ng them slowly yet surely
toward its horrible vortex.

The sifting time had come for the Covenanters. God knows how to shake
His sieve to clean the wheat. He seeks not bulk, but value. Numbers are
nothing to Him; character is everything. He would rather have Gideon
with 300 men up to the standard, than thirty regiments below it. He
preferred one-tenth of Israel to the whole number, and sifted the nation
in Nebuchadnezzar's sieve to get the good wheat separated from the
inferior.

The Covenanted Church became loaded down with chaff, weevil, shrunken
grains, and broken kernels--low grades of religious life--and the Lord
shook the bad out of the Church by making it exceedingly painful and
difficult to stay in. The way of faithfulness was filled with hardships.
God made Covenant-keeping dangerous and expensive. The followers of
Christ were compelled to take up the cross and carry it. If true to
their Lord, they must go outside the camp, bearing His reproach. If they
keep conscience pure, they must accept cruel mockings, scourging,
imprisonment, banishment, and death. In this way would God separate unto
himself a "peculiar people, zealous of good works." The others may be of
use in degree, yet to prevent general defection and universal
declension, God winnows the wheat.

But who were thrown out of the Presbyterian Church in the reign of
Charles II.? Were they not the strong, unyielding, uncompromising
Covenanters? Who are these separated from their brethren, and driven
like chaff before the wind over mountains and moors? Are they not the
zealous defenders of the Reformed faith? the true soldiers of Jesus
Christ? To the casual eye the scrupulous, strong-headed, hard-fighting
Covenanters were tossed out, and the rest remained at home to distribute
the prey; the lax party had the organization and held the Church; the
strict party suffered disintegration and were banished. But such a view
is only superficial; yea, it is a visual illusion.

The Church of Christ depends not on external organization. She can live
without assemblies, presbyteries, or sessions. She can enjoy the fullest
measure of the love of Christ without chapels, masses, or glebes. She
can have power and render service in any community, without ministers,
elders, or deacons.

When the Covenanters were driven out by the persecutor, the Covenanted
Church went forth into the wilderness, leaning upon the Lord Jesus
Christ her Beloved. She brought with her all th