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who, when I began to hear the Gospel, preached the same truths which I am to lay down my life for at this time, but now they are joined in a combination against God, and for the most part are all at the enemies' will; for when I got my sentence, the bloody traitors promised to bring any of our own ministers to us, when before them; and so this gives me ground to say, they are become their servants. Now, the Lord knows I have a sore heart to mention these things; but when I saw some of them there, and they offering us any of the rest, it gives me ground to set it down with a sore heart.

"Now, what shall I say? I have sinned against Him, and I am guilty of the defections, for which my carcase must lie in the wilderness, and not see the King come home to His habitation. But oh! I am content, and heartily content, that He gives me my soul for a prey; and well is me for it; I think myself not behind. Oh! my love; Oh! my love; Oh! my love; my altogether lovely Christ!

"The common report through the country is, that I might have had my life on very easy terms; but I could have it on no easier terms than the denying of my Lord and Master, Christ. First, they asked, if I would retract my former confession, and particularised all the papers I had owned before, and if I would not call Charles Stuart a usurper and the devil's vicegerent. I told them I would not go back in anything, 'for ye have nothing,' said I, 'to lay to me but for the avowing Christ to be King in Zion, and head of His own Church.' And they said, they did not usurp Christ's crown. But I said they were blinded and did not see. They said there were but a few of us for these principles. I said they had all the wyte [i.e., blame] of it, and it was most bitter to us, that our ministers had spoken against these truths.

"And, indeed, I think they had not been so cruel to me, were it not these ministers. And so I think our ministers are not free of our blood; for when they spake against us and the way, it hardened these bloody traitors, and emboldened them to take our lives. I leave my testimony against them, for they have caused many poor things to err from the way of God, and many have made ministers their rule, and so the blind have led the blind, and both have fallen into the ditch together. And some think and say: 'Oh! can we quit so many godly ministers? We dow not [i.e., cannot bring ourselves to] quit them.' But I assure you ye shall get a share of the wrath and stroke which God hath prepared for these backsliders and betrayers of their trust. Oh! I wonder what is the reason that men

count it their wisdom to deny God, who has been so kind to them, and who have many a day delighted to commend His love to me, with the hazard of their lives; for which I shall be a witness against them.

"Now, I have no more to say: be faithful unto death, or else, woe! woe! woe! to you that are owning Him at this day, if ye do not own Him in all His offices, as King, Priest, and Prophet. Oh! my dear love! well is me that ever He let me know that His love was better than life. Woe to that creature that will not love my lovely Lord Jesus Christ.

"Now, farewell holy and sweet Scriptures, which were aye my comfort in the midst of all my difficulties. Farewell faith, farewell hope, farewell wanderers, who have been comfortable to my soul, in the hearing them commend Christ's love. Farewell brethren, farewell sisters; farewell Christian acquaintances; farewell sun, moon, and stars! And now, welcome my lovely and heartsome Christ Jesus, into whose hands I commit my spirit throughout all eternity. I may say- Few and evil have the days of the years of my pilgrimage been,' I being about twenty years of age.

"From the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, the women-house on the east side of the prison, Jan. 11th, 1681.

"MARION HARVIE."

HIS martyr, though both young in years and of the weaker sex (which heightens the discovery how brutally furious and mad these persecutors were), was so singularly assisted of the Lord in His cause, and had such discoveries of His special love to her soul, that she was nothing terrified by her adversaries when she was brought from the tolbooth to the Council-house to be carried to her execution. As she came out of the tolbooth door, several friends attending her, she was observed to say, with a surprising cheerfulness and air of heavenly ravishment: "Behold, I hear my Beloved saying unto me, Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away."

And being brought to the Council, Bishop Paterson being resolved, seeing he could not destroy her soul, yet to grieve and vex it, said, "Marion, you said you would never hear a curate, now you shall be forced to hear one;" upon which he ordered one of his suffragans, whom he had prepared for the purpose, to pray. So soon as he began, she said to her fellow-prisoner, Isabel Alison: "Come, Isabel, let us sing the twenty-third Psalm," which accordingly they did.

Marion repeating the Psalm, line by line, without book-which drowned the voice of the curate, and extremely confounded the per

secutors.

Being come to the scaffold, after singing the eighty-fourth Psalm and reading the third of Malachi, she said: "I am come here to-day for avowing Christ to be head of His church and King in Zion. Oh! seek Him, sirs; seek Him and ye shall find Him. I sought Him and found Him; I held Him and would not let Him go."

Then she briefly narrated the manner how she was taken, and recapitulated in short the heads of her written testimony, saying to this effect

"I was going out of Edinburgh to hear the persecuted Gospel in the fields; was taken by the way with soldiers, and brought in to the guard; afterwards I was brought to the Council, and they questioned me if I knew Mr Donald Cargill, or if I heard him preach. I answered, I bless the Lord I heard him, and my soul was refreshed with hearing him, for he is a faithful minister of Jesus Christ.

