To her sorrowful but softened heart they seemed an image of her own
condition. Was she not alone—as it were—on a stormy sea, amidst wild and
tossing breakers? “And it was now dark, and Jesus was not come.” Was it
because he cared not? Oh, no; his heart was full of love. Whatever else
she doubted, henceforward she would not doubt of this. But would he come
to her? Surely she would “receive him willingly.” Would he but say to
her: “It is I; be not afraid?” Would he but reveal himself as he had
done to one she loved? Then all might yet be well, and a bright and
blessed morning dawn upon her night of weeping.
She thanked George calmly enough, and then withdrew to the welcome
refuge of her own room. As her heart had known its own bitterness, so
with this newly awakened hope no stranger might intermeddle. Thus it is,
almost always, with deep natures. Whether we lose or win, we must fight
our great battles alone. Alone! but if once we have learned to “cry to
the strong for strength”—because we know that the strong is also the
loving One, and therefore will surely hear us—it is no longer doubtful
whether victory will be ours or no. Weary and heavy laden heart, be
comforted; “thou wouldst not be seeking him, if he had not already found
thee.”[37]
Very soon Alison’s prayer was answered, and the desire of her heart was
given her. She found rest in Christ; and though still she wept for the
earthly treasure his hand had taken, she wept like a child sobbing out
its grief in its mother’s arms; not like one standing outside in the
cold and dark, knocking in vain at a closed door. Christ had revealed
himself to her as her Saviour, her Redeemer, her ever-living Friend. And
having seen him, she had seen the Father also; she knew him as her
Father who loved and cared for her. Once she could not say: “It is the
Lord, let him do what seemeth him good;” _now_, “Even so, Father, for so
it seemeth good in thy sight,” was the voice of her resigned and
grateful heart.
The great sorrow of her life had come to her in midsummer, when skies,
and leaves, and flowers were brightest, and all nature seemed to
rejoice. Peace and comfort came when the November winds were whistling
through the leafless trees, and the first snows of winter were whitening
the ground.
And even then she arose and went to her own home. When God visited her
and gave her peace, he taught her that she had a work to do for him, and
that the command, “Occupy till I come,” was as truly addressed to her as
though her life had been filled with earthly ties and earthly happiness.
Nay, perhaps it is addressed to her and to those like her, for their
comfort and blessing, in a sense peculiarly full of meaning; for was she
not called and set apart, even more than others, to care for the things
of the Lord, that she might be holy both in body and in spirit?
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
IX.
=Left Alone.=
“Thy love
Shall chant itself its own beatitudes
After its own life-working. A child-kiss
Set on thy sighing lips shall make thee glad;
A poor man, served by thee, shall make thee rich;
A sick man, helped by thee, shall make thee strong;
Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense
Of service which thou renderest.”
E. B. BROWNING.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
IX.
=Left Alone.=
Alison Lindsay found her father and her brothers full of sympathy for
her, and of indignation at the fate of Stratton. As so often happens,
death had proved a great peace-maker. David’s punishment had so vastly
exceeded his offence, that the offence itself was altogether consigned
to oblivion. Nothing more was heard of the petulance and obstinacy with
which he had involved himself in the quarrel which provoked the Lindsays
of Edzell to deny him the honour of their alliance; only his dauntless
courage and fortitude were remembered now. Even young Gavin, who had
once been so glad to bring David his father’s hostile message, was upon
more than one occasion heard to call him “a martyr.”
Knowing something of Alison’s strong affections and of the determination
of her character, and not knowing the change that had taken place in her
views, they half expected her to evidence her grief for David by bidding
the world farewell and retiring to a convent. Great was their relief to
find that the only daughter of their house had formed no such intention;
greater still their wondering admiration of the quiet fortitude and
resignation with which she bore her heavy sorrow. They had always known
that “our Alison was a brave lass, and had a great spirit,” but they
never thought so highly of her as when they saw her resuming with
energy, and even with apparent cheerfulness, the occupations (though not
the amusements) suitable to her age and position. Into all their
interests and their harmless pleasures she entered fully, giving them a
sympathy and a toleration which they in turn learned to extend to her.
