Royal Edinburgh: Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and PoetsOliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
History
Royal Edinburgh: Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets
Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
Edinburgh (Scotland) -- History
not know, yet the ages to come will be compelled to bear witness to the
truth. And thus I cease, requiring of all men that have to oppose
anything against me that he will do it so plainly as I make myself and
all my doings manifest to the world; for to me it seems a thing most
unreasonable that in my decrepit age I should be compelled to fight
against shadows and howlets that dare not abide the light."
These flying accusations against him, to which, however, he was well
accustomed, were followed, it is said, by more startling warnings, such
as that of a musket ball which came through his window one evening, and
had he been seated in his usual place would have killed him; a thing
which might have been accidental, though no one believed so. He was
persuaded at last to leave Edinburgh only by the representations of the
citizens that were he attacked they were resolved to defend him, and
their blood would consequently be on his head. On this argument he moved
to St. Andrews, the scene of his first ministry, and always a place
beloved; leaving Edinburgh at the darkest moment of her history, the
Church silenced with him, and all the order and peace of ordinary life
suspended. At this crisis of the struggle, when Kirkaldy's garrison was
reinforced by all the party of the Hamiltons, and the city lay, overawed
and helpless, at the mercy of the fortress, the life of the Edinburgh
citizens underwent an extraordinary change. The churches were closed,
and all the pious habits of the time suspended: "neither was there any
sound of bell heard in the town, except the ringing of the cannon." How
strange this was among a population which had crowded daily to the
sermon and found the chief excitement of its life in the orations of the
preacher, it is scarcely necessary to point out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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