Hugh M'Kail, Part I

It is a pity that some of the old Christian books are not more widely available; one such work I have recently found is by Rev. William Wilson, and it is called Naphtali, or the Wrestlings of the Church of Scotland for the Kingdom of Christ (published in 1845). It describes what the Scots call the "sifting time", that is, the great persecutions of the covenanters in Scotland by the English in the 1660's. Part of the "sifting time" was the Great Ejectment when hundreds of covenanter ministers were thrown out of their pulpits in 1662. Many of these men were tortured and some martyred.

Wilson, in one instance, describes the sufferings and death of Rev. Hugh M'Kail. M'Kail preached his last sermon in September, 1662 just days before Parliament removed all the ministers of Edinburgh and its surroundings. M'Kail was later captured by English soldiers, accused of sedition, and placed in jail. He was severely tortured (the English used the "boot", a barbaric mechanism to crush a person's leg), and then sentenced to death on the scaffold. In the days leading up to his execution, the Lord was very graciously present with M'Kail. Two nights before his execution, he was eating supper with the other prisoners and he said to them joyously, "Eat to the full, and cherish your bodies, that we may all be a fat Christmas pie to the prelates!" And he continued speaking, "Many crosses have come in our way and wrought weakly upon us; but here is a cross that hath done more good than all the many that befel us before." What is it that causes a man to face death that way?