Covennter Poetry

Behold you ruined pile, which rears its head
Like some grim spectre of the mighty dead;
While girt by boundless Ocean’s bulwark strong,
With Time’s relentless hand it struggles long;
Wild sea-mews ‘thwart the troubled billows sail,
And through the din resounds their mournful wail;
While stately ships are gulfed in that dark main,
Against whose might the pilots skill is vain,
And created waves besiege yon rocky steep,
Which guards the shell-paved caverns of the deep:
Cast in the sternest mould of Nature’s hand,
Behold a scene magnificently grand!

Those ancient halls, in the days of other years,
Have oft been trod by Scotland’s noblest peers;
And she, the dark eyeed Queen, upon whose brow
The bright gems paled before her beauty’s gow,
Ere yet her fortune’s star was on the wane,
She here hath gazed upon yon surgy main.
The thunders of our mighty Knox have rolled,
Athwart these portals and these chambers old,
Which oft have witnessed midnight deeds of woe,
And seen the brave by murder’s stroke laid ow.
The birth place of a Royal Stuart-child,
‘Twas here his days of spring-time smiled,
Ere yet a monarch’s wreath had crowned his head,
Ere yet dark visions hovered round his bed.

But ’tis not regal pomp of other days
Which now enchains our faith-enraptured gaze,
It is a little spot of hallowed turf,
Oft sprinkled by the wild waves foamy surf;
Now o’er that spot the gay and thoughtless tread,
Unmindful of their country’s sainted dead.
Yet many an eye with sorrow’s tear is filed,
And many a Scottish heart with awe is thrilled;
For here our WISHART stood amidst his foes
Unmoved, ave by his trammelled country’s s woes;

Although  the stake with threatening frown stood by,
To shoot its faming columns to the sky.

Tis done! that deed of bigot rage is o’er
And WISHART’s spirit brave aloft doth soar.
Oh, Solemn hour! When that long fettered soul,
Freed from its chains, doth reach the martyrs goal;
Where, mid the glories of yon Palm-crowned throng,
Praise to their God for ever swells the song!
Clad in its sablest garb, the vault of heaven,
By deafening peals and lightning’s flash is riven,
While stormy winds with trumpet tongues proclaim
The martyr’s courage and tyrants shame!
Lo, where proud BEATON sits, in fiend like rage,
His deadly war with innocence to wage,
And gloats exuting o’er his victim’s fate,
Inflamed with venomed ire–with quenchless hate;
But though the flames obeye his mandate given,
On fiery wings they bear the soul to heaven;
‘tib but the body they to dust recall.
Obedient to the Bigot’s vengeful calll.
But lo! amid the spirit’s parting strife,
The martyr’s  soul is fired with heavenly life;
Hark! from his lips prophetic numbers flow,
In awful cadence, ”gainst his country’s foe.

“Vengeance is mine” the Lord of hosts hath said,
“That vengeance, BEATON, hovers o’er thy head;
“Ere many moons have wanted, a summons dread,
“Shall beckon thee to Death’s dark mouldering bed;
“And when that hour of mortal woe is o’er,
“And thy brief dream hath fled of earthly power,
“Then shall our spirits disembodied meet,
“Amidst the thunders of the judgement-seat.
“I go, I go! my spirits chains are riven,
“I go! m y soul hath from her slumbers risen!”

Ages have passed since WISHART’S fearful doom,
O’ercast broad Scotland with a darkening gloom,
Since Fate’s dread voice proclaimed the BEATON’S knell,
And in the death-grasp of his foes he fell.
Ages have passed–the papal night is o’er,
The Gospel, beams illume our Scotland’s shore;
And now our martyred champion’s far-spread name
Re-echoes o’er our hills with deathless fame,
Linked with the band who, in the bygone days,
Died for their God and the flames fierce blaze.
BRAVE HAMILTON! the young-the earthly doomed,
Sadly amid thy death-pangs ocean boomed;
And aged MILNE, upon whose time-worn form
Was spent the last dread fury of the storm;
With FOREST, CRAW, and RESBY, (England’s son,)
Who midst St. Andrew’s fanes the combat won.

