At the age of nineteen Renwick finished his university education.  That year he witnessed the affecting sight of Donald Cargill’s martyrdom.  The execution was public; curiosity and sympathy had collected an immense throng around the scaffold, to see the old minister die.  Renwick was in the crowd.  He was not yet a Covenanter.  He pressed forward to hear and see all he could.  The sight was deeply affecting.  The venerable man of God walked triumphantly to the place of execution.  His hair was white with years and cares, his face serene as an angel, and his voice clear and strong in his last testimony.  He ascended the ladder with firm step, and joyfully sealed the Covenant with his blood.  Renwick gazed and trembled; his heart beat fast, and his eyes grew moist.  From that day he was a Covenanter.  He there, and then, resolved to give his life for the same noble cause.

The first notable service Renwick rendered to the Covenanters was his part in the public testimony given by the Society People, at Lanark, January 12, 1682.  The death of Donald Cargill had bereaved the societies of their only pastor.  They had no minister now, who would grasp the fallen Banner of the Covenant, and hold it forth, in defiance of the persecutor’s rage.  These people were the real Covenanters; they counted the Covenant of their Lord more precious than all the blood that could be poured out for its sake.  Nor were they to be despised.  They numbered at least 12,000.  These were men and women noted for high principle, public spirit, intelligence, and courage.  They seized the Banner of the Covenant, and kept it unfurled with utmost fidelity, while waiting for God to send them a standard-bearer.  The persecution waxed hotter and hotter.  The murderous guns were ever echoing over moors and mountains, in the desperate effort to exterminate the unconquerable societies.  Yet they grew bolder, and more aggressive, in their testimony against the king, the Episcopacy, the Indulged ministers, and the silent shepherds.  It was in mid-winter, when storms were a shelter from the foe, that forty armed Covenanters, including James Renwick, entered the town of Lanark, and there delivered a new Declaration of rights and wrongs, that made their enemies gnaw their tongues for pain.

[Illustration:  James Renwick.

James Renwick was the last martyr of the Covenant, who suffered by public execution.  His short life was a miracle of devotion to the Societies, whose fidelity to Christ and their Covenant had inflamed the enemy with rage, and thereby greatly increased the violence of the persecution.  He had a marvelous victory over death, being in a transport of joy on the way from the prison to the scaffold.  His soul was overflowing with happiness, in anticipation of the marriage supper of the Lamb, of which he was about to partake.]