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1826-1827.
I MAY here refer, by
the way, to Mr. John Ross, who, in 1812, was expelled from the
Divinity Hall in Edinburgh. Subsequently he went to London, and
acted there as one of the reporters on the staff of The Times
newspaper; he returned to Ross-shire in 182o, in the circumstances
which I am about to relate.
It came out
afterwards, though he took good care to conceal it at the time, that
a certain Association in London, whether in connection with the then
existing Government or not I am not prepared to say, entered into a
speculation for conveying Highland labourers to Buenos Ayres, or
some other part of Spanish America. To render their scheme all the
more successful and efficient, it was resolved that this Highland
colony should be placed under the superintendence, both on their
passage thither and afterwards on their arrival, of an ordained
clergyman of the Church of Scotland, to whom a stipend of £300 per
annum should be secured by the Association. Ross, from his official
avocations in connection with The Times newspaper, came in contact
with the Association and its scheme, and the proposal being made to
him, he at once closed with it. He was already a licentiate of the
Scottish Church, and nothing stood between him and the object in
view but ordination. Returning to the north, he collected, chiefly
in Sutherland, upwards of fifty emigrants, who were all appointed to
assemble at Cromarty on a certain day, and to go aboard the ship
destined to convey them to their future settlement under him as
their minister. He himself, in the meantime, was ordained by the
Presbytery of Dingwall, and all things preparatory to their final
departure being thus arranged, Ross wrote me a letter, asking my
presence on board, as moderator of the Synod, to give them a word of
exhortation, and afterwards to dine with him, along with Mr. Stewart
of Cromarty and Mr. Finlayson, the minister of the Gaelic Chapel. I
took no notice of his letter, but Mr. Stewart and Mr. Finlayson
agreed to go. Whatever they did officially I know not, but they
dined with Ross on board ship. After dinner, to indulge in a love of
fun, he said that he really did not know which of them was the
taller; would they both stand up, hack to back, to let him ascertain
the difference. They were simple enough to do so, and no sooner had
he got the backs of both their heads into such close proximity with
each other than, placing the palms of his hands on their foreheads,
lie rapped them both together with so much vigour as to make them
ring again. Mr. Stewart felt justly indignant, and though Mr.
Finlayson indulged a laugh, the end of the matter is as that a boat
was called for; on which both the reverend gentlemen left and went
home. Ross, with his emigrant congregation, arrived in Spanish
America, but he died not long afterwards.
On the 7th of June, 1826, I received a joint-communication from
Messrs Matthew Norman MacDonald and James Bridges, as treasurer and
secretary respectively of a Society recently formed for improving
church patronage. The object of this Society was to collect funds
all over Scotland for the purpose of buying up from its former
owners, hereditary or otherwise, the patronage of the churches in
the Establishment, to be settled in all time coming in terms of the
Society's regulations, on the male heads of families in full
communion with the church for a certain period preceding a vacancy;
not hesitating to give a large price for any parish, if situated in
the immediate neighbourhood of Edinburgh; and calling upon friends
to come forward and assist, as many parishes are already and will
continue to come into the market. The directors particularly refer
to a recent purchase which they had made of the patronage of the
parish of Colinton, the price of which was very large, and which the
parishioners, however willing to re-imburse, were unable to do
without public aid. Accompanying their letter was a form of reply,
which was couched in the following terms:—"In consequence of the
recent purchase of the parish of CoIinton by the Society, I agree to
subscribe . . . towards its funds." This was to be attested by the
name of the subscriber, along with his address, and directed to M.
Norman Macdonald, Esquire, W.S., Great King Street, Edinburgh, the
treasurer of the Patronage Society. In existing circumstances the
scheme was scarcely a feasible one; and its projectors did not seem
to look at all either beyond the limits of their own time, or to
future consequences, nor to foresee the Disruption of the Church,
which took place only eighteen years afterwards. To buy up the
patronage of one or two, or even more, of the parishes of Scotland,
would have required more money than the Scottish people were either
able or willing to give, while the scheme to purchase all the
patronages in Scotland was Utopian. With the most distant reference
to Disruption times such a scheme, the more it might inspire, the
more mischief would it be instrumental in producing. It is but doing
justice, however, to the directors of the Society that, in common
with all of that period, without exception, they had not the most
distant conception or anticipation of such an event. The patronage
of the parish of Colinton was the first and last of their purchases,
but whether that was afterwards secured to the people or sold to the
highest bidder I know not. The only other attempt of a similar
nature was to obtain the patronage of Dairsie in Fife; but the
purchase was made not by the parishioners, or by the Society, but by
Mr. William Innes of Sand-side, a wealthy Caithness proprietor, who
presented my friend Mr. Angus MacGillivray to the living,
conformably to the wishes of the people.
