Request your free magazine

Subscribe

The elder Margaret, MacLachlan, farmed the pitiful soil granted to peasants near the small village of Wigtown, Scotland. Not educated, yet intelligent and full of wisdom, widow MacLachlan had been convinced by Presbyterian preacher James Renwick that the Church of England had surrendered its integrity to the corrupted English king. It was a lost church, loyal to the Stuarts above all, not to be confused with Christ’s church of the Gospel and true sacrament. Against both tradition and law, MacLachlan declined to worship in her parish church but met with Covenanters in her own home. For this she was a marked woman.

Margaret Wilson, a teenager, was the oldest of three children of a prosperous farmer near Wigtown named Gilbert Wilson, who had complied with the law and worshiped where and how the king demanded. His two daughters and son, however, were religious rebels. When the children were too frequently absent from Sunday worship, officials used intimidation and threats so intense that the children fled to nearby mountains for safety. The boy, Thomas, was not heard from again, at least in history’s records. But the two sisters, cold and hungry, sought refuge in the home of fellow Covenanter Margaret MacLachlan. All three were betrayed by neighbors, arrested and imprisoned.

Their trial was a farce of justice. The court, perhaps all too aware that it had become a laughingstock, demanded that the three criminals sign the Oath of Abjuration, certifying that they were not aligned with the Cameronians (led by Richard Cameron), who had challenged Charles II both politically and as head of the church. In effect, the Oath was a pledge of loyalty to the king. All three refused.

Frantic, Gilbert Wilson raised enough money to buy his younger daughter’s freedom, but not Margaret’s, who was sentenced on April 13, 1685, to be “tied to stakes fixed within the flood-mark in the water of Blednoch…there to be drowned.” As for MacLachlan, the crown was simply glad to be rid of her. “Don’t speak of that damned old b—ch,” one accuser said. “Let her go to hell.”

At low tide on May 11, the two condemned Margarets were each fixed to their stakes. MacLachlan, weak from prison, was put furthest from shore. She died first, after a short struggle for life. Guards allowed the surf to nearly quench Wilson’s life before they pulled her from the sea. They demanded again she pledge fealty to the crown. She replied, “May God save the king, if He will.”

Tied once more to her stake, guards pushing her under the tide, Wilson died singing.

Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!
Psalm 25:7

This story is an excerpt from Foxe: Voices of the Martyrs. You can get your own copy free with any donation to The Voice of the Martyrs.

Donald Cargill was a fighting Scotsman, a preacher, and a warrior. Educated at the distinguished universities of Aberdeen and St. Andrews, he was appointed minister to the parish of Barony in Glasgow in 1655. A Covenanter, Cargill was starting his ministry in the calm eye of a hurricane. Ill winds would soon carry him into exile and eventually to his death.

Scottish Covenanters were Presbyterians devoted to church leadership by elders. Thus they were utterly opposed to a church led by bishops, who were titled with a religious mandate but empowered by the English crown. King Charles I of England had sought to impose the Anglican Church in Scotland since 1625. But Charles had met his own doom at the hands of Cromwell’s army in 1649. When Cargill started preaching, England was without a king. Yet the Glorious Revolution was unwinding, and Charles II would ascend the throne in 1660. Cargill thus had five years of peace.

Request your free magazine

Subscribe

Charles II clearly had territory to recover and an island empire to regain. He had to suppress the Scots, and that meant placing his bishops in charge of the Scottish church. Enough of the independents, the elder ruled churches, and their pastors who, to his thinking, mixed salvation with too clear a hint of political liberation. Charles II declared Covenanters to be traitors, their churches illegal, and the church’s new leader— himself—the sovereign of state and of church.

Cargill responded by “excommunicating” Charles II and his bishops, saying, “The church ought to declare that those who are none of Christ’s are none of hers.” For such carefree boldness, Cargill’s capture now carried a bounty, and the preacher was urged to find refuge in the Scottish lowlands where the king’s agents had fewer allies.

Even during this internal exile, however, Cargill preached and taught, kept moving, and avoided sheriff and hunter. Finally in 1662, Cargill fled to the remote north of England, away from danger.

But could he stay away? He had inspired people with such words as, “If believers loved Christ as He loves them, they would be more in haste to meet Him.” Was that a sermon to preach in exile, fleeing the king’s agents?

