i 
 
 1 I 
 
 2 i 
 
 3 i 
 
 8 j
 
 THE 
 
 LIGHTS OF THE NORTH
 
 BISHOP WILLIAM FLPHINSTONE
 
 The Lights of the North: 
 
 ILLUSTRATING THE 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 IN NORTH-EASTERN SCOTLAND 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES STARK, D.D. 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 'JOHN MURKER OF BANFF"; "DR. KIDD OF ABERDEEN"; F.TC. 
 
 ABERDEEN: D. WYLLIE & SON 
 
 MDCCCXCVI
 
 PRINTER AT THE "FREE PRESS" OFFICE. 
 A B E K D E K X
 
 tto 
 
 SIR WILLIAM DUGUID GEDDES, LL.D. 
 
 PRINCIPAL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF 
 ABERDEEN
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 EVER since I wrote the life of Dr. Kidd it has 
 been my cherished desire, by an appeal to the 
 records of the past, to show to the people of this 
 part of Scotland, where I have spent almost 
 the whole of my public life, how much they 
 owe to that Evangel, which has been here for 
 more than a thousand years, and still lies at the 
 heart of the ministrations of all true churches 
 of Christ. The hours of leisure which the cares 
 of my pastorate allowed I have spent in trying 
 to master this large subject in its successive 
 historical enshrinements and various denomina- 
 tional phases, that the central and vital element 
 in our common Christianity may be seen, especi- 
 ally by the young, to be to-day what it has ever 
 been the rock and bulwark of all that is most 
 precious in our life. The method pursued has 
 been to use biography as subservient to history ; 
 to seize the essential facts and salient features of 
 the successive periods of the Church Celtic,
 
 Vlll. PREFACE. 
 
 Roman, and Protestant and to group them 
 around local figures of pre-eminent brilliancy 
 and usefulness. There is no book that I know 
 of which sets forth what is here attempted ; 
 but is it not well that some one should under- 
 take the task ? 
 
 The field is so wide, and the details, with 
 their local colouring, so multiplied that it will 
 be strange if no errors have crept in ; but I have 
 done my best to insure accuracy, and, above all, 
 to maintain fairness and catholicity. 
 
 In the course of the narrative I acknow- 
 ledge my indebtedness to various authors ; it 
 would be too long a list to print were I to 
 name all the books I have consulted, and the 
 many tracts and pamphlets which have yielded 
 me fugitive gleanings. 
 
 One of the main advantages of a book such 
 as this is that the information which is scattered 
 and locked up in a literature that is miscel- 
 laneous and often not very accessible, is here 
 knit together and presented as an organic and 
 continuous whole. 
 
 Among the many friends who have been of 
 great service to me in my work, I cannot refrain
 
 PREFACE. IX. 
 
 from mentioning the names or George Walker, 
 Aberdeen ; P. J. Anderson, M.A., LL.B., of the 
 University Library ; and James MacDonald, 
 F.S.A. Scot., The Farm, Huntly. 
 
 Through the kind permission of the Senatus 
 of Aberdeen University and the Fine Art Insti- 
 tute of Glasgow, we have been able to repro- 
 duce in photogravure the portrait of Bishop 
 Elphinstone which is in King's College. 
 
 J. S. 
 
 ABERDKEN, Xorcmber, 1896.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER. PACK. 
 
 I. Columlui 521-97 1 
 
 II. Drostan is 
 
 III. Machar and Ternan 31 
 
 IV. From the Celtic to the Roman Church 
 
 1069-93 46 
 
 V. Archdeacon Barbour 1316-95 ... 57 
 
 VI. Bishop Elphinstone 1431-1514 . . 65 
 
 VII. The Religious Life of Pre-Reformation Times 75 
 
 VIII. The Reformation 1560 . . . .87 
 
 IX. John Craig 1512-1600 .... 103 
 
 X. Bishop Patrick Forbes 1564-1635 . . 115 
 
 XI. Samuel Rutherford in Aberdeen 1636-3S 13n 
 
 XII. The Covenanting Struggle in Aberdeen 
 
 1638 145 
 
 XIII. Andrew Cant 1584-1663 157 
 
 XIV. The Quakers in Aberdeen 1662 . . 17<> 
 XV. Alexander Jaffray of Kingswells 1614-73 175 
 
 XVI. Church Life in the Seventeenth Century . 1SS 
 
 XVII. The Seceders 1733 197 
 
 XVIII. The Moderate? -Ji:i
 
 xii. CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER. 
 
 XIX. Principal Campbell 1719-96 
 
 XX. John Skinner of Linslmrt 1721 -1SU7 . 232 
 
 XXI. The Methodists-1 747 . . . . 24.'> 
 
 XXII. CJeorge Cowie of Huntly 1749-1 806 . 2.VJ 
 
 XXIII. The Independents 1797 .... 2(54 
 
 XXIV. Dr. Kidd 1793-1834 .... 27(1 
 XXV. Patrick Robertson of Craigdam 1777-1807. 2S7 
 
 XXVI. The Disruption of 1843 .... 29(1 
 
 XXV1L The Revival in Aberdeen of 1858-60. . 30S 
 
 XXVIII. The Christianity of the Present Day 1896 318 
 
 APPENDIX . . . . . . 331 
 
 INDEX . 337
 
 The Lights of the North. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 COLU.MHA 521-1)7. 
 
 1 T is a far cry from Aberdeen to lona, but there 
 is ground for the belief that our northern 
 county owes its possession of the most precious 
 and sacred tilings in life to the direct instru- 
 mentality of him whose name has invested the 
 little green isle of the Western sea with an 
 imperishable fame. Besides participating in the 
 general indebtedness of the greater part of 
 Scotland for the truly apostolic labours of the 
 Irish missionary of soldier-like spirit, there is 
 evidence that Columba, along with his disciple 
 Drostan, landed on the shores of this district 
 and traversed the north-eastern part of it, in 
 the course of a pioneering tour. 
 
 The first distinct and documentary account 
 we have of the evangelisation of Pictlaml, or 
 that stretch of country which lay to the north- 
 east of the Roman wall that was built between 
 B
 
 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 the Forth and the Clyde, is in the pages of the 
 life of Columba written by Adamnan, who was 
 born twenty-seven years after the Christian hero 
 passed away, and was one of his successors in 
 office. There were probably some fugitive glim- 
 merings of the Christian light seen in the far 
 north before that date. Tertullian, with the 
 triumphant tone of a Christian apologist who 
 sees the truth prevailing, maintained that the 
 Cross had trophies in remote parts of Caledonia 
 which were inaccessible to the Roman arms. 
 While it would not be safe to attach much 
 weight to that vague assertion, which may have 
 been only a rhetorical nourish, yet it is not 
 unlikely that some bold and enthusiastic con- 
 verts to the Christian faith ventured into the 
 unknown region of mountain, swamp, and forest, 
 which lay like an island outside the boundaries 
 of the world-empire, and preached the Gospel to 
 its wild and hardy inhabitants, who might be 
 conquered by the drilled legions of "Rome, but 
 were never subdued. There are numerous traces 
 still discernible of the encampments and marches 
 of the Imperial army north of the Forth, and it 
 is not too much to assume that there were some 
 Christian soldiers in its ranks who dropped the 
 seed of the Kingdom by the way, more especially 
 after the Emperor Constantine's conversion early 
 in the fourth century, which brought the religion 
 that had been persecuted with a Satanic fury
 
 COLUMBA. 3 
 
 among the things that now basked in the sun- 
 shine of popular favour. If Paul could speak in 
 his day of saints in " Crasar's household," there 
 were surely some Christian military men from 
 Rome who did not put their light under a bushel 
 when marching through benighted Caledonia. 
 
 But, speaking generally, it may be affirmed 
 that while Romanised Britain, to the south of 
 the great wall, was more or less superficially 
 familiar with the creed of Christianity by the 
 fifth century, through the labours of Ninian in 
 Galloway, along with other workers whose record 
 is in heaven, all beyond the line of Roman con- 
 quest, with the exception of one or two favoured 
 spots, such, perhaps, as Abernethy, in Perthshire, 
 was an unbroken extent of unrelieved heathen- 
 ism. To Columba belongs the honour of making 
 it his special endeavour to bring that part of the 
 world under the sway of Christ. 
 
 Columba was in every way eminently en- 
 dowed and fitted for the herculean task to which 
 he felt himself called, and to which he gave the 
 whole-hearted devotion of the best part of a 
 lifetime. He had a splendid capital of natural 
 resource and social consequence at his command. 
 He was of Royal descent, and was widely con- 
 nected with the ruling families in Ireland. He 
 himself was a born leader of men, the outward 
 frame of uncommon height and strength corre- 
 sponding with his inward force of character and
 
 4 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 ardour of spirit. He had a voice, too, of such 
 penetrating power that, while in a building it 
 did not impress the hearer as being much louder 
 than that of others, yet, it is said, could be 
 heard on the other side of the Sound of Mull, 
 about a mile distant from lona. He had much 
 of that kind of greatness which could not but 
 make itself felt among the savages whom he 
 sought to tame in the name of Christ. He was 
 by no means a saint of the orthodox monastic 
 pattern meek, mild, and inoffensive. He had 
 a reat deal of the " old man " in him, which 
 
 c5 
 
 to the end rubbed shoulders with the " new 
 man," and occasionally over-mastered him ; it 
 is reported, for example, that he chased a wrong- 
 doer into the sea till he was up to the knees in 
 water, cursing him all the time. 
 
 But he had rough work to do, and sometimes 
 his patience was sorely tried and his superabun- 
 dant energy taxed. lie addressed himself with 
 a quenchless valour against the polygamy, the 
 slavery, the brutal cruelty to women which then 
 prevailed, for, as Professor Mackinnon tells us, 
 in the regions where Columba laboured the 
 female slave was the standard of value in fixing 
 the price of an article, and women fought along- 
 side men in battle. 
 
 Columba's occasional explosiveness was no 
 more than his strong sense of justice out- 
 rao-ed ; it was the righteousness within him
 
 COLUMBA. 5 
 
 in an active and perhaps turbulent state. He 
 had much of what is called an " impassioned 
 uprightness." He was a Celt of the Celts, easily 
 roused, but withal warm-hearted and generous ; 
 or, as an old composition written in praise of 
 him says " He was a harp without a base chord, 
 a physician of the heart, a consolation to the 
 poor, beloved of all." He had the heart of a 
 poet, and was alive to the finer sentiments 
 which give tenderness and beauty to life. In 
 proof of his love of his native land, from which 
 he had exiled himself, there is an old tradition 
 that on coming to this country he landed first 
 on the island of Oronsay, but because he could 
 see Ireland from the hill, he must needs press 
 still further north. 
 
 In fitting him for his work as the founder of 
 the Celtic Church in what is now called Scot- 
 land, he had all the culture which Ireland, 
 the principal seat of learning at the time in 
 Europe, could give him. It is noticeable that 
 the men whose personality is conspicuously 
 marked in the great epochs of the world's 
 history were usually well-equipped with all that 
 the schools could furnish them at the time in 
 which they lived. Moses, the Hebrew legislator, 
 had the full benefit of the best education Egypt 
 could afford ; Paul sat at the feet of Gamaliel 
 and had his mind stored with all the lore of his 
 nation ; Luther and Knox were well schooled
 
 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 in various ways before they began their career 
 as Reformers ; Columba was the flower of the 
 culture and piety of the " Isle of Saints," and 
 had founded many monasteries and churches in 
 Ireland before, at the age of forty-two, he began 
 the great Gospel enterprise of which lona was 
 to be the centre. 
 
 It is interesting to notice, as showing the 
 strange changes and startling contrasts which 
 time brings round, that more than fourteen 
 hundred years ago Ireland was in many respects 
 in advance of all other countries in Europe. 
 Learning flourished and piety rooted itself in 
 that island when the Continent was in the throes 
 of a great transition state. It was a refuge to 
 the scholar and a quiet sanctuary to the devout 
 seeker after God amidst the commotion and 
 upheaval caused by the breaking up of the 
 empire, and the establishment of a new political 
 order. Ireland, the original land of the Scots, 
 
 O 
 
 did more for religion and general culture in 
 those days than any other country in the world. 
 What, too, is more remarkable still, no country 
 was then so independent of the hierarchy in 
 Rome, and, indeed, seems to have had little 
 communication with it. 
 
 In leaving Ireland for missionary work in 
 this land, Columba was doing no more than 
 many of the best of his fellow-countrymen did, 
 who, like Paul, felt they were debtors to the
 
 COLUMBA. 7 
 
 Greek and barbarian ; but more than one motive 
 has been ascribed to this fiery son of Erin, for 
 his action at the time. It would appear that a 
 breach of cordial feeling between him and some 
 of his friends had something to do with his 
 departure. It arose in this wise : Columba, 
 who was a most industrious and expert tran- 
 scriber, had copied a psalter which belonged to 
 Finnian. That grasping Churchman meanly in- 
 sisted that the copy which Columba had taken 
 with his own hand should be handed over to 
 him, as it could not have been in existence but 
 for his psalter. The high-spirited Columba re- 
 sisted such a demand, and the question having 
 been referred to Dermod, King of Ireland, the 
 decision was given which afterwards became a 
 proverb in Ireland " To every book belongs its 
 son-book (or copy), as to every cow belongs her 
 calf. Therefore the book you wrote, O Columba, 
 belongs by right to Finnian." This incensed 
 Columba, and the difference deepening and 
 spreading among the rival tribes, actually led 
 to war and bloodshed. 
 
 Thus constrained by a variety of motives, 
 the loftiest of which, however, predominated, as 
 his subsequent history showed, Columba turned 
 his back upon Ireland, and with twelve com- 
 panions (the same number as St. Patrick had 
 when he went to Ireland) in his osier craft, 
 in the year 563 A.D., he landed at lona, near the
 
 S THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 region to which his compatriots, the Dalriwl 
 Scots, had migrated. The place was admirably 
 chosen for the purpose he had in view, which was 
 not only to provide for the ready dissemination 
 of the truth, but also to secure a strong and 
 compact centre of religious life. He wanted to 
 establish a little Christian community that would 
 be isolated from the contamination and strife of 
 surrounding heathenism, and yet have ready 
 access to it, with the remedial agencies of the 
 gospel, just as in our own day the principal 
 station for the evangelisation of one part of 
 New Guinea was at first an adjoining islet. He 
 wanted to show what could be done for a little 
 bit of this world, when all its inhabitants were 
 more or less obedient to the law of Christ, and 
 to give an effective object-lesson to every be- 
 holder of the order, peace, and industry of which 
 the whole country might become the scene. He 
 wanted also to make this spot a rallying point 
 a kind of ecclesiastical metropolis for the 
 Christendom that was to be in these northern 
 isles. That little rock-bound islet, often swept 
 with tempests, which fittingly pourtraycd the 
 unrest and strife that raged among the sur- 
 rounding heathen, was to be a world in itself, 
 a kingdom of heaven that was coming, if not 
 come. Has not his own glowing prediction, 
 uttered before his death, been fulfilled " Small 
 and mean though this place is, it shall yet be
 
 COLUMBA. 9 
 
 held in great and unusual honour, not only by 
 Scotic kings and peoples, but also by the rulers 
 of foreign and barbarous nations and by their 
 subjects ; the saints also even of other Churches 
 shall regard it with no common reverence." As 
 Dr. Johnson put it, in a passage that has now 
 become classic " We were now treading that 
 illustrious island which was once the luminary 
 of the Caledonian regions, where savage clans 
 or roving barbarians derived the benefits of 
 knowledge and the blessings of religion. . . . 
 Far from me, and from my friends, be such 
 frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent 
 and unmoved over any ground which has been 
 dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That 
 man is little to be envied whose patriotism 
 would not gain force upon the plain of Mara- 
 thon, or whose piety would not grow warmer 
 among the ruins of lona." 
 
 From hints dropped by Adamnan in his 
 biography, it would appear that Columba had 
 skill in teaching men how to make the best of 
 this world as well as the next. Whatever else 
 lona was, it must have been the model farm of the 
 day. Never were stinted natural resources more 
 thoroughly developed than they were on that 
 island under the direction and inspiration of 
 this man of big brain and heart, as well as big 
 body. The little patches of corn-land and pas- 
 ture, notwithstanding tearful skies and fierce
 
 10 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 winds, yielded as much as maintained a hun- 
 dred and fifty persons, besides a ceaseless 
 stream of visitors. Those saints of ancient 
 days, including Columba himself, put their 
 hand to any kind of work that had to be 
 done, not excepting what is usually reserved 
 for the other sex. 
 
 It is sometimes stated that celibacy was not 
 enforced, even in the early days of the Celtic 
 Church, but there is no evidence of its clergy 
 being married when Columba was alive, or for 
 many years afterwards. The " Island of the 
 Women," which is near lona, was probably the 
 place where female members of pilgrimage parties 
 were detained. Like the inmates of the other 
 monasteries of those days, before they became 
 luxurious and corrupt, the members of that 
 commonwealth became adepts at all kinds of 
 handicraft, and their homestead was a very hive 
 of industry. 
 
 The Celtic genius, minute and patient, ex- 
 celled in finish of artistic workmanship, and 
 there are illuminated manuscripts still extant, 
 the admiration of all beholders, which are said 
 to be the product of that place. 
 
 The county of Aberdeen has the distinction 
 of possessing what is supposed to be the most 
 ancient symbol of the veneration in which 
 Columba was held by our ancestors. One of 
 the treasures of Monymusk House is the famous
 
 COLUMBA. 1 1 
 
 Brecbannoch*, a small casket which had pro- 
 bably at one time contained some fragments of 
 the bones of the saint. If it be the Brecbannoch 
 mentioned in authentic charters, in looking upon 
 it we see what was carried as a holy shrine 
 round Bruce's army before Bannockburn was 
 fought.t 
 
 There is a romance in the picture which 
 Adamnan, by the incidental allusions he makes, 
 permits our imagination to draw of the high- 
 souled life that was lived there in the days of 
 Columba. It is like a realised Utopia one of 
 the isles of the blest even when we omit the 
 miracles and the fabulous exaggerations of the 
 credulous and fanciful narrator. It was in some 
 respects a departure from the normal order of 
 things, and, therefore, contained within itself 
 the elements of its own coming dissolution ; but 
 there was Christ-like purpose in it, and it sur- 
 vived for centuries and for part of that time 
 proved itself indeed to be an enterprise of 
 heaven. What an ideal alternation of the 
 manual and the intellectual, the secular and 
 the spiritual, in the daily routine of those Celtic 
 worthies ! The island was a farm, a school of 
 learning, a church, a missionary society. Columba 
 and his coadjutors passed from the plough and 
 the spade, the grinding of corn and the baking 
 
 * " Church and Priory of Monymusk," pp. 3, 4, 5. 
 t See Appendix.
 
 12 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 of bread, to the transcription and illumination of 
 copies of the Scriptures ; they went from private 
 devotion and public worship to the entertainment 
 of strangers and the teaching of those who came 
 from afar to be instructed, or launching one of 
 their fleet of boats for a missionary expedition 
 to a distant part of the coast, where the Cruciticd 
 One had not as yet been lifted up. 
 
 One man under God was the moving, mould- 
 ing spirit of the whole. What an almost un- 
 exampled position of trust and responsibility was 
 that which Columba erected for himself in lona. 
 No king that ever sat on Scotland's throne 
 wielded such power. There has been much 
 controversy about the ecclesiastical order which 
 prevailed in lona and in the Celtic Church to 
 which the society there gave birth ; but practi- 
 cally the polity was summed up in one word 
 Columba. He was a Presbyter abbot, like the 
 head of similar institutions in Ireland, but lie 
 was above all things himself under authority to 
 Christ, and such a strong and noble personality 
 could not fail to give effect to itself while it was 
 a living presence. 
 
 Part of the secret of the spell which he 
 exerted upon others lay in the personal applica- 
 tion of the example of Him who, though the 
 greatest of all, was yet the servant of all. 
 Columba said to his followers " Come " rather 
 than " Go." Where high and perilous service
 
 COLUMBA. 13 
 
 was needed he was at hand. Adamnan says he 
 could not spend the space of even one hour 
 without study or prayer or writing or some other 
 holy occupation. There can be no doubt he was 
 a man of prodigious industry as well as colossal 
 force. There is a tradition that in every church 
 he planted (and he planted hundreds) he de- 
 posited a copy of the Gospels which he had 
 copied with his own hand. 
 
 He was original on the active rather than the 
 reflective side of his nature ; the hero, not 
 the thinker ; the herald rather than the theo- 
 logian. Yet he knew how to feed the flame of 
 
 o 
 
 piety by prayer and meditation. Like Bernard 
 he preserved a due balance of force between the 
 inward and outward in his life. The " three 
 fifties," as lie called the Book of Psalms, and the 
 other parts of Scripture committed to memory 
 and frequently recited, kept alive in his character 
 those elements which were the sure basis of his 
 sainthood and soldiership. Spiritual song, with 
 some sort of accompaniment, was also extensively 
 used in quickening the inward life. 
 
 But we must now hasten to deal with 
 Columba's work in our own part of the world. 
 Adamnan makes no mention of it, though he 
 names several of the churches and monasteries 
 which the Abbot of lona had founded in other 
 parts of the land. He tells us also that two or 
 three years after the great missionary crusade
 
 J4 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 was begun, Columba crossed the border of the 
 Pictish kingdom, travelling through Breadalbane, 
 Atholl, and the Grampians until he reached the 
 Ness, beside which, and not far from the site of 
 Inverness, was the fortress and palace of King 
 Bnide, son of Malcolm, where a good stroke of 
 work was done for the cause which was so much 
 at heart. Although the pages of Adamnan are 
 silent concerning any visit paid to the north-east 
 coast, there have been persistent traditions cling- 
 ing to certain localities in that region which 
 point to close association with Columba. Among 
 these, Aberdour, near which there are traces 
 of a considerable population belonging to pre- 
 historic times, and Old Deer have conspicuously 
 made their mark on the popular memory, which 
 is shown in the names given to wells and 
 other places associated with the saint ; and 
 in the discovery of the " Book of Deer " in 
 Cambridge University in I860, a remarkable 
 witness has risen up in confirmation of tradition. 
 This manuscript consists of the Gospel of John 
 and parts of the other three Evangelists in 
 Latin, along with the Apostles' Creed and a 
 fragment of an office for the visitation of the 
 sick. The name of the writer is not given, but 
 he asks for the prayers of the reader. Dr. 
 Stuart gives us some interesting information 
 regarding this MS. In 1G97 the "Book of Deer" 
 formed part of the collection of MSS. of John
 
 COLUMN A. 15 
 
 Moore, then Bishop of Norwich. It came into 
 the possession of the University of Cambridge in 
 1715, the Bishop having died in 1714, and his 
 library, bought by King George I., was presented 
 to Cambridge University. The rare value of this 
 MS. lies in the entries in the vernacular of 
 grants of land made to the monastery and in- 
 serted in the eleventh and twelth centuries. 
 These memoranda give us glimpses of the 
 patriarchal polity which still existed, but was 
 soon to give way to a feudal kingdom. We 
 give what is of importance to our purpose as 
 Dr. Stuart translates it * : 
 
 "Columcille and Drostan, son of Cosgrach, his 
 pupil, came from Hy, or lona, as God hath shown to 
 them, to Abbcrdoboir, or Aberdour, and Bede, the 
 Cruithnech or Pict, was mormaer of Buchan before 
 them, and it was he that gave them that cathair or 
 town in freedom for ever from mormaer and toisech. 
 They came after that to the other town, and it was 
 pleasing to Columcille, because it was full of God's 
 grace, and he asked of the mormaer viz., Bede 
 that he should give it him, and he did not give it ; 
 and a son of his took an illness after refusing the 
 clerics, and he was nearly dead. Then the mormaer 
 went to entreat the clerics that they should make 
 prayer for the son, that health should come to him, 
 and he gave an offering to them from Cloch in tipart 
 to Cloch pette meic Garnait. They made the prayer, 
 
 * The " Book of Deer," p. 48 in preface.
 
 1C THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 and health came to him. Then Columcille gave to 
 Drostan that cathair, and blessed it, and left as his 
 word ' Whosoever should come against it, let him 
 not be many-y eared [or] victorious.' Drostan's tears 
 came on parting with Columcille. Said Columcille 
 ' Let Deer be its name- henceforward.' " 
 
 There have been many shiftings since Col- 
 umba's time, and lona is no longer a centre and 
 focus of missionary activity, but just as Nature, 
 which still keeps lona's grass green and flows 
 in the tides which wash her rocky shores every 
 day, is as fresh and vigorous as ever, so the 
 truth, of which the island in its history is a 
 witness and a symbol, is Scotland's glory and 
 security to-day. There is not a visible thing 
 bearing the trace of man's hand in lona now 
 that can with certainty be identified with 
 Columba. Six times did the marauding Norse- 
 men reduce the monastery to ashes. There is 
 not, of course, the slightest vestige of the turf- 
 walled or wattled structures in which the monks 
 lived and worshipped : the stone edifices reared 
 in a much later age are now in ruins. The 
 Celtic Church, which sprang from his labours, 
 was merged in the Roman Church six centuries 
 ago ; that again was discarded by the nation at 
 the time of the Reformation. Yet Columba lives 
 in the hearts of all Scotsmen who know Christ ; 
 for that stalwart figure of far away limes can 
 never be effaced from the memory as long as we
 
 COLUMBA. 17 
 
 appreciate the labours of those who did most to 
 bring the races from which we sprang into the 
 possession of the unfading glories and undying 
 hopes which cluster around the Cross.
 
 CHAP T E R II. 
 
 DUOSTAN. 
 
 t ET us, by the use of available sources of 
 information, obtain as vivid an idea as 
 possible of the state of this part of the country 
 at the time of Columba's arrival. The Romans 
 had long ago taken their departure from the 
 other side of the rampart between the Forth 
 and the Clyde which had with difficulty held 
 back the untamed races of the north. The Im- 
 perial people, who for so many centuries had 
 been invaders, were in turn invaded, and to 
 concentrate their forces at home, where they 
 were urgently needed, had to withdraw en- 
 tirely from Britain in 410 A.D., shortly after 
 Niniari had built his stone church Candida 
 Casa on the Solway Firth. The inglorious fall 
 which came at last after such a splendid career, 
 which has been written in ineffaceable characters 
 in the history of the world, brought unsettlement 
 and confusion to the greater part of Europe. 
 
 The hardy Picts of the North, scarcely 
 touched by the refining but enfeebling civilisa- 
 tion of Rome, which held possession of the 
 greater part of Britain for nearly five hundred
 
 DROSTAN. 19 
 
 years, now made short work of the wall, and 
 were a source of terror to their neighbours on 
 the other side. The nearness of a common foe 
 so powerful as Rome, whom they had resisted 
 to the death, had doubtless tended to the con- 
 solidation of the various independent tribes that 
 peopled the northern part of the land. By the 
 time that Columba paid his first visit to Buchan 
 with Drostan and founded the Monastery at 
 Deer, what now bears the name of Scotland 
 was divided into four parts Northuinbria and 
 Strathclyde on the south-east and south-west, 
 Pictland and Scotia on the north-east and north- 
 west. The latter part was inhabited by an Irish 
 colony, the Dalriads or Scots, who had migrated 
 from the mother-country to Argyle and adjacent 
 parts in the fifth or sixth century, and who by 
 their aggressive energy succeeded eventually in 
 mastering and giving their name to the whole 
 land, " Scotland " by the eleventh century no 
 longer being the sister isle, but our own native 
 Caledonia. 
 
 The native Picts, to a large extent mixed 
 with other races, Celtic, Saxon, and Norse, were 
 the ancestors of the inhabitants of this part of 
 the country. Before Christianity was introduced 
 the civilisation of our ancestors was not greater 
 than that of many heathen districts in Africa as 
 they may be seen in the present day. The 
 numerous spear-heads and battle-axes of stone
 
 20 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 and the arrow-heads of flint which the plough 
 and the spade have unearthed in our fields tell 
 their own tale of the time. The chief occupation 
 of those Picts when riot fighting with each other 
 or their neighbours was hunting and fishing, by 
 which they obtained most of their food supplies. 
 To a large extent the land was a wilderness of 
 forest and swamp, where the deer, the wolf, and 
 the boar abounded, the patches of ground that 
 were cultivated being generally on the slopes of 
 the hills. Our savage ancestors navigated lake 
 and sea in canoes made out of hollow trees, such 
 as are still occasionally dug up out of the 
 morasses, or in boats made of wicker-work 
 covered with skins of animals. 
 
 While we are left to a great extent to specu- 
 lation and guess-work in trying to ascertain the 
 origin and use of such " vitrified forts " as Uuni- 
 deer and Tap o' Noth, which " stands sentinel 
 over the upper waters of the Bogie," yet the 
 highest authorities lean to the conclusion that 
 they were strongholds in which the people of 
 the district we are describing could shelter them- 
 selves when hard pressed by dangerous neigh- 
 bours, or, at a later period, by the more dreaded 
 invading and marauding Norsemen, as the beacon 
 fires were kindled. How much do those remains 
 suggest, and yet how much do they veil, of the 
 period to which they belong. There is a path- 
 etic vagueness in the utterance of their testimony
 
 DROSTAN. 21 
 
 which reminds us that oblivion claims so much 
 more than history of the movements of the suc- 
 ceeding races of mankind. 
 
 The religion of the ancient Picts, it would 
 appear, was little better than fetichism a vague 
 deification of the objects and forces of Nature ; 
 in the absence of light from above, it was an 
 unconscious projection of their own wayward 
 ideas and fierce passions into space, so that 
 which they really worshipped was a reflection 
 of themselves. There has been endless contro- 
 versy about the Druids, who have been described 
 as the high priests of the native religion, a 
 learned and sacred caste somewhat like the 
 Magi of Persia, but our identification of them 
 with the religion of this part of the world may 
 be attributed to reasonable conjecture rather 
 than to actual knowledge. It has been sarcasti- 
 cally said by agnostic historians that Druid is a 
 word that has been invented to conceal our 
 ignorance. It is certainly difficult for the 
 human mind to reconcile itself to a state of 
 avowed vacancy, and when knowledge fails we 
 are frequently not unwilling to allow fancy to 
 take its place. For a long time we connected 
 what Julius Caesar said of the Druids as he saw 
 them in Gaul with the ancient monoliths and 
 stone circles, popularly called " Temples," more 
 or less complete, which are found in this as in 
 other parts of the country. As the result, how-
 
 22 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 ever, of deepening research, we have learned to 
 be more cautious, and are beginning to admit 
 that we really have no evidence for any very 
 definite conclusion as to the use to which the 
 enclosure within those hu^e weather-beaten 
 
 
 
 stones was put. So far as we know there is no 
 mention made of those stone circles by Roman 
 writers, and, as they were very particular in the 
 information they gave of our country as ob- 
 served by them, we may fairly assume that those 
 huge stones were not put up till after the Roman 
 period. 
 
 Human remains have been found beside those 
 rude survivals of a remote past, but that proves 
 little, as it was not uncommon in ancient times 
 to bury the dead beside any remarkable or 
 historic place. The general consensus of opinion 
 amongst those who by special study are entitled 
 to be heard is that those circles were places of 
 assembly and of justice, and probably also of 
 worship and interment. They were the " high 
 places," the " forum," of the tribes, and when the 
 people themselves lived in caves, in mud or 
 wattled houses, there would be, in their eyes, 
 something exalted in the circles, taking in old 
 heathen times the place that the cathedrals did 
 at a later and Christian period. As has been 
 well said, " the church, market, court, and 
 sepulchre represent ideas and facts which ever 
 tend to group themselves among all nations,
 
 DROSTAN. 23 
 
 especially among ourselves ; " and the stone 
 circles probably answered all those ends. 
 
 Some of the relics of the heathen life of those 
 remote times are with us, lurking in the customs 
 and words still in use. There are superstitious 
 practices stealthily clung to which are just the 
 remote past keeping its foot in the present. 
 Yule, All-Hallow E'en, the very days of the 
 week, such as Wednesday and Thursday, called 
 after the Saxon deities Woden and Thor, are 
 survivals o^ the heathenism which once had a 
 place in this land. Less than two hundred years 
 ago it was not so very uncommon in the more 
 benighted parts of Aberdeenshire, to leave a 
 portion of the farm untilled, " the guid man's 
 craft," as a gift of propitiation to the " auld 
 man " to keep him from " shakin' the corn." 
 
 That superstition dies hard, that the ancient 
 and buried layer of heathenism has succeeded in 
 keeping itself in view down to our own century, 
 we have proof of in a " Book of Power " lying in 
 the Aberdeen Free Church College library. It 
 belongs to the museum that was bequeathed by 
 the late Mr. Thomson of Banchory to the above- 
 named institution. Up till about the middle of 
 this century it was used by a wizard or " wise 
 man" to enable him to have power over the people 
 of the island of Lewis. It stands now in a more 
 useful place, with the black and white yarns 
 enclosing it, and the key that had to be put
 
 24 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 within certain pages before the charm couM 
 work ! 
 
 What may be regarded as the last utterance 
 of Celtic heathenism known to us is found in the 
 Book of the Dean of Lismore, where the bard 
 perhaps of Ossian's time is represented as 
 addressing one of the Christian missionaries who 
 was regarded as being oblivious in his saintliness 
 of Nature's charm " Patrick of the solemn 
 psalms, how great your love must be since you do 
 not close your book and listen to the voice of the 
 blackbird. Sweet blackbird, high on yon bend- 
 ing bough, how soothing is your song ! Although 
 3^ou never heard mass said by priests, how 
 delightfully you whistle ! " It is so difficult for 
 men to realise that there is nothing incompatible 
 between the psalms and the " song of the 
 blackbird!" 
 
 Before closing this chapter, wo must dwell 
 for a little upon the life and work of one who 
 has left his mark upon our country Drostan, 
 the nephew of Columba. The little information 
 we have about him is almost all legendary, but, 
 as we have seen, his name is mentioned in the 
 " Book of Deer " as having accompanied Columba 
 when he came to Aberdour and passed over to 
 what is now called Old Deer. Like many more of 
 Columba's distinguished associates and followers, 
 Drostan is said to have been of Royal descent. 
 There is evidence that just as in the early days
 
 DROSTAN. 25 
 
 of the Reformed Church in Scotland men of high 
 social position devoted themselves to the work 
 of the ministry, so in the spring-time of the 
 Celtic Church many of noble birth abandoned 
 the pursuits of war and became soldiers of the 
 Prince of Peace. That may partly account for the 
 easy access the missionaries of those days had to 
 chieftains and kings, and for the successful efforts 
 they made to bring such into the Christian fold. 
 When the religion of the Cross was first planted, 
 her adherents were chiefly the poor and the ob- 
 scure. Christianity, as it came to be increasingly 
 a force in society, gradually rose socially till the 
 Emperor himself, Constantino, identified himself 
 with it. But in the sixth century we find that 
 the order was reversed by the Irish evangelists, 
 and their first aim was to win over the head of 
 a tribe, and all the members of it gradually, at 
 least in name, followed his example. That made 
 the work of the time very superficial, more 
 rapid than thorough, and accounted for Paganism 
 lingering in our land as a feeling and factor long 
 after Christianity, by general profession, held the 
 field. In proof of this it may be mentioned that 
 when pestilence or other appalling calamity came 
 it was attributed, sometimes, to the change in reli- 
 gion which had taken place, and a bad harvest often 
 drove the people to seek help from their idols. 
 
 The legend tells us that when Columba left 
 Drostan in charge of the Deer Monastery, tears
 
 2fi THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 came into the eyes of the pupil at parting with 
 his beloved master. So Columba said, " Let 
 Deer (from the Gaelic word meaning " tears ") be 
 its name henceforward." Celtic scholars, perhaps, 
 are nearer the mark in suggesting that the real 
 derivation of Deer is from dair, an oak. The 
 country then abounded in oaks, as is shown by 
 their remains in mosses, and the names of such 
 places in the neighbourhood as Aikie-hill and 
 Aikic-brae. 
 
 After doing service for a considerable number 
 of years at Deer, we are told that when age came 
 upon him, Drostan retired to Glenesk, where he 
 lived as a hermit and founded a church by the 
 side of Lochlee, where his name still lingers. 
 The church in Insch also was dedicated to 
 Drostan. There is a " Dustan " fair held at 
 Deer and at Insch, and one also near Wick. 
 Thus the name has travelled down all the 
 centuries and is still with us to testify to the 
 deep and enduring impression the man who bore 
 it has produced upon this part of Scotland. 
 Tradition says he was buried at his own request 
 at Aberdour. His day in the calendar is 15th 
 December. 
 
 As a matter of policy as well as of senti- 
 ment, Christian pioneers in our own land did 
 not obliterate, but Christianised heathen in- 
 stitutions and associations. There is a curiously- 
 wrought stone with a cross upon it within the
 
 DROSTAX. 27 
 
 domains of Aboyne Castle that was originally 
 set up on the site of the ancient Al at Kinnord.* 
 There are few things more interesting in 
 human history than the tenacity with which 
 tradition and custom cling to certain spots made 
 sacred and familiar long ago by worship. A 
 hermit sets up a cell or oratory, a missionary 
 rears his humble chapel of reeds, a " creel house," 
 often in a place where heathen religion had held 
 its festivals and offered its sacrifices, and for ever 
 afterwards there is a difference between it and 
 other parts. It is a centre, a rallying point, a 
 place of concourse; building displaces building, in 
 the course of ages, each in its structure and style 
 partaking in the advancement that comes with 
 the years ; it may be long after every vestige 
 of man's hand is gone, not one stone being 
 left upon another, and the place has ceased to be 
 a chapel for the worshipper or a shrine for the 
 pious pilgrim, yet the name remains of the saint 
 who by his devotion to duty had hallowed the 
 spot. Men still unconsciously do homage to his 
 memory by meeting periodically for business at 
 a fair or market on the spot to which sacred 
 tradition and custom clin. like the rowan tree or 
 
 o } 
 
 stunted rosebush we see in a Highland glen, 
 which tells us of clearances and dismantled 
 human abodes, and of field and garden now 
 merged in the wide wilderness. 
 
 * Michie's "History of Loch Kinnord," p. 43.
 
 28 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 Those Celtic evangelists had a strange blend- 
 
 o o 
 
 ing in their lives of roving enterprise and ascetic 
 solitariness. They were Christian explorers, 
 pioneers, missionaries, and they were recluses. 
 They isolated themselves from the heathenism 
 that was around them, and yet they daringly 
 invaded and penetrated it with their aggressive 
 evangelism. They had the retreats belonging to 
 the community of which they were members 
 the fdinilia, where they devoted themselves to 
 prayer and industrial pursuits, and yet, unlike 
 most of the monks of Roman Catholic times, 
 they had their periodic incursions into the world 
 with a view to its subjugation. There is evi- 
 dence that the Orkneys, the Faroe Isles, Iceland, 
 and other parts of the far north were visited 
 and so far reclaimed by those daring Columban 
 evangelists. There are distinct traces of them in 
 France, Germany, Italy, and Austria. Colum- 
 banus, twenty-seven years after Columba landed 
 in lona, crossed over to the Continent, and his 
 companions and followers founded new houses, 
 and carried with them light and enthusiasm 
 wherever they went. The books which those 
 Scotic missionaries used were written in their 
 own hand in Latin and freely glossed in Gaelic. 
 Some of them are still preserved in the libraries 
 of St. Gall, Milan, Turin, and other towns in 
 Europe. 
 
 The intensity of their Celtic nature made
 
 DROSTAN. 29 
 
 them equally at home in the oratory and the 
 coracle. We read of Cormac sailing out in the 
 North Sea for fourteen days in one of those frail 
 and tiny vessels which placed nothing between 
 the voyager and the great deep but a framework 
 of wood with hides stretched upon it. On lonely 
 islets and in other solitary places in the West 
 Highlands, where Nature's Sabbatic quiet is al- 
 most as much undisturbed to-day as it was in 
 those far-off times, we see the remains of rude 
 structures of uncemented stone where they medi- 
 tated and worshipped ; and in the names still 
 clinging to parishes where men have dwelt since 
 the dawn of history we see evidence of their 
 practical activity, which was as pronounced as 
 their love of seclusion. A place of retreat for 
 prayer and meditation was called a " desert," and 
 the name Dysart, in Fife, is traceable to that cir- 
 cumstance. 
 
 Let us try to picture to ourselves their 
 manner of life. Each monastery, such as Mort- 
 lach, Monymusk, or Deer, which was a kind of 
 " military base of operations against the powers 
 of heathenism," following the Apostolic tradition, 
 had its college of twelve monks, with the prior 
 as their head. Each monk had his separate cell, 
 or hut of wattles thatched with reeds. The inner 
 court or citadel of the community was the church, 
 which was often of hewn oak, there being no trace 
 of stone buildings till about the eighth century.
 
 SO THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 Truly the noblest period of many institutions is 
 often the meanest to the eye. Around the whole 
 was a turf embankment for protection. The dress 
 of the clergy was severely plain, consisting of a 
 tunic, over which was a cloak " with a hood of 
 rough, texture made of wool of the natural un- 
 dyed colour," and shoes of hide. While in resi- 
 dence they were called to united prayer three 
 times during the day and three times during the 
 night. From their beds of straw they could soon 
 rise and respond to the midnight bell, as they 
 slept in their ordinary clothes. 
 
 In going forth as evangelistic pilgrims, like 
 the Seventy, they went two and two, each carry- 
 ing a long walking-stick and a leathern wallet. 
 They would spend weeks or months in preaching 
 in the open air to the heathen tribes, exposed 
 to privation and danger, and then return to the 
 monastic house to be recruited in body and re- 
 freshed in spirit by fellowship with the other 
 members of the fraternity.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MACHAR AND TEHNAN. 
 
 IN the Aberdeen Breviary compiled by Bishop 
 Elphinstone, we have brief summaries of the 
 lives and labours of some of the more prominent 
 preachers of the early Celtic Church. But that 
 and such-like books were not written for a 
 strictly scientific and shall we say ? sceptical 
 age as the present. John Hill Burton says : 
 " Perhaps the life of a saint in the middle ages 
 was not, after all, intended to be taken as an 
 accurate biography even by a credulous person. 
 . . . It was a kind of rhapsody or written 
 ecstasy displaying to the best of the artist's 
 power the idea of a poor human creature achiev- 
 ing all but perfection in devotion to the Deity, 
 and obedience to the moral law, and humble 
 observance of the duties towards fellow-mor- 
 tals."* 
 
 Perhaps the eminent historian from whom 
 we have quoted may be regarded as the very 
 antipodes of the " credulous person," he having 
 gone as far in the direction of the other extreme 
 as it was possible for an able and honest narrator 
 
 * Burton's " History of Scotland, 1 ' vol. i., p. '206.
 
 32 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 to go ; but the suggestion is not one to be dis- 
 missed without respectful consideration, that the 
 " Lives of the Saints " are to a large extent ideal 
 biographies, the facts, handed down by tradition, 
 being viewed through the colouring medium of 
 a vivid imagination and fervid admiration. In 
 order to stimulate faith and spur to emulation 
 by the loftiest possible examples, the men whose 
 characters they depict went through a trans- 
 figuring process in their minds as they wrote, 
 and we know from patent evidence that the 
 supernatural was brought in lavishly as an 
 auxiliary to invest them in the eyes of a super- 
 stitious age with an added importance. 
 
 How different, we may say by the way, from 
 the accounts of men the Scriptures bring before 
 our notice. There are no " faultless monsters " 
 in the pages of the Bible. Men of our own flesh 
 and blood, subject to our numerous infirmities, 
 come before us as they really were and lived 
 good men, but not angels. It is wonderful how 
 at once sublime and sober is the narrative of the 
 Acts of the Apostles compared with the pious 
 tales of the early and middle ages. In the New 
 Testament you have the supernatural coming in, 
 but not in a way that is gratuitous and obtru- 
 sive. There is much of the wonderful, little of 
 the marvellous, nothing of the childish. But the 
 " Lives of the Saints," in their exuberance of an 
 unpruned fancy, and the trivial use which they
 
 MACHAR AND TERXAX. 33 
 
 make of the miraculous, remind the reader more 
 of the " apocryphal " gospels. 
 
 All that we know of our own Machar, who 
 has indelibly stamped his name upon this part 
 of the country, is that he was said to be the son 
 of an Irish Prince, that he was a disciple of 
 Columba, and that he founded a church where 
 Oldmachar Cathedral stands. There is a beauti- 
 ful legend that he was instructed to choose as 
 a site for a church in this neighbourhood a part 
 near the bank of a river, where in its winding it 
 made a figure not unlike that of a pastoral staff. 
 Anyone who stands on the north side of the 
 Cathedral, and looks down upon the Don in the 
 valley, cannot fail to see what, to some extent, 
 answers to that description. 
 
 The church that Machar founded on or near 
 the spot where the Cathedral now stands was 
 certainly very different from that solid granite 
 edifice, impressive by its very simplicity. The 
 original church would be a wooden or wattled 
 erection, and more than one structure probably 
 occupied the place before Bishop Elphinstone 
 and others who preceded him built Old- 
 machar Church, which gave Aberdeen its most 
 imposing feature. Spots chosen for worship, as 
 we have already remarked, were generally for 
 ever afterwards held sacred for that purpose. 
 Men might come and go, buildings might be 
 burned or crumble into dust and be replaced by 
 D
 
 34 THE LIGHTS OF THE XOHTH. 
 
 others, but the same part of mother earth was 
 clung to in congregating for religious observ- 
 ances ; and we can, therefore, without any great 
 stretch of imagination, picture to ourselves our 
 forefathers for more than a thousand years meet- 
 ing under some roof or other on the same part of 
 the bank above the winding Don. There are two 
 parishes that bear Machar's name in Aberdeen- 
 shire, and in Kildrummy there is a " Machars- 
 haugh." 
 
 St. Wollok is associated with the parish of 
 Glass, where there are two " baths " or pools ' 
 in the Dcveron bearing his name, which were 
 long ago supposed to have healing virtue in 
 them to bathers, and the scanty ruins of a 
 church. St. Devenick, said to be contemporary 
 with St. Machar, has two churches Nether- 
 Banchory and Methlick dedicated to him. St. 
 Ternan and St. Fergus, too, are among the men 
 whose hallowed memories are embalmed in the 
 names which cling to localities in our neighbour- 
 hood. 
 
 Ternan, sometimes called " Archbishop of the 
 Picts,'' is said to have had the book of the 
 Gospels in four volumes, cased in covers wrought 
 with silver and gold, and which up to the time 
 of the Reformation were in the Church of 
 Banchory. A church and well in Findon, 
 Banchory-Devenick, have the name of Ternan. 
 
 * Dr. Robertson's " Scottish Abbeys." p. 99.
 
 MACHAIl AND TERNAN. 35 
 
 One of many wonders related of this saint was 
 that a friend sent to beg some seed corn from 
 him, and Ternan having given it all away in. 
 charity, filled the sacks with sand. His friend, 
 having unlimited faith in the power of the saint, 
 sowed the sand, which produced an admirable 
 crop of corn ! 
 
 Those saints' names which we unthinkingly 
 repeat in our ordinary intercourse as mere local 
 landmarks have noble histories behind them, 
 better known to heaven than to earth. Even in 
 the most thoughtful moods such names stir our 
 fancy more than they enrich our intelligence, 
 but there is nothing in our local nomenclature 
 more worthy of respect. Tradition has handed 
 down to us those names as almost the only 
 memorials we have of men who by their self- 
 denying lives and patient labours turned the 
 horrible heathenism of the distant past into a 
 Christianity that grew in depth and breadth 
 with the ages. Their cells or monastic settle- 
 ments dotted over the land were fortresses in 
 which they stormed heaven with their prayers, 
 and from which they sallied, not with hostile 
 intent, but as emissaries of the Prince of Peace, 
 and preachers of glad tidings. 
 
 It is to be noted that the good men of the 
 early Christian ages whose apostolic labours 
 have given a hallowed savour to names which 
 
 O 
 
 still cling to chapels, parishes, and market stances
 
 H() TIIK LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 were strangers to this country. They were of 
 Irish birth, and it is remarkable that the piety 
 of intervening ages did not bring to the surface 
 and keep there some names with similar associa- 
 tions to be added to the popular calendar. It is 
 quite to be understood how the first missionaries 
 should have impressed the popular imagination 
 more than their successors, who were merely 
 building upon other men's foundations ; but it is 
 inexplicable that there should have been such a 
 dearth of " saints " during all the centuries that 
 followed unless we make the unflattering 
 assumption, as some do, that saintliness in those 
 days in our land was to a large extent imported, 
 and that the altar fire, though not allowed to 
 go out, yet burned low, soon after the first few 
 generations of xealots of Irish extraction passed 
 away. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the type and 
 form of Christianity set up in our own land 
 were largely determined by what prevailed in 
 Ireland. In other parts of Europe Christianity, 
 gradually following in the line of the Roman 
 conquests, was to a large extent modelled on 
 the constitution of the Empire. Diocesan Epis- 
 copacy, which led up to the acknowledgment 
 of the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, was the 
 evident reflection of the vast system of civil 
 government which crumbled to pieces as Christi- 
 anity rose to power ; and thus the Roman
 
 MACHAIl A XI) TEKXAX. 37 
 
 Church has been well called the ghost of the 
 Roman Empire. But Ireland was never occupied 
 by Ancient Rome, and the Christianity which 
 found its way to that island organized itself on 
 the tribal basis. The larger part of Scotland, 
 also, being completely uninfluenced by Rome, 
 and being mainly indebted to Ireland through 
 Columba and others for the introduction of the 
 religion of Jesus, naturally took the form of 
 church government which was favoured in the 
 sister isle. 
 
 The ravages of plundering hordes of Norse- 
 men and the disturbances of the Reformation 
 period are responsible for the loss of records that 
 would have shed light upon many points that 
 are now wrapt in total darkness, which is 
 relieved only by the questionable lights of con- 
 jecture or speculation. We have no original 
 document in Scotland that goes farther back 
 than eight hundred years. From the period of 
 Adamnan, who wrote the life of Columba, to 
 the reign of Margaret, of saintly memory, with 
 Malcolm Canmore for nearly five hundred 
 years the history of the Church in Scotland is 
 almost a total blank. It is remarkable that we 
 should know less of our own country as it was a 
 thousand years ago than we do of Egypt as it 
 was more than four times farther back. From 
 the side glances which the more abundant records 
 of the less-disturbed monasteries of Ireland afford,
 
 38 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 we can realise how Christianity in our land at 
 that period was like a stream which flows from 
 the open and the sunlight into a subterraneous 
 passage, from which by-and-bye it emerges. 
 
 The "sculptured stones," of which we have 
 a large number in north-eastern Scotland, and 
 which are supposed to belong to the period 
 referred to, do riot help us much, except that 
 the cross which is often to be seen on one side of 
 many of them tells where the faith of the men 
 of that day lay. There is a touching helplessness 
 about most of those ancient monuments such as 
 the Newton Stone or the Maiden Stone, near 
 Pitcaple which were quarried, polished, and 
 decorated to tell us of the past, but which are 
 so very old as to speak in a language that we 
 have a difficulty in making out. Imagination, 
 cunning workmanship that delighted in its 
 exercise, are lavished upon some of those moss- 
 encrusted memorials of a bygone age, but it is 
 only scholars and specialists who can decipher 
 what is chiselled : and even they are puzzled, or 
 are far from agreeing in the interpretation of 
 many of the symbols used, such as the comb and 
 the mirror, which some think were old heathen 
 emblems taken over by the new religion, but 
 it is more probable they are representations of 
 ornaments that indicated the rank and dignity 
 of the deceased who is commemorated. 
 
 It is interesting to lind that many of those
 
 MACHAR AND TERN AX. 39 
 
 " sculptured stones " have a curious Celtic orna- 
 mentation, the endless knot, similar to, if not 
 almost identical with, what is to be found in 
 illuminated MSS. which are treasured in the 
 archives of Trinity College, Dublin. The runic 
 stone standing in the churchyard of Rosemarki" 
 is a good example of that class. It has also to be 
 gratefully noticed that while on the few Roman 
 remains which have been unearthed traces of 
 designed indecency can be seen, not a single 
 sculptured stone of what is believed to be the 
 Christian period has anything improper de- 
 lineated upon its surface. Such things and the 
 croSs were instinctively felt to be incompatible. 
 That symbol of the cross, worn with age and 
 weather, though engraven on hard stone, is a 
 meek but efficacious testimony to the fact that 
 in those remote and barbarous times men had 
 discovered the glory and felt the power of Christ 
 in their hearts as one who could tame and purify, 
 or at least begin to do so. 
 
 While notions and practices had crept into 
 the Church, in Scotland as in other parts of the 
 world, which in some instances were a serious 
 departure from Apostolic simplicity, and which 
 in others invested little things with an import- 
 ance inconsistent with the spirit and genius of 
 Christianity, yet there is evidence that the fol- 
 lowers of Columba were resolute in the main- 
 tenance of their spiritual independence, and in
 
 40 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 doctrine and belief were more in agreement with 
 New Testament purity than what was to be 
 found generally in those ages on the Continent 
 of Europe. For example, in Adamnan's life of 
 Columba there is no mention of worship of the 
 Virgin, of invocation of saints, nor of purga- 
 tory. Columba and his followers made so much 
 of the Scriptures that they may be presumed to 
 have been more evangelical than the Church 
 generally on the Continent, into which many of 
 the corruptions of sacerdotalism had by this time 
 crept. 
 
 Some of the ways in which the Celtic Church 
 claimed the right to exercise its liberty, such as 
 in the choice of the correct shape of the tonsure 
 (it being not a circular shaven area on the crown 
 of the head, but a crescent-like stripe from ear to 
 car), or the proper time for the observance of 
 Easter, may appear to us to be trivial, but they 
 were sufficient to exhibit its individuality, and 
 to make clear the fact that the perfect uniformity 
 crowned by Rome was the creation, or rather the 
 dream, of a later age. In the main, the methods 
 of the Celtic Church in its purest days were 
 those of the earliest times which followed Pente- 
 cost, the preaching of the Word, the chanting 
 or singing of psalins, the inculcation by precept 
 and example of the Christian virtues, and self- 
 denying devotion to the interests of the people 
 round about them. In celebrating the rites of
 
 MACHAK AND TEHNAN. 41 
 
 the Church the native Gaelic was used, and not 
 Latin, which was the language of the Church 
 generally at that time. 
 
 Much controversy that has generally radiated 
 more heat than light, has arisen in connection 
 with the constitution of the early Celtic Church. 
 The modern denouiinatioualist who tries to father 
 the church polity he favours upon the arrange- 
 ment which prevailed in the Columban Church 
 undertakes a fruitless task. It must be owned 
 by the enlightened and unbiased student that 
 the connection and resemblance are more easily 
 traced by fervid imagination than by historical 
 research. Whether the inquirer has the bias of 
 Episcopalian, Presbyterian, or Congregationalist, 
 he must candidly own, if facts and not zeal are 
 to enthral him, that the organisation of the pri- 
 mitive Church of Scotland was greatly different 
 from anything of the kind now existing in the 
 land. 
 
