“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.”
B. Browning
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 honor 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 Savior’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 neighborhood, 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 forever, it seemed as though want or woe could never again come near the heart he had satisfied with his own fullness. Had he not made the wilderness to rejoice and blossom as the rose I 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 colors 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 beard 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 I Does it seem a thing incredible to us that the men and women of other days should have rushed un-summoned 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 I 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 Savior; 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 marvelously 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 Savior 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, favored 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 forever. 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 he unmerciful hearts of the enemies. So, after she had commended her children to the neighbors 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 un-submissive. “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 “Ayes” 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 someone, “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 ray Father. I see thy will is the best, and I know now thou rarest as tenderly for her thou leaved 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 forever.”
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 Savior 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 honored 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.