It was a signal mark of this toleration that when, in the course of
time, other offers were made for her hand, and amongst them more than
one which, if accepted, would greatly have advanced family interests;
her indulgent father only said, “Please yerself, my lass;” and her
brothers refused to interfere, on the plea that “our Alice will aye gang
her ain gait.”
To her religion they were gradually led to extend something more than
toleration; and to win their hearts to it became the great interest,
because the great duty, of her life. The impression made by David’s
martyrdom was not suffered to die out. The precious season of natural
re-action against priestly tyranny was eagerly, yet wisely, spent in
leavening their minds with as much of Scripture truth as they were
willing to hear from her lips. During the five or six following years
nearly all the members of her family were won, at different intervals
and more or less gradually, to the cause of the Reformation. In some,
indeed, the change was merely outward, but in others it was deeper and
more real; and more than once or twice was Alison given to taste the
full blessedness of leading those she loved to her Saviour’s feet. Nor
was her quiet but effectual work for him limited to her immediate
family. The servants, the retainers of the household, the poor of the
neighbourhood, all felt her sweet influence for good; she was unwearied
in ministering to their bodily necessities, but still more anxious to
bear to their thirsting souls the living waters of the Word of God.
Yet it must not be concluded that Alison’s life, whilst thus rich in
blessing for others, was for herself either a perfectly happy or a
perfectly healthful one. In a sense, indeed, the wound of her heart was
healed; but “what deep wound ever healed without a scar?” and to tell
where _that_ wound had been, a broad deep scar remained. There was an
incompleteness in her life, a sense of want, a hunger in her heart; and
this was felt not so much during the first year after David’s martyrdom,
as during those that followed it. For when, in that hour of deepest need
and sorrow, God had revealed himself as the strength of her life and her
portion for ever, it seemed as though want or woe could never again come
near the heart he had satisfied with his own fulness. Had he not made
the wilderness to rejoice and blossom as the rose? Had he not given her
songs in the night, as when a holy solemnity is kept; and with these
upon her lips, should she not come to Zion with everlasting joy, and
sorrow and sighing flee away?
But weeks and months and years rolled on in slow monotonous succession.
Life, with its cares and struggles and dull every-day realities, drew
its meshes around her again. The brilliant hues and colours of the
morning—“the gold, the crimson, and the scarlet, like the curtain of
God’s tabernacle”—which had heralded the shining of the sun of
righteousness upon her soul, faded from her, and passed into the light
of common day. True, it was light still and not darkness,—light to live
in, light to work by, light to be thankful for as heaven’s best gift;
and yet sometimes, in spite of all this, tears would start,—tears not of
rebellion, scarcely even of sorrow, but rather of weariness and
loneliness. She wanted something, she knew not what; and she often felt
that if it were not very wrong, it would be very sweet to think that the
time of her rest in heaven was not far away.
Those around her understood but little of her inner life, else, perhaps,
they might not inaptly have described her in the poet’s words,—
“You never heard her speak in haste;
Her tones were sweet,
And modulated just so much
As it was meet.
Her heart sate silent through the noise
And concourse of the street;
There was no hurry in her hands,
No hurry in her feet;
No joy drew ever near to her,
That she should run to greet.”
One thought indeed there was that came to her with something like a
thrill of rapturous hope. As she indulged it, it returned again and
again, and with such force, that in process of time it became the
strongest temptation of her quiet secluded life. She had early learned
contented acquiescence in God’s dealings with him she loved, as far as
he himself was concerned. She thought of David Stratton not with
resignation only, but with deep and solemn joy. For she rightly
considered his fate as the most glorious possible to the sons of men.
