revived the spirit of the old Norman law which "hanged the husband if his wife committed theft." His law made the head of each family answer for all his inmates, if they had ventured to a conventicle: and the land proprietors were made accountable for their tenants.* And to crown the whole, he employed such ferocious assassins as Graham of Clavers, and Dalziel; with a complement of the body guards, each of whom threw into the shade the fiercest Indians that ever yelled in the wilds of America. These English soldiers occasionally employed the sagacity of blood hounds to hunt up the retreats of the sufferers !+

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In this period of civil war, when tyranny struck a blow every dissenter, armed bands of peasantry, with their chiefs, associated with the fugitive pastor: the pious and orthodox were brought into collision with the sectary and fanatic. In their secret haunts, in caves and morasses, the resolutioner met the protester; and the presbyterian the quaker. Yet their common danger never could prevail on them to sacrifice their peculiar opinions, or even to soften down their asperities. It rather, indeed, seemed to endear them to each sect. The sombre hours of the wanderer on the lonely mountains, were often enlivened by the free exchange of sentiment, or the fierce sallies of passion, which characterized the polemicks of that day. And often the midnignt lamp was seen to illumine the dreary and damp cave of the exiles, while they pursued the argument, or collected the materials of a well digested refutation.

Among these polemicks who wielded the pen against the sectary, and his sword against the enemies of his country, was the laird of Torfoot. He was of an ancient rather than a rich family. His small estate (now in possession of two individuals of the fifth generation from him,) lies in the shire of Lanerk, and in Avendale, at the conflux of the beautiful streams of the Aven and the Geel.

* Crookshank's Hist. vol. i. ch. 12 & 14.

† See Laing's Hist. of Scotland during this period, in vol. ii. It is to this bloody king that Barclay has dedicated his Apology, in a bold and flattering style: "God had restored him to his throne by a singular step, which generations will admire." "God had done great things for him." "God had signally visited him with his love," &c. How could the amiable Barclay say so of such a person as Charles II.?

On the east are stretched the mountains of Dungavel; on the south, and bordering the Great Valley, are Cairnsaigh and Distinkhorn; the romantic Loudon hill raises its conical summit on the west; and looks over a wide plain, terminated on the west by a heathy wild, which spreads over the mountains of Drumclog. On the north opens the delightful vale through which the Aven pours its broad stream, and hastens to mingle with the Clyde at Hamilton.

From this situation of his estate, and the facilities it afforded of concealing the wanderers, laird Thomas's house was the haunt of many distinguished personages of that day.

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Mr. John Kid, and Mr. John King, two eminent preachers, and who were martyred in Edinburg, A. D. 1679, were frequent inmates. The last was a polished man and an accomplished scholar. Mr. Hugh McKail, another minister, who fell a martyr in A. D. 1662, in the full expansion of genius and learning, also honoured the halls of my fathers. He had spent several years in travelling on the continent, and in foreign universities. His name was never mentioned by my ancestor without stealing down his manly cheek. The immortal William Guthrie, minister of Fenwick, was a favourite at Torfoot. He was eminent as a theologian; he was a powerful preacher; and excelled in gaining men from the delusions of error. The early quakers had drawn away great multitudes of his parishoners, and it is well known that he regained them all. He died in A. D. 1655, and left the laird to lament an invaluable friend of his youth.

The venerable Dickson, of Rutherglen, was occasionally seen in the group; and Mr. Shields enlivened the company by his sallies of wit, or roused their languor by his impetuous manner.

The celebrated Fleming, and John Welsh the younger, were sometimes of the party. But not even the high character of Fleming's piety and learning, nor the fire of young Welsh, could prevent the invectives of uncle John, who missed no opportunity of running down as fair game "the fushionless doctrines and awfu' apostacie" of those

* Scot's Worth. p. 255. Edit. of 1812.

who favoured the indulged. He insisted that they were nothing short of tories and erastians.

Richard Cameron, the minister and the hero, stood high in the affections of this interesting group. His learning was considerable. He had gleaned his knowledge in the seminaries of Scotland and of Holland. He was a fluent orator; and what was unusual then, he used the English more generally than the Dorick dialect of the north. No good man can slander this character. As a minister he was faithful and truly laborious; as a man of talents and acquirements, he might, if he had pleased, risen high among the licensed opposers of his country. But as a patriot he laboured during his life; and died fighting for that liberty which the patriots of the revolution, in some measure, secured. In that day which tried the christian patriot's soul, he had made himself master of the military exercise; and he could match laird Thomas as readily in handling a carbine, or playing with the small sword, as he could loose the knots of a syllogism, or twist the horns of a dilemma! This patriot fell in the skirmish at Ayrsmoss; and his eulogium was pronounced by the bloody enemy, as he rolled out the head and the limbs of Cameron from the sack, before the council at Edinburg: "There are the head and the limbs of a man "who lived praying and preaching, and who died pray❝ing and fighting.

