The Two Margarets of Wigtown

It was my melancholic privilege to stand on that spot where, in 1685, one of the two Margarets was martyred for her faith in Jesus Christ. Margaret Wilson, aged 18, and Margaret McLachlan, aged 63, were both tied to stakes in the tidal channel of the River Bladnoch near Wigtown, Galloway; the river’s rising water would give them a slow, cold death by drowning.

Both were covenanting Presbyterians, who refused to swear oaths that the Roman Catholic King James VII of Scotland (James II of England) was Head of the Church. Tried for rebellion and sentenced to death by the local magistrate, the older woman was tied further into the river bed, and the younger woman closer to the land, so the latter might watch the former slowly drown and change her mind. She did not, and both women left behind a chilly Scottish river to be received into a warm, celestial palace by day's end.

Both Margarets had to choose between keeping their pure faith in Jesus Christ, or keeping their earthly lives. They might teach a thing or two to believers of our generation who sometimes don't attend church because they don't like a given style of music, or the seats are a bit hard, or it's too rainy to leave the house and they don't like getting wet. 

Christians of a former age might have had it rough, but they were made of better stuff. Truly, the world was not worthy of them.

Wherefore, let us also, seeing that we are compassed with so great a cloud of witnesses, cast away everything that presseth down, and the sin that hangeth so fast on: let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Hebrews 12:1, Geneva Bible