woman, sitting with them at the table, was greatly distressed, yet she wisely concealed her feelings.  Having the information, however, she was able to send out timely warning to the Covenanters.  In this way she saved their lives, not once, nor twice.  Rothes, too, in his better moments, assisted her in protecting the persecuted.  When about to send his soldiers to apprehend the Covenanters, at times he would say to her with a twinkle in his eye, “My lady, the hawks will be out to-night, so you had better take care of your chickens.”

The women of the Covenant were compelled to pass through many painful scenes.  Often their hearts were heavily burdened, yet they were mightily sustained by the Holy Spirit.  Captain John Paton, after a wonderful record on the battlefield in defence of the Covenant, won his last fight on the scaffold.  He went joyfully to his death, glorying in victory through his Lord Jesus Christ.  As he stood on the platform from which he would soon step into eternity, he held forth his well-worn Bible, from which he addressed the crowd that stood around the gallows.  Then bidding farewell to earth, and welcome to heaven, he commended his wife and their six children to the care of his Covenant God.  At that moment, the sorrow-stricken woman, reaching up her trembling hand, received from him his Bible with a blessing—­a double token of her husband’s deathless love.  Then in the twinkling of an eye, she saw his body twirling in the death struggle, while his soul entered into glory.  That Bible is still preserved at Lochgoin.

The horrors which women deliberately faced, in their devotion to Christ and His servants, seem almost incredible.  How great the love of woman whose heart God’s love has filled!  How deep, how tranquil, how inexhaustible, how majestic, how like the love of Jesus is the love of that woman whose heart rests in her Covenant God!  It is measured in part by the stupendous tasks she accepts and the crucial emergencies she endures for the sake of others.  When Robert Baillie, burdened with years and weakened with disease, lay in prison waiting for his sentence, his wife was ill and unable to visit him.  But the angelic heart of her sister, Lady Graden, then found its opportunity.  The authorities would permit her to visit the dying man, only on her consent to become a prisoner with him.  She agreed to the conditions, and entered the dark sickly cell.  His pale face was quickly lighted up with her presence, and the Word of God, which she read to him in the dim candle-light.  Night and day she watched over him with sympathetic interest.  At length he was brought out for trial, and sentenced to die.  She accompanied him to the gallows, stood by him when swung off; saw him cut down, watched while his body was quartered and prepared for shipment, to be placed on exhibition in four cities.  And when the service of love was fully finished, and neither hand, nor tongue, nor eye could do anything further, she went home to console her sick sister.