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Alexander PedenAlexander Peden was born about the year 1626, at Sorn, in Ayrshire. After undergoing a course of education at the Universities, he became schoolmaster at Tarbolton, where Guthrie was then minister. He was also precentor and clerk of session to the same church.On becoming a minister, he was appointed about 1658 to the charge of New Luce, in Galloway. The Restoration of 1660, followed by the persecuting acts of the sovereign, led to Peden's departure from that parish. Very solemn and impressive were the services conducted by him in the church the Sabbath before his expulsion. The themes of discourse were taken from Paul's moving address to the elders of the Church at Ephesus. As he left the pulpit, he closed the door, and knocking three times hard upon it, thrice repeated these words: "I arrest thee, in my Master's name, that none ever enter thee but such as come in by the door, as I have done." Strange to say, none of the curates ever entered that pulpit. After the Revolution, a Presbyterian minister opened it and preached to a large congregation. The life of Peden became henceforth the life of a wanderer. In 1666 a proclamation was issued against him by the Council, because he had held conventicles and administered baptism. Should he refuse to obey, he was to be declared to be a rebel and to have forfeited his life. He succeeded till 1673 in evading the grasp of his persecutors, having retired for a part of that interval to Ireland. In this year he was arrested, taken prisoner to Edinburgh, examined, and then sent for confinement to the Bass. Five years later sentence of banishment was pronounced against him. With nearly a hundred others, he was to be sent to America, and he was not to return to Scotland again upon pain of death. But God turned the counsels of the enemy to foolishness. At Gravesend, all the prisoners were liberated, and they at once returned to their native land. Soon after the battle of Bothwell Bridge, Peden went again to Ireland, being sore oppressed at that disastrous event. In 1682 he returned to Scotland, but before the end of that year, for the sake of safety, he returned once more to Ireland. Under various disguises he procured the means of subsistence, on one occasion hiring himself as a servant and working at manual toil. In 1685 he came back to Scotland, evidently desirous of sharing in the honourable sufferings of the persecuted remnant there. As the vessel on which he and others were carried lay at rest on the waters, Peden thus prayed: "Lord, give us a loof-full of wind; fill the sails, Lord, and give us a fresh gale, and let us have a swift and safe passage over to the bloody land, come of us what will." The winds came while he prayed, filled the sails, and sped the vessel onward to the haven. As he parted from his fellow-passengers on landing, he said: "My soul trembles to think what will become of the indulged, backslidden, and upset ministers of Scotland: as the Lord lives, none of them shall be honoured to put a right pin in the Lord's tabernacle, or assert Christ's kingly prerogative as Head and King of His Church." At this time he met with many remarkable deliverances from the very hands of the enemy. Several horse and foot came once close to him and a number of companions in tribulation. A slight elevation of ground coming in the course of the pursuit between them and their pursuers, Peden called a halt, and uttered this memorable prayer, "Lord, it is Thy enemy's day, hour, and power they may not be idle, but hast Thou no other work for them but to send them after us? send them after them to whom Thou wilt give strength to flee, for our strength is gone. Twine them about the hill, Lord, and cast the lap of Thy cloak over Old Sandy and these poor things, and save us this one time, and we will keep it in remembrance, and tell it to the commendation of Thy goodness, pity, and compassion, what Thou didst for us at such a time." A mist covered the hill, and Peden and his friends were safe. As the end of his earthly pilgrimage drew on, Peden betook himself to his native parish of Sorn - to a near relative who lived there, but still he could not frequent his friend's house, and for safety he had a cave dug for himself, and a bush placed as a covering for the cave's mouth. There did this weird sufferer spend many hours of close communion with God. That cave was the House of God and the Gate of Heaven. It was when here that he left his last charges with his friends regarding the cause of Christ in the land. He also desired them to carry his body to Ayrsmoss, and lay it to rest beside the dust of Richard Cameron. Some time before his death, Peden had an interesting interview with James Renwick. Some misrepresentations regarding the latter had been too readily believed by Peden, and had led to much alienation of feeling. Before Peden passed away, the cloud was to be lifted. In the course of a visit paid to Peden at his own request, the whole matter was made subject of conversation. The light broke forth as the morning. "Ere you go," said Peden at the close of the interview, "you must pray for me, for I am old, and going to leave the world." After prayer, Peden drew Renwick near to him and kissed him, and said, "Sir, I find you a faithful servant to your Master. Go on in a single dependence upon the Lord, and ye will get honestly through, and clear off the stage, when many others who hold their heads high will be in the mire, and make foul hands and garments." And these words were followed by a fervent prayer, such as Peden alone could pray, that the God of Jacob would be Renwick's defence, a covering for his head in the day of battle. A few days afterwards and this tempest-tossed saint cast anchor in the haven of rest eternal. Thwarted in their efforts to apprehend him when alive, his enemies could not forbear offering indignities to his lifeless body. After it was buried forty days, a troop of dragoons disinterred it, intending to hang it up in chains upon the gallows at Cumnock. This not being permitted, they buried the body at the foot of the gallows, where it awaits the trumpet-call of the Judgment day when all wrongs shall be righted, and justice shall have dominion for ever. "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." |
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