Lies mixed with murderers and other crew
  Whom justice justly did to death pursue;
  But as for them, no cause was to be found
  Worthy of death, but only they were found
  Constant and steadfast, witnessing
  For the prerogatives of Christ their King;
  Which truths were sealed, by famous Guthrie’s head,
  And all along to Mr. Renwick’s blood
  They did endure the wrath of enemies,
  Reproaches, torments, deaths, and injuries;
  But yet they’re those who from such troubles came
  And triumph now in glory with the Lamb.

“From May 27, 1681, when the Marquis of Argyle was beheaded, to February 17, 1688, when James Renwick suffered, there were some eighteen thousand one way or other murdered, of whom were executed at Edinburgh about one hundred noblemen, ministers, and gentlemen, and others, noble martyrs for Christ.”

Despite the roughness of the verse, there is a thrilling power in these lines.  People in gilded houses, on silken couches, at ease among books, and friends, and literary pastimes, may sneer at the Covenanters; it is much easier to sneer than to die for truth and right, as they died.  Whether they were right in all respects is nothing to the purpose; but it is to the purpose that in a crisis of their country’s history they upheld a great principle vital to her existence.  Had not these men held up the heart of Scotland, and kept alive the fire of liberty on her altars, the very literature which has been used to defame them could not have had its existence.  The very literary celebrity of Scotland has grown out of their grave; for a vigorous and original literature is impossible, except to a strong, free, self-respecting people.  The literature of a people must spring from the sense of its nationality; and nationality is impossible without self-respect, and self-respect is impossible without liberty.

It is one of the trials of our mortal state, one of the disciplines of our virtue, that the world’s benefactors and reformers are so often without form or comeliness.  The very force necessary to sustain the conflict makes them appear unlovely; they “tread the wine press alone, and of the people there is none with them.”  The shrieks, and groans, and agonies of men wrestling in mortal combat are often not graceful or gracious; but the comments that the children of the Puritans, and the children of the Covenanters, make on the ungraceful and severe elements which marked the struggles of their great fathers, are as ill-timed as if a son, whom a mother had just borne from a burning dwelling, should criticize the shrieks with which she sought him, and point out to ridicule the dishevelled hair and singed garments which show how she struggled for his life.  But these are they which are “sown in weakness, but raised in power; which are sown in dishonor, but raised in glory:”  even in this world they will have their judgment day, and their names which went down in the dust like a gallant banner trodden in the mire, shall rise again all glorious in the sight of nations.