Faithful in life...

My first post with the pals!!! I hope you'll forgive me for sharing an excerpt from a book entitled "The Psalms in History and Biography" by Rev. John Ker D.D. written in 1886. This treasury is full of biographical sketches and a Psalm that they pertain to, going from the beginning of Psalms to the end. Be encouraged...

'My sins and faults of youth
Do thou, O Lord, forget:
After thy mercy think on me,
And for thy goodness great.'

Touching words in themselves, and surely never more so than when they began the dying-song of Margaret Wilson, while the sea was rising round her at the mouth of the water of Blednoch, by Wigtown. She was twenty years of age, blameless and gentle, but had been in the habit of attending field and house conventicles (worship place, gathering - in case you were wondering, like I was, what a conventicle is...), and refused to take the test. For these things she was condemned to be drowned along with an elderly woman, named Margaret Lachlan, accused of the same offences. The two were tied to stakes within the tide-mark, where the waters of the Solway come up swift and strong into the channel of Blednoch. The older woman was placed farther from the bank, that the sight of her struggles might terrify the younger, and cause her to give way. But she was faithful to the death.

'O do thou keep my soul,
Do thou deliver me:
And let me never be asham'd,
Because I trust in thee.'

Desperate efforts were made to cast discredit on the narrative in Napier's Life of Claverhouse, but the question has been set at rest by the book of Dr. Stewart of Glasserton, The Wigtown Martyrs. The two women are buried above the place where they were drowned, and descendants of the family to which Margaret Wilson belogned are to be found near Glenvernock, on the water of Cree, where she lived."

This particular excerpt was included with Psalm 25 in the book.

One comment I (Lisa) will make is that Dr. Ker noted that Margaret (at 20!) was faithful to death. We are not persecuted to this point, yet! - however, I pray that I would be faithful in life. In the shadow of these beautiful Christian Martyrs, I find myself ashamed of my own hesitancy and pride. May God show me a bigger view of Him, and a smaller view of myself.