 Available records give no evidence of diocesan 
 Episcopacy, and while there are allusions to some- 
 thing approaching Presbyterian parity, a kind of 
 missionary monasticism would more fitly describe 
 the form which the Church took, each new estab- 
 lishment being modelled after lona, and belonging 
 to the " family of lona." Yet it was different 
 from the monasticism Rome favoured. It was 
 freer, less secluded, more active, less hampered by 
 artificial rules and imposed vows. Indeed, the
 
 42 THE LIGHTS OF THE XOKTft. 
 
 Columban Church in its palmy days was emi- 
 nently practical, and ever subordinated means to 
 ends, outward equipment to the functions which 
 had to be discharged. As an ecclesiastical type, 
 it lay somewhere between the purity of the 
 Apostolic Church and the full-blown Romanism 
 which came in course of years. There was in it 
 not a little of the naked directness of aim which 
 characterised the first century, and yet it had in 
 it elements of error and superstition, and depart- 
 ures from original and authorised standards, 
 which brought their own developments. The 
 one thing of which we can speak with certainty 
 is the fact that the Columban Church was not in 
 subjection to the See of Rome. Like the Irish 
 Church from which it originally sprang, it re- 
 mained for centuries in a state of comparative 
 isolation from the rest of Europe, where by the 
 sixth or seventh century something like a con- 
 sistent and symmetrical system of church organi- 
 sation w r as established, headed by Rome. 
 
 The identification of the Columban or Celtic 
 Church with the Culdees in Scotland is an error 
 that recent research has slain, but it would be 
 going beyond the facts to affirm that we know 
 clearly and definitely who the Culdees were. 
 There is no term in the whole range of ecclesias- 
 tical nomenclature more elusive and tantalising 
 than that of the Culdees. It is the will-o'-the 
 wisp of Scottish archaeology, and the energy
 
 MACHAR AND TERXAX. 43 
 
 which many have eagerly expended upon the 
 chase of it has been but ill rewarded. So far as 
 available sources of information afford any basis 
 of judgment, the last word on the subject has 
 probably been spoken by Dr. Reeves. His faculty 
 of worming himself into the heart of things as 
 they were long ago, and piecing together scat- 
 tered fragments so as to make them bear the 
 weight of what may be accepted as a reasonable 
 explanation, has made him the benefactor of 
 weary antiquarians, who are glad at last to have 
 some solid result to point to which releases them 
 from further obligation to pursue the inter- 
 minable subject. 
 
 It appears from the scanty evidence that the 
 h'rst mention of the (Juldees in Scotland was con- 
 temporaneous with the attempt which Nectan 
 made about 710 to induce the old Columban 
 clergy in Pictland to submit to Koine. Jt is 
 evident that the term was used in a loose, popu- 
 lar sense to designate those Celtic monks who 
 adhered to the old order, and were therefore 
 regarded by the representatives of Catholicity 
 as obsolete schismatics, or at least as men who 
 could not be classified according to the pre- 
 scribed rules of general Christendom they 
 were " Keledei," Culdees, irregular worshippers 
 or servants of God. Skene, it must be men- 
 tioned, however, thinks that the Culdees were 
 an order within the Celtic Church, the term
 
 44 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 being generally confined to men who adopted 
 the severer order of asceticism and lived in 
 solitude. 
 
 We cannot do better than sum up all that is 
 known of the Culdees in the language of Dr. 
 Reeves : " In fact, during the range of time in 
 which the term is on record, we discover the 
 greatest diversity in its application sometimes 
 borne by hermit, sometimes by conventuals; in 
 one situation implying the condition of celibacy, 
 in another understood of married men : here 
 denoting regulars, there seculars ; some of the 
 name bound by obligations of poverty, others 
 free to accumulate property : at one period high 
 in honour as implying self-denial, at another 
 regarded with contempt as the designation of 
 the loose and worldly-minded. . . . When at 
 last ' Cele De ' does become a distinctive term, it 
 is only so as contrasting those who clung to the 
 old conventual observances of the country with 
 those who adopted the better organised and more 
 systematic institutions of mediaeval introduction ; 
 in fact, as denoting an old-fashioned Scotic monk. 
 The generality of monasteries both in 
 Scotland and Ireland were in a state of decrepi- 
 tude at the beginning of the twelfth century, and 
 those which survived for any length of time owed 
 the continuation of their existence cither to the 
 super-addition of a bishop and chapter or their 
 reconstruction on a new model. Most oi the old
 
 MACHAK AND TERNAX. 45 
 
 religious communities were 'Keledei' (or Culdees) 
 till the changes last mentioned took place, and 
 then the name became limited for their brief 
 future to those institutions which adhered to the 
 original discipline as contra-distinguished from 
 those which were re-modelled or erected in the 
 new."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FROM THE CELTIC TO THE ROMAN 
 CHURCH 1009-93. 
 
 rHHE transition from the Celtic to the Roman 
 } Church was hastened, if not completed, 
 under the long reign of Malcolm Canmore. A 
 variety of circumstances known to history, in 
 which the big, bold warrior-king had little direct 
 personal part, contributed to that result. 
 
 In the first place, by that time the glory of 
 the Columban Church had passed away as a 
 witnessing body for Christ, consecrated with a 
 martyr-like steadfastness to the promulgation of 
 saviri" 1 truth; the tire of devotion had almost 
 
 o 
 
 expired, leaving little but ashes and the altar on 
 which it had burned. The traditions and tenets 
 to which the successors of Columba still clun<> 
 
 r^ 
 
 were simpler, and in some respects more in accord- 
 ance with the teaching of the New Testament 
 than the doctrine, the elaborate organisation and 
 ceremonial of proud, aggressive Rome, but by the 
 time of which we are writing they were almost 
 emptied of life and power. lona was a name and 
 a memory, a hallowed place where great men
 
 FROM CELTIC TO ROMAN CHURCH. 47 
 
 were buried, but did not live. The process took 
 effect in the ancient British Church as it has done 
 in almost all religious societies which history 
 brings under our notice " They got renown for 
 piety; that renown brought its showers of wealth, 
 which in due time undermined its piety." 
 
 Nine years after Malcolm ascended the throne, 
 William of Normandy invaded England and 
 became its king. The iron rule of the strong, 
 stern " Conqueror " drove many of the high-born 
 Anglo-Saxon families to Scotland, and they 
 brought with them some of the elements of the 
 higher civilisation which England possessed. 
 Among the refugees who arrived seeking Mal- 
 colm's protection were the displaced prince Edgar 
 Atheling and his mother and sisters. One of the 
 sisters Margaret who was beautiful in person 
 and enthusiastic in temperament, captured the 
 heart of the rough but vigorous and chivalrous 
 Malcolm. 
 
 To the influence which Margaret, a pious 
 woman and a devoted daughter of the Church, 
 gained and kept over her consort, King Malcolm, 
 is mainly due the great ecclesiastical change and 
 revival of interest in religion which took place at 
 that time. While she could not restrain her 
 husband's warlike propensities, she was allowed 
 full liberty to introduce what measures she ap- 
 proved for the moral amelioration and spiritual 
 advancement of the nation. Her chaplain and
 
 48 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 biographer, Turgot, tolls us that while Malcolm 
 could not read his wife's missals and books of 
 devotion, he kissed them in token of reverence, 
 and caused them to be richly bound and orna- 
 mented with gold and jewels. 
 
 Coining from England, where, in common 
 with the most of Europe, the spiritual supremacy 
 of Rome was acknowledged, she naturally identi- 
 fied the Church of Christ with Roman Catholi- 
 cism, and regarded the old Scotic functionaries, 
 with their rude symbols of worship and effete 
 institutions, as schismatics and mongrel priests, 
 who could do nothing better for their country 
 than give place to the new order of things, which 
 would bring- Scotland into accredited union and 
 
 o 
 
 fellowship with the rest of Christendom. 
 
 Remembering what an influence Mary Stuart 
 at a later period wielded by the fascination of 
 her person and manners, even when her character 
 was held in doubt and her policy was not gene- 
 rally approved, we can quite understand how 
 Margaret, who had everything in her favour, 
 should have been a signal power at this crisis in 
 the internal development of the Scottish nation. 
 Although what is rooted in the past and sanc- 
 tioned by long usage has always many stalwart 
 champions, yet the poor Celtic ministers, who 
 exhibited at the time stubborn tenacity in their 
 attitude rather than lofty enthusiasm, must have 
 felt that they were more than matched when they
 
 FROM CELTIC TO ROMAN CHURCH. 49 
 
 had the Queen, the Pope, and, above all, the 
 forces and tendencies of the times against them. 
 Still, the old Celtic Church was not so much 
 extruded as absorbed. 
 
 We cannot forget that almost all we know of 
 the Celtic Churchmen is drawn from the records 
 of their Roman opponents and successors, and 
 we should, therefore, in justice to those whose 
 case is not stated by themselves, be prepared to 
 receive with caution the indictment that is made. 
 Still, all the evidence available points to the con- 
 clusion that the Church in Scotland as Margaret 
 found it was dead and worldly, if not as corrupt 
 as it became three centuries afterwards. The 
 Church lands were to a large extent secularised, 
 celibacy was held as an ideal but often departed 
 from, the priesthood had become very much a 
 hereditary caste, the Lord's Supper was seldom 
 observed, the Sabbath was neglected and had 
 become very much as other days. There can be 
 no doubt that the ardent and energetic Queen 
 the most imposing historical figure in Scotland 
 since the death of Columba had ample material 
 for discussion for the three-days' conference she 
 had with the representatives of the old order. 
 She may have been somewhat demonstrative in 
 her piety, but her enthusiasm sprang from the 
 heart and ever kept the life and practice in keep- 
 ing with itself, and in what she did for Scotland 
 she has, through residence, reflected a lustre on 
 E
 
 50 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 Dunfermline second only to that which belongs 
 to lona. 
 
 One of the most convincing proofs that could 
 be adduced of the genuineness of the revival 
 of religion and manners inaugurated by Queen 
 Margaret and her three sons who succeeded 
 her was the readiness evinced generally to part 
 with money and lands for the maintenance of 
 the ministers and institutions of the Church. 
 James I., standing by King David's tomb in 
 Dunfermline, is reported to have complained that 
 "he was ane sair sanct for the Croon," but if 
 the intelligence, the enterprise, the self-sacrificing 
 devotion to the higher interests of the people and 
 the glory of God of Queen Margaret and her co- 
 adjutors and successors in the twelfth century 
 had been carried into the fifteenth, the complaint 
 would probably never have been made, or would 
 have had no sting to keep it in remembrance. 
 That was a glorious outburst of energy and con- 
 secration to high ends, of which many of our 
 cathedrals and abbeys, now in ruins, with their 
 magnificence of design and unapproached finish 
 of workmanship are the standing witnesses and 
 worthy memorials. A Protestantism that is en- 
 lightened and broad is guilty of no disloyalty to 
 its own cherished principles when it goes out in 
 unstinted admiration to men and women who, 
 according to the light they had and the ideas of 
 their age, honoured their God and served their
 
 FROM CELTIC TO ROMAN CHURCH. 51 
 
 day and generation with a lavish expenditure 
 of time and thought. The sloth, ignorance, and 
 debauchery of later days in the Roman Church 
 cannot hide from us the splendour of the twelfth 
 and thirteenth centuries, that was able to con- 
 ceive and to execute such great undertakings, the 
 remains of which are still with us. Better far a 
 faith that is alive and operative, though it should 
 have mixed with it much error and superstition, 
 than one that is correct but cold as an icicle and 
 as destitute of inspiration and power as a string 
 of propositions that are divorced from life. Error 
 is not to be condoned nor truth despised, but if 
 the little truth that is in a man's creed is alive, 
 it will do more for him than a confession of faith 
 as true as Scripture itself if the intellect is the 
 only part of him by which it is held. The 
 Churchmen of that distant epoch had a faith 
 that is not ours in many important particulars, 
 but such as it was it gave birth to visions of 
 sublime aspiration which they tried to embody 
 in those Gothic structures that bear witness to 
 the fact that the genius, and art, and handicraft 
 of the age, found their highest employment in 
 the service of God. 
 
 It is a little thing, but it means much as 
 showing what spirit the builders of those 
 Cathedrals were of, and how the glory of God, 
 and not their own glory, was the object they had 
 in view there is no name on those magnificent
 
 f2 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 structures. Mr. Gladstone says : " It has been 
 observed as a circumstance full of meaning that 
 no man knows the name of the architects of our 
 cathedrals. They left no record of themselves 
 upon the fabrics, as if they would have nothing 
 there that could suggest any other idea than the 
 glory of that God to whom the edifices were 
 devoted for perpetual and solemn worship." 
 
 The Scottish Church was now to a large 
 extent remodelled and fired with an inspiration 
 such as it had not felt for centuries. The old 
 simplicity, which had degenerated into stiffened 
 and uncouth baldness, was displaced by a system 
 that was elaborate, many-sided, and palpitating 
 with new life. The Celtic Church in its adminis- 
 tration, as we have seen, was not parochial but 
 monastic. A monastery was planted in a district, 
 which became the headquarters of religion, and 
 besides being the point of departure for i'resh 
 pioneering incursions, was in many instances 
 responsible for the maintenance of religious 
 ordinances in churches or stations grouped at 
 varying distances around it. 
 
 Saxon Margaret and her sons introduced the 
 parochial system. The country was divided into 
 parishes, tithes being taken from the land for the 
 support of the church that was built in it, and 
 which became the principal feature within its 
 bounds. At first the manor was frequently the 
 parish, and if it was large it was eventually sub-
 
 FROM CELTIC TO ROMAN CHURCH. 53 
 
 divided, each part being in course of time raised 
 to the status of an ecclesiastical centre, with full 
 parochial rights. 
 
 Diocesan Episcopacy, such as prevailed in the 
 rest of Christendom, was also introduced into 
 Scotland. The Abbot now gave place to the 
 Bishop. The Bishopric of Aberdeen extended 
 from the Dee to the Spey, rivers and other divid- 
 ing lines of nature being often used in defining 
 the boundaries of a diocese. The old Columban 
 monasteries of the district, Mortlach and others, 
 furnished part of its endowment. The cathedral 
 constitutions were borrowed from the more ad- 
 vanced country on the other side of the border, 
 Lincoln being the model for Aberdeen. Owing 
 mainly to the jealousy of England, and its desire 
 to keep Scotland in a position of inferiority, no 
 metropolitan or primate was appointed for a 
 considerable time. At length, after much con- 
 tention, the Scotch Church was authoritatively 
 declared to be independent of English control, 
 and sometime later the Pope erected St. Andrews 
 into an archbishopric, with the other twelve 
 bishops as the primate's suffragans. 
 
 The old Celtic monasteries, too, had to give 
 way to the Roman orders, with their more strict 
 rule and fuller, fresher life the Cistercians and 
 the canons of St. Augustine, numerous and power- 
 ful, establishing themselves all over the land. 
 The monastic orders in our town have left their
 
 54 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 mark in our street nomenclature. The Carmel- 
 ites and friars, black and grey, are still with us 
 in the names which they have imprinted upon 
 localities that are as familiar to us as household 
 words. William the Lion, who favoured Aber- 
 deen as a place of residence, gifted his palace and 
 garden to Trinity Friars. Alexander II., his 
 son, had a house on the north side of the School- 
 hill, on what are now the grounds of Robert 
 Gordon's College, which became the abode of 
 the Black Friars. When a foundation was dug 
 for the Art Gallery, a great many bones were 
 found, which were supposed to be those of the 
 old monks, and they were re-deposited in a vault 
 prepared for them. 
 
 We are not to judge of those monasteries by 
 the corrupt condition in which they were found 
 at the time of the Reformation and long before 
 that date. They were to a large extent founded 
 on wrong principles, and sooner or later were 
 bound to breed what is not wholesome, but at 
 first they were in many cases the embodiment of 
 pure and lofty aspiration. They were also in 
 many ways useful to the society of the time. 
 They were schools of learning, centres of varied 
 industry, sanctuaries in time of confusion and 
 peril, places where men were of account as 
 creatures of God, the oppressed being cham- 
 pioned, the poor fed, the ignorant instructed. 
 Little record of the good they did has come down
 
 FROM CELTIC TO ROMAN CHURCH. 55 
 
 to us, but we have to remember that the work 
 which goes deepest down and is most enduring 
 is often noiseless, and is chronicled only in the 
 results which in after days stare us in the face. 
 Sir Walter Scott, who more than any other man 
 that ever lived stood abreast of Scotland's past 
 and tried to make it live, observes, when writing 
 of a later period, that castles have many more 
 traditions clinging to them than monasteries or 
 other religious houses. He explains this by 
 reminding us that the stirring events and strik- 
 ing scenes connected with the warfare in which 
 the old strongholds figured, made a deeper im- 
 pression upon the popular imagination than the 
 quiet and often unnoticed deeds of institutions 
 whose business is more with the inward than 
 with the outward more with the soul than what 
 appeals to the senses. The dashing cataract 
 draws more attention to itself than the quiet - 
 tlowing stream, though it nourishes a district. 
 So those old saintly men, who spent their lives 
 in a work of spiritual instruction, are not so well 
 remembered as the rough warriors who by their 
 frequently wielded swords, carved a name for 
 themselves in the records of the land. 
 
 The importance of the city of Aberdeen in 
 those early days may be gauged by the footing 
 which ecclesiastical authorities sought within its 
 borders. As Cosmo Innes reminds us, " long be- 
 fore Edinburgh had acquired the precedency of a
 
 56 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 capital, or even a first place among the four 
 burghs of Scotland, while Glasgow was yet an 
 insignificant dependency on its bishop, Aberdeen 
 had taken its place as a great and independent 
 royal burgh, and a port of extensive foreign 
 trade."
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ARCHDEACON BARBOUR 1316-95. 
 
 1Q ARBOUR'S name is the only one among the 
 local ecclesiastics of the fourteenth century 
 that rises up claiming special notice, but it is 
 one that Aberdeen cannot allow to die. It is 
 no small distinction belonging to our city to 
 have been the home and sphere, and probably 
 the birthplace of one who, besides ministering 
 in holy things amongst us, was our " Scottish 
 Chaucer," the " father of Scottish poetry." 
 
 In perusing annals such as these we cannot 
 be too often reminded that the work of true 
 ministers of Christ's Church is generally of such 
 a nature that it is not likely to be recorded in 
 any book on earth ; and men may have rendered 
 service of the very highest order to their fellows 
 that has no place in accessible chronicles. Statis- 
 tics cannot be furnished, and it is beyond the 
 power of literature to give any exhaustive 
 account of the spiritual effect of prayer in 
 secret, the word spoken in season in the privacy 
 of home, or the faithful, though otherwise un- 
 remarkable, discourse that has gone into a con- 
 gregation as light into a flower or a shower upon 
 the mown crass.
 
 58 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 We may be assured that Aberdeen in the 
 thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, during which 
 the impulse given by Queen Margaret would still 
 be felt throughout the land, had many earnest- 
 hearted ministers who served their day and 
 generation with all fidelity, though, like the 
 minor mountains of a range, their name is lost 
 to posterity in such an outstanding one as that 
 of John Barbour. 
 
 But the memory even of Barbour has been 
 preserved not on account of anything he did in 
 the line of what strictly belonged to his own 
 high calling, but owing to his distinction in the 
 field of literature. If it had not been for his 
 " Brus," he would in all probability have had 
 no place in the recollection of men, and this 
 part of the earth that knew him once would 
 have known him no longer ; but, as the poet of 
 the struggle for national independence, which 
 really made Scotland what it is, he is not likely 
 ever to be forgotten. 
 
 Because of the name he has made for him- 
 self and the service he has rendered to letters, 
 to history, and to patriotism, diligent search has 
 been made in the fugitive records of the past, by 
 no one more than by our own Dr. Joseph Robert- 
 son, with the view of ascertaining as many facts 
 as can be ferreted out regarding him. We have 
 no known official record as an authority for 
 saying he was born in Aberdeen, but as we know
 
 ARCHDEACON 13ARBOUR. 59 
 
 that he was Archdeacon of the church here a 
 early at least as 1357, and held that office till 
 his death, and as also there are contemporaneous 
 notices of families of that name in the town, we 
 may fairly assume, until something is brought 
 out that proves the contrary, that Aberdeen was 
 his birthplace. The scanty and scattered notices 
 of him that have been unearthed reveal that in 
 his own age he was esteemed to be a man of 
 learning and worth. When his career does rise 
 to the surface of history it is always as a person 
 of weight who was trusted and honoured. There 
 is reason to believe that he studied at Oxford 
 and Paris. Oxford was then the centre and 
 rallying point of the new world of letters in 
 Britain ; and we are informed that in 1357 and 
 1364 he travelled into England, accompanied by 
 scholars, for the purpose of studying at that seat 
 of learning. In 1365 he obtained a passport to 
 travel through England with six companions on 
 horseback towards St. Denis and other sacred 
 places. In 1368 he again received permission 
 to travel through England with two servants 
 and two horses on his way for scholarly pur- 
 poses in France. 
 
 It is abundantly evident that he was one of 
 those Churchmen who saw much that lay beyond 
 the narrow round of the sanctimonious obser- 
 vances of the priests of that day. His numerous 
 offices show him perhaps too much on the secular
 
 60 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 side of life. He was a travelled Scot who appre- 
 ciated the advantages of the highest culture of 
 the time and fellowship with kindred spirits who 
 had received it into their minds. The scholars 
 who accompanied him in those journeys were 
 probably the sons of the nobility in the north. 
 
 The higher clergy of that day received an 
 education such as was not desired generally by 
 the nobles, who thought the sword befitted men 
 of their rank more than the pen ; and they had 
 often to be the lawyers and statesmen of the 
 time as well as its religious functionaries. So we 
 find that in 1373 Barbour was Clerk of Audit of 
 the household of King Robert II., and one of the 
 auditors of Exchequer. It appears that in the 
 discharge of his duties he gave great satisfaction 
 to his royal master, for we learn that in 1377 he 
 had a gratuity of ten pounds from King Robert, 
 and, in the following year, he received from the 
 same prince the high compliment of a perpetual 
 annuity of twenty shillings. It throws some 
 light upon the character and sincere piety, as it 
 then expressed itself, of the Archdeacon, that he 
 bequeathed this annuity to the dean and chapter 
 of Aberdeen upon the condition that they should 
 sing a yearly mass for the rest of his soul. 
 
 But Barbour's great claim to the appreciation 
 of posterity lies in his "Brus."* We are all the 
 
 * ' The Brus/' Edited for the Spaldiuy Club by Cosmo
 
 ARCHDEACON BARBOUR. 61 
 
 more disposed to make the most of him as an 
 author as Scotland compares most unfavourably 
 with England in the literature of that early period. 
 
 Owing to the unsettled state of affairs in our 
 country for many years, and the want of facilities 
 for the cultivation of learning, such as libraries and 
 scholarly fellowship, most of the intellectual life 
 of Scotland went to England or to the Continent, 
 John Duns Scot, or Scotus, being an eminent 
 example of that class. By the frequent and ex- 
 hausting wars with England, and the consequent 
 distraction and unrest, Scotland could have had 
 little attraction then for the quiet student. He 
 may be able to cultivate literature on a little oat- 
 meal, but if he is not sure where even that is to 
 come from, or if it may be stolen by the marauder 
 from his barn, it is not unlikely that he may con- 
 sider the advantages of an abode in another land. 
 We are, therefore, all the more thankful for 
 Barbour, who has redeemed his country from the 
 reproach of being without a literature in the 
 fourteenth century, and has turned the ample 
 materials at his hand connected with a national 
 crisis and hero into an epic which, take it all in 
 all, is worthy of both. 
 
 That voice which sounds out clear and bold 
 over the centuries may have an old-world accent 
 that is strange to our ears, yet there is something 
 within us which leads us to recognise and hail 
 him as a true Scot as he exclaims in the famous
 
 62 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 lines generally acknowledged to be one of the 
 best, if not, indeed, the finest, apostrophe of free- 
 dom ever uttered : 
 
 "A! fredome is a nobill thing! 
 Fredome mayss man to haiff liking! 
 Fredome all solace to man giffis : 
 He levys at ess that frely levys ! 
 A noble hart may haiff nane ess, 
 Na ellys nocht that may him pless, 
 Gyff fredome failythe : for fre liking 
 Is yearnt our all othir thing. 
 Na he that ay hase levyt fre 
 May nocht know weill the propyrte, 
 The augyr, na the wrechyt dome, 
 That is cowplyt to foule thyrldome. 
 Bot gyff he had assayit it, 
 Than all [>erquer he suld it wyt, 
 And suld think fredome mar to pryss 
 Than all the gold in warld that is." 
 
 If Bavbour, while keeping by a basis of fact 
 in his " Brus," which historians of the period, 
 such as Tytler, follow, being "nought bot suth- 
 fast thing," yet allowed imagination to shape his 
 material, so as to make it effective to the reader, 
 he certainly takes still greater latitude in his 
 other two works. His " Brute," which is a 
 genealogical history of the kings of Scotland, 
 and his book of the legends of the saints, where 
 he gives vis 
 
 " Storyss of sere haly men, 
 That to pless God vs may kene,'' 
 
 deal with things farther removed than the days
 
 ARCHDEACON HARBOUR. 63 
 
 of that Scottish chivalry of which Bruce was the 
 glorified knight, and his treatment of them is less 
 dependent upon fact and reality. 
 
 It should also be mentioned, in giving a 
 summary of the deeds of Barbour, that as the 
 Cathedral of St. Machar was begun in 1366 and 
 it is on record that the dean and chapter taxed 
 themselves for the fabric in sixty pounds annu- 
 ally for ten years, he must have been one of the 
 original contributors to the erection of the edifice 
 which Aberdeen justly regards as what largely 
 contributed to give it consequence and dignity. 
 
 Dr. Joseph Robertson thus describes the sub- 
 sequent stages in the progress of the erection of 
 our Cathedral : " The Pope, in 1380, made a 
 liberal grant of indulgences to all the faithful 
 who should stretch forth a helping arm to the 
 work. But all these appliances availed only to 
 raise the foundations of the nave a few feet 
 above ground. Forty years passed before Bishop 
 Henry Leighton (1422-40) reared the two west- 
 ern towers, completed the wall of the nave, and 
 founded the northern transept. His successor, 
 Bishop Lindsay (1441-59) paved and roofed 
 the edifice. It was glazed by Bishop Spens 
 (1459-80)."* Then he goes on to tell of the very 
 important part that Bishops Elphinstone and 
 D unbar took in the work, to which we make 
 reference in other parts of this book. 
 
 * Dr. Robertson's " Scottish Abbeys," p. 75.
 
 64 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 John of Fordoun, supposed to have been so 
 called because he was born at Fordoun, in Kin- 
 cardineshire, was a contemporary of Barbour and 
 a canon of the Cathedral. Pie, in his " Scoti- 
 chronicon," has given us a prose narrative of 
 the course of events in Scotland down to the 
 twelfth century, which has been an invaluable 
 quarry to all the historians who succeeded him. 
 He seems to have had a passion and a conscious 
 call to put in writing all that by painstaking 
 research could be learned regarding the past of 
 his country, for he travelled on foot over Scot- 
 land and Ireland, gleaning information at the 
 various churches and monasteries he visited. 
 Like many other authors with large designs, he 
 died before his work was finished. He brought 
 the chronicle down to 1153, leaving material 
 which was used by others for the story of the 
 next two centuries. Is it not remarkable that 
 the principal historians of Scotland, both of 
 ancient and modern times, had a more or less 
 close connection with Aberdeen ?
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 BISHOP ELPIIINSTOXE 1431-1514. 
 
 IT is a leap from the period of which we have 
 * been writing to the fifteenth century ; but 
 William Elphinstone, who was born in Glasgow 
 in 1431, and became Bishop of Aberdeen in 1484, 
 was really in many respects more a man of the 
 former than of the latter date. In consideration 
 of his unsullied character, many-sided activity, 
 public spirit, and unstinted devotion to all that 
 tended to the advantage of the people belonging 
 to his diocese, he may be regarded as one of the 
 best examples of the best period of the Scottish 
 Catholic Church. He certainly cannot be taken 
 as a representative Churchman of the age in 
 which he lived. Amidst general degeneracy and 
 corruption, as Cosmo Lines testifies, " with man- 
 ners and temperance in his own person befitting 
 the primitive ages of Christianity, he threw 
 around his cathedral and palace the taste and 
 splendour that may adorn religion." Or, as 
 another writer puts it, " his morals were a pattern 
 and a reproach to his country and order." 
 
 He had something to contend with from the 
 very day of his birth, for his father was one 
 F
 
 66 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 bound by solemn vows to celibacy, being rector 
 of Kirkmichael and archdeacon of Teviotdale. 
 He was educated at the school and University 
 of Glasgow, took his degree when twenty-four 
 years of age, studied canon law and practised as 
 an advocate at the Church courts ; in short, his 
 natural gifts, which were far above the average, 
 were cultivated to the very utmost, and he 
 acquired all the various branches of learning 
 which his country could give to fit him for the 
 many spheres of public duty he was destined 
 to fill. 
 
 In addition to all that, he was sent abroad at 
 an uncle's expense, and in France and other parts 
 came into contact w r ith the choice spirits and 
 cultured intellects of the day, acquiring that 
 urbanity and polish which added grace to his 
 strength, and enabled him to take his place and 
 act his part in Court or Cabinet, with scholars and 
 men of the world as well as with ecclesiastics. 
 
 When appointed to the See of Aberdeen, his 
 refined taste and love of learning drew around 
 him men who had something else to live for than 
 the pleasure of the moment ; and the literary 
 reputation which Archdeacon Barbour and For- 
 doun had won for Aberdeen was enhanced by 
 Elphinstone and those associated with him. One 
 of the ways in which human greatness shews 
 itself is in the quick discovery and frank acknow- 
 ledgment of whatever excellence may be at hand.
 
 BISHOP ELPHINSTONE. 67 
 
 Moreover, there is generally a desire on the part 
 of persons like Elphinstone to bring able men 
 from afar if they should not be near. The highest 
 peak has usually other elevations around it, and 
 a man of power can attract and turn to advan- 
 tage ability of various kinds. To remind the 
 clerics of his diocese and the whole nation of 
 better days in the Church, and teach them by 
 nobler examples than what could easily be found 
 at the time, he wrote a series of sketches of the 
 lives of the Scottish saints. He also gave of his 
 means to finish Oldmachar Cathedral, the great 
 central tower, now gone, which was seen far out 
 at sea, having been completed at his expense. He 
 furnished it with fourteen bells, and had pro- 
 ceeded with the choir, but there was only a small 
 part of the work done when he died. 
 
 Amongst the good deeds of Bishop Elphin- 
 stone, it cannot be forgotten, whatever else 
 relating to him should lapse from the memory, 
 that he was the founder of King's College, which 
 he framed after the model of Paris University, 
 where he had studied and also taught. The 
 requisition that was sent to the Pope, stating 
 reasons why such an undertaking as the erection 
 of a University in Aberdeen should have the 
 Papal sanction, is an interesting document. A 
 most doleful account is given of the country, as 
 " intersected with mountains and arms of the 
 sea," " the roads so dangerous," " youth had not
 
 68 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 access to the benefits of education." Yet the 
 advantages of the situation were also pointed out 
 "excellent temperature of air," "conveniency of 
 habitation," etc. 
 
 In justice to the old Roman Church, it should 
 ever be remembered to her credit that chiefly to 
 her devoted sons is due the honour of conceiving 
 and giving effect to one of the grandest and most 
 fruitful ideas since the introduction of Chris- 
 tianity the establishment of the University, 
 where knowledge was to be propagated, and the 
 utmost reaches of intellectual attainment made 
 possible to anyone, whatever his birth or rank, 
 who hated darkness and loved the light. 
 
 It may be said that the existence of those 
 seminaries of learning on an extensive scale was 
 mainly owing to the pressure of the intellectual 
 forces of the times, which scholars generated 
 
 o 
 
 more than Churchmen. The revival of learning, 
 an outburst of fresh interest in classical studies, 
 and a growing desire for the emancipation of the 
 intellect from the thraldom of dry and barren 
 scholasticism, had perhaps more to do with the 
 erection of those venerable piles sacred to the 
 pursuits of the mind than any deep anxiety on 
 the part of the College of Cardinals at Rome 
 for the furtherance of the enlightenment of the 
 world. That may be true, but it is also true that, 
 from whatever source the idea came, it was 
 cordially taken up by the leading Churchmen
 
 BISHOP ELPHIN8TONE. G9 
 
 of the land, and by none more so than by Bishop 
 Elphinstone. Little did they know how, in 
 some Universities, if not in the Aberdeen one, 
 influences were to radiate that should favour the 
 great Protestant movement which was to over- 
 turn the ecclesiastical system they had most at 
 heart; but to found those institutions came to 
 them as the duty of the hour, and they did it. 
 
 It cannot be denied that those ancient insti- 
 tutions, which were never more prized than they 
 are to-day, sprang from the Church and were 
 rooted in religion. Dr. Walter C. Smith, in 
 singing of the old University town between the 
 Don and the Dee, puts it thus : 
 
 " O'er the College Chapel a grey stone crown 
 Lightsomely soars above tree and town, 
 Lightsomely fronts the minster towers, 
 Lightsomely chimes out the passing hours, 
 To the solemn knell 
 Of their deep-toned bell ; 
 Kirk and College keeping time, 
 Faith and Learning, chime for chime"* 
 
 Theology at first overshadowed all other branches 
 of learning. Those schools of learning represented 
 the Catholic Church on its intellectual side, and 
 had much of its catholicity universality of scope 
 in their constitution and aim. It is interesting 
 to notice how the Parisian University has stamped 
 itself legibly unto this day upon our school of 
 
 * " Selections from the Poems of Walter C. Smith," p. 86.
 
 70 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 letters, as is shown in such terms still in use as 
 Bejeant. 
 
 King's College was very much an expansion 
 of smaller educational institutions in our city. 
 Long before the Reformation, Aberdeen, like some 
 of the other towns in Scotland, had its Grammar 
 School. John Vaus is named as rector of the 
 school, and commended by Hector Boece, the 
 learned Principal of the University, for his know- 
 ledge of the Latin tongue. 
 
 But Elphinstone had an eye to progress in 
 things that are usually considered to be beyond 
 the ken and interest of Churchmen. He was 
 eminently practical, and was willing to spend 
 his time and money on material projects that 
 were needed for the convenience of the people 
 and the amenity of the district. He began to 
 build the Bridge of Dee, and, when he died, left 
 a sum of money for its completion. 
 
 The Bishop was a born ruler of men, and an 
 ardent lover of order and right. While bene- 
 volent and considerate, he was yet a severe 
 judge, keeping in his mind, we are told, the 
 adage "He hurts the good who spares the bad." 
 His firmness and sagacity were often brought 
 into requisition in affairs of State, in the Privy 
 Council at home, and on embassies in France. It 
 is said that he was against the war which led 
 to Flodden ; but he went with his King and 
 countrymen to the fatal field, and after returning
 
 BISHOP ELPHINSTONK. 71 
 
 home was never seen to smile again. He died* 
 on 25th October, 1514, and was buried in King's 
 College Chapel. It is said that when lie was 
 laid in his grave his pastoral staff of silver 
 clove in twain, and one portion fell into his 
 last resting-place, when a voice said " With 
 thee, William, the mitre shall be buried ! " Not 
 quite yet was that to be. Gavin Dunbar entered 
 into the vacant bishopric, and after him for a 
 short time, William Gordon, one who, during his 
 
 * In Boece's " Bishops of Aberdeen " (p. 106), edited and 
 translated by Dr. Moir, of the Aberdeen Grammar School, 
 we have the following account of the death of this revered 
 man : 
 
 " He [Bishop Elphinstone] returned to Aberdeen to devote the rest of 
 liis days to the construction of the bridge and the choir of the Cathedral, 
 as well as to other pious works. It was the wish of our worthy father 
 (had his destiny so allowed) to end his days at Aberdeen, the scene of 
 his first settlement, in that holy tranquillity and quiet which he had so 
 well deserved by his many labours. But being recalled to meet the 
 nobles, because dissensions had broken out amongst them which could 
 not be settled except by his presence, he gave up his design. His friends 
 dissuaded him from going, for he was now ill, but he replied that he was 
 born not for himself only, but for his country, and that he owed more to 
 the State than to his own safety ; and would not be prevented by the 
 state of his health nor any one's persuasions from undertaking the 
 journey. 
 
 "Accordingly, setting out in poor health, about half-way on his 
 journey his fever increased, and he stopped at Dunfermline. After he 
 had been confined to bed there for some days he made his will, leaving 
 all his gold and silver and whatever furniture he had to complete his 
 College and bridge, and not forgetting his poorer friends. The Bishop 
 at that time had ten thousand pounds in his coffers, besides much per- 
 sonal effects. Then he proceeded to Edinburgh. On the sixth day after 
 he came to the capital the fever increased so that he could get no rest. 
 . . . On the day before his death he entered the chapel as usual. He 
 discoursed long with piety and learning on the religion of Christ, point- 
 ing out its truth and the great rewards which it held out to its faithful 
 followers. Fueling too weak, in spite of his zeal, tu finish the service, he
 
 72 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 brief tenure of office, signalised his occupancy of 
 it in a way so different from that which is ex- 
 pected of a bishop that the Roman Church may 
 well disown him. 
 
 In this connection we must also take notice 
 of the first Principal of King's College, Hector 
 Boece, whom the Bishop succeeded in securing as 
 the head of the new College, and who held the 
 office for more than thirty years, having proved 
 himself to be eminently qualified for its duties. 
 He was born in Dundee in 1405, educated in 
 Paris, and the intimate friend of some of the 
 most learned men of his age, such as Erasmus. 
 The general use of the Latin language and the 
 love of learning gave a cosmopolitan feeling to 
 men of high education at that time, such as has 
 never to the same degree been seen since. The 
 objects that were of weight to men like Boece 
 
 ordered the Holy Body of Christ to be brought to him. which he received 
 prostrate on the ground, with eyes streaming with tears and hands out- 
 stretched to heaven. When he had finished his accustomed prayer before 
 the image of the crucified Saviour, he was led to his bedchamber, where 
 he lay down and slept a brief space in hopes that sleep might give a re- 
 spite from pain. In the evening he supped with some of the nobility 
 who had come to comfort him. . . . 
 
 "In the morning, feeling a choking sensation from the accumulation 
 of phlegm in his throat, he calls for his chamberlain with such strength 
 of voice as he possesses. His friends hasten to his side, and find they 
 are called to his death-bed. Some weep, some pray, others exhort him 
 to be of good courage and not prove unworthy of himself, for soon he 
 will be past danger. Then he, for a brief space, raising his eyelids and 
 gazing on his weeping friends, said ' 1 thought you would have given 
 me better advice : the health I hope for is eternal. Henceforth the 
 cares of this transitory life shall not affect me. lie it yours each to help 
 his neighbour.' "
 
 BISHOP ELPHINSTONE. 73 
 
 and Erasmus were such as the cultured of all 
 parts of Europe had in common ; and the attrac- 
 tions of the guild of knowledge, in not a few 
 instances, became more than the ties of nation 
 and kindred. 
 
 We are told, and are not surprised, that it was 
 not without some hesitation that Boece consented 
 to quit the cultured society of Paris for what 
 must have appeared to him to be a barbarous 
 region. Money was not the attraction, for his 
 salary was forty merks, or about 2 4s. 6d. 
 sterling. He became canon of Aberdeen and 
 rector of Tyrie, and, in addition to the multi- 
 farious duties connected with his position, 
 clerical and academic, he found time to write 
 the lives of the Bishops of Aberdeen and the 
 history of Scotland, in which works he showed 
 more learning and imagination than judgment. 
 Soon after the publication of his History he got 
 his degree of D.D., when the magistrates, accord- 
 ing to an entry in Town Council Records of 
 Aberdeen, under date 1528, voted him a present 
 of a tun of new wine when the new wines should 
 arrive, or a sum of money to purchase a new 
 bonnet ! 
 
 Not any of the bishops of the Roman Church 
 who succeeded Elphinstone need be mentioned 
 here except Dunbar, who was a real benefactor 
 to the diocese, and a man who, by his private 
 virtues and public spirit, deserves to be held in
 
 74 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 honourable remembrance. He made it his great 
 endeavour to carry on and complete what 
 Elphinstone and others had undertaken. King's 
 College buildings were extended and the Bridge 
 of Dec finished under his direction and as the 
 result of his munificence. He also did much in 
 carrying out the designs of his predecessor for 
 the Cathedral of Oldmachar.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF PRE-REFORMATION 
 TIMES. 
 
 pro anima Radulti Sacerdotis"- 
 " Pray for the soul of Radul fc' the priest " 
 is the meek appeal inscribed on one of the 
 most ancient gravestones in Scotland, standing 
 against the gable wall of the old church in 
 Insch. Among two thousand inscriptions that 
 have been collected from the graveyards of the 
 north-eastern districts of Scotland, it is believed 
 by experts, such as Jervise, to be the oldest, and is 
 assigned to the twelfth century. As the eccles- 
 iastical revenues of the parish of Insch had been 
 gifted to the Abbey of Lindores, on the south 
 side of the Tay, it is probable that this priest 
 was the stipendiary vicar of that powerful and 
 flourishing monastery, which had no fewer than 
 twenty-two parish churches belonging to it. 
 
 It is not unlikely that a desire by others for 
 the same kind of devout remembrance, as was 
 expressed on Radulf's tombstone, had something 
 to do with his lot, as a priest, being cast in that 
 part. Sometimes, in passing from this world, 
 local magnates felt that they had much need of 
 prayer to put them in a better position before
 
 76 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 their Maker than the one that their past deeds 
 would entitle them to, and having a superstitious 
 veneration for the efficacy of the prayers of 
 monks, upon their death-bed, if not before, they 
 granted property in lands and teinds to favourite 
 monasteries on condition that prayers should be 
 made regularly on their behalf. The consequence 
 was that often the greater part of the temporal 
 provision which had been made for the main- 
 tenance of religious ordinances in a parish went 
 to increase the bloated revenues of a " house " 
 that was on the road to moral ruin through over- 
 flowing coffers and abounding luxury, and a 
 pittance was given to some poor priest who went 
 his round of duties as their vicar or substitute. 
 
 It is calculated that for many years before 
 the Reformation, by far the greater part of the 
 wealth which had been accumulated and held 
 in trust for the religious welfare of the land was 
 alienated from the various parishes and con- 
 centrated in a few priories and abbeys, the heads 
 of which had the lion's share of the spoil. There 
 was, indeed, ground for Dunbar's complaint : 
 
 " I knaw nocht how the Kirk is gydit, 
 Bot benefices are nocht leil devydit ; 
 Sum men lies seven, and I nocht ane, 
 Quilk to considder is ane pane.'' 
 
 In that excellent work, " Monymusk : Its 
 Church and Priory," we glean local information, 
 much of which is taken from original documents
 
 PRE-REFORMATION TIMES. 77 
 
 bearing on this point. In it the author says : 
 " We learn that after the Reformation one minis- 
 ter living at Keig had actually ' under his charge ' 
 all the four parishes whose teinds, &c., had been 
 payable to our priory Keig, Alford, Leochel, and 
 far distant Braemar; and in this rent roll that 
 tells how Lord Forbes had appropriated its lands 
 as well as its teinds, he himself using the first 
 person ' hes it off me for xij. Lib.' hands down 
 what was the magnificent allowance for which 
 he farmed out the vicarage or lesser teinds to the 
 poor minister. One wonders that the minister 
 was able to travel even once a quarter to Brae- 
 mar, and we are able to judge how dependent the 
 parishes were upon ' Readers.' " * 
 
 From all the evidence that is before us, how- 
 ever, it would appear that most of the priests got 
 as much as they were worth. The parish priests, 
 or secular clergy, as they were called, lost their 
 good name even before the monks. Their energies 
 were certainly not overtaxed in preaching. In the 
 General Provincial Council summoned by Arch- 
 bishop Hamilton at Edinburgh in 1559 to arrest 
 the Reformation movement by bringing about 
 a reform from within, a friendly remonstrance 
 was presented, in which, among other things, it 
 was requested that " they provide for preachings 
 and declarings of God's Word sincerely and truly 
 to be made in every parish kirk of our realm 
 
 *" Church and Priory of Monymusk," p. 205.
 
 78 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 upon all Sundays and other holidays, at the least 
 on Yule, Pasche, Whitsunday, and every third or 
 fourth Sunday."* It comes out incidentally that 
 what had been previously enjoined was a sermon 
 only four times a year ! There is no evidence 
 that in Scotland pre-Reformation preaching was 
 of much account at any time. Sir David Lind- 
 say of the Mount often flouted the higher clergy 
 for their unwillingness or inability to preach : 
 
 " Great pleasure were to hear one bishop preach, 
 One dean or doctor in divinity, 
 One abbot who could well his convent teach, 
 One person flowing in philosophy ; 
 I tyne my time to wish what will not be." 
 
 Knox, in his history, gives us a specimen of 
 the kind of discourse the people were accustomed 
 to in church. He represents a priest as saying : 
 '"' Ane has tynt a spurtill; there is ane flaill stolen 
 from them beyoimd the burn; the good wife of the 
 other side of the gait has tynt a horn spoon : 
 God's malison and mine I give to them that knows 
 of this gear and restores it not." 
 
 Let us try to have a full and clear view of 
 the religious institutions in Aberdeen before the 
 Reformation. Dr. Joseph Robertson, in his 
 " History of the Reformation in Aberdeen," gives 
 us interesting particulars : 
 
 "The extent of the ecclesiastical establishment 
 in this quarter at the era of the Reformation is 
 
 * : ' A Discourse on the Scottish Reformation," by Bishop 
 Wordsworth, p. f>S,
 
 PRE-REFORMATION TIMES. 79 
 
 deserving of prominent notice. At the head of it was 
 the Cathedral of St. Machar, with no fewer than 
 twenty-nine prebendaries. The building of this 
 edifice had been expedited by a Papal Bull, by which 
 all persons who aided the work were generously 
 absolved from penance for the precise space of 
 twelve months and forty days. Next in importance 
 was the Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas, consist- 
 ing of sixteen chaplains, though in the previous 
 century the number was much greater. To these are 
 to be added the Chapel of St. Clement, at Futtie ; the 
 Chapel of St. Ninian, on the Castlehill ; the Chapel 
 of the Virgin Mary, at the Bridge of Dee ; a Chapel 
 at the Bridge of Don ; the Chapel of St. Katherine, 
 on the hill of the same name ; the Chapel of Mary 
 Magdalen, or 'The Vault of our Ladye of Pity,' under 
 St. Nicholas Church ; and the Parish Church of Old 
 Aberdeen, called the Snow Kirk, from its dedication 
 to Maria ad Nives, or ex Nivibus, so called from a 
 superstition not more blasphemous than indecent. 
 We pass, in this enumeration, the Collegiate Chapel of 
 King's College; but there remain to be taken into 
 account the Church and Monastery of the Trinity 
 Friars, on the shore ; the Church and Monastery of 
 the Carmelite Friars, in the Green ; the Church and 
 Monastery of the Black Friars, on the Schoolhill; and 
 the Church and Monastery of the Grey Friars, in the 
 Broadgate. Of the precise number of the members of 
 these monastic institutions there is no record; but 
 from the ascertained dimensions of their buildings and 
 other circumstances, the number in each may be esti- 
 mated, with great safety, at fifteen or twenty. It
 
 80 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 will thus be seen that within the city there were 
 thirteen places of worship, and a body of endowed 
 clergy, of one or other of the classes, numbering 
 certainly not less than one hundred and ten, and pro- 
 bably approaching nearer to one hundred and fifty."* 
 
 At death even the weighty and oppressive 
 hand of the Church was felt. The " corpse 
 present"! was exacted, though not due by any 
 law or canon of the Church in Scotland. It was 
 something over and above what was required by 
 the priest in connection with the interment of 
 the body and the deliverance of the soul from 
 purgatory. The perquisite consisted of the best 
 cow of the deceased, the " cors-presant ko\v," the 
 uppermost cloth or covering of his bed, or the 
 uppermost of his body clothes. Sir David Lind- 
 say, the poet, alludes to this exaction : 
 
 "And nls the vicar as I trow 
 He will nocht fail to tak ane kow 
 And upmaist claith.'' 
 
 When the Papal establishment was abolished this 
 went with many other abuses. It was decreed, 
 as the First Book of Discipline informs us, that 
 " the uppermost claith, corps-present, etc., etc., 
 can neither be required nor received of good 
 conscience." 
 
 * Dr. Robertson's " History of the Reformation in Aber- 
 deen,"' pp. 5, (5, 7. 
 
 t M'Crie's "Life of Knox," p. .'!SC>.
 
 PRE-REFORMATIOX TIMES. 81 
 
 There is evidence from the burgh records and 
 incidental allusions in the writings of the time 
 that the Sabbath, which is one of the main 
 bulwarks of the religious life, was observed very 
 much as it is now in Roman Catholic countries 
 on the Continent of Europe, with this difference 
 that attendance at public worship was then much 
 more general. But after being at church, the 
 people betook themselves to sport and pleasure, 
 to archery and other forms of amusement. About 
 the middle of the fifteenth century, butts were 
 ordered to be erected at every parish church by 
 Act of Parliament, that the young men, at this 
 place of concourse, might exercise themselves in 
 archery, with the view of insuring their pro- 
 ficiency in time of war. 
 
 Religion was intimately associated, after a 
 fashion, with the festivities, the processions, and 
 the social life generally of the people. Each 
 guild of craftsmen had its patron saint, its 
 chapel, and altar, and in the pageants of the 
 time pride in the craft and zeal for the Church 
 were strangely blended. In 1531, the Town 
 Council of our city enacted : "According to the 
 lovable custom and rite of this burgh and of the 
 noble burgh of Edinburgh, of which rite and 
 custom the Provost has gotten a copy ; that is to 
 say, that, in the name of God and the blessed 
 Virgin Mary, the craftsmen of this burgh, in 
 their best array, keep and decorate the procession
 
 82 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 as on Corpus Christi clay and Candlemas day, 
 as honourable as they can, every craft with their 
 own banner, with the arms of their craft thereon, 
 and they shall pass, each craft by themselves, two 
 and two, in this order First, the fleshers, and 
 next the barbers ; next the skinners and furriers 
 together ; next the shoemakers ; next the tailors ; 
 
 O J * 
 
 after them weavers and listers together ; next 
 them the bakers ; and, lost of all, nearest to the 
 Sacrament, passes all the hammermen namely, 
 smiths, wrights, masons, coopers, slaters, gold- 
 smiths, and armourers. And every one of the 
 said crafts in the Candlemas procession shall fur- 
 nish their pageants according to the old statute 
 of the year of God 1510."* 
 
 It would appear that on those high occasions 
 at Candlemas, or when their patron saint's day, 
 St. Nicholas, came round, attendance was com- 
 pulsory, for John Mackintosh, in his " History of 
 Civilisation in Scotland," points out that a man 
 named John Pitt, a tailor in Aberdeen, was 
 punished for refusing to take his proper place, 
 with the signs of his craft, in the procession. He 
 had. to appear " the next Sunday bare-headed 
 and bare-footed in the church, in the time of 
 High Mass, with a wax candle in his hand to 
 offer it to their patron saint, St. Nicholas. He 
 was also bound to have the usual token of his 
 craft on his breast that is, a pair of shears ; and 
 
 * tSee original extract from the Burgh Records in Appendix.
 
 PRE-REFORMATION TIMES. 83 
 
 then to go down humbly on his knees and 
 beseech the Provost to remit his fault." 
 
 Religion, also, had its place in dramatic re- 
 presentation in those days. Aberdeen had its 
 " Abbot and Prior of Bon- Accord," " two young 
 citizens, probably sons or connections of the 
 magistrates," as Kennedy in his " Annals " con- 
 jectures, who had charge of those exhibitions, 
 which were supposed to be for the edification as 
 well as amusement of the people. Those 
 " mysteries," or " miracle plays," with which 
 every reader of mediaeval history is familiar, 
 that were at first intended to popularise spiritual 
 things, degenerated, as they could not well fail 
 to do, into scenes of profanity and buffoonery. 
 In that respect, Aberdeen was no exception, for 
 it is recorded that they were afterwards restricted 
 to certain days of the year. 
 
 In 1511, Margaret, Queen of James IV., paid 
 a visit to Aberdeen, and, after the pageant con- 
 nected with that visit, Dunbar, the national poet, 
 sang thus : 
 
 " Blyth Aberdene, thow beriall of all tounis, 
 
 The lamp of bewtie, bounty, and blythnes*, 
 Unto the heaven (ascendit) thy renown is 
 Of vertew, wisdome, and of worthiness." 
 
 There were festivities in the month of May, in 
 the " greenwood," to welcome the advent of 
 summer, that were accompanied witli such 
 licentiousness that they had to be repressed.
 
 84 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 Again and again we come across entries in burgh 
 records showing what difficulty magistrates and 
 ministers of religion had in suppressing those 
 celebrations that were so demoralising. Besides 
 setting up the Maypole on the first Sunday of 
 May, garlanded with flowers, round which they 
 danced, many went on that day to St. Fithalk's 
 Well, on the south side of the Bay of Nigg, and 
 in drinking of its water invoked the protection 
 of its saint, always, before leaving, putting a bit 
 of clothing on some bush near the spot. 
 
 The life of those days had many picturesque 
 touches. However much some parts of human 
 nature were neglected, certainly the imagination 
 had its due. Every Monday prayers were made 
 for the souls of the dead, and a priest went 
 through the streets of Aberdeen announcing the 
 service by the ringing of a bell, one of the bells 
 of the church being also rung at noon and at six 
 o'clock " for all Christian souls." 
 
 One can quite understand what pride the 
 people took in their church. What a place must 
 a noble Gothic stone edifice have been in the eyes 
 of those who lived in houses that were little 
 better than huts or wooden sheds ! To cross its 
 threshold must have been to pass into what was 
 the nearest approach upon the earth to heaven, 
 so far as it can be figured by material things. 
 When the choir of St. Nicholas, their parish 
 church, was needing repair, the people not able
 
 PRE-REFORMATION TIMES. 85 
 
 to give money bound themselves to pay so much 
 in kind. "Alexander Reid, Alderman, and Alex- 
 ander Chalmers each gave a barrel of salmon," 
 others gave barrels of grilse, a quarter hundred 
 lamb-skins, etc. "Andrew Litster gave ane 
 cow." 
 
