This servant of God had profound knowledge of Bible doctrines. He had a masterly conception of the crown rights of Jesus Christ, and the fundamental principles of His kingdom. He had vivid views of the excellence of holiness, and the atrocity of sin. This filled him, like the Psalmist, with horror at the doom of transgressors. His inner life was fiercely swept with the contrary passions of love for righteousness, and hatred for iniquity. His soul was the scene of terrific conflicts. His preaching and praying against the powers of darkness often revealed an internal tragedy. One night while preaching to the Covenanters who had assembled in a sheep-house, he cried out, "Black, black, black will be the day, that shall come upon Ireland; they shall travel forty miles, and not see a reeking house, or hear a crowing cock." Then, clapping his hands with dramatic effect, he exclaimed: "Glory, glory to the Lord, that He has accepted a bloody sacrifice of a sealed testimony off Scotland's hand." Peden could not brook any departure from Christ and His Covenant. Covenant-breaking was, in his eyes, a most aggravated sin. He was quick to see the Lord coming to avenge the quarrel of His Covenant, and his soul was filled with dread. Here are some of his utterances: "Oh, my heart trembles within me, to think what is coming on the backsliding, soul-murdering ministers of Scotland! "He is not worth his room, that prays not half his time, to see if he can prevent the dreadful wrath, that is coming on our poor motherland. "Thirty-six years ago our Lord had a numerous train of ministers in Scotland, but one blast blew six hundred of them away, and they never returned. "I shall tell you the right way of covenanting with God; it is when Christ and believers meet; and our Lord gives them His laws, statutes, and commandments; and charges them not to quit a hoof of them; no, though they should be torn into a thousand pieces. And the right Covenanter says, Amen." Peden never married. During twenty-four years of wanderings, his life was pathetically lonely. When death was approaching, he returned to the old home, to spend his last days amid the scenes of his childhood. His brother still dwelt there. He received a cordial welcome, though his presence imperiled the family; for the dragoons were still pursuing him. To that true and tender soul, how beautiful must have been the green fields, the rippling brooks, and the familiar hills, where he had roamed when a child! They made him a cave on the hillside; a bush covered its entrance. There he was hidden from the enemy, and there he lay in his last illness, and ripened for heaven.