The standard of religion adopted by the Covenanted Church demands that Covenanters possess the noblest spirit.  They, who rally in earnest under this banner, will be men after God’s own heart.  Such were the martyrs:  kind, patient, self-sacrificing, passionately in love with Christ, and laboring diligently to bring others into the same sphere of blessedness.  They were strong, heroic, and unconquerable; affectionate, intelligent, filled with veneration for God, and aflame with zeal for His House.  Those Covenanters knew that they were redeemed, and gloried in their relation and obligation to the Lord Jesus Christ, their Almighty Redeemer.  They flew into every service at His command.  Their obedience was accompanied with much assurance of salvation.  They had heaven on earth.  The heaven of glory was merely an extension of their vista, an enlargement of their horizon, higher up the mountain that they were climbing, more spiritual ozone in the air they were breathing.  They dwelt with God, lived in Jesus Christ, felt the raptures of the Holy Spirit; they knew the mystery of the cross, the value of the Blood, and the power of the spiritual resurrection.  Therefore were they swallowed up in love to God and man.  Are we amazed at the divine beauty of the martyr’s life?  Let us have the same heartiness, the same vision of God, the same joy in the Holy Spirit, and we will have the key to the nobleness of the martyr.  The Covenant with God, when kept, produces holiness, tenderness, charitableness, and divinest sympathy; turns life into an overflowing fountain of goodness.  They, who follow the Banner of the Covenant in spirit and in truth, will aim at the very climax of Christian character, moral culture, and heroic service through Jesus Christ.

THE EMBLEM OF WAR.

The standard of religion in the Covenanted Church recognizes an uncompromising conflict in the world.  Where hostile forces are encamped, the banner means battle.  The martyrs were carried into this conflict, by their zeal for God’s House and love to Jesus Christ.  Their fight was against the tyranny of Civil government and the corruption of the Church.  They fought well, resisting the aggressor at every point of attack.

We must open our eyes wide, to see the forces on either side.  The persecution was merely the crimson line, along which the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of Satan came into collision.  These kingdoms stretch beyond our vision, far away into the spiritual world, each having immense resources and innumerable battalions for the war.  The firing lines are merely the visible places that project themselves upon our horizon.  The human struggle, the din of battle, the blood, the groans, the graves, are merely the evidence of the momentum of these tremendous powers, grinding each other at the points of contact.  It is Satan against Christ, in his effort to waste the Church, suppress the truth, crush mankind, and despoil Jesus of His crown, people, and kingdom.  It is Christ against Satan, determined to resist, defeat, enchain, and imprison that old dragon.