 Money was scarce, as the above account shows. 
 Yet " games of chance " found a place at that 
 date among the amusements of the people. But, 
 seeing the pernicious effect of gambling, the 
 Magistrates made several bold attempts to repress 
 it. "In the year 1444, William White, sutor, was 
 tried before the baillies, and convicted by a jury 
 composed of fifteen citizens, for permitting players 
 of cards and dice and other unlawful games to 
 frequent his house." 
 
 What the people required at this time was a 
 fresh spiritual impulse. They needed something 
 done for them from within. They for the most 
 part reverenced divine things, and took part in 
 religious performances with decency and devoted - 
 ness. What was wanted to a much greater 
 extent than existed at that time was a New 
 Testament faith, a personal acquaintance with 
 (Hod, such as Luther struggled for and attained. 
 The ministers of those days were to a great 
 extent ecclesiastical and moral police rather than 
 spiritual guides. The best of them went little 
 further than the presentation of the intellectual 
 and moral side of religion. They were patrons
 
 86 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 of learning and lovers of virtue, and did 
 service as heralds of the coming Reformation, 
 which, as we learn from the history of Martin 
 Luther, had inward personal renovation at its 
 root.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE REFORMATION 1560. 
 
 O Church in any part of the world ever owned 
 such a large proportion of the wealth of the 
 country as did the Romish Church in Scotland 
 for many years before the Reformation, and no 
 Church was ever less worthy of such possessions. 
 About one-half of the land, it is computed by 
 careful and reliable writers, was held by the 
 various monasteries and other religious establish- 
 ments, and that at a time when they, speaking 
 generally, were centres of worldliness, and many 
 of them sunk in shameless corruption. Unfortu- 
 nately, the public policy which most of the kings 
 of Scotland deemed it expedient to pursue in the 
 circumstances of the country tended so far to 
 bring about, or at least aggravate, that unhappy 
 state of affairs. The Crown, being unable to 
 cope with some of the strongest and most turbu- 
 lent of the barons, and feeling itself powerless 
 before any widespread combination among those 
 proud and self-willed magnates, was obliged for 
 its own protection to favour the pretensions and 
 growing power of the Church, which, from its 
 connection with Rome and the influence that
 
 88 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH . 
 
 accompanied its large worldly estate, was a force 
 not to be despised. 
 
 The Church, being exceptionally strong as a 
 thing of the earth, offered powerful inducements 
 to the younger sons of nobles and others to enter 
 its service, who had no piety in their hearts and 
 often not even decency in their lives. Thus the 
 Church sank lower and lower, until it became 
 a by-word and a reproach. There were honest 
 and pious men in it, such as Bishop Elphin- 
 stone, who, amidst incentives to the opposite, 
 lived an irreproachable life, and proved himself 
 to be a far-seeing and large-minded lover of his 
 country. There were also men of simple faith 
 and, for the time, wonderfully sound evangelical 
 sentiments, such as Bishop Brown, of Dunkeld, 
 who, in dying, threw himself " entirely on the 
 mercy rather than on the justice of God, 
 and expressed a firm trust in his salvation, not 
 for his own merits, but through the passion of 
 Christ"; but the great majority of the ecclesias- 
 tics of that age were so different from what their 
 vocation required them to be as to be a scandal 
 to their contemporaries. William Dunbar, Sir 
 David Lindsay of the Mount, and other writers 
 of the day, did not spare the priests, who, by 
 their cynical disregard of even appearances, laid 
 themselves open to the most biting satire. 
 
 Ninian Wingate, or Winzet, a priest and 
 schoolmaster of Linlithgow, and a strong
 
 THE REFORMATION. 89 
 
 opponent of John Knox, may be accepted as an 
 unprejudiced witness in speaking of the Romish 
 Church at the time of the Reformation. Here is 
 his testimony, which came out in a tractate 
 addressed to the " Queen, pastors, and nobility": 
 
 "Your dumb doctrine in exalting ceremonies 
 only, keeping in silence the true word of God 
 necessary to all men's salvation, and not resisting 
 manifest errors, to the world is known. What part 
 of the true religion by your slothful dominion and 
 princely estate is not corrupted or obscured ? Have 
 not many, through lack of teachment, in mad 
 ignorance misknown the duty which we all owe to 
 our Lord God, and so in their perfect belief have 
 sorely stammered ? Were not the Sacraments of 
 Christ Jesus profaned by ignorants and wicked 
 persons neither able to persuade to godliness by 
 learning nor by living 1 Of the which number we 
 confess the most part of us of the ecclesiastical stale 
 to have been, in our ignorant and inexpert youth, 
 unworthily by you admitted to the ministration 
 thereof. Were ye commanded in vain of God by the 
 mouths of His prophets and apostles to watch 
 attently and continually upon your flock and know 
 diligently the same by face 1 Or gave the princes of 
 the earth yearly rents (as the disciples in the begin 
 ning sold their lands and gave the prices thereof unto 
 the apostles) to the end that every one of you might 
 spend the same upon his dame Dalila and bastard 
 brows 1 And albeit it chance oft to the infirmity of 
 man that he fall asleep when he should most wake,
 
 90 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 and bo given to pastime when he should most 
 diligently labour but yet, oh, merciful God ! what 
 deadly sleep is this that has oppressed you, that in so 
 great uproar, tumult, and terrible clamour, ye wake 
 not forth of your dream 1 Awake ! awake ! we say, 
 and put to your hand stoutly to save Peter's ship." 
 
 The condition of the Church in Aberdeen 
 may be inferred from an extract which we give 
 from an address to William Gordon, the last 
 Bishop of Aberdeen, by the Dean and Chapter, 
 dated 5th January, 1558 : 
 
 " Imprimis, that my Lord Bishop cause the kirk- 
 men within his diocie to reform themselves in all 
 their slanderous manner of living, and to remove 
 their open concubines, as well great as small. 
 Secundo, that his Lordship will be so good as to show 
 edificative example in special in removing and dis- 
 charging himself of the company of the gentlewoman 
 by whom he is greatly slandered, without the which 
 be done, diverse that are partners say they cannot 
 accept counsel and correction of him which will not 
 correct himself." 
 
 Scotland was the scene of religious awaken- 
 ings before the time of the Reformation. The 
 " Lollards," or wandering disciples of Wicklifl'e, 
 by their secret meetings for breaking the word 
 and for prayer for some years before the Refor- 
 mation, were as evanescent flashes of light in the 
 darkness, not prolonged nor widespread enough 
 to have any perceptible or immediate efi'ect in its
 
 THE REFORMATION. 01 
 
 dispersion. But when the great Reformation in 
 Germany began to draw the attention of Europe, 
 not a few in Scotland, longing and praying for 
 a better state of things at home, were kept 
 acquainted with its progress and principles. All 
 along the east coast, from Edinburgh to Aber- 
 deen in particular, the truth was quietly dis- 
 seminated. The many ships which came over 
 from the Continent brought tidings and state- 
 ments of the new doctrine, which were handed 
 about. In a letter engrossed in the burgh records 
 of Aberdeen, which James V. sent to the clergy 
 of the diocese in 1525, there is a reference to 
 " syndry strangers ande otheris w l in his diocesy 
 of Aberdene, has bukys of that hcretick luthyr, 
 and favors his errorys and fals opinionys, 
 incontrar our act of parliament laitlie mayd in 
 o 1 ' last parliament." 
 
 At first, the persons specially interested were 
 of the learned class observant, thoughtful men 
 who had correspondence with the big world out- 
 side of Scotland, and who, after much groping, 
 like Luther himself, had found the pearl of great 
 price, which was not known to the mass of 
 the people. But the martyrdom of Patrick 
 Hamilton, and still more that of George Wisliart, 
 seemed to send home the conviction to the nation 
 at large that a great w r ork was begun within 
 their borders ; the flame of those burnings was 
 as the candle of the Lord, and the truth of the
 
 92 THE LKiirrs OK THE NORTH 
 
 testimony which was put to the proof at the 
 stake, silently and in a way unknown to ecclesias- 
 tics and statesmen, was taking root and gradually 
 supplanting the old discredited system. 
 
 Nor were suitable leaders lacking for the 
 movement in Scotland. The special service which 
 John Knox and his coadjutors rendered to Scot- 
 land lay in their unselfish and unfaltering 
 adherence to the truth which was essential to 
 the higher life of the nation. Like an old 
 Hebrew prophet a Scottish Elijah he stood 
 there, firm as a rock, with no other message 
 than "Thus saith the Lord." Doubtless he was 
 rough, but he had rough work to do. You can- 
 not fell a tree with a lance, but with the sturdy 
 blows of an axe. Remember Carlyle's sentence 
 '' It was not a smooth business ; but it was wel- 
 come surely, and cheap at that price, had it been 
 far rougher." Knox was not a courtier of the. 
 
 ~ 
 
 most approved pattern. He had a rigid inllcxi- 
 bility which Courts are not accustomed to, and 
 which was highly inconvenient to a Queen who 
 hoped, by her blandishments and tact, to win the 
 nation back to Rome. He of all men of the 
 day, with his piercing penetration, saw, and 
 \vas steadily fighting against the policy of the 
 Palace. 
 
 We know we are approaching dangerous 
 ground when we even hint at an impeachment 
 of Queen Mary. Her personal beauty, romantic
 
 THE REFORMATION. 93 
 
 career, and tragic end have thrown a spell over 
 many writers, and made them incapable of deal- 
 ing with facts relating to her in a rational and 
 sober way. Feeling and imagination come in 
 with their colouring and idealising effects, and, 
 say what you may, " Ephraim is joined to his 
 idols." 
 
 But men who revere truth more than Mary 
 feel bound to admit that, among the many in- 
 terests which conflicting parties kept well in 
 view, to John Knox above all others belongs the 
 signal honour of urging his countrymen, in season 
 and out of season, to seek first the Kingdom of 
 God and His righteousness. The most of the 
 nobles were deaf to all considerations but the 
 aggrandisement of their patrimonial estates, 
 bearing out what John Knox, with more point 
 than refinement, said " The belly has no ears ; " 
 the Court was playing its part for a time with 
 consummate address, wearing the silken glove on 
 the iron hand ; the Church had its scholarly 
 champions, who were ready to enter the lists 
 against the new doctrines, and, when they had 
 the power, were eager to burn those who pro- 
 pounded them. Against all those, John Knox, 
 with the simplicity and courage of true faith, put 
 his confidence in the Word of God. 
 
 In the echoes of that critical and exciting 
 period which have come down to us, we often 
 hear mention of the Scriptures. When Thomas
 
 94 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 Forret pulled from his sleeve his New Testament 
 that he might cite a passage in his defence, his 
 accuser exclaimed, as he looked upon it " This 
 is the book that makes all the din and pley in 
 the kirk." He gauged the situation exactly. 
 The neglect of the teaching of that book had led 
 to the declension of religion, and revival was due 
 to the prayerful study of its contents. The 
 invention of printing, which had not been turned 
 to much account for the dissemination of sacred 
 knowledge by the Romish Church, was one of 
 the most serviceable auxiliaries of the Reforma- 
 tion. Copies of Tyndale's translation of the New 
 Testament were brought over from the Low 
 Countries by the Scottish traders, and were dis- 
 tributed on the north-east coast, some of them 
 reaching Aberdeen. Some of the bishops of 
 the day, in passing sentence upon men whose 
 only crime was that they circulated the Scrip- 
 tures and preached from them, boasted that they 
 knew nothing of them. 
 
 The fundamental principle of the Reformation 
 was the paramount authority of Scripture. As 
 has been well said, " At one bound the Church 
 leaped over ten centuries, and came back to the 
 Scriptures." In the first Confession of Faith 
 drawn up by the Reformers, their reverent 
 regard for the Scriptures is strikingly shown in 
 the following extract from the preface: "We 
 conjure you if <iny man will note in this our
 
 THE REFORMATION. 95 
 
 Confession any article or sentence repugnant to 
 God's Holy Word, that it would please him of 
 his gentleness and for Christian charity's sake, 
 to admonish us of the same in writing, and we 
 upon our honour and fidelity do promise him 
 satisfaction from the Holy Scriptures, or due 
 reformation of that which he shall prove to be 
 amiss." The one thing which the Scottish 
 Reforming party placed against the authority 
 of Pope, Bishops, and Cardinals was the Word 
 of God. In that respect the Reformation in 
 England was different. It was the Crown that, 
 in the first instance at least, was brought 
 prominently forward there, and Henry VIII. and 
 his Ministers arrayed themselves against the 
 Pope. In Scotland it was the people, led by the 
 preachers, who were in opposition to the 
 hierarchy, and that accounts for the more radical 
 and thorough-going character of the work that 
 was done. In our country the Reformation was 
 less the outcome of State-craft, and was more 
 due to the simple-hearted and resolute action of 
 men who knew no higher rule or test in things 
 religious than the word of God. 
 
 It is simple matter of history, patent to every 
 attentive reader, that during the last four 
 centuries Scotland owes more to her preachers 
 than to any other class of men for the preserva- 
 tion of her civil and religious liberties. When 
 her other natural leaders were generally thinking
 
 96 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 chiefly of the interests of their own order and 
 family, the ministers of those days, with the 
 narrowest possible margin of worldly means 
 which, as compared with the bloated estates of 
 their ecclesiastical predecessors, were as the 
 crumbs which fell from the rich man's table 
 fought the battle of the people. They have their 
 reward now, for Scotland's greatest men, 
 honoured and cherished in the hearts of the 
 people, include in their ranks not a few whose 
 distinction it is that they gained and maintained 
 an influence such as has been wielded in very few 
 parts of the world by the simple preaching of 
 the Word. Buckle says : " When the Scotch 
 Kirk was at the height of its power, we may 
 search history in vain for any institution which 
 can compete with it except the Spanish Inquisi- 
 tion." By such a sentence as that Buckle does 
 harm only to himself, by failing to distinguish 
 between the power that is in the hands of the 
 agents of a huge system of hierarchal despotism 
 and the moral weight of men who have nothing 
 behind them but the Word of God and the 
 religious sentiment of a free people. The exiles, 
 confessors, and martyrs of the Reformation 
 period, whose blood was the seed of the Church, 
 were for the most part ministers of religion, 
 many of them men of good birth as well as of 
 high education. Among the more distinguished 
 of those priests of the old order, who were the
 
 THE REFORMATION. 97 
 
 self-sacrificing heralds of the new, was Patrick 
 Hamilton. 
 
 The spectacle of that man of gentle blood and 
 still gentler spirit, Patrick Hamilton, passing 
 away from this world amidst piles of slowly- 
 burning faggots near the sea-cliffs of St. 
 Andrews is indelibly imprinted upon the national 
 heart. The wood for the sacrifice was green, 
 unskilful hands tended the fire, a tempestuous 
 east wind was like to blow it out, and for six 
 hours did he endure the agonies of consciousness 
 " roasted at last rather than burnt," as a 
 spectator remarked. One of the articles for 
 which he was condemned to this death was his 
 belief " that a man is not justified by works 
 but by faith ; that faith, hope, and charity are 
 so linked together that he who hath one of them 
 hath all, and he that lacketh one lacketh all ; 
 and that good works make not a good man, but 
 a good man doeth good works." As he was 
 patiently enduring the tortures which cruel men 
 were inflicting upon him in the name of Christ, 
 a solitary voice out of the awe-struck crowd 
 asked him to give a sign of his steadfastness to 
 the faith. Whereupon three fingers of his 
 scorched, half -consumed hand were held up. 
 Soon after that, and before expiring, he said 
 " How long shall darkness overwhelm this realm ? 
 How long wilt Thou suffer the tyranny of men ? 
 Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." 
 H
 
 98 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 It came to be a common saying in Scotland 
 that " the reek of Patrick Hamilton infected all 
 on whom it blew." How suicidal was the policy 
 of the ecclesiastics of the day ! The only effect of 
 their diabolical rage was to convince the nation 
 of the reality and power of a cause that could 
 enable men so to live and die. George Wishart 
 also, who was educated at King's College, Aber- 
 deen, by his life, and still more by his death, 
 hastened on the work of the Reformation. An 
 Angus man, he frequented Dundee, and his Gospel 
 ministrations met with such success in that town 
 that it gained the name of the " Scottish Geneva," 
 
 e> 
 
 being at that time the chief centre of light in 
 Scotland ; its " gude and godly ballates, changed 
 out of prophaine sanges for avoyding of sinne and 
 harlotrie," by the brothers Wedderburn, rendered 
 great service to the whole country. 
 
 It is quite true there were multitudes in Scot- 
 land then with little spiritual sympathy who 
 went in strongly for the Reformation. There 
 were many who had no mind for divine doctrine, 
 and no experience of its power in their heart and 
 life, who were quite able and willing to join the 
 crusade against an oppressive and licentious 
 priesthood. Criticism and assault are always 
 easier and more popular than moral reconstruc- 
 tion, and the ranks of the Reforming party 
 were therefore thronged with men who, to a 
 large extent, were strangers to divine grace, but
 
 THE REFORMATION. 99 
 
 were the subjects of a natural indignation against 
 the scandalous condition of the Church. 
 
 There was a great deal of protesting before 
 the famous formal protest was uttered, and that, 
 too, sometimes by men who did not have behind 
 their critical and destructive attitude those deep 
 spiritual convictions which were Luther's start- 
 ing point as an ecclesiastical reformer. Men of 
 letters, like Erasmus of European fame, and poets, 
 like our own Dunbar and Sir David Lindsay, 
 satirised with merciless lash the vices of the 
 clerg3 r and the gross corruptions into which the 
 Church had fallen. Clear-sighted and bold men 
 of all countries and ranks rendered splendid 
 service to the cause of the Reformation by put- 
 ting in strong and vivid colours the degeneracy 
 which had overtaken the institutions that bore 
 the name of Christ. 
 
 Ambitious statesmen, also, and greedy terri- 
 torial magnates, who saw in the lands from 
 which the Church was about to be displaced an 
 opportunity of enlarging their estates, had much 
 to do with the rapid course of striking events we 
 call the Reformation. As has been well said, "the 
 soul of the Reformation was encased in a body of 
 fleshly elements." With the honourable excep- 
 tions of Argyll, Moray, Glencairn, and a few more, 
 the members of the Scottish aristocracy who 
 espoused the popular cause showed only too 
 plainly, in their subsequent career, that worldly
 
 100 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 wisdom and selfish aggrandisement played a 
 more important part in their public action than 
 the disinterested love of truth. It is always so ; 
 in all noble movements there are ignoble ele- 
 ments ; there are those who are not of the truth, 
 but who see in the general overturning an 
 opportunity of serving their own ends. When 
 the advancing tide comes up against heaps of 
 rubbish upon the shore, it is inevitable that 
 its waters should be denied and should for a 
 time carry on their bosom what they have 
 touched. 
 
 The power, however, which carried the move- 
 ment forward and gave it a place in history came 
 from higher sources. The Reformation had the 
 soul for its starting point. In its real inception 
 it was not a mere thing of criticism and 
 ecclesiastical reform, but of spiritual experience. 
 It was inward life, throbbing, expanding, and 
 demanding that first right of all life freedom to 
 be. It was life as before God, seeking that the 
 environment which was to minister to its well- 
 being and growth should correspond with its own 
 innermost principles and distinctive aims. There 
 was the work of receiving the divine gift and 
 nourishing the divine life in secret, which led to 
 the public repudiation of the artificial trammels 
 that would suppress or cramp its outgoing 
 energies. No was said to the Pope, because Yes 
 had been previously said to the soul's true Lord.
 
 THE REFORMATION. 101 
 
 The negation and destruction were in order to, 
 or rather in consequence of, sublime affirmations. 
 That is a sufficient answer to Roman Catholic 
 writers who jeer at the term Protestant as if it 
 were the mere offspring of irresponsible criticism 
 without anything more valid behind. The 
 Protestantism was only the resisting power of 
 Evangelicalism. The essence of what goes under 
 the name of Protestantism was not mere dis- 
 satisfaction with the imposition of the Papal 
 hierarchy. It went far deeper down. It sprang 
 from satisfaction with Christ and consequent 
 submission to his authority. It was in no n't of 
 scornful scepticism that Knox, when a galley 
 slave, asked to do reverence to an image of the 
 Virgin Mary, flung it into the water as so much 
 " painted bredd," that was litter to swim than to 
 be worshipped. It was reverence for God which 
 made it impossible he could do honour to a piece 
 of painted wood as " the Mother of God." 
 Luther was not so much setting himself against 
 the representatives of Christendom as putting 
 himself into rightful subjection to God, when in 
 the Diet of Worms he wound up his declaration 
 with the memorable words " Here I am. I 
 cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen." 
 The protesting part of the Reformation was no 
 more than the work of men who, in preparing 
 for a launch, strike away the wedges and bolts 
 which detain the vessel from its native element.
 
 102 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 What tended to confirm the leading Reformers 
 of Scotland in their Protestantism was the 
 horrible outrage perpetrated in France on St. 
 Bartholomew's day twelve years after Popery 
 had been formally unseated by our Parliament. 
 Such was the effect of the massacre of the 
 Huguenots upon the mind of Europe that the 
 principal perpetrators of that foul deed were not 
 long in discovering that, besides being guilty of 
 an atrocious crime, they had allowed passion to 
 hurry them into a stupid blunder. What was 
 the Reforming party in Scotland to think of the 
 Church, the responsible heads of which ordered 
 a medal to be struck to perpetuate the memory 
 of the butchery of Protestants. Roman Catholic 
 writers have denied the existence of such a 
 medal, but in the museum bequeathed by Mr. 
 Thomson of Banchory to the Free Church College, 
 Aberdeen, this witness against the Roman Church 
 can be seen any day, with the image of Pope 
 Gregory XIII. on the one side, and on the other 
 a soldier with a sword in the act of killing 
 Huguenots.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 JOHN CRAIG 1512-1600. 
 
 struggle which had been going on for 
 more than half a century, with varying 
 fortunes to both sides, at last came to a head, 
 though not to an end, in 15GO, when the ritual 
 of the Romish Church was declared to be illegal, 
 and all Papal jurisdiction was abolished by the 
 Scottish Parliament. Such a complete overthrow 
 of the most ancient institution in the world, 
 which appealed to the deepest and most sacred 
 feelings of the human heart, and was sanctioned 
 by the usage and supported by the power of the 
 greater part of Europe, is next to the introduc- 
 tion of Christianity itself the most remarkable 
 event which has happened in the whole history 
 of Scotland. It will not be deemed an unprofit- 
 able task to endeavour to discover the forces 
 which contributed to such a striking result. 
 
 Foremost among them must be placed internal 
 disorder and decay. The Church's worst enemies 
 were those of its own household. If the Romish 
 Church had continued to be even moderately 
 loyal to the truth which it professed to hold, the 
 error that was embedded in its doctrine and
 
 104 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 ritual might probably have been allowed to sleep 
 for centuries. But it has to be remembered, 
 on the other hand, that the corruptions which 
 scandalised the nation often sprang from what 
 was in the system itself, such as the enforced 
 celibacy of the clergy. 
 
 The church perished by its own hand, as that 
 institution is doomed whose responsible guardians 
 are grossly indifferent to its fundamental princi- 
 ples and aims ; and for " holy Mother Church " 
 to have passed away in such circumstances was 
 not to die, but to be murdered. The indictment 
 which history brings against the churchmen of 
 the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is that, with 
 a few noble exceptions, they were guilty of 
 spiritual matricide. Alert enough to pounce 
 upon heresy or anything that tended to subvert 
 their own order, the Kingdom of God, which is 
 not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace, and 
 joy in the Holy Ghost, was not only neglected 
 by most of the men entrusted with its interests, 
 but was trampled upon and profaned. So that 
 the typical rnan of the period was not Bishop 
 Elphinstone, but that masterpiece and mirror of 
 his ae, that brilliant embodiment of its ideas and 
 
 ~ 
 
 aspirations, that consummate piece of strenuous 
 and polished woiidliness Cardinal Beaton. Dr. 
 Forbes Leith, who wrote the " Narratives of 
 Scottish Catholics," in lamenting the death of 
 the Cardinal, calls him the "mainstay of religion"
 
 JOHN CRAIG. 105 
 
 in Scotland. In view of his private life, the 
 facts of which are notorious and matter of public 
 record, one is inclined to ask what kind of 
 religion was that of which Cardinal Beaton was 
 the " mainstay." Was it the religion of Christ 
 and the Apostles, the religion that was in- 
 augurated by the Sermon on the Mount, and of 
 which lowliness and chastity were among the 
 common characteristics ? -* Were his example and 
 influence the " mainstay " of such a religion ? 
 Ah ! it is only when a mere ecclesiastical system, 
 shaped after the ideas of a lapsed world, is 
 substituted for the Kingdom of God and His 
 righteousness, and the Christian name and its 
 symbols of worship are prostituted for the 
 furtherance of objects as far away from the 
 mind of Christ and the examples of the Apostolic 
 Church as Ancient Rome of the first century was 
 from the little company who waited in an upper 
 room for the outpouring of the Divine Spirit it 
 is only when the Church has become a mere 
 thing of the earth, the creature of priest-cral't 
 and the tool of ambition, that such a man as 
 Cardinal Beaton can be called its " mainstay." 
 
 In addition to greed, jealousy was also at 
 work in the breasts of the nobles, constraining 
 them to identify themselves with the policy of 
 destruction, though most of them were sufficiently 
 backward when reconstruction was begun. They 
 were envious of the political influence that was
 
 106 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 wielded by the dignified clergy who held the 
 chief offices of State, as being " the best scholars, 
 the most capable statesmen, the most accom- 
 plished diplomatists, and the profoundest and 
 acutest lawyers." 
 
 In enumerating the forces which operated in 
 favour of the Reformation, mention must also be 
 made of the spirit of inquiry and criticism that 
 began to manifest itself in the fifteenth century. 
 It is possible to make too much of the " revival 
 of letters," in which Erasmus and others before 
 him took a conspicuous part, as an auxiliary in 
 the regeneration of the Church. For countries 
 much nearer the centre of this revived interest 
 in literature, such as Austria and Spain, were 
 content to remain in the shackles of Rome, not- 
 withstanding the light that came streaming 
 around them from the reopened classics of Greece 
 and Rome. 
 
 Still, it cannot be doubted that it was, in a 
 general way, a great gain to the cause of truth 
 and progress to have the dull, dead monotony of 
 the Middle Ages broken, and stagnant thought 
 stirred by questions other than the stale scholastic 
 ones which had occupied rather than exercised 
 the mind for so many years. The budding litera- 
 ture of Scotland, of which William Dunbar and 
 Sir David Lindsay of the Mount were the chief 
 ornaments, took its share in this work of opening 
 men's minds to the facts which were around them.
 
 JOHN CRAIG. 107 
 
 They lashed the Churchmen of the day with their 
 scornful effusions, and by their satire, more biting 
 than delicate, helped to prepare the way for the 
 Reformation, by enabling the people to realise 
 that there was need for it. 
 
 The population of the city of Aberdeen at the 
 time of the transition from the Romish to the 
 Protestant faith was only about 4,000, and the 
 inhabitants of the whole of Scotland did not 
 number half a million less than what the city 
 of Glasgow now has within its boundaries. Yet, 
 for that small number of people in our town, it 
 is calculated that there were more men set apart 
 to the offices of religion in church and monastery 
 than what we have to meet the wants of the 
 present population ! 
 
 Owing to the distance of Aberdeen from the 
 large centres, where the new currents of thought 
 and feeling were at work, and the want of lead- 
 ing men with the reforming spirit to take the 
 initiative, little of the stir of the times reached 
 our city. It has been humorously said that in 
 those far-away times an Act of Parliament was 
 out of breath by the time it reached Aberdeen, 
 and thus many influences at work in the central 
 parts of the land were faintly felt in this remote 
 region. The men in the University and the 
 priests of the Church evinced no desire to espouse 
 the " heretical " notions that were abroad. The 
 Earl of Huntly and other feudal lords of the
 
 108 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 neighbourhood, who were thick -and-thin sup- 
 porters of the old order, overawed the burgesses, 
 and made the native caution doubly strong. It 
 was true then that " the Gordons hae the guiding 
 o' 't." It is very much owing to the same cause 
 that there are considerable belts of land in the 
 north, such as Glenlivet and Gleiigairn, which 
 are still largely inhabited by Roman Catholics. 
 The feudal heads of the people of those districts 
 did not sever their connection with the Roman 
 Church at the time of the Reformation, and that 
 had its effects upon their retainers. Some of the 
 leading proprietors in those regions did eventu- 
 ally pass over to the Protestant side ; but, there 
 being no general movement at the time, many of 
 the people continued to adhere to the ancient 
 faith. 
 
 It was left to John Marshall, rector of the 
 Grammar School, to take the Protestant position 
 and vindicate freedom of thought in religious 
 matters. He was brought before the Magistrates 
 on a charge of heresy, and, whilst he valiantly 
 stood out for two years, at last confessed his 
 error and made peace with the powers that be. 
 What a pity John Marshall did not hold out to 
 the bitter end, if for no other reason than to 
 redeem Aberdeen from the reproach of never 
 having had a martyr within its borders ! The 
 martyr's pile was never kindled in our northern 
 region, though, as we shall learn by-and-bye, its
 
 JOHN CRAIG. 109 
 
 canny inhabitants had their share of suffering 
 arising from the religious controversies of the 
 period. 
 
 But the excitement that was seething in the 
 southern part of Scotland made itself felt at last 
 in the north. A band of men full of reforming 
 zeal, which too frequently assumed the form of 
 destructive violence, came to our city and defaced 
 and spoiled some of the religious houses, and 
 would have done serious damage to buildings 
 which are the pride of Aberdonians, hail they 
 not been restrained. Aberdeen, without seeking 
 
 o 
 
 the Reformation, had to accept it. It had to 
 take its place as part of a nation that had 
 abjured the Romish Church. Adam Hcriot, the 
 tirst Protestant minister, is supposed to have 
 sprung from a branch of the family to which 
 belonged the celebrated George Heriot, who was 
 jeweller to King James VI., and founder of the 
 hospital in Edinburgh bearing his name. On a 
 small tablet erected to the wife of Adam Heriot, 
 there is an inscription in Latin in which he is 
 designated " Preacher of the merits of Jesus 
 Christ at Aberdeen." The official entry of his 
 death in the town records is " Maister Adam 
 Heriot, fyrst minister of the trew word of God, 
 departitt the 28th day of August, 1574 years." 
 It is not surprising that he became prematurely 
 old, and died when he was sixty years of age, 
 for, with the University professors and most of
 
 110 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 the gentry hostile, and the people generally 
 lukewarm, he must have had a hard battle to 
 fight. 
 
 o 
 
 The next foremost figure associated with that 
 period in this locality was John Craig, Heriot's 
 successor. The life of this man, so full of 
 rapidly-shifting scenes, hairbreadth escapes, and 
 courageous endeavour, which never flinched from 
 its lofty object, whether fortune smiled or 
 frowned, reads like a romance. Providence had 
 done much to fit him for high place and 
 distinguished service in the Church of Christ. 
 He was born in 1512 of " honest and substantial 
 parents," known as the Craigs of Craig Fintray, 
 now Craigston, of the county of Aberdeen. A 
 year after his birth, his father was killed at 
 Flodden, which reduced the family to great 
 straits. For some reason that is unknown, he 
 studied, not at his native University, King's 
 College, which was at that time famous and 
 attracting students from all parts, but at St. 
 Andrews, where he graduated with approbation. 
 After serving for two years as tutor to the sons of 
 Lord Dacres, he returned to St. Andrews, entered 
 the Church, and became a monk of the order of 
 St. Dominic. Being of an inquiring turn of 
 mind, and not afraid to avow his convictions, he 
 was suspected of heresy, and had to leave the 
 country. We find him as a fugitive in England, 
 France, and latterly in Rome, where he made the
 
 JOHN' CRAIG. Ill 
 
 acquaintance of Cardinal Pole, who secured for 
 him, when he was quite a young man, an intro- 
 duction to the Dominicans at Bologna. 
 
 His career there was one of rapid promotion. 
 After having approved himself as instructor of 
 novices, he was actually made rector of the 
 Dominican Academy at Bologna. This position 
 gave him ready access to the Library, where he 
 became acquainted with Calvin's " Institutes," a 
 perusal of which ended in his conversion to the 
 Protestant faith. 
 
 When the change in his religious opinions 
 became known to the Inquisition at Rome, he 
 was removed to that city and immured in a 
 gloomy vault, where Rowe reports the pri- 
 soners had to stand twice a day up to their 
 waists in water by the admission of the tides ! 
 He was condemned to be burned for his opinions 
 on the 19th May, 1559, but managed to escape. 
 After resorting to many hidings and shifts, he, 
 in his toilsome wanderings, reached Vienna. To 
 the end of his days he was accustomed to relate 
 with solemn feeling an incident that occurred 
 to him on the road, when his fortunes were at 
 a low ebb, and he was like to lose heart. As 
 he sat by the side of a brook, a dog, with a 
 purse between his teeth, came fawning and lay 
 down beside him. The gold that was in it 
 helped him out of his difficulties, and greatly 
 encouraged his heart.
 
 112 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 From Vienna he eventually found his way 
 to Scotland, where his return was hailed with 
 delight in " the morning of the Reformation," the 
 cause that Knox fought for having just received 
 legal recognition and establishment. On his 
 return to Edinburgh he preached for some time 
 to the " learned in Latino :> in Magdalen Chapel. 
 When he recovered the use of his native tongue 
 which, by long absence from Scotland, he had 
 almost lost he preached for some time at Holy- 
 rood House, and shortly after was appointed 
 colleague to John Knox as minister of St. 
 Giles' Church. For ten years he did valiant 
 service in that capacity, and proved himself to 
 be a most valuable coadjutor to the man who 
 was practically the ruler as well as bishop of 
 Scotland. 
 
 In 1572 he was translated to Montrose. In 
 about two years after that date he was sent 
 further north " to illuminate those dark places in 
 Mar, Buchan, and Aberdeen, and to teach the 
 youth of the college there." He came to Aber- 
 deen to relieve, and afterwards to succeed, worthy 
 Adam Heriot, just as James Law son, sub-principal 
 of our University, had shortly before been called 
 to be Knox's colleague and successor in Edin- 
 burgh. Craig's income was, as records show, 
 16 13s. 4d. for at least one year. Such was the 
 pittance that was allowed for the man who was 
 doing the work which " a bishop, a fully-equipped
 
 JOHN CRAIG. 113 
 
 cathedral, and a noble parish church filled with 
 well-paid priests had done." 
 
 The leading men of the " Congregation " in 
 Edinburgh, as the Protestant party were called, 
 knew what they were about when they sent a 
 man of such ample resources and versatile talent 
 to Aberdeen, where Protestantism had a stiffer 
 battle to fight than in any other part of the 
 kingdom. The scholarship, the landed interest, 
 the social influence generally, of Aberdeen were 
 with the old order, and the common people were 
 not burning with desire to be emancipated from 
 the Roman fetters. 
 
 During his stay in Aberdeen, Craig took an 
 active part in the preparation of the Second Book 
 of Discipline and the Catechism, of which he says 
 " to the professores of Christ's Evangel in Newe 
 Aberdene: that it was for their sakes chieily 
 that he took paines first to gather this brieff 
 summe." He was Moderator, also, of the General 
 Assembly for the second time on October 24-, 
 1576, and served the Church over an extensive 
 district beyond Aberdeen as commissioner or 
 superintendent. 
 
 Having laboured in Aberdeen for about six 
 years, he left it on 14th September, 1579, to be 
 chaplain to James VI. It surely must have been 
 an enemy, or a friend embittered by the enforced 
 separation, who leaves it on record : " On the 
 18th day of Sept., the year of God 1579, Maister 
 i
 
 114 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 John Craig, sometyme minister of Aberdene, 
 departed with his wyfe and bairns and haill 
 housiel out of ye said burght, and left his floick 
 unprovidit of ane minister : To be preacher to 
 the King's grace : As he al legit." 
 
 He died on 12th December, 1GOO, leaving no 
 portrait of himself except what can be found in 
 his noble record of work and his unfaltering 
 steadfastness as a champion of the truth. A 
 cultured and travelled Scot, his chequered ex- 
 perience abroad, added to the excellent training 
 he got in his own country, fitted him for the suc- 
 cession of difficult positions he had to occupy in 
 the later years of his life.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 BISHOP PATRICK FORBES 1564-1635. 
 
 /TJHE battle of the Reformation was fought on 
 j. the question of doctrine rather than upon 
 that of Church government. Knox and his co- 
 adjutors had to contend for what lay at the very 
 core of Christianity, the right of every man to have 
 personal dealings with God in the great matter 
 of salvation through faith in Christ as the only 
 mediator. All available energy was used in the 
 persistent and successful championship of that 
 truth. Church government was a secondary 
 question that could wait. Consequently, the 
 Church in Scotland for some time after the 
 Reformation was not very clearly defined as to 
 its type of structure. It was partly Episcopal 
 and partly Presbyterian, with a strong leaning 
 to the popular form of government. Like 
 sensible men, the Reformers took the government 
 which the circumstances admitted of, as they 
 were engaged in deep foundation work. 
 
 Largely owing to the strong personality of 
 Andrew Melville, as the consolidation of the 
 Scottish Church went on, the Presbyterianism 
 that was in it became more pronounced, and 
 assumed a definite and more permanent form.
 
 116 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 Presbyterianism was not only established by 
 law : it was in course of years nationalised 
 in the deeper sense of being identified with the 
 religious life of the people. But the Court and 
 all under its influence did not like it, and were 
 determined that the form of Church polity which 
 England favoured should suffice for Scotland. 
 So the battle between the Crown and the people 
 went on for more than a hundred years, neither 
 side showing any disposition to give way, even 
 when the fortunes of war went against it. In 
 1610 Episcopacy came in, as King James would 
 have it so. 
 
 It has often been a matter of surprise to some 
 students of Scottish history, more impressionable 
 than profound, that there should have been such 
 strenuous feeling imported into the controversy 
 between the advocates of the rival systems of 
 Episcopacy and Presbyterianism. Why make so 
 much ado about a question of government ? The 
 difference between the two polities and forms of 
 worship was much less then than now. This is 
 how the difference is minimised by an Episco- 
 palian of the period. In " The Case of the 
 Present Afflicted Clergy in Scotland Truly Re- 
 presented;'' published in 1690, we find the follow- 
 ing comparison between the worship of both 
 Churches made : 
 
 " As to the worship, it 's exactly the same both in 
 the Church and Conventicle ; in the Church there are
 
 BISHOP PATRICK FORBES. 117 
 
 no ceremonies at all injoyned or practised, only some 
 persons more reverent, think fit to be uncovered, 
 which our Presbyterians do but by halves even in the 
 time of prayer ; we have no liturgy nor form of 
 prayer, no not in the Cathedrals, the only difference 
 in this point is, our clergy are not so overbold nor 
 fulsome in their extemporary expressions as the 
 others are, nor use so many vain repetitions, and we 
 generally conclude one of our prayers with that 
 which our Saviour taught and commanded, which the 
 other party decry as superstitious and formal ; Amen, 
 too, gives great offence, though neither the clerk nor 
 people use it, only the minister sometimes shuts up 
 his prayer with it. The sacraments are administered 
 after the same way and manner by both ; neither so 
 much as kneeling at the prayers, or when they receive 
 the elements at the Lord's Supper, but all sitting 
 together at a long table, in the body of the church 
 or chancel. In baptism neither party use the cross, 
 nor are any godfathers or godmothers required, the 
 father only promising for his child. The only 
 difference in this sacrament is, the Presbyterians 
 make the father swear to breed up his child in the 
 faith and belief of the Covenant or Solemn League, 
 whereas the Orthodox cause the father repeat the 
 Apostles' Creed, and promise to breed up the child in 
 that faith which himself then possesses."* 
 
 M'Crie also, who represents the other ecclesi- 
 astical side, in his " Sketches of Scottish Church 
 
 * " The Case of the Present Afllicted Clergy in Scotland 
 Truly Represented," p. 3 of Preface.
 
 118 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 History," writes thus of the period immediately 
 preceding the Revolution of 1688 : 
 
 " It is a curious fact that during all this time no 
 attempt was made to introduce the ceremonies of the 
 English churches. The form of worship differed very 
 little from that practised by the Presbyterians. Our 
 prelatic clergy had no liturgy, no ceremonies, no 
 surplice, no altars, no crossing in baptism. What is 
 more remarkable, they had no Confession of Faith, no 
 standard of doctrine or discipline, no rule to guide 
 their practice, except the will of the bishops, which, 
 again, was regulated by the will of the king."* 
 
 If, then, Presbyterianism had the repetition 
 of the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, 
 and the Doxology as part of the Church service 
 on Sabbath up to the times of the Covenant, 
 and Episcopacy had no liturgy as late as the 
 middle of the eighteenth century, why create so 
 much disturbance and involve the nation in the 
 horrors of civil war about the comparatively 
 trivial difference as to whether Presbyters or 
 Bishops should rule the Church ? 
 
 In reply to this, it has to be called to remem- 
 brance, in the first place, that Episcopacy was 
 imposed. That form of Church life was not the 
 free choice of the people. In the circumstances 
 of the country at the time the acceptance of 
 Episcopacy meant the undue enlargement of the 
 
 * M'Crie's " Sketches of Scottish Church History," Vol. 
 II., p. 236.
 
 BISHOP PATRICK FORBES. 119 
 
 royal prerogative and the lo&s to the Scottish 
 Church of spiritual independence. There can be 
 no doubt that one reason for the passionate love 
 of Episcopacy which found a place in the breast 
 of the Stuart dynasty was the fact that it was 
 supposed to lend itself more readily to their 
 supreme aim, fondly cherished by each succeed- 
 ing occupant of the throne from the time of 
 Mary, which was to secure as near an approach 
 to Absolutism, personal rule, as was possible in a 
 free country. Presbyterianism was, in courtly 
 eyes, an unknown and, therefore, dangerous 
 quantity, with a decided leaning towards 
 democracy, and it was feared that if there were 
 no bishop there might by-and-bye be no king. 
 The people were as determined to have their 
 rights secured as the Stuarts were eager to hedge 
 round their unconstitutional prerogative hence 
 the Civil War. 
 
 Besides, Episcopacy was more like the system 
 which had been rejected at the Reformation, and 
 Presbyterianism was deemed to be more con- 
 sonant with the simplicity of Christianity as un- 
 folded in the New Testament Scriptures, which 
 the people had begun to study with great eager- 
 ness. While there is no necessary connection 
 between sacerdotalism and government by 
 bishops, yet as a matter of fact they often have 
 been connected. In their rebound from priest- 
 craft, therefore, in all its forms, and in their
 
 120 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 anxiety to secure an unoccupied place between 
 the soul and God, the Scottish people turned 
 away from that system which in their eyes, 
 rightly or wrongly, had a proclivity for those 
 things which impaired the freedom of the 
 individual Christian, and marred the simplicity 
 of the Gospel. 
 
 That untold multitudes of pious souls have 
 been nourished within the communion of the 
 Episcopal Church, and that character noble and 
 strong has been formed by its ministrations, it 
 would be downright folly as well as sheer bigotry 
 to deny ; but a prejudice has been excited against 
 it in Scotland because many of its sons attach 
 an importance to distinctive ecclesiastical order 
 which it is found difficult to reconcile with the 
 mandate of Scripture and also with the condi- 
 tions of a true and enlightened catholicity. The 
 adherents of almost all other forms of Church 
 government and worship can hold their respective 
 convictions as to what the outward structure of 
 the Church ought to be, and yet feel that they 
 stand equally on the common ground of an un- 
 impaired and catholic Christianity ; but some, 
 and these the most pronounced Episcopalians, 
 bring in things of which they as such claim to 
 have a monopoly, which tend to subordinate 
 the spiritual to the ecclesiastical, and make 
 catholicity a much narrower thing than did 
 Christ and the Apostles.
 
 BISHOP PATRICK FORBES. 121 
 
 What helped also to draw the great majority 
 of the Scottish people from an Episcopacy which 
 readily identified itself with sacerdotalism was 
 the fact that the men who took a leading part in 
 opening the eyes of the nation to the grand 
 verities of Gospel salvation put the chief stress 
 and weight of their thought upon spiritual 
 doctrine rather than upon ecclesiastical ritual. 
 The religious awakening of Scotland could be 
 traced to evangelical teaching, not to sacramental 
 acts to the exaltation of Christ before individual 
 souls, not to the enthronement of any officials of 
 the Church as depositaries of heavenly grace. 
 The Reformers such as Wishart, Knox, and 
 Patrick Hamilton, like Luther, brought the 
 people face to face with their Saviour ; and 
 while they believed in the Church, it was only 
 as a fellowship and means of edification for men 
 who had met Christ for themselves. In short, 
 the ecclesiastical was viewed by the men who by 
 God's help have made Scotland what it is as 
 nothing unless it was preceded by the spiritual 
 and the experimental in the soul's own dealings 
 with God. No doubt there were fanatical 
 Presbyterians who thought their system should 
 be set up over the whole world, but the 
 recognised leaders and exponents of Scottish 
 religious life introduced Presbyterianism not 
 because it was the only channel of grace for men, 
 but because they thought it was Scriptural,
 
 122 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 and it was the form of government which the 
 Reformers on the Continent, such as Calvin, witli 
 whom they had close communication, favoured. 
 
 But there were Episcopalians then, as there 
 are now, whose Episcopacy was little more to 
 their Evangelicalism than the accident is to the 
 essence than the porch is to the palace. They 
 accepted Christ as the only Saviour of men, and 
 faith in him as the only condition of salvation. 
 Such was Archbishop Leighton, that saintly and 
 seraphic man, whose sermons lift you far above 
 all consideration of ritual or Church order into 
 the holy of holies of a pure spirituality and 
 heavenly serenity, and make you feel indeed that 
 " the pure in heart shall see God, not only in 
 some future and far-off' scene, but wherever they 
 turn their eyes." Leighton 's piety, so unmis- 
 takably sincere, as far redeemed from self and 
 the world as is possible on this side of the grave ; 
 his penetrating insight into the meaning of 
 Scripture ; the spontaneous flow of his original 
 thought, like the welling forth of a perennial 
 spring ; the rare glow and sparkle of an imagina- 
 tion that was at home amongst the things of 
 God ; the chaste beauty of his diction all make 
 you think, not of the Episcopalian, but of the 
 Christian who has learned to look upon ques- 
 tions of Church order as little more than garments, 
 to be put off' or on according as they fit. Such, 
 on a smaller scale, was Scougal, of Aberdeen,
 
 BISHOP PATRICK FORHES. 123 
 
 the author of the " Life of God in the Soul of 
 Man." Such also, with a difference, was Bishop 
 Patrick Forbes, whose portrait is in Marischal 
 College. He was born in 15G4, the eldest son of 
 William Forbes of Corse and Kincardine O'Neil. 
 His father gave him the best education which 
 could be had, sending him to the Grammar School 
 of Stirling, then under the charge of Thomas 
 Buchanan, a nephew of the famous George 
 Buchanan, the Latin historian and poet. From 
 Stirling he went to Glasgow University, where 
 he studied under the care of his relative, Andrew 
 Melville. He kept company with Melville for 
 some years after leaving the University of 
 Glasgow, and pursued theological studies in St. 
 Andrews with such success that he was offered 
 a Divinity chair. This he refused, as his father 
 wanted him to settle down on the family pro- 
 perty of Corse after his own decease. 
 
 A tradition still lingers in Corse which 
 shows us Mr. Patrick Forbes had a sense of 
 humour which he did not repress : An old 
 woman came to him one day in great distress 
 about her cow that seemed to be very ill. Mr. 
 Forbes said he did not think he could do any- 
 thing for it ; but her anxiety being so great, 
 he went, at her urgent request, to see it. The 
 woman had great faith in his powers, and he 
 felt that, to satisfy her, he must do something ; 
 so, happening to see a riddle (sieve) hanging on
 
 ]24 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 the wall of the byre, he took it down and shook 
 it over the cow, saying, in a loud voice " Gin ye 
 live, ye live, and gin ye dee, ye dee ! " To the 
 old woman's great delight the cow recovered. 
 
 Some time after Mr. Forbes became very ill 
 with quinsy, and was not expected to recover. 
 When he was at his worst the woman came to 
 the door and demanded to see him. The ser- 
 vant would not listen to her request, and said 
 Mr. Forbes was "juist deein'" : but she would 
 take no refusal. " There : s the mair need for me 
 to win in, than," said she, and forcing her way 
 into the room with the aforesaid riddle, she shook 
 it over the laird's head with the words " Gin ye 
 live, ye live, and gin ye dee, ye dee ! " which 
 caused him to burst into a fit of laughter, with 
 the result that the quinsy broke and he was 
 relieved ! 
 
 That Patrick Forbes, a country gentleman, 
 should have cultivated tastes and engaged in 
 pursuits that are too often in these days regarded 
 as the preserve of the professional clergymen, 
 was not at all a circumstance to be specially 
 noted at that period. All classes then, especially 
 the gentry and smaller proprietors not as a rule 
 the nobles in most parts of Scotland made 
 religion, if not indeed theology, one of the special 
 interests of life. As can be gathered from the 
 extensive correspondence carried on by Ruther- 
 ford, piety was an honoured guest in the mansion
 
 BISHOP PATRICK FORBES. 125 
 
 as well as in the cottage, there being a freshness 
 of interest in the study of Scripture in those 
 early days of the Reformation period, as of the 
 opening up of the land of Beulah. 
 
 With his well - furnished mind and deep 
 spiritual earnestness, it was not to be expected 
 that Patrick Forbes should be allowed to remain 
 long idle when there was such scarcity of Gospel 
 ministrations in the land. He, soon after settling 
 down in the paternal estate, was pressed into 
 service as a preacher in the neighbouring parish 
 church. In a simple, straightforward manner, 
 he thus explains, in a letter to King James VI., 
 how he was led to take up public work of the 
 kind, though, owing to " the difficulties of the 
 times," he did not see his way formally to enter 
 the ministry : 
 
 ". . . Being cast in these parts where, within 
 the precinct of two Presbyteries, at least twenty and 
 one churches lay unplanted, whereby our state we re- 
 little from heathenisme, I began in simple and private 
 manners (necessity enforcing it on my conscience) to 
 catechise my own family. Thereafter the Churchmen 
 of that province dealing earnestlie with mo to accept 
 of some publick charge in the ministric of the Church, 
 which, upon divers respectfull considerations, 1 could 
 not, as then, yield to, they next with all instance 
 requested that at least, for the glide of others, 1 
 would be content to transfer my domestic paincs to 
 ane void church, now joining to my house ; wliairto
 
 126 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 having for a space condescend]' t, they afterward, by 
 thair commissioners from thair Synod, directed to me 
 for that effect, yet more earnestly entreated that I 
 would still hold on that course which (as they judged) 
 had been in some degree fruitful." 
 
 But a summary prohibition was put upon 
 those preachings by Archbishop Gladstanes. It 
 was not denied that Forbes was eminently quali- 
 fied for the work he undertook, and that good 
 results were flowing from it, but the one fatal 
 objection to it was its irregularity he was not 
 in "orders." Rather than that a man should 
 preach who had not had the hands of a bishop 
 placed upon him, though it was clear he had 
 every qualification for it, the people must be 
 allowed spiritually to starve. 
 
 At length, after considerable hesitation, he 
 was induced to yield to the pressure of many 
 friends, and he formally entered the ministry. 
 The circumstances under which he took this 
 step were tragic and harrowing. John Chalmers, 
 minister of the parish of Keith, having fallen 
 into a morbid state of mind, laid violent hands 
 upon himself by attempting to cut his throat. 
 No sooner had he done the deed which proved 
 ultimately, though not immediately, fatal than, 
 struck with the deepest remorse and penitence, 
 he bitterly repented of the criminal surrender to 
 the melancholy which was brooding over his 
 spirit. He sent for the laird of Corse, whose
 
 BISHOP PATRICK FORBES. 127 
 
 soothing sympathy and comforting yet faithful 
 words, brought the unhappy man back to a 
 healthy state of mind. He was deeply con- 
 cerned lest the cause of religion should suffer by 
 one of its ministers behaving in such an un- 
 worthy fashion, and he strongly urged Mr. 
 Forbes to help to undo the mischief by coming 
 himself to Keith and carrying on the Gospel 
 work, for which, by his training and habits, he 
 was so well fitted. The parishioners and the 
 neighbouring clergy having urgently joined in 
 this request, Forbes at last consented. He was 
 ordained in 1612, in the forty-seventh year of 
 his age, and for six years was minister of the 
 parish of Keith. 
 
 In 1618 Patrick Forbes was asked to become 
 Bishop of Aberdeen, as the man above all others 
 in the north worthy of this place of responsibility 
 and dignity. It would appear that he did not at 
 all covet the post, and, in view of the unsettled 
 state of ecclesiastical affairs, he was reluctant to 
 take a position which would require him to en- 
 force conformity on the part of Presbyterian 
 ministers whom he in other respects could not 
 but honour. 
 
 Like Archbishop Leighton, he was in the 
 anomalous and highly uncomfortable position of 
 being in his doctrine and spiritual affinities quite 
 at home with those of the Presbyterian fold : but 
 he did not see his way to join them as his brother
 
 128 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 John, of Alford, did in their attitude of deter- 
 mined antagonism to the Church polity which 
 was favoured by royalty and was by law estab- 
 lished. He was of a strongly conservative turn 
 of mind, a stickler for legality and order, with a 
 constitutional dislike to anything that savoured 
 of revolution and disloyalty. Dr. Grub, in his 
 " Ecclesiastical History of Scotland," says of 
 him : " Retaining his strong attachment to the 
 Protestant doctrines, he was disposed, like many 
 other good men of that time, to acquiesce in the 
 Sovereign's claims to regulate the external polity 
 of the Church." But it cannot be doubted by 
 every unbiased student of history that Scotland 
 would have been a very different place to-day if 
 that " acquiescence " had been general. It is not 
 meant as any disparagement to his Christian 
 character and spiritual earnestness when it is 
 said that, from a failure in clear-sightedness or 
 courage, he cannot claim the credit of having 
 strengthened the hands of those with whom at 
 heart he had so much in common, and who, at 
 great cost to themselves, were fighting for the 
 liberties we now enjoy. 
 
 But there can be as little doubt that as a 
 bishop he was without reproach. His heart was 
 in spiritual work, and he was no mere ecclesias- 
 tical magnate who delighted in pomp and show, 
 and who, instead of being the servant of servants, 
 lorded it over God's heritage. It was his great
 
 BISHOP PATRICK FORBES. 129 
 
 aim, and the burning desire of his heart, to secure 
 efficiency and usefulness in his diocese. Without 
 giving any notice he would go to a parish on 
 Saturday evening, take a private lodging, and 
 give the officiating minister next morning a sur- 
 prise by presenting himself as an unexpected 
 hearer and spectator. But while he was watch- 
 ful and resolute in keeping others to their duty, 
 he was quite as hard upon himself, and often 
 requested his brother ministers to point out any 
 fault or defect they saw in his character or his 
 deportment as a public servant. 
 
