AMONGST those who suffered death during the persecutions of the Scotch Covenanters was a young woman named Margaret Wilson. She was only eighteen when she was arrested and dragged before Claverhouse, and life was offered her if she would abjure the Covenant and attend Episcopal service. True to her faith she refused, and was sentenced to be drowned together with another woman, an aged widow.
A spot was chosen on the banks of the Solway, and two stakes were driven into the ground between high and low water marks. To the one nearer the water’s edge they bound the old woman, and Margaret, fastened to the other, had to witness the sufferings of her fellow-Christian, while around herself the water was gradually growing deeper. She showed no fear, but prayed and sang until the waves choked her voice. Then when the struggle for life was almost over, her persecutors, hoping she would recant, unbound her and restored her to consciousness. Friends and neighbors crowded around, begging her to yield and save herself.
“Will she take the abjuration?” demanded the officer in charge.
“Never!” was the unfaltering reply. “I am Christ’s; let me go.”
Once more they bound her to the stake; the waters closed over her, and soon her spirit was released.
But how was it that this girl bravely faced a death that a man might well shrink from? The secret lies in three words: she was Christ’s.
The Lord Jesus is a mighty Saviour. Men may exert their utmost strength against Him and against His people, but their efforts are as vain as those of children building sand-castles upon the seashore to resist the force of the ocean. Christ is conqueror of Satan, and has proved Himself stronger than death. Now the Christian knows that Jesus stretches out His omnipotent arm on behalf of His people, and thus, with eye fixed upon Christ, he passes triumphantly through the waters of affliction or the fires of persecution, even through death itself.
Reader, dolt not thou desire to be upheld by such a mighty power as sustained this Christian maiden. If thou wilt, as lost and helpless, commit thyself to the Lord Jesus Christ, He will become thy Saviour and Helper.
He bids thee turn to Him; He even pleads with thee, for He desires to cleanse thee from thy sins in His precious blood, and longs to put His sheltering arm around thee. All who come to Him receive a gracious welcome. Come, then, and thou shalt prove the truth of His promise to every one that turns to Him: “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”
M. L. B.