THERE is a large work in
a number of volumes, entitled Fasti Ecdesiae Scoticanae (Calendar of the
Scottish Kirk), containing the succession of Ministers in the Parish
Churches of Scotland from the Reformation downwards. This laborious work
was compiled by I)r Hew Scott, minister of Anstruther Wester, and,
despite of some errors, is a storehouse of information respecting our
Scottish Ministers of the Past.
In reading over the
Calendar of our Carrick ministers, I am struck with the fact that while
many of them were doubtless good, self-denying men, very few are in the
least remembered now. Scarcely any of them were literary, and most of
them apparently never thought of doing aught beyond their weekly routine
of preaching a sermon, visiting the parish, and farming their glebe.
Now, I cannot help thinking that this was a defect. Dr A. B. Bruce, of
the Free Church College, Glasgow, once remarked to me; " that the
Ministers of the Church of Christ had a duty to discharge to their
parishioners' minds, as well as to their souls, and that it was good and
praiseworthy for a minister to write an occasional book on some subject
outside of the pulpit circle." Be that as it may, not one of our Carrick
Ministers of the olden time (with two exceptions) has written such a
volume.
The two exceptions are,
the Rev. William Abercrombie of Maybole (1680—88), who wrote an
interesting account of Carrick. which has been quite a treasury of
information to all local historians ever since. The other exception was
Dr James MacKnight, likewise of Maybole (1753—69), who wrote a number of
Theological books, notably a Harmony of the Gospels, concerning which a
Maybole blacksmith made the naive remark, that "the minister had been
trying to mak four men agree wha never cast oot." The worthy Doctor was
a prosaic preacher, which fact is embalmed for us in the witty remark of
his colleague, one rainy day, in the Greyfriars' Church,
Edinburgh—"Doctor, your clothes may be wat, but ye'll be dry aneuch when
ye get into the pu'pit."
One of the ministers of
Dailly became famous as a landscape painter. His name was the Rev. John
Thomson; and although he is usually known as Thomson of Dudding-ston, it
was in Dailly he first developed his taste for art The Rev. John Ramsay
of Kirkmichael (1766—1801) "was a man of great shrewdness, a searching
and practical preacher, and the first who gave a stimulus to farming
enterprise in the district He founded and was the first President of the
Carrick Farmers' Society. After the settlement of a minister in a
neighbouring parish, he said to him, "John, I was your father's friend,
and now I am your friend, and I'll gie ye a word o' advice, which ye
mauna tak ill. First, Keep aye the fear o' God; second, Keep aye your
feet on the Croun o' the Causey; third, Do your duty, and ne'er speir
what the folk say o' ye."
Several of our old
Carrick ministers are remembered for their liberality. The Rev. Robert
Alexander of Girvan (1712—36) left £400 to the Presbytery, the interest
of which (now upwards of £20) was "to be applied towards maintaining a
Student of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh for four years, to be
presented by the Kirk-Session of Girvan to natives of the parish, whom
failing, any whom the Presbytery may appoint within their bounds." The
Rev. James Gilchrist of Kirkmichael (1691—1710) " left a considerable
sum to the Kirk-Session for behoof of the poor"; while the Rev. James
Bonar of Maybole (ancestor of the present Bonars of the Free Church)
"got a large aisle built to the church for the accommodation of his
hearers."
Unfortunately, a number
of these old ministers got themselves into trouble through their
addiction to Strong Drink. The Rev. John MacCorne of Straiton, for
instance, was deposed in 1645, "as he usuallie frequents the aill-house,
drinking indifferentlie with all sorts of persons from morning to night,
except a little in the midst of the day, when he goes home to tak a
sleep." And the Rev. John Jaffray of Maybole was deposed by Archbishop
Leighton in 1670 for " profane swearing, fighting and drunkenness." It
is but right to add that the latter was a Curate in the time of the
Covenanting persecution.
One of the facts
regarding our Carrick ministers that we are proudest of is, that the
whole nine of them resigned their livings rather than submit to the
tyranny of Charles II. For Carrick was
covenanting to the core, and her ministers, as was meet, led the way.
Some of them survived the persecution, and came back to their old
parishes again; but most of them died, in the spirit of the Rev. James
Inglis of Dailly (1605—40), who wrote this answer to the Court of High
Commissioners—"I sail be as readie by God's grace to suffer as ye sail
be to persecute, and one day will make manifest whether ye doe weill or
not."