The Moderate party in
the church had at this time reached about the zenith of their power.
Their ascendancy, however, was assiduously and successfully resisted
by their Evangelical opponents, the consequences being that they
were swamped and became the minority. The measures which the
Evangelical section of the church adopted, for the increase of their
own number and influence, were various; but that which most
contributed to their success was a plan which about a year or two
before they entered into—to promote and to consolidate union among
themselves, and interchange of opinion with each other, with special
reference to the points in dispute between them and their opponents.
This union or combination was called the "Conference," and its
object will be explained by stating the substance of a communication
sent me by the secretary, Mr. Bridges, dated the 29th June, 1826,
purporting to be a private circular addressed to each of its members
on "some matters deserving of their attention." They are first
earnestly reminded that this is a spiritual and not a party union;
that its fundamental object is, by mutual counsel, to promote the
good of the church; and that each of the members is expected to
appropriate one hour of the week to prayer for the welfare of the
church. The increase of faithful members of the Conference, by the
proposal, from time to time, of those who in their quarter uniting
in general views, are likely to act cordially with us, and the
endeavour to procure the return to the Assembly of members of
congenial sentiments, were other important matters to the
consideration of which members were invited. The circular then
refers to the leading matters in dispute, such as the plurality
question, or the union of offices held by professors of divinity,
and the debates on the subject of baptism, as in the case of
Bracadale in Skye, and the case of Dunkeld. Such was the substance
of the circular, which was issued immediately after the rising of
the Assembly. It contributed largely to unite brethren to each other
so as to present an unbroken front to their opponents. The stated
meetings of the Conference were to be held on the last Tuesday of
November, January, and March, on the second Tuesday of May, and on
several days of the Assembly.
The only public event
of any importance to us in this remote corner of the kingdom, during
the year 1827, was the opening of additional places of worship in
connection with our National Church in Scotland. These new charges
were directly endowed by the State under an Act of Parliament which
had been brought in by Sir Robert Peel (then Air. Peel), the Home
Secretary. They were therefore commonly called Parliamentary or
Government churches, and were seven in number, viz., Duror, in the
Presbytery of Lorn; Tomintoul, in the Presbytery of Abernethy;
Kinlochluichart, in the Presbytery of Dingwall; Shieldaig and
Plockton, in the Presbytery of Lochcarron; Keiss and Herriedale, in
the Presbytery of Caithness. Both churches and manses were built on
sites freely given to the Government for that purpose by the
proprietors of land in the different localities. The stipends to the
ministers amounted to £120, and the patronage was vested in the
Crown. The whole scheme was completed in the autumn of this year.
The ministers appointed respectively to the new charges were Mr.
Donald MacNaughton to Duror; Mr. Charles MacPherson to Tomintoul;
Mr. David Tulloch to Kinlochluichart; Mr. Roderick MacRae to
Shieldaig; Mr. Alex. MacDonald to Plockton; Mr. Thomas Jolly to
Keiss; and Mr. D. MacLauchlan to Berriedale. The ministers of these
peculiar charges, though fully ordained to preach and to dispense
the sacraments, were notwithstanding excluded from the Presbyteries
within whose jurisdiction they officiated. This, in regard to the
original constitution of the Scottish Church, was irregular and
inconsistent. But the arrangement originated entirely in the
jealousy of the dominant Moderate party, who wished the parochial
ministers (although not bishops either in name or de jure), to be
regarded as having Episcopal powers in their respective parishes.
