Crime & punishment > Times of Claverhouse, or, Sketches of the persecution

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THE TIMES OF CliAVERHOUSE.
CHAPTER VI.
Cruelties of the Persecutors.
One leading feature of the late persecution in Scot¬
land was its cruelty. This indeed is essential to
all persecutions, hut it is more prominent in some
than in others. There was an atrocity and a sa-
vageism which characterised the persecution of our
forefathers worthy of the most barbarous times, and
which it is proper that their posterity should know.
We have for so many generations past been per¬
mitted to live in peace, that we are ready to ima¬
gine that the tragic scene that was enacted in the
times of our ancestors, partakes more of romance
than of fact. That age, too, is so far gone by, that
by many it is almost forgotten, and has nearly
vanished out of their sight in the extreme distance.
It is, therefore, necessary that it should be recalled,
and presented in all its dreadful realities to their
sight, that they may receive the due impression
thereof, and become fully sensible of the benefits
which have resulted from the brave struggles of
these Christian and patriotic men, who loved not
their lives unto the death. But some feel the re¬
cital of the sufferings of those times too much for