None of the diadems of earth appeared to her imagination half so bright
as the martyr’s crown. Was it then so strange, if she gazed on that
crown until she began to long that it might be hers also? Or if she
looked upon the bright pathway by which the martyr had gone to his rest,
until her eyes were so dazzled that the common beaten road in which God
appointed her to tread seemed dark and void of beauty and interest? That
longing for martyrdom,—is it hard to comprehend, even for us; knowing as
we do, that there are many things worse than death, and sometimes
dreaming, as we may, of the strange sweetness of proving by some great
sacrifice our love to him whose love to us was so great? Does it seem a
thing incredible to us that the men and women of other days should have
rushed unsummoned before the heathen tribunals, stretching out rash
hands to grasp the fiery cross, and even sinning that they might attain
what so many through the weakness of nature have sinned that they might
avoid? Surely we can sympathize with Alison Lindsay if, in the loosening
of earthly ties, and the daily strengthening of those that bound her to
the unseen, the thought of such a fate often presented itself to her
mind as a consummation devoutly to be wished for. Why could not she have
died as David Stratton did?—“for the word of God and for the testimony
of Jesus Christ.” It would have been so easy and so blessed to give up
life in such a cause. That would be indeed to serve and glorify her Lord
and Saviour; and to enter in joyfully, and with an “abundant entrance,”
within the veil, where her longing heart desired to be. But her desire
was not given her. There was indeed little fear, or as perhaps she would
have phrased it, little hope, that a life so retired as hers, and so
carefully guarded by loving hearts and hands, should be cut short by
martyrdom.
With an intensity of sympathy and interest which it is difficult for us
to realize, Alison watched the fate of those brave sufferers who—after
David Stratton and Norman Gourlay—sealed their faith with their blood in
Scotland. It almost seemed as if she went with each one of them in
spirit to the very gate of heaven, hoping that, as it opened to admit
the new comer, some gleam of the glory within might fall on the solitary
watcher outside; and then, when all was over, many a quiet tear was
shed, and many a prayer was whispered,—“How long, O Lord? Is it not yet
enough? Wilt thou not soon make an end of this tyranny, and give peace
and freedom to thy people in this realm?”
Those for whom she wept thus were not too many to be briefly enumerated
here. Four years after the martyrdom of Stratton and Gourlay, several
persons were burned in one fire on the Castle Hill, Edinburgh, “when
they that were first bound to the stake godly and marvellously did
comfort them that came behind.” Of four of these brave and faithful
witnesses—Kyllour, Beverage, Sympson, and Forrester—little is known to
us; but the fifth, Dean Thomas Forrest, stands before us in striking and
interesting individuality; his story may be read in Fox’s “Book of
Martyrs.”
Alison’s heart thrilled at Forrest’s dying challenge to one who sought
to persuade him to retract—“Before I deny a word which I have spoken,
you shall see this body of mine blow away with the wind in ashes.” But
she gave perhaps a tenderer sympathy to the two Glasgow martyrs who
suffered shortly afterwards. Russell’s gentle disposition, and Kennedy’s
extreme youth (he was only eighteen), seemed to have softened the hearts
of some of their persecutors; and even the Archbishop of Glasgow would
have allowed them to escape, but for the ferocious zeal of Cardinal
Beaton’s emissaries. Kennedy “at first was faint, and gladly would have
recanted;” but God so wonderfully revealed himself to him, raising
himself above all fear, and filling his heart with joy and peace, that
he met his doom triumphantly. Nor was Russell less steadfast. “Brother,
fear not,” he said to his young companion. “More potent is He that is
with us than he that is in the world. The pain that we shall suffer is
short, and shall be light; but our joy and consolation shall never have
an end. And, therefore, let us contend to enter in unto our Master and
Saviour by the same straight way that he has trod before us. Death
cannot destroy us, for it is destroyed already by him for whose sake we
suffer.”
Four years passed ere there were martyr-deaths again in Scotland. During
that interval King James died, and the Earl of Arran, who succeeded to
the principal authority under the title of Governor, favoured at first
the cause of the Reformation. But this gleam of prosperity soon faded
away, no doubt to the bitter sorrow and disappointment of many a waiting
heart.
