The blood of the martyrs cries unto God for vengeance.  “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” Such was the cry of them that were “slain for the Word of God, and for the testimony which they held.”  Vengeance in the Gospel!  Vengeance in Jesus Christ!  Vengeance in the heart of God!  How we are shocked!  We try to veil our eyes and shut out the dreadful fact.  We attempt to explain away the terrible doctrine.  Yet there it is.  A sharp sword is sheathed in this scabbard, and it will yet be drawn for dreadful work.  “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”  “And shall not God avenge His own elect?  I tell you that He will avenge them speedily.”  God is just as well as merciful; yea, necessarily just, but conditionally merciful.  Justice is an essential attribute of His life; mercy is volitional.  The blood of the martyrs, their groans, tears, wanderings, the desolation of home, the cries of mothers and children, the horrors worse than death—­all are ever before His face; nothing is forgotten.  Without repentance, no remission; sin does not grow feeble with, years, nor die of old age.  Judgment must be meted out, or rectitude would forsake the universe; the whole structure of God’s kingdom would fall into ruins.  The guilty must suffer.  The individual perpetrators of these horrid crimes have suffered already; they have appeared personally before Christ’s tribunal.  But the State!  Oh, the guilty State!  The State was the chief party in the slaughter of these innocents.  True, she has ceased to shed the blood of saints; but has she repented of the blood she has shed?  Her eyes are dry; her brow is brass.  Her children build monuments, but her hand’s are still red; the blood that once dripped is now dried, but it is still on her hands.  Genuine repentance means reformation.  The Reformation is under Scotland’s feet.  The twenty-eight years’ struggle is to her a splendid drama; the principles are amusing.  When He inquireth after blood, what shall Scotland do?  The angel answers in the Revelation:  “They have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and Thou hast given them blood to drink.”

WEIGHTY MORAL OBLIGATIONS.

The blood of the martyrs imposes obligations upon posterity from generation to generation.  The martyrs deeply felt their responsibility for the Church, her purity, doctrines, discipline, membership; for her loyalty to Christ, her separation from the world, and her administration in the Holy Spirit.  Their zeal for the House of God brought them to the front; their passionate love for Jesus Christ placed them on the firing line.  There they met every attack made upon Christ and His House; there they stood for the royal rights of Jesus and the honor of His kingdom; there they fell under the murderous fire, giving place to their successors.  These soldiers of Jesus knew how to die, ’but not how to retreat.