reconcile
themselves to the new system. The religious opinions of sectaries have a
tendency like the water of some springs, to become soft and mild, when
freely exposed to the open day. Who can recognise in the decent and
industrious quakers, and ana-baptists the wild and ferocious tenets
which distinguished their sects, while they were yet honoured with the
distinction of the scourge and the pillory? Had the system of coercion
against the presbyterians been continued until our day, Blair and
Robertson would have preached in the wilderness, and only discovered
their powers of eloquence and composition, by rolling along a deeper
torrent of gloomy fanaticism.

[Footnote A: Among other ridiculous occurrences, it is said, that some
of Charles's gallantries were discovered by a prying neighbour. A wily
old minister was deputed, by his brethren, to rebuke the king for this
heinous scandal. Being introduced into the royal presence he limited
his commission to a serious admonition, that, upon such occasions,
his majesty should always shut the windows.--The king is said to have
recompensed this unexpected lenity after the Restoration. He probably
remembered the joke, though he might have forgotten the service.]

The western counties distinguished themselves by their opposition to the
prelatic system. Three hundred and fifty ministers, ejected from their
churches and livings, wandered through the mountains, sowing the seeds
of covenanted doctrine, while multitudes of fanatical followers pursued
them, to reap the forbidden crop. These conventicles as they were
called, were denounced by the law, and their frequenters dispersed by
military force. The genius of the persecuted became stubborn, obstinate,
and ferocious; and, although indulgencies were tardily granted to some
presbyterian ministers, few of the true covenanters or whigs, as they
were called, would condescend to compound with a prelatic government, or
to listen even to their own favourite doctrine under the auspices of the
king. From Richard Cameron, their apostle, this rigid sect acquired the
name of Cameronians. They preached and prayed against the indulgence,
and against the presbyterians who availed themselves of it, because
their accepting this royal boon was a tacit acknowledgment of the king's
supremacy in ecclesiastical matters. Upon these bigotted and persecuted
fanatics, and by no means upon the presbyterians at large, are to
be charged the wild anarchical pri