The testimony of Renwick contained in the “CLOUD OF WITNESSES,” was written the night before he suffered, and in near anticipation of his martyrdom.  His mother and sisters were allowed to be with him for a short time, on the morning of the day of his execution:  In giving thanks at food in their presence, he said—­“Lord!  Thou hast brought me within two hours of eternity, and this is no matter of terror to me, more than if I rose to go to lie down on a bed of roses.  Nay, through grace, to thy praise, I may say, I had never the fear of death since I came within this prison; but from the place I was taken in, I could have gone very composedly to the scaffold.”  Again, he said, “Let us be glad and rejoice, for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready.  Could I ever have thought that the fear of suffering and death could be so taken from me?  What shall I say of it?  It is the doing of the Lord and marvellous in our eyes.”  He asked, “I have many times counted the cost of following Christ, but never expected it would have been so easy.  Now, who knows the honour and happiness of that—­’He that confesseth me before men, him will I confess before my Father!’ Several times, he said, "Now that I am so near the end of time, I desire to bless the Lord:  it is inexpressibly sweet and satisfying peace to me, that He has kept me in the least from complying with enemies." On the morning of his execution, he wrote his last letter to his most attached friend, Sir Robert Hamilton, who was then an exile in Holland, for the sacred cause for which Renwick suffered.  Every part of this brief epistle is calm and thoughtful, and bespeaks the joyful serenity of the martyr’s spirit.  “This,” he writes, “being my last day on earth, I thought it my duty to send you this, my last salutation.  The Lord has been wonderfully gracious to me since I came to prison.  He has assured me of His salvation, helped me to give a testimony for Him, and to say before his enemies all that I have taught, and strengthened me to resist and repel many temptations and assaults.”  He closes, with these simple, solemn, and affecting words—­“But I must break off, I go to your God and my God. Death is to me as a bed to the weary.”

When the drums beat for his execution, he exclaimed, “Yonder is my welcome call to the marriage.  The Bridegroom is coming.  I am ready.”  On the scaffold, he sung the first part of the 3d Psalm, read the 19th chapter of Revelations, and prayed.  When he was rudely interrupted, he said, “I shall soon be above these clouds.  Then shall I enjoy Thee and glorify Thee, O my Father, without intermission and interruption for ever.”  In the few sentences that he was permitted to speak to the spectators from the scaffold, after commending the Lord’s special mercy to him, in washing away his sins, and honouring him to suffer for His name’s sake, he declared he laid down his life mainly for three things:  1.  For disavowing