To this day I can see his aspect as he rose up among the brethren with a great roll in his hand--solemn, portentous, full of suave, easy words and empty, sonorous utterances. “Fathers and brethren,” he said, looking on us with a comprehending pity for our feebleness of capacity, “there hath come that from Her Most Noble and Christian Majesty the Queen Anna, which it behooves us to treat with all the respect due to one who is at once the Anointed of God, and also as the fountain of all authority, in some sense also the Head of the Church!” As he finished he laid upon the table a great parchment, and tapped it impressively with his finger. “It is, if I may be permitted the words, the message of God’s vicegerent upon earth; whom His own finger has especially designed to rule over us. And I am well assured that no one among the brethren of the Presbytery will be so ill-advised as not at once to sign this declaration of our submission and dutiful obedience to our Liege lady in all things.” This he uttered soundingly, with much more to the same purpose, standing up all the time, and glowering about him on the look-out for contradiction. Then, though I was the youngest member of the Presbytery, save one, I felt that for the ancient liberty of the Kirk and for the sake of the blood shed on the moors, I could not permit so great a scandal as this to pass. I rose in my place, whilst Cameron looked steadily upon me, endeavouring to browbeat me into silence. Somewhat thus I spoke: “The most learned and reverend brother brings us a paper to sign--a paper which we have neither seen nor yet heard read. It comes (he tells us) from the Church’s head, from God’s vicegerent. It is to be received with hushed breath and bowed knee. ‘The Head of the Church!’ says Mr. Cameron--ah, brethren, the men who have so lately entered into rest through warring stress, sealed with their blood the testimony that the Kirk of God has no head upon earth. The Kirk of Scotland is the Kirk of Jesus Christ, the alone King and Head of the Church. The Kirk of Scotland is more noble, high and honourable in herself than any human government. She alone is God’s vicegerent. She alone has power within her own borders to rule her own affairs. The Kirk has many faults, but at least she will surely never permit herself to be ruled again by Privy Councils and self-seeking state-craft. Is she not the Bride, the Lamb’s wife? And for me, and for any that may adhere to me, we will sign no test nor declaration which shall put our free necks beneath the yoke of any temporal power, nor yet for fear of this or that Queen’s Majesty deny the Name that is above every name.”