"They asked, if I adhered to the papers gotten at the Ferry. said I did own them, and all the rest of Christ's truths. If I would have denied any of them, my life was in my offer; but I durst not do it, no, not for my soul. Ere I wanted an hour of His presence, I had rather die ten deaths. I durst not speak against them lest I should have sinned against God.

"I adhere to the Bible and Confession of Faith, Catechisms and Covenants, which are according to this Bible (whereupon she clapped her hands upon the Bible).

"I also adhere to the testimonies given by the faithful witnesses of Christ, that have gone before us on scaffolds and in the fields.

"I leave my testimony against all Quakers, Jesuits, Indulgences, and all profane and ungodly persons, and mainly all covenantbreakers, and persecutors of His way and truths, which I am here to seal with my blood; against all payers of cess, and bonders, and against all oppression or murdering. They say I would murder; but I declare I am free of all matters of fact. I could never take the life of a chicken but my heart shrinked. But it is only for my judgment of things I am brought here.

"I leave my blood on the Council and the Duke of York." At this the soldiers interrupted her and would not allow her to speak any. But she cried out: "I leave my blood on all ungodly and profane wretches."

The most of her discourse was of God's love to her, and the commendation of free grace; and she declared she had much of the Lord's presence in prison, and said: "I bless the Lord the snare is broken and we are escaped."

And when she came to the ladder foot she prayed; and going up the ladder, she said: "Oh! my fair one, my lovely one, come away;" and sitting down on the ladder she said: "I am not come here for murder, for they have no matter of fact to charge me with, but only my judgment. I am about twenty years of age. At fourteen or fifteen I was a hearer of the curates and indulged; and while I was a hearer of these I was a blasphemer and Sabbath-breaker; and a chapter of the Bible was a burden to me; but since I heard this persecuted Gospel I durst not blaspheme, nor break the Sabbath, and the Bible became my delight." With this the major called to the hangman to cast her over; and the murderer presently choked her.

[Wodrow adds: “I am informed they were executed with some three or four wicked women, guilty of murdering their own children, and other villanies, which was very grievous to these two. One of the Episcopal ministers of the town, who waited upon the others on the scaffold, railed bitterly upon these sufferers, and assured them they were in the road to damnation; while he, without any evidence of penitence, was sending the other wicked wretches straight to heaven. However, Isabel Alison and Marion Harvie were not commoved, but sang some suitable Psalms on the scaffold, and prayed, and died with much composure and joy."-ED.]

William Gouger, Christopher Miller, and
Robert Sangster.

ILLIAM GOUGER belonged to Borrowstounness; Robert Sangster is described as a Stirlingshire man; and Christopher Miller a weaver in Gargunnock, a village six miles

to the west of Stirling. Miller was tried March 2d, 1681, on the

charge of treason. He confessed that he had been at Bothwell Bridge, and that he might lawfully rise in arms against the king for the Covenant. He declared he could not write. He was found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged on the 11th inst. Gouger and Sangster were tried March 8th, on the same charge as Miller. Their confessions were similar. Both were condemned to die on the 11th of March. As will be seen from the statement by the compilers of the "Cloud," at the close of the joint testimony, the soldiers showed great cruelty to Gouger on his attempting to speak to the people. He was hanged immediately, without giving him time to pray.-ED.]

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HE JOINT TESTIMONY of WILLIAM GOUGER, CHRISTOPHER MILLER, and ROBERT SANGSTER, who lived in the Shire of Stirling, and suffered at the Grassmarket of Edinburgh, March 11th, 1681. Directed to the Shire of Stirling.

"The Lord, in His holy providence, having singled us out of that shire to seal His controverted truths with our blood, we could not but leave a line behind us (we being Stirlingshire men), to let you know wherefore we are come here this day, to this place of execution; that it is for adhering to that which ministers and professors are disowning. And the Lord seeing it fit to honour us beyond others, now in this day of defection and backdrawing from the truth, we tell you that it is truth we are to suffer for. Although ye condemn us in it, and say that we have a hand in our own death, yet we durst not, for our souls, do otherwise, or else we would have been sure of the broad curse of God on us and our lives both. You may think that it is a novelty of our own head, that we are brought hither for; but if any of you had that love to the Lord that you seemed to have once-a-day, you would count it your duty, as well as ours, to contend for the sweet truths of God, when you see Him so wronged, and His rights so usurped and taken from Him; who was both sweet and kind to poor things at hill-sides, and especially among you of that shire.

"Oh sirs! you may take shame to you, for all that you have done

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