 Bishop Forbes exercised his authority with 
 great discrimination in his selection of men for 
 the principal offices of the ministry in Aberdeen. 
 He gathered about him a number of men Barren, 
 Scroggie, Guild, and others the " Doctors " who 
 by their learning and their dialectic skill, shed 
 lustre upon the city. With Raban as printer, 
 Aberdeen in Bishop Forbes's time became quite 
 a literary centre. The " Funerals " of Bishop 
 Forbes are a curious contribution to the litera- 
 ture of their kind. They are a collection of 
 the funeral sermons and other effusions which 
 were written on the lamented death of the 
 Bishop, and show how much he was revered by 
 his contemporaries.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 SAMUEL RUTHERFORD IN ABERDEEN 1G36-3S. 
 
 SAMUEL RUTHERFORD stands alongside 
 ^ the very greatest men of the stirring period 
 which we have now reached. He was not so 
 much at home in the management of public affairs 
 as Alexander Henderson, and did not have his 
 calm, broad, tolerant, statesmanlike spirit; but for 
 sheer intellectual force, kindling power, luxuri- 
 ance of fancy, and that kind of originality we 
 call genius, he was more than the equal of the 
 noble-hearted man who was to be the leader of 
 the Presbyterian Church at a troublous and 
 critical time. Certainly, no one of all the 
 stalwart heroes who fought for the liberty and 
 spirituality of the Scottish Church has been more 
 venerated and beloved by the godly of the land 
 for the last two hundred years than Samuel 
 Rutherford. 
 
 He brings a contribution of his own to the 
 religious life and literature of Scotland. He has 
 supplied an element of fervid spiritual emotion 
 which is certainly not over-abundant in this 
 land. He is our Scottish seraph, and is to the 
 other theologians of the land and the time what 
 John was to the rest of the twelve. Like John,
 
 SAMUEL RUTHERFORD IN ABERDEEN. 131 
 
 he, too, could be a son of thunder when in a 
 controversial mood.* As a polemic no one could 
 be more inflexible and implacable, striking 
 sturdy blows for the cause which his conscience 
 approved, and giving no quarter to those whom 
 he deemed to be on the wrong track ; but he 
 never was in his native and congenial sphere till 
 he was expatiating on the loveliness and all- 
 sufficiency of Christ with a rapturous exuberance 
 which evidently was inspired by the experimental 
 possession of that which was described. 
 
 He was the son of a respectable farmer, born 
 in the parish of Crailing, some time in the year 
 1600. The ruin of the house in which he was born 
 still stood at the beginning of the present century, 
 and it is said that the then Marquis of Lothian, 
 in token of respect, never passed it without 
 lifting his hat. He went to the Grammar School 
 of Jedburgh, which was four miles distant, then 
 occupying a part of the ancient abbey, and from 
 that circumstance called Latiners Alley. He had 
 a quick apprehension and a fervid spirit, along 
 with a tenacious grasp of what he had acquired, 
 which do much in making the scholar ; and his 
 father, persuaded by the schoolmaster, sent his 
 
 * Spalding's "Memorialls of the Trubles" (Vol. I., p. 312) 
 exhibits him in that mood one Sabbath day when he was in 
 our town : " Thair wes also ane minister called Rutherford, 
 who hapnit to be wardit in Aberdein at King James' com- 
 mand. He, hearing Doctor Sibbald at that time preiche, 
 stude up and accusit him of Arminianisme."
 
 182 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 son to Edinburgh University, where he graduated 
 in 1621. Soon after he was appointed Regent or 
 Professor of Humanity, which office, however, he 
 demitted after being in it for four years, and in 
 1627 he became the minister of the parish of 
 Anwoth. In that lovely spot, near the Solway, 
 he began a pastoral work, the story of which, 
 so full of tender solicitude for the people 
 committed to his care, and consuming devotion 
 to their highest interests, has made the name 
 Anwoth fragrant with a holy fame, and made it 
 also a scene of highest inspiration to ministers 
 all over the land. 
 
 It was, however, during his enforced retire- 
 ment in Aberdeen, banished for his nonconformity 
 by the High Commission Court, that he was 
 destined to do the most memorable and effective 
 work of his life. How often he complained 
 while he was a " prisoner " in the northern city 
 that he was not allowed to open his mouth in 
 public, and by preaching exercise the one gift 
 which he valued above all others. Little did he 
 know that by the letters which he was compelled 
 to write, as the only means of communication 
 between him and his flock and other friends, he 
 was thereby, in the " Lord's palace," as he called 
 his lodging in Aberdeen, to address an audience 
 throughout Christendom such as no man could 
 number, and one which is not yet, nor is likely 
 to be, dismissed as long as the world stands.
 
 SAMUEL RUTHERFORD IN ABERDEEN. 133 
 
 How often Providence so orders events that 
 what appears to be a grievous hindrance to the 
 onward movement of the good cause becomes a 
 most valuable aid. Paul shut up in a Roman 
 prison was not to human vision a very propitious 
 circumstance for the infant churches which so 
 much needed his fostering care ; but by the 
 epistles written during that confinement, how 
 much more did the apostle do by his pen than 
 could have been done by his voice, and what an 
 inexhaustible treasury of precious thought has 
 the Church thereby acquired for all time. There 
 can be no doubt that Milton's blindness and 
 consequent retirement from public life after the 
 Restoration, had something to do with the com- 
 position of " Paradise Lost." The immortal 
 dreamer, Bunyan, would not probably have had 
 time for his great allegory, the " Pilgrim's 
 Progress," if he had not been forcibly detached 
 for a season from pastoral responsibilities, and 
 immured in Bedford Gaol. As the most of 
 " Rutherford's letters " were composed while the 
 writer was a " banished minister " in Aberdeen, 
 we can easily judge how much posterity owes to 
 the banishment. 
 
 How ill-fitted, too, are the most earnest 
 workers sometimes to form a correct judgment 
 of the respective value of the several parts of 
 their work. Rutherford regarded " Lex Rex " 
 as the masterpiece of his mind, and, against the
 
 134 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 advice of some of his friends, persisted in publish- 
 ing it.* The " letters " were effusions thrown 
 off at a heat, as many as thirteen having been 
 written in one day in Aberdeen, with 110 
 thought of publication ; and yet " Lex Rex " lies 
 now in the back shelves of a few libraries, and 
 the " letters " are on the table of the cottager, 
 and are the spiritual aliment of to-day. 
 
 Any judgment that is formed of the contents 
 and style of those letters, to be fair and chari- 
 table, is bound to take into account the circum- 
 stances of their composition. It is not just to 
 compare them with books of devotion that 
 were carefully written, revised, and published 
 during the lifetime of the author. Rutherford's 
 letters were the outpourings of a heart opening 
 itself in the intimacies of Christian friendship, 
 with no thought of their being cast further 
 abroad into the world than the narrow circles to 
 which they were immediately addressed. A 
 great deal would have been done to mitigate 
 adverse criticism if the letters had been pruned 
 and abridged ; but the very love which men 
 had for Rutherford and his writings on experi- 
 mental religion caused them greedily to seize 
 and, against his will, put into print all that came 
 
 * In it, and other similar publications, Gordon, the 
 shrewd, but rather snappish, parson of Rothiemay, says 
 " he shewes his talent in coyning new distinctions, ill to 
 be understood for the most part/'
 
 SAMUEL RUTHERFORD IN ABERDEEN. l.'Jo 
 
 from his facile pen, which has been against his 
 reputation among critics. Just as there are 
 moments when no one would care to have his 
 portrait taken unawares, so in certain moods 
 the best regulated mind may dash off upon 
 paper what might have been repressed if the 
 severe censorship of the printed page and the 
 general reading public had been in prospect. 
 
 There are few things in literature more 
 curious than the diametrically opposite estimates 
 that have been taken of those letters ; but it 
 is noticeable that the admirers and detractors, 
 speaking generally, belong to different camps in 
 theology or ecclesiastical connection, and stand 
 apart on many other things besides Rutherford. 
 " Hold off the Bible, such a work the world 
 never saw," says the famous Baxter, of those 
 letters. " Disgusting ravings, not the less loath- 
 some that they are under the mask of religion," 
 says one of another school of theology. It is 
 to be regretted, let it be frankly admitted, that 
 the letters should be marred here and there by 
 an extravagance of expression and the too 
 frequent presentation of Christ under the figure 
 of the nuptial relationship, for which indeed 
 there is Scriptural authority, but which is 
 carried too far by Rutherford. 
 
 But there are some men so very reserved in 
 the expression of their religious feelings, what- 
 ever they may be with regard to other feelings,
 
 13G THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 that David and Paul in certain exalted moods 
 must in their eyes be guilty of fanatical extrava- 
 gance, though they would not like to say it so 
 freely of them as of Rutherford. " Whom have 
 I in the heavens but Thee, and there is none 
 upon the earth I desire besides Thee," or " I count 
 all things but loss for the excellency of the 
 knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord," are 
 sentences which, if found in any other book 
 than the Bible, would doubtless be regarded by 
 those critics as lacking in sobriety. Would they 
 not also take objection to such a sentence as this 
 from Thomas a Kempis " O my beloved Spouse, 
 Jesus Christ, most pure lover of all creation, 
 who will give me the wings of true liberty to 
 fly and repose in Thee ! " 
 
 There are some men who can keep their 
 religious intelligence apart from their feeling, 
 and their natures are like modern ships, with 
 their watertight compartments, by which all 
 communication can be shut off from one another. 
 Their religion is kept in the sphere of intellect 
 or sentiment ; they do not admit it into the 
 possession of the whole man, commanding and 
 stirring the affections as well as linking itself to 
 the thought. Such men who make religion a 
 code of rules, a moral principle, or a sacramental 
 ritual may be shocked by the ardour of Ruther- 
 ford's love for Christ ; but when a man who is 
 naturally of deep emotional susceptibility brings
 
 SAMUEL RUTHERFORD IN ABERDEEN. 137 
 
 it up to the contemplation of the adorable self- 
 sacrifice, the marvellous condescension, the 
 matchless beauty and unfaltering faithfulness 
 of Christ, how can he do other than speak as 
 one who is inspired and occasionally lifted into 
 rapture that has in it more of heaven than of 
 earth ? 
 
 Those letters are to be read as we would do 
 hymns ; they are the poetry of religious ex- 
 perience. Bernard's attitude of mind in singing 
 of the glories of the heavenly Jerusalem is 
 essentially that of Rutherford in expatiating on 
 the loveliness of Christ he has given himself 
 
 ~ 
 
 up to the contemplation of his theme, and is 
 lost in wonder, love, and praise ; as he muses, the 
 tire burns. All true poetry is seeking after the 
 ideal, and rejoicing in what it finds by the way. 
 Rutherford found his ideal in Christ, and he 
 gives us his impressions produced in language 
 that is poetry in everything but the art of 
 versification. If the soul is to be kindled by 
 the sublimity of nature and enthralled by its 
 beauty, why should not the surpassing excellency 
 of Jesus Christ, as the brightness of God's glory 
 and the express image of His person, thrill the 
 heart and attune the lips of the believer? Is 
 the altar fire to burn low when the fuel is 
 supplied by the supernatural intervention of 
 Christ ? Is there to be impassioned song about 
 the clouds and the sky and the hills, which are
 
 138 THE LIGHTS OF TEIE NORTH. 
 
 only so much vapour and dross, while He who 
 is the substance of which they are the shadows, 
 the glorious reality up to which they were in- 
 tended to lead, is to have no rapturous song, but 
 only the cold, dry assent of the understanding ? 
 Nay ; he that keeps company with the Divine 
 One as Rutherford did cannot be silent. If the 
 clay has a sweet scent because it has been with 
 the rose, no one can dwell in the presence of 
 his Lord without being moved out of his cold, 
 measured devotion. 
 
 There are in all three hundred and sixty-five 
 of Rutherford's letters published, two hundred 
 and twenty of these having been written during 
 his sojourn in Aberdeen, which dated from 
 September, 1636, till February, 1638. There are 
 several allusions in his letters which cannot but 
 be interesting to those now dwelling in the city. 
 It appears that a deputation of his congregation 
 from Anwoth came with him as far as the place 
 to which he was banished, who " all wept sore " 
 when parting with their beloved pastor. The 
 change to the " dry kindness " which he received 
 from the inhabitants of Aberdeen must have 
 been felt acutely by such a susceptible nature. 
 He was reluctant to go north, though willing 
 enough to suffer in his Master's service. Writing 
 from Edinburgh on his way, he said " Neither 
 care I much to go from the south of Scotland to 
 the north, and to be Christ's prisoner amongst
 
 SAMUEL HUTHERFOHD IX AUEIIDEEX. 139 
 
 unco faces in a place of this kingdom which I 
 have little reason to be in love with "* alluding 
 to the well-known spiritual lukewarmness of the 
 place at that time. In the next letter he alludes 
 pathetically to its distance from Anwoth 
 "eight score miles from thence to Aberdeen. "f 
 In the first letter he wrote after he arrived at 
 Aberdeen he says " I am, by God's mercy, come 
 now to Aberdeen, the place of my confinement, 
 and settled in an honest man's house. I find the 
 townsmen cold, general, and dry in their kind- 
 ness, yet I find a lodging in tITe heart of many 
 "strangers."^ In another letter written on 13th 
 November, 1636, he owns that " at my first com- 
 ing here I found great heaviness, especially 
 because it had pleased the prelates to add this 
 gentle cruelty to my former sufferings (for it is 
 gentle to them) to inhibit the ministers of the 
 town to give me the liberty of a pulpit." 
 " Madam," he says, addressing the Viscountess of 
 Kenmure, " I find folks here kind to me ; but in 
 the night and under their breath. My Master's 
 cause may not come to the crown of the cause- 
 way. Others are kind according to their fashion. 
 Many think me a strange man, and my cause not 
 good." || But he adds, " I know Christ shall 
 
 * Dr. Andrew A. Bonar's edition of the " Letters of 
 Samuel Rutherford " Letter Ixii. 
 
 I Letter Ixiii. Letter Ixviii. 
 
 Letter Ixvi. Letter Ixix.
 
 140 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 make Aberdeen my garden of delight." It seems 
 that some of the good people were indignant 
 because Rutherford was not allowed to preach 
 " Some people affect me, for the which cause I hear 
 the preachers purpose to have my confinement 
 changed to another place ; so cold is northern 
 love ; but Christ and I will bear it." * " For 
 myself I am here a prisoner confined to Aberdeen, 
 threatened to be removed to Caithness because I 
 desire to edify in this town ; and am openly 
 preached against in the pulpits in my hearing, 
 and tempted with disputations by the doctors, 
 especially by Dr. B."t " I am here assaulted 
 with the doctors' guns : but I bless the Father of 
 lights that they draw not blood of truth." + A 
 few weeks later he says " I am in no better 
 neighbourhood with the ministers here than 
 before ; they cannot endure that any speak of 
 me or to me. Thus I am in the meantime silent, 
 which is my greatest grief. Dr. Barron hath 
 often disputed with me, especially about 
 Arminian controversies, and for the ceremonies. 
 Three yokings laid him by ; and I have not been 
 troubled with him since. Now, he hath 
 appointed a dispute before witnesses ; I trust 
 that Christ and truth will do for themselves. " 
 
 Not long after that he says " I hope in God 
 to leave some of my rust and superfluities in 
 
 * Letter Ixix. J Letter ccix. 
 
 t Letter Ixxxix. Letter cxvii.
 
 SAMUEL RUTHERFORD IN ABERDEEN. 141 
 
 Aberdeen. I cannot get a house in this town 
 wherein to leave drink-silver in my Master's 
 name save one only. There is no sale for Christ 
 in the north. He is like to lie long in my hand 
 ere any accept Him." * 
 
 But he had his joyous seasons in Aberdeen. 
 In a letter written 13th March, 1637, he reports : 
 " I am in Christ's tutoring here. He hath 
 made me content with a borrowed fireside, and 
 it casteth as much heat as mine own. I want 
 nothing but real possession of Christ, and He 
 hath given me a pawn of that also, which I hope 
 to keep till He come Himself to loose the pawn. 
 I cannot get help to praise His high name. He 
 hath made king over my losses, imprisonment, 
 banishment ; and only my dumb Sabbaths stick 
 in my throat." + How touching are his longings, 
 so frequently expressed, for liberty to preach ! 
 " Pray for me that the Lord would give me 
 house-room again to hold a candle to this dark 
 world."| "I am well every way, all praise to 
 Him, in whose books I must stand for ever as 
 His debtor ! Only my silence paineth me. I 
 had one joy out of heaven, next to Christ my 
 Lord, and that was to preach to this faithless 
 generation ; and they have taken that from me. 
 It was to me as the poor man's one eye, and they 
 have put out that eye." " My trials are heavy 
 
 * Letter exix. Letter coin. 
 
 t Letter cxxxix. Jj Letter ccviii.
 
 142 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 because of my sad Sabbaths ; but I know that 
 they are less than ray high provocations. I seek 
 no more than that Christ may be the gainer and 
 T the loser; that He may be raised and heightened, 
 and I cried down, and my worth made dust 
 before His glory. Oh ! that Scotland, all with 
 one shout, would cry up Christ, and that His 
 name were high in the land."* With what a spirit 
 of pure and noble patriotism he was animated 
 " O Lord, cast not water on Scotland's smoking 
 coal." t 
 
 During the latter part of Rutherford's deten- 
 tion in Aberdeen, stirring and decisive events 
 were occurring in the Scottish metropolis, the 
 tidings of which must have gladdened the soul of 
 the " prisoner," and made him feel that the time 
 of release was at hand. Jenny Geddes's stool 
 and other signs of the times were so reassuring 
 that, without any formal permission, he returned 
 to his beloved Anwoth. A few weeks after that 
 he preached a characteristic " Sermon to the 
 Times," in which his pent-up energy was as a 
 stream when the flood-gates are opened. In the 
 famous Assembly of that year 1G38 he was 
 asked to return to Aberdeen and take the Chair 
 of Divinity in the University of that city, which 
 he refused to do. Lest, however, our civic vanity 
 should be unduly wounded by such a refusal, it 
 is well to mention that it was only by great 
 * Letter cclv. t Letter cclxxvii.
 
 SAMUEL RUTHERFORD IN ABERDEEN. 143 
 
 pressure he could be induced to take a professor- 
 ship in St. Andrews, as it was preaching for 
 which he had a passion and regarded as the 
 special vocation of his life. 
 
 The ascension of Charles II. in the course of 
 years to the throne brought another turn in 
 public affairs, and several of the leading Coven- 
 anters were arrested and sentenced to death. It 
 was not to be expected that Rutherford of all 
 men should remain unmolested, and he was sum- 
 moned to appear before Parliament on a charge 
 of high treason when he was on his death-bed. 
 " Tell them," he said to those who brought the 
 summons, " I have to appear before a superior 
 Judge and Judicatory ; and ere your day arrive 
 I will be where few kings or great folks come." 
 It was actually discussed in Parliament whether 
 he should be allowed to die in the college, and it 
 was decided that such a privilege could not be 
 granted. " Ye have voted," said Lord Burleigh, 
 with just indignation, " that honest man out of 
 the college, but ye cannot vote him out of 
 heaven." Some of them remarked " He will 
 never win there ; hell is too good for him." " I 
 wish I were as sure of heaven as he is," replied 
 Burleigh ; " I would think myself happy to get a 
 grip of his sleeve to haul me in." 
 
 After all that has come and gone, it is pleasing 
 to be able to give the following extract from 
 the burgh records: "23 May, 1G44. The said
 
 144 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 Provost furthurforme declair it to the nichtbors 
 of toun that the Council of this burghe hade maide 
 nomination and election of Mr. Samuell Ruther- 
 ford, and faiheing of him, of Mr. Robert Bailie, 
 and failieing of him, Mr. Dauvid Dick, for sup- 
 pi ieing the vacant roume of Mr. David Barren, 
 last professor of divinitie within the new colledge 
 of Aberdeen, and for preaching twyse ilk Sabbath 
 day in the Colledge Kirk of the said burghe." 
 
 The house in which Rutherford at first lodged 
 in Aberdeen is said to have stood on the left-hand 
 side of Burn Court, 44 Upperkirkgate.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE COVENANTING STRUGGLE IN ABERDEEN 1638. 
 
 -sA BERDEEN received more than its propor- 
 tionate share of attention from both of the 
 contending parties of the period of the Covenant. 
 This was owing, not to superabundance of in- 
 terest in the struggle, but rather to lukewarm- 
 ness, if not positive hostility, to the popular side. 
 The members of this northern community, 
 dominated by neighbouring territorial magnates, 
 conservative professors and "doctors," would 
 gladly have jogged on as in former days, and 
 allowed the controversy which was setting on 
 lire the southern part of the land to exhaust 
 itself. They had no irrepressible desire to inter- 
 fere in any way, either in adding fuel to the 
 flame or going out of their way to take part in 
 its extinction. 
 
 But unfortunately for their Gallic frame of 
 mind, they were imperiously called upon to take 
 sides. The equanimity of their neutral position 
 was ever being broken in upon. The King's 
 party delighted to visit and utilise the resources 
 of the loyal " northern men." The Covenanters 
 were just as anxious to come to Bon- Accord to 
 L
 
 146 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 concuss, if they could not convert, the cautious 
 and sure-going Aberdonians. Between the two 
 rival parties, one coming not uni'requently as 
 soon as the other had gone, the chronic unrest 
 they created, and the heavy exactions they 
 levied, Aberdeen soon became like the ground 
 round a well on a country road, so trodden down 
 by cattle from all parts that it was anything but 
 a delightful place to dwell in. So deep was 
 their dejection at one point in the struggle, that 
 they actually begged for permission to remove 
 themselves, their families, and property from 
 their " devoted toune." * No sooner were they 
 slapped on one cheek than the Aberdeen people 
 had to turn the other also. Yea, the Marquis of 
 Montrose, who brought such military genius and 
 dash to bear upon both sides of the controversy, 
 gave hard knocks to the one cheek after the 
 other. The very dogs of Aberdeen were made to 
 feel the brunt of the unhappy times. Spalding, 
 in his garrulous, gossiping style, tells us that 
 when the first army (Covenanting) came here, 
 " ilk captain and soldier had a blue ribbon about 
 his craig ' true blue Presbytan ' in despite and 
 derision whereof, when they removed from Aber- 
 deen, some women of Aberdeen (as was alleged) 
 knit blue ribbons about the messin's craigs, 
 
 * King's " Covenanters in the North" is a book that all 
 should read who want to have particular information regard- 
 ing the Covenanters in their relation to this part of the land.
 
 COVENANTING STRUGGLE IN ABERDEEN*. 147 
 
 whereat thir soldiers took offence, and killed all 
 thir dogs for this very cause." 
 
 But who were the Covenanters ? Just as there 
 were reformers before the Reformation, such as 
 Huss and Wicklifi'e, so the Scottish Covenanters, 
 or rather those of them who were so by stress of 
 religious conviction, and not from mere pressure 
 of political circumstance, may be regarded as 
 reformers after the Reformation. There were 
 men who heralded the dawn, who anticipated and 
 prepared for the crisis of the Reformation period ; 
 and there were men who afterwards, in a con- 
 spicuous way, contributed to give further pro- 
 minence and fuller effect to the great principles 
 involved in the historic struggle. Behind all sub- 
 sidiary and incidental issues, the great cardinal 
 principle contended for by the champions both 
 of the Reformation and the Covenant was the 
 supremacy of conscience in matters of faith. 
 Was it right in anyone to submit to an impo- 
 sition of belief or polity other than that which 
 conscience, enlightened by God's word and guided 
 by God's spirit, held to be true ? Luther's con- 
 tention ultimately resolved itself into this plain 
 and simple issue Was he accountable to the 
 Pope in Rome or to God in heaven for the con- 
 victions which study and prayer had lodged in 
 his mind ? 
 
 That was substantially the position taken by 
 the men who signed the Covenant in Greyfriars
 
 148 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 Churchyard in 1638; with this difference that 
 the pivot of the controversy had been shifted 
 from the Pope to King Charles the First. 
 
 No doubt it would be an easy thing to prove 
 that many of the Covenanters were illogical and 
 inconsistent, and were sometimes ready to deny 
 to others what they were claiming for themselves; 
 but the main drift and spirit of the movement 
 was against interference with the rights of con- 
 science, and, notwithstanding the mixed motives 
 of some identified with it, was broadly favourable 
 to religious life and progress. 
 
 The policy against which the Covenant ad- 
 dressed itself owed its existence partly to the 
 spirit of the times, but mainly to the high notions 
 of the Stuart dynasty as to royal prerogative in 
 things religious as well as political. We cannot 
 be unmindful of the fact that the Scottish Stuarts 
 had a personal fascination of manner an ease, a 
 grace, and generosity which to some extent won 
 the hearts of the people. The}' were patrons of 
 literature and art, and had an eye and taste for 
 the pleasures and elegancies of life ; but their 
 most undaunted apologists could not claim for 
 them a plentiful possession of that intense 
 spirituality of mind evinced in Malcolm Can- 
 more's consort or in her son King David. It can 
 be quite understood how the Stuarts and others 
 of the same cast of mind should prefer a religion 
 which did not make a direct appeal to the spiritual
 
 COVENANTING STRUGGLE IN ABERDEEN. 140 
 
 consciousness, but one that travelled to it by 
 ancient and hallowed usage, and gave more 
 scope for the graceful enshrinement of unseen 
 things than Presbyterianism afforded. Is it 
 doing an injustice to them to say that sentiment 
 and imagination had a larger place in their 
 religion than robust moral conviction and lofty 
 spiritual aspiration ? Nor were they very far 
 behind the ideas of the time which those in 
 power favoured when they desired that what 
 they personally liked the people should adopt 
 But the blinding fanaticism of the Stuarts was 
 shown in this that a hundred years' chequered 
 experience failed to work the conviction in 
 their minds that the high-spirited and earnest 
 people from whom they sprung, and whom they 
 ruled, while loyal, never could become subservient. 
 With what fond tenacity did the Scottish people 
 in direst trouble, and in the face of much ex- 
 asperation from high places, cling to the principle 
 of monarchy, and no race of kings would have 
 been more honoured and loved than the Stuarts 
 if only they had manifested more sympathy 
 with that " soul " which Thomas Carlyle said 
 wavs given to the nation at the time of the 
 Reformation. 
 
 Against the attempt to enforce Episcopacy 
 and the service-book upon the Scottish nation a 
 bond of union or agreement embodying the Con- 
 fession of Faith, subscribed by James VI., was,
 
 150 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 as we have already stated, drawn up and signed 
 by persons of all ranks in 1638. That Covenant 
 became a sort of symbol of religious liberty, and 
 the visible embodiment of the protest of a nation 
 against the unhallowed encroachment of an 
 earthly potentate. It was hailed with great 
 enthusiasm, and copies of it having been circu- 
 lated over the country, it was signed by multi- 
 tudes who could not be present on the eventful 
 day when it was unfolded in Greyfriars Church- 
 yard. Along with several noblemen, Andrew 
 Cant, Alexander Henderson, minister of Leuchars, 
 and David Dickson, of Irvine, visited the towns 
 of the north as commissioners of the Covenant, 
 their business being to obtain as many signatures 
 to it as possible. 
 
 The General Assembly knew what it was 
 about when it appointed Alexander Henderson 
 as one of the commissioners to visit Aberdeen, 
 and try to bring its recalcitrant inhabitants into 
 line with the people of Scotland generally on the 
 great subject that was almost monopolising the 
 public attention. He was just the man to rein 
 the impetuosity and temper the heat of Andrew 
 Cant. Henderson's was the weightiest and most 
 commanding personality of the period ; his action 
 and bearing ever manifestly had a broad basis of 
 calm judgment and dignity, as well as immovable 
 rectitude. He was staunch in his loyalty to con- 
 viction, and yet his moderation was known to all
 
 COVENANTING STRUGGLE IN ABERDEEN. 151 
 
 men. When once he passed over from the ranks 
 of the Episcopalians to the Covenanters he was 
 unfaltering in his allegiance to the Covenant, and 
 yet, being delivered from the heat of extravagance 
 and bigotry, he won and held the respect of his 
 opponents as very few did at the time. 
 
 He had a rare tact and quiet humour, which 
 frequently cut their way to the heart of the 
 matter with the precision of a lance, wielded by 
 a gentle but strong and steady hand. In one of 
 his sermons he says " When a kirk-man climb 
 up as high as he can, till he win up to the kirk 
 rigging (ridge), what good can he do there but 
 ill ? While in the meantime it were meeter for 
 him to stay down laigh in the body of the kirk 
 and teach others rather than to climb up there, 
 and both endanger himself and others." 
 
 At the never to be forgotten General Assembly 
 of 1638, where he was moderator, he was put 
 upon his mettle if ever man was in this world. 
 When the crisis came and His Majesty's repre- 
 sentative, after formally dissolving the gathering 
 and protesting against the further continuance 
 of business, withdrew, expecting that they would 
 not dare in the face of the King's prohibition 
 to sit longer where they were, Henderson, with 
 a consummate address, as conspicuous as the 
 firmness which it graced but did not conceal, 
 pointed out to his brethren the duty of the hour. 
 He said they could not but admire the concern
 
 152 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 which the Marquis of Hamilton had manifested 
 for the honour of the King he so worthily 
 represented, and his intense desire that due re- 
 spect should be paid to royal authority. Situated 
 as they were, they could not do better than 
 imitate his excellent example, and be as unflinch- 
 ing in their loyalty to their King as Head of the 
 Church as he was to his ; and therefore he pro- 
 posed as moderator that they should proceed to 
 the next business to which, in the discharge of 
 their duty, they had to give their attention. 
 
 We cannot recount all his public acts and 
 services, such as his attendance at the Westminster 
 Assembly of Divines, where his learning and 
 geniality enabled him to take a leading part. 
 Perhaps the best proof that he gave during his 
 life, in which so many great occasions had a 
 place, of his power to exemplify the "fortiter i r n 
 re " with the " suaviter in rnodo " was in the cor- 
 respondence he carried on with King Charles I. 
 with respect to Church government. It says 
 much indeed for Henderson that he should have 
 been able to interchange views on such a subject 
 with such a person, with the result that, while 
 throughout he never swerved from his fidelity 
 to the principles of Presbyterianism, he yet re- 
 tained the deep respect of the King for his 
 " learning, piety, and solidity." 
 
 David Dickson, another of the commissioners 
 who visited Aberdeen, and who became minister
 
 COVENANTING STRUGGLE IN ABERDEEN. 15.'} 
 
 of Irvine in 1618, was a man whose learning 
 which was very considerable, fitting him for 
 eminent posts in the Universities in Glasgow and 
 Edinburgh was overshadowed by his deep 
 spirituality and unction. He had much grace 
 in every sense and meaning of the word. In 
 proof of the intellectual activity of the time, 
 as well as of the man, it may be mentioned 
 that he proposed to have a more elaborate 
 commentary on the Scriptures than had ever 
 before been attempted in Scotland, the work 
 being parcelled out to several competent men. 
 But a rude interruption was given to his 
 various labours by an order coming to him from 
 headquarters to leave Irvine and go into exile in 
 Turriff, Aberdeenshire, because of his noncon- 
 formity to the live articles of Perth, which 
 enjoined practices that were deemed to savour 
 of sacerdotalism. 
 
 Turriff', which had early been an ecclesiastical 
 centre, like many places of the kind, when the 
 form has supplanted the spirit, was one of the 
 most backward parts of the county. Dickson 
 complained that the devils of Turriii' were far 
 worse than the devils of Irvine ; and work that 
 he could have done in the latter place in a few 
 hours took him as many days in the spiritually 
 apathetic, cold north. 
 
 It was very characteristic that when the 
 commissioners entered Aberdeen, and, according
 
 154 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 to the custom of the burgh, were offered a treat 
 of wine for welcome, they rather unceremoniously 
 declined the corporation banquet till they had 
 some assurance that the magistrates would 
 subscribe the Covenant. They evidently meant 
 business, and were not to be put off with a 
 Bon- Accord cup till it was ascertained that there 
 was agreement of which the bond could bear 
 witness. " Whereat," says Spalding, " the provost 
 and baillies were somewhat offended, and suddenly 
 took their leave ; caused deal the wine in the 
 beadhouse among the poor men, whilk they had 
 so disdainfully refused, whereof the like was 
 never done to Aberdeen in no man's memory." 
 Poor baillies ! it was rather hard treatment for 
 men who wanted to be civil to all parties and 
 commit themselves to none or, at least, not to 
 the Covenanters. 
 
 The commissioners were not allowed the use 
 of any of the city churches 011 the following 
 Sabbath, and were obliged to address the people 
 during the interval of worship from the balcony 
 of Earl Marischal's mansion, on the north side of 
 the Castlegate. Dickson, Henderson, and Cant, 
 the very flower of the Covenanting ministry, 
 addressed them in succession, and appealed for 
 sympathy and help in bringing the great 
 religious struggle to a successful issue, Cant 
 being chosen to be the last speaker, as no one 
 was better fitted to drive in the nail which
 
 COVENANTING STRUGGLE IN ABERDEEN, loo 
 
 the preceding speakers had put in its place. 
 But against the eloquence and fervid pleading 
 of those masters in speech there was the extreme 
 caution, not to say indifference, of the people, 
 and only a very few signed the Covenant. 
 
 The celebrated " Doctors " of Aberdeen, who 
 were the most formidable opponents the Cove- 
 nanting commissioners met anywhere, were Dr. 
 Alexander Scroggie, minister of Old Aberdeen : 
 Dr. William Leslie, Principal of King's College ; 
 Dr. Robert Barren, Professor of Divinity in 
 Marischal College : Dr. James Sibbald, and Dr. 
 John Forbes of Corse, Professor of Divinity in 
 King's College.* The last-named was the best 
 man and the ablest scholar of them all. The son 
 of Bishop Patrick Forbes, he had the advantage 
 of the very best education that the country and 
 the continent of Europe could give him. He im- 
 proved what he had got in youth by a lifelong 
 
 * The following extracts from the diary of Dr. John 
 Forbes, when the General Assembly was dealing with his 
 case, throws more light upon his character than anything 
 we can say : 
 
 " Vpone the 30th clay of Julie, 1640, in the morning early, revolving 
 what hade passed yesterday I found that in my words before the Assem- 
 bly there were some which I should rather not have spoken, and that I 
 hade omitted some words which had been very convenie t to be spoken ; 
 and fearing lest any offence have arisen thereby in tl e mynds of my 
 brethren, and fearing desertion, I prayed and wept unt< God for mercy, 
 and that He would remeid and remoue all offences giv n by me to any, 
 or taken by any at me, that day or at any tyme, and to 1 e with my heart 
 and with my mouth, and to grant me mercy and grace n His sight, and 
 convenient mercy and favour in the eyes of all with home I have to doe ; 
 and I was comforted in God : to Him be glorie for ever: Amen. Vpon
 
 150 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 course of study. It was his misfortune, as a man 
 not of affairs but of study, to have fallen upon 
 unquiet times, by which his favourite pursuits 
 suffered considerable interruption. The chief of 
 his works is " Instructions Historico-Theologi- 
 cae," which was used up to this century as a 
 college text-book in some parts of Europe. 
 
 the 31it day of Julie, 1640, I repeted the same petition to God and I was 
 comforted. 
 
 " Vpon the first of August, 1640, I compeared before the committee of 
 the General Assemblie, and. being questioned upon many things, I found 
 God's mercifull presence so evidently with me as not withstanding of my 
 scruples concerning the Covenant and of my writtings, yet they were 
 pleased with me. . . . Now, all the dayes of the General Assemblie I 
 prayed every day with groans and tears unto God to be with me and give 
 me a comfortable outgett, and to forgive all my sins ; and the Lord heard 
 me : praised be the Lord. 
 
 " Vpon the 5 day of August, I was called and I compeared before the 
 General Assemblie, and the moderator thereof, Mv. Andro Ramsay, said 
 to me, in name and in presence of the whole Assemblie, that the General 
 Assemblie had found me ingenuous and orthodoxe, and neither Papist 
 nor Arminian, and as for my different judgment concerning the Covenant, 
 they should intimate their will unto me the next morning." 
 
 He was eventually deposed, as he refused to " tacke the 
 Covenant." " Memorialls of the Trubles," p. 447.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ANDREW CANT 1584-1663. 
 
 1 T is unfortunate when a good man has a name 
 with odious or ridiculous associations. Like 
 a shabby coat or an ungainly manner, it is apt 
 to create a prejudice against him. It is hard to 
 say how much the famous Scottish Covenanter 
 of whom w r e are to write, as the local repre- 
 sentative of re-established Prcsbyterianism, has 
 suffered from the fact that he bears a name 
 which has anything but an excellent savour. 
 The transition is so easy from Cant the man 
 to cant the thing. An opening, and almost a 
 challenge, are given to shafts of sarcastic wit 
 from bows big and little. 
 
 The grievous injustice has actually been done 
 to this worthy man of assuming that the word 
 " cant " can be traced to his character and man- 
 ner, just as macadamised roads owe their name to 
 the genius of Macadam. Sir Richard Steele, in 
 the "Spectator," says: " 'Cant' is by some people 
 derived from one Andrew Cant, who they say 
 was a Presbyterian minister in some illiterate 
 part of Scotland, who by exercise and use had 
 obtained the faculty, alias gift, of talking in the 
 pulpit in such a dialect that it is said he was
 
 158 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 understood by none but his own congregation, 
 and not by all of them. Since Master Cant's 
 time, it has been understood in a larger sense, 
 and signifies all sudden exclamations, whinings, 
 unreal tones, and, in fine, all praying and preach- 
 ing like the unlearned of the Presbyterians." The 
 etymological supposition is not very ingenious, 
 and it is certainly far from accurate, as it can 
 be easily proved that the word " cant " was in use 
 long before the Aberdeen Presbyterian of whom 
 we are writing was born. It is an explanation 
 which probably owes its existence to some of 
 Cant's virulent opponents, who had more exuber- 
 ance of fancy than love for truth and fair play. 
 The probable derivation of "cant," or sanctimon- 
 ious affectation, which often gives effect to itself 
 in sing-song and whining tones, is the Latin 
 word Canto. It may be mentioned, by the way, 
 that the great German philosopher Kant, who 
 was undoubtedly of Scottish descent, is said to 
 have been of the same family as the man who 
 is the subject of this chapter. 
 
 Very little is known of the parentage and 
 early life of Andrew Cant. He was born in 
 Aberdeen in 1584 ; attended the Grammar 
 School and King's College of that city, and 
 graduated in 1612. There are little circum- 
 stances which point to the fact that he was of 
 lowly birth, and, like many more of his fellow- 
 countrymen, had a struggle to reach the goal of
 
 ANDREW CANT. 159 
 
 a place in the ministry. He was twenty-eight 
 years of age before he was a member of the guild 
 of accredited scholars ; and, while he was not 
 deficient in the needful equipment of scholarship 
 for the position he held, there is evidence in his 
 subsequent history to show that he owed more 
 to natural gift than to academic acquirement in 
 the success he achieved and the influence he 
 wielded. He was a born speaker and a man 
 who was constitutionally incapacitated for re- 
 maining in the background as a silent listener 
 or spectator when stirring questions and decisive 
 events held the field. 
 
 Through the kindly offices of Lord Forbes, 
 after teaching for some time in Aberdeen, he 
 became minister at Alford in 1617. The opposi- 
 tion that it was his fate to encounter to the 
 very end of his days showed itself at the outset 
 of his public life ; for a considerable number of 
 the parishioners would have preferred a man 
 who gave their consciences less trouble, and was 
 less furiously in earnest as a champion of the 
 truth. They nicknamed him "Bobbing Andrew," 
 probably on account of his animated movements 
 in the pulpit. 
 
 His strong personality and ceaseless activity 
 won fame for him beyond the limits of this 
 northern district. He was so well known and 
 so much appreciated in Edinburgh that in 1620 
 he was chosen by the people to exercise his
 
 160 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 ministry in that city. That, however, was an 
 arrangement which Charles the First did not 
 approve, as he saw that Cant would be a formid- 
 able antagonist to the policy that was to be 
 pursued, so the needed royal sanction was with- 
 held, and Cant met with the great disappointment 
 of his life. Cant's antipathy to Episcopacy was 
 something that almost amounted to a passion ; 
 and it is difficult to account for it unless on the 
 supposition that the opposition of his uncon- 
 genial ecclesiastical environment in early days 
 fanned the flame of conviction that was in his 
 bosom. 
 
 In 1629 he took service as tutor in Lord 
 Forbes 's family, and in 1633 was made minister 
 of Pitsligo. It was while he was minister of that 
 remote and quiet parish that the principal part 
 of his public work as an ecclesiastic or politician 
 was done ; for events were now hastening to a 
 crisis, compelling men who had it in them to 
 be leaders to take their stand. He was as ready 
 to do that as the war horse is to enter the battle- 
 field. 
 
 In the great and historic Assembly held at the 
 close of 1638, when Episcopacy was displaced by 
 Presbyterianism, we find Cant well to the front. 
 Passages from a rousing and thorough-going 
 sermon preached before the Commissioners at 
 that gathering are still preserved, and they make 
 good reading yet, there is so much virile force in
 
 ANDREW CANT. 161 
 
 them. He must have been, as Principal Baillic 
 called him, " ane super-excellent preacher." It is 
 incidentally mentioned in one of the Kirk 
 records that an Act was publicly read in the 
 Assembly by Mr. Andrew Cant, " he having a 
 strong voice." He was, indeed, as is said on his 
 tomb, a " Boanerges," and the times made such a 
 man eminently seasonable. He could not be hid. 
 His over- flowing energy, his hot and forcible 
 eloquence, his power of moving the feelings of 
 the common people, made him a marked man 
 wherever honesty and courage and evangelical 
 truth were appreciated. Andrew Cant was a 
 later and abridged edition of John Knox. He 
 had certainly much of the tempestuous vehe- 
 mence, the glowing intensity, the absolute fear- 
 lessness, and occasional asperity of the great 
 Reformer. 
 
 Andrew 7 Cant was the very incarnation of the 
 spirit of the Covenant, with which he was so 
 intimately and honourably associated resolute, 
 whole-hearted, sturdy, and thoroughly sur- 
 rendered to the cause with which he was 
 identified. When men are rising to meet the 
 weighty responsibilities of a providential crisis, 
 a God-made epoch, and are laying the founda- 
 tions of the future, they must be able to dis- 
 tinguish things that differ, so that sand shall not 
 be mistaken for rock. It is needful to be sure of 
 your ground when much depends upon your 
 M
 
 162 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 affirmations. He that offers to prescribe for the 
 body will not be listened to if he is in doubt 
 whether it is poison or medicine he is adminis- 
 tering. Is it of less importance that a man should 
 know what he is about in the higher region of 
 life ? Men who have a high sense of the value 
 of truth, and valour of soul to stand by what 
 they believe to be such, cannot help pressing in 
 all legitimate ways what they deem to be for the 
 world's good. 
 
 Let us give a few extracts from a sermon 
 Andrew Cant delivered in Inverness as one of 
 the Covenanting Commissioners, showing the 
 power of the man a man for the times, and not 
 like Leighton, who, to a large extent, lived apart 
 from the times: 
 
 "Long ago our gracious God was pleased to visit 
 this nation with the light of His glorious gospel, l>y 
 planting a vineyard in, and making His glory to arise 
 upon, Scotland. A wonder, that so great a God 
 should shine on so base a soil ! Nature has been a 
 stepmother to us in comparison of those who live 
 under a hotter climate, as in a land like Goshen or a 
 garden like Eden. But the Lord looks not as man : 
 His grace is most free, whereby it often plcaseth Him 
 to compense what is wanting in nature : whence upon 
 Scotland a dark, obscure island, inferior to many 
 the Lord did arise, and discovered the tops of the 
 mountains with such a clear light that, in God's 
 gracious dispensation, it is inferior to none. I low far
 
 ANDREW CANT. 163 
 
 other nations outstripped her in naturals, as far did 
 she outgo them in spirituals. Her pomp less, her 
 purity more : they had more of Antichrist than she, 
 she more of Christ than they ; in their Information 
 something of the beast was reserved, in ours not so 
 much as a hoof. When the Lord's ark was set up 
 among them, Dagon fell, and his neck brake, yet his 
 stump was left ; but with us, stump and all was cast 
 into the brook Kidron. Hence King James his doxo- 
 logy in face of Parliament, thanking God who made 
 him King in such a kirk that was far beyond England 
 (they having but an ill- said mass in English), yea, 
 beyond Geneva itself ; for holy days (one of the 
 Beast's marks) are in part there retained, which, said 
 he, to-day are with us quite abolished. . . . But 
 alas ! Satan envied our happiness, brake our ranks, 
 poisoned our fountains, muddled and defiled our 
 streams ; and while the watchmen slept, the wicked 
 one sowed his tares : whence these divers years by- 
 gone, for ministerial authority, we had lordly supre- 
 macy and pomp ; for beauty, fairding ; for simplicity, 
 whorish buskings ; for sincerity, mixtures ; for zeal, a 
 Laodicean temper ; for doctrines, men's precepts ; for 
 wholesome fruits, a medley of rites ; for feeders, we 
 had fleecers ; for pastors, wolves and impostors ; for 
 builders of Jerusalem, re-builders of Jericho ; for 
 unity, rents ; for progress, defection. Truth is fallen 
 in the streets, our dignity is gone, our credit lost, our 
 crown is fallen from our heads ; our reputation is 
 turned to imputation ; before God and man we justly 
 deserve the censure of the degenerate vine ; a back- 
 sliding people, an apostate, perjured nation, by our
 
 104 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 breaking a blessed covenant so solemnly sworn. 
 . . Though this north climate be cold, 1 hope your 
 hearts are not at least, they should not be cold. The 
 earth is the Lord's and its fulness, the world and they 
 that dwell therein ; the uttermost parts of the earth 
 are given to Christ for a possession ; His dominion is 
 from sea to sea, and from the river to the etuis of the 
 earth. Come, then, and kiss the Son ; count it your 
 greatest honour to honour Christ, and to lend His 
 fallen truths a lift. Come and help to build the old 
 wastes, that ye may be called the repairers of the 
 breach ; and then shall all generations call you blessed. 
 Then shall God build up your houses as He did to the 
 Egyptian midwives, for their fearing God, and for 
 their friendship to His people Israel. Be not like the 
 nobles of Tekoa, of whom Nehemiah complained that 
 they would not put their necks to the work of the 
 Lord. Be not like Meroz, w r hom the angel of the 
 Lord cursed bitterly for not coming to the help of the 
 Lord against the mighty. Neither be ye like those 
 mockers and scorners at the renewing of the Lord's 
 covenant in Hezekiah's days, but rather like those 
 whose hearts the Lord humbled and moved. Be not 
 like those invited to the king's supper, who refused to 
 come, and had miserable excuses, and therefore should 
 not taste of it. We hope better things of you ; God 
 hath reserved and advanced yon for a better time and 
 use ; but if ye draw back, keep silence and hold your 
 peace ; God shall bring deliverance and enlargement 
 to His Church another way ; but God save yon from 
 the sequel ! Nothing is craved of you but what is for 
 God and the king ; for Christ's honour and the kirk's
 
 AXDHKW CANT. 105 
 
 good, and the kingdom's peace: (*od give to your 
 hearts courage, wisdom, and resolution for God and 
 the king, and for Christ and His truths ! Amen." 
 
 But that tongue, with the warm, honest heart 
 behind it, which was his power, was sometimes 
 also his snare. At one of the General Assem- 
 blies, when an important written declaration was 
 being discussed, Mr. Cant was the first to rise 
 and say " It is so full of gross absurdities that 
 I think the hanging of the author should prevent 
 all other censures." Such an explosive speech 
 met with the ijuiet rebuke of the moderator 
 " That punishment is not in the hands of kirk- 
 men." His hot and unrestrained violence of 
 utterance showed to the leaders of the Coven- 
 anting struggle that Cant was more useful in 
 supplying needed motive power than in piloting 
 the party through matters of intricate and deli- 
 cate ecclesiastical statesmanship. They were 
 anxious to have the benefit of his popular 
 gifts and robust championship of their cause 
 nearer the metropolis ; so they got him translated 
 to Newbattle, but his hasty and forceful manner 
 made enemies for him there, and even estranged 
 a few of his friends, so, after acting as chaplain 
 to the Covenanting army for some time, he 
 availed himself of the opportunity of return- 
 ing to Aberdeen and tilling a vacancy in St. 
 Nicholas Church. " Hot the toune of Aberdeen 
 at the dimming of this Cant," Spalding rather
 
 166 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 spitefully says " wcs not fully glaid lie was 
 not veray welcome to all." That is perfectly 
 true, Spalding. Andrew Cant would have been 
 more acceptable to Aberdeen had he been more 
 accommodating, just as Savonarola would have 
 been more popular in Florence if his ideal for its 
 inhabitants had not been quite so high. 
 
 For twenty years he laboured with unflagging 
 zeal in his native town, concentrating his atten- 
 tion as life went on more upon pastoral duty and 
 spiritual work. Those years were filled with 
 incessant toil and battling for the truth. An 
 
 O 
 
 evangelical ministry was almost a new thing to 
 that generation in Aberdeen, and he had much to 
 contend with and few to sympathise with him as 
 he tried to shape things in the Church according 
 to the mind of Christ. In purging away the old 
 leaven, which had not been seriously touched for 
 centuries, he needed all his noble audacity. He 
 denounced and tried to clear away superstitious 
 customs and Popish practices. He instituted 
 lectures on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and 
 Saturdays, and from the " night abouts," as they 
 were called, " no honest persons durst be absent, 
 but \vere rebuked and cried out against ; nor 
 durst any merchant's or craftsman's booth be 
 opened, in order that the kirk might be better 
 kept." 
 
 Not content w r ith preaching to the people who 
 came to the church to meet him, as we read in
 
 ANDREW CANT. Ki7 
 
 Wodrow's " Analecta " " He was singularly use- 
 ful in Aberdeen, and multitudes ever HOC great 
 that he frequently preached at the great square 
 at the Crosse of Aberdeen." On one occasion, we 
 are told, when the people were crowded around 
 him in the market-place, a dead corby (a raven 
 or crow) was flung at him by some unknown 
 hand. We are further informed that the preacher 
 stopped, and, looking around him, said " I know 
 not who has done this open affront ; but I am 
 much mistaken if there arc not as many gazing 
 on him at his death as there are here this day." 
 The historian relates that this was actually the 
 case, for, as it turned out, the person who did it 
 was executed for some crime at the Grassmarket, 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 He was the same fearless man to all-comers. 
 At the time Aberdeen was occupied by Crom- 
 wellian soldiers, some of them who happened to 
 be in Mr. Cant's church heard him pray for "our 
 banished king," and at another time they took 
 umbrage at peppery statements the preacher made 
 which were exceedingly distasteful to their party. 
 They scowled and threatened, and at last, coming 
 near to the pulpit with drawn swords, it looked 
 as if a violent deed was about to be done. W<xl- 
 row tells us "Mr. Menzies, his colleague, was very 
 timerouse, and crape in beneath the pulpite " ; 
 but Cant, baring his breast, said to the rough 
 and incensed soldiers " Here s a breast ready
 
 168 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 to receive the thrusts of any who will venture to 
 give them for the truth"; and by his very bold- 
 ness put them to shame. 
 
 But a contest into which he entered with his 
 own congregation proved to be more formidable. 
 He was grieved and burdened on account of the 
 spiritual deadness and flagrant inconsistency of 
 the lives of many under his pastoral charge, and 
 so determined was he not to be a party to shame- 
 less formalism that he refused to administer the 
 Communion. This denial of the privileges of the 
 Church set all the " worldly professors," of whom 
 there were many, against him. He was out of 
 favour, too, with the Independents, as he was a 
 strenuous upholder of the monarchy, though 
 ready to rebuke the monarch, as he by impli- 
 cation did when preaching before Charles I., and 
 insisting on the reservation of the rights of 
 " King Jesus." But the worst opposition he met 
 with came from those to whom the world, the 
 flesh, and the devil were more than Christ and 
 His cause. 
 
 It sounds strange to read of a man being 
 deposed from the ministry in his old age and 
 after long and faithful service, he having done 
 more for the religious awakening and moral 
 reformation of the north than any other man 
 but so it was : he was thrust out at the time 
 of the Restoration. Three years later he died, 
 saying on his deathbed " My conscience bears
 
 ANDREW CAN'T. liii) 
 
 me witness that I never gave a wrong touch 
 to the ark of God in all my days." Thus 
 passed away this truly Gideon-like hero, one 
 of those whole-hearted, single-eyed men who 
 in the hour of battle see nothing but the cause 
 they have espoused, and which they have at 
 heart more than lucre, or glory, or even the love 
 of life. 
 
 In St. Nicholas Churchyard, at the west side, 
 not far from the church, Andrew Cant's dust lies. 
 All that marks the spot is a Hat stone sunk into 
 the ground, the lettering on which is much worn 
 with exposure.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE QUAKERS IN ABERDEEN 1662. 
 
 IT may seem strange that Aberdeen of all 
 places should have become the headquarters 
 of Quakerism ; but so it was, there being no 
 place in Scotland, in the middle of the seven- 
 teenth century, where so many men of education 
 and social position embraced the tenets of that 
 sect. It would be a mistake, which no one who 
 is acquainted with the religious condition of the 
 time could fall into, to suppose that the com- 
 parative strength of Quakerism was owing to 
 a deeper spirituality here than existed in the 
 other large centres of the population in Scotland. 
 The very opposite of this was the case, and the 
 explanation, paradoxical as it may appear, is 
 perhaps to be found in that fact. 
 
 There were Quaker settlements in Inveruric, 
 Oldmeldrum, Aquhorthies, Kings wells, Kinmuck, 
 and Aberdeen, and the two last named are all 
 that now remain in our county. Ury, in Kincar- 
 dineshire, attained to a world-wide fame in con- 
 nection with the Quakers, through the influence 
 of the Barclay family. 
 
 In order to understand aright the things done 
 against and by the Quakers, we must remember
 
 THE QUAKERS IN ABERDEEN. 171 
 
 that the times were unsettled and critical. The 
 Presbyterian ministers of Aberdeen, filled with 
 anxiety lest what had been gained might be lost 
 through division, were naturally annoyed that 
 pious men in the town should do anything to 
 break the ranks of those who ought to stand 
 with an unbroken front against the common foe. 
 Andrew Cant, taking a comprehensive view of 
 the situation, years before there was any formal 
 espousal of the tenets of the Quakers, had little 
 patience with his son-in-law, Alexander Jatt'ray, 
 for allowing what he regarded as little things 
 and extravagances, and errors to boot, to distract 
 attention from what was of vital moment, if the 
 liberties of the nation were not to be endangered. 
 
