spent the night in prayer. Next morning, as if to tantalize him to the last, the Cardinal sent two Friars, requesting him to confess to them, but he refused to do so, informing them that he had nothing to do with such," but he asked them "to send him the learned man that preached yesterday"-the Sub-Prior, John Winram. Winram was a secret friend of the Reformation, and gladly consented to visit him. After an interesting conversation, Winram asked if he desired to receive the sacrament, to which Wishart replied, that he would be glad to do so-were it administered in the form of its original institution. Winram, on asking permission of the Cardinal, was rudely repulsed. The Cardinal ordered the execution to proceed without delay, and forbad all further intercourse with the prisoner. Attracted by the gentle loveliness of his character, and impressed by the fervour of his piety, the captain of the prison showed him every kindness. He invited him to breakfast, an hour or two before he suffered, and bread and wine being presented, he requested the captain and his family to hear him, for a little. I beseech you," said he, "in the name of God, and for the love you bear our Lord Jesus Christ, that you will sit down in silence, a little while, and vouchsafe me a patient hearing, while I give you a short exhortation, and pray over this bread and wine, and which, as brethren in Christ, we are about to eat, and then I will bid you heartily farewell." It was the custom of the times to take bread and wine to breakfast. The devoted martyr availed himself of the practice by turning it into an opportunity of sealing his dying confession by the most sacred and sublime act of religion. For half an hour he continued with heavenly unction, to speak of the Saviour's sufferings and death. He then distributed the elements to all present-himself partaking of the bread and the wine. "As to myself," he said, "there is a more bitter portion prepared for me, only because I have preached the true doctrine of Christ, which bringeth salvation; but pray with me to the Lord, that I may take it patiently as out of his hand." Having concluded with prayer, he bade the captain and his family farewell, and retired. He had not long withdrawn to his cell, when his executioner appeared, and divesting him of his own apparel, dressed him in a frock of black linen, and attached to his body several bags of gunpowder. Whilst this horrid scene was being enacted within, the preparations for death were busily going forward without. A stake was fixed in the middle of the space between the Castle of St. Andrews and the Abbey, where he was tried the day before. Bundles of faggots were being piled around the pillar of death. Soldiers marched forward to the place of execution. The artillery of the fortress was pointed to the spot, lest an attempt should be made to rescue him, and reclining at the window of his palace, on cushions of down, and overhung with the richest tapestry, lay the lordly Primate in state-waiting the appearance of the martyr. All being ready, the orders was given to bring him forth, when he was led by the executioner to the stake, with his arms pinioned, and guarded by soldiers on every side. Some one, on his way from the prison, solicited from him something in charity-to whom he answered, "I have not now the use of my hands, to give you alms, but ་་ He our merciful Lord, who, out of his abundance feedeth all men, vouchsafe to give you those things, which are necessary both for soul and body." To the last, those inhuman monsters-the priests-ceased not to " vex his righteous soul," and when, within a short distance of the stake, they held up their crucifixes before him, crying out, " Pray to our Lady, that she may intercede for you with her Son." But he rebuked them, saying, "Cease, tempt me not, my brethren, I entreat you." Having reached the place of death, he was quickly chained to the stake, and, during the bustle that was going on around him, he took advantage of the occasion to address the people. charged them to be faithful to the gospel, when he should be taken away," and entreated them not to permit his death to weaken their zeal, or increase their fears. He concluded his dying declaration to the crowd, as became a martyr for Christ. "For the word's sake, and for the true evangel of Jesus Christ," said he, "I suffer this day, not sorrowfully, but with a glad heart and mind. For this cause I was sent, that I should suffer this fire for Christ's sake. Consider, and behold my visage, ye shall not see me change my colour. This great fire I fear not, and so I pray you to do, if that any persecution come unto you for the word's sake, not to fear them that slay the body, but rather him who has power to slay the soul." While he yet spake, the executioner asked his forgiveness, as not being guilty of his death, when he told him to approach, and having kissed him on the cheek, said, "Lo, here is a token that I forgive thee: do thine cifice;" and, immediately after, kneeling down, he prayed aloud. "O, Saviour of the world, have mercy upon me. Father of heaven, I commend my spirit into thy