Cargill’s conscience said no, and his exile was short. Returning to Scotland again as an outlaw, he resumed his itinerant ministry, careful to keep his whereabouts within the counsel of close friends. Twice he escaped capture; once he suffered wounds during the getaway. Finally in 1679, he joined in a showdown of force at the Battle of Bothwell Bridge where Covenanters were viciously defeated. Cargill again fled, this time to the Netherlands.

Within months he was back, committed to a more open confrontation with the king. Cargill and fellow Covenanter Richard Cameron issued the Sanguhar Declaration, calling for war against Charles II and resistance to his brother, James II, who stood in line of succession.

On July 10, 1681, Cargill preached an inspired sermon in County Lanarkshire in southern Scotland, the site of battles lost against English forces. Before sunrise the next morning, he was seized and taken to Glasgow. He and several other Covenanters received a trial and sentence of death.

When Cargill mounted the scaffold on July 27, he said, “The Lord knows I go up this ladder with less fear and anxiety than I ever entered the pulpit to preach. Farewell all relations and friends in Christ; farewell all earthly enjoyments, wanderings, and sufferings. . .Welcome joy unspeakable and full of glory.” A moment later the executioner’s axe severed his head. Cargill was again absent from his beloved Scotland, this time home with his beloved Savior.

This story is an excerpt from Foxe: Voices of the Martyrs. You can get your own copy free with any donation to The Voice of the Martyrs.

Request your free magazine

Subscribe

Dear Friends and Spectators,

You are come here to look upon me a dying man…I am a poor sinner, and could never merit but wrath, and have no righteousness of my own; all is Christ’s and His alone; and I have laid claim to His righteousness and His sufferings by faith in Jesus Christ; through imputation they are mine; for I have accepted of His offer on His own terms, and sworn away myself to Him, to be at His disposal, both privately and publicly.

Now I have put it upon Him to ratify in heaven all that I have purposed to do on earth, and to do away with all my imperfections and failings, and to stay my heart on Him…I now leave my testimony, as a dying man, against the horrid usurpation of our Lord’s prerogative and crown-right…for He is given by the Father to be the head of His church…Oh! Be oft at the throne, and give God no rest. Make sure your soul’s interest. Seek His pardon freely, and then He will come with peace. Seek all the graces of His Spirit, the grace of love, the grace of holy fear and humility … Now I desire to salute you, dear friends in the Lord Jesus Christ, both prisoner, banished, widow and fatherless, or wandering and cast out for Christ’s sake and the Gospel’s; even the blessings of Christ’s sufferings be with you all, strengthen, establish, support, and settle you…Now as to my poor sympathizing wife and six small children upon the Almighty Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, who hath promised to be a father to the fatherless, and a husband to the widow, the widow and orphans’ stay. Be Thou all in all to them, O Lord…And now farewell, wife and children. Farewell all friends and relations. Farewell all worldly enjoyments. Farewell sweet Scriptures, preaching, praying, reading, singing, and all duties. And welcome, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I desire to commit my soul to Thee in well doing. Lord, receive my spirit.

Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.
Luke 18:29-30

This story is an excerpt from Foxe: Voices of the Martyrs. You can get your own copy free with any donation to The Voice of the Martyrs.

After entering their house through a hole in the couple’s thatched roof, the angry Muslims dragged them outside. Despite their pleas for mercy and Shama’s pregnancy with their fourth child, the mob beat them ruthlessly, breaking both Shahzad’s and Shama’s legs. Next, the mob tied them behind a tractor and dragged them for more than thirty minutes.

Shahzad had moved to the Pakistani city of Kot Radha Kishan in 2000 with his brothers and their father, Nazar. Because of their Christian faith, they had difficulty finding work. In Pakistan, Christians are treated as second-class citizens and often must work as street cleaners or sewage workers. Shahzad and his family found work at a brick kiln. It was hard work but provided enough money for food and a place to live, even though they lived as slaves and owed a large debt to the brick kiln owner.

Request your free magazine

Subscribe

Six years later, Shahzad married a Christian woman named Shama. Together, they devoted themselves to the Lord and to the Christian community, meeting with local Christians twice a month for prayer. However, Shahzad’s father, Nazar, had befriended some local Muslims and even began joining in some of their rituals. This disturbed Shama, who pleaded with him to stay true to Christ. Nazar later heeded his daughter-in-law’s advice and stopped participating in the Muslim rituals, and it did not go unnoticed in the community. Muslims in the village thought Shama had converted him from Islam to Christianity, and their resentment toward her grew.

When Nazar became ill, Shahzad took time off work to find treatment for him. When Nazar died at the end of October, Shahzad returned to his job at the kiln, only to be beaten by his superiors for missing work. Shahzad then decided they could no longer stay at the kiln. But they owed the owner a large debt, passed on from Nazar, and Shahzad wanted to leave on good terms. “Tell us how much money we owe you,” he told the owner. “We will return it and leave your brick kiln.”

The kiln owner and his clerk did not want the couple to go free. They already resented Shahzad for not letting his wife work there, for fear the men would take advantage of her. The kiln owner and his clerk devised a plan: If they accused Shahzad and Shama of burning a copy of the Koran, they would be beaten and thrown in jail. So early on the morning of November 4, 2014, the kiln owner and his clerk went to the local mosque and accused the Christian couple of the crime, creating outrage in the Muslim community.

After the mob dragged Shahzad and Shama around the kiln yard, their lifeless bodies were stuffed into the vent holes above the brick kiln oven and burned. The vicious attack had lasted four hours.

Police reported that there was no evidence of Koran burning, and local politicians condemned the killings. Four hundred people were arrested and jailed for their actions that day, and a movement was begun to change the country’s blasphemy laws, which have been widely used against Christians and others by anyone who has a grievance against them. Under the laws, Christians have been falsely accused of blaspheming Islam, the Koran and Muhammad. Shahzad and Shama clung to their faith in Jesus in their final moments, and their deaths were not in vain.

This story is an excerpt from Foxe: Voices of the Martyrs. You can get your own copy free with any donation to The Voice of the Martyrs.

We tend to justify John Mark’s qualifications to record his gospel
based on the tradition that he based his writings on Peter’s account of
Jesus’s ministry. But events like the one above and the fact that Mark’s
home in Jerusalem was used as a gathering place for the early church
certainly place this young disciple in the center of history as an eyewitness. The clipped and almost breathless format of Mark’s gospel (his favorite connecting phrase is “and then”) combines all the action of a storyteller’s style with a young man’s impatience to get the story told. Mark knew the people about whom he was writing. He may not have been part of all the events, but his personal awareness of the participants gives his gospel a ring of authenticity.

As a young man at the time of Jesus’s resurrection, Mark had a long
life ahead of him. Some of his learning trajectory was recorded by Luke
in Acts. Mark’s cousin Barnabas and his mother, Mary, were recognizable figures in the early church. Barnabas is the one who first brought Mark and Paul together shortly before the first missionary journey out of the Antioch church. Although Paul and Barnabas were specifically sent out by the church, “they had John to assist them” (Acts 13:5). Apparently the rigors, pressures, and suffering on the road got to Mark early in the trip. By the time they reached Pamphylia in southern Turkey, he left Paul and Barnabas and returned to Jerusalem (Acts 13:13).

Request your free magazine

Subscribe

Mark’s departure became an issue between Paul and Barnabas that
led to their split as a partnership (Acts 15:36-40). Barnabas insisted that
Mark deserved another chance. In the final outcome, Barnabas proved to
be a better judge of Mark’s character than Paul, who later acknowledged
that fact by expressing his appreciation of Mark’s capabilities (Colossians
4:10; 2 Timothy 4:11; Philemon 23-24). After a stint with Barnabas, Mark
spent time traveling with Peter (1 Peter 5:13). These various apprentice
trips took him from Jerusalem to Antioch to Babylon to Rome.

A capable evangelist in his own right, Mark had a longstanding connection with the city of Alexandria in Egypt and was instrumental in founding and nurturing the church there. As was often the case, the good news about Jesus was bad news for the existing pagan religious structures in communities. So within days of his arrival in Alexandria, Mark was a “marked” man. Though years passed before action was taken, a mob eventually exercised its demonic energy against him. Mark was tied with ropes (hooks may have also been used) and dragged through the cobblestone streets of Alexandria until his body was ripped, wounded, and badly injured. After a night in prison, the same treatment was repeated until he died. Though the crowd intended to burn Mark’s body, there is a persistent account that a storm delayed the process and allowed other Christians a chance to retrieve and bury his remains.

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
John 15:13

The first of the Scottish covenant bands appeared in 1557, and for
a century these religious dissenters preached a clear gospel, while
simultaneously mounting a military campaign for independence from
England. A “killing time” followed the 1679 assassination of the king’s
archbishop, James Sharp. Charles II had restored the monarchy in
England in 1662, and was not about to allow another rebellion like the
one that severed the head of Charles I. The Covenanters must be
stopped — annihilated. So in late 1680 the crown’s agents conducted
raids against commoners who had any association with the likes of
Donald Cargill or Richard Cameron.

