Those were days of woeful declension. Defection had swept the great body of Covenanters from their basis. Under the strain of persecution and the snare of the royal Indulgence, many ministers and people had abandoned wholly, or in degree, Reformation grounds. The Society People alone refused to make concessions by which truth would be suppressed, conscience defiled, or any divine principle surrendered. They stood by the Covenant, and accepted the consequences, including hardest service and greatest sufferings. The Society People have been censured for exclusiveness; they refused to associate with others in the worship of God, and would hear no ministers except their own. But why? Consider their reason, then let them be judged. These people stood alone simply because they had been left alone; these soldiers of Christ had been deserted while holding the ground won by their fathers at the cost of much blood. They stood where the Lord Jesus Christ had placed them, giving them a solemn charge to keep the oath, and defend His royal rights. Should they then be reprimanded, for not joining in the general stampede? What saith the Lord? "If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him." From the fortress of the Covenant these veterans of Christ heroically waved the Blue Banner, declaring to their brethren, and to the world, that by the grace of God they would never surrender. They were the real Covenanters, the true blue, the old stock. They were not a faction; they were the remnant. They stood on the original ground; the others had broken the Covenant and had departed. These were the core, the center, the substance, the personnel, the integral force, the organized body, the visible form, of the Covenanted Church in those days. The Societies were the continuity of the Church that had flourished in the days of Knox, and took on later and greater glory in the times of Henderson. They were the same Church, holding the same faith, the same Covenant, and the same services. The Society People were not the branch; they were, the trunk from which the branches had fallen. The branches were strewn around; but the trunk, though broken and disfigured, was still deeply rooted in Covenant soil, and full of life. The persecutors more than ever concentrated their fire upon these people. They were pursued and shot like game. Liberal rewards were offered for their leaders. Yet they stood by their Covenant; they would not yield an hairbreadth. Fidelity to Christ swallowed up every other consideration; it was the burning passion of their lives.