all that would not accede
to their opinion, and he gives several instances of such cruelty being
exercised by them, not only upon straggling soldiers whom they shot by
the way or surprized in their quarters, but upon those who, having once
joined them, had fallen away from their principles. Being asked why they
committed these cruelties in cold blood, they answered, 'they were
obliged to do it by their sacred bond.' Upon these occasions they
practised great cruelties, mangling the bodies of their victims that
each man might have his share of the guilt. In these cases the
Cameronians imagined themselves the direct and inspired executioners of
the vengeance of heaven. Nor did they lack the usual incentives of
enthusiasm. Peden and others among them set up a claim to the gift of
prophecy, though they seldom foretold any thing to the purpose. They
detected witches, had bodily encounters with the enemy of mankind in his
own shape, or could discover him as, lurking in the disguise of a raven,
he inspired the rhetoric of a Quaker's meeting. In some cases, celestial
guardians kept guard over their field-meetings. At a conventicle held on
the Lomond-hills, the Rev. Mr. Blacader was credibly assured, under the
hands of four honest men, that at the time the meeting was disturbed by
the soldiers, some women who had remained at home, "clearly perceived as
the form of a tall man, majestic-like, stand in the air in stately
posture with the one leg, as it were, advanced before the other,
standing above the people all the time of the soldiers shooting."
Unluckily this great vision of the Guarded Mount did not conclude as
might have been expected. The divine sentinel left his post too soon,
and the troopers fell upon the rear of the audience, plundered and
stripped many, and made eighteen prisoners.

But we have no delight to dwell either upon the atrocities or
absurdities of a people whose ignorance and fanaticism were rendered
frantic by persecution. It is enough for our present purpose to observe
that the present Church of Scotland, which comprizes so much sound
doctrine and learning, and has produced so many distinguished
characters, is the legitimate representative of the indulged clergy of
the days of Charles II, settled however upon a comprehensive basis. That
after the revolution, it should have succeeded episcopacy as the
national religion, was natural and regular, because it possessed all the
sense, learning, and moderation fi