There were, however,
in connection with the Church, other three classes of ministers
placed in exactly similar circumstances. These were, first, the
ministers of the "Chapels of Ease," of whom there were at that time,
distributed among the Presbyteries, fifty-five. A second class
consisted of the missionaries engaged by the General Assembly's
Committee for managing the Royal Bounty. Of these there were, in
1827, thirty-six, chiefly among the Highland Presbyteries. Previous
to the year 1819 one of these missions was stationed at Achness and
Ach-na-h'uaighe, within the bounds of the Presbyteries of Tongue and
Dornoch. This station was suppressed, as before described, by the
late Marchioness of Stafford who, in her eager and unhallowed haste
to establish the Moloch-system of sheep-farming, expelled the
inhabitants, burned their houses, and in the course of a
comparatively short time levelled with the ground no less than three
places of worship.
A third class of
ministers, ordained to the functions of the pastoral office in
connection with the Church of Scotland, but excluded from her
ecclesiastical courts, were those employed by the "Society for
Propagating Christian Knowledge," instituted in 1701. In 1827 Mr.
Patrick Butter had been stationed at Fort-William, and Mr. Archibald
Cook at Berriedale and Bruan. After Berriedale had been, that same
year, made a Parliamentary Church, Mr. Cook's labours were
transferred by the Society to the district of Bruan. The people of
Berriedale, however, continued to attend his ministry as long as he
remained in connection with the mission. Mr. Colin Hunter was
stationed at Lochtayside, and Mr. John MacAlister at Glenlyon. The
latter gentleman was afterwards minister of the Gaelic Chapel in
Edinburgh, then of the parish of Nigg in Ross-shire; after the
Disruption he went to Arran, where be died. The remaining ministers
of this class were, Mr. Alexander .MacDougall, stationed at
Strathfillau; Mr. Alexander Ross, at Ullapool; Mr. Gilbert Brown of
New Blyth; while the two remaining stations, Eriboll and St. Kilda,
were that year vacant.
Of these four classes
of ministers, those of the Government churches were presented by the
Crown, and paid by the State, as already mentioned; those of the
Chapels of Ease were elected and paid by their respective
congregations; the missionary-ministers were, with the concurrence
of the people, appointed and paid by the Committee for managing the
Royal Bounty; while the last class were appointed and paid, also
with the consent of the inhabitants of the respective districts, by
the Christian Knowledge Society. It was made a condition, however,
with reference to the two last classes of missionaries that, while
their Committees paid them a stipend of £50, their congregations
should by annual contributions, aim at doubling that sum. These were
not the times, however, in which contributions for religious
purposes, or for the support of ministers, were, within the
Established Church, except in very rare cases, ever attempted. This
was specially the case in the Highlands, and missionary-ministers in
many of the out-lying districts were put upon very short commons.
Nay, in some parts, the people felt much more disposed to take than
to give, and, so far from contributing to increase the small money
stipend, they did their best to diminish it by borrowing from him
any little ready money he might have about him. Should he comply
with their request, they could only assure him that they "would be
in his debt forever." This was the only re-payment which they were
either able or willing to make.
The parish ministers
were usually subjected to many delays and annoyances by their
heritors. I received a letter, dated 12th March, 1830, from Mr.
Mackintosh of Thurso, in which he refers to his projected new
church. The only obstacle to its erection forthwith was, that the
heritors could not unhappily agree about the plan—a most elegant
one—which they, with the exception of Sir John Sinclair, thought too
expensive. They would, indeed, have avoided the outlay altogether,
if it had been possible. But the dilapidated state of the old church
pressed it upon them as a matter of necessity. It was, indeed, one
of the oldest relics of ancient, and probably of popish, times then
existing in the county, and was dedicated to St. Peter. It was of
limited capacity iii proportion to the population, and was besides a
tottering, dangerous ruin. The proposed plan had been for some time
on the books of the Presbytery, and the heritors, at their last
meeting, had promised to get all things ready for commencing the
work, but still it was delayed. He justly adds that, even should he
take legal steps, he could not compel them to hasten. It is
remarkable that, although Mr. Mackintosh took such an active part in
the first stages of these proceedings, and even participated in the
ceremony of laying the foundation-stone, he did not live to see the
building finished—he never preached in it. In the wise providence of
God that honour was reserved for his immediate successor, Mr. W. R.
