Eighteen-year-old Margaret Wilson could see the older woman,Margaret MacLachlan, roped to a stake, waiting for the tide tocover her. This slow, methodical death by drowning was orderedby the court at Wigtown for their refusal to swear allegiance to CharlesStuart, King of England, and to his church. Wilson, too, had refused theoath, yet her stake was deliberately closer to shore so that she, witnessingthe death throes of the other woman, might think better of her Covenanter convictions and save her own life. The elder Margaret, MacLachlan, farmed the pitiful soil granted to peasants near the small village of Wigtown, Scotland. Not educated, yet intelligent and full of wisdom, widow MacLachlan had been convinced by Presbyterian preacher James Renwick that the Church of England had surrendered its integrity to the corrupted English king. It was a lost church, loyal to the Stuarts above all, not to be confused with Christ’s church of the Gospel and true sacrament. Against both tradition and law, MacLachlan declined to worship in her parish church but met with Covenanters in her own home. For this she was a marked woman. Margaret Wilson, a teenager, was the oldest of three children of a prosperous farmer near Wigtown named
Read MoreWho should govern the church? Bishops appointed by a monarch? Or elders and deacons called by God and endorsed by the church itself? Who is head of the church, Christ or king? This question, along with the role of Scripture and the path of salvation, were critical issues during the Reformation, fought over with argument and sword. Donald Cargill was a fighting Scotsman, a preacher, and a warrior. Educated at the distinguished universities of Aberdeen and St. Andrews, he was appointed minister to the parish of Barony in Glasgow in 1655. A Covenanter, Cargill was starting his ministry in the calm eye of a hurricane. Ill winds would soon carry him into exile and eventually to his death. Scottish Covenanters were Presbyterians devoted to church leadership by elders. Thus they were utterly opposed to a church led by bishops, who were titled with a religious mandate but empowered by the English crown. King Charles I of England had sought to impose the Anglican Church in Scotland since 1625. But Charles had met his own doom at the hands of Cromwell’s army in 1649. When Cargill started preaching, England was without a king. Yet the Glorious Revolution was unwinding, and Charles
Read MoreCaptain John Paton, a legendary Scottish soldier and Covenanter, is best known for his stirring testimony delivered from the scaffold on May 9, 1684. He fought bravely for Gustavus Adolphus in Germany, and also for his Covenanter brethren against the English crown in pitched battles going back to 1644. His last testament to faith has become Captain Paton’s gift to the ages: Dear Friends and Spectators, You are come here to look upon me a dying man…I am a poor sinner, and could never merit but wrath, and have no righteousness of my own; all is Christ’s and His alone; and I have laid claim to His righteousness and His sufferings by faith in Jesus Christ; through imputation they are mine; for I have accepted of His offer on His own terms, and sworn away myself to Him, to be at His disposal, both privately and publicly. Now I have put it upon Him to ratify in heaven all that I have purposed to do on earth, and to do away with all my imperfections and failings, and to stay my heart on Him…I now leave my testimony, as a dying man, against the horrid usurpation of our Lord’s prerogative
Read MoreShahzad and his wife, Shama, clung to each other and prayed as more than five hundred Muslims surrounded their house, shouting insults and threats. The mosque leader had accused the couple, over the loudspeaker, of burning a copy of the Koran, fueling the mob’s rage. “They have burned the Holy Koran!” they shouted. “We will teach them a lesson!” It didn’t take long for the accusation to spread. After entering their house through a hole in the couple’s thatched roof, the angry Muslims dragged them outside. Despite their pleas for mercy and Shama’s pregnancy with their fourth child, the mob beat them ruthlessly, breaking both Shahzad’s and Shama’s legs. Next, the mob tied them behind a tractor and dragged them for more than thirty minutes. Shahzad had moved to the Pakistani city of Kot Radha Kishan in 2000 with his brothers and their father, Nazar. Because of their Christian faith, they had difficulty finding work. In Pakistan, Christians are treated as second-class citizens and often must work as street cleaners or sewage workers. Shahzad and his family found work at a brick kiln. It was hard work but provided enough money for food and a place to live, even though
Read MoreOne of the unexpected shared characteristics of the biblicalrecords of Jesus’s life and the spread of the gospel is the almostpainful and sometimes humorous honesty of those recordingthe events. Mark, also known as John Mark, “signed” his gospel with anembarrassing footnote in chapter 14 when he seems to have described hisown reaction to Jesus’s arrest. “And a young man followed him, withnothing but a linen cloth about his body. And they seized him, but he leftthe linen cloth and ran away naked” (Mark 14:51-52). We tend to justify John Mark’s qualifications to record his gospelbased on the tradition that he based his writings on Peter’s account ofJesus’s ministry. But events like the one above and the fact that Mark’shome in Jerusalem was used as a gathering place for the early churchcertainly place this young disciple in the center of history as an eyewitness. The clipped and almost breathless format of Mark’s gospel (his favorite connecting phrase is “and then”) combines all the action of a storyteller’s style with a young man’s impatience to get the story told. Mark knew the people about whom he was writing. He may not have been part of all the events, but his personal awareness
