Patrick Hamilton was another distinguished hero in this age of darkness.  Nearly a century had passed between the last mentioned martyr and this.  Doubtless lesser lights had appeared, for the record cannot possibly be complete.  Winter snows and summer showers often fell on smoking embers, where the charred bones and precious names of martyrs are now forgotten, and the annual sward of green conceals the sacred grounds from the knowledge of man.  Hamilton was a young man of education and refinement having fairest worldly prospects.  However, the Lord showed him “the way, the truth, and the life,” and his soul was fired with the love of God.  He counted all things but “loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ.”  His enthusiasm carried him boldly into controversy with the enemies of his Lord, and won for him the honors of a noble martyr.  As the flames leaped around him at the stake, his voice rose calm and clear on the crisp winter air, exclaiming, “How long, O Lord, shall darkness cover this realm?  How long wilt thou suffer this tyranny of man?” This man was sacrificed in 1528.

The light was rising; spring-time was coming, the early rain of God’s grace was falling upon Scotland.  Godly lives now sprang up thick as flowers in the meadow.  They must be uprooted in bunches, thought the Romanists, or the people, gaining light, will cast off the Papal religion and be free to worship God according to His Word.  During the next few years many were condemned and executed for their faith.

Helen Stark deserves honorable mention.  She and her husband were sentenced to death for their fidelity to Jesus.  She begged for the poor consolation of dying with her husband, pleading that the flames that would consume his flesh might also consume hers.  The privilege was denied.  She stood by him while the fire did its work, and the chariot of flame bore his soul to heaven.  She encouraged him to endure bravely and glorify God.  When life had departed from his quivering body, she was pushed aside and hastened to a pond of deep water.  Withdrawing a babe from her warm breast where it would never again rest, she gave it to a woman near by, resigning it to the loving Father of orphans.  She was then plunged into the water where death quickly ended her sorrows.  This martyrdom was in 1543.

[Illustration:  George Wishart.

George Wishart was a burning and shining light in darkest times.  His pure and vigorous life was lifted up into the presence of God and devoted to the glory of Jesus Christ and the emancipation of souls from the bondage of Satan, through the preaching of the Gospel.  He finished his work, a great work, while he was yet a young man.  His enemies burned him at the stake, in 1546, for his faith in Jesus Christ.]