Taylor. [Dr. W. R. Taylor was Iicensed by the Presbytery of Chauonry
14th Oct., 1828. ordained to the Scotch Church, Chadwell Street,
London, 23rd Oct., 1829, and admitted to Thurso 14th April, 1831. He
entered the new Parish Church in Jan., 1833. The stately Free Church
edifice in which he has latterly ministered was opened by him in
1870. The old Parish Church of St. Peters is now become a venerable
ruin; it is said to have been built by Bishop Gilbert Murray, in the
13th century.—Ed.]
About this time I had
considerable correspondence with the heritors of the parish of
Resoiis regarding the payment of my stipend and the repairs of the
manse. In regard to the latter, one of them, Mr. Urquhart of
Kinbeachie, wrote to me on 31st May, 1830, from the Isle of Wight,
to say that he presumed that I did not demand more than what was
absolutely necessary, and that the Presbytery granted no more than
what was correct to give; so far, therefore, he could have no
objection to do the needful towards these repairs. "But," he adds,
"if otherwise, the sum granted is always open to animadversion on my
part, although I consider myself bound to pay my share of the
expenses. I presume that, upon reflection, you will own with myself
that this is not the time for the Church to incur extra expenses,
from the general feelings that are now fast arising in the minds of
men in these kingdoms to promote reformation and economy both in
Church and State."
That both Church and
State needed reformation then and now is undeniable. But the
particular kind of reform desiderated by Mr. Urquhart and the
Scottish landholders was of a peculiar complexion. These most
patriotic men held in trust the property of the Church, which was
set apart by the laws and constitution of these kingdoms for its
use, and was doled out by the Court of Session as the Church from
time to time required it. The economy they demanded was really such
as would enable them to lay out these funds in improving their own
estates. They wanted no such moral and spiritual reformation as was
realised years afterwards at the Disruption. For how did the
Scottish heritors act at that time? Why, in this way—that not in
Great Britain had that reformation of the Church keener opponents,
or more violent persecutors, than they. Nay, so far did they carry
their rage against Christ and His kingdom that some of them refused
to give a few feet of God's earth, even of the most worthless part
of their property, as land on which to build a house for the worship
of God. This line of action will yet tell against them, even in the
course of time, but more especially when they shall come to settle
their accounts with Him who, on "the Great Day," shall sit in
judgment, with saints and angels as his assessors, on both the
judges and the judged of this present world.
In looking back on
that period of my life, when I was a minister of the Establishment,
I have good cause to congratulate myself on the the exchange which,
even, from a worldly point of view, I have since made. For the
twenty years consecutively in which I was a minister of the
Established Church, I did not receive a farthing of my stipend
without a grudge, or even without the curse of my heritors along
with it. The delays they ever made in paying at the term, the
insolent and ill-grounded excuses they advanced for such delays, and
the vexatious, litigious disputes into which they led me to enforce
payment, were calculated, not merely to prevent me from laying
anything by for the education of my family, and for the necessities
of old age, but even to deprive me of the means of paying my lawful
debts, or of procuring the most ordinary necessaries of life. Nay,
they thought that, in giving what justly belonged to me, they were
only granting me a favour, for which I was to show my gratitude to
them in any way in which they were pleased to call for or to expect
it. How different was all this from, and how contrary to, the
treatment which I have uniformly received since I joined our beloved
and truly noble-minded Free Church of Scotland! Its managers,
instead of opposing me or adding to my expenses, more than half-way
met my wants, and even anticipate them. After shaking myself free of
the Establishment and its annoying, unhallowed appendages, in
joining the Free Church, I may truly say that I exchanged debt and
poverty for peace of mind and a competency, enabling me to supply my
every-day wants and to pay all debts.
But I hasten to
conclude these reminiscences of the past years of my life by
expressing my thankfulness to God, for having so guided me in His
providence as, at the Disruption of the Church in 1843, to set me
free of the Establishment, with all its base appendages of lawyers,
ministers, and patrons, so that I might join myself to a Church
whose profession is—even if it be nothing more—that of being under
the exclusive government of Him Whom men crucified, but Whom His
heavenly Father hath made both Lord and Christ. |
