time her best blood was
soaking the roots of her green meadows; the massacre of her Protestants
by the Romanists had left her low. Half-hearted England failed because
treachery was lurking in her ranks from the beginning. But Scotland! Oh,