The Scotch Martyr

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 16, 1875

The Scotch Martyr.

Richard Cameron, hunted like a deer upon the mountains, went by night from place to place, wherever he could find some of the scattered sheep, till he came to Hyndbottom, where he preached to a large congregation, while a guard was set to give notice if the soldiers approached. After pressing Christ upon his hearers with the most thrilling eloquence, he closed by saying:—

“We offer him to all you that dwell hereabouts; and what say ye? Will ye take him? We take as testimony these hills and mountains that we offered him to you this day. Look at them now, for they are all witnesses, and when ye are dying, they shall come before your face, And we take you to be witnesses one against another, that we have invited and urged you to come to Christ, and yet ye would not.”

The whole congregation began to weep. Pausing again a few minutes, he added with great sweetness and solemnity, “Angels are going up to report before the throne what every one’s choice has been this day, and will say, ‘There are some in these parishes that have received the Lord Jesus Christ, and he has become their Lord;’ then there will be a great shout; for this will be welcome news there.”

The whole congregation wept. Strong men, as well as women and children, stood, as one said, as if their faces had been washed with a shower of rain. And many that day declared themselves on the Lord’s side.

It was his last sermon. As he passed away across the moors in company with two friends, the troopers overtook them. They ran till he fell down exhausted, and as they raised him up the soldiers fired, and he fell, as they plunged into a ravine. The soldiers passed on and left him, and his friends returned. They found him alive; he knew them, and said:—

“I am dying, I am dying; but I am happy, happy, HAPPY; and if I had a thousand lives, I would willingly lay them all down, one after another, for Christ’s sake. Oh, it is sweet to suffer for Christ! Many a pleasant hour have I spent in religious ordinance; but I have never spent a happier season than that since these balls passed through my body! I shall see Him whom my soul loveth and who gave himself for me. I know that God has received me for Jesus’ sake. I feel it, I feel it in my heart. He has sealed me unto the day of redemption. I now die as a witness for Christ, and what a privilege is that. Bear my love to my dear parents and sister at Marion. Tell them not to weep, but continue steadfast in the faith, and not to fear a suffering lot for Christ.”

“Oh, he is near me. I think I see him. I leave my love to all my suffering brothers and sisters. I forgive my murderers. Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”

Two or three hard breaths, and he was gone. They gathered the blooming heather and strewed it in his grave—gently laid him down on the moor where he fell, and strewed more heather blossoms over his loved form, and left him alone, and went on their way, to do and suffer the like for Christ.

Oh, how far we have fallen from the vigor of that piety! Is it not possible, by a voluntary offering of ourselves to Christ, to cultivate something of such strength and energy? Now, almost universally, outward prosperity generates indolence and indolence weakness, till the very life of religion perishes from the soul and the church.—Sel.