"They come!" cried one who saw a troop verging on the moor. In a moment the sixty-three were on their feet; the horses were mounted and every man drew his weapon. Captain Hackston, a veteran in the Covenanted cause, took command. Cameron offered a prayer; his recorded prayer was not a plea for safety nor for victory, but that G.o.d would "spare the green and take the ripe." They chose their ground, and waited the coming of Captain Bruce with 120 troopers. With grim determination they watched the dragoons cover the ground. Every man was ready, every nerve was steady. The Covenanters had the courage of conscience; they knew they were in the right; their hearts sustained them; their Covenant reinforced them; they were a.s.sured of ultimate success. They will certainly achieve all that is best for this time, and for this occasion.
Even a crushing defeat will be a moral victory. The outcome will be according to the will of G.o.d, and a necessary event in the progress of Christ"s kingdom.
[Ill.u.s.tration: MONUMENT AT AYRSMOSS.
This monument marks the grave of Richard Cameron and eight other Covenanters, who fell on this moorland fighting for religious liberty.
The place is reached by pa.s.sing from the road over a wide mossy field.
The solitude is oppressive with solemn tragic memories. These heroes were martyrs who faithfully sealed their testimony with their blood.
This battle was fought on July 22, 1680.]
These men were sent forward, to stand on the firing line, and show the spirit, the courage, and the faith of the soldiers of Christ; behind them the spiritual world was filled with the armies of G.o.d. His twenty-thousand chariots and thousands of angels, were coming up for the successive engagements, that will yet fill the world with righteousness and the heavens with praise.
Bruce and his troop were received with a deadly volley; many of their saddles were emptied. Hackston led his hors.e.m.e.n in a desperate charge; he almost split the enemy"s force in two; but his men being few, the dragoons enveloped him. His horse bogged; he dismounted, and used his sword with fearful effect. At last he fell, bleeding from many wounds.
The Covenanters were overwhelmed and driven from the field. Nine lay dead, among whom was Richard Cameron. Twenty-six were killed on the other side, so steady the nerve and deliberate the aim of the Covenanters in the face of crushing odds. The war for freedom was now on; the first blood was shed and had consecrated Ayrsmoss. But the prize of liberty was of high value; other fields must yet be crimsoned with streams flowing from many a heart.
Our enjoyment of civil and religious liberty is so constant and ordinary that we scarcely wait a moment to think of the original cost. What pangs of sorrow, what years of hardships, what streams of blood our fathers paid for the inheritance of truth and freedom they have left their children! Let us be careful to appreciate the blood-bought blessings lest they flee away.
POINTS FOR THE CLa.s.s.
1. What monument has been erected at Ayrsmoss?
2. What previous proclamation occasioned this battle?
3. What charges did the Covenanters prefer against the king?
4. How long after the declaration till this fight occurred?
5. How did Cameron and his a.s.sociates employ their time?
6. Who appeared in search of them?
7. How many men were on each side?
8. Who won the battle?
9. How account for G.o.d"s people suffering defeat?
10. What was the cost of the liberty we enjoy?
11. How should we guard it for other generations?
x.x.xVII.
THE CAMERONIANS.--A.D. 1681.
Richard Cameron had fallen in the battle at Ayrsmoss; but the cause had not failed, nor would he be forgotten. "The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance." His years were brief, but his work was great.
He was fresh and hearty, in the very prime of his life when he met death. The sun had only reached the meridian of his sky. While his powers were glowing with divine energy, and his ministry was making the deepest impression, the Lord called him home to glory. The translation from earth to heaven was sudden and sublime. One of the poets has painted his own conception of the event in a brilliant poem, ent.i.tled, "The Cameronian"s Dream." That n.o.ble life, so full of zeal, action, and power, left a lasting imprint on the Church of the Covenanters. So mighty was his influence that the people who stood strictly to the Covenant were henceforth called Cameronians.
The field of Ayrsmoss presented a sad sight that evening. The departing day may have flung over it a glowing sunset, but nothing could relieve the gloom. The light was fading as the dragoons left, taking with them Captain Hackston and a few other bleeding prisoners. Night settled softly upon the moorland; the shout of the captains had given place to the stillness of death. Nine n.o.ble defenders of the Covenant lay pulseless in the dewy gra.s.s. The friends, soon as safety permitted, came and, gathering the bodies together, solemnly and sadly buried them in one broad grave. The present monument marks the spot where the precious dust awaits the resurrection.
The head and hands of Cameron were cut off and carried in ign.o.ble triumph through the streets of Edinburgh. The head was elevated on the point of a spear and borne in front of the prisoners to the city jail.
Cameron"s father was a prisoner there at that time. The head and hands were presented to him, with the sneering question, "Do you know them?"
The aweful shock quickly gave place to a gush of fatherly affection. The blood, the pallor, even the stare of the lifeless face, seemed to disappear in the heart-kindlings of the aged parent; to him the countenance was sweet as ever, the eyes were beaming, the lips were vocal, the brow was wreathed with holy dignity. A thousand tender scenes of the past must have rushed in upon the soul of the agitated father. He took up the cold pieces, dearer to him than his own flesh and, while tears flowed plentifully, kissed them, saying, "I know them; they are my son"s; my own dear son"s: the Lord can harm neither me nor mine; good is the will of the Lord."