Alison was taken from her home in Perth and Harvie from Borrowstounness. Each was interrogated concerning the Sanguhar Declaration, a Covenanter creed, and other differences of doctrine and practice. Of these matters the women knew little beyond the preaching they had heard. But they did strongly affirm that their sins had been forgiven through faith in Jesus Christ. Credited by the court with good sense and uncommon intellects, they were nonetheless condemned as traitors and rebels, and then further condemned to hell by the king’s churchmen.

Request your free magazine

Subscribe

On January 26, 1681, Alison and Harvie were led with five other female criminals to the Grassmarket, Edinburgh’s outdoor gallows. Alison testified: “So I lay down my life for owning and adhering to Jesus Christ, He being a free king in His own house, for which I bless the Lord that ever He called me.” Harvie wrote before her hanging: “I die not as a fool or evildoer, or as a busybody in other men’s matters; no, it is for adhering to Jesus Christ, and owning Him to be head of His church.”

Together on the platform they sang Psalm 84. As the winter wind carried their voices to Heaven, the hangman pushed them over the edge. The king had won a short moment of silence at Grassmarket Square, but many more voices were singing in the angelic choirs above them.

“Blessed are those who spread joy that arises out of their own suffering. He who denies himself for others clothes himself with Christ.” —Prince Vladimir of the royal House of Ghica, who was imprisoned in a harsh dungeon

This story is an excerpt from Foxe: Voices of the Martyrs. You can get your own copy free with any donation to The Voice of the Martyrs.

For Yale men like Pitkin — strong, charismatic, and gifted — the arena where all virtues would meet their test was China. Indeed, Horace organized Yale’s first Student Volunteer Band for foreign missions. He then went on to Union Seminary in New York, married Letitia Thomas, and set sail for Hunan Province in central China.

Pitkin was an organizer, but not blind to the risks. He was, after all, in charge of the station in Hunan for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. As news from Beijing arrived and the Boxers began to show restless aggression, Pitkin sent his wife and child back to the United States.

Request your free magazine

Subscribe

On Saturday, June 30, 1900, the Presbyterian compound on the north
side of Paoting was attacked. The missionary surgeon, Dr. G. B. Taylor,
went out to plead the missionaries’ good will. He was killed immediately,
and his severed head was raised for display in a nearby temple. The remaining Presbyterians were burned inside one of the houses.

News traveled quickly to the south side of the city, where Pitkin and
two staff women were trapped at the American Board office. By 9:00
a.m., the Boxers arrived. Pitkin was killed trying to defend the others.

Back at Yale, four friends created a missionary society in 1901 (that
still exists today). Their work, honoring Pitkin and others, included a
hospital and a school in Hunan Province.

This story is an excerpt from Foxe: Voices of the Martyrs. You can get your own copy free with any donation to The Voice of the Martyrs.

He turned out to be a very good one. He was clear, sincere, and passionate. In the meetings he held along hillside heather and valley stream, hundreds would hear him preach about a gospel centered on Christ, a church free of state control, and a destiny of joy that God had prepared for each person who trusted the Savior. Cargill would have been proud to hear him and see him evade capture time and time again.

One time, Renwick traveled to Newton Stewart for a series of outdoor meetings, called conventicles. During his stay at the town’s inn, an
officer of the king’s army, also passing the night at the inn, engaged him
in conversation. The two talked into the night, each equally delighted by
the lively interchange. At length they retired. When the officer inquired
the next morning about his new friend, he was told the man named James
Renwick had left early to escape capture. The stunned officer simply
returned to his barracks, convinced that such a winsome, harmless young
man as Renwick was not worth arresting.

Request your free magazine

Subscribe

On another occasion, Renwick sought a hiding place in a shepherd’s
cottage from which he had heard loud singing. He surmised it to be a
Covenanter’s cottage because of the exuberance of the music. But no,
this shepherd was merely drunk and free-spirited. Still, Renwick spent
the night. In the morning while his own clothes were drying, Renwick used one of the man’s old plaids for a morning walk, roaming the valley
to pray and enjoy the early hour. Suddenly, a troop of soldiers appeared.
They stopped the plaid-draped Scotsman to ask the whereabouts of the
preacher they were hunting. Satisfied with the old man’s empty-headed
innocence, the soldiers rode on. Another narrow escape for Renwick.
Finally, in 1684, a frustrated Privy Council issued an edict naming
James Renwick and all who gave him aid as enemies of the state. To
withhold information or to hide him was tantamount to collusion in his
crimes. Even then, three years would pass before the king’s men would
catch him.