That of Alison Lindsay was still beating high with hope for her country
and her faith, when a friend of her father’s, newly arrived from Perth
(or, as it was then called, St. Johnstone), told a tale that awoke
deeper and sadder feelings within her than any she had heard for the
last nine years. Four burghers of that city had been tried, condemned,
and executed, for heresy. They were humble and simple men, but
God-fearing and intelligent, able to give a reason for the hope that was
in them, and willing to die rather than surrender it. But the
martyr-band also included a woman. Helen Stirk, the wife of the most
advanced and fearless of the “heretics,” was accused of heresy, and
condemned to die because she refused to pray to the Virgin Mary. “She
desired earnestly to die with her husband, but she was not suffered;
yet, following him to the place of execution, she gave him comfort,
exhorting him to perseverance and patience for Christ’s sake, and,
parting from him with a kiss, said in this manner: ‘Husband, rejoice,
for we have lived together many joyful days; but this day in which we
must die ought to be most joyful to us both, because we must have joy
for ever. Therefore I will not bid you good night, for we shall suddenly
meet with joy in the kingdom of heaven.’ The woman after was taken to a
place to be drowned, and albeit she had a child on her breast, yet this
moved nothing the unmerciful hearts of the enemies. So, after she had
commended her children to the neighbours of the town for God’s sake, and
the sucking bairn was given to the nurse, she sealed up the truth by her
death.”
Bitterly did the Lindsays execrate this cruelty, exceptional even in
that cruel age, and many were their invectives against him by whose
authority it was perpetrated; “curses not loud but deep” added to those
already “waiting in calm shadow around” the wicked Cardinal, until the
memorable day when he filled up the measure of his iniquity, and the
land was no longer able to bear him.
But Alison heard the tale in silence; not until she had entered into her
chamber, and shut the door, did the torrent of mingled feelings it
awakened find vent in tears. How she envied that unknown sister in
Christ, to whom he had given this great joy and glory of suffering for
his name’s sake. How blessed seemed _her_ lot, to go with him she loved
not only to the gate, but within it. Not to turn back to earth, weary
and sorrowful, to tread that long, long path of life alone,—
“With aching heart, and weeping eyes,
And silent lips;”
but neither by life nor by death to be divided from him, the pain of the
brief parting to be swallowed up in the joy of the near and certain
re-union, and for all farewell only those sweet words, “I will not bid
you good night, for we shall suddenly meet with joy in the kingdom of
heaven.”
“Father, Father!” sobbed Alice on her knees, “thou hast been very
gracious to thy poor, weak, sinful child. And thou knowest I would not
murmur. Righteous art thou in all thy ways, and holy in all thy works,
_yet_ let me talk with thee of thy judgments. Wouldst thou but grant me
a portion like to _hers_? None ever raised such a triumphant song of
praise for life restored as I would do for that death—better and
brighter than any other lot on earth.”
Thus she prayed, if these words can be called a prayer. But she rose
uncomforted, because in part at least unsubmissive. “Happy, happy Helen
Stirk!” were the words on her lips; and in spite of her resolves,
perhaps the contrast her heart drew the while was more than half a
murmur.
But as she lay awake through the long silent hours of the winter night,
other thoughts came to her—visions of little lonely orphan children,
fatherless and motherless, wandering desolate and uncared for, or tended
only by the unloving hands of strangers. Had such thoughts saddened the
last hours of the martyr-mother? Had she dreamed, as she pressed that
last kiss on the lips of her babe, that perhaps in after years those
lips would be taught to lisp the “Aves” _she_ died rather than repeat?
Or was it given her to see the untwining of those tender ties without a
pang? Could she part from all in full unfaltering reliance on his
promise who has said, “Leave thy fatherless children, and I will
preserve them alive?”
Alison felt very sure that He would make that promise good. But by and
by it occurred to her that he usually worked by means, and that when he
wanted the lambs of his flock fed and cared for, it was his way to say
to some one, “Feed my lambs.” What if he said it that hour, even unto
her? Why not? There was meal enough in their “girnels” to feed twenty
orphan children, wool enough in their stores to clothe them, and little
danger that her liberal and kind-hearted father would object to any use
she pleased to make of either. Every detail of her plan was soon
settled. It was simple, natural, easy; requiring no romantic effort, no
heroic sacrifice; only some forethought, and a little daily self-denial.
She felt it would be so sweet to do this work of love for her martyred
sister, and for Him for whom she gave her life. And thus she learned
that it might be as blessed a thing to do as to suffer his will, to live
unto him as to die unto him. For living or dying, she was his. Her
morning prayer began as her evening prayer should have ended. “Not my
will, but thine be done, O my Father. I see thy will is the best, and I
know now thou carest as tenderly for her thou leavest here to work and
pray, as for her thou calledst up yonder to rejoice and praise.”
