But above all this, God in the early ages gave them the Scriptures, and the Truth made them free.  From the dawn of the evangelization of Scotland there has ever been a band, and sometimes a host, whose heart God touched, whose lives He enswathed with the fire of zeal for Christ and His royal rights.  They grasped the meaning of the Word of God, heard His voice calling them into the marvelous light, and lived in the radiance of His dreadful presence.  They stood upon the solid foundation of the infallible Book, and grew solid as the rocks of granite in their conviction of truth and right.  How much of this Scotch granite is apparent in the faith and firmness of the present generation?

The matchless inheritance we have received from our Covenanted ancestors, an inheritance of truth, liberty, and high example, should be more inspiring to us than nature’s grandest scenery.  Our eyes should be open to the moral significance of present conditions.  We should be alive to the weighty obligations transmitted by the fathers to their children.  Filled with the spirit and power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and enthusiastic in our work for God, we should throw our strength into the service of our Lord Jesus, striving to bring all people into Covenant with God.  The Covenant relation is the normal state of human society.

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Points for the class.

1.  Locate Scotland on the map.

2.  What is the size?  What the population?

3.  Mention the main physical features.

4.  Give some characteristics of the people.

5.  What contributed much to their prominence in history?

6.  What moral inheritance did the Covenanted fathers leave their children?

7.  What obligation comes with the inheritance?

8.  How should the obligation be met in our day?

II.

The battlefield of Presbyterianism.—­A.D. 200.

The beginning of Scotland’s evangelization is pre-historic.  The records fail to give any satisfaction concerning the entrance of the Gospel into that lovely land.  The ruins of numerous altars of stone bear grim testimony to the idolatrous worship practiced by the early inhabitants.  These are known in history as the Druids.  They held their religious meetings in groves, and evidently offered human sacrifices to their gods.  The oak was accounted by them a sacred tree, and the mistletoe, when growing upon it, was worshiped.  Thus the land of our forefathers, in the far off ages, was without a ray of Gospel light.  The people sat in darkness, in the region and shadow of death.