Then pause awhile! for this is holy ground,
Although ye mark nor cross, nor stone around.
Sepulchral trophies crown the monarch’s name,
The stately column warrior deeds proclaim;
The minstrel hath his shrine in lofty song,
And shall thy names be lost, oh fearless throng
Not so my country! from your slumbers wake,
Ye dweller’s by the mountain and the lake;
And now, when  many a peaceful year hath fled,
Oppression rears once more her Gorgon head,
And fetters clank mid Zion’s bulwarks free,
Rousing the brave for Truth and Liberty,–
The hour is come, Oh patriots to arise,–
Recall the days of yore with tear-dimmed eyes,
And let the obelisk its crest upraise
For Scotland’s martyr’s of the olden days!
—Author Unknown

The above book, will give you a quick over-view and potted history of the testimony and martyrdom of George Wishart.

I bless Thee for the quiet rest Thy servant taketh now
I bless Thee for his blessedness, and for his crowned brow;
For every weary step he trod in faithful following Thee,
And for the good fight foughten well, and closed right valiantly.
—Mrs. A. Stuart-Menteith
Lays of the Kirk and Covenant

Life was once to me like summer,
With its glitter and its smile;
I, as thoughtless as the insect,
Trifled through the little while.
All was buoyant life within me,
All was jubilant around;
Need of Jesus then, I felt not,
So I sought him not nor found.

But the summer soon was ended,
And the gloomy winter came;
All my blooming joys were withered
Into grief’s of every name.
Still, I hoped the change of season,
Would bring summer round again:
But instead, the gloom grew blacker–
And I sought the Saviour then.

Yes, I sought with cries and weeping,
But no answer was returned,
Echo flung me back my ‘plainings,
‘Twas as if my cry was spurned.
Sore distressed at the silence,
I with fervour did entreat;
Still the ear could catch no answer,
Save the hearts distracted beat.

Well I knew ’twas but through Jesus
That the sinner comes to God:
But with what we come to Jesus?
Ah! ’twas here I missed the road:
I was bringing him obedience,
When I should have brought but sin;
So my knocking though half frantic,
No admittance this could win.

Then I studied to know better
What already well I knew;
And the good things that I practiced,
Better still I strove to do:
Yet the deeper grew the darkness
And the silence grew more dread,
So I owned my case as hopeless,
And my soul among the dead.

Then I cast me, self-despairing
On the Saviours boundless grace
Not a hope had I of blessing,
If He met not such a case.
And I felt that need so urgent
Scarce on earth could ever be:
So I begged for one so ruined,
Mercy instant, mercy free.

Then at once the peace of pardon
Did my sinking soul restore,
And the love sprung up spontaneous,
Which I could not force before
When I took the place of sinner,
And at mercy’s footstool lay
Jesus took his place as Saviour
And at once put sin away.

Ah! ’tis ruinous to cover
Filthy sores with rags more foul:
Strip them bare at once before Him
That His grace may make you whole.
He delights in showing mercy
To a soul that owns its sin;
But the soul that thinks its earning
Not a smile shall ever win. [John Dickie, Suffering Saint of the Scottish Covenant]

So near the hearts of the persecuted wanderers was the headship of Christ, that it was practically blazoned upon their banners, interwoven with their dying testimonies, and afterwards inscribed upon their grey-grave-stones, erected in the solitary wild to mark the hallowed spot where they fell. The very country was laid under martial law, and soldiers received a running commission to shoot these cowering or fleeing sufferers like the wild fowl of heaven. Thus Scotland was turned into a hunting field, while worthless curates, mitred bishops, crouching minions, and political bigots were hounding on a ruffian soldiery to the game of blood. There were still, however, some to struggle and suffer, rather than acknowledge either a profligate or a papist as the head of their church, or accept of that as a favour which they were entitled to demand as a right. At last Heaven smiledupon the hallowed struggles of these noble heroes of the covenant. Their piety and patriotism, their principle and privations, their constancy in torture and in death, made a deep impression upon the public mind, excited extensive sympathy, and a secret feeling of resistance. At last the grasping popish usurper of the supremacy over a protestant church was hurled from the throne.

