RELIGIOUS AND
ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY
Culdees—Norse
Paganism—Introduction of Christianity—Popery
—Reformation—Episcopacy—Presbyterianism—State of Religion in the
Eighteenth Centnry—Mr Haldane—Independents —Wesleyans—Seceders—Baptists—Free
Church—Established Church—Re-introduction of Roman Catholicism—of
Episcopacy—Revival of 1862-63—General Remarks.
THE moral and social
condition of a people is so intimately connected with the state of
religion amongst them, that in order fully to enter into the
character of those we are considering, it will be necessary briefly
to glance at the influence of Christianity over them.
When the Romans finally
left Britain, in A.D. 446, it appeared as if the country would speedily
lapse into that degraded state of barbarism out of which it had only
begun to emerge. But there came a light better, and brighter, and
nobler, and more enduring than any that ever emanated from either pagan
or pseudo-Christian Rome. That light was none other than the Sun of
Righteousness. In the little isle of Iona, on the west coast of
Scotland, there existed the well-known Presbyterian College presided
over by Colm, commonly called St Columba. From this little centre of
light, during the sixth century, missionaries spread over all Scotland,
carrying alike with them the blessings of spiritual life and secular
progress. Cormac, one of their number, came to Orkney, under the
auspices of one of its Pictish kings, about the year 570. From Orkney
those active apostles of truth proceeded to the sister group of islands,
and thence to Iceland.3 What progress Christianity made at this early
age, we have no definite means of ascertaining. At all events, the
ministers of Christianity seem to have been pretty numerous, for when
Harold Harfager invaded the islands three centuries after its
introduction, he found the inhabitants to consist of two classes, Piti
or Picts, and Papae or priests. The old pagan priests do not appear to
have been so distinct from the people as to be reckoned a distinct
nation; whereas the Culdees, as their name signifies, were “dwellers in
solitary places;” and in the three islands in Shetland called Papa,
after these “Paps,” there are no remains of Pictish buildings, as there
are in every other part of the country. However, we know that the “good
tidings of great joy” came to these remote islands; and who can tell but
that when the “great multitude which no man can number” shall come “out
of every nation and kindred and tongue,” to meet their Lord on the day
of His glorious appearing, there may be many who were gathered from that
distant land, by these devoted men, in that early age
At the end of the ninth
century, the islands were entirely subdued by the Norsemen, who brought
their pagan rites with them. Although they subdued, it is not at all
likely they utterly exterminated, the existing inhabitants, amongst whom
primitive Christianity would probably still continue. For a little more
than a century after their subjugation of Orkney and Zetland, did the
Norsemen continue the savage rites of Odin, so well adapted to their
summers of plunder and their winters of feasting; for, as already
mentioned, about 985, Christianity in the form of Popery was introduced
amongst them by Olaf-Trigvisson, King of Norway, in a manner highly
characteristic of the times—viz., at the point of the sword, just as the
religion of Mahomet was extended over so great a portion of the East.
But as might be expected, both from its nature and from the manner in
which they were compelled outwardly to conform to it, Roman Catholicism
produced little change on the life of the Scandinavian Shetlanders; for
we find them continuing their predatory nautical excursions for two or
three centuries afterwards. Though nominally connected with a Christian
Church, they were evidently still attached to the ancient gods of their
fathers. William, the first Bishop of Orkney and Zetland, was appointed
about 1100. After the lapse of about two centuries from the time of its
introduction, the Shetlanders, as their pursuits began to change from a
nautical to 'a pastoral character, became gradually more attached to the
new religion, until two centuries before the Reformation, when the
Church of Rome was all-powerful in the islands. Her chapels became very
numerous in every part of the country, and all her traditions and
superstitions had immense influence over the people. In the island of
Unst, for instance, which is now supplied with two churches, there are
to be seen the remains of no less than twenty-four Roman Catholic
chapels. In the larger but less numerously peopled island of Yell, the
remains of twenty-five of these chapels can be traced. While Popery and
its concomitant evils of ignorance and superstition increased, the
energy of the people appears to have declined, for they gradually
abandoned their nautical pursuits, and betook themselves to the more
peaceful employments of the shepherd and the husbandman. As an instance
of the savage character of the people at that period, I may mention that
when, in 1588, a flagship of the Spanish Armada was wrecked at the Fair
Isle, and the protracted residence of the crew began to produce a dearth
of provisions, in several instances the male inhabitants waylaid the
poor half famished foreigners, and pushed them over the cliffs.
