Religion & morality > Cloud of witnesses, for the royal prerogatives of Jesus Christ, or, The last speeches and testimonies of those who suffered for the truth in Scotland, in the years 1681-1688, with an appendix, containing the Queensferry paper, Torwood excommunications, &c

EPITAPHS.
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Who, for Christ’s royal troths and laws,
And for the covenanted cause
Of Scotland’s famous reformation,
Declining tyrants’ usurpation;
By cruel Crichton murder’d lies,
Whose blood to heav’n for vengeance cries.
Upon the gravestone of Andrew Hislop, lying in CraickhaMgh, in Etkdale
moor, being the place where he was shot by Claverhouse and Sir James
Johnstoun of Westerhall.
Halt, passenger, a word with thee or two,
Why I ly here wouldst thou truly know 1
By wicked hands, hands cruel and unjust,
Without all law, my life from me they thrust;
And, being dead, they left me on the spot,
For burial this same place I got:
Truth’s friends in Eskdale, now rejoice their lot,
To wit, the faithful, for truth my seal thus got.
In the church-yard of Dumfries, upon the gravestone of John Grierson,
who lived in the parish of Irongray, and suffered January 26, 1667, is
this inscription.
Underneath this stone doth ly
Dust, sacrific’d to tyranny :
Yet precious in Immanuel’s sight,
Since martyr’d for his kingly right.
When he condemns these hellish drudges,
By suffrage, saints shall be their judges.
Epitaph upon the gravestone of Wm. Welch, in the same church-yard, who
lived in the same parish, and suffered at the same time with the former.
Halt, passenger, read, here interr’d doth ly
A witness ’gainst poor Scotland’s perjury,
Whose head once fixt upon the bridge-port stood,
Proclaiming vengeance for his guiltless blood.
In the same church-yard, on the gravestone of James Kirko, who lived in
the parish of Kter, and was shot dead on the sands of Dumfries, by Cap¬
tain Bruce, June, 1685.
By bloody Bruce, and wretched Wright,
I lost mplife in great despite ;
Shot dead without due time to trie,
And fit me for eternity ;
A witness of Prelatic rage.
As ever was in any age.
On the gravestone lying on Edward Gordon and Alexander M'Ubine,
executed at the church of Irongray, at the command of the Laird of Lagg
and Captain Bruce.
As Lagg and bloody Bruce command,
We were hung up by hellish hand :
And thus, their furious rage to stay,
We died at Kirk of Irongray :
Here now, in peace, sweet rest we take,
Once murder’d for religion’s sake.