 The Jaffrays, the Barclays, and other Friends 
 in the locality, sharing in the heated intensity of 
 the times, felt that they were only carrying a 
 little further the claims for liberty of conscience, 
 and were as resolute in contending for what they 
 deemed to be truth. The Presbyterian ministers, 
 regarding this Quakerism as a foreign and noxious 
 importation, denounced its local adherents as 
 "demented, distracted, and devil-possessed," and, 
 because they refused to take oaths and give 
 " hat honour " to Magistrates, as " destructive of 
 all good government." 
 
 Such gross misrepresentation, and the indig- 
 nities and brutalities it led to, had their effect 
 upon the Quakers, as oppression makes even wise
 
 172 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 men mad. We need to take account of the state 
 of public feeling at the time before we can give 
 due perspective to some of the extravagances laid 
 to the charge of the Quakers. A Quaker writer, 
 dealing with that period, says : 
 
 " Subjected to these indignities, it does not cause 
 surprise that two such gentlemanly and refined natures 
 as Andrew Jaffray [son of Alexander] and Robert 
 Barclay were each, at different times, led to make of 
 themselves a spectacle to the persecuting citizens, by 
 walking, stripped to the waist, through the streets, 
 the one with sackcloth and ashes on his head, and the 
 other holding of the filth that had thus been cast upon 
 them in his hands, each uttering woes and judgments 
 on the city if such course of insult and oppression 
 were persisted in. These personal appearances by 
 way of a sign, like the prophets of old, are not forgot- 
 ten to be brought forward by those who reproach the 
 early Friends with fanatical practices ; but they never 
 ought to be mentioned, as they mostly are by such, 
 without due remembrance of the state of public feel- 
 ing at the time, and the shocking indignities and 
 brutalities an excited populace had inflicted on these 
 peaceable citizens. The appearances of high-bred 
 gentlemen in such a condition might be expected to 
 have had more effect of shaming them into propriety 
 than of offering any shock to those unacquainted with 
 our modern ideas of social proprieties." 
 
 There are few local figures more impressive 
 to the imagination than that of David Barclay,
 
 THE QUAKERS IX ABERDEEN'. 173 
 
 the laird of Ury, who, after being on many 
 battlefields, retired to his estate, and gave him- 
 self up to the study of the New Testament, with 
 the result that he espoused the cause of the de- 
 spised Quakers. The grand old warrior presented 
 a more noble aspect in his passive endurance as a 
 persecuted Quaker than as a victorious general 
 at the head of armies in Sweden under Gustavus 
 Adolphus. As he said himself, he found more 
 satisfaction as well as honour in his being thus in- 
 sulted in his religious principles than when, some 
 years before, it was usual for the magistrates, as 
 
 i/ 
 
 he visited the city of Aberdeen, to go several 
 miles to meet and conduct him to a public enter- 
 tainment in their Town-House. One day, as 
 he was being insulted while riding along the 
 streets of Aberdeen, an old comrade, accompanied 
 by soldiers under his command, ottered to disperse 
 and punish the mob, but Barclay would not allow 
 him to interfere. It is to this incident that 
 Whittier, the American Quaker poet, refers in 
 one of his most spirited pieces. We subjoin 
 two stanzas: 
 
 "Up the streets of Aberdeen, 
 By the kirk and college greon, 
 
 Rode the Laird of Ury : 
 Close behind him, close beside. 
 Foul of mouth and evil-eyed. 
 
 Pressed the mob in furv.
 
 174 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 "Yet with calm and stately mien, 
 Up the streets of Aberdeen, 
 
 Came he slowly riding ; 
 And to all he saw and heard 
 Answering not a bitter word, 
 
 Turning not for chiding.'' * 
 
 The following exquisite touch, from the pages 
 of John Hill Burton's " Book Hunter," brings 
 the old warrior Quaker, Barclay, more distinctly 
 before our imagination : 
 
 " After the religious change had come upon David 
 Barclay, and he had retired to spend his latter days 
 in his ancestral estate in Kincardineshire, a brother 
 laird thought the old Quaker could be taken advan- 
 tage of with impunity, and began to encroach upon 
 his marches. Barclay, a strong man, and with the 
 iron sinews of his race, arid their fierce spirit still 
 burning in his eyes, strode up to the encroaclier, and 
 with a grim smile spoke thus : 'Friend, thou knowest 
 that I have become a man of peace, and have relin- 
 quished strife, and therefore thou art endeavouring to 
 take what is not thine own but mine, because thou 
 believest that, having abjured the arm of the flesh, I 
 cannot hinder thee. And yet, as thy friend, I advise 
 thee to desist, for shouldest thou succeed in rousing 
 the old Adam within me, perchance he may prove too 
 strong, not only for me, but for thee.' " 
 
 ""The Poetical Works of John (Jrcenlcaf Whittier," 
 Vol. II., p. SI.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 ALEXANDER JAFFRAY OF KINOSWELLS 1614-73. 
 
 all native Aberdonians who attained to his- 
 toric eminence, there is perhaps none whose 
 character is more beautiful and lovable than that 
 of Alexander Jaffray, the Quaker. He came of a 
 strong, thriving burghal stock, his father before 
 him having won the confidence and respect of his 
 fellow-citizens to such a degree as to have been 
 called to the Provost's chair. While sitting in 
 his official place one day, it is reported that some 
 practical joker put a pie before him, to keep him 
 humble, by reminding him of the fact that his 
 irrandfather had been a baker. But the faithful 
 
 o 
 
 narrator adds " He took no notice of it." 
 
 The prudent and dignified self-restraint then 
 exhibited seems to have been a family trait, for, 
 as we shall find, the subject of our sketch gave 
 remarkable proof of his possession of that virtue 
 in his stirring arid eventful career. His trans- 
 parency and quiet strength of character, along 
 with his devotion to duty, drew discerning minds 
 to him, and brought him into positions of trust 
 and responsibility. He was tw r ice elected Provost
 
 176 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 of Aberdeen. He was a favourite with Crom- 
 well, who induced him to enter the " Barebones 
 Parliament," and offered him a judge-ship, which 
 was declined. He was afterwards one of the 
 Parliamentary Commissioners to negotiate with 
 Charles II. for his ascension to the Scottish 
 throne. Having received a good education, and 
 being accustomed to mingle with men of all 
 classes, he was often employed in public work 
 requiring firmness and tact. 
 
 It was the lot of this quiet, contemplative 
 man to spend his days in Aberdeen when feeling 
 was high and hot as it never was before nor has 
 been since. What with Covenanters, Cromwell- 
 ians, and Royalists, society must have been very 
 lively. As showing the difficult position which 
 the inhabitants of Aberdeen had to maintain at 
 that critical period, take the following extract 
 from the diary of General Monk : 
 
 " We had notice that our men were well enter- 
 tained by the inhabitants of Aberdene, whoe made a 
 banquett for them. They staid there 3 nights, and 
 had very good quarters. They brought away 2 ships 
 laden with armes and ammunition ; fined the towne 
 1000 1. for assisting of Huntley." * 
 
 But while there was enough of interest in his 
 outward life to ensure him an honourable men- 
 tion in the annals of his native town, which he 
 
 * " Scotland and the Commonwealth 1651-53," p. 14.
 
 ALEXANDER JAFFRAY OF KINGSWELLS. 177 
 
 did so much, by his blameless character and pub- 
 lic spirit, to adorn, what gave him the very high 
 place which he occupies in our reverent remem- 
 brance is the attitude he took in relation to 
 spiritual religion, and the sacrifices he made to 
 give effect to his convictions in the highest sphere 
 of human thought. He seems to have been pre- 
 disposed naturally by the elevated cast of his 
 mind, his grave, earnest spirit and fearless love 
 of truth, to give a hospitable welcome to the 
 best ideas and influences of the times in which 
 he lived. He was not the man to be the mere 
 creature of convention and fashion, the echo of 
 other minds, but brought an independent and 
 inquiring spirit to bear upon the deep questions 
 of life which were then agitating the thoughts of 
 men. He had a strong realisation of the leading 
 doctrine of Protestant Christianity, viz., God's 
 direct immediate personal access to the soul ; and 
 following that truth with a noble carelessness 
 as to consequences of a temporal kind, it led 
 him first of all to the side of the Covenanters, 
 latterly, by intercourse with Cromwell and John 
 Owen, to the Independents, and farther still 
 amongst the derided and persecuted Quakers. 
 
 The story of the discovery of Alexander 
 Jaflfray's long-lost diary is worthy of being told. 
 In 1826 John Barclay, a descendant of the 
 famous Quaker " Apologist," was visiting the 
 home of his ancestors at Ury, near Stonehaven,
 
 178 THE LIGHTS OF THE XORTII. 
 
 with tho view of ascertaining whether any 
 documents could be found in the family archives 
 that would shed light upon the days when 
 Quakerism became a force in our part of the 
 land. In a corner of the room that was the 
 Apologist's study he discovered the earlier part 
 of Jaffray s diary, along with other MSS. in a 
 neglected condition. The paper was highly dis- 
 coloured and the writing in some parts almost 
 faded away, so that it was most difficult to 
 decipher it. In the loft of a farmhouse not far 
 from the old mansion detached fragments of 
 another MS. were found among heaps of waste 
 paper which was in the same handwriting, and 
 proved to be the other part of the diary. After 
 incredible pains, the whole was copied, and is 
 given with wonderful perfection in the volume 
 that was published in 3856. 
 
 Thomas Carlyle laments that our renowned 
 fellow-townsman Jaffray should have devoted 
 so much of his writing to an account of his in- 
 trospective musmgs and devout contemplations 
 instead of giving us information regarding men 
 and things in the stirring times in which he 
 
 c5 O 
 
 lived. But it is possible to glean facts of 
 historical interest relating to himself and others 
 from among his spiritual meditations. In giving 
 an account of his early days he says : 
 
 " Being born at Aberdeen, in the month of July, 
 1G1I, I was bred at [the grammar] school there liy
 
 ALEXANDER JAFFKAY OF KINYJSWEU.S. 170 
 
 my parents, and sometimes with my uncle [of] 
 Pittodrie, and at Banchory under Gilbert Leslie, Mr. 
 David Wederburno, Mr. Alexander Strachan, and Mr. 
 Robert Dewine, as schoolmasters. . . . 
 
 " Having spent divers years very idly, from the 
 time of my first entry at the grammar school, which 
 was, as I suppose, about the ninth year of my age 
 sometimes with' my uncle [of] Pittodrie in the 
 Garioch, and in Buchan, where I had no occasion to 
 learn any good thing, and for one year or two at the 
 school in Banchory ; by this unfixed and unsettled 
 way of getting too much liberty I lost much, 
 especially in attaining a knowledge of the Latin 
 tongue. About the middle of the year 1631, being 
 then about seventeen years of age, I came from the 
 school in Banchory to the College, where, passing the 
 first class, having made the manner to learn some 
 Greek in Banchory, I entered to my logics under Mr. 
 Hugh [or Howe] Gordon, regent, and Dr. Dune, then 
 principal, who were both of them unfit for training up 
 youths, so that I had no good example from them." 
 
 He then proceeds to tell us of his early 
 marriage : 
 
 " Having staid a short time in the College, and 
 profited as little, I was, in the month of April, the last 
 day thereof, in the year 1632, married to Jean Downe 
 [or Dune], being then eighteen years of age. 
 
 " In the month of June, 1633, the King being then 
 to come to Edinburgh to be crowned, I went over and 
 attended that ceremony.
 
 180 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 ' In July thereafter I came home, my wife being, 
 before my coming, brought to bed of her first son, 
 called Alexander. Shortly thereafter I went again 
 to London in company with Robert Skene, Andrew 
 Birnie, and George Jamieson, the famous artist. I 
 staid some time longer, and .... on my 
 return, went off the road and visited the University 
 of Cambridge by the way. In September, 1634, I 
 went to France; and there staid in Caen in Nor- 
 mandy, for the space of three months ; in which time 
 I learned so much of the French language that 1 was 
 able to travel without a guide. From Caen I went 
 to Rouen, and from thence to Paris, where I staid for 
 the space of two or three months ; from thence I 
 returned to Rouen, and so to Dieppe, and in the 
 month of June I landed in Leith. In September 
 thereafter I went again to France, and staid five or 
 six months, most part of the time in [Ncufchatcl] 
 despatching some . . . , and had them with 
 me and made some .... but to very little 
 purpose." 
 
 Regarding the year 1647, lie writes 
 
 "The pestilence raged in Aberdeen for the space of 
 five or six months. All this time my family was pre- 
 served, which was the more observable, as I was every 
 day among the sick people, being a Magistrate for 
 the time I removed to Kingswells." 
 
 As one of the Commissioners appointed to 
 arrange for the accession of Charles 11., he gives
 
 ALEXANDER JAFFRAY OF KINGSWELLS. 1H1 
 
 an interesting account of his repentance for the 
 part he took : 
 
 "In the year 1649, I being then a member of 
 Parliament for the town of Aberdeen, was sent unto 
 Holland, with the Earl of Cassillas, Lord Brodie, arid 
 Lord Libertone, for to treat with and bring home our 
 young king. I shall spare to mention many things 
 for shortness ; only, by the way, I must observe this, 
 that having gone there in the simplicity of our hearts, 
 minding what we conceived to be duty, it pleased the 
 Lord to bring us safely off' without any snare or 
 entanglement. But, being again sent there by the 
 Parliament, in the year 1650, for that same business, 
 we did sinfully both entangle and engage the nation 
 and ourselves, and that poor young prince to whom 
 we were sent ; making him sign and swear a covenant, 
 which we know, from clear and demonstrable reasons, 
 that he hated in his heart. Yet, finding that upon 
 these terms only, he could be admitted to rule over 
 us (all other means having failed him), he sinfully 
 complied with what we most sinfully pressed upon 
 him where, I must confess, to my apprehension, our 
 sin was more than his." 
 
 The battle of Dunbar and his narrow escape 
 from death, and the effect it had upon his future 
 are narrated with vividness : 
 
 " The King being come home, we were not well 
 landed, when England was on our border with an 
 army, to succor themselves against our invading 
 them. It is not my purpose here to speak to that
 
 182 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 business, or the unwarrantableness of it, or of our 
 defence and the lawfulness of it ; but the thing 
 I aim at is to remember (and 0, that I could do it 
 with a heart rightly thankful ! ) the just severity and 
 yet merciful dispensation of my blessed Lord, who 
 by a very sad blow at that battle of Dunbar, the 3rd 
 day of September, 1650, brought me to the very 
 gates of death my horse being shot under me, and 
 I having received two wounds in my head, one in my 
 right hand, and another in my back. So good was 
 the Lord unto me that, albeit for my manifold 
 guiltinesses, and particularly for my accession to and 
 compliance in that matter of our acting about our 
 King, he might have left me there and for ever to 
 His wrath in hell ; yet glory to his name ! that 
 guiltiness was blotted out, and all my sins pardoned 
 through Jesus Christ." 
 
 Ho now writes of his intercourse witli 
 Cromwell and with the great Puritan theologian, 
 John Owen, which was destined to tell so much 
 upon his future : 
 
 " During the time of my being a prisoner I had 
 good opportunity of frequent conference with the 
 Lord General [Cromwell], L. Gen. [Lieutenant 
 General Fleetwood], and Doctor Owen ; by occasion 
 of whose company I had first made out unto me, not 
 only some more clear evidences of the [Lord's] 
 controversy with the family and person of our King, 
 but more particularly the sinful mistake of the good 
 men of this nation about the knowledge and mind of
 
 ALEXANDER JAFFHAY OF KIXGSWF.U.S ISM 
 
 God as to the exercise of the magistrate's power in 
 the matters of religion what the due bounds and 
 limits of it are. The mistake and ignorance of the 
 mind of God in this matter, what evils hath it 
 occasioned ! fearful scandals and blasphemies on the 
 one hand, and cruel persecution and bitterness among 
 brethren on the other ! 
 
 " The thoughts of these things did for some months 
 very much perplex me ; and being over swayed some- 
 times with too many prudential considerations, I was 
 brought very near to have fully waived and laid 
 aside all thoughts of that kind, and to have suppressed 
 them, because I saw reproach to come thereby, not 
 only upon myself, but on the nation, and also so great 
 appearance of suffering and hazard that way if the 
 king's party, who were then in good hopes, should 
 then or any time thereafter prevail. But, for all 
 this, it could not be ; the clear discovery of the thing 
 being so made out to me, that I could not contain, 
 but went to some few at Aberdeen, as Mr. Andrew 
 Cant, Mr. John Menzies, Mr. John Kowe (Principal 
 of the College), and Mr. AVilliam Moire. To all of 
 them I not only spoke my thoughts freely, but gave 
 them my notes before mentioned to read, which they 
 did, except Mr. Andrew Cant, who refused to read 
 them. Thereafter, having written to some good men 
 in the south, and finding no satisfaction, I came 
 south to them ; and, by providence, found about fifty 
 or sixty of them, ministers and professors together, 
 about the very thing I was desirous of inquiring; 
 and everyone speaking publicly what they thought
 
 184 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 might be the causes of the Lord's controversy with 
 the land." 
 
 The circumstances connected with the setting- 
 up of a separate congregation in Aberdeen are 
 given in detail : 
 
 " Some time after this some Christians in Aber- 
 deen, men and women, having for a long time been 
 convinced of these things (long before ever a thought 
 of them was with me), found themselves obliged to 
 endeavour to have the ordinances administered in a 
 more pure way, than there Avas any hope ever to 
 attain to have them in the national way. But before 
 we would conclude to do any thing of this, it was 
 thought necessary, first to impart our purpose to some 
 Christian friends, and to be willing to hear what they 
 could object against our resolution. Whereupon, by 
 common consent, a letter was drawn up and sub- 
 scribed, in the name of the rest, by Mr. John Kowe, 
 Mr. John Menzies, Mr. William Moire, and me, and 
 directed to the Lord Warristotin, Mr. David I >icl\e, 
 Mr. John Levinstone [Livingstone], Mr. James 
 Guthrie, and Mr. Samuel Rutherford, to be com- 
 municated to whom they pleased, which letter was of 
 date, at Aberdeen the . . . day of .... 
 jaj vj . . . and . . . ." 
 
 We learn that Jaffray was not without marks 
 of appreciation and honours such as the world 
 can give : 
 
 " Thereafter I was called by the Judges at Edin- 
 burgh to be Director of the Chanccllry, in the month
 
 ALEXANDER JAKFHAY OK Kl \<;s\VKU.S. IS.") 
 
 of March, 1652, which I accepted of in the month of 
 June. 
 
 "In the month of June, 1653, I was called, with 
 other four out of Scotland, to sit as member of the 
 Parliament of England. I came there the 5th of July, 
 and stayed until the 6th of February, 1654. I had 
 there good occasion to meet and be acquainted with 
 many godly men, though I can say little of any good 
 we did at that Parliament ; yet it was on the hearts 
 of some there to have done good for promoting the 
 kingdom of Christ ; but, the time not being come 
 when these things were to be brought forth, we were 
 dissolved the 12th January, 1654. I came tor Scot- 
 land, the said 6th of February thereafter, having 
 gotten at that time from the Lord Protector and his 
 Council an order for paying to me by the Commis- 
 sioners at Leith 1,500 sterling, for paying my part 
 of that debt we contracted in Holland in the year 
 1650." 
 
 Does the following statement not reflect 
 honour upon the Protector as well as upon 
 Jaffray ? 
 
 " When that Parliament was broken up, I not 
 being satisfied with the reasons thereof, was one of 
 thirty or thirty-one that stayed in the house. Vet, 
 the Protector was pleased to give me the aforesaid 
 order, of which I got payment ; and did offer me 
 to be one of the Judges in Scotland ; but this I 
 refused, finding myself not capable for discharge of 
 that dutv.''
 
 1S() THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 Committed a prisoner on account of his re- 
 ligious views to the Tolbootb, Edinburgh, he 
 tells us of his sufferings : 
 
 " But here, it is to be observed, that in my case, 
 not only fixedness and enlargement [seem suspended, 
 or removed from me], but even words also many times 
 so that I could not speak a word ; and yet I could 
 not tell wherefore or how it was thus with me, inso- 
 much that upon the 6th of December I was neces- 
 sitated to desire of Mr. James Simpson, my fellow- 
 prisoner, to forbear to press me any more to perform 
 that duty of praying publicly, as I was before 
 accustomed to do in our little prison-family. I was 
 above a month under this exercise before I did 
 adventure thus to be forborne, fearing to be mistaken 
 by him, and to give him offence. But having in- 
 formed him a little of my case, and of the weakness 
 and great infirmity of my body : and having a 
 little reasoned with him about labouring to have 
 our hearts more in a fittedness and disposition for 
 prayer, before venturing so rashly on it as ordinarily 
 we do some discourse of this kind having past, at 
 last he agreed for some time to forbear me." 
 
 After a life of incessant toil, much .suffering 
 
 O * 
 
 but, as his diary shows, not a little joy of a truly 
 heavenly sort in his walk and converse with 
 God, Alexander Jaffa-ay died at Kingswells in 
 1673, and lies in the little graveyard in that 
 estate, bearing evidence in the very situation oi'
 
 ALEXANDER JAFFHAY OF KIXUSWKI.I.S. 1ST 
 
 his grave how loyalty to truth sometimes in- 
 volves separation. 
 
 The following is the minute of the monthly 
 meeting of the Friends (one of the earliest 
 minutes made by Friends in Aberdeen) respecting 
 the end of Alexander Jaffray : 
 
 " It pleased the Lord to remove out of the body 
 our dear and precious friend, Alexander Jaftray, at 
 his own house at Kingswell, the 7th of 5th month, 
 1673, at one in the morning; who was buried in his 
 own burial ground there on the 8th. He was a 
 sincere, upright-hearted man all his time, and one 
 that had been a seeker of the Lord from his youth 
 up, and had much of the life of Jesus and spirit of 
 holiness attending his heart all along, as his con- 
 versation witnessed ; and died with blessed and 
 living testimonies to the honour of truth, before many 
 professors and profane who came to see him."
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 CHURCH LIFE IX THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 t ET us learn, in this chapter, of the worship 
 ^ and life of the people, their morals and 
 manners, as indicated in the Presbyterial records 
 of that period. On the Sabbath day the people 
 were accustomed to meet in church half an hour 
 before the minister appeared, when the reader or 
 precentor read several chapters of the Bible as 
 prescribed. When the minister came in, the 
 reading was stopped and a psalm given out, which 
 was sung till a sign came from the pulpit to 
 cease. After that, prayer was offered, followed 
 by the sermon, which at that period was usually 
 delivered without the help of notes. After prayer 
 and another psalm came the benediction. Almost 
 the only difference in the service as conducted by 
 Presbyterian and Episcopal clergymen was that 
 the latter, in addition to the above, repeated the 
 Lord's Prayer and Doxology at the end. In most 
 places there was an afternoon service, which was 
 shorter than the morning one. 
 
 The following entries, extracted from the 
 records of Strathbogie Presbytery, give us 
 glimpses of the disturbed times : 
 
 "Att Botarie, 18 Febnuirii, 16-15. No meeting
 
 THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. ISO 
 
 becaus of the eniraie was for the tyme within the 
 boundis of the presbyterie, so that the bretheren could 
 not saiflie convein together ; but the Moderator by 
 letter desyred the bretheren to meet that day fourteen 
 days. 
 
 " Att Botarie, 5th March, 1645. No meeting for 
 the reason forsaid, and besydes the sole bretheren wer 
 forced to flie from their houses. 
 
 "Att Botarie, 19 March, 1645. Convened the 
 Moderator and two of the bretheren next adjacent, all 
 the rest being absent becaus of the broknes of the 
 country." 
 
 The times were rough and wild in various 
 ways, as the records of that same Presbytery 
 abundantly show. The Church then was really 
 the principal guardian of order, and was useful, 
 not only for its spiritual ministrations, but also 
 as a moral police. The reader of those entries is 
 disgusted with the extraordinary number of per- 
 sons charged with uncleanness who came before 
 the ministers of the district for discipline. 
 
 But probably it was the exceeding faithfulness 
 of Zion's watchmen of that day which makes the 
 immorality so apparent. Men were not let alone 
 in their sin without words of warning and cor- 
 rection : 
 
 "At Botarie, February 8, 1G37. Mr. Robert 
 Watsone regrated that Andrew Mackpharsone was 
 very scandalous in his behaviour in that dweling in
 
 100 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 the countrye and ;it the church style ; he never came 
 to the churche nor any of the familye. The said 
 Robert was ordained to deal privatlye with the said 
 Andrew, and if he found no guid fruit by his traveles, 
 that he shall summond the said Andrew and his 
 familye before the Presbyterie." 
 
 The " stool of repentance " was a great institu- 
 tion in those days. Female offenders were some- 
 times " put in the kirk wolt " or " doukit at the 
 dam." The sentence occurs very frequently 
 " Ordained to satisfic in sackcloth three-quarters 
 of ane year." 
 
 William Mitchell, of the parish of Keith, con- 
 victed of adultery : " was ordained to stand in 
 the jogges and brankes with his head clipped and 
 barefooted, in sackcloth, till the congregation was 
 satisfied, or otberwyse to redeeme himself from 
 the jogges and brankes by paying forty markes 
 penaltye, and to stand only in sackcloth." 
 
 Some of the women, ashamed of their posi- 
 tion as they sat before the gaze of tbe whole 
 congregation, drew their shawl or plaid over 
 their heads, so as to cover their faces, but they 
 were ordered to desist from that attempt at con- 
 cealment. Tbe " stool " must often have bad a 
 hardening effect. We read of a man who is 
 
 o 
 
 described as making a " moke of repentance by 
 putting in of sneesben in bis eyes to make them 
 tear and by laughing upone several persones in 
 publicit." It must have been a character of that
 
 THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 1 (1 
 
 sort that made Alexander Phine say to his fellow- 
 Presbyters that he " reunited the stoole of 
 repentance was just above his deask <|iihilk he 
 had erected, (juher he was somquhat disturbit be 
 ther motion in time of divyne service ; neither 
 was the said stoole so conspicuous to the 
 congregation as it ought. The said Alexander 
 promising to renew it upon his owne charges, was 
 ordained to erect the said stoole of repentance to 
 the for part of the common loft, so that it be 
 without prejudice to the said loft." 
 
 Witchcraft, sorcery, and other relics of Pagan- 
 ism also received the zealous attention of the 
 clergy in those days. " The General Assembly, 
 in consideration of the growth of the sins of 
 witchcraft, charming, and consulting, appointed 
 a commission." Much complaint was made in 
 Strathbogie of " the superstition of the Wallak 
 Kirk." St. Wollok has left his mark on the 
 parish of Glass, and great crowds, up to a com- 
 paratively recent period, resorted early in May 
 to the pools on the Deveron which bore his name, 
 the waters of which were supposed to have a 
 healing efficacy. It was customary after using 
 the water for the diseased person to leave his 
 cap or .some portion of his dress, which was 
 supposed to represent the ailment that had been 
 left behind, and was an act of homage to the 
 saint. Pilgrimages were made to sacred wells 
 and chapels, and a favourite one with the people
 
 392 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 of Aberdeen was to the saint's well in Bay of 
 Nigg. 
 
 The most hideous example of perverted zeal 
 shown on behalf of religion was in the suppres- 
 sion of witchcraft. The parish of Skeiie, it 
 would appear, was specially affected with 
 witches, as in 1602 a roll of them was ordered to 
 be made up and transmitted to the Marquis of 
 Huntly that " the land may be purgit of sic 
 instruments of the devill." The purging was 
 carried on with great energy, and the people of 
 the city and the county seemed to have lost their 
 heads in dealing with the poor unfortunate 
 creatures, who from various signs were supposed 
 to be in league with the Prince of Darkness. It 
 was believed that certain persons were brought 
 under the malign influence of the Evil One, that 
 they made a compact witli him, and were his 
 agents in stopping mills, blasting crops, raising 
 storms, causing cattle to die, and cows to cease to 
 give milk. Terrible cruelties were perpetrated 
 in the name of religion. In the course of ten 
 years in the latter part of the sixteenth century 
 no fewer than thirty persons, chiefly women, were 
 put on their trial and burned alive beside the 
 Heading Hill in Aberdeen. It did indeed look 
 as if there were demoniacal possession in the 
 accusers rather than the accused. Sometimes in 
 their fury a tumultuous and howling crowd 
 would drag suspected persons down the Shiprow
 
 THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 103 
 
 and throw them into the harbour; if they sank 
 there was an end of them, and if they floated 
 they were guilty ! 
 
 It must, in justice to the ministers, be said 
 that those raids upon witches were due more to 
 popular excitement than to the instigation of 
 the Church. There was one form of superstition 
 very prevalent that the Presbyteries set them- 
 selves against, and that was the " goodman's " lot. 
 This was a survival of the old heathenism of the 
 country, which had its place before the beneficent 
 sway of Christianity began. To propitiate the 
 devil he was called the " goodman," just as the 
 fairies were addressed as " our good neighbours," 
 and in recognition of him there was often a 
 part of the farm left untilled. "In 1046 Seif- 
 wright and Stronach were accused of sorcery 
 in allowing some land to the old goodman." At 
 a visitation of the Kirk of Rhynie in August, 
 1651, Sir William Gordon of Lesmoir admitted 
 that part of the Mains of Lesmoir was given 
 away to the "goodman," and not to be laboured, 
 " but that he had a mynd, be the assistance of 
 God, to cause labour the same." 
 
 The times were trying to good men whose 
 hearts were enlisted on behalf of the cause of 
 order and righteousness. In the year 1051 Mr. 
 Alexander Eraser, minister of Botriphnie, was 
 deposed from the office of the ministry, and one 
 cannot but sympathise with that parishioner who 
 o
 
 194 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 " entreated a preaching in that desolate con- 
 gregation that they might have the occasione in 
 like manner for taking order with the great 
 enormities that were beginning to increase 
 amongst them thronghe the want of restraint and 
 correction." Amidst the lawlessness which pre- 
 vailed during the civil wars the dread of the 
 reappearance of Popery often came into the 
 hearts of Christian patriots, as they were ever 
 on their guard against those who had converse 
 with "excomunist persones or shall receipt semi- 
 narie priestis and Jesuits." 
 
 Great exertions were made to wean the 
 people from Sabbath desecration. " The Laird 
 of Avochy was found guilty of bringing home a 
 millstone from Moray shire on a Sunday with 
 a great company of horses and litters." At the 
 Presbytery meeting in " Dunsferaiand, September 
 29, 1636, it is ordained that the earth shall not 
 be opened in the church till the buriall silver lie 
 payed. It is also ordained that drinkers in tyme 
 of divyne service shall be punished as fornicators.'' 
 In 1603 two of the baillies were " ordered to pass 
 throw the townie everie Sabbath day and nott 
 sic as they find absent i'ra the sermones ather 
 of efoir or efter none." Persons absent from 
 sermon were fined. The baillies were enjoined 
 to go through the town on preaching days as 
 well as on Sundays to " cans the people resort to 
 the sermones." We learn that George Gordon ol'
 
 THE SEVENTEENTH CENTUIY. lf)5 
 
 Rhynic was brought under discipline for ;< gather- 
 ing grosers in time of sermon." But the ministers 
 of that date were as strict in dealing with each 
 other as they could possibly be with the people 
 under their charge. There were regular visita- 
 tions of the churches within the bounds of tho 
 Presbytery, when searching questions were put 
 as to the conduct and work of the minister. 
 Here are some of the queries that were put 
 " Primo " Iff there be preaching on each Lord's 
 day, and how often ; 2, Iff the minister preach 
 to their edificatione and be careful in reproving 
 of sinne ; iff he keep at home, not steering abroad 
 unnecesiarilie ; iff he doth not without necessitie 
 resort to tavernes ; iff he be a good example in 
 ordering of his own familie." 
 
 The elders were called in and asked to give 
 evidence regarding the faithfulness of the 
 minister, and they in turn were put through a 
 similar ordeal. One minister tells us that he 
 had on Sabbath " on lecture and on sermon on 
 an ordinarie text," the lecture continuing 0710 
 hour, the sermon two. Instead of having an 
 afternoon service, which he could not get the 
 parishioners to attend, he gave them full measure, 
 heaped up and running over ; but he was 
 exhorted to be " more tymouslie on the Lord's 
 day, preach shorter in the sermon and have ane 
 afternoon sermon." 
 
 There are few things more striking in those
 
 190 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 ecclesiastical chronicles oi' the seventeenth 
 century than the discipline which the ministers 
 imposed upon each other. Men who did not 
 attend the Presbyterial gatherings were soon 
 made to feel that indolence or occupation with 
 less important matters brought its penalty. " At 
 Botarie, Sep. 16, 1640, the said day it was 
 ordained if any brother will be absent two dayes 
 without ane sufficient reason shown to ther 
 Presbyterie he should be suspended from the 
 ministrie." A few years before we learn that 
 " At Botarie, April 12, 1637, Mr. William Read 
 and Mr. Robert Irving were excused for their 
 absence the former daye by reason of their age 
 and the boysterousness of the wind." But, as if 
 they felt they had gone too far in brotherly 
 leniency, we read that on "May 17, same year, 
 Mr. Robert Irving excused his former absence by 
 the tempest of (raine). His excuse was rejected 
 by reason the raine was warm ! " 
 
 But there were some tender touches of senti- 
 ment in those stern days, as what took place at 
 a death bears witness. Notice was given to the 
 " cryer;' who, with a handbell, announced at 
 convenient places " Faithful brethren and 
 sisters, I let you to wot that there is a faithful 
 brother (or sister) departed as it hath pleased 
 Almighty God. He or she was called (the name 
 being given), and lived in - ."
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE SECEDE RS IT.'W. 
 
 1Q EFORE we can give an intelligible account 
 ^ of the genesis of the " Secession " move- 
 ment, it will be necessary to take a general 
 survey of the situation and state of the Scottish 
 Church from the Restoration in 1GGO to tin- 
 period of which we have now to write. When, 
 by the accession of Charles II. to the British 
 throne, Episcopacy was established and the 
 forms of worship and government to which the 
 great body of the people tenaciously clung were 
 proscribed, four hundred ministers, who were 
 the heirs and representatives of the best tradi- 
 tions of the Reformation, and who preferred to 
 serve God rather than man, left the parish 
 churches and betook themselves to the con- 
 venticle and the Held, where their congregations 
 were to be found. 
 
 The persons who came to till the pulpits of 
 the ejected ministers when Episcopal ianism was 
 up and Presbyterianism down had as their 
 distinctive appellation, in which there was a 
 touch of scorn, the " curates." Many of them 
 were from the north, and from all accounts they 
 were no credit to the countrv from which they
 
 198 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 came. Bishop Bur net's loyalty to the Stuart 
 dynasty and to Episcopacy cannot be impeached 
 in the face of the following extract from the 
 preface to his " History of the Reformation " : 
 The Church " was again restored to its former 
 beauty and order by Your Majesty s [Charles II.] 
 return ! " Even he describes those " curates " 
 as a " sorry lot." " They were generally," he 
 says, " very mean and despicable in all respects. 
 They were the worst preachers I ever heard. 
 Man} 7 of them were openly vicious. They were 
 a disgrace to their orders and sacred functions, 
 and were indeed the very dregs and refuse of the 
 northern parts." 
 
 Now, when it is remembered that hundreds 
 of such persons thus described by a friend of 
 their order were admitted into the reconstructed 
 Presbyterian Church after the Revolution 
 settlement of 1688, it cannot be doubted that 
 those who ate the bread and performed the 
 sacred functions of the Church were bound to 
 be for years to come a very mixed multitude. 
 
 The spirit of compromise was abroad in 
 the councils of State and Church in, and 
 for some considerable time after 1688. Kim' 
 
 O 
 
 William was essentially an Erastian ; he was 
 a Presbyterian by training, but did not at- 
 tach much importance to ecclesiastical or even 
 
 * Bin-net's " History of the Reformation "dedication to 
 the Kinjr.
 
 THE SECEDE US. 1 9(> 
 
 theological differences, anil by his Dutch bloo<J 
 and phlegmatic temperament was far removed 
 from the consuming earnestness of a reliirious 
 
 o o 
 
 enthusiast. The policy he favoured was com- 
 prehension, a basis so broad and a banner so 
 colourless that men of all shades of belief mijrht 
 
 ^ 
 
 live together under the same roof, if not on the 
 ground of affinity, at least on that of toleration. 
 It may be said, indeed, that from his position as 
 a civil ruler he could not well have done other- 
 wise; and any truth there is in such an observation 
 militates, some think, against the alliance of two 
 things which in the interests of both ought to be 
 kept apart Church and State. Thus while the 
 "glorious Revolution" of 1688 could not but 
 have its bright side as a release from captivity 
 the fit sequel to what took place a hundred years 
 before, the dispersion of the Spanish Armada 
 in 1588 yet it had its less happy side in the 
 cold, calculating, temporising policy which pre- 
 vailed under the reputable name of moderation. 
 
 It has also to be borne in mind that the 
 Restoration did riot leave Scotland as it had 
 found it. The strong and trusted leaders of the 
 Church, the stoiy of whose brilliant achieve- 
 ments is an inspiration, had died, and a genera- 
 tion had grown up under influences such as might 
 be expected in an age of subserviency to a Court 
 of which Charles II. was the head and ornament. 
 No one who has any claims to be heard as a
 
 200 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 historical authority ever pretends to deny that 
 there was a general deterioration of morals from 
 the time that Charles II. ascended the throne. 
 The kingdom that was coining during his reign 
 was the very antipodes of that which is right- 
 eousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. 
 What else could be expected when the best 
 elements of the nation were driven into hiding- 
 places, and the lower tendencies of human nature 
 came to the front, and basked in the sunshine of 
 royal favour and example ? 
 
 On the flag of the frigate which bore the 
 Prince of Orange to our shores he caused the 
 words to be inscribed, " I will maintain the 
 liberties of England and the Protestant religion," 
 and in justice to his memory it must be owned 
 he kept his word. But while 1688 is indeed a 
 red-letter year in our history, as it was the close of 
 a long, weary struggle with the forces of ruthless 
 despotism and cruel persecution, yet, looking 
 forward from that time, there was not much to 
 rouse religious enthusiasm. 
 
 The Church, under leaders lacking in the 
 spiritual elevation of those of the Reformation 
 and Covenanting periods, began to move on a 
 lower plane. High spiritual ideals, conviction 
 that burned and glowed in the soul, heroic enter- 
 prise, consuming devotion to the great practical 
 aims of Christianity, and prayers that were 
 mighty in wrestling with God belonged to the
 
 THE SECEDKIIS. 201 
 
 past : the prevailing temper now was one of 
 placid accommodation to things as they were 
 the reign of Moderatism was about to begin. 
 
 But God was not without His witness in 
 that degenerate Church. There was a godly 
 remnant that had too much of the ancient spirit 
 of Knox and Rutherford to acquiesce in a down- 
 ward course. There were some who had sufficient 
 spiritual vitality and warmth to overcome the 
 benumbing effects of the many icebergs which 
 were around them ; and when Patronage wa 
 forced upon the Church in 1712 by the anti- 
 evangelical party, which commanded a majority 
 in the Church Courts, there were many strong, if 
 ineffectual, protests uttered against such an inter- 
 ference with the rights of the people. 
 
 What helped to keep experimental religion 
 alive during the ascendancy of Prelacy, and when 
 the people were debarred from the ministrations 
 they loved, was the private praying society which 
 existed in almost every parish. In some parishes 
 there were two or three such meetings, for 
 prayer, reading of the Scriptures, and mutual 
 edification, which gave a popular backing to 
 evangelical leaders in the General Assembly, and 
 paved the way, as we shall set 1 , for the Secession 
 movement. It is questionable whether even 
 students of Scottish Church history have yet 
 realised how much the religious life of the 
 people was indebted for its maintenance at a
 
 202 THE LHJ1ITS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 trying period to those scattered and obscure 
 " praying societies." 
 
 The part that was taken by the majority of 
 the General Assembly in 1720 in connection with 
 what was called the " Marrow controversy," re- 
 vealed their negative spirit and growing bias 
 against evangelical doctrine. A book called 
 " The Mamnv of Modern Divinity," published by 
 a graduate of Oxford, in 1G45, had been brought 
 to Scotland by a soldier J'roin the wars of the 
 Commonwealth. A copy of it was discovered in 
 a cottage in the parish of Simprin, by Thomas 
 Boston, who turned the attention of his fellow- 
 countrymen to its contents. The main object of 
 the book, which consists of extracts from the 
 writings of Luther, Calvin, and other eminent 
 divines, is to set forth God's free offer of salva- 
 tion to sinful men. Cunningham, in his " Church 
 History of Scotland," acknowledges that if " that 
 celebrated treatise diverges from the standards 
 of orthodoxy, it is only by a hair-breadth." Grub, 
 in his " Ecclesiastical History of Scotland,'' says 
 " The doctrines of the book were nearly the 
 same with those held by leading divines of the 
 IVotestant Church in the seventeenth century, and 
 were eagerly supported by all who retained the old 
 Covenanting opinions." Yet that book was 
 formally condemned by the General Assembly, 
 and twelve of the best members of the Church 
 suffered severe rebuke as its upholders. Such a
 
 THE SECK 
 
 straw shows how the current was going, h 
 was a sign of deep degeneracy, and a precur- 
 sor of the procession of secessions which took 
 place, weakening the State Church, but con- 
 ferring untold benefit upon the country. 
 
 One of the most prominent men of the 
 minority was Ebenezer Erskine, whose fine figure 
 and impressive manner gave such dignity to his 
 utterance that a Scottish divine of last century 
 was accustomed to say, " He that has not heard 
 Ebenezer Erskine preach the gospel has not heard 
 it preached in its maugesty" Erskine's spirit 
 was greatly stirred by the defections of the times, 
 and having the courage of his convictions, he 
 took the opportunity, when he had to preach a 
 sermon as moderator of the Synod of Perth and 
 Stirling, of delivering his soul. That sermon 
 was the first shot in the battle which issued in 
 the Secession Church. The Synod, after long 
 discussion, decided that his utterances were 
 censurable. The case passed on to the (Jeneral 
 Assembly, which rebuked and admonished 
 Erskine. He lodged a protest for himself, and 
 for three ministers William Wilson, of Perth : 
 Alexander Moncrieff, of Abernethy : and James 
 Fisher, of Kinclaven, who appealed against the 
 sentence of the Synod, and adhered to the protest 
 of Erskine. The Assembly and Commission took 
 very high ground, and treated the "four brethren" 
 with great severity. Because, as earnest and
 
 204 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 honest men, they lamented the deadness of the 
 times, and in the exercise of the right of free 
 speech, reproached the Church for not bestirring 
 itself more to champion the liberties of the people, 
 and meet the spiritual wants of the country, 
 he and his associates, on 18th November, 1733, 
 were released from their charges, and their 
 churches were declared vacant. Alarmed at the 
 resolute attitude those Secessionists took, and 
 seeing that they were evoking a great deal of 
 popular sympathy, the leaders of the Church 
 changed their front, and in 1734 so eager were 
 they that the brethren should return to their 
 place in the Establishment, that they actually 
 rescinded some of the obnoxious legislation, 
 because it was found to be " hurtful to the 
 Church," and recommended the Synod of Perth 
 and Stirling to restore the " four brethren." The 
 Synod did so, and even went beyond orders in 
 appointing Mr. Erskine moderator of Stirling 
 Presbytery. 
 
 But with the experience they had had of 
 the want of spiritual sympathy in the Church, 
 and the views they now had for the future, for 
 Erskine and his associates to have gone back 
 would have been to sacrifice spiritual ends for 
 the sake of an ecclesiastical connection. So they 
 formed themselves into a Presbytery, and, as indi- 
 cating the spirit in which those men entered upon 
 their new responsibilities, it may be mentioned
 
 THE SECEDE IIS. 205 
 
 that before any formal arrangement was made the 
 greater part of two days was spent in prayer. 
 
 Another secession took place in 1752 by the 
 deposition of Gillespie, who, as a member of the 
 Presbytery of Dunfermline, refused, along with 
 other ministers, to take part in the ordination of 
 a man to the parish of Inverkeithing. because lie 
 was obnoxious to the parishioners. The high- 
 handed men who led the Church in those days, 
 utterly out of touch with the people's feelings 
 and needs, decided that Gillespie should be the 
 scapegoat of the Presbytery, and they without 
 any compunction cast him out. He and those 
 who afterw r ards joined him, not prepared to 
 enter the groove of the Evskine movement, 
 became what was called the Relief Church, as 
 indicating the relief they had got from the yoke 
 of patronage. 
 
 Those Seceders were grave, solid men, with a 
 decidedly old-world strain in their theology and 
 phraseology. In their independence, staunch 
 adherence to conviction, and readiness to testify 
 against what they deemed to be evil or error, 
 they gave a pronounced embodiment to some of 
 the sturdiest characteristics of the Scottish nation. 
 Narrowness and hard-and-fast dogmatism were 
 amongst their most obvious shortcomings. " An 
 entangled scrupulosity," Bishop Burnet said, is 
 one of the characteristics of the Scottish mind, 
 and it certainly comes out in the history of the
 
 206 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 controversies in the Secession Church. They 
 needed to have repeated to them the words of 
 Oliver Cromwell to an assembly of Scottish 
 divines " I entreat you, my brethren, I entreat 
 you, by the mercies of God, to remember that it 
 is possible that sometimes you may be mistaken." 
 The first Secession Church crave evidence of this 
 tendency to allow too much scope to an argu- 
 mentative and opinionative state of mind by 
 dividing itself into two bodies the Burghers 
 and Anti-Burghers, as they were called, the 
 former thinking it quite legitimate to take the 
 Burgher oath, the other considering it im- 
 proper, and refusing to make this difference the 
 ground of mutual forbearance. 
 
 This is part of the oath that was taken at 
 the time : 
 
 " Here I protest before God and your lordships 
 that I profess and allow with my heart the true 
 religion presently professed within this realm, and 
 authorised by the laws thereof. 1 shall abide there- 
 at, and defend the same to my life's end, renouncing 
 the Roman religion called Papistry." 
 
 Some members of the Synod judged that the 
 clause in the oath, " the true religion presently 
 professed within this realm," was equivalent to 
 an approbation of all the errors and defections of 
 the Established Church, against which the 
 Seeeders had testified. Others maintained that 
 the clause simply bound the person taking the
 
 THE SECEDEHS. 207 
 
 oath to approve of the true religion itself, and 
 that the Seccders might lawfully swear the oath : 
 hence the disunion. The same scrupulousness 
 was manifested in the discipline they maintained 
 amongst the Church members, especially of the 
 Anti-Burgher body. A member of the Secession 
 Church at Clola was severely rebuked and ad- 
 monished for having attempted to pass the toll- 
 bar at Peterhcad without paying toll. A bleacher 
 in Stuartfield was taken to task for allowing his 
 yarn to remain on the green over the Sabbath, 
 and the case was accounted so difficult that it 
 was referred to the Presbytery for settlement ! 
 But with all their defects, which many laugh 
 
 i/ ~ 
 
 at who have not a tithe of their sturdy conviction 
 and moral worth, the Seceders were for many 
 years the salt of this part of the earth. Much of 
 their power lay in prayer. They had societies 
 all over the country which were centres of 
 spiritual life, and rallying points for the godly of 
 the district. Much of the most solid piety and 
 devoutness of the eighteenth century were to In- 
 found among the Seceders. What is the witness 
 of Thomas Carlyle on this point { He says that in 
 his early days " a man who awoke to the belief 
 that he actually had a soul to be saved or lost was 
 apt to be found among the Dissenting people, and 
 to have given up attendance on the Kirk." 
 
 So mightily grew the word and prevailed, 
 and so much were the Seceders in the current of
 
 208 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 the sympathy of the best part of the nation, that 
 in the year 1765 the statement was made in 
 the General Assembly that " there are now one 
 hundred and twenty meeting houses erected, to 
 which more than a hundred thousand persons 
 resort, who were formerly of our communion, 
 but have separated themselves from the Church 
 of Scotland ; and this progress of Dissent is 
 most evident in the greatest and most populous 
 towns." 
 
 It is noteworthy that such a large proportion 
 of men trained in the Secession Church have 
 taken a prominent place in the civic life and 
 general business of large centres of population. 
 Some of the leading business firms in Glasgow 
 were made by Seceders, who, by reading the 
 Bible, pondering its contents, and grappling with 
 its truths, acquired an independence and force 
 which became of account in the ordinary affairs 
 of the world. 
 
 Wherever there were praying societies of 
 men there were demands for Secession preachers 
 too numerous to be readily met. A drover from 
 a southern market met a farmer in one of the 
 secluded vales of Aberdeensliire, and as they sat 
 on a stone together they talked about the revival 
 of religion through the instrumentality of the 
 Erskines and their associates, and that led to the 
 formation of a Secession Church not far from 
 where they met. A few fishermen from Hose-
 
 THE SECEDERS. 209 
 
 hearty, landing one day at Leith, witnessed the 
 observance of the Lord's Supper in a Secession 
 Church, which so impressed them that, through 
 their efforts, a church of that order was formed 
 in their village. The origin of the Secession 
 Church at Lynturk, near Alford, can be traced 
 to the offence caused to the parishioners by the 
 minister ordering the precentor to discontinue 
 the reading of each line of the psalm before sing- 
 ing it! That was in 1700, when the practice 
 which had prevailed since the Reformation was 
 being abandoned.* One of the four brethren 
 who were the founders of the Secession Church, 
 Mr. Moncrieff, visiting Peterhead for the benefit 
 of his health, spent some time in the house of his 
 friend, Mr. Ferguson of Kinmundy, and preached 
 to the people of the neighbourhood. That, along 
 with other kinds of preparation w r hich had been 
 going on for years among the evangelically dis- 
 posed people of the district, led to the formation 
 of the Craigdam Church, of which Mr. William 
 Brown was ordained minister in 1752. 
 
 The Secession movement made great progress 
 in Buchan, notwithstanding the strong opposition 
 it met with, such as is shown in the following 
 postscript to the advertisement of some farms 
 that were to let " Cairds and Seceders need not 
 apply." Dr. Ferguson of Kinmundy delivers the 
 
 Mackelvie's "Annals and Statistics of the United 
 Presbyterian Church," p. 80. 
 P
 
 210 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 following valuable testimony as to the interest 
 awakened in the north-eastern part of Scotland 
 by the Secession preachers : 
 
 "From ten, fifteen, twenty, and even twenty-five 
 miles did some of them go and return to obtain their 
 spiritual food. As this statement may appear almost 
 incredible to some, I may state the following fact, 
 which rests on the authority of an acquaintance of my 
 own, and may be safely relied on. She, being an 
 elderly woman, was well acquainted with at least one 
 of the Rosehearty fishermen who walked from that 
 village to Craigdam. On asking him how it was pos- 
 sible for them to overtake such a journey, he informed 
 her that they prepared for the Sabbath by retiring 
 early to bed on Saturday evening ; and, rising early, 
 they were ready to leave home about three next morn- 
 ing, so that they reached Craigdam in time for some 
 rest and refreshment before service began ; on their 
 return they were accustomed to rest for some time at 
 a place where the roads diverged, by which the com- 
 panies from different districts departed to their res- 
 pective homes ; having there engaged in prayer, which 
 gave to the spot the name of "The Praying Knowe," 
 they went on their way, and by the time they reached 
 Rosehearty it was generally time, if the weather 
 permitted, to go to sea, and preparations having 
 previously been made, they, without going to bed, 
 proceeded to follow their usual occupations." 
 
 Mr. John Bisset born in 1692, died in 1756 
 was the precursor of the Secession body in the 
 city of Aberdeen. After labouring for eleven
 
 THE SECEDERS. 211 
 
 years in Newmachar, he was called to St. Nicholas 
 Church, and for nearly thirty years was a thorn 
 in the side of the Moderate clergy, who, from 
 their numbers and social influence, tried to carry 
 tilings with a high hand. Having preached a 
 sermon before the Synod of Aberdeen, in a strain 
 similar to that of Ebenezer Erskine, in which he 
 testified with no uncertain sound against the 
 defections of the times, some of his co- Presbyters 
 were anxious to institute proceedings against him, 
 with the view of compelling him to withdraw 
 some of the statements he made. But Provost 
 Cruickshank rose up and warned the mem- 
 bers of the Court that Mr. Bisset was not the 
 man to retract anything he had said, and that 
 unless they wished to see a thousand Seceders 
 in Aberdeen on the morrow, they had better 
 forbear. It is quite consistent with the above to 
 find it inscribed on his tombstone in our town's 
 churchyard that " through the whole course of 
 his ministry, particularly in the latter part of it, 
 he encountered many difficulties and the most 
 violent opposition." 
 
 Before Mr. Bisset died he recommended 
 members of his congregation who consulted him 
 on the subject to connect themselves with the 
 Burgher Synod, as there was little expectation 
 of a successor being appointed in the East 
 Church whose ministrations would be such as 
 they desired and needed. They took his advice,
 
 212 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 and the first Secession church was formed in 
 1758 in the Weigh-house, Mr. Alexander Dick 
 being chosen as minister. 
 
 In the inscription on his tomb in the town's 
 churchyard there is the following sentence : 
 " Whose religion was strict but not morose, 
 warm but not enthusiastical, and regular but 
 not formal." 
 
 The Burghers and Anti-Burghers were re- 
 united in 1S20, and the Relief Church joining in 
 1847, what we know as the United Presbyterian 
 Church came into existence.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE MODERATES. 
 
 rnHE term " Moderates " came into use about 
 j. tlie middle of the eighteenth century to 
 denote a party in the Church of Scotland whose 
 tendency was to oppose popular claims and dis- 
 countenance " enthusiasm " in religion. As the 
 century advanced, the term became more fully 
 developed in its application and significance, and, 
 while ever somewhat vague and indefinite, yet it 
 came to have a recognised value as opposed to 
 pronounced Evangelicalism. 
 
 The great aim of the Church generally, under 
 the leadership of Robertson, the historian ; Dr. 
 Carlyle of Inveresk, and Blair, the preacher of 
 smooth platitudes, was to improve the social 
 manners and literary style of the clergy, to tone 
 down fervour, to substitute for enthusiasm and 
 uncompromising Evangelicalism a calm, finished, 
 man-of-the-world style of religion, by which the 
 upper classes would be conciliated. Moderatism, 
 it is said by Dean Stanley and Principal Tulloch, 
 was a reaction from the narrowness, not to say 
 the fanaticism, of the Covenanting period. There 
 is a measure of truth in that presentation of the 
 case. It is so difficult to combine intensity of 
 feeling with breadth of view and toleration.
 
