f the law, a pit
darker than that into which Jeremiah was plunged, even the dungeon of
Malcaiah the son of Hamelmelech, where there was no water but mire. Yet
is the seal of the covenant upon your forehead, and the son of the
righteous, who resisted to blood where the banner was spread on the
mountains, shall not be utterly lost, as one of the children of darkness.
Trow ye, that in this day of bitterness and calamity, nothing is required
at our hands but to keep the moral law as far as our carnal frailty will
permit? Think ye our conquests must be only over our corrupt and evil
affections and passions? No; we are called upon, when we have girded up
our loins, to run the race boldly, and when we have drawn the sword, we
are enjoined to smite the ungodly, though he be our neighbour, and the
man of power and cruelty, though he were of our own kindred, and the
friend of our own bosom."

"These are the sentiments," said Morton, "that your enemies impute to
you, and which palliate, if they do not vindicate, the cruel measures
which the council have directed against you. They affirm, that you
pretend to derive your rule of action from what you call an inward light,
rejecting the restraints of legal magistracy, of national law, and even
of common humanity, when in opposition to what you call the spirit within
you."

"They do us wrong," answered the Covenanter; "it is they, perjured as
they are, who have rejected all law, both divine and civil, and who now
persecute us for adherence to the Solemn League and Covenant between God
and the kingdom of Scotland, to which all of them, save a few popish
malignants, have sworn in former days, and which they now burn in the
market-places, and tread under foot in derision. When this Charles
Stewart returned to these kingdoms, did the malignants bring him back?
They had tried it with strong hand, but they failed, I trow. Could James
Grahame of Montrose, and his Highland caterans, have put him again in the
place of his father? I think their heads on the Westport told another
tale for many a long day. It was the workers of the glorious work--the
reformers of the beauty of the tabernacle, that called him again to the
high place from which his father fell. And what has been our reward? In
the words of the prophet, 'We looked for peace, but no good came; and for
a time of health, and behold trouble--The snorting of his horses was
heard from Dan; the whole land trembled at the sound of the neigh