Again much later, in the
year 1664, when a Dutch East Indiaman was wrecked at the Skerries, the
inhabitants were in a state of intoxication for twenty days, from the
spirits obtained, from the wreck.
The annual visit of the
Dutch fishing fleet in the palmy days of that great enterprise was the
occasion of much vice. So great had it become that, in 1625, the
Law-ting made it a subject of legislation. The court was informit of the
great abomination and wickedness committed yearly by the Hollanders and
country-people, godless and profane persons repairing to them at the
houses of Lerwick”—of the drunkenness, swearing, bloodshed, murder,
robbery, immorality, &c., and “after good deliberation, knowing that the
houses of Lerwick are the retreat of these profane persons and the
causes of these abominable sins and wickedness, with consent of the most
part of the owners of the said houses, ordained the said houses to be
utterly demolished and down-cassin to the ground.”
Shortly after the middle
of the fifteenth century dawned the glorious era of the Reformation. In
Scotland, as is well known, this great movement was brought about
amongst the commons by the divine blessing attending the preaching of
such noble reformers as Hamilton, Wishart, and Knox, and in opposition
to the wishes of its rulers. In England, on the other hand, it was
forced on the people by the king and nobles; and so was it introduced
into the remote Scottish province of Orkney and Zetland. Here there were
no Hamiltons and Knoxes to enlighten the people, and the “ reformer99
was none other than the notorious Lord Robert Stewart, who no doubt
forced the reformed faith on his subjects from similar motives to those
which induced Henry VIII to quarrel with Rome, and enrich himself with
the spoils of the English monasteries. In Zetland also, as in England,
the reformed religion, at the command of the rulers, assumed a prelatic
type, which appears to have prevailed till Episcopacy was abolished in
Scotland by the memorable General Assembly of 1638. The clergy who
occupied the Shetland churches at the time of the Reformation appear to
have had no difficulty in changing their creed, while they kept their
livings. Of the religious condition of the country during the
seventeenth century, as far as I have been able to ascertain, little is
known; and that little points to a state of matters by no means happy.
On the final establishment of Presbytery, after the Revolution of 1688,
the great majority of the Shetland people were again willing to “sail
with the running stream.” But the lairds remained attached to Episcopacy
up to the middle of the eighteenth century, and were, for the first half
of that period, ministered to by a single clergyman of that persuasion,
who itinerated amongst them.
The eighteenth century
was in Shetland, as in Scotland, a very dark period. Both pastors and
people were fast asleep in the cold embraces of dead Moderatism. The
clergy, however, in these remote isles, while their brethren in the
south spent their time in the genteel enjoyments of drinking claret and
cultivating belles leltres, celebrated the orgies of Bacchus with the
“corn-water” smuggled by their parishioners. The smuggling trade, in
which they were extensively engaged, had a most demoralising effect on
the people. The gentry, whenever they had an opportunity of meeting,
spent their time in drinking punch and playing cards; and profane
swearing was awfully common even among ladies of the best positions. But
during this dead period the truth of God was not left without its
witnesses. Till about the middle of the century the saintly Mr Bonar,
minister of Fetlar (the great-grandfather of the honoured ministers of
the present day of that name), “ earnestly contended for the faith once
delivered unto the saints/’ and the impress of his faithful preaching is
still in the hearts of the people of that island. In the latter half of
the century. (1743 to 1804), Mr Mill of Dunrossness itinerated through
his wide ministry, catechising the people and preaching the “ gospel of
the kingdom.” In 1799 Mr James Haldane made an evangelistic tour through
Shetland. Here, as elsewhere, the labours of that devoted evangelist
were greatly blessed, and they gave an impulse to the religious life of
the country. Mr Haldane thus describes the state of religion as he found
it—“ Of the twelve ministers, not more than two or three preached the
gospel. . . . The religious state of the people had been previously (to
his visit) deplorable.”
He was soon followed by
other Independent preachers, who, along with the Wesleyan Methodists,
who established themselves about twenty years later (