holy hands." Whilst he yet prayed, a lighted brand was applied to the pile, and in an instant, all was in flames. The powder had exploded, but he did not die instantly. On which, the Captain of the prison drew near, and in a few whispered words, exhorted him not to lose his courage, and to commend himself to God. The martyr, with unaltered fortitude, replied, "Though this flame hath scorched my body, it has not daunted my spirit. But he who, from yonder high place beholdeth me with such pride shall, within a few days, lie in the same, as ignominiously as now he is seen proudly to rest himself”— a prediction which, as is well known, awfully came to pass. With these words the soul of the martyr ascended to heaven. In a few moments all that remained of Wishart was a handful of ashes. It was on the 1st of March 1546 that the martyr suffered a day memorable in the annals of the Church of Scotland and of the Christian Church-memorable, too, in the annals of our country. From those ashes of her illustrious martyr, sown into the seed-field of our land, have sprung the religion and liberty we enjoy. We are bold enough to affirm, that to our Reformers, rather than to any other body of men, to the Reformers are we primarily indebted for our national eminence and our national privileges. It was the mighty arm of the Reformation that rent asunder into shreds and scattered to the winds the night-shroud of superstition in which we were enwrapt, and stemmed the tide of despotism. It was the Reformation that "turned back our captivity." Among a certain class it is the fashion to depreciate the merits of those illustrious men, who, by the way, are as superior to their detractors in mental and moral stature, aye and in every sense, as Gulliver was to his Lulliputian tormentors. Papists, we might expect, largely to abuse those men of God, and to load them with every epithet that malignity and falsehood can invent, but men professing to be Protestant, we could scarcely anticipate being found in the ranks of their accusers. Yet, it is so. O tempore, O mores. Scotch Episcopacy has been the foul-mouthed libeller of these servants of the most High God. If the reviewer of our friend Mr. Cunningham's pamphlet had thought of it, he might have added this distinguishing feature of the system and fact in its history to his other points of comparison between Popery and Scotch Episcopacy-that it has aspersed, as bitterly as Popery could ever do, every Reformer, from Wishart and Knox downwards. Is there not something very remarkable in all this? As honest Rowland Hill says, "it is certainly the tail of the fox sticking out of the hole." No one can mistake its meaning, or hesitate in drawing the inference. Following in the wake of Mackenzie, Keith and Collier, sed longo intervallo, some surplice-clad aspirant at St. Andrews thought he had made a discovery, that undoubtedly would prove a complete extinguisher to the claims of Wishart, and the cause of the Reformation. He verily found, in his profoundly learned researches, that the said George Wishart was no martyr at all, but a hired assassin, and so lion-like he shook his mane, and sent such a roar through the land, that he was fully assured that Knox must tremble on his lofty pillar in the Necropolis of Glasgow, for the fame and the fate of his beloved teacher-if he did not positively fall from it into the stream below! It was vox et preterea nihil. Like many such bellows it ended, as it had begun, in the simple exercise of his Majesty's lungs. It has been again and again proved, that it was not George Wishart of Pittarrow who was commissioned to be the bearer of a correspondence between certain conspirators in Scotland and Henry VIII. in 1544, but another-not George, but "a Mr. Wyschart," as the trumped-up letter states-though no such letter has been ever found to exist. The name was enough, as if there were no other Wisharts in all Scotland!—and thus every man is in danger of suffering from his name, so that generations hence, some enemy of the great statesman will be found asseverating that he was an atrocious murderer, and the accomplished author of "Guesses at Truth," his accomplice in crime, because the one was called Burke, and the other Hare. The base and contemptible attempt was only the revival of a similar charge by Tytler, the writer of Scotch History, who, not content with audaciously libelling the character of Wishart, had the boldness to aim a similar blow at the reputation of Knox, on the infallible authority of a scrap of paper, attached by a rusty pin to some document or other in the State Paper Office. The charge was, that as Wishart was an accessary to the death of Beaton, Knox was equally involved in that of Rizzio-being a pitiful effort, truly, to blast the memory of the greatest men whom this or any other country has ever produced-men distinguished by every personal grace and every public virtue, who to the boldness of the prophet, and the zeal of the apostle, and the devotedness of the martyr, added the purest and the loftiest patriotism. But the secret is manifest. Attack the Reformation by attacking its heroes. If "the burning and shining lights" be eclipsed, all around them-their work, must be proportionally in darkness. Sir Walter Scott, a bigoted, Scotch Episcopalian, made a like thrust at the confessors of the second Reformation-the heroic and devoted Covenanters-fortunately, too, without either honour or success. It is the darkest blot on the lustre of his genius, and still haunts his tomb. As prose, either in history or romance, in ponderous volumes or flying pamphlets, has not succeeded, another has entered the lists with the lance of poetry in his hand-he hastens from the professor's chair, clad in the panoply of chivalry, and burning with the bravest attachment to his ladye-love "The Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church," in the person of the high-minded and gallant Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount of Dundee-whose exalted virtues he makes bold to sing in the strains of the olden time. He makes him out to be little less then some lofty spirit from a loftier region than this, an arch-angel booted and spurred, mounting a high mettled charger, and carrying a pair of horse pistols by his side! A bloodier monster never lived a darker fiend never inhabited a human form. But so it is, the poor Covenanters must be sung down in the nineteenth centuary, as they were shot down in the seventeenth. We tell the learned author of "Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers," that he will outlive his efforts. One word as to the infamous attempt to brand the Scottish martyr as a murderer. It is said, as we have already noticed, that he went into England, in 1544, on a secret mission to the King; this secret mission being the assassination of the Cardinal. Now the fact is that he had been in England for six years before, and had never once been in Scotland, and besides this was the year in which he returned from England, instead of going to it. He did not know the individuals until 1546, with whom he is said to have conspired, in 1544, and there is no reason-not the most distant shadow of reason to supposethat he was personally acquainted with Leslie, Kirkaldy, or any of their fellow-conspiritors, who, at last, took away the life of the Cardinal. Indeed, Beaton was an object of national detestation, and apart altogether from his concern with the death of Wishart, it is probable that he would soon have become the victim of popular vengeance. By his crimes he had disgusted, by his oppression he had provoked, and by his cruelties he had maddened the nation. We do not palliate or in any way seek to excuse the manner of his death. On the contrary, we declare that the conduct of the conspirators was in every respect most criminal; but we mention these facts to show that the cause of his death was altogether different from what the culumniators of Wishart would lead us to infer. The lines of Sir David Lindsey of the Mount, sufficiently embody the popular feeling at the time, on the subject "As for the Cardinal we grant, He was a man we weel might want, And yet I think the sooth to say, But why waste words on a subject which has been already triumphantly settled. We have no fear that these pen-gun assaults will materially damage the reputation of the martyr. Such vain but virulent efforts are like calling nicknames at the moon. She walks majestically on in her brightness, and smiles from her lofty path at the small and pitiful ire of such bawling mortals. We rest assured that the character of the martyred Wishart, and of all God's faithful servants, is safe in his own keeping, and as he sustained and comforted themselves in their great fight of afflictions, so will he vindicate their memory when aspersed by man. He will arise and plead their cause. Every charge he will roll back with his own hand-every stain he will wipe off. "Them that honour me I will honour," is a promise he will fulfil to their memories, as he did to themselves, and, in the fulness of his own time, and in the sovereignty of his own way, he will bring forth their righteousness as the light, and their judgment as the noon day." For them, as for all his valiant ones, "a good time is coming." 66 "Who dies in vain MODERN WRITERS ON ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY, TESTED BY AN APPEAL TO ANCIENT AUTHORITIES. If we really wish to know the principles of the Church of Scotland, as set forth and acted upon by our Reformers, in place of theorizing on their nature, or, it may be, subordinating the most clearly expressed statements, to some favourite, but erroneous preconception, let us, at once, go to these worthies themselves, and catechise them on the subject. Though, dead they still speak upon it, and that with copiousness and precision. We shall endeavour to do this; and the result of such an appeal, will, we think, astonish our readers, especially when applied as a test of the orthodoxy of Mr. Gray's Free Church Catechism, and the Duke of Argyll's Essay on the Ecclesiastical History of Scotland. We do not refer on this occasion, to the Fathers of our Church as parties, in these questions; but as the highest authorities by whom |