 214 THE LIGHTS OB' THE NORTH. 
 
 When soldiers are concentrating their energies 
 upon some point in the citadel, it is not easy at 
 the same time to give due attention to all the 
 outlying places. Wallace and Bruce, struggling 
 as true patriots for the vital interests of their 
 country, were to be excused if they at the same 
 time did not do much for its literary culture and 
 social amenity. So the Covenanters were not to 
 be condemned because, in contending for the 
 fundamental truths of our faith and those 
 liberties which are the first condition of civilisa- 
 tion, they were not as alert as they might have 
 been on behalf of toleration, charity, and other 
 Christian graces. There are times when some 
 things can be gained, it would appear, only by 
 the sacrifice or the abeyance of others. When 
 a man's house is on fire he is not to be greatly 
 blamed if his movements do not show all the 
 ease and elegance we like to see. Are. then, the 
 Covenanters to be reproached because, in those 
 times of strife and distraction, they lacked some 
 things in life which are the fruit of calm and 
 leisure ? It must be owned that the Covenanters 
 went a great deal too far in depreciating grace of 
 form in worship and preaching, and some of 
 them were prone to identify godliness with rude- 
 ness, spirituality with baldness in its vesture 
 and setting. 
 
 But admitting that the Church in Scotland, 
 having fought and won its battles with Popery,
 
 THE MODERATES. 215 
 
 Episcopacy, and civil despotism, was now free to 
 cultivate those amenities of form which join 
 sweetness to strength, there was surely nothing 
 to justify that abandonment or concealment of 
 the great mysteries of our faith, which was the 
 characteristic note of a great deal of the 
 Moderatism of the eighteenth century. If a 
 lecturer on physiology were to confine his at- 
 tention to the heart, lungs, and stomach, and say 
 nothing of the action of the skin, that would 
 not justify the person who supplanted him, in 
 making the function of the skin his chief subject 
 of study and discourse. The best of the Mode- 
 rates wanted to give a wider view of life and 
 duty, which was perfectly justifiable ; but many 
 of them swung round to the fatal extreme of 
 making form and manner more than substance in 
 religion. They betook themselves to the functions 
 of the skin, and gave the vital parts too little atten- 
 tion. They made a great effort to win educated 
 but unspivitual men to their side. But to bid too 
 high for the support of the world sometimes de- 
 feats its own end, as Carlyle of Inveresk found 
 on meeting David Hume after the famous scep- 
 tical writer heard him preach. Being on a visit 
 to Gilrnerton, Sir David Kinloch constrained 
 Hume to go on Sunday to Athelstaneford Church, 
 where Carlyle was to preach for John Home. 
 " What did you mean," he said, " by treating 
 John's congregation to-day with one of Cicero's
 
 216 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 Academics ? 1 did not think such heathen 
 morality would have passed in East Lothian." 
 Contrast with that the remark which Hume 
 made after hearing John Brown, of Haddington, 
 preach " That's the man for me ; he means 
 what he says ; he speaks as if Jesus Christ were 
 at his elbow." Consistency is a virtue in the 
 pulpit or out of it, and honest men like it. 
 
 The leading intellects during the reign of 
 Moderatism made the great mistake of putting 
 themselves out of touch with the most genuine 
 and fervid piety among the people, with the 
 result that the ranks of Dissent were largely 
 recruited, and the Church was robbed of needed 
 elements of the highest power. The Church was 
 certainly not bound to perpetuate the lowly 
 manners and unschooled narrowness of the 
 godly peasantry of Scotland ; but it should 
 have kept itself in sympathy with their faith, 
 their devotedness, their fidelity to gospel truth. 
 As showing the spirit of Moderatism which held 
 the majority of the General Assembly under its 
 grasp for more than a century, there is scarcely 
 a beneficent enterprise or helpful agency which 
 has won a place for itself in the Church that 
 was not opposed by it. Modern religious life 
 and progress are what they are in spite of 
 Moderatism. Missions to the heathen, Sabbath 
 schools, the abolition of patronage, would not 
 have been if the Evangelical minority, which
 
 THE MODERATES. 217 
 
 became a majority, had not fought and beaten 
 Moderatism. 
 
 But there were able and faithful ministers 
 classed with the Moderates who owed that 
 questionable distinction not so much to the want 
 of faith and zeal as to family connection, to a 
 peculiarity of temperament, to habit of mind, 
 or to the fashion of the time. It must be re- 
 membered, also, that in those days Evangelicalism 
 was deemed by some to be associated with gush- 
 ing emotionalism, and if a man had a strong 
 intellectual bent, he not unnaturally gravitated 
 to Moderatism. That partly explains why 
 Aberdeenshire should have been stigmatised as 
 the " dead sea of Moderatism." There is an 
 untempered intellectual robustness in the north 
 which shows a predilection for those parts of the 
 Christian religion w r hich the logical understand- 
 ing can grasp, but there is not a corresponding 
 fineness of perception for the spiritual contents 
 of our faith. We of the north are of the school 
 of Aristotle rather than that of Plato. We are 
 followers of the practical, matter-of-fact, ethical 
 James; and the Apostle John, as he soars, would 
 need to lend us his wings before we could rise 
 to his level. 
 
 It is true we have a Beattie whose " Essay 
 on Truth," and still more his " Minstrel," prove 
 that the finest sentiment and poetical genius can 
 root themselves in any soil and thrive in any
 
 218 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 clime. But Reid, who became the parish minister 
 of Newmaehar in 1737, afterwards Professor of 
 Moral Philosophy in King's College and in 
 Glasgow University, presents to us the typical 
 northern intellect under the most favourable 
 conditions. He, had such a humble estimate of 
 his powers that he occasionally read to the 
 Newmaehar parishioners a sermon written by 
 Tillotson rather than one of his own, and yet in 
 his " Enquiry into the Human Mind on the 
 Principles of Common Sense " he has given to 
 the world a contribution to the discussion of 
 psychology which led to a new and distinct 
 school of philosophy, and reveals to us where the 
 strength and the weakness, or rather limitation 
 of the northern Scottish mind lies. Alexander 
 Gerard, too, by his " Essay on Truth " and his 
 " Essay on Genius," shows us the bent of the 
 stronger minds in the ministry in these parts in 
 those dnys, and shows us also how naturally we 
 take to metaphysics rather than to the visions 
 and raptures of saints of a southern latitude. 
 Yet while Moderatism is not an unnatural 
 excrescence of northern Scottish human nature, 
 it is no essential and permanent part of it. The 
 perfervidum inyenium which is lying latent 
 soon comes to the surface when the soul- 
 kindling inspirations of experimental Chris- 
 tianity have had a fair opportunity of showing 
 what they can do.
 
 THE MODE HATES. 210 
 
 It must in fairness be owned that philosophy, 
 literature, and intellectual culture generally, were 
 greatly furthered by the best of the men who 
 were ranked amongst the Moderates. Many of the 
 " Paraphrases " appended to the metrical psalms 
 came from their pen. They did a great deal to 
 maintain, or, rather, introduce, elegance of man- 
 ners and classic refinement of taste. But an 
 icicle, however clear and shapely, is out of place 
 in the pulpit. Much as chasteness of style and 
 beauty of form are to be admired, the Kingdom of 
 Heaven in its aims and ends cannot be reduced 
 to the narrow limits of such a ministration. 
 What might be fitting enough in the academy 
 or in the professor's chair was intolerable in 
 the pulpit, which is not much if it is not the 
 symbol of a doctrine as high as heaven, as deep 
 as eternity, and as intense as life itself. "Religion 
 is the banquet of the spirit, not the feast of the 
 mind, and therefore danger is ever present when 
 men begin to listen to the sermon as a manifest- 
 ation of intellectual force, and not for its spiritual 
 power." It is true that religion should have a 
 right relation to every part of human nature, 
 and intellectual feebleness or dulness is a 
 hindrance and not a help to the ministries of 
 heaven ; but the function of the understanding 
 is not to retain God's truth for its own delec- 
 tation ; it is to hand it on to the heart, conscience, 
 and life.
 
 220 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 Moderatism represents ci certain attitude of 
 the mind in relation to the verities of religion 
 which is never entirely absent from the Church, 
 and may be seen in the present day under 
 modern conditions. Just as Erasmus was a 
 disciple of the Renaissance and Luther a herald 
 of the Reformation, so men, according to the 
 proclivities of the mind and the experiences of 
 the soul, go out to culture or rise to faith. The 
 ministers of God who have rendered most 
 valuable service are those who combined both 
 in due proportion. Humanism, with all its light 
 and sweetness, is certainly a poor substitute for 
 divinity.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 PRINCIPAL CAMPBELL 1719-96. 
 
 /T\HE famous Dr. George Campbell, like many of 
 } Scotland's eminent sons, was a child of the 
 manse, his father, the Rev. Colin Campbell, having 
 been one of the ministers of this city. Born in 1719 
 the youngest son of a considerable family, made 
 fatherless when he was only nine years of age, 
 and left in not very affluent circumstances, he was 
 from his earliest years disciplined into habits of 
 self-reliance. The Grammar School and Maris- 
 chal College did for him all that they could, 
 though, like many who afterwards win dis- 
 tinction, he was not a recluse or a bookworm in 
 his early years. After graduating, having made 
 marked progress, especially in the study of Greek, 
 he went to Edinburgh and served a regular ap- 
 prenticeship to the law, which may partly 
 account for the method and precision of expres- 
 sion observable in his writings. Not relishing the 
 
 o r^ 
 
 profession to which he appeared to be destined, 
 he returned to Aberdeen, entered the Divinity 
 Hall, and threw himself with ardour into studies 
 that were more congenial and afforded greater 
 scope for the powers with which he was endowed. 
 As illustrating his intellectual /eal and his 
 acute perception of the possibilities of any
 
 222 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 situation, practical or literary, it may be men- 
 tioned that while he was a divinity student he 
 took a leading part in the formation of a theo- 
 logical club for the free discussion of subjects 
 of special interest to embryo ministers. The 
 original members of that society must have 
 been astute persons, for no one could apply for 
 admission into it, and only those were taken in 
 who were deemed to be of such parts and habits 
 as would make them a real acquisition. 
 
 After his course of study was finished and he 
 was licensed as a preacher, much against the wishes 
 of many in the parish he was ordained minister 
 of Banchory-Ternan in 1748. It need scarcely 
 be said that he soon gained the confidence arid 
 affection of his parishioners by his sterling 
 character and assiduous devotion to duty. His 
 plain, practical expositions of Scripture " lectur- 
 ing," opening up the word were greatly 
 appreciated, and they put him on a line of study 
 which afterwards developed into his published 
 "Translations of the Gospels." The quiet country 
 parish, by the side of the Dee, did for him what 
 such a place has done for many ministers who 
 rose to conspicuous place and wide public use- 
 fulness. The foundation of his greatness as a 
 thinker, lecturer, and author was laid during 
 
 * c^ 
 
 the nine years of comparative obscurity in that- 
 rural region. He had leisure to read, to ponder, 
 to master many tilings, especially himself. A
 
 PRINCIPAL CAMPBELL. 223 
 
 man who formed the habit of beginning his 
 work at five or six o'clock in the morning was 
 sure to experience the truthfulness of the proverb 
 that the hand of the diligent maketh rich. That, 
 too, was done with a physical frame which was 
 by no means robust. In view of his prowess as 
 an antagonist in argument, we are apt to think 
 of him as a big, muscular man. On the contrary, 
 lie was under the average stature, and was 
 subject to fits of dyspepsia, for which his most 
 effectual cure was abstinence from food till tho 
 digestive organs were restored to healthy action. 
 In 1757 he was translated to the city of 
 Aberdeen, in room of Rev. John Bisset. Here 
 also his entry was opposed by many of the 
 parishioners, and the event was signalised by 
 the separation of a considerable number, who, as 
 we have seen, formed the nucleus of the first 
 Secession Church in Aberdeen. The transition 
 from Bisset to Campbell must indeed have been 
 felt to be abrupt, and Patronage in that, as well 
 as in many other instances, did not appear to 
 follow the line of evolution. Bisset was an 
 evangelical of the evangelicals, and while a man 
 who rendered splendid service to the cause of 
 vital godliness in Aberdeen, being to some extent 
 a later Andrew Cant, yet, like some excellent 
 men of his school of theology, he was deemed to 
 be narrow, imperious, and intolerant. For ex- 
 ample, he was almost as much opposed to the
 
 224 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 appearance of Wliitefield, the great preacher, in 
 his pulpit, when on a visit to Aberdeen in 1741, 
 as he was to the advent of Charles Stuart, the 
 Pretender, regarding whose movements he made 
 such copious notes in his diary. 
 
 A few months after Dr. Campbell's settlement 
 in Aberdeen, a new society, Phrenix-like, rose from 
 the ashes of the former one we have referred to, 
 which included in its membership such men as 
 Gerard, Beattie ; and Reid, of whom the world 
 has heard. It was on a wider basis, and was 
 more literary and philosophical than theological. 
 Reid's " Inquiry into the Human Understanding " 
 and some of Campbell's best-known works first 
 saw the light as seedlings in that select circle 
 of intellects, as keen as ever met at any time or 
 at any place in Aberdeen. At no time indeed, 
 in the history of Aberdeen, did so many men 
 live and write within its borders who have won 
 world-wide fame. It was a period more brilliant 
 by far than that of the " Doctors/' for in addition 
 to scholarship, there was original research and 
 vigorous thought displayed by that galaxy of 
 talent at the close of the eighteenth century. 
 
 In 1759 Dr. Campbell was made Principal of 
 Marischal College, and by the publication of 
 his " Essay on Miracles" not long after, he proved 
 himself worthy of the dignity to which he had 
 boen promoted. Hume's " Essay on Miracles" 
 was the great sensation of the eighteenth century
 
 PRINCIPAL CAMPBELL. 225 
 
 in the learned world, and many Davids did it 
 call forth to meet this infidel Goliath. For 
 style, sentiment, and fervour, Beattie's " Essay on 
 Truth " was by far the most popular effusion on 
 the subject that emanated from this part of the 
 land. It was easily read, and George the Third 
 could compliment the author by saying it was 
 the only book he ever stole ! But by discerning 
 minds, capable of weighing the merits of an 
 argumentative treatise, the palm was awarded to 
 Principal Campbell. Like most controversial 
 works, it had its day, and the " fashion " of it 
 passed away, as a defence of supernatural in- 
 tervention. At the time it was admitted to be 
 a masterpiece, and was speedily translated into 
 French, Dutch, and German. 
 
 It is this " Essay on Miracles " more than 
 any other book he wrote which entitles Camp- 
 bell to be called " the Paley of Scotland." The 
 heightened, luminous " common sense " which 
 was the distinguishing note of the school of 
 thought to which he belonged, and which pre- 
 vailed in Scotland at the time, is most conspicuous 
 in this writing. Hume had taken the position 
 that our experience of uniformity in nature is 
 such that no human testimony can make a 
 miracle credible. Here is a specimen of Campbell's 
 illustrative rejoinder : 
 
 "I have lived for some years near a ferry. It 
 consists with my knowledge that the passage boat
 
 226 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 has a thousand times crossed the river, and as many 
 times returned safe. An unknown man whom I have 
 just now met tells me in a serious manner that it is 
 lost ; and affirms that he himself, standing on the 
 bank, was a spectator of the scene, that he saw the 
 passengers carried down the stream and the boat 
 overwhelmed. No person who is influenced in his 
 judgment of things, not by philosophical subtleties, 
 but by common sense a much surer guide will 
 hesitate to declare that in such a testimony I have 
 probable evidence of the fact asserted." 
 
 It should be mentioned as one of the " curi- 
 osities of literature," and as illustrating the extra- 
 ordinary candour and courtesy of Dr. Campbell, 
 that, before publishing the " Essay," he sent the 
 manuscript to David Hume, and begged him to 
 correct any misstatement, and expunge any ex- 
 pression which gave just offence. We give the 
 first sentence in Hume's letter, in which he hand- 
 somely acknowledges the author's magnanimity : 
 " It has so seldom happened that controversies 
 in philosophy, much less in theology, have been 
 carried on without producing a personal quarrel 
 between the parties, that I must regard my 
 present situation as somewhat extraordinary, 
 and have reason to give you thanks for the civil 
 and obliging manner in which you have con- 
 ducted the dispute against me on so interesting a 
 subject as that of miracles." 
 
 In 1771 Dr. Campbell was elected by the
 
 PRINCIPAL CAMPBELL. 227 
 
 Town Council of Aberdeen, Professor of Divinity 
 in Marischal College as successor to Dr. Gerard, 
 who was removed to the same chair in King's 
 College. The spirit in which he conducted the 
 work in the class-room is well indicated in the 
 following sentences which he addressed to the 
 students at the outset of his career : 
 
 " Gentlemen, the nature of my office has been 
 much misunderstood. It is supposed that I am to 
 teach you everything connected with the study of 
 divinity. I tell you honestly that I am to teach 
 you nothing. Ye are not schoolboys. Ye are 
 young men who have finished your courses of 
 philosophy, and ye are no longer to be treated as if 
 ye were at school. Therefore, I repeat it, I am to 
 teach you nothing ; but by the grace of God 1 will 
 assist you to teach yourselves everything." 
 
 As a teacher he was in many respects a man 
 before his time ; he was so open and independent, 
 so untrammelled by artificial systems and stand- 
 ards, so fearless and thorough-going in his love 
 of truth. In urging his students to go to the 
 Bible with an unbiased mind, and seek what 
 God's Spirit leads them to find, we hear the 
 utterance of the spirit of the later years of the 
 nineteenth century rather than that of a hundred 
 years ago. 
 
 Among the students under the Divinity Pro- 
 fessor in his later years was James Kidd (" Dr. 
 Kidd of Aberdeen "), and doubtless the prince of
 
 228 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 polished Moderates had his own opinion of the 
 energetic and unconventional Irishman, who, like 
 a stranded boulder belonging to far away forma- 
 tions, had found his way to this northern land. 
 The peculiarity of Mr. Kidd's position in relation 
 to Dr. Campbell was that, while a student, he 
 was also a colleague as Professor of Hebrew in 
 Marischal College. The young Irishman had to 
 deliver a trial discourse before Dr. Campbell, and, 
 being a busy man, and not very particular at any 
 time about form and appearance, Mr. Kidd had 
 not been at pains to elaborate his sermon upon 
 sheets of paper in the ordinary way, but brought 
 a sheaf of loose MSS., the outcome of which, as 
 might be expected, was rather disjointed and 
 crude ; at least it was so in the eyes of Dr. 
 Campbell, who had a classic finish and neatness 
 in all he said and did. " Now, Mr. Kidd," said 
 the doctor mildly, " it would ill become me to 
 criticise severely the production of a gentleman 
 holding the position of a colleague. I would 
 just advise you. when you next come up with 
 a discourse, to have it arranged a little more 
 methodically.'' 
 
 His " Philosophy of Rhetoric," published in 
 1776, was one of the many contributions of that 
 period to the study of literary composition, and 
 it has received many glowing encomiums from 
 masters of that subject, such as Archbishop 
 Whately. Rhetoric was one of the favourite
 
 PRINCIPAL CAMPBELL. 229 
 
 topics of the clergymen of the Moderate party. 
 Educated Scotland was then trying to reach that 
 purity and elegance of English diction which was 
 exhibited by such writers as Addison : and Blair, 
 Gerard, Bcattie, and many others, along with 
 Campbell, in Scotland helped the movement both 
 b}' example and precept. That the style is the 
 man comes out strikingly in the writings of 
 Campbell; it is simple, perspicuous, nervous the 
 tit vesture of his mind. 
 
 Of all his works, none gave rise to so much 
 controversy as one that was issued a few years 
 after his death his " Lectures on Ecclesiastical 
 History." In that volume he gives expression 
 to views regarding the origin and structure of 
 the primitive Church, which some deemed to be 
 dangerously democratic, with a leaning, indeed, 
 towards Congregationalism. He is very hard, 
 too, upon those who make apostolical succession 
 the basis of church order and authority. He 
 refers to persons who regard 
 
 ". . . as the sole authentic evidence of our beim: 
 Christians the examination of certain endless genealo- 
 gies, is if Christ had intended that all His disciples 
 should be antiquaries ; because otherwise they could 
 riot have the satisfaction to know whether they were 
 His disciples or not. Unfortunately for those people, 
 all such spiritual pedigrees are so miserably lame that 
 if their rule were to be admitted we should be in- 
 volved in darkness on this subject from which no
 
 230 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 antiquary could extricate us, and there would not 
 remain the slightest evidence that there was a single 
 Christian on the earth." * 
 
 Such trenchant and rather provocative writing 
 could not but give offence, but Dr. Campbell was 
 like the blacksmith who hammered the iron 
 while it was hot and never minded where the 
 sparks went. 
 
 What a splendid directness there is in the 
 letter to the Presbytery of Aberdeen, in which, 
 owing to the frailties of old age, he resigned his 
 professorship : 
 
 " It is my firm opinion that when a man is con- 
 scious that he is no longer able to perform properly 
 the duties of an office, and is providentially in a 
 situation of living independently of its emoluments, 
 it is an indispensable duty to resign, that a fit person 
 may he timely found to supply the place, for the 
 sake of the community at large, that the public may 
 not suffer, compared with which the accommodation 
 of the incumbent is, and ought always to be, regarded 
 as but a secondary consideration at the most." 
 
 He was succeeded both in the Principalship 
 and in the Divinity Chair of Marischal College by 
 the accomplished Dr. William Lawrence Brown. 
 
 On the 6th April, 1796, in the seventy- 
 
 * " Lectures on Ecclesiastical History," by George Camp- 
 bell, Aberdeen, 1815. An account of the life and writings 
 of the Principal is given by the Rev. George SkenCj/Kcith, 
 to which we are indebted for many of the facts here stated.
 
 PRINCIPAL CAMPBELL. 231 
 
 seventh year of his age, there passed away 
 Dr. George Campbell, who for masculine vigour 
 of mind may be said to be a typical Aberdonian, 
 and the highest development of the race. If he 
 was a Moderate, he was certainly one of the best 
 of them. Party classifications and labels are 
 often a grievous injustice, as there are some men, 
 and those often the best, who, from constitutional 
 proclivity or early training, present a certain 
 example of religious life that defies all partisan 
 assortment. Within his own range, Dr. Camp- 
 bell was a master in Israel. His mind was that 
 of the cultured Scot, argumentative rather than 
 imaginative, logical and not at all intuitional or 
 mystical. He was not content to leave a subject 
 till he had seen through it to the other side, 
 though perhaps he was not always able to pene- 
 trate to its deepest parts or reach its hidden 
 roots ; but, alike in the quality of his mind and 
 its limitation, there is no finer specimen of the 
 prevailing type in these northern parts. 
 
 The house in which Dr. Campbell lived for 
 the greater part of his public life was that now 
 known as 49 Schoolhill.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 JOHN SKINNER OF LINSHART 1721-1807. 
 
 IN depicting the many-sided religion of the 
 north as it has been evolved from a remote 
 past, we come now to the Scots Episcopalians as 
 they appeared after the Revolution, and no better 
 representative of them could be found than John 
 Skinner of Linshart. The study of such a man 
 is interesting, were it only to show how plain 
 living and high thinking can go together how 
 character, genius, and highest pursuits are not 
 dependent upon earthly environment and the 
 prizes which time sometimes bestows. It has 
 been said that Wordsworth rendered greater 
 service to the peasantry of Cumberland by the 
 noble simplicity of his life than he did by the 
 most magnificent of his poems. The spectacle be- 
 fore their eyes every day of a man communing 
 with the highest and yet showing in his house- 
 hold life how by frugality a little money can go 
 a great way, and how personal dignity is not to 
 be identified with the length of the purse in 
 one's pocket or the upholstery that is in his 
 house such an object-lesson was a positive 
 means of grace. In some such position John
 
 JOHN SKINNEK OF L1NSHAKT. 2.'i3 
 
 Skinner stood in relation to his contemporaries 
 and neighbours in Buchan for upwards of sixty 
 years. 
 
 John Skinner was born in the parish of Birse 
 in 1721, his father being the schoolmaster of the 
 place, and one of exceptional learning and ability. 
 Apt and diligent as a scholar, John, under the 
 competent and stimulating tuition of his father, 
 soon attained to such proficiency in his studies, 
 especially in Latin composition, that he took a 
 considerable bursary at Marischal College when 
 he was only fourteen years of age, which went 
 far in securing his maintenance during his four 
 years' curriculum. 
 
 At the close of his University course it was 
 his happy fortune, after teaching in Kemnay 
 School for a few months, to obtain a situation as 
 assistant to the schoolmaster of Monymusk, the 
 natural scenery of which almost equals in in- 
 terest its ancient ecclesiastical associations. Here 
 his muse, which had made its presence felt at a 
 very early period, now took higher wing than 
 it ever did before, and a " Poem on a Visit to 
 Paradise " (the one in Monymusk) having come 
 under the notice of Lady Grant, she encouraged 
 him to visit Monymusk House, and gave him 
 free access to its Library. He came while there 
 under the influence of an Episcopal clergyman 
 in the locality, which led eventually to his 
 passing from Presbyterian ism to Episcopacy.
 
 234 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 There can be little doubt that conviction and 
 nothing else accounted for this change. There 
 was scarcely any room at that time for the play 
 of inferior motive. Episcopacy was not then on 
 the sunny side of the road ; fat livings and the 
 smiles and favours of men in high place in 
 Church and State were then reserved for Pres- 
 byterians. But to a resolute, high-spirited man 
 like John Skinner there would be the charm of 
 romance in the very adventure and probable 
 worldly loss involved in such a step. 
 
 Passing to Shetland in 1740 to enter upon a 
 tutorship, lie met an additional argument to 
 confirm him in his adhesion to Episcopacy in 
 the daughter of an Episcopal clergyman, with 
 whom he fell in love and soon married. In 
 1740 he was called to Longside, near Peterhead, 
 where he remained for nearly sixty-five years. 
 It may be safely affirmed that among the attrac- 
 tions that rooted him to that -spot for such a 
 lengthened period richness of landscape and 
 geniality of climate cannot be named. John 
 Hill Burton has described Buchan as " a spread- 
 ing of peat moss on a cake of granite." No 
 "Buchan body," none of "the folk in the corner," 
 as they have sometimes been called, however 
 intense his loyal patriotism, could make the 
 north-eastern part of Scotland a figure of that 
 ideal country of which it is the duty of a 
 minister to speak. Yet there are sweet spots
 
 JOHN SKINNER OF LINSHART. 235 
 
 in it, as at Old Deer, to relieve the general 
 flatness and bareness, and in the bleakest parts 
 there are always wide views to be had and 
 plenty of sky overhead ! 
 
 Our townsman Dr. Walter C. Smith thus 
 sings of it : 
 
 " Where Ugie winds through Buchan braes 
 
 A treeless land, where beeves are good, 
 And men have quaint, old-fashioned ways, 
 
 And every town has ballad lore, 
 And every hamlet has its song, 
 And on its surf-beat rocky shore, 
 The eerie legend lingers long."'' 
 
 In that monotonous land he lived a full and 
 happy life, and one charged with varied interest. 
 It would be difficult to find in the north a better 
 example of the typical country parson, such as 
 poets sing about homely, kindly, the man of his 
 people, ever ready to succour and counsel, living 
 among them and for them, and yet ever having 
 an inner life in his study which he nourished 
 with much reading. 
 
 While it would appear there was still enough 
 of the old Presbyterian leaven in him to make 
 him thoroughly loyal to the Government, yet 
 he suffered in common with his Episcopalian 
 brethren after the tragic events of 1745. Many 
 of the people of that persuasion, believing in the 
 divine right of the Stuart dynasty, manifested a 
 
 * " Selections from the Poems of Walter C. Smith," p. 7'2.
 
 236 THE LKJHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 chivalrous devotion to the " Pretender," which 
 makes one of the most romantic episodes in 
 Scottish history. For the sake of an idea, and 
 no doubt also from the feeling that the return of 
 the exiled family would bring their Church once 
 more into the sunshine, they risked their all. 
 Culloden not only dashed their hopes to the 
 ground, but also brought the avenging law on 
 their track, and occasionally the innocent suffered 
 with the guilty, and John Skinner was one of 
 that class. He was no political conspirator : 
 there is no evidence that his people showed any 
 Jacobite leanings in church, such as a traveller 
 reports of a certain Episcopal congregation in 
 the city of Aberdeen after the collapse of the 
 rebellion. The clergyman of the place had taken 
 the oath of allegiance to King George, and when 
 in the act of praying for the reigning monarch, 
 the people assembled, we are told, who had been 
 joining with the utmost devoutness to the pre- 
 scribed prayers up to this point, immediately 
 began to betray their want of assent and consent 
 to the testing but unpopular petitions by taking- 
 out their snuff-boxes, and, with much noise and 
 demonstration, using their contents till once they 
 got past King George ! 
 
 But John Skinner was apprehended on the 
 ground that he had violated the law which was 
 passed with the view of stamping out disloyal 
 Episcopacy, that no clergyman was to minister
 
 JOHN SKIXXKK OF LIXSHAHT. 237 
 
 to more than four persons at a time. It is 
 believed that he owed those attentions which 
 the Government paid him, to the officious zeal 
 of a lady "of some rank" in the district, who so 
 pestered the powers that be that they were com- 
 pelled to enforce what was not intended to be 
 too rigidly carried out. He was sentenced to six 
 months' imprisonment in Old Aberdeen, and he 
 afterwards averred that he never, in his long 
 life, had such an unbroken period of study ! 
 Happily constituted man ; contented, spirited, 
 resourceful, he had the knack of yoking all 
 experiences into his service, and exacting help- 
 ful contribution from the most untoward events. 
 He needed all his staying power in those dis- 
 turbed times. One night, on coming home, he 
 found some of Cumberland's soldiers standing at 
 his door with fixed bayonets, and others plunder- 
 ing indoors. He w r as stripped of all his valuables, 
 and his chapel was burned to the ground by a 
 lawless soldiery. But his cheerful heart and 
 nimble wit soon enabled him to rise above such 
 disasters. 
 
 When without a building in which to conduct 
 worship, and obliged to gather the people into 
 and around his humble thatched cottage, little 
 better than a " but and a ben," an incident 
 occurred that had great effect upon his future 
 pulpit ministrations, and which also shed much 
 light upon the man and the times. One Sabbath
 
 238 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 when Mr. Skinner was about to begin reading 
 his sermon, which in detached leaves was placed 
 upon a temporary desk, a hen which had found 
 its way into one of the apartments began to 
 cackle, and when an attempt was made to chase 
 it outside it became flurried and flew over the 
 papers, scattering them among the people so as 
 to render their recovery to be of use at the 
 moment impossible. As the people were hasten- 
 ing to gather the bits of paper, their minister 
 said, " Never mind them ; a fowl [Scottice, fool] 
 shall never shut my mouth again ; " and ever 
 afterwards he preached extemporaneously, and 
 often for forty minutes. He once said to a 
 friend who expressed surprise at the ease and 
 fluency of his address in the pulpit " Does a 
 man require study and preparation to talk to 
 his own family ? Of the numerous congrega- 
 tion which you saw assembled in chapel to-day 
 I have baptised more than three-fourths. I there- 
 fore consider them as my children, and surely he 
 feels not as a parent who does not address his 
 children without awe or restraint." 
 
 Dr. Walker, in his interesting life of Mr. 
 
 ~ 
 
 Skinner, has put in print many of his sayings, 
 which were for generations current in the 
 district. Unable to dissuade a conceited tailor 
 from abandoning his trade and entering the 
 ministry, the Linshart pastor " chaffed " him by 
 asking if he could measure that angel for a suit
 
 JOHN SKINNER OF LINSHAHT. 280 
 
 of clothes who stood with one foot on the land 
 and one foot on the sea. The tailor was non- 
 plussed, and was told to go home and learn his 
 own business before thinking of another ! A 
 good, honest fanner who was spending an hour 
 with his minister, could not be convinced that 
 the earth moved at all. " The earth," lie main- 
 tained, " never gaes oot o' the pairt, and it maun 
 be that the sun gaes roon, for we ken that it 
 rises in the east, and sets i' the west," and then 
 as a decisive argument he added " If the sun 
 didna gae roon, foo is it said in the Scripture 
 that the Lord commanded the sun to stand 
 still?" "Ay," responded Mr. Skinner, dryly, 
 " it 's very true that the sun was commanded to 
 stand still, and there he stands still, for he never 
 was commanded to take the road again ! " 
 
 With an income that was even less than 
 that of Goldsmith's parson, who is said to have 
 been " passing rich on forty pounds a year," he 
 thought he could meet the increasing demands 
 of a growing family by becoming farmer as well 
 as minister. He leased a farm, but soon found 
 that the proverb is indeed true that the cobbler 
 should stick to his last. There are ministers 
 who make good farmers, but, as a general rule, 
 it is by the minister losing himself in the farmer. 
 The Linshart minister was too devoted to his own 
 
 * "The Life and Times of the Rev. John Skinner, M.A., 
 of Linshart, Longside," by the Rev. William Walker, M.A.
 
 240 TUT: LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 proper work and to the pursuits of literature to 
 be a successful fanner, and, at the end of seven 
 years, he was glad to be liberated from bondage 
 which in every way was having a crippling 
 effect upon him. He resolved, as he said in a 
 poetical effusion on the subject, to 
 
 " Sell corn and cattle off; pay every man ; 
 Get free of debt and duns as fast's I can ; 
 Give up the farm with all its wants, and then 
 Why, take me to the book and pen." 
 
 In his " closet, five feet square," during the rest 
 of his life he had better company than creditors 
 and dealers, as he wrote with the air of a man 
 who was so happy after his release from sore 
 captivity 
 
 " With a few of the Fathers, the oldest and best, 
 And some modern extracts picked out from the rest, 
 With a Bible in Latin and Hebrew and Greek 
 To afford him instruction each day of the week." 
 
 He had the habits of a student, and his life shows 
 how a scholar, living on the pittance that is given 
 to a peasant, can yet succeed in nourishing his 
 mind, and by his utterances in the press direct 
 and entertain his generation. Far from public 
 libraries, and unable to buy many books, he tells 
 us how he kept up his reading : " When visit- 
 ing any neighbour possessed of such a library as 
 country gentlemen might be supposed to have, I 
 took down in writing what I thought worthy of
 
 JOHN' SKINNER OF I.IXSI1AKT. 241 
 
 notice in any book that came in my way, and, 
 collecting the most material of these extracts 
 into a common-place book, I could have recourse 
 to it as often as I found occasion for such a 
 reference. . . . My common-place books 
 through fifty-seven years and the blessing of a 
 most tenacious memory have been my storehouse, 
 and from their contents I have done what once 
 on a day I could never have expected to do." 
 
 Ramsay, in the Ochtertyre papers, gives some 
 interesting reminiscences of the pastor of Lin- 
 shart. In 1795 he writes: 
 
 "Next Sunday I went out to Linshart and at- 
 tended divine service, which was almost as great a 
 treat to me as the English cathedral worship is to a 
 raw Scotsman. I saw what I knew would shortly he 
 seen no more, viz. an old-fashioned Episcopal clergy- 
 man who did not affect to tread in the steps of his 
 English brethren, between whom and the parochial 
 ministers of Scotland before the Revolution there was 
 little similitude. The first thing that struck me was 
 the strongly marked faces of the people, which lie- 
 tokened not only sense and sharpness, but also a 
 serious frame of mind. In point of mode and plain- 
 ness their dress reminded me of that of our country 
 people more than forty years ago, bonnets and party- 
 coloured plaids being frequent. To my great surprise 
 the service began with a psalm taken from the Assem- 
 bly's version, which he said was more intelligible to a 
 country congregation than Tate and Brady's. This, 
 11
 
 242 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 with the precentor's tone and style of singing, made 
 me fancy myself in a Presbyterian church, till the 
 reading of the liturgy dispelled the illusion. . . . 
 The service being finished, the venerable old man gave 
 us a sermon that was pious, rational, and impressive, 
 calculated to edify peasants and philosophers. It owed 
 nothing to the graces of his delivery, which looked 
 liker familiar conversation than a studied discourse 
 delivered in public ; and its length and the want of 
 papers were equally extraordinary in an Episcopal 
 chapel." 
 
 His principal works by which he challenged 
 the attention of the world were a " Preservative 
 against Presbytery," written when the fortunes 
 of Episcopacy were at a low ebb ; a " Dissertation 
 on Jacob's Prophecy " ; an exposition of the Song 
 of Solomon ; and a popular ecclesiastical history 
 of Scotland, dedicated in elegant Latin to his son 
 and bishop. The latter was a contribution to 
 the elucidation of a subject that has since been 
 a favourite one with members of his Church. 
 Tytler, Hill Burton, Skene, Robertson, Cosmo 
 Innes, Grub, and other sons of the Scottish Epis- 
 copal Church have placed the country under deep 
 obligation for their painstaking and scholarly 
 researches into the remote and shadowy past 
 of our people and institutions. 
 
 But what won fame for him above all things 
 were two poetical effusions, the casual offspring 
 of his genius, upon which he never dreamt of
 
 JOHN SKINNER OF LINSHART. 24.'5 
 
 staking his reputation as an author " Tulloch- 
 gorum " and the " Ewie wi' the Crookit Horn." 
 The former was written at the request of a lady 
 for the famous reel, and the other piece was the 
 filling up of what Beattie had sketched out in 
 two or three lines. " Tullochgorum " was said 
 by Burns to be " the best Scotch song Scotland 
 ever saw," and a most interesting correspondence 
 passed between the two poets in consequence of 
 an interview that the Ayrshire bard happened to 
 have while passing through Aberdeen with the 
 son of the Linshart parson, which does credit to 
 them both. 
 
 Skinner was a thorough Scotchman, steeped 
 from his earliest days in Scottish poetry and 
 sentiment (he committed " Christ's Kirk o' the 
 Green " to memory when he was twelve years of 
 age, and turned it into Latin in his old age), 
 with an eye and heart for the lighter as well as 
 the graver sides of life. He was very human ; 
 perhaps some might say that he not only carried 
 the man with him wherever he went, but occa- 
 sionally ran the risk of losing the divine in the 
 man when the convivial spirit was upon him. 
 His broad, kindly sympathy, ready wit, and 
 cheerful heart made him a favourite far and 
 wide among all creeds and classes in the district. 
 It cannot be said that he did anything to abate 
 the Moderatism of the eighteenth century ; but 
 his memory is cherished as that of a strong,
 
 244 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 gifted man, who served his generation with 
 fidelity, and ever showed himself, above all 
 things, to be one who could link himself to any 
 part of a broad, common humanity. 
 
 After being for nearly sixty-five years in 
 Linshart, he, in his extreme old age and frailty, 
 removed to his son's house in Aberdeen, where 
 he lived for only a few days.
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 THE METHODISTS 1747. 
 
 /T\HERE is no Protestant denomination through - 
 } out the English-speaking world that has 
 won so many adherents as Methodism, in its 
 various branches ; but, like the Friends and 
 some of the other smaller religious bodies, its 
 promoters are obliged to own that Scotland has 
 not been a congenial soil for the transplanted 
 system. A Wesleyan writer says " Wesleyan 
 Methodism as an instrument for the conversion 
 of sinners and for the establishment thereby of 
 a Church of Christ has made less progress in 
 Scotland than in any other part of the world in 
 which it has had the opportunity to make known 
 its principles and exercise its power." This is 
 all the more remarkable when it is remembered 
 that VVesleyanism came, not to proselytise, but 
 to convert, not to propagate a particular form of 
 ccclesiasticism, but to take its share in that great 
 pioneering work that should be regarded as 
 common to all the churches, and for the fur- 
 therance of which it is not possible for us to 
 have too many labourers. "Therefore, "said John 
 Wesley at the outset to the agents of this new 
 movement, " spend and be spent in this work : 
 and go always not only to those who want you
 
 246 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 but to those who want you most. Observe, it is 
 not your business to preach so many times, and 
 to take care of this or that society, but to save 
 as many souls as you can : to bring as many 
 sinners as you can to repentance, and with all 
 your power to build them up in that holiness 
 without which they cannot see the Lord/' 
 
 The fact that Scotland was sternly Calvinis- 
 tic in its theology, that its people are severely 
 reticent and constitutionally averse to the free 
 expression of emotion, more especially in con- 
 nection with the sacred subject of religion, and 
 above all, that Presbyterianism is rooted in the 
 patriotic associations and affections of successive 
 generations all that is enough to account for 
 Methodism being treated very much as an exotic. 
 The sense of nationality, strengthened by the pro- 
 longed and embittered struggles which they had 
 long ago to make for its maintenance, tended to 
 lead the Scottish people to look askance at any- 
 thing which had the brand of the other side of 
 the Border, and was different from their own 
 chosen and beloved Presbyterianism. 
 
 But as a contributing force to the religious 
 life of the north in the dreary days of Moderat- 
 ism, and as being successful in rearing indi- 
 viduals who have rendered conspicuous service 
 to the community, Methodism is entitled to a 
 place in this history. 
 
 It is recorded that Dr. Memyss, who came
 
 THE METHODISTS. 247 
 
 from England to reside in Aberdeen, formed a 
 .small society in our city about 1747, and re- 
 quested assistance from Mr. Wesley. Although 
 Edinburgh and Aberdeen are mentioned in the 
 minutes of 1749 as distinct circuits then formed, 
 it was not until about a year and a half after- 
 wards that John Wesley or any of his preachers 
 visited Scotland. It does not appear that any 
 agent from headquarters visited the small society 
 in Aberdeen till Mr. Christopher Hopper came 
 in 1759. During his stay in Aberdeen, which 
 was for nearly two years, he preached on 
 the Castlehill every morning at live o'clock ! 
 The statement may sound incredible, but it can 
 be verified by a reference to an authoritative 
 record of the times. Like many other prophets 
 who brought new light to Aberdeen, he at first 
 got a reception other than cordial. He was 
 stoned, and dead cats were flung at him, as he 
 called upon men to flee from the wrath to come ; 
 but, like all men who prove themselves to be the 
 unselfish promoters of the world's good, ho 
 eventually established himself in the respect and 
 confidence of the community. 
 
 In 1761 Mr. Wesley paid his first visit to 
 Aberdeen, and while here he added forty to the 
 membership of the society, and it then numbered 
 ninety persons. Thereafter Mr. Thomas Olivers 
 was appointed to labour in Edinburgh, Dundee, 
 and Aberdeen, and Mr. Wesley himself visited
 
 248 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 Aberdeen almost every alternate year until 1790, 
 the year before his death. 
 
 There are circumstances connected with Mr. 
 Wesley's first visit to Aberdeen which are of 
 general interest, and on various accounts are 
 worthy of being recorded. That great man, 
 besides being conspicuous for his firm resolution 
 and high purpose, had a fine tact and urbanity, 
 which gained for him the goodwill of those who 
 might otherwise have been hostile. Besides, 
 his world-wide fame made people of all classes 
 anxious to see and hear him. He preached on 
 Sabbath to great crowds in the " College Close," 
 and on taking a walk to King's College on the 
 Monday following, he found a large number of 
 ladies assembled in the hall, with several gentle- 
 men, one of whom said, after some hesitation 
 " We came last night to the College Close, but 
 could not hear, and should be extremely obliged 
 if you would give us a short discourse here." 
 Thereupon Mr. Wesley preached on the words 
 " God was in Christ reconciling the world unto 
 Himself." The professors and ministers showed 
 him marked attention, and he appears to have 
 been as favourably impressed as they were, for 
 he afterwards said " I have scarce seen such a 
 set of ministers in any town of Great Britain or 
 Ireland." 
 
 On the following day he rode over to Mony- 
 musk, where he was the guest of Sir Archibald
 
 THE METHODISTS. 249 
 
 Grant. At six o'clock he went to the Parish 
 Church, " which was nearly filled with such 
 persons as he did not look for so near the High- 
 lands. But if he was surprised at their appear- 
 ance, he was much more so at their singing. 
 Thirty or forty sang an anthem after sermon 
 with such voices as well as judgment that he 
 doubted whether they would have been excelled 
 at any cathedral in England." That was in 
 1761 ! The explanation is that the laird and his 
 lady had taken a close personal interest in the 
 psalmody of their church. 
 
 In May, 1763, Mr. Wesley paid his second 
 visit to Aberdeen, regarding which he thus ex- 
 pressed himself " Surely never was there a 
 more open door. The four ministers of Aberdeen, 
 the minister of the adjoining town, and the three 
 ministers of Old Aberdeen, hitherto seem to have 
 no dislike, but rather to w r ish us ' good luck in 
 the name of the Lord.' Most of the townspeople, 
 as yet, seem to wish us well, so that there is no 
 opposition of any kind. O, what spirit a preacher 
 ought to be of, that he may be able to bear all 
 this sunshine ! " In all the entries in his journal 
 Mr. Wesley speaks well of Aberdeen and the 
 treatment he received from it. Doubtless his 
 standing as a clergyman of the Church of Eng- 
 land and his gentlemanly bearing had something 
 to do with the marked attention that was paid 
 to him in our academic city. That he should
 
 250 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 again and again have preached to large multi- 
 tudes on a week evening, in the " College Close," 
 on simple Gospel themes, with heart-searching 
 application, is proof of the respect in which he 
 was held. It must have been from what he had 
 heard rather than what he had seen that he, 
 after one of his visits to Bon-Accord, said of its 
 people that they were " swift to hear, slow to 
 speak, but not slow to wrath." Mr. Wesley paid, 
 in all, seventeen visits to the town of Aberdeen, 
 and an interesting relic of one of the later occa- 
 sions is an old carved chair on the platform of 
 Crown Terrace Wesley an Church, which he 
 brought with him from Ban ft', but found to be 
 rather cumbrous in his carriage, and he parted 
 with it when he came to this place. 
 
 The little struggling societies dotted over 
 the north, the members of which soug-ht to edify 
 one another with their class meetings and other 
 agencies, and did not forget their duty to the 
 ungodly around them, were blessed with the 
 visits of less celebrated but faithful preachers 
 who were prepared to endure hardness for the 
 Lord's sake. One of them Thomas Rutherford 
 writes of his work thus " Having spent some 
 time in Aberdeen and regulated matters as well 
 as I could, on January 10, 1775, I set out on the 
 northern circuit, which was above a hundred 
 and fifty miles round, through a waste and 
 desolate country and bad roads. My first place
 
 THE METHODISTS. 251 
 
 was Inverurie. Being obliged to go several miles 
 round on account of the ice on the ri\ 7 er, I did 
 not get there till after dark. On the Sabbath 
 afternoon I went to Old Meldrura, where there 
 was a loving and lively society. Tuesday I rode 
 through a dreary country and deep roads to 
 Huntly." In 1784 another preacher says " I 
 returned to labour in the country between Elgin 
 and Aberdeen, where I found everything dis- 
 agreeable to flesh and blood except the kind- 
 ness of the people." 
 
 It is evident that the preachers, who were 
 mostly from England, did not regard the circuits 
 in Scotland as prizes; they were only opportuni- 
 ties for hard discipline and heroic endurance. 
 One writes in 1772 " When I took leave of my 
 friends in those parts (in the north of England) 
 my inexperienced heart was pained, and I felt a 
 degree of reluctance in going to Scotland which 
 made me ashamed of myself. I was grieved to 
 find an unwillingness to go to any place, suppose 
 it had been to the ends of the earth, to preach 
 Jesus Christ, and endeavour to bring lost sinners 
 to Him." That same preacher, in trouble over 
 some obstreperous people in Arbroath, wrote to 
 headquarters, and received the following very 
 shrewd reply : " Do you remember what a cer- 
 tain author (Dr. Cotton Mather) advises ^ He 
 says ' You will meet with unaccountablcs and 
 incurables. Do not too much trouble yourself
 
 252 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 with them, but lay them up in two different 
 heaps, and let them lie ! ' ' He then added " I 
 have often observed when there is a commotion 
 among our people that time will cure what 
 reason cannot." 
 
 There can be no doubt that the rise of the 
 Secession movement, which took such a hold of 
 the country a few years before Methodism had a 
 footing in Scotland, gave less of an opportunity 
 to the latter system, and many of the societies 
 started at first had to be abandoned. In the 
 early part of this century there were societies in 
 Aberdeen, Inverurie, Old Meldrum, Peterhead, 
 Hatton of Fintray, Newburgh, Stonehaven, 
 Fordy, Cothal Mills, and Cove. Of these, the 
 Aberdeen, Peterhead, and Inverurie societies 
 alone remain. But the others did not exist in 
 vain. They were temporary evangelistic stations, 
 the fruit of which remains unto this day. They 
 contributed an element of fervour to the pulpit 
 of the north. A Presbyterian baillie in Inverurie 
 was accustomed to say " I like to hear the 
 Methodists ; they harrow me up, man they 
 harrow me up." 
 
 Mere numbers are no criterion of the worth 
 and work of a religious body. There must have 
 been some element of power in the Methodists of 
 Aberdeen before Thomas Rutherford could write 
 of them as he did in 1775 " I took leave of the 
 society there, witli difficulty tearing myself away
 
 THE METHODISTS. '2~)l\ 
 
 from the affectionate people, who with their love 
 and tears, were ready to break my heart." The 
 Methodists of the north can show a fair propor- 
 tion of picked men, whom they have trained and 
 to a large extent made what they are. The little 
 society in Inverurie has given two Provosts to 
 the town, and others noted for their public spirit 
 and usefulness. One of the baillies carried the 
 phraseology of the Methodist chapel with him to 
 the bench, and was accustomed to put his ques- 
 tion to the accused " Well, how say you to that, 
 brother ? Are you guilty or not guilty ? " 
 
 The Aberdeen Society held its first meeting 
 in Barnett's Close (leading from the Guestrow to 
 Flour Mill Brae) ; then in a house on the north 
 side of Queen Street, and thereafter in Lodge 
 Walk. In 1761 the Society acquired a piece of 
 ground near the north-east end of Queen Street, 
 and upon it erected an octagonal chapel, the 
 form of building preferred by Mr. Wesley. In 
 1818 Longacre Chapel, which was then the 
 bishop's, and known as St. Andrew's Episcopal 
 Chapel, was purchased, the deed providing that 
 the building was not to be called St. Andrew's, 
 which name was retained by the Episcopalians 
 for their new place of worship in King Street. 
 In 1873 the present chapel in Crown Terrace 
 was erected. 
 
 It may almost appear from the different re- 
 ligious sects which in the course of years came
 
 254 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 into existence as if the Church of modern times 
 in this land were only so many detached frag- 
 ments. The reproach is brought against the 
 Protestant Church that it is a thing of sections, 
 that it lacks the unity which existed in the 
 Church previous to the Reformation. But it 
 would not be difficult to prove that much of the 
 boasted unity is shallow and mechanical, and 
 that all the principal divisions which we now see 
 in the Protestant Church existed in the Roman 
 Church in germinal if not in matured and 
 definite form. Were Jansenist and Jesuit not as 
 different from each other as Calvinist and 
 Arminian ? Could fervid High Churchman and 
 semi-rationalistic Broad Churchman be further 
 apart than were Bernard and Abelard ? If we 
 have our Quakers, were there not inside as well as 
 outside the Church in ancient days the Quietists 
 and Mystics ? Did not also the preaching friars 
 answer to our brethren the Methodists ? More- 
 over, there may be deeper spiritual unity, though 
 perhaps we are only now beginning to recognise 
 it, pervading all those Protestant religious bodies 
 with their different administrations and distinc- 
 tive tenets than what existed in the huw 
 
 O 
 
 iron-bound hierarchical system which was so 
 shaken three centuries aero.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 GEOROE COWIE OF HUXTLY 1749-1806. 
 
 jQOWLAND HILL, when travelling in the 
 j north of Scotland, wrote thus in his jour- 
 nal :_ Wednesday, July 3rd, 1799. Travelled 
 through a dreary country till we came to Grey- 
 stone (in Culsalmond). Here I met with one 
 whose character I had before known by report. 
 As soon as I conversed with him he stole into 
 my heart. Shall I tell his name '( Shall I 
 mention his denomination ? George Cowie, the 
 Anti-Burgher minister of Huntly." In another 
 part of the journal he says : " Cowie and his 
 elders are men to be wondered at." There is no 
 exaggeration in such praise. Xo name stands 
 higher in the Strathbogie district than that of 
 George Cowie. There is much in the memories 
 of the people besides what is recorded on his 
 tombstone in the churchyard of Dumbennan to 
 preserve his remarkable career from oblivion. 
 He was an Aberdeenshire Great -Heart, well 
 called the " Whitefield of the North." 
 
 Such a man was needed in Strathbogie, for it 
 proved itself for generations to be one of the 
 most stubborn districts of the north, and ill- 
 affected to Gospel truth. In 1650 the verdict of
 
 256 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH, 
 
 the Synod of Moray respecting Ivinnoir and 
 Dumbennan was that " Tlic Gospel had never 
 been in power in these congregations. They 
 are nurseries of gross idolatry, heresy, and 
 superstition." In 1745 the official record of 
 the Presbytery of Strathbogie is " Kinnoir and 
 Dumbennan are distinguished above all others 
 for malignancy and fomenters of our troubles." 
 
 George Cowie was born in the parish of 
 Ordiquhill, near Banff, in 1749. Sent to the 
 Grammar School at the age of seven, he was a 
 successful competitor for a bursary at Marischal 
 College when not more than twelve. Appointed 
 schoolmaster of Rothiemay when he was sixteen, 
 brought that same year under deep conviction of 
 sin and guided to Gospel light and peace by the 
 ministry of the Anti-Burghers, with whom he 
 became united, and in consequence was ejected 
 from his school in the Establishment when he 
 was seventeen such is an epitome of the early 
 life of George Cowie. He was persuaded to 
 become a student of divinity in the theological 
 seminary of the Church to which he had 
 attached himself. In the year 1769, when he 
 was only twenty years of age, he was sent from 
 it to labour in Huntly, where a few praying 
 people were banded together and had made 
 request for a preacher. 
 
 Preachers were scarce in those days, and the 
 little " praying societies " throughout the north
 
 GEORGE COWIE OF HUNTLY. 257 
 
 were eager to have the services of men. whose 
 
 o 
 
 preaching somewhat resembled in simplicity and 
 warmth of earnestness, what they were accus- 
 tomed to lind in the Acts of the Apostles and the 
 Epistles of the New Testament, which were their 
 daily study ; so he had to labour in Grange, 
 Keith, and Cabrach, with Huntly as a centre. 
 A small company had been gathered at the 
 Cabrach eight years before, which was greatly 
 augmented by his ministrations. The congrega- 
 tions at Keith and Grange appear to have been 
 due almost entirely to his labours. At a some- 
 what later period a cause was established by him 
 in Culsalmond. He had thus the superintend- 
 ence of five congregations for several years. It 
 does not surprise us that he died before he had 
 reached the close of his sixth decade ! When he 
 preached in Huntly, many came to the central 
 church from each of those places, and returned 
 to their homes before the Sabbath day was done. 
 It was his practice in the early days of his 
 ministry, as he himself described it, to take his 
 staff in hand, bread and cheese in his pocket, and 
 when he was weary to sit down and eat his 
 frugal fare, drink of the bubbling spring or " of 
 the brook that runneth by the way," and thus 
 refreshed resume his journey. Often did he 
 arrive at his destination much fatigued, but 
 greatly cheered and revived by finding large 
 numbers eairev to hear the Word. So abundant
 
 258 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 were his labours, and so blessed of God, that 
 each of those congregations became strong 
 enough to support a minister of its own. 
 