In December 1687, Renwick was seized in Edinburgh when an officer heard praying inside a house and recognized the voice. The charges against him were three: refusing to accept the king’s authority, refusing to pay the tax, and counseling his listeners to attend outdoor meetings with arms. Renwick pleaded guilty to all three and declined offers of pardon. On February 17, 1688, he was hanged in the Grassmarket, Edinburgh, and his head and hands hung on Netherbow Gate.

Who might have been watching that day in the Grassmarket? What young Christian might have been inspired when they heard him say, “I go to your God and my God. Death to me is a bed to the weary. Now, be not anxious. The Lord will maintain His cause and own His people. He will show His glory yet in Scotland. Farewell.”

This story is an excerpt from Foxe: Voices of the Martyrs. You can get your own copy free with any donation to The Voice of the Martyrs.

Agricola knew of forty soldiers who were devout Christians and
skilled in battle. In an attempt to force them to renounce their faith, he
announced to these men, “Either offer sacrifice to the gods and earn
great honors, or, in the event of your disobedience, be stripped of your
military rank and fall into disgrace.” Then Agricola had the soldiers
imprisoned to think about what he had told them. That night they
encouraged themselves by singing psalms and praying.

Request your free magazine

Subscribe

The next morning Agricola brought out the forty men and tried to
persuade them with flattery, praising them for their valor and good looks.
These Christian soldiers were determined, however, not to fall prey to
the commander’s empty words. So Agricola sent them back to prison to
await the arrival of an official. While the soldiers waited, they prepared
themselves for martyrdom.

When the official arrived, he again attempted to persuade the men.
Unsuccessful, he ordered the forty men to be taken to a frozen lake.
There, they were told to strip off their clothing and stand in the middle
of the frozen mass of ice. A guard watched over them while warm baths
were set up along the shore, along with fires, blankets, clothing, and hot
food and drink, in order to tempt them to turn their backs on Christ and
sacrifice to the pagan idols. One of the soldiers could no longer bear the cold and ran to the shore. Seeing this, the remaining soldiers cried out to
God to help them. Their prayer was answered as a light warmed the
shivering men. One of the guards was so moved by the resolve of the
Christian soldiers that he stripped off all his clothes and joined them.
One version of the story reports that all the men were frozen to death by
morning. Another account, however, says that in the morning the men,
still alive, were taken back to the prison and tortured to death. Then
their bones were crushed with sledgehammers.

Regardless of which version of the story is correct, the forty soldiers of
Sebaste courageously refused to deny Christ. May we remember their courage and stand strong against anything that might lure us away from Christ. May we, like them, show God’s grace even in the midst of great trials!

But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.
Acts 20:24

A speech impediment kept Brown from becoming a preacher, but in
his humble cottage he ran a Bible school where he taught youth in what
may have been the first regular Sunday school.

The year 1685 has been called the worst killing time in a terrible era.
Scottish Covenanters were relentlessly pressed, harassed, and murdered,
as recorded by historian Lord McCauley and author Daniel Defoe. When
troops arrived at Brown’s door that year, they were seeking Peden, whom
they believed was nearby. They ransacked Brown’s cottage and found a
few papers. They wanted to know about these writings and to know
Peden’s whereabouts. Instead, Brown gave them prayers and lessons, cut
short by the commander’s order to assemble a firing squad.

Request your free magazine

Subscribe

Brown turned to his wife, “Now, Isabel, the day is come.” She replied, “John, I can willingly part with you.”

“That is all I desire,” he said. “I have no more to do but die.” He kissed her and his child, saying he wished gospel-promise blessings to be multiplied upon them.

The six soldiers ordered to shoot Brown were apparently so moved by the scene and its disregard for law that they lowered their muskets and refused to fire. Their officer placed his own pistol at Brown’s head and ended his life, just outside his cottage.

Isabel Brown set her child on the ground, took her linen, and wrapped her husband’s body. She mourned alone until neighbors, told of the murder, gathered to support her and to remember anew their own losses of that terrible year. Scotland was fighting for its identity and for freedom to worship in the form and fashion its people deemed right. Brown’s murder was simple cruelty, yet the reason for it eventually won the day.

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
James 1:12

This story is an excerpt from Foxe: Voices of the Martyrs. You can get your own copy free with any donation to The Voice of the Martyrs.