A respite came in the memorable Revolution of 1688. The old men, however, who had seen or heard of the glory of the first national temple, wept when they beheld that of the new erection so far inferior. The genuine representatives of the martyrs stood sighing and moaning without, wrestling and praying, unheeded and unheard, beside the torn banners of the covenant, bewailing the tarnished lustre of Christ’s crown in Scotland and the continued usurpation of it in England. As the hoary-headed Jew stood leading over the top of his staff, and praying in the valley of Jehoshaphat that the Lord would return to Jerusalem, the city of his fathers sepulchers, and render it a meet habitation for the advent of Messiah the prince; so they stood weeping, and praying as they wept, that the Redeemer would again return, and wear his crown, in its untarnish.ed lustre, in the l and of their father’s blood. [The Headship of Christ over His Church and her Independant Jurisdiction by James Ferguson]

The persecuted children, Scotia foiled
A tyrant’s and a bigot’s bloody laws:
There, leaning on his spear (one of the array
Whose gleam in former days had scathed the rose
On England’s banner, and had powerless struck
The infatuate monarch and his wavering host),
The lyart veteran heard the Word of God
By Cameron thundered, or by Renwick poured
In gentle stream: then rose the song, the loud
Acclaim of praise: the wheeling plover ceas’d
Her plaint; the solitary place was glad;
And on the distant cairns the watcher’s ear
Caught doubtfully at times the breeze-borne note.
But years more gloomy followed; and no more
The assembled people dared, in face of day
To worship God, or even at the dead
Of night, save when the wintry storm raved fierce,
And thunder-peals compell’d the men of blood
To couch within their dens; then dauntlessly
The scattere’d few would meet, in some deep dell
By rocks o’er-canopied, to hear the voice,
Their faithful pastor’s voice: he by the gleam
Of sheeted lightening, op’d the sacred book,
And words of comfort spake–over their souls
His accents soothing came,–as to her young
The heath-fowl’s plumes, hen at the close of eve,
She gathers in, mournful, her brood, despers’d
By murderous sport, and o’er the remnant spreads
Fondly her wings; close nestling ‘neath the breast,
They, cherish’d, cower amid the purple blooms. [James Grahame]

Oh how I long to see that noble spirit above, alive again and filling Christ’s church–where no cost is too great, and Christ is all in all.

Continued from:
He told how:

He lifted up the standard where Cargill laid it down,
Where Cameron left it, as he rose to wear the martyrs crown.
To the hungering souls in Scotland he had broke the bread of life,
And shunned all innovations and all bitter roots of strife;
But chief of all, his aim had been to guard with faithful hand
The Gospel’s native purity, and the Covenants of the land.
Because he could not dance in step with the piping of the times,
And dreaded all compliances as heaven-defying crimes,
Those that his brethren should have been, did all affection quench,
Nay, cut him from theire fellowshi8p even as a rotten branch.

While thus he told how best-loved friends were severed from his side,
Tears of deep agony gushed forth, and mournfully he cried:
‘Woe’s me that I in Meshech am a sourjourner so long!
That I in taberacles dwell to Kedar that belong!
My sould with him that hateth peace hath long a dweller been;
I am for peace, but when I speak, for battle they are keen!’
And he spoke with him most cheeringly, with reverent, tender love,
And he prayed as they alone can pray whose heart’s home is above!
He prayed that in His own good time, the Lord would grant release,
And let his servant, worn with age and toil, depart in peace;
That all his works and sufferings, with acceptance might be crowned,
And the fruit, in ages yet to come, might gloriously abound.

‘Tis time we part, not far from hence the slayer hath a den,
And I know the night-shades gather thick, around old Blaxeden.’
‘Rough is the path before thee, planted thick with thorns and briars,
And a spirit meek and fearless, and a wary step requires,
And they feet are soft and tender yet; but keep a constant eye,
Unto Thy Master’s will, and thou shalt quit the stage with joy;
While they who walk with stately step, and bend their necks in pride,
Shall soil their garments, and be fain their squalid looks to hide.

‘Who trust in self, are forth at sea in a frail and broken ship;
Who build their church upon the breath of a Princes or courtiers lip,
Are building on the shifting sand, and on the fleeing cloud;
And stand they may, so long as they are tools to serve the proud.
Trust thou for ever in the Lord! for everlasting strength
Is in His arm, and He shall rise to plead they cause at length;’
And he drew him nearer, and he plced his hand upon his head,
And, with a pause of inward prayer, thse solemn words he said:-
‘God be they sun and shield! Farewell! And when we meet again,
It will not be as now, my son, in peril and in pain!’
And slowly Renwick left the bed– his finger raised above!-
The old man’s eye still following him, with look and tears of love.
–James Dodd’s