[Illustration:  Four young Covenanters discovered

These young men had left their homes to save their lives.  They lived among the hills, hid in the caves, slept on the ground, had little to eat, and were always in danger.  They evidently had come here to sun themselves after a chilly night, and to comfort one another in Jesus Christ.  They were found and sentenced to be shot.  They said to their accusers, “If we had a hundred lives, we would willingly quit them all, for the truth of Christ".]

Cameron and Cargill, with the Society people, stood on a basis separated from their brethren who had stepped off the basis, and had left them to struggle alone against mighty odds and fierce enemies, for the Covenanted Reformation to which all were bound by a solemn oath.  These men, with the Society people at their back, stood by their Covenant and the oath of God, the others had departed.  Censure the Cameronians for exclusiveness?  Rather, be sincere and censure them for not slipping, and stumbling, and falling away, like their brethren from Covenant attainments.  These worthies stood on the heights from which the others had departed, and waving the old battle-worn colors of the Covenant appealed unto them to come up and occupy the ground where they had formerly stood.

The Cameronians maintained a high position; but it was not chimerical or theoretical; it was practical and Scriptural; here was solid ground, a rock-foundation.  On it were no sidings, no off-sets, no bogs.  The truths they held were clear, clean-cut, adamantine, foundational, and unchangeable.  Their oath bound them to defend the sovereignty of Christ, the kingdom of God, and the Reformed religion.

The banner still floats up there in the care of a few successors.  Under the Lord of hosts, the Captain of the Covenant, they continue to this day without a thought of retreating, and trailing their colors in the dust.  They are confident that Churches and nations will yet reach the heights of Covenant doctrine and fidelity under Jesus Christ.  The bane of the Churches to-day is the slanting ground, adown which an evil influence is steadily drawing the people lower and lower.  But in the last days the Holy Spirit will be poured out upon all flesh; then shall the world have a spiritual resurrection, and a glorious ascension to Covenant grounds, through the Lord Jesus Christ, “to whom be dominion and majesty for ever and ever.”  “The mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains; and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.”

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Points for the class.

1.  Describe Ayrsmoss on the night after the battle?

2.  What did the enemy do with Cameron’s body?

3.  How did Cameron’s life and death impress the Covenanters?

4.  Why were the Cameronians called extremists?