Read MoreTwo young Scottish women were caught in the British wars of religion and executed for little more than being present at a Covenanter’s open-air revival meetings. Both women were uneducated. Marion Harvie was a servant to the wealthy, and so little is known of Isabel Alison that she is described simply as “living in Perth.” Their deaths signaled no victory for the British crown, no gain in the battle to suppress the Scottish spirit. Caught in events to which they were quiet observers, nonetheless they went to the gallows singing. The first of the Scottish covenant bands appeared in 1557, and fora century these religious dissenters preached a clear gospel, whilesimultaneously mounting a military campaign for independence fromEngland. A “killing time” followed the 1679 assassination of the king’sarchbishop, James Sharp. Charles II had restored the monarchy inEngland in 1662, and was not about to allow another rebellion like theone that severed the head of Charles I. The Covenanters must bestopped — annihilated. So in late 1680 the crown’s agents conductedraids against commoners who had any association with the likes ofDonald Cargill or Richard Cameron. Alison was taken from her home in Perth and Harvie from Borrowstounness. Each was interrogated concerning
Read MoreHorace Pitkin was an American East Coast blueblood. He was a distant relative of Connecticut’s colonial-era attorney general and also kin to Elihu Yale, founder of the great Yale University from which Pitkin graduated in 1892, at the height of America’s Gilded Age. It was also the era of “muscular Christianity” — a mix of robust physical and spiritual development coupled with nearly unlimited optimism that the new century just ahead would be the Christian century, the fulfillment of the Gospel mandate to all the world. For Yale men like Pitkin — strong, charismatic, and gifted — the arena where all virtues would meet their test was China. Indeed, Horace organized Yale’s first Student Volunteer Band for foreign missions. He then went on to Union Seminary in New York, married Letitia Thomas, and set sail for Hunan Province in central China. Pitkin was an organizer, but not blind to the risks. He was, after all, in charge of the station in Hunan for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. As news from Beijing arrived and the Boxers began to show restless aggression, Pitkin sent his wife and child back to the United States. On Saturday, June 30, 1900,
Read MoreKill a martyr; make a follower. If only England had known what the deaths of Scottish Covenanter leaders would do for the movement, and how those courageous men and women would light a fire of faith among the next generation. So it was for nineteen-year-old James Renwick, a graduate of the University of Edinburgh despite his family’s humble means. Renwick had watched Donald Cargill die, had heard his stirring last words, and had seen his head and hands strung up on Netherbow Gate. That day Renwick determined to carry the mantle, to be a Covenanter preacher. He turned out to be a very good one. He was clear, sincere, and passionate. In the meetings he held along hillside heather and valley stream, hundreds would hear him preach about a gospel centered on Christ, a church free of state control, and a destiny of joy that God had prepared for each person who trusted the Savior. Cargill would have been proud to hear him and see him evade capture time and time again. One time, Renwick traveled to Newton Stewart for a series of outdoor meetings, called conventicles. During his stay at the town’s inn, anofficer of the king’s army, also
Read MoreIn 320, Constantine, the Roman emperor of the West, pressuredLicinius, the emperor of the East, to legalize Christianity in hisregion — and Licinius conceded. Later, however, fearing treasonamong the troops, Licinius broke his alliance and decided to eliminateChristianity from his territory. He authorized Agricola, the commanderof his forces in the Armenian town of Sebaste (now Sivas, Turkey), tocarry out his evil intentions. Agricola knew of forty soldiers who were devout Christians andskilled in battle. In an attempt to force them to renounce their faith, heannounced to these men, “Either offer sacrifice to the gods and earngreat honors, or, in the event of your disobedience, be stripped of yourmilitary rank and fall into disgrace.” Then Agricola had the soldiersimprisoned to think about what he had told them. That night theyencouraged themselves by singing psalms and praying. The next morning Agricola brought out the forty men and tried topersuade them with flattery, praising them for their valor and good looks.These Christian soldiers were determined, however, not to fall prey tothe commander’s empty words. So Agricola sent them back to prison toawait the arrival of an official. While the soldiers waited, they preparedthemselves for martyrdom. When the official arrived, he again attempted to
Read MoreJohn Brown was a Scottish farm lad full of passion for Christ. He came from the homeland of the Lollards, the Shire of Ayr. Reared in reformational and free-church faith, Brown was a close friend of Richard Cameron, called the Lion of the Covenant, and Alexander Peden, the Prophet of the Covenant. At Brown’s wedding in 1685, Peden told the new Mrs. Brown: “Ye have a good man to be your husband, but ye will not enjoy him long. Prize his company, and keep linen by you to be his winding sheet, for ye will need it when ye are not looking for it, and it will be a bloody one.” A speech impediment kept Brown from becoming a preacher, but inhis humble cottage he ran a Bible school where he taught youth in whatmay have been the first regular Sunday school. The year 1685 has been called the worst killing time in a terrible era.Scottish Covenanters were relentlessly pressed, harassed, and murdered,as recorded by historian Lord McCauley and author Daniel Defoe. Whentroops arrived at Brown’s door that year, they were seeking Peden, whomthey believed was nearby. They ransacked Brown’s cottage and found afew papers. They wanted to know about
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