th lead? We shudder at the
answer; we draw a veil over the scene; we are careful not to speak our
thoughts. But the strong-hearted martyrs followed the vision to the end.
"Would you know what the devil is doing in hell?" exclaimed John Semple,
one of the Covenanted ministers. "He is going with a long rod in his
hand, crying, Make way, make room, for the king is coming; and the
other persecutors are posting hither." How like the scathing irony of
Isaiah, in describing the death of the king of Babylon! "Hell from
beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy coming." An ovation in
the lower world! What horrid mockery there awaits the chieftains of
crime!

A curious coincidence occurred at this time. Alexander Peden, on a
certain night, was conducting family worship. He was hundreds of miles
distant from the king. While reading from the Bible, he suddenly
stopped, and exclaimed, "What's this I hear?" He uttered the strange
words three times. Then after a brief pause, he clapped his hands and
said, "I hear a dead shot at the throne of Britain. Let him go; he has
been a black sight to these lands, especially to poor Scotland. We're
well quit of him." That same night the king fell in a fit of apoplexy,
or as some say, by a dose of poison, and died within five days. His
brother, the Duke of York, succeeded him on the throne.

James VII, the new king, inherited Charles' work of slaughter, and
continued it with revolting savagery. He, too, was infatuated with the
thought of being supreme over the Church, and became infuriated with the
purpose of overthrowing Presbyterianism, and suppressing the
Covenanters, now called "The Cameronians." Had he paused to consider,
surely he would have hesitated to follow the man, who had gone to meet
his Judge, to answer for the blood that was crying against him for
vengeance. We tremble at the thought of the naked soul facing the
accusations of the slain, and receiving righteous retribution for its
cruel deeds. How great the infatuation of the successor, who determined
to follow the same path!

Among those who suffered under king James, the family of Gilbert Wilson
is worthy of special notice. Neither Gilbert, nor his wife, had espoused
the Covenanters' cause; but they had three children who claimed the
enviable distinction; Margaret, aged eighteen years, Thomas, sixteen,
and Agnes, thirteen. These children had been deeply moved by the stories
of bloodshed, that were then recited, night by n