It seemed as if the orphan children that Alison brought from St.
Johnstone to her home at Edzell, brought with them a kind of completion,
as well as manifold comfort and blessing to her own life. Their
love—childhood’s love, so easily won, so freely expressed—was a joy to
her lonely heart; and the task of training them for Christ, an
ever-fresh interest and occupation. And besides, this work, undertaken
directly for her Lord, helped her to feel that all her other work was
for him also. Thus quietly and peacefully her days glided on, like
waters that fertilize where they flow. No praise she sought from man,
and but little she received; but he that hath “his eyes like a flame of
fire” to search the hidden things of darkness, would surely have said of
her, “I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy
patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first.”
She lived to see the morning of the Reformation—which had dawned upon
Scotland amidst cloud and storm—settle into the noonday of gospel light
and liberty. Although by that time her dark hair was mixed with gray,
her heart was still fresh and young. A joyful day it was for her, when
being on a visit with George Stratton, Laird of Lauriston, who both as a
youth and a man was a zealous and consistent friend of the Reformation,
she accompanied him and part of his family to the house of Erskine of
Dune, to hear John Knox preach the word of God, and to receive the
sacrament from his hands. And when a young David Stratton (so named by
the Laird in affectionate remembrance of his martyred uncle) asked her
on their return if she had been happy, adding significantly, “but I mind
_you’re_ aye happy, Mistress Alison,” she did not contradict him, but
answered simply, “Yes, my bairn; and why should I not? Loving-kindness
and mercy have followed me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in
the house of the Lord for ever.”
Nothing more remains to be told. Short and simple, as it has come down
to us, is the true story of David Stratton; and we have purposely
avoided obscuring its few salient features by any redundancy of
ornament. The Reformation martyrs of Scotland were not numerous, in
comparison with those that suffered in other countries. But they were in
many ways fitting representatives of their nation, its true
“first-fruits” offered up to God. Every age was there: WALTER MILL, who
had passed the fourscore years allotted to man, and might have laid his
hoary head in the grave in peace, but that, as he said, he was “corn and
no chaff, and would not be blown away with the wind nor burst with the
flail, but would abide both;” NINIAN KENNEDY, who had scarcely reached
the age of manhood, but yet had lived long enough, since he found his
Saviour owned him and died for him. Every rank was there: young PATRICK
HAMILTON, with his royal blood and brilliant prospects; ADAM WALLACE,
“in appearance a simple, poor man,” but deeply taught of God, and
moreover, “having read the Bible and Word of God in three tongues, and
understood them so far as God gave him grace.” In GEORGE WISHART
profound learning, deep thoughtfulness, and winning sweetness and
nobleness of natural character, had their representative: DAVID
STRATTON, on the other hand, was remarkable for none of these—he held
the treasure in an earthen vessel, that the excellency of the power
might be of God.
Yet this very fact imparts peculiar significance to his history. We are
prone to look upon the noble army of martyrs through the haze of a vague
admiration, that on the one hand magnifies their forms to something
larger than human, but on the other robs their outlines of individual
distinctness. That they were, in the fullest sense of the word, good
men, scarcely any one, even amongst those who regard the truths for
which they suffered with indifference, will think of denying. But we
have a tendency also to regard them as great men; the chosen of their
age for thoughtfulness, for nobleness, for all the intellectual and
moral qualities by which man differs from his fellow. No doubt some of
them were such. But as in the Church of Christ itself, so amongst those
“white-robed warriors” who form its honoured vanguard—all classes, all
grades, all types of character are represented. They were men of like
passions with us, and of like temptations, faults, and weaknesses. That
which made them to differ was nothing in or from themselves; it was the
sublime power of that faith of which the great Head of the Church is
himself the Author and the Finisher, and of that love which his Spirit
alone can shed abroad in the heart of man.
[Illustration: FINIS]
-----
Footnote 1:
Baker.
Footnote 2:
Without.
Footnote 3:
A doctor.
Footnote 4:
That is, cautiously.
Footnote 5:
That is, lost.
Footnote 6:
That is, endure.
Footnote 7:
Increase or diminish.
Footnote 8: