The bigotry which at various times in our world’s history has lighted the fires of persecution, has always proved itself impotent to make men righteous or unrighteous. Rather has it entailed a curse upon the tyrant whilst inflicting a woe upon the people who groaned beneath his rule. The freedom which the accession of the House of Orange conferred upon every rank of society, and every phase of belief, established the sovereignty of William and Mary, not merely over the heads of the people, but in the love and loyalty of their hearts. We have already alluded to the origin of the Twenty-fifth as expressive of these sentiments, and we now turn to the history of the Twenty-sixth, or Cameronians, as furnishing another exponent of the gratitude and loyalty of the emancipated Covenanters. The origin of this famous regiment—well worthy, by the lustre of its deeds, of the pen of a Macaulay to record—has elicited from that great national historian the following graphic account, which, as well for the sake of variety as its own excellence, we are here tempted to quote:— “The Covenanters of the West were in general unwilling to enlist. They were assuredly not wanting in courage; and they hated Dundee with deadly hatred. In their part of the country the memory of his cruelty was still fresh. Every village had its own tale of blood. The greyheaded father was missed in one dwelling, the hopeful stripling in another. It was remembered but too well how the dragoons had stalked into the peasant’s cottage, cursing and damning him, themselves, and each other at every second word, pushing from the ingle nook his grandmother of eighty, and thrusting their hands into the bosom of his daughter of sixteen; how the adjuration had been tendered to him; how he had folded his arms and said ‘God’s will be done;’ how the colonel had called for a file with loaded muskets; and how in three minutes the goodman of the house had been wallowing in a pool of blood at his own door. The seat of the martyr was still vacant at the fire-side; and every child could point out his grave still green amidst the heath. When the people of this region called their oppressor a servant of the devil, they were not speaking figuratively. They believed that between the bad man and the bad angel there was a close alliance on definite terms; that Dundee had bound himself to do the work of hell on earth, and that, for high purposes, hell was permitted to protect its slave till the measure of his guilt should be full. But intensely as these men abhorred Dundee, most of them had a scruple about drawing the sword for William. A great meeting was held in the parish church of Douglas; and the question was propounded, whether, at a time when war was in the land, and when an Irish invasion was expected, it were not a duty to take arms? The debate was sharp and tumultuous. The orators on one side adjured their brethren not to incur the curse denounced against the inhabitants of Meroz, who came not to