open profligacy and legalized oppression; and the hunted, the opposite
attributes of hypocrisy, fanaticism, disloyalty, and midnight
assassination. The troopers and cavaliers became enthusiasts in the
pursuit of the covenanters If Messrs Kid, King, Cameron, Peden, &c.
boasted of prophetic powers, and were often warned of the approach of
the soldiers, by supernatural impulse,[A] captain John Creichton, on
the other side, dreamed dreams, and saw visions (chiefly, indeed, after
having drunk hard), in which the lurking holes of the rebels were
discovered to his imagination.[B] Our ears are scarcely more shocked
with the profane execrations of the persecutors,[C] than with the
strange and insolent familiarity used towards the Deity by the
persecuted fanatics. Their indecent modes of prayer, their extravagant
expectations of miraculous assistance, and their supposed inspirations,
might easily furnish out a tale, at which the good would sigh, and the
gay would laugh.

[Footnote A: In the year 1684, Peden, one of the Cameronian preachers,
about ten o'clock at night, sitting at the fire-side, started up to his
feet, and said, "Flee, auld Sandie (thus he designed himself), and hide
yourself! for colonel----is coming to this house to apprehend you; and
I advise you all to do the like, for he will be here within an hour;"
which came to pass: and when they had made a very narrow search, within
and without the house, and went round the thorn-bush, under which he was
lying praying, they went off without their prey. He came in, and said,
"And has this gentleman (designed by his name) given poor Sandie, and
thir poor things, such a fright? For this night's work, God shall give
him such a blow, within a few days, that all the physicians on earth
shall not be able to cure;" which came to pass, for he died in great
misery.--_Life of Alexander Peden._]