In this circle was seen that singular man of God, Mr. Alexander Peden. He had a strong, but uncultivated mind; his features were of the bold Roman cast; his brow was high, his nose aquiline, his eyebrows shaggy, his hair long and bushy. He was distinguished among the ministers by his natural" head piece." He despised a hat. He wore the large blue bonnet. His manners were plain, and his appearance rustic; but his manly sense, and most ardent piety, made ample amends for the exterior. In the sombre hours which rolled heavy over the wanderers, he was equally prepared to pray like an apostle, or to argue on any point, or to detail anecdote, gleaned in his travels. In his tour homeward, through England, he had met with George Fox; and the laird

Scot's Worth, p. 412.

used to say, that nothing could equal the character which this shrewd person drew of this far-famed man, and of his doctrines, and disciples. It was edifying and interesting, and occasionally his anecdote, detailed in his broadest Scotch, with his strong Galloway tone, would set the gravest of them in a roar.

The venerable Daniel Cargil made the Torfoot one of his retreats. His theological learning was profound; his manners dignified; though latterly stern and severe. There was something unusually interesting in his countenance; there was that in it which struck awe into the beholder, and at the same time something so lovely and sweet, that he gained the affection of all. Nothing could equal his fine face, when lighted up by the excitement of the pulpit exercise. His deep toned and musical voice was in perfect unison with this set of features; and then his singular pathos, which revealed the sensibilities of his soul, as it put forth its powerful energies over the hearts of his audience, produced extraordinary effects. He did not terrify; he did not strike the mind dumb with amazement; the audience became oppressed with sorrow as he spoke, and their labouring hearts vented their feelings in floods of tears. He was connected with the first families near Glasgow, and had moved in the first circles; being minister of the high church of that city, he had been the leading man in that section of the church. He sacrificed all worldly honours and emoluments for the love of religion and liberty; and placed himself by the side of the patriots, and persecuted ministry of Christ. The liberties of his country, and the honour of his master's crown, were dearer to him than riches, than friends, than relations, than life itself.

It was he who performed the most heroic ministerial action that is recorded in church history. At the great meeting in Torwood he pronounced the formal sentence of ecclesiastical excommunication on the proudest and highest heads in the land. He excommunicated king Charles II. and his royal brother, James, duke of York, and the counsellors and officers of the tyrant. If we admit that there is a discipline appointed in the church to reclaim offenders; if this discipline is to be impartially executed; if the rich members as well as the poor, if ma

gistrates as well as subjects are, as church members, amenable to the rulers of the church, who guard the laws of God from brutal insults; if the courts of Christ's house know neither father nor mother, king nor beggar, then this action can be defended. The king and these counsellors had voluntarily put themselves under the ecclesiastical law. They had been received into the communion of the church; neither wealth nor civil offices ought to screen notorious delinquents. Cargil did what every honest minister was bound by the solemn vows of ordination to do.*

And let the tory writers, who slander such men as Cargil, accept of the challenge which he threw down to his enemies. There was too much learning, and devotion, and solid intellect in Cargil's soul to allow him to be a fanatic. It is true he was actuated by a glorious enthusiasm in the greatest of causes. This enthusiastic lover of liberty appealed to the Almighty-he laid down this challenge: "If these persons whom I have excommunicated, do not themselves feel and acknowledge this sentence in their last moments, then God shall not have countenanced this common exercise of the discipline of his house. But if-" This was perfectly accordant with our Lord's words, "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven." The fact is on record, that some of them did acknowledge, with anguish, the justness of that sentence; and, perhaps, no annals have recorded seven similar instances of such unmingled wretchedness and terror in the last moments of life, as these all did.†

It is impossible not to contrast with this the last moments of father Cargil. He was ordered for execution by the council. He met death with unaltered countenance, and with a smile at the violence of the council; who ordered the drums to beat one continued roll, that his last speech and prayer might not reach the ears of the spec

*In these days of loose and degenerate discipline, nobody is surprised at the unhandsome manner in which Cook has expressed the sentiments of modern divines on this subject. Cook's Hist. Church of Scotland, vol. Hi. ch. 26. Compare the ancient discipline, M'Crie's Knox, note NN, p. 491.

Scottish Worthies, Life of Cargil, p. 353. Edin. edit. of 1812. Cruikshank's Hist. of the Church of Scotland, vol. ii. ch. 4.