He was forty miles away on the dismal Sabbath, when the Covenanters were slaughtered at Bothwell Bridge.  He had an engagement to preach.  The people assembled in a solitary place for the service.  They were hungry for the Word of God, but Peden did not appear.  At noon they sent to know the cause.  He replied, “Let the people go to their prayers; I neither can, nor will preach this day, for our friends are fallen and fleed before the enemy; they are hagging and hacking them down, and their blood is running like water.”

[Illustration:  Peden at Cameron’s grave.

When Peden was old, he wandered one day to the grave of Cameron.  There he sat down in deep meditation.  Desolation brooded over the scene.  The solitude of his life, too, was crushing.  His dearest companions in persecution had fallen in the hard-fought battle.  They had received their crown, and were with the Lord in glory, while he was yet pursued like a partridge on the mountains.  His heart heaved a heavy sigh, and from his lips came the memorable words, “O, to be wi Richie.”]

One day while preaching, he arose in a flight of inspiration, exclaiming, “I must tell you, in the name of the Lord, who sent me unto you this day, to tell you these things, that ere it be very long, the living shall not be able to bury the dead in thee, O Scotland; and many a mile shall ye walk, or ride, and shall not see a farm-house, but ruinous wastes, for the quarrel of a broken Covenant and wrongs done to the Son of God.”

This servant of God had profound knowledge of Bible doctrines.  He had a masterly conception of the crown rights of Jesus Christ, and the fundamental principles of His kingdom.  He had vivid views of the excellence of holiness, and the atrocity of sin.  This filled him, like the Psalmist, with horror at the doom of transgressors.  His inner life was fiercely swept with the contrary passions of love for righteousness, and hatred for iniquity.  His soul was the scene of terrific conflicts.  His preaching and praying against the powers of darkness often revealed an internal tragedy.  One night while preaching to the Covenanters who had assembled in a sheep-house, he cried out, “Black, black, black will be the day, that shall come upon Ireland; they shall travel forty miles, and not see a reeking house, or hear a crowing cock.”  Then, clapping his hands with dramatic effect, he exclaimed:  “Glory, glory to the Lord, that He has accepted a bloody sacrifice of a sealed testimony off Scotland’s hand.”

Peden could not brook any departure from Christ and His Covenant.  Covenant-breaking was, in his eyes, a most aggravated sin.  He was quick to see the Lord coming to avenge the quarrel of His Covenant, and his soul was filled with dread.

Here are some of his utterances: 

“Oh, my heart trembles within me, to think what is coming on the backsliding, soul-murdering ministers of Scotland!