Cameron lived in the most critical period of the Covenanted cause. His life of service and sacrifice arose into gigantic strength just when the Covenanted Reformation seemed to be ready for burial. The floodtide of Indulgence had almost submerged the testimony of the Covenanters. Many of the ministers had been caught in that Satanic snare. The remainder were overawed, or disabled with disease and old age. Yet there was a host of brave men and honorable women, thousands in number, who without a leader faced the increasing" fierceness of the persecution, and continued their testimony for Christ in defiance of the king"s wrath.
These were called the Society People, and Cameron during his public ministry was their standard-bearer.
Cameron and the Society People, afterward known as the Cameronians, have been severely criticised for their exclusiveness. They refused to hold fellowship with the Indulged ministers who had a.s.sented to the king"s supremacy over the Church, and likewise with the Field-ministers, who had become mute on the Covenanted testimony. They are often represented as having been stern, censorious, and uncharitable in the extreme. A glance at Cameron"s commission will show how baseless is the charge.
Richard Cameron received ordination in Holland, four months after the battle of Bothwell Bridge. The ordination service was very solemn and touching. The presbytery felt that they were commissioning a servant of G.o.d to do a work that would cost his life. While the ministers rented their hands on Cameron"s head in the act of ordination, he was told by one of them, that the head whereon their hands were laid would one day be severed from his body and set up before the sun and moon for public view. Such was the vision of blood that moved before his eyes during the eight months of his ministry. At that same time he received also the exhortation: "Go, Richard; the public Standard of the Gospel is fallen in Scotland; go home and lift the fallen Standard, and display it publicly before the world. But before you put your hand to it, go to as many of the Field-ministers as you can find, and give them your hearty invitation to go with you."
True to his commission Cameron went. He sought out the Field-ministers.
They now numbered about sixty. These were keeping close to their hiding-places; their voices scarcely went beyond the mouth of their caves; they counted their blood more valuable than their testimony for Christ and His Covenant. Twenty years of unabating hardships had unnerved them; the late avalanche of the king"s wrath had overwhelmed them; they were mostly mute in witnessing for Christ, as the rocks behind which they were hiding.
Of the sixty ministers Cameron found only two who were willing to stand with him and hold up the Banner of the Covenant before the eyes of the nation. One of these, Thomas Douglas, quickly disappeared leaving Cameron and Cargill alone to lead the Covenanted people of G.o.d in the fight that was growing harder every day. These two dauntless ministers of Christ accepted the responsibility, knowing too well the price to be paid was their own blood. And they have been censured for their exclusiveness.
Twenty years previous, the Covenanted ministers numbered one thousand.
More than half of these had violated the Covenant by a resolution in 1650, to open the offices of public trust to men without moral qualification. Will the minority be censured for not following them? In 1662, the ministerial brotherhood was again rent in twain by the king"s decree requiring them to submit, or quit the manse. Four hundred refused to comply. Will they be censured for withdrawing from their brethren who remained? In later years the Indulgences followed, one after another, capturing all except sixty. Will the sixty be censured for not following the others in submitting to the king"s supremacy over the Church? And now all but two suspend the public testimony for Christ"s crown. Will the two be censured for separating from the sixty, and holding forth the Banner of Christ?
[Ill.u.s.tration: FOUR YOUNG COVENANTERS DISCOVERED
These young men had left their homes to save their lives. They lived among the hills, hid in the caves, slept on the ground, had little to eat, and were always in danger. They evidently had come here to sun themselves after a chilly night, and to comfort one another in Jesus Christ. They were found and sentenced to be shot. They said to their accusers, "If we had a hundred lives, we would willingly quit them all, for the truth of Christ".]
Cameron and Cargill, with the Society people, stood on a basis separated from their brethren who had stepped off the basis, and had left them to struggle alone against mighty odds and fierce enemies, for the Covenanted Reformation to which all were bound by a solemn oath. These men, with the Society people at their back, stood by their Covenant and the oath of G.o.d, the others had departed. Censure the Cameronians for exclusiveness? Rather, be sincere and censure them for not slipping, and stumbling, and falling away, like their brethren from Covenant attainments. These worthies stood on the heights from which the others had departed, and waving the old battle-worn colors of the Covenant appealed unto them to come up and occupy the ground where they had formerly stood.
The Cameronians maintained a high position; but it was not chimerical or theoretical; it was practical and Scriptural; here was solid ground, a rock-foundation. On it were no sidings, no off-sets, no bogs. The truths they held were clear, clean-cut, adamantine, foundational, and unchangeable. Their oath bound them to defend the sovereignty of Christ, the kingdom of G.o.d, and the Reformed religion.
The banner still floats up there in the care of a few successors. Under the Lord of hosts, the Captain of the Covenant, they continue to this day without a thought of retreating, and trailing their colors in the dust. They are confident that Churches and nations will yet reach the heights of Covenant doctrine and fidelity under Jesus Christ. The bane of the Churches to-day is the slanting ground, adown which an evil influence is steadily drawing the people lower and lower. But in the last days the Holy Spirit will be poured out upon all flesh; then shall the world have a spiritual resurrection, and a glorious ascension to Covenant grounds, through the Lord Jesus Christ, "to whom be dominion and majesty for ever and ever." "The mountain of the Lord"s house shall be established in the top of the mountains; and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it."
POINTS FOR THE CLa.s.s.
1. Describe Ayrsmoss on the night after the battle?
2. What did the enemy do with Cameron"s body?
3. How did Cameron"s life and death impress the Covenanters?
4. Why were the Cameronians called extremists?
5. Were they justifiable in separating from others?
6. Who joined Cameron in carrying out his commission?