 But it was in the town of Huntly that the 
 deepest imprint was made by Mr. Cowie's un- 
 daunted faithfulness and consuming earnestness. 
 He, as a spiritual husbandman, found the district 
 to be virgin soil, and largely overgrown with 
 weeds and thorns. When he came it was the 
 practice of the lads of the town to play at 
 shinty in the Castle grounds on Sabbath when 
 the " kirk scaled." Grieved and burdened, he 
 went amongst them, and, as the result of per- 
 sistent pleading and praying, he at last succeeded 
 in inducing them to abandon such desecration of 
 th<- Lord's day. 
 
 .But lie had a stift'and, at first, almost single- 
 handed battle to fight. Unaccustomed to such 
 an outspoken and fervid preacher of righteous- 
 ness, some of the inhabitants of Huntly were 
 disposed to resent his presence amongst them as 
 an intrusion. The baser sort lay in wait at the 
 street corners on the dark evenings and pelted 
 him with rotten eggs as he passed by. It is 
 related that on one occasion when he was preach- 
 ing, the service was interrupted, and the con- 
 gregation thrown into excitement, in the follow- 
 ing manner. Before a place of worship was built 
 for him, he preached in a house in the " Old 
 Road." then called the "High Street ;" it was open
 
 GEORGE COWIE OF HUXTLY. 259 
 
 from end to end, and with the rafters visible. 
 Certain garden vegetables belonging to the 
 owner were tied two and two together, thrown 
 over the cross beams, and left there till needed. 
 Some young men of loose character, instigated, 
 it is said, by older persons, got up one night on 
 the rafters and commenced pelting both minister 
 and people with the onions. The confusion and 
 uproar in the crowded house caused by such 
 extraordinary behaviour can well be imagined. 
 But Mr. Cowie was determined not to be put 
 down by such sons of Belial. The tide of popular 
 feeling in the town was at the turning, and his 
 righteous boldness converted what might have 
 been an ebb into a flow. He faced the fellows, 
 to whom, though preacher, he had to look up, 
 and told them he would preach though they 
 might be devils in human shape. They were 
 overawed and silenced, and for the rest of the 
 evening sat still in their uncomfortable position, 
 glad, doubtless, for various reasons, when the 
 service was brought to a close. 
 
 It was Mr. Cowie's hard fate not only to have 
 to tight with practical heathenism in the world, 
 but also with bigotry in the Church. He was a 
 man before his time, and had far larger ideas 
 
 o 
 
 than most of his brethren. The spiritual 
 intensity and Puritanical strictness of the Anti- 
 Burghers drew him to them ; but their narrow- 
 ness and intolerance repelled him. He did not
 
 260 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 hesitate freely to express his approbation of the 
 preaching of Whitefield and of the revival at 
 Cambuslang; his disapprobation, also, of the 
 separation of the Burghers and Anti-Burghers, 
 which independence and frankness led to his 
 ordination being delayed. When the feeling 
 was abroad in the land among God's people 
 that the obligation was laid upon them to do 
 something in execution of the Master's com- 
 mission to go and preach the Gospel to every 
 creature, Mr. Cowie and his people proceeded to 
 take practical action, and on 10th March, 1790, a 
 local missionary society was formed. Within a 
 year of that date, Mr. Cowic succeeded in collect- 
 ing in the Huntly and neighbouring congrega- 
 tions no less a sum than one hundred pounds, 
 which was sent to the London Missionary 
 Society, and many more precious gifts came in 
 due course men who offered themselves to the 
 service and distinguished themselves in it. 
 Shortly after that, one of the earliest, if not 
 the first, Sabbath school in the north was estab- 
 lished in connection with Mr. Cowie's church ; 
 and far and wide such schools were planted, 
 which did their work so well that in many of 
 the places where the good seed was sown for 
 years there are now thriving Christian congrega- 
 tions, mostly belonging to the Free Church. 
 
 Mr. Cowie was bursting one after another of 
 the swaddling bands of his sectarian connection.
 
 GEORGE COWIE OF HUXTLY. 261 
 
 When James Haldane, along with Messrs. Aik- 
 man and Rate, visited Huntly in October, 1797, 
 Mr. Cowie and his elders gave him the use of 
 their chapel. Unable to go against what he 
 believed to be a work of God, and yet not willing 
 to give unnecessary offence to the Anti-Burghers, 
 who forbade their ministers from identifying 
 themselves with such "irregular" services, he 
 in the morning sat at the open window of the 
 manse, which was close by the place of meeting, 
 and heard all that was said. He was so de- 
 lighted with the preaching of James Haldane, 
 and so abundantly satisfied now that the work 
 of the " Missionars " was of God, that in the 
 evening he could not restrain himself from 
 throwing prudential scruples to the winds and 
 going boldly into the chapel when the hour for 
 the evening meeting came round. That act 
 sealed his ecclesiastical fate. 
 
 Mr. Cowie and his session were summoned 
 before the Presbytery for their alleged irregu- 
 larities, and eventually their case came before 
 the Synod in Edinburgh, which ' agreed unani- 
 mously in declaring that, as lay preaching has 
 no warrant in the Word of God, and as the 
 Synod has always considered it a duty to tes- 
 tify against promiscuous communion, no person 
 under the inspection of the Synod can con- 
 sistently with their principles attend upon or 
 give countenance to public preaching by any
 
 2(32 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 who are not of our communion ; and if any do 
 so, they ought to be dealt with by the judi- 
 catories of the Church, to bring them to a sense 
 of their offensive conduct." He and his session 
 were thereafter deposed, and public intimation 
 was made of the same by the minister of Clola 
 on 18th May, 1800. 
 
 On that same day Mr. Cowie preached on the 
 words " If God be for us, who can be against 
 us ? ' : Valiant, heaven-enthralled, clear-sighted, 
 because large-hearted, Cowie ! he is worthy to 
 take his place among the Confessors of old, who 
 are contined to no age or clime, but have this as 
 their distinction that the Creator is more to 
 them than the creature. His refusal to submit 
 to men who objected to Sabbath schools and 
 missions and lay preaching gave an immense 
 impetus to his usefulness. All his people clave 
 to him with the exception of four or five, and 
 many came to him from other parts who dis- 
 approved of the high-handed proceedings of the 
 Synod. 
 
 Mr. Cowie's congregation gradually, but 
 slowly, came to be recognised as one of the 
 newly-formed Independent Churches, though in 
 every other respect except its independency it 
 remained exactly the same during his lifetime 
 as it was before. He was one of those men 
 who make things denominational a mere plat- 
 form on which to stand while doinii' God's work.
 
 GEORGE COWIE OF HUXTLY. 2(i3 
 
 If the platform should give way, or become too 
 narrow for the larger ideas which had entered 
 his heart, he was ready to leave it for another, 
 as he could never bear to sacrifice the end for 
 the sake of the means. The Church must be 
 true to its essential principles and dominant 
 objects, whatever comes of the iron bands of a 
 cramped ecclesiasticism. 
 
 He died in 1800. He passed away when he 
 was only fifty-seven years of age, as his her- 
 culean labours were enough to break down 
 prematurely the strongest constitution. But the 
 cause he built up remained. 
 
 Mr. Cowie trained his people not only to 
 hear, but to serve; not only to receive, but to 
 give. His was a congregation of workers. Not 
 content with getting their own portion in the 
 house of God, they went from it singly or in 
 little bands to the various schools and stations 
 to break the bread of life. A person still alive 
 writes of Cowie's men : " Since I came to 
 Huntly an old man died who for thirty-five 
 years travelled, summer and winter, seven miles 
 every Sabbath day to the braes of Gartly to 
 teach a Sabbath school." He adds : " The sight 
 of that old cobbler plodding along, wet day and 
 dry day, year after year, to his Master's work 
 was a glorious object lesson."
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE INDEPENDENTS 1797. 
 
 ^COTTISH Independency is not the extension 
 ^ of an ecclesiastical system that had its origin 
 in England, into the land which since the Refor- 
 mation has been almost exclusively occupied by 
 Presbyterianism. It was not imported ; it sprang 
 from forces operating within our own borders. 
 While that particular form of Church polity is 
 substantially the same as, if not identical with, 
 the Independency of Owen, Cromwell and 
 Milton, yet it cannot claim to be a direct ortshoot 
 from that body, "which took such a prominent 
 part in a brilliant period of English history, and 
 has, by its renowned names and splendid achieve- 
 ments, shed unfading lustre upon Independency 
 wherever it is known. 
 
 Scottish Independency, like most things that 
 take root among the sturdy people who inhabit 
 this part of the isle, is indigenous, or, rather, one 
 of the incidents of a general religious movement 
 at the close of the eighteenth century, which can 
 be so described. It is scarcely conceivable that 
 it could have been otherwise. The Scots have 
 i.'vor respected and jealously guarded the idea of 
 nationality, and in former days, more than now.
 
 THE INDEPENDENTS. 265 
 
 were disposed to look askance at any ecclesiastical 
 importation that came from England, which was 
 always willing to cast its shadow upon its smaller 
 neighbour. The desperate conflicts which Scot- 
 land had to wage for centuries with England 
 had so driven and burned the passionate longing 
 into the hearts of the people for the mainten- 
 ance of nationality, which expressed itself in the 
 whole environment of life, that no polity or 
 Church which had a foreign aspect had a chance 
 of gaining a footing a hundred years ago. There 
 was a keen, almost morbid and ludicrous sensi- 
 tiveness with regard to intrusion or meddlesome- 
 ness of any kind, especially from the South. 
 Every institution had to be as distinctive and as 
 much their own in Caledonia as the thistle and 
 the heather. The imprint of the genius, or at 
 least the seal of the approval of Scotland, was 
 necessary as a passport to favour. Presbyterian- 
 ism was that which was taken three centuries 
 ago as a substitute for the Popery that was 
 rejected, and the people who, in the days of 
 Queen Mary, took, and ever since have more or 
 less kept, their affairs in their own hands with 
 characteristic tenacity and fervour, clung to the 
 Church system of John Knox, which was the 
 child and companion of their emancipation from 
 priestly thraldom. Other Churches might be 
 good enough for other countries, but they as a 
 nation had made their choice, and they resented
 
 206 THE LHHITS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 the invasion of competing sects. What hindered 
 the progress of Episcopacy in our land as much, 
 perhaps, as anything else, was the fact that it 
 was established in England, and now and again 
 ruthlessly but impotently thrust upon Scotland, 
 and within the memory of many, if not up to the 
 present day in rural parts, every church of that 
 persuasion was called the " English chapel." 
 
 By what vital and assimilative process, then, 
 did Independency become one of the factors in 
 the religious life of this part of Great Britain ? 
 As an incidental, almost accidental, product of a 
 period of quickened religious life. No restless 
 sectary said " Go to, let us rear a new denomina- 
 tion " ; no student of ecclesiastical history, struck 
 with the supposed superiority of this mode of 
 Church life as expounded in books or exemplified 
 with such intellectual and moral grandeur by 
 the Puritans of England, brought it here as a 
 zealous propagandist. It came unlocked for 
 when the minds of those who became identified 
 with it were bent upon the possession of what 
 was of far greater importance. 
 
 There were, indeed, straggling Independents 
 "Brownists" from the time of the Common- 
 wealth, before what is now known as Scottish 
 Independency began its course. One Ferrendale 
 came to Aberdeen in 1642 who was accused of 
 " Brownism." Local records tell us that he was 
 " trapped " holding a " nocturnal meeting," 'I.e.,
 
 THE INDEPENDENTS. 207 
 
 an evening meeting for Christian fellowship and 
 prayer, and put in jail. Spalding says that in 
 the Provincial Assembly at Aberdeen in 1642 
 there was " great business about Brownism, 
 lately crept into Aberdeen and other parts." 
 Farther on, John Glass, minister of the parish 
 of Tealing, near Dundee, was, in 1730, deposed 
 by the General Assembly of the Church of 
 Scotland in consequence of views which he had 
 adopted and published concerning the nature of 
 the Kingdom and Church of Christ, his personal 
 worth being acknowledged by his most strenu- 
 ous opponents. He and his followers, including 
 Robert Sandeman, who has by his name almost 
 eclipsed his master, were known as Independents 
 but they soon became a vanishing quantity. 
 
 What, however, is known as Scottish Inde- 
 pendency, which has been about a hundred years 
 in the country, is the outcome of a revival of 
 religion associated notably with the names of 
 Robert and James Haldane, regarding whom Dr. 
 Charteris, Professor of Biblical Criticism in the 
 University of Edinburgh, thus writes : " Men of 
 zeal, fortitude, and faith, they did more to bring 
 Scotland into living sympathy with missions in 
 heathendom, and with the reviving faith in the 
 Churches of the Reformation, than any Court of 
 any Church in the beginning of this century.'' 
 
 Robert and James Haldane, born respectively 
 in 17()4 and 1768, were members of an old
 
 268 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 Scottish family which belonged to Perthshire. 
 In education, tastes, and surroundings, they were 
 in their early days about as far removed from 
 what they afterwards became as it was possible 
 for them to be. They had high birth, a wide, 
 aristocratic connection, ample means, and all that 
 the world can bestow upon those who are con- 
 sidered to be the darlings of fortune. Nothing 
 could have more surprised them when they 
 were men of the world and spirited officers of 
 His Majesty's navy than to be told that they 
 would yet rind their vocation and glory in street 
 preaching and tract distribution and as founders 
 of Congregational and Baptist Churches. 
 
 Brought under the power of New Testa- 
 ment truth, they consecrated themselves and 
 their substance to their Divine Master. There 
 are few things in the history of our land nobler 
 than the story of Robert Haldane selling the 
 romantically-situated estate of Airthrey, near 
 Stirling, that the 70,000 thus liberated might 
 be used for the support of evangelists, the 
 erection of chapels, and the distribution of 
 religious books. There is much that is pictur- 
 esque in the scenery of Airthrey, but there 
 is not anything so lovely in its rocky cliffs 
 and grassy lawns and charming stretch of 
 water as the spirit of the man who was con- 
 strained to turn his back upon it all for the sake 
 of Christ and his fellow-countrymen. Few
 
 THE INDEPENDENTS. 269 
 
 spots upon earth have associations that, to the 
 thoughtful mind, bring heaven nearer. In the 
 neighbouring castle of Stirling, where the Stuart 
 sovereigns lived, we have the splendour of royalty 
 in the memories which cluster around its weather- 
 worn walls; in the field of Bannockburn, not 
 many miles away, we have suggested to the 
 mind the splendour of patriotism ; but in Air- 
 threy the man who has an eye for the finer 
 things of life cannot think of what was re- 
 nounced a hundred years ago without being 
 impressed with the exceeding splendour of ex- 
 perimental Christianity. 
 
 " Christianity," said Robert Haldane, " is 
 everything or nothing. If it be true it war- 
 rants and commands every sacrifice to promote 
 its influence." Hindered by the East India 
 Company from carrying out his first intention 
 after conversion, which was to go with a large 
 company as a Christian herald to India, he 
 turned his attention to the spiritual needs of 
 his native land, and made it the scene of his 
 life-long labours. 
 
 The plan of operations adopted was to secure 
 the co-operation of persons like-minded with 
 themselves, Robert Haldane backing up with 
 pecuniary assistance all pioneering efforts for 
 the spiritual awakening of the people. James 
 Haldane, who was the better speaker of the two, 
 would set out in a carriage or on horseback,
 
 270 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 having John Campbell or some other friend of 
 kindred spirit with him, and always in addi- 
 tion an abundant supply of tracts. When they 
 reached a town the drummer or bellman was sent 
 round announcing a religious meeting. One or 
 both of them would speak at the Market Cross, 
 the churchyard, or some other place of concourse; 
 tracts were distributed, and an exhortation given 
 to the persons assembled to cleave unto God. 
 James Haldane was young and handsome, of 
 commanding presence and powerful voice, and 
 the fact that he had the bearing of a gentleman 
 dressed according to the fashion of the time, with 
 his powdered hair tied behind, and had been a 
 captain in His Majesty's Navy, gave a piquancy 
 to his street preaching. He was opposed, scoffed 
 at, persecuted, especially by those of his own 
 station, but this sailor-missionary had acquired 
 the power of weathering storms of various kinds. 
 Here is the account that Mr. J. Haldane gives of 
 his first appearance in Aberdeen in the summer 
 of 1797: 
 
 ' intending to preach out of-doors on the Lord's 
 I )ay evening, 1 was told that the College Close would 
 be an excellent place. So the to\vii drummer was 
 sent found to give notice. On Sunday morning, 
 before breakfast, I received a message from one of 
 the Magistrates, who was also a professor, that he 
 wished to see me. On presenting myself, he inquired 
 how I came to intimate preaching in a place which
 
 THE INDEPENDENTS. 271 
 
 was not public. I replied that I had been informed 
 that there would be no objection in any quarter. 
 ' Who told you so 1 ' I replied that I was told it or 
 believed it, but would not say by whom [rumour said 
 it was Dr. Kidd]. He pressed the matter very much, 
 but saw I was firm. I had been so told by one highly 
 respectable, who spoke in good faith, but whom I 
 would not implicate. But I said, ' Since it appears 
 that I was misinformed, I have no wish to persist, 
 and I would preach elsewhere.' ' Xo, ' said the 
 Baillie, ' that will be worse ; it will occasion a riot, 
 and our windows will be broken.' ' Then,' said I, 
 'as you wish it, I will preach,' and accordingly I did 
 so, to a very great congregation." 
 
 The Haldanes and their coadjutors had no 
 thought of setting up a new denomination in 
 Scotland. Their one absorbing desire was the 
 dissemination of Scriptural truth that their 
 fellow-countrymen might become alive unto God. 
 They were no more ecclesiastics than John 
 Wesley and his brother Charles when they began 
 their Gospel work in England sixty years before. 
 Their desire at first was to remain in the 
 Established Church if the needful conditions for 
 carrying on their converting work were nut 
 withheld. They felt they were called to a 
 mission of awakening and nothing on earth 
 was to be allowed to stand in the way of its 
 execution by the use of open-air preaching, 
 tract distribution, Sabbath schools, and other
 
 272 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 ao-encies which were deemed to be suitable 
 
 " 
 
 points of contact between the truth of God and 
 the need of man. And all the reliable records of 
 the period bear witness to the fact that the need 
 was great. 
 
 The Church of Scotland, however, did not 
 appreciate the help they were receiving from the 
 Haldanes, accompanied by Rowland Hill and 
 others, as the following testifies : 
 
 "On the 28th May, 1799, an overture was pre- 
 sented from the Synod of Aberdeen and that of 
 Angus and Mearns respecting vagrant teachers and 
 Sunday schools, irreligion, and anarchy. The As- 
 sembly unanimously agreed to the overtures, and 
 prohibited all persons from preaching in any place 
 under their jurisdiction who were not licensed as 
 above ; and also those who are from England or any 
 other place, and who have not been educated and 
 licensed in Scotland and resolved that a pastoral 
 admonition be addressed by the Assembly to all the 
 people under their charge." 
 
 As is always the case, ecclesiastical repression 
 of that sort only farmed the flame instead of 
 extinguishing it. The Word of God was sounded 
 abroad, and had much effect in spite of the ban 
 which the Moderates of the day had put upon its 
 " vagrant " agents. 
 
 Congregationalism, with its simplicity and 
 freedom, seemed to the Haldanes and those
 
 THE INDEPENDENTS. 278 
 
 associated with them to consort with their prac- 
 tical aims and with the example of the primitive 
 Church which they accepted as a model ; but 
 in planting Churches of that order throughout 
 Scotland the Haldanes, Ewing, Aikman, and 
 others who were banded with them, did not 
 consider so much where the conditions of a 
 thriving ecclesiastical interest would be found 
 as where the spiritual need was most pressing. 
 That accounts for Aberdeenshire having a larger 
 number of Congregational Churches than any 
 other rural district in Scotland. But, as illus- 
 trating the sturdy individuality of the folk of 
 our county, from the very beginning they 
 differed from the Independents of other parts 
 of the land (having come to some extent under 
 the influence of English Congregationalism) in 
 some of their usages, as, for example, their 
 preference for monthly Communion, instead of 
 weekly which the Haldanes favoured. 
 
 The parent church of the north was George 
 Street ("the Loch Kirk r> ) no\v known as Belmont 
 Street, whose ministers Dr. Philip, Alexander 
 Thomson, and David Arthur are remembered 
 with respect in Aberdeen. 
 
 The new development of religious life in 
 our city identified with Congregationalism was 
 directly due to local instrumentality. A few 
 good men, having George Moir, a hosier, and 
 Alexander Innes, a dyer, as leaders, met together 
 T
 
 '274 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 privately for prayer and spiritual edification. 
 Eventually, under the direction of Dr. Bogue, of 
 Gosport, on 15th September, 1797, they formed 
 themselves into a church. Nine persons were 
 thus banded together, and they drew out a 
 most excellent statement of the principles they 
 adhered to. each one affixing his signature to the 
 same. Their first place of worship was opened 
 by Dr. Bennet, of London, on the 2nd September, 
 1798. The members were full of missionary fer- 
 vour, and had preaching stations in and around 
 Aberdeen, the little church at Blackhills, now 
 called Westhills, being part of the fruit of that 
 period of abounding evangelistic zeal. Shortly 
 after, churches sprung up in Inverurie and other 
 parts of the county, in connection with which 
 
 */ 7 
 
 faithful men laboured not only as pastors, but as 
 itinerating evangelists. The} 7 preached often 
 during the week as well as on Sabbath, taught 
 schools and classes, and instituted libraries and 
 centres for the distribution of religious tracts. 
 Among the Independents in this part of the 
 country who, in addition to those already named, 
 have attained to eminence, mention must be 
 made of Joseph Morrison, of Millseat, and John 
 Murker, of Banff. There are now, including 
 the two Evangelical Union congregations, seven 
 clmrehes of the Independent polity in Aberdeen. 
 The Baptists, who are Independents, but 
 have as their distinctive denominational basis a
 
 THE INDEPENDENTS. 275 
 
 difference of belief as to the proper subjects and 
 mode of baptism, came to have a footing in this 
 part early in the present century. In 1803, five 
 persons who held Baptist principles met together 
 privately for fellowship: in 1809 the celebrated 
 Andrew Fuller and Dr. Stuart, of Edinburgh, 
 visited Aberdeen and advised the brethren to 
 constitute themselves into a Church, which they 
 did in the following year that being the be- 
 ginning of what was afterwards called " Silver 
 Street Church." 
 
 In 1821 John Gilmore, who had just finished 
 his studies, came to Aberdeen, and after preach- 
 ing in St. George's Lodge with great fervour and 
 practical effect, gathered together a number of 
 worthy persons who formed themselves into 
 another Baptist congregation, now known as 
 Crown Terrace Church. There are now four 
 Baptist congregations in Aberdeen. 
 
 Some of the most eminent citizens of Aber- 
 deen have been connected with this body, such 
 as M' Allan, M'Combie (of the Free Press), Mac- 
 donald, Stewart of Banchory, and the revered 
 Dr. Anderson, of the Gymnasium.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 DR. KIDD 1793-1834.* 
 
 . MASSON, a native of Aberdeen, in one 
 of a series of articles which he wrote in 
 the early numbers of Macinilldns Magazine, of 
 which he was then editor, on " Dead Men Whom 
 I Have Known," delivers a remarkable testimony 
 regal-ding the effect of Dr. Kidd's presence and 
 labours in furthering the cause of Evangelicalism 
 in our city. Pie says " Ere long the taste for 
 his style of preaching spread beyond his own 
 congregation, till the whole city became in the 
 main Evangelical in its notions of doctrine, and 
 the other pulpits in it were filled with men 
 supplying similar doctrine after their various 
 native fashion, and only in the country round 
 did Moderatism still prevail, though even there 
 largely modified. All this was not owing to 
 Kidd, for the Zcit-geist was at work, but much 
 of it was owing to him. He was a flame at 
 which many lit their candles." 
 
 There can be no doubt that in the early part 
 of this century Dr. Kidd was one of the great 
 
 * These dates indicate the duration of Dr. Kidd's ministry 
 in Aberdeen.
 
 DR. KIDD. 277 
 
 popular and shaping religious forces of this city. 
 It does not lie within the scope of our present 
 purpose to attempt even an outline of the life of 
 this remarkable man, and that is rendered all the 
 more unnecessary as his character and romantic 
 career are depicted with minuteness in the volume 
 that was published in Aberdeen two or three 
 years ago, and to which we are indebted for all 
 that is here given.* 
 
 An Irishman, a " self-made man, " educated in 
 Ireland, the United States. Edinburgh, and Aber- 
 deen, Professor of Hebrew in Marischal College, 
 
 O ' 
 
 and minister of Gilcomston Chapel of Ease, by 
 the sheer force of personality and unflinching 
 fidelity to God's truth, Dr. Kidd did more than 
 all other men in the city combined, to prepare 
 for the spiritual and ecclesiastical developments 
 which took place after his death. This gallery of 
 portraits would be incomplete without a chapter 
 on him. Let us therefore keep company with 
 him for a single Sabbath morning in Gilcomston 
 Chapel that we may discover if possible the 
 secret of his power. 
 
 Gilcomston Chapel, which was then in what 
 was a suburb of Aberdeen, was a large, square- 
 built, plain building, with galleries on both sides, 
 the pulpit at one end, and a gallery at the other, 
 with a " cock loft " above it to accommodate the 
 increasing congregation attracted by Dr. Kidd's 
 
 *"i)r. Kidd of Aberdeen,"' ISO 1 .'.
 
 278 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 powerful preaching. The exterior was more 
 than severely simple ; it was bald and barn-like. 
 The interior made no pretension to elegance of 
 any kind ; the only thing visible which hard, 
 matter-of-fact utility did not demand, was the 
 model of a ship hung in front of the end gallery, 
 a symbol of the consequence of the seafaring 
 calling to the population of that period, that was 
 to be seen also in some of the other places of 
 worship in the city. 
 
 There being no vestry attached to the chapel, 
 the Doctor, as was his wont, made a virtue of a 
 necessity, and, walking from his house attired 
 for his ministerial duty half an hour or so before 
 worship began, made the pulpit his waiting- 
 place. There he sat primed and ready like a 
 man who was longing for the opportunity in 
 which he gloried as a preacher of Christ's ever- 
 lasting gospel. He had been engaged in work 
 already in the early part of the Sabbath, which 
 only whetted his appetite for more. Besides 
 meditating and praying from an early hour in 
 his study, he had opened a class and addressed 
 one or two of his Sabbath schools, and so it had 
 been proved beyond doubt that the pump was 
 not " off the fancr." 
 
 O 
 
 As the Doctor sat there on his lofty pedestal 
 surveying the assembling multitude, he, with 
 his observant eye and wonderful faculty of 
 recognising individuals, was able to keep up
 
 DR. K1DD. 270 
 
 acquaintance with his members ami their fami- 
 lies. The faces of most oi' those before him 
 indicated the grave purpose and alertness of 
 persons who had come to do business and to 
 get something. They had not the dull, sleepy 
 air, not unknown in parish churches of the time, 
 of churchgoers who were merely conforming to 
 decent custom, and meritoriously assisting at a 
 formal celebration. No doubt they were a mixed 
 multitude, with not a few black sheep amongst 
 them ; but, taking them as a whole, they were a 
 douce, earnest -minded, hard-headed people, the 
 progenitors of a great deal of the robust Evan- 
 gelicalism of the town. 
 
 o 
 
 On his yearly Communion Sabbath in July 
 the immense congregation must have presented 
 an imposing spectacle. People came then from 
 other congregations in town and country in 
 large numbers, and the place was packed with 
 human beings, man)' of whose faces revealed 
 that their spirits were touched with the exalta- 
 tion and solemnity of the occasion. Xo wonder 
 the Doctor, when standing up in the pulpit to 
 begin the service, and looking out upon thi^ 
 vast sea of faces, should have been constrained 
 to remark, as he once did "This is a day for 
 a death-bed ! " 
 
 The scene was not without its touches of 
 picturesqueness and human interest, even to the 
 ordinary observer who laid no claim to intense
 
 I>80 THE LIGHTS 'OF THE NORTH. 
 
 spiritual sympathy. The Communion Sabbath 
 was the great day of the year for putting on 
 one's finest and newest clothes. It is a true 
 instinct which prompts one to put on " his best " 
 when appearing before God in His public sanctu- 
 ary. So on that day the young women had on 
 li<rht dresses and the men "drill" trousers. With 
 
 ~ 
 
 a profusion of white "mutches" and a sprinkling 
 of red-coloured cloaks among the elderly dames, 
 there must have been something to please the 
 eye even of those who were not " on the mount," 
 and saw nothing that lay beyond the outward 
 and earthly aspect of the scene. 
 
 As the people were taking their places in 
 the pews under the Doctor's eye, occasionally 
 little incidents occurred which told their own 
 tale of human vanity and selfishness, and re- 
 vealed the fact that Gilcomston Chapel had 
 not yet fulfilled its task in seeking to bring 
 Aberdeen men and women to perfection. One 
 day, as will happen sometimes even yet in the 
 House of God, strangers who wanted to go into 
 a certain pew where there was abundance of 
 room, met w r ith a passive resistance on the part 
 of those sitting at the end of it, and as passing 
 people in the narrow space between seat and 
 bookboard was next to impossible, they could 
 only stand and look and wonder at the in- 
 hospitality of the professed worshippers of God. 
 Roused to anger by the incivility shown to
 
 DU. KIDD. 281 
 
 visitors, the Doctor, who took in the whole situa- 
 tion at a glance, thundered out " Sit up, proud 
 flesh, and let the people have a seat as long as 
 there is one to give them." So great was the 
 demand for sittings that there were folding seats 
 in the passages, which were usually tilled. Old 
 men and women might be seen sitting on the 
 pulpit stairs, and on stools on any empty space 
 not too far from the minister. 
 
 Having a keen appreciation of the value of 
 time, punctuality was a virtue which Dr. Kidd 
 practised with conspicuous constancy. But his 
 was an Irish kind of punctuality, for, as Dr. 
 Bain tells us, he regularly rose to begin the 
 service live minutes before the hour. The first 
 exercise was a brief exposition of the psalm that 
 was to be sung. In that way he helped the 
 people to give reality and significance to the 
 praise, and, when the time came for it, they were 
 better able to sing " with the understanding." 
 An old woman of those days, but belonging to 
 another parish, once said, " I thocht the psalms 
 were jist to gie the minister a breath." They 
 knew better than that in Gilcomston. He took 
 up the psalms in consecutive order, giving so 
 many stanzas each Sabbath. 
 
 In like manner, when he announced the pas- 
 sage of Scripture to be read, the Doctor pro- 
 ceeded to give a brief analysis of its contents, 
 and a summary of the lessons taught. His great
 
 2-S2 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 aim was to imike every part oi' the service real 
 and vital to all who were before him. He was 
 at pains to enlist their intelligence and sympathy, 
 and to shut dull apathy and dreary formalism 
 outside the gates of Gilcomston. Having stated 
 the general scope of the chapter, he proceeded to 
 read it with that true and powerful elocution 
 which does not draw attention to itself, but to 
 the matter in hand. His sonorous voice was 
 well modulated, and the rich Irish accent, instead 
 of detracting from the effect, must, to Aberdeen 
 ears, have lent the charm of piquancy to his 
 delivery. Professor Masson says " His slow 
 and impressive reading of the psalms was, I 
 remember, a never-failing source of admiration 
 and delight to the Aberdonians. He was a real 
 Chrysostom." 
 
 Then came the prayer, in which the man, in 
 the depth and tenderness of his nature, stood 
 revealed. Prayer was to him the very soul and 
 breath of religion. He knew the value of it for 
 himself, and he pressed its importance upon his 
 people, sometimes in the pulpit taking up a 
 psalm, and, there and then, like a father dealing 
 with his children, showing them by actual experi- 
 ment how it could be turned into prayer. Dr. 
 Bain and others, who attended Gilcomston in 
 their youth, testify to the unique power, the 
 freshness and seraphic fervour of the man in 
 prayer. Dr. Bain says " The first occasion
 
 DR. KIDD. 2So 
 
 when I resumed attending the church I was 
 taken all of a heap with listening to his first 
 prayer ; the easy flow of language, the choiceness 
 of his topics, and the brevity of the whole, came 
 upon me like a new revelation." Dr. Bain also 
 tells us that it was a common habit with the 
 Doctor, in his prayer, to " address the three 
 persons in the Godhead in consecutive order, 
 adapting the petitions to the specific personality 
 of each," and he adds, " I never heard this done 
 by any other preacher." One secret of Dr. 
 Kidd's extraordinary power in prayer was that 
 he did not trust entirely to the mood of the 
 moment for the subject matter of his petitions. 
 Besides constantly breathing the atmosphere of 
 prayer, he secured coherency, freshness, and 
 variety in those all-important exercises of the 
 Church by prolonged premeditation and careful 
 selection of topics. 
 
 The sermon was also the outcome of well- 
 digested knowledge and intense thought, though 
 delivered extemporaneously. His method WHS 
 exposition, having from beginning to end a 
 practical edge. "He was mighty in the Scrip- 
 tures." Generally, though not invariably, he 
 took for exposition the historical books of the 
 Old Testament in the forenoon, the Gospels in 
 the afternoon, and the Epistles in the evening. 
 In the course of his Gilcomston pastorate he, in 
 his expository discourses, went over the whole
 
 284 T11L LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 Bible twice, and had begun the third series when 
 he died. An old man, whose character in youth 
 was formed under the preaching of Dr. Kidd, in 
 recounting the scenes of Gilcomston, used to wind 
 up his remarks by saying alluding to the fervour 
 of the ministrations, as well as to the crowded 
 congregations " Eh, sir, it w r as a het hoose." 
 
 The Sabbath spent in Gilcomston was an 
 educational as well as a religious force to the 
 great body of the people of that generation in 
 Aberdeen. Many young men, some of whom 
 
 V V 
 
 have won distinction in their chosen spheres of 
 activity, had their mental powers awakened by 
 grappling with the doctrine of the Gilcomston 
 pulpit, and reproducing for the benefit of others 
 the arguments and illustrations with which it 
 
 ~ 
 
 was supported. For the Doctor, though he 
 was ever impelled by a consuming earnestness, 
 allowed himself considerable latitude in the 
 topics he chose and the manner in which he 
 treated them. The millennium, the evils of 
 Popery, and the glories of prophecy might be 
 sprung upon his people at any time. Things 
 civil, political, and local, the resources of litera- 
 ture, and the examples of history, as well as the 
 general information which could be gathered 
 from all parts of the world, were woven into 
 the texture of his Sabbath discourses. It would 
 be a stretch of fancy for even the most enthusi- 
 astic Kiddite to lav it all to the credit of the
 
 DR. KIDD. 285 
 
 Gilcomston pastor, but it is certainly, to say the 
 least of it, a most remarkable coincidence that so 
 many youths belonging to the district, and who 
 were brought more or less under the influence of 
 its chief luminary, though not all belonging to 
 his congregation, should have risen to place and 
 fame. Phillip, the painter ; Dr. Bain, the logician 
 and metaphysician ; Dr. John Hill Burton, the 
 historian ; Dr. Masson, professor of English litera- 
 ture ; and Dr. Walter Smith, the minister-poet, 
 occur among many names that might be men- 
 tioned in this connection. We know that his 
 pastoral oversight did win the gratitude of 
 " Rabbi " Duncan, whose genius, though erratic, 
 and prodigious learning have brought honour 
 to the city of his birth. 
 
 Many others, too, whose distinction is knoM'n 
 only to the records of heaven, were inwardly 
 nourished by the weekly " feast of fat things " 
 provided for them, and had their lives redeemed 
 from sordid tedium by the inspiring motives and 
 splendid visions exhibited to their view. How 
 could they do other than throng Gilcomston 
 Chapel ? If it had no loveliness in itself, yet 
 within its walls the beauty of holiness was re- 
 vealed to their souls, and aspiration was kindled 
 within them as they were made to feel that 
 the higher life by which they became sharers 
 of the divine was a possible possession to 
 craftsman and peasant, to the poor and illiterate,
 
 281) THE LKSIITS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 and oven to the vicious and abandoned. To 
 ninny AY ho, during the Aveek, Avere tied from 
 early morn till late at night to the loom and the 
 lapstoue, and to Avhose minds the Gilcomston 
 sermons introduced an ideal element, by provid- 
 ing material for thought and discussion, Avhich 
 lifted them above their monotonous and toilsome 
 drudgery, but did not unfit them for their duty 
 to many such the lines of Herbert were indeed 
 
 true 
 
 " The week were dark but for thy light ; 
 Thy torch doth show the way." 
 
 Gilcomston Chapel was a kind of uniA T ersity 
 for the multitude, the place where ideas were 
 propagated, Avhere life was placed in its proper 
 perspective, where truth and righteousness Avere 
 shoAvn to be more than bread, and where eternal 
 and immutable principle \vas held up against the 
 the most specious and prosperous expediency. 
 Above all, sitting in that chapel, men were made 
 to feel that it Avas indeed the house of God ; for 
 if they Avent to it in a right spirit Avhat was 
 best in them rose to the surface, what Avas mean 
 and earthly Avas rebuked ; and, heaven becoming 
 an experimental reality, they, on leaving the 
 place for their homes, felt constrained to try 
 again, Avitli the help of Him of whom they had 
 heard, to live according to the "pattern shown 
 to them on the mount."
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 PATRICK ROBERTSON OF CRAIG DAM -1777- 1867. 
 
 /TlHE spot in Aberdeenshire called Craigdam 
 \ is in the parish of Tarves and district of 
 Buchan, about eighteen miles north-east of the 
 city of Aberdeen. It derives its distinction from 
 the fact that the first Secession Church of the 
 north was planted there ; and for more than a 
 century and a half it has preserved the con- 
 tinuity of its character as a rallying-point for 
 spiritually -minded men and women, and the 
 centre of a widely-diffused evangelical influence. 
 
 It is a striking tribute to the power of 
 Christian Voluntaryism that church and manse 
 should have stood there all those years, " a city 
 set upon a hill," among the green fields, miles 
 away from any town or village. Xo Act of 
 Parliament or legal statute of any kind has given 
 security of tenure to this institution ; it is to be 
 traced to nothing but the in-working of faith 
 in those who used it. Also, the succession of 
 richly-endowed and faithful ministei-s that have 
 stood in its pulpit has contributed greatly to the 
 continuance of its vitality. 
 
 The first pastor of Craigdam Rev. William 
 Brown, ordained in 1752 was enough to give 
 character to any church. The father of Provost
 
 288 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 Brown, the bookseller, the grandfather of the 
 venerable Principal Brown, of the Free Church 
 College, Aberdeen, and the ministerial founder of 
 the Secession Church in the north, he has many 
 claims to a place in our local annals. His worldly 
 prospects were not bright when he accepted the 
 call to Craigdam, as at the outset of his ministry 
 the people did not undertake to give him more 
 than fifteen pounds of an annual income ! He 
 was called the " riimin' minister," as he was fleet 
 of foot, and seemed ever in haste, as having 
 something important on hand ; and, considering 
 the demands that were made upon his time and 
 energy at the beginning of the Secession move- 
 ment in the needy north, he could not well afford 
 to walk at a leisurely pace. He did not spare 
 himself in breaking up the fallow ground, putting 
 heart and soul as well as earnest study into his 
 work ; so that his name is still fragrant in many 
 parts far beyond Craigdam. It was a common 
 saying among the sermon-loving peasantry of 
 the north that Mr. Cowie of Huntly upon "black 
 natur' " and Mr. Brown of Craigdam on the love 
 of Christ " an' they canna be dung," i.e., ex- 
 celled. 
 
 His grandson, Principal Brown, remembers an 
 old man describing a service conducted by the 
 first minister of Craigdam at Knock, near Port- 
 soy. One thing in the sermon which came to him 
 and was indelibly imprinted upon his memory
 
 PATRICK ROBERTSON OF CRAIGDAM. 289 
 
 was the vivid and fervid way in which the 
 preacher used the historical incident of Simeon 
 holding the child Jesus in his arms: "There did 
 not appear to be much in the old man's arms, 
 and 3^et the salvation of the world was depen- 
 dent upon what was there all was wrapt up in 
 that Jesus held by Simeon." Then, holding out 
 his own arms as if embracing that which Simeon 
 esteemed to be so precious, Mr. Brown, with tear- 
 ful urgency of voice cried to the people assembled 
 " Have you, my f reens, taken a grip o' Jesus ? " 
 He died in 1801, in the seventy-third year of his 
 age and the forty-ninth of his ministry, and was 
 buried in the family vault of the Kinmundy 
 family (he was married to a daughter of that 
 house) in the church of Old Deer. 
 
 Mr. Brown was succeeded by Patrick Robert- 
 son, who was born in Perth, July 16th, 1777. 
 His family was closely connected with the 
 Secession Church, his father having been an 
 elder in one of the congregations in that city. 
 Patrick distinguished himself as a scholar in the 
 Perth Grammar School, and, having studied in 
 Edinburgh University under Dugald Stewart, 
 Playfair, and other men whose names were an 
 inspiration to youth, he, at the age of twenty- 
 one, had to decide what his future profession 
 was to be. He was offered a situation as tutor in 
 a family of great influence on condition that he 
 ceased to be a Dissenter, and the prospect of a 
 u
 
 290 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 presentation to a parish was held out as an 
 inducement. Attachment to principle overcame 
 the temptation to seek worldly advantage, and in 
 1798 he entered the Anti-Burgher Divinity Hall 
 in Whitburn, where he had as fellow-students, 
 James Templeton, Aberdeen, and Thomas Stark, 
 of Torres, the latter of whom became the most 
 influential minister of the body in the north. 
 
 On leaving the Hall, to be called to Craig- 
 dam not long after, Professor Bruce addressed 
 him thus : " Now, Patrick, you have talents 
 which very few possess to the same degree ; you 
 are gifted with a powerful imagination ; this 
 may be of great service to you as a minister, but 
 watch it, and do not let it run wild." That pro- 
 fessor must have been able to read character as 
 well as books, for both in the prophecy and the 
 warning he suited the word to the man. 
 
 On entering upon his duties in Craigdam, Mr. 
 Robertson found that a scholarly, polished style 
 kept him at a distance from the peasant farmers 
 who constituted the bulk of his congregation, 
 and he resolved to acquire the broad Buchan 
 dialect, so as to speak to the people in their own 
 mother tongue. No missionary who goes to 
 heathen parts could be more assiduous in the 
 study of the language of the people, among whom 
 he is to labour, than was this Perth scholar to 
 become all things to the inmates of the scattered 
 cots and crofts around Craiirdam. for whose ever- 
 
 O '
 
 PATRICK ROBERTSON OF CRAIGDAM. 291 
 
 lasting welfare he had so far become responsible. 
 Deliberately, and from the highest motive, he laid 
 aside, as a useless garment, the correct English 
 into which he had been drilled, and learned to 
 speak as one of the natives. 
 
 One can understand how at that time Mr. 
 Robertson might reap considerable advantage in 
 his public work by the effort. To a Scottish ear 
 there is something " couthy " in the dialect of 
 our country and district. What constitutes a 
 barrier to the appreciation of the genius of Burns 
 by readers of his poetry outside of Scotland, is 
 exactly what deepens the regard that is felt for 
 him by those of his own kith and kin. There is 
 music to the heart as well as to the ear in the 
 speech of the people that is so rich in associations 
 that are dear, so laden with the memories of 
 early days. To give direct expression to feeling 
 is against the canons of Scottish temperament 
 and taste, but how often we can obliquely in- 
 sinuate a considerable measure of tenderness by 
 one of those diminutives which abound in the 
 north ! " Pretty child " is not so euphonious in 
 this latitude as " bonnie bairnie." Mr. Robertson 
 was not far wrong in his philosophy at least at 
 the time and in the place when, in referring to 
 the pronunciation of a young preacher who had 
 been officiating for him, he said " Fin ye are 
 preachin' ye say ' devil '; noo, I widna say it that 
 wye : I say ' deevil ' ; it 's mair kindly like ! "
 
 292 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 As to Mr. Robertson's numerous exercises in 
 the vernacular, some of them quaint and pithy, 
 and not a few of them ludicrous, we must refer 
 the reader to that racy book " Craigdain and 
 its Ministers," by George Walker, to which we 
 are indebted for much that is in this chapter. 
 In reading 1 such a book, however, we are apt to 
 make the mistake of regarding the choice tit-bits 
 as the staple of Mr. Robertson's preaching, and 
 to conclude that he was more of a joker than a 
 Christian herald. A greater mistake could not 
 be made. We have to remember that for every 
 sentence of pleasantly and eccentricity which re- 
 tains its place in the memory, there are thousands 
 of sober sense and Christian instruction which did 
 their work at the time, though they are not re- 
 produced in conversation or in writing. 
 
 There was much practical wisdom and point 
 as well as pawky humour in some of his descrip- 
 tions. When preaching on the temptations that 
 assail Christians, and on the doubts an<J fears 
 which arise in consequence, he said " But, ma 
 i'reens, aifter a's deen, these doubts an' fears will 
 sometimes be permitted to come, as we a' ken to 
 oor cost an' skaith; an' sae ye maun jist dee 
 wi' them as ye dee at your wark i' the fields. 
 The black craws '11 come, an' afttimes in vera 
 croods ; ye canna help though they flee ower your 
 heids, but surely [Luther uses the same figure] 
 ye can prevent them settlin' an' biggin' their
 
 PATRICK ROBERTSON OF CRAIGDAM. 293 
 
 nests there." On another occasion, when lectur- 
 ing on Jacob's ladder and the angels of God 
 ascending and descending it so easily, he con- 
 trasted this with the " awkward sprawlings of 
 the self-righteous sinner on the rungs of the 
 ladder." " Ma freens, he may get up sae far, but 
 jist the farrer he thinks he is abeen his fellow- 
 men, an' the nearer he thinks he is to the yetts 
 o' heaven, jist the sairer will be the clyte he will 
 get whan he does fa', for fa' he will." 
 
 The minister of Craigdara was very out- 
 spoken, and could be sarcastic, but always with 
 an undercurrent of kindly, fatherly feeling. Re- 
 ferring to the Mosaic law of sacrifice, which 
 required that the animal should be perfect and 
 without blemish, he said " It wis a very neces- 
 sary law, for mony a ane, then as noo, wad 
 look oot the scabbiest stirkie o' a' the lot an' 
 think it was gweed eneuch for the Lord." His 
 rebuke was sometimes severe, but only when it 
 was needed. Some of the people had an incur- 
 able tendency to rise and make for the door 
 before the benediction was finished. One day 
 on holding up his hands as usual, he noticed 
 some beginning to move, and broke out as 
 follows: "Ye jist mind me o' Frosterhill's 
 nowte fan they 're a' stannin' in their sta's : 
 nae seener dis the herd pit his han's t" their 
 collars than ilka heid is turned t' the door." 
 A member of the congregation, after his week's
 
 294 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 toil in the open air and Ids long walk to church, 
 often succumbed to the close atmosphere of the 
 building in which they worshipped, and one day 
 in his slumberous noddings he lost his balance 
 and fell into the passage. The minister stopped, 
 and looking at the unhappy man recovering 
 his seat, addressed him thus " Ah, Tammas, 
 Tammas, ma man, the Deevil 's been rockin' ye 
 for mony a day, but he 's coupit ye at last ! " 
 
 An old man, who was a member of the 
 Whitehills U.P. Church, remembers Mr. Robert- 
 son being present there at a Communion service 
 in 1825. He lectured on the ten virgins, and 
 when he came to that part of the parable where 
 the foolish virgins said, " Give us of your oil, for 
 our lamps are gone out," he wheeled round in 
 the pulpit and said " Leein' jades ; their lamps 
 were never lichtit ! " 
 
 Patrick Robertson had a plentiful supply of 
 that kind of brilliancy of imagination which 
 easily flashes into wit and humour; and you 
 could not well have him without them, in the 
 pulpit or anywhere else. It might have tended 
 to increase the weight of his influence with some 
 if he had disciplined his natural genius more, 
 but perhaps the broad popular effect would have 
 been less marked. We must ever distinguish 
 
 o 
 
 between the man whose aim is to divert and 
 entertain and the single-eyed servant of Christ 
 who happens to have a vivid imagination and a
 
 PATRICK ROBERTSON OF CRAIGDAM. 295 
 
 picturesque style, which, if he is to be natural, 
 are bound to sparkle now and again. 
 
 But what he will be chiefly remembered 
 for is unquestionably his quaint, forcible de- 
 scriptions in the vernacular. Could anything be 
 better than his word-picture of the sisters Mary 
 and Martha " Mary wis a fine, quate, decent 
 crettur, but Martha wis a bickering, bumptious, 
 rampagin' bodie, an', like a lot o' ither women, 
 she had a gey lang tongue o' her ain whan she 
 could fa' foul o' the vera Saviour Himsel'." 
 
 What is quite as good is his comparison of 
 Saul and David. Mr. Robertson had occasion to 
 lecture on the Scriptural incidents connecting 
 the lives of Saul and David ; and in the course 
 of his remarks he said " Ma freens, I dinna 
 ken what your mind is aboot the personal ap- 
 pearance o' Saul an' Dawvit, but I '11 gie ye my 
 mind. Saul wis a great muckle chield, jist like 
 the miller ower there [pointing to the individual 
 in his audience who formed the point of his 
 similitude] ; an' then for Dawvit, he wasna a 
 muckle giant like Saul, but a ticlit, delver strap- 
 pin' fellow jist like Jeems Smith, the tailor, 
 sittin' doun there afore me." 
 
 It would be foreign to our purpose to follow 
 Mr. Robertson in his experiences after he left 
 Craigdam, for it was in that place where his best 
 and most distinctive work was done.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE DISRUPTION OF 1843. 
 
 IT is generally admitted that the first half of 
 the nineteenth century was in many respects 
 one of the most brilliant periods in the history 
 of Britain. Men awoke from the long slumber 
 of the previous century, and turned their wake- 
 fulness to some account. They began to think 
 and to search as they had not done for many 
 generations, to contemplate ideals and possi- 
 bilities in all spheres open to human intelligence. 
 There came an unprecedented outburst of 
 energy in the domain of physics. Invention 
 the utilisation of the resources of nature for the 
 convenience of man set in like a spring tide. 
 The railway, the steamship, the power-loom, the 
 telegraph, and a thousand useful appliances of 
 the energy in steam and electricity came upon 
 the scene. 
 
 It was also a period of quickened and 
 heightened intellectual life, as was evidenced 
 by the noble succession of poets real, genuine 
 poets with which this country was favoured. 
 Not since the time of Queen Elizabeth has this 
 nation had such men of the highest creative
 
 THE DISRUPTION. 297 
 
 genius as Coleridge and Wordsworth. And 
 other writers, notably Tennyson, Browning, and 
 Ruskin, proved that the middle and latter part 
 of this century had not lost sight of the rich 
 vein of highest intellectual power which had 
 been disclosed. 
 
 Men also became politically awake and alert. 
 Anomalies inequalities in the social system 
 were detected and exposed. The demand of the 
 people for the rights of free men culminated in 
 the Reform Bill of 1832. 
 
 Now, religion flourishes most when men are 
 intellectually awake, and when they arise from 
 the rut of spiritless acquiescence. No doubt an 
 excess of activity on purely secular lines tends 
 to an impoverishment of the higher life by de- 
 nuding it of its rightful share of energy. Still, 
 it cannot be gainsayed that mental life and 
 activity are helpful to the interests of true 
 religion. Ignorance may be the mother of 
 superstition, but not of enlightened devotion. 
 
 In England, the Pusey or Oxford movement 
 was one of the most noticeable manifestations of 
 awakened life. The old formalism, so respectable 
 and self-complacent, was shaken if not shattered, 
 and men who had given themselves to the minis- 
 try began to enquire whether a quiet, comfort- 
 able living in the Church and compliance with 
 time-honoured forms were to take the place of 
 aspiration after a higher life. The zeal of the
 
 298 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 movement, as many think, was largely mis- 
 guided ; still, it was the warmth of revived life. 
 
 In the United Presbyterian and Congrega- 
 tional Churches in Scotland there was also a 
 considerable stirring of life, which issued in a 
 stiff controversy about those metaphysical ques- 
 tions which lie behind the doctrines of grace. 
 The Morisonian or " New View " crusade had a 
 beneficial effect, along with other contributing 
 causes, in liberalising the theology of Scotland ; 
 the Evangelical Union Churches in St. Paul 
 Street and John Street being the local outcome 
 and embodiment of that movement which took 
 definite shape in 1843. 
 
 But years before the " New View " movement 
 there was the Voluntary controversy the ques- 
 tion whether the Church should be supported by 
 the State or by the freewill offerings of its mem- 
 bers. That discussion excited strong feeling, and 
 champions on both sides lectured throughout the 
 land on the subject. It was at that time that 
 the Church of Scotland took decided action on 
 behalf of missions, Dr. Duff going out to India 
 in 1830. 
 
 Amidst all this life-stirring, it was not to be 
 expected that the people could continue to sub- 
 mit tamely to the bondage of Patronage, which 
 had always been a hateful yoke to the pious and 
 high-spirited in the land. Patronage might 
 evoke no protest when religion did not mix
 
 THE DISRUPTION. 299 
 
 itself with the sympathies and vital interests of 
 the members of the Church. But as soon as 
 religion became of consequence to the people 
 they naturally desired a pastor who could 
 minister to their deepest needs, and one whom 
 they chose with that view not the mere nominee 
 of patrons, who were frequently influenced by 
 other considerations than the spiritual fitness 
 of the person presented. The popular pressure 
 became so strong, as reflected in the speeches and 
 votes of the General Assembly, that in 1834 
 the Evangelical party now having a majority 
 what was called the Veto Act was passed, 
 which gave power to the majority of the heads 
 of families in a parish, to interpose their veto 
 against the entrance of any presentee who was 
 obnoxious to them. 
 
 But in spite of the Veto Act which the 
 majority of the General Assembly had passed, 
 patrons of the Moderate school, who sometimes 
 did not belong to the National Church, persisted 
 in the exercise of their legal rights, and thus 
 there came to be a collision between the civil 
 and ecclesiastical courts of the land. An inci- 
 dent of the " conflict " in our own county helped 
 to precipitate the crisis. A majority of the 
 Presbytery of Strathbogie in ordaining Mr. 
 Edwards as minister of the parish of Marnoch 
 against the emphatically expressed wishes of the 
 people, and therefore against the law of the
 
 300 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 Church as it then was, so shocked the moral 
 sense and stirred the feeling of the whole 
 country as to make decisive action of some 
 kind or other inevitable. The scandal, too, of 
 the enforced settlement at Culsalmond in the 
 same year drove the conviction further home 
 that something must be done, and done soon, in 
 the name of order and religion to make such 
 scenes impossible. 
 
 The question came to be Would the civil 
 law be altered to agree with what had become 
 the law of the Church ? A great national crisis 
 had been reached. The Evangelical section of 
 the Church had come to a parting of the ways. 
 They had either to succumb to the law on the 
 civil statute-book, which was against the law of 
 the Church, and be traitors to their consciences, 
 denying the headship of Christ, or they had to 
 make a sacrifice of position, stipend, and manse, 
 and cast themselves adrift upon the world. 
 
 There was, indeed, a third course possible 
 viz., that, in deference to the strong remon- 
 strances of the Evangelical clergy, headed by 
 Dr. Chalmers, the Government of the day would 
 move for such an alteration of the law as should 
 bring it into agreement with the wishes of the 
 people and the law of the Church. But by a 
 strange infatuation, a judicial blindness, the 
 statesmen then in power failed to realise the 
 significance of the crisis. They thought they
 
 THE DISRUPTION*. 301 
 
 had only to be firm and those fiery and restless 
 ecclesiastics, " high-fliers," would be brought to 
 their senses and kept within the bounds which 
 had been imposed. They never dreamt that so 
 many men, the very strength and flower and 
 glory of the Church, would leave their secured 
 position, their emoluments, and manses for the 
 sake of a principle. 
 
 They were misinformed and ill-advised. They 
 had too open an ear for the representations of 
 the active opponents of the popular party, and 
 to the last they never supposed that more than a 
 mere fraction of the Church would take what 
 they deemed such a desperate step. The cynical 
 view of human nature is sometimes proved to be 
 a mistake. Worldliness may miscalculate. The 
 Devil is sometimes outwitted when he is too 
 sure of the answer to the sneeringly-put ques- 
 tion " Will a man serve God for nought ? " 
 You do not know how far men may go when 
 they are carried along by a moral principle, 
 which is to them as the declared will of God. 
 
 The leaders of the Non-Intrusion movement 
 Candlish, Cunningham, Gordon, Guthrie were 
 remarkable men, made for and by the times, but 
 the popular party owed more, in the providence 
 of God, for their cohesion and courage, their 
 Christian gallantry, and the magnificence of the 
 moral demonstration of the Disruption, to the 
 inspiring presence of Dr. Chalmers than to any
 
 302 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 other cause in this world. Dr. Chalmers was 
 one of those men with whom the world is 
 favoured now and again, and who need a great 
 historic epoch to exhibit the full proportions of 
 their noble manhood. After his conversion in 
 Kilmany and his pronounced adhesion to Evan- 
 gelical doctrine, he was the greatest force in 
 Scotland since the days of Knox. It was not 
 oniy his intellectual prowess and his irresistible 
 oratory, but his simple-hearted devotion to the 
 higher ideas of life, which won for him the 
 position he has in the reverent regard of Scotch- 
 men of all creeds and classes. 
 
 The " Ten Years' Conflict " was practically 
 the revival of the old question, which has so 
 often come to the front durino; the last three 
 
 o 
 
 hundred years, whether the Church was to be a 
 thing of earthly potentates and statesmen a 
 creature of the State or to be undivided in its 
 allegiance to Christ, its only legitimate Head. 
 It had to be decided whether the Church was to 
 be Erastian or Evangelical. It was the same 
 controversy which the Covenanters had to face, 
 under modern conditions. The justice of the 
 contention made fifty-three years ago, and which 
 was resisted by the Moderates and the Court of 
 Session, has been practically vindicated. Patron- 
 age is now abolished, and the right has been 
 tardily conceded to the people of choosing their 
 own ministers ; but it needed the Disruption to
 
 THE DISRUPTION. 303 
 
 drive the lesson home. After the members of 
 the Assembly had met in St. Andrew's Church 
 on 18th May, 1843, and the Moderator had taken 
 his place, he said : 
 
 " Fathers and brethren, according to the visual 
 form of procedure, this is the time for making up the 
 roll. But, in consequence of certain proceedings 
 affecting our rights and privileges, proceedings which 
 have been sanctioned by Her Majesty's Government 
 and by the Legislature of the country, and more 
 especially in respect that there has been an infringe- 
 ment on the liberties of our Constitution, so that we 
 could not now constitute this Court without a viola- 
 tion of the terms of the union between Church and 
 State in this land, as now authoritatively declared, I 
 must protest against our proceeding further." 
 
 Thereupon Dr. Chalmers, Dr. Welsh, and 
 other eminent members of the Assembly marched 
 out to the street and headed a procession from 
 St. Andrew's Church to Canonmills, where the 
 Free Church was formally constituted. Four 
 hundred and seventy -four ministers, with a 
 large body of elders and members, made what 
 is called the Disruption in the Scottish Church. 
 In connection with this historic event, Aber- 
 deen has the distinction of being the only 
 large town in Scotland where all the ministers 
 "came out." 
 
 We subjoin a list of ministers who left their
 
 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 charges in the Presbytery of Aberdeen, May, 
 1843 : 
 
 Dr. Alexander Black, Professor of Theology. 
 
 Rev. William Primrose, Melville Church. 
 
 n James Foote, East M 
 
 ii John Murray, North n 
 
 n Hugh M'Kenzie, Gaelic n 
 
 n David Simpson, Trinity u 
 
 i Gavin Parker, Bon-Accord u 
 
 M James Bryce, Gilcomston n 
 
 n Abercromby L. Gordon, Grey friars n 
 
 n Alexander D. Davidson, West n 
 
 u John Allan, Union n 
 
 n Robert Forbes, Woodside n 
 
 ii Alexander Spence, St. Clements u 
 
 n James Stewart, South n 
 
 M William L. Mitchell, Holburn n 
 
 n John Stephen, John Knox's n 
 
 n John Longmuir, Mariners' n 
 
 In country charges within the bounds of 
 Aberdeen Presbytery : 
 
 Rev. Robert Thomson, Peterculter. 
 Rev. George Moir, Newmachar. 
 
 It is not reasonable to expect that those who 
 took the opposite side in the controversy should 
 be able even yet to view the Disruption as do 
 their brethren of the Free Church, or even as 
 neutral spectators or non-Presbyterians. But 
 time, with its healing and soothing touch, brings
 
 THE DISRUPTION. 305 
 
 calmness and clearness of judgment. As the 
 British, after the lapse of a hundred years, can 
 gracefully acknowledge the heroism of Washing- 
 ton and his compatriots in their attitude of 
 determined resistance which culminated in the 
 Declaration of Independence, so Scotchmen of all 
 Churches will yet echo the language that Lord 
 Jeffrey used on the day of the Disruption " I 
 am proud of my country." 
 
 Every such tribute offered to conviction, 
 every sacrifice that a nation or considerable 
 section of a nation makes for conscience and 
 principle, is a distinct augmentation of that 
 moral force which is the salt of the earth. Some 
 think the position which the Free Church took 
 at first was illogical ; and yet they feel that the 
 ecclesiastical creed, as held at that time, cannot 
 eclipse the imperishable renown of those who for- 
 sook church and manse and emoluments, when, 
 as they believed, they could no longer have them 
 without the surrender of the crown rights of the 
 Redeemer. 
 
 Who can calculate the measure and the quality 
 of the service rendered to the cause of unfeigned 
 
 o 
 
 religion when the testimony was borne home to 
 those in high places, as it was to the members of 
 the British Cabinet of the day, that it is unsafe 
 to assume that, when a choice of motives is open 
 to Christian men, the worldly, sordid ones are 
 sure to prevail ? It was an astonishment to 
 w
 
 306 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 astute men of the world when it was demon- 
 strated beyond all contradiction that there was 
 such a large number of the ministers of religion 
 in Scotland who were faithful to their interpre- 
 tation of New Testament teaching and apostolic 
 tradition, to the extent of submitting to the 
 spoiling of their goods, rather than abandon their 
 convictions. It is this which enables many in 
 Scotland, who, while not accepting the Free 
 Church theory of 1843, that is now in some of 
 its distinctive parts, through half a century's 
 marvellous experience of the power of voluntary- 
 ism, being quietly relegated to the archives of 
 the past, to put the Disruption among events in 
 the same rank as lona and St. Andrews among 
 places, and to hold that Chalmers is a name 
 worthy of being placed alongside Columba and 
 Wishart, as noble examples of what Christianity 
 can do for men in provoking and sustaining 
 sublime devotion to the higher claims of life and 
 duty. 
 
 Is the ground not being rapidly cleared for a 
 conflict that shall be wholly spiritual, ecclesi- 
 astical differences being lost in the consuming 
 
 o o 
 
 desire that is possessing all Christians for union 
 against the common foes of unbelief and debas- 
 ing worldliness ? There is a growing impatience 
 under the terrible waste of time and energy in 
 the maintenance of mere sectarian rights and 
 interests. Cannot each body of Christians be
 
 THE DISUU1TIOX. 307 
 
 loyal to its own tenets, and yet be a part of a 
 great spiritual federation that shall make the 
 Holy Catholic Church a reality as well as a 
 name, such as it has never yet been in our land ? 
 Spenser, the poet, said that the chivalry of 
 feudalism that was crumbling to pieces in his 
 day should be superseded by the finer chivalry 
 of an elevated and magnanimous Christian 
 morality, knightly valour turning its attention 
 from fantastic points of honour and frivolous 
 contests to the real and formidable foes of lust, 
 oppression, and ignorance. Is not ecclesiasticism 
 very much in our day what feudalism was in 
 Spenser's ? It is an expiring force. It is more 
 than time that the purely spiritual work for 
 which the Church exists engrossed the energies 
 of all true-hearted followers of Jesus Christ. 
 What need there is for a combination, a brotherly 
 alliance, among all evangelical denominations, in 
 order that the earth, which is the Lord's by crea- 
 tion, may become His in a deeper and holier 
 sense !
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE REVIVAL IN ABERDEEN OF 1858-60. 
 
 /T\HE city and several parts of the county of 
 } Aberdeen between the dates at the heading 
 of this chapter were favoured with a remarkable 
 season of grace, the fruits of which were precious 
 and abiding, and some of them remain with us 
 unto this day. About the close of the sixth 
 decade of this century there was a mysterious 
 spiritual susceptibility abroad in different parts of 
 the world ; and notably in America, Ireland, and 
 Scotland, men in lanje numbers were brought 
 
 * o o 
 
 under the powers of the world to come to a 
 degree that astonished and rebuked the for- 
 malism of Christendom. Aberdeen was in a 
 measure prepared for a revival work, which in 
 its effect is simply a deepening interest in the 
 central verities of our faith, and a more complete 
 obedience to what it involves; not a few within 
 our borders were praying and expecting that 
 the spiritual world would make its presence felt 
 by a striking demonstration of its power upon 
 the consciences and hearts of the people. A 
 daily prayer meeting had been begun in the 
 city in July, 1858, and to the feeling indicated
 
 THE REVIVAL OF 1858-60. 309 
 
 by the existence of such a meeting a great deal 
 that followed could be traced. 
 
 By invitation of Professor Martin, of the 
 Moral Philosophy Chair in Marischal College, 
 Mr. Reginald Radcliffe came to Aberdeen on an 
 evangelistic mission on 27th November, 1858. 
 Mr. Radcliffe had already proved himself to be a 
 man specially gifted for work of that kind. A 
 gentleman by birth and education, trained for 
 the law, he found what was evidently his 
 divinely-appointed vocation in philanthropic and 
 spiritual work. In looking at him and listening 
 to him it was at first difficult to account for his 
 power ; it was so quiet and unobtrusive. There 
 was no oratorical display, not even what could 
 be called eloquence ; he had not the intellectual 
 robustness of some of his coadjutors, such as 
 Brownlow North ; yet no man in such a short 
 time ever so drew and stirred Aberdeen, and was 
 the instrument of leading so many to cry out 
 " What must we do that we may be saved ? " 
 The man's power lay to a large extent in his 
 entire self-effacement ; and in the circumstance 
 that he happened to come to Aberdeen at a time 
 when the people were prepared to receive and 
 profit by simple statements of gospel truth. 
 
 Considerable prejudice had to be broken down 
 in Aberdeen, before the methods and agents God 
 was to use for the special work that was to 
 be done were duly acknowledged. Some of the
 
 310 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 churches did not view with favour the new 
 earthen vessels into which the treasure was to be 
 put, forgetting that the Master had ordained that 
 there should be evangelists as well as pastors 
 and teachers, and that a layman's testimony from 
 experience, given in a plain, pointed style, may 
 prove to be a most valuable auxiliary to the 
 ordinary preaching of the Word. Mr. Radcliffe's 
 operations at first did not extend beyond Albion 
 Street Congregational Church. 
 
 The extraordinary feature of this movement 
 was that it began amongst the young. The 
 children came, and they by-and-bye brought 
 their parents. All the blossoms did not come to 
 fruition, but not a few converts have stood the 
 test of time, and are now most useful church 
 members and the most distinguished of our self- 
 denying Christian workers. 
 
 Principal Brown was forward among our 
 leading men in discovering and expressing his 
 belief in the genuineness of this work among 
 the young, and in giving it his hearty and con- 
 tinued co-operation. When present in the Gene- 
 ral Assembly of the Free Church about thirteen 
 years after Mr. Radcliffe's visit, he had the 
 gratification to hear a minister who had been 
 commissioned to inquire into the state of reli- 
 gion in Aberdeen remark that the religious work 
 among the young in 1858-60 must have been 
 very profound and widespread, as he had met so
 
 THE REVIVAL OF 1858-60. 311 
 
 many decided Christians in the city who had 
 been converted at that time. Thereupon the 
 Principal rose up and said he had been " in the 
 thick" of that work, and could testify to its 
 thoroughness and blessedness, and he added that 
 a member of the present Assembly, who had 
 taken an active part in its business, began his 
 Christian career under the influences of that 
 period. For twelve years did our venerable 
 Principal continue to preside at the prayer 
 meeting, which was held every Sabbath morn- 
 ing in Marywell Street School from the time of 
 Mr. Radcliffe's visit to our city. 
 
 Some knotty points in ecclesiastical order 
 were incidentally discussed and dealt with at 
 that time. The churches gradually opened their 
 eyes to the fact that a work of God was going 
 on amongst them, and some of the ministers 
 invited the evangelists, not into the pulpit at 
 first, but into the precentor's desk. It was held 
 to be unfitting that a layman should occupy a 
 pulpit and that what he said should be called a 
 sermon. So the evangelists, becoming all things 
 to all men, and content with the lower seat of 
 the synagogue till they were bidden come up 
 higher, took the precentor's box and called what 
 they uttered an " address." 
 
 Besides some of the churches of other de- 
 nominations, the Greyfriars Parish Church was 
 opened for this work, and its minister, the Rev.
 
 312 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 James Smith, had to answer to his co-presbyters 
 for daring to allow this new expanding life in 
 Aberdeen to burst asunder the swaddling-bands 
 of ecclesiastical rule and precedent. On consult- 
 ing Dr. Norman Macleod as to what course he 
 should follow, he got for reply that " he had no 
 sympathy with Puseyism in Scotland any more 
 than in England, and that ho would admit a lay- 
 man to the pulpit at once." 
 
 The case, however, went against Mr. Smith 
 in the Aberdeen Presbytery and also in the 
 Synod. His appeal to the General Assembly 
 met with a different reception. Some of the 
 men who had the ear of that august body were 
 far removed from the ways of the ecclesiastical 
 martinet, and having largeness of soul enough to 
 take in the significance of such a great spiritual 
 movement, were prepared to adapt the channel 
 to the stream that was flowing. This was how 
 Dr. Norman Macleod spoke in the General 
 Assembly : 
 
 " A few Christian men came to Aberdeen, and 
 wore brought within the sacred walls of one of the 
 churches there. He did not know whether they 
 preached a sermon or not ; he did riot know whether 
 they stood in a pulpit fifteen feet high, or on a plat- 
 form seven feet high, but he knew that they addressed 
 people upon the unsearchable riches of Christ, and that 
 as Christian men they spoke from their hearts to 
 thousands. The only fault found with these men
 
 THE REVIVAL OF 1858-60. 313 
 
 seemed to be that they addressed immortal souls on 
 the truth of Christianity within the walls of a church ; 
 but he had been brought up in the belief that the 
 Church of Scotland attached no peculiar sacred ness 
 to stone and lime. It had been pleaded at the bar 
 that these men might go to the street. But there 
 were many laws that were tolerable only because they 
 had liberty occasionally to break them, and surely all 
 church laws must subserve the one grand end for 
 which all churches exist. They might have decency, 
 regularly appointed licentiates, and regularly ordained 
 men, and death all the while. This was not a time 
 when there was so much necessity for increased 
 spiritual life for the General Assembly to occupy a 
 whole night in finding fault because a minister per- 
 mits a layman to preach the gospel from a pulpit." * 
 
 Mr. Radcliffe continued to be the leader in 
 this mission, and lie did not spare himself. The 
 meetings were crowded, and often after the 
 people were dismissed they came back to hear 
 the same old story. Thousands in the Castle- 
 gate or Links would hang upon the lips of an 
 evangelist who could not have sustained the 
 interest of an audience for ten minutes on any 
 other theme than that of the gospel. Having 
 few hymns which [they could use at such meet- 
 ings in those days, they were never tired of 
 singing over and over again the 12(ith Psalm 
 and the 41st Paraphrase. These were sung 
 
 * " Memoir of Norman Alncleod," Vol. II., p. 89.
 
 314 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 thousands of times during the course of the 
 mission, with a freshness of interest which came 
 from the soul. 
 
 In the towns and villages on the shores of 
 the Moray Firth a great work was going on 
 about the same time. Mr. Turner, of Peterhead, 
 went from place to place like a flaming seraph, 
 and by his addresses, and still more by his 
 prayers, became a channel of power to multi- 
 tudes. 
 
 Aberdeen was moved : men were to be seen 
 in the streets and in the railway trains reading 
 their Bibles ; some young men had all-night 
 meetings in Rubislaw Quarries ; a great many 
 shop assistants were brought to religious decision, 
 and it may indicate the kind of feeling that was 
 abroad to learn that it was not uncommon for 
 them, after sales were effected, to have a talk 
 with customers about eternal things. All over 
 the town, at leisure moments and when oppor- 
 tunity occurred, there were hundreds doing what 
 Christ and the Apostles did eighteen centuries 
 before seeking to bring men to God ; the feel- 
 ing in enthusiastic minds was that the millennium 
 was at hand. 
 
 Do not say that this was mere emotional 
 excitement, that passed away like the blaze and 
 crackling of thorns, without leaving anything 
 behind but black ashes. Much of the Christian 
 philanthropy that has been in our city for the
 
 THE REVIVAL OF 1858-60. 315 
 
 last thirty years owes a great deal to the impulse 
 received at that time. Institutions that flourish 
 amongst us to-day, having for their object the 
 uplifting of our fellows, have their roots in that 
 movement. 
 
 Amongst the men not belonging to the city 
 who actively co-operated with Mr. Radcliflfe were 
 the forcible and incisive Brownlow North, and 
 Hay Macdowall Grant of Arndilly, the latter re- 
 membered with gratitude for his gracious work 
 in the ladies' boarding schools of our city. It is 
 remarkable that the north country should have 
 been favoured at that time with the presence of 
 so many persons of high social position who 
 were conspicuous for their devotion to the 
 interests of experimental religion. Besides the 
 persons we have already mentioned, there were 
 the Duchess of Gordon, the Earl of Kintore, John 
 Gordon of Parkhill, and others, who were neigh- 
 bours, and whose names, not to speak of their 
 labours, helped to give importance to a move- 
 ment, especially in the eyes of those who are 
 ever prone to ask the old question " Have any 
 of the rulers believed in him ? " 
 
 The above-mentioned persons are all gone 
 from us, but a landed proprietor whose name 
 has ever been identified with God's work in this 
 part of the land is with us still Alexander G. 
 Burnett of Kemnay. 
 
 By the labours of the American evangelist,
 
 316 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 Mr. Moody in 1874, Aberdeen was greatly 
 quickened, but not nearly to the extent that 
 it was sixteen years before. Although the 
 movement was less profound and widespread, 
 much good came out of it, one of the stand- 
 ing witnesses of that being the Young Men's 
 Christian Association buildings in Union Street, 
 which, through the stimulus received by Mr. 
 Moody 's visit, were purchased and put to their 
 present use, and the large hall added behind. 
 The Church should expect and be prepared for 
 these intermittent revivals. " The course of 
 the Christian heavenward," someone has said, 
 " is a series of impulses. Between the impulses, 
 however, there is the measured and normal 
 movement of habit. The fresh impulse of ex- 
 traordinary effort, and the well-regulated step 
 of habitual or ordinary exertion, alike harmonise 
 with and result from the laws which limit and 
 govern all human activity." 
 
 A revival of religion just means that religion 
 by a special effort inspired from above is trying 
 to raise itself to the level of something that is 
 adequately alive and efficient, something that 
 is trying to be what it professes to be, and is 
 fitted to serve the ends for which it was brought 
 into existence. There is no cause that continues 
 upon the earth and is of service to humanity 
 that has not its revivals. Especially is that so 
 with regard to everything of a spiritual nature,
 
 THE REVIVAL OF 1858-60. 317 
 
 man being so unspiritual in his proclivities, and 
 so prone to mistake traditional form and mechani- 
 cal routine for something better than they are. 
 
 Doubtless in all revivals the baser elements 
 have too prominent a place, and one of the 
 cheapest ways of obtaining a reputation for 
 sagacity is in pointing out the shortcomings of 
 such good movements. When a number of men 
 are really and intelligently moved by sacred 
 conviction, many around them will be touched 
 with the contagious excitement generated in the 
 community ; and, of course, if that does not 
 deepen into something more worthy, it will be 
 as sparks shot from the anvil rather than as iron 
 that is heated at the core and then beaten into 
 the right shape. 
 
 The history of religious revivals is a history 
 of divine power and of human weakness. We 
 have many living witnesses of the power, just as 
 we have, alas ! too many strong proofs of the 
 weakness. But we do not cut down the fruit 
 tree because some of its blossoms come to 
 nothing. We do not believe that Pentecost was 
 a figment, a fond imagination of the spiritual 
 visionary, but a fact in the history of the 
 Church. Such a fountain-head leads us to look 
 for corresponding streams.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE PRESENT DAY 1890. 
 
 1 N bringing this succession of pictures of local 
 religious life and ecclesiastical history to a 
 close, it may not be an unprofitable task to 
 inquire what the Christianity of the present day 
 has to say for itself after all the travail and 
 discipline of the centuries through which it 
 has passed. We have seen that there has been 
 much shaking : does anything remain which this 
 age should cleave to ? One earthen vessel after 
 another has been broken before our eyes ; is the 
 divine treasure left, and is it really such to us of 
 the present day ? 
 
 No stranger can visit our city and cast his 
 eye abroad upon its principal streets without 
 meeting abundant evidence of the fact that 
 Christianity still exists, and can erect for its 
 worship and work edifices which are the orna- 
 ment and pride of the place. The crowded ap- 
 pearance of Union Street, also, on a fine Sabbath 
 morning, a few minutes before worship is begun, 
 demonstrates that the Christian Church still has 
 a hold of the population. 
 
 But is not the hold slackening ? " Yes " and 
 
 o 
 
 " No " can be answered to that question. Mere
 
 CHRISTIANITY OF THE PKESEST DAY. 319 
 
 external authority and conventional restraint are 
 unquestionably less potent than they were a 
 generation or two ago, in securing church attend- 
 ance. In these days, when freedom is not un- 
 frequently interpreted to mean self-will, the yoke 
 of established custom is disdainfully dropped by 
 some who deem it possible now to maintain 
 " respectability " outside the Church. Formalism 
 is to be seen flinging aside its irksome mask and 
 revealing itself as unabashed indifference or even 
 avowed hostility. 
 
 But most persons who feel that man shall not 
 live by bread alone, who are conscious that they 
 have a moral and religious nature which it is 
 their duty to nourish and discipline, acknowledge 
 that they are as much dependent on the verities 
 of which the Church is the witness and vehicle, 
 as were their ancestors a thousand years ago. 
 Advancing civilisation has no more made the 
 Christian religion unnecessary than gas and 
 electricity have lessened the importance of the 
 sun. 
 
 It must be admitted that a great deal which 
 the people of this country held most tenaciously, 
 and for which they sometimes resolutely con- 
 tended, is now regarded with a languid interest. 
 Questions of metaphysical theology and theo- 
 retical Church polity do not engage the popular 
 mind as they once did. In so far as that arises 
 from a better perspective of truth and a more
 
 320 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 practical use of religion, there is cause for thank- 
 fulness. Breadth and catholicity of feeling are 
 on the increase. Men are beginning to realise 
 as perhaps they never did before, that where 
 Christ is, there is the Church, and consequently 
 they are ready to recognise as brethren all who 
 " hold the Head," even though they may differ in 
 their views of Church government and on minor 
 points of doctrine. There is now a more thorough 
 discrimination between things essential and things 
 non-essential, and even where there is no immedi- 
 ate prospect of ecclesiastical incorporation, there is 
 to a large extent a real sense of spiritual brother- 
 hood among all truly evangelical Christians. 
 
 But we should ever be on our guard lest we 
 mistake the chilling effect of a lowered tempera- 
 ture of Christian feeling for the wisdom which 
 is joined to love, and which enables us fittingly 
 and usefully to distribute our intensity. Changes 
 we must have, as the generations succeed each 
 other, but the best theological change is often 
 little more than a shifting of emphasis. An easy- 
 going laxity is to be avoided, as it is a bastard 
 kind of liberality. A Gallio's unconcern is a 
 miserable substitute for true catholicity. While 
 it is a decided advantage that we should be able 
 to distinguish clearly between sheath and kernel, 
 there will be no great gain unless we at the same 
 time hold what is central and vital in our com- 
 mon Christianity with an added firmness. And
 
 CHRISTIANITY OF THE PRESENT DAY. 321 
 
 while we have learned that it is wisdom such 
 as humility begets, to keep a tight rein upon 
 merely curious and speculative propensities, re- 
 straining ourselves from the attempt to reach 
 definite conclusions about what is not clearly 
 revealed, and which therefore lies beyond the 
 immediate interests of life and duty, yet we 
 ought to have an intelligent apprehension of 
 the things most surely believed amongst us. 
 Much of the blatant talk that is meant to dis- 
 credit theology, only goes to show that the talkers 
 depreciate earnest purpose and exact thought, 
 with regard to the most momentous theme 
 
 o 
 
 which can engage the mind of man. Theology 
 is no more than religion as it shows itself to the 
 thought of man. Loose or inaccurate thinking 
 cannot fail to be bad in its effects, into whatever 
 department of human interest it is allowed to 
 creep. Who ever sneers at sound thinking in 
 social economics? Is it not as important that 
 we should get at the truth in the economics for 
 eternity ? No doubt hard, dry, sapless dog- 
 matism has much to do with the suspicion under 
 which theology has fallen in these days. But it 
 is the lifelessness, not the accuracy, that is at 
 fault. Theology is the teaching of Scripture as 
 it reflects itself in human intelligence. It cannot 
 be regarded as a small matter by any sane mind 
 to try to hold up a flawless mirror to the Word 
 of God, as mere human opinion which is not the 
 X
 
 322 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 reflection of truth is but the bubble that bursts 
 in the air, but the fleck of foam that melts on 
 the shore. 
 
 The spirit of the age is putting the Church 
 of the present day to the proof in many ways. 
 The very intellectual progress of which we are 
 the heirs and gainers, and which, also, enlight- 
 ened religion has done so much to promote, has 
 sometimes seemed to array itself against us. 
 Nothing escapes the searching, critical inquiry 
 of this scientific age, and the Scriptures, which 
 are the depositories and symbols of that which 
 is dearest to us, have been scrutinised within the 
 last two or three decades as they never were 
 before. Scholarly experts are leading us to 
 views regarding the literary origin and struc- 
 ture of some parts of the Bible different from 
 those which tradition upheld. The time of tran- 
 sition involved in this readjustment is trying, not 
 so much to those who have faith, as to others who 
 are only as yet halting inquirers ; but the crisis 
 has been made needlessly acute by the rashness 
 of a few men who have more learning than judg- 
 ment, and seem to have a predilection for the 
 most extreme view which the facts, with the 
 utmost stretching, will allow, however shocking 
 to simple faith. But more sober, not to say 
 more reverent, minds, with a full equipment of 
 scholarship, yet weighted with a grave sense of 
 responsibility to those who come not within the
 
 CHRISTIANITY OF THE PRESENT DAY. 323 
 
 precincts of the academy, are gradually bringing 
 the Church to conclusions regarding its sacred 
 writings, which, though different in some respects 
 from those which were previously held, are yet 
 consistent with an undiminished and even added 
 appreciation for the worth, and more thorough 
 submission to the authority of the Word of God. 
 Every part of man's nature must be brought into 
 living relation to the revelation of God, the 
 intellect as well as the heart and conscience ; 
 and " criticism " has its mission, as Pressense 
 says, in "disengaging the everlasting Gospel 
 from the superstition of orthodox scholasticism 
 in order to reconcile it with the conscience, while 
 taking away nothing of the divine ' foolishness ' 
 of the Cross." 
 
 The danger besetting a period when sifting 
 intelligence is specially at work is to emphasise 
 what is doubted or denied rather than what is 
 held. We have to remember that when the 
 mind is more enthusiastic about the negative 
 than the positive part of its religious creed, the 
 face is set in the direction of death ; for it is by 
 affirmations that we live. Criticism, to the mind 
 in a healthy state, is but clearing the way for 
 better access to the truth, for which pearl of 
 great price we are willing to sell all that we 
 have. As the Germans put it, in emptying the 
 bath we must be careful, lest we throw away the 
 baby as well.
 
 324 Tiir: LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 Another trial which the Church, as repre- 
 senting things spiritual and eternal, has to bear 
 in the present day is the extraordinary and em- 
 barrassing influx of interest in material things, 
 which is a striking feature of this age of 
 physical discovery and enlargement. Things 
 tangible and visible are opening up to us all 
 round, yielding outlets, conveniences, and grati- 
 fications in such abundance that there is the 
 risk of intoxication if a persistent effort is not 
 made to live " in the spirit." The world of sense 
 is able to do a o-reat deal more for us than it did 
 
 t^ 
 
 for former generations, and we are bound to 
 believe that all this material progress is the gift 
 of Heaven, which will lead to a real expansion 
 of life after the excitement connected with our 
 new possessions has subsided, and we, without, 
 going against the due order and proportion of 
 things, are able to accommodate ourselves wisely 
 
 o ' / 
 
 to our providentially-appointed environment. 
 
 In former days in Scotland the contents of 
 the Bible and the sermons the people heard 
 were not only nutriment to the soul, but also 
 were largely helpful in maintaining an intel- 
 lectual interest in life. Now, a world of varied 
 interest comes daily into the home of every 
 artisan through the afternoon newspaper ; and 
 the Scriptures and the Church must take their 
 place along with other things in stimulating 
 mental activity. The task before the Church
 
 CHRISTIANITY OF THE PRESENT DAY. 325 
 
 of the present day is to encourage the people to 
 think on whatsoever things are true, and pure, 
 and of good report, and yet to remind them that 
 to have the mind secularised is to have its 
 noblest parts deadened. 
 
 Should not the Church of the present day 
 maintain that the Kingdom of God ought to 
 come here and now in larger measure in all 
 the many-sidedness of its advent, temporal 
 and spiritual ; that physical science and social 
 economy ought to make the earth a more 
 attractive dwelling-place for all its inhabitants; 
 and, at the same time, should it not fearlessly 
 declare that man cannot be "groomed and fod- 
 dered into blessedness ; " that you can no more 
 put right what is wrong in human nature by a 
 mere improvement of circumstances than, as 
 Jeremy Taylor says, you can cure a man of the 
 colic by brushing his clothes ; that no one can 
 live the life of the mere worldling without 
 shutting up and shutting out what is man's best 
 part ; and that life which does not link itself 
 with heaven is like earth without a sky, or the 
 sky without its sun ? 
 
 But in order that the Church may be able to 
 hold its ground as a witness for spirituality, 
 it must itself be free from the taint of sensa- 
 tionalism in its worship and methods. The 
 temptation besets us all, when, owing to pre- 
 vailing spiritual indifference, we do not get the
 
 326 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 " success " we desire on Scriptural lines, to come 
 down to lower ideals and content ourselves with 
 social and other results but the temptation is to 
 be resisted. The prime question is not what will 
 draw a crowd and please it. Statistics, enlarged 
 communion rolls, which are sometimes a sad 
 study, and popular support are no infallible 
 criterion of real prosperity. Multiplied activi- 
 ties, accompanied with a diminished interest in 
 prayer, may only mean that we are trying to 
 spend more spiritual energy than we are really 
 succeeding in generating. Organisation is good 
 if there be the life to organise, but the Kingdom 
 of Heaven never has come by activity of any 
 kind, in which prayer has not been what the 
 soul is to the body. 
 
 The best gift the age can have is praying men 
 and women in the pews and brave men in the 
 pulpit, who, overshadowed by eternity and de- 
 termined at all cost to deliver the divine message 
 with which they have been entrusted, will speak 
 with a view, not so much to the taste and liking 
 of men as to their profit. The truth of heaven 
 never was palatable to proud, unspiritual men ; 
 nevertheless, any progress that the world has 
 made is due to its fearless utterance. Was not 
 Thorold, the Bishop of Rochester, right when he 
 said " But this I am sure of, that if we had 
 a little more of that despised Puritanism with- 
 out its flaws and defects there might be more
 
 CHRISTIANITY OF THE PRESENT DAY. 327 
 
 substance in our sermons, more backbone in 
 our manhood, more honesty in our markets, and 
 more purity in our homes ? " 
 
 A gain that the Church of the present day 
 can count as belonging to it, and yet one that is 
 accompanied by a measure of danger, is the large 
 attention that is being paid to the ethical or 
 practical side of the Christian religion. The 
 pulpit of Scotland to-day is 'exhibiting and 
 applying as it never did before the moral teach- 
 ing of the New Testament. We have swung 
 from Paul to James, and we speak less of the 
 doctrinal basis of Christianity and more of the 
 superstructure of life and conduct than our fore- 
 fathers did. This plain and palpable reaction 
 shows itself in various ways. The human and 
 outward life of our Lord is most minutely and 
 vividly pourtrayed ; the Gospels are favoured 
 more than the Epistles, and those mystical phases 
 of the divine life which John makes it his special 
 business to set forth are not the favourite studies 
 of the present day. The complaint is heard that 
 the modern pulpit says little about sin, the 
 Atonement, and the necessity for conversion, and 
 leaves other parts of the foundation work of the 
 ministry somewhat in the background. 
 
 If it be so, it will soon be found out that 
 ethics are of little avail without those energies 
 which come through the exercise of faith in a 
 living and saving Christ. It is by the Father-
 
 328 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 hood of God, of which the Incarnation and the 
 Cross are the witness, that we have learned of the 
 brotherhood of men. In so far as the Socialism 
 of the day is sound and practical, it assumes 
 and takes to its credit the moral capital which 
 Christianity has accumulated. It is only, there- 
 fore, as we continue to give height to our 
 religious feeling that it can find its proper 
 breadth. A New Testament theology which 
 develops love for God is the root from which 
 spring the stalk and branches of love to our 
 fellows. Charity to the poor, mercifulness to 
 the conquered, hatred of war, care for the sick 
 and aged may all be the developed and inherited 
 results of a Christian experience which is not 
 possessed by the very persons who favour such 
 graces, and therefore may be embraced in a 
 worldliness that has no eternity in it, no sense 
 of sin, and no vital union with Christ ; and not 
 only so, but history docs not bring before us 
 the case of any nation being enabled to retain a 
 permanent hold of such virtues and graces with- 
 out continued faith and worship as the soul of 
 such a beautiful ethical body. 
 
 We have to be on our guard, too, against the 
 tendency to substitute the discussion of religious 
 subjects before men for the application of reli- 
 gious truth to men. Columba and the long line 
 of illustrious successors who have made Scotland 
 religiously what it is, ever followed the example
 
 CHRISTIANITY OF THE PRESENT DAY. 329 
 
 of the Apostles, who called upon men to repent 
 and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. They 
 spoke as men who had entered, not the academy, 
 but the arena. They did not content themselves 
 with a presentation of truth under general and 
 impersonal aspects, talking about religion as 
 they would of art or any branch of science ; but 
 they grappled with the consciences of men, so 
 as to bring about entire and immediate sur- 
 render to God. 
 
 A writer of the present day refers in mourn- 
 ful terms to " the slow but sure development of 
 the belief in the bankruptcy of nature which 
 promises to become the gloomy faith of the nine- 
 teenth century." There is something to favour 
 that pessimistic view if those who lead us in 
 literature and philosophy cease to have the fear 
 of God before their eyes, and regard morality as 
 something that does not go further back than 
 social expediency. What happened to ancient 
 Rome may happen to us if the same forces are 
 allowed to work. Nay, that cannot be: God is 
 in His heaven. We need to pray for more faith. 
 An accession of faith when it comes and it will 
 come is sure to bring so much with it. The 
 men and w 7 omen who during the course of this 
 century have left their mark upon our nation's 
 history were all reared in an atmosphere of faith, 
 Newman, George Eliot, Gladstone, Bright, Tenny- 
 son, and Browning were all, to a large extent,
 
 330 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 the offspring of the great Evangelical revival 
 with which the century began. 
 
 It is only an age of faith that is creative, 
 that can have genius, public spirit, and heroism 
 as its natural fruit. When men have no vision 
 of unseen realities, no apprehension of eternal 
 truth, no intimate personal converse with the 
 great Father above, who is the fount of thought 
 
 O d 
 
 and inspiration, life sinks down to a lower level, 
 and the glories and joys of existence are so much 
 less exalted. An age of unbelief produces acute 
 critics, learned commentators, but the creative 
 work, in which man shows himself indeed to be 
 made in the image of God, is not possible where 
 there is no faith. 
 
 Let all who have faith draw more closely 
 together in these days. A British ambassador 
 some years ago, in addressing an English congre- 
 gation on the Continent, not belonging to his 
 own Church, said, " At home we recognise and 
 emphasise our differences : abroad we realise the 
 identities." Why should our countrymen abroad 
 have an advantage over us at home ? Should 
 
 <j 
 
 we not, for the sake of our common Christianity 
 and the world that needs it so much, and in the 
 face of abounding religious indifference, draw 
 nearer to the " identities " and therefore nearer 
 to each other ?
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 THE BRECBANNOCH. 
 (Page 11.) 
 
 " But there remains a most interesting traditional 
 link with Columba in 'a very beautiful and very 
 remarkable reliquary' that has been preserved time 
 out of mind in Monymusk House, and that is evi- 
 dently a small casket for containing some relics of a 
 saint. Dr. Anderson makes an elaborate statement 
 regarding it, and says that as far as he knows it is 
 the only one of its kind and period now existing in 
 Scotland and that, if it is not the Brecbannoch of 
 St. Columba, it is one of the strangest coincidences 
 that a reliquary answering so closely to it should 
 have been preserved at Monymusk. . . . This is 
 a small wooden box hollowed out of the solid, and 
 covered with plates of pale bronze and silver. It was 
 originally jewelled, and is still enamelled, and the 
 tracings of the characteristic Celtic spiral ornaments 
 that were engraved on it, are still visible. At both 
 ends it had a hooked plate with a hinge, and a strap 
 might readily be inserted into the hook to let it be 
 carried on one's breast, but one plate is now lost."- 
 From "Church and Priory of M&nymusk," pp. 3-4.
 
 332 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 STATUTE ANENT PROCESSION ON SAINTS' DAYS. 
 (Pages 81-82.) 
 
 "22 May 1531. Ordour of Candilmess Proces- 
 sion, and of Corpus Cristi. The said day, it was 
 statut and ordanit, be the prouest, bailyeis, and 
 counsaile present for the tyme, con forme to the auld 
 honorabil consuetudis and ryte of this burgh, and of 
 the nobill burgh of Edinburgh, of the quhilk rite and 
 consuetude the forsaid prouest hes gotten copy in 
 write ; that is to say, in the honor of God and the 
 Blissit Vurgyne Marye, the craftissmene of this 
 burgh, in thair best aray, keipe and decoire the 
 procession on Corpus Cristi dais, and Candilmes 
 day, als honorabillye as thai can, every craft with 
 thair awin baner, with the armis of thair craft tharon; 
 And they sail pass, ilk craft be thame self, tua and 
 tua, in this ordour, that is to say, in the first, the 
 fleschars ; and, nixt thame, the barbouris ; nixt thame, 
 skynnaris and furroweris, togidder; nixt thame, the 
 cordonars ; nixt thame, tailyours ; eftir thame, the 
 vobstaris and valcaris, togidder ; nixt thame the 
 baxtaris ; and last of all, nerest the sacrament, passis 
 all hemmermen, that is to say, smythis, wrichtis, 
 masonis, cuparis, sclateris, goldsmythis, and armour- 
 aris : And every ane of the said craftis, in the 
 Candilmes procession, sail furneiss thair pageane, 
 conforme to the auld statut maid in the year of God 
 ji Y <; ant ] x yeirs, quhilk statut was maid with the 
 awiss of the haill counsaile, and approvit be the 
 craftsmen of the towne, for the tyme, and thair suc- 
 cessors, and oblist thame to the keping of the samyn.
 
 APPENDIX. 333 
 
 under the pain of xl shillings, and the bailyeis unlaw 
 unforgiven, to be uptakin of thame that vas absent 
 but one resonabill causs frae the said processiouns, or 
 that makkis trubill or perturbation tharin, to the 
 quhilk thai var oblist be thair hands uphaldin in 
 jugement : And the prouest, bailyeis, and consale 
 present for the tyme, ratifies and approvis this present 
 statut, and the paines contenit tharin, to be kepit 
 inviolablye, in all mancre in tyme coming. 
 
 The crafts are chargit to furneish the paugeanys 
 underwrittin : 
 
 The flescharis, Sanct Bestien, and his Tormentouris ; 
 
 The barbouris, Sanct Lowrie, and his Turmentouris ; 
 
 [The] skynnaris, Sanct Stewin, and Tormentouris ; 
 
 The cordinaris, Sanct Marty ne ; 
 
 The tailyeouris, The Coronatioun of our Lady ; 
 
 [The] litstaris, Sanct Nicholass ; 
 
 [The] wobstaris, walcaris, and bonet makaris, Sanct 
 John 
 
 [The] baxtaris, Saint Georg ; 
 
 [The] wrichtes, mcssounis, slateris, and cuparis, The 
 Eesurrection. 
 
 The smyths and hemmermen to furneiss, The Bear- 
 men of the Croce. 
 
 From Burgh Eecords of Aberdeen. 
 
 QUAKER SETTLEMENT IN KINMUCK. 
 (Page 170.) 
 
 In the little graveyard adjoining the Quaker 
 meeting-house at Kinmnck one of the rows of grave-
 
 334 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 stones contains a record of the respective ages of the 
 persons there interred, showing the longevity of the 
 race 85 years, 80, 40, 72, 90, 79, 72, 93, 76, 84, 85, 
 60, 84. 
 
 A FAMOUS ABERDEEN SOCIETY. 
 (Pages 222 and 224.) 
 
 The "Philosophical Society in Aberdeen," as it 
 called itself, but better known in popular phrase as 
 the " Wise Club," came into existence in January, 
 1758. The members met once a fortnight in a 
 tavern, at five o'clock. "Entertainment" was pro- 
 vided as a relief from the dissertations ; but it was a 
 distinct rule that " the members shall leave the meet- 
 ing-room at ten, and the entertainment shall not 
 exceed eighteenpence a head." A Avriter in Mac- 
 inillan's Magazine, Vol. VIII., from whom we have 
 obtained the above information, also gives us the 
 transcript of one of the tavern bills for a sitting : 
 
 To One Bottle Port . . . 020 
 
 To Punch 026 
 
 To Porter 008 
 
 To Pipes and Tobacco . . 004 
 
 Entert. 046 
 
 10 
 Bill at J. Bean's. 006 
 
 10 6 
 llth March, 1772. 
 
 Almost the whole of Campbell's "Philosophy of 
 Rhetoric " was submitted piecemeal to the criticism
 
 APPENDIX. 335 
 
 of the members. The following are some of the 
 subjects they discussed : " Is the human soul con- 
 fined to any part of the human body, and, if so, to 
 what part?" (Stewart) "What is the foundation of 
 moral obligation ? " (Farquhar) " Whether brutes 
 have souls, and, if they have, wherein do they differ 
 from human 1 " (Dr. Skene). 
 
 JACOBITISM IN CHURCH. 
 (Page 23G.) 
 
 " I saw frequent example of the people's disaffec- 
 tion to the present Government in the above-mentioned 
 church of Aberdeen, where there is an organ, the only 
 one I know of, and the service is chanted as in our 
 cathedrals. Being there one Sunday morning with 
 another English gentleman, when the minister came 
 to that part of the litany where the King is prayed 
 for by name the people all rose up as one in contempt 
 of it, and men and women set themselves about some 
 trivial action, as taking snuff, &c., to show their 
 dislike and signify to each other they were all of one 
 mind ; and when the responsal should have been 
 pronounced, though they had been loud in all that 
 preceded, to our amazement there was not one single 
 voice to be heard but our own, so suddenly and 
 entirely were we dropped." Hurt's " Letters from the 
 North of Scotland, 1 ' 1764. 
 
 Dr. Cunningham, in his " Church History of Scot- 
 land," quotes the remark of an "old Jacobite," which
 
 336 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 agrees with the above : " Well do I remember the 
 day on which the name of George was mentioned in 
 the morning service for the first time such blowing 
 of noses, such significant hums, such half suppressed 
 sighs, such smothered groans and universal confusion, 
 can hardly be conceived."
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Aberdeen, bishopric of, 53 ; foundations of friars in, 54 ; 
 early importance of, 55 ; cathedral of, 33, 63 ; ecclesias- 
 tical establishments at Reformation, 78 ; ancient page- 
 ants, 81 ; visit of Margaret, queen of James IV., 83; 
 donations towards repair of St. Nicholas Church, 84 ; 
 population of at Reformation, 107 ; Covenanting 
 struggle in, 146; famous "Doctors" of, 155; forma- 
 tion of Methodist Society in, 247, 253 ; Synod of over- 
 ture from, as to vagrant teachers, &c., '272 ; first Congre- 
 gational church, 273 ; first Baptist church, 275 ; list of 
 ministers who left charges at Disruption, 304 ; revival 
 of 1858-60, 308 ; a famous society, 334. 
 
 Aberdour, tradition as to visit of Columba to, 15. 
 
 Aboyne Castle, incised stone at, 27. 
 
 Adamnan Life of Columba, 2. 
 
 Anti-burghers, branch of the Secession Church, 206, 212. 
 
 Baptists, the, 274. 
 
 Barbotir, Archdeacon, 57 ; references to, 59, 60 ; the " Brus,' ! 
 
 60, 62. 
 
 Barclay, David, of Ury, 173. 
 Beattie, author of the " Minstrel/' 217. 
 Bisset, Mr. John, minister of St. Nicholas, 210. 
 Boece, Hector, principal of King's College, 72. 
 Brecbannoch at Monymusk House, 10, 331. 
 Brown, Rev. William, Craigdum, 287. 
 Brown, Principal, 2S8. 
 Brown, Provost, 288. 
 Brownists, the, 266. 
 V
 
 338 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 Burghers, branch of the Secession Church, 206, 212. 
 Burnett, Alexander G., of Kemnay, 315. 
 
 Campbell, Principal, 221 ; parentage, 221 ; minister at 
 Banchory-Ternan, 222 ; at Aberdeen, 223 ; principal of 
 Marischal College, 224 ; works of, 225 ; death, 231. 
 
 Candida Casa, foundation of, 18. 
 
 Cant, Andrew, 157 ; parentage, 158 ; minister at Alford, 150 ; 
 at Pitsligo, 160 ; extract from sermon at Inverness, 
 162 ; minister at Aberdeen, 165 ; death, 168. 
 
 Celtic Church, nature of, 40. 
 
 Chalmers, John, minister of Keith, 126. 
 
 Christianity of the present day, 318. 
 
 Church dues, hardship of, 80. 
 
 Church life during seventeenth century, 188. 
 
 Colu/nba, 1 ; parentage, 3 ; character, 4 ; leaves Ireland, 
 7 ; lands at lona, 8 ; work there, 9, 11 ; travels north- 
 ward to Inverness, 14; visits Aberdour and Old Deer, 14. 
 
 Congregationalism in the north, 273. 
 
 Cowie, George, of Huntly, 255 ; parentage, 250 ; ministry at 
 Huntly, 258 ; deposed by Synod, 262 ; forms indepen- 
 dent congregation, 262 ; death, 263. 
 
 Craig, John, minister, 103, 110; parentage, 110; studies 
 abroad, 111; returns to Scotland, 112; ministry at 
 Aberdeen, 113; chaplain to James VI., 113. 
 
 Craigdam, Secession church at, 209, 287. 
 
 Culdees in Scotland, 43. 
 
 Customs derived from old religion, 23. 
 
 Deer, Book of, 14, 15. 
 
 Dickson, David, commissioner to Aberdeen, 152. 
 
 Disruption of 1843, 296 ; causes leading up to, 297 ; list of 
 
 Aberdeen ministers who left their charges, 304. 
 Drostan, early missionary, 1, 18 ; parentage, 24 ; labours at 
 
 Deer, 26 ; retires to Glenesk, 26. 
 Druids, priests of native religion, 21. 
 Dimbar, Bishop, 73.
 
 INDEX. 339 
 
 Elphinetone, Bishop, 65 ; education, 66 ; appointment to 
 See of Aberdeen, 66 ; founder of King's College, 67 ; 
 death, 71. 
 
 Episcopacy and Presbyterianism contrasted, 116. 
 
 Episcopacy, introduction of diocesan, 53. 
 
 Erskine, Ebenezer, 203. 
 
 Forbes, Dr. John, of Corse, 155. 
 
 Forbes, Bishop Patrick, 115; parentage, 123; letter to 
 
 James VI., 125; enters the ministry, 126; ministry at 
 
 Keith, 127 bishop, 127. 
 Fordoun, John of, 64 ; his " History," 64. 
 Fraser, Mr. Alexander, minister of Botriphnie, 193. 
 
 Gerard, Alexander, works of, 218. 
 Gordon, Duchess of, 31. 
 Gordon, John, of Parkhill, 315. 
 Grant, Hay Macdowall, of Arndilly, 315. 
 
 Haldane, James, 267 ; visit to Aberdeen, 270. 
 
 Haldane, Robert, 267. 
 
 Hamilton, Patrick, martyr, 97. 
 
 Henderson, Alexander, commissioner to Aberdeen, 150. 
 
 Heriot, Adam, first Protestant minister at Aberdeen, 109. 
 
 Hill, Rowland, journal of visit to Scotland, 255. 
 
 Independents, the, 264 ; origin of, 266. 
 
 Insch, monumental stone at, 75. 
 
 Inverness, visited by Columba, 14. 
 
 lona, landing of Columba, 8 ; reference to by Dr. Johnson, 9. 
 
 Ireland, condition of during fifth century, 6. 
 
 Irvine, "devils" of, 153. 
 
 Jacobitism in church, 335. 
 
 J affray, Alexander, of Kingswells, 175; his "diary," 177; 
 
 early life, 179; a commissioner to Charles II., LSI ; 
 
 prisoner in England, 182; a member of Parliament, 185 ; 
 
 death, 1S7.
 
 340 THE LIGHTS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 Kidd, Dr., 227, 276 ; ministry at Gilcomston Chapel, 277. 
 
 Kinmuck, Quaker settlement at, 333. 
 
 Kintorc, Earl of, 315. 
 
 Kiiox, services as a leader, 92. 
 
 Lollards, the, 90. 
 
 Lathers books forbidden, 91. 
 
 Lynturk, Secession church at, 209. 
 
 Machar, parentage of, 33 ; chooses site for church, 33. 
 Margaret, Queen, her influence on Scottish Church, 47. 
 Marshall, John, rector of Grammar School, 108. 
 Methodists, the, 245 ; various societies of, 252. 
 Missionaries, work of early, 28, 29, 30. 
 Moderates, the, 213. 
 
 North, Brownlow, 315. 
 
 Norsemen responsible for loss of records, 37. 
 
 Old Deer, tradition as to visit of Columba to, 15. 
 Oldmachar Cathedral, foundation of, 33, (53. 
 
 Parochial system, introduction of, 52. 
 
 Philosophical Society in Aberdeen, 334. 
 
 Pictland, evangelisation of. 1. 
 
 Picts, religion of the, 21. 
 
 Presbyterianism and Episcopacy contrasted, 116. 
 
 Priests, position of, 77. 
 
 Processions on saints' days, statute anent, 332. 
 
 Quakers in Aberdeen, 170; other settlements, 170, 333. 
 
 Radclifle, Reginald, visit to Aberdeen, 309. 
 
 Reformation, the, 87 ; condition of Church at. 89, 90 
 
 authority of Scripture fundamental principle of, 94. 
 Reid, Professor of Moral Philosophy, 218. 
 Romans in Britain, 2.
 
 INDEX. 341 
 
 Robertson, Patrick, of Craifcrdam. - 2H7 ; |>arenta<re, 2S9 : 
 ministry, 290. 
 
 Rutherford, Samuel, 130; parentage, 131; banishment to 
 Aberdeen, 132; his "letters,'' 133; treatment in Al>er- 
 deen. 139; returns to Amvoth, 142; dec-lines professor- 
 ship of divinity at Aberdeen, 142. 
 
 St. Bartholomew's Day, massacre of, 102. 
 
 Si. Devenick, 34 ; churches of Nether Banchory and Moth- 
 lick dedicated to him, 34. 
 
 St. Fergus. 34. 
 
 St. Ninian, labours in (Jalloway, 3. 
 
 St. Tcrnan, 34 ; church dedicated to. 34. 
 
 St. Wollok, 34 ; church of. at Class, 34, 191. 
 
 Saints' days, statute anent processions on, 332. 
 
 Scotland, early condition of, 18 ; origin of name, 19. 
 
 Sculptured stones, value of as records, 39. 
 
 Seceders, the, 197. 
 
 Skinner, John, of Linshart, 232; parentage, '233; school- 
 master at Monymusk, 233 ; marriage, 234 ; settles at 
 Lon<*side, 234 ; apprehension and imprisonment. 237 : 
 works of, 242 ; death, 244. 
 
 Stone circles, purpose of, 22. 
 
 Turri(l, "devils" of. l.">3. 
 Vitrified torts, purpose of, 20. 
 
 Wesley, John, visit to Aberdeen. 247, 249. 
 Whitburn, Anti-burgher Divinity Hall at. 29O. 
 Winjfate, Xinian, of Unlit hT>\v. SS. 
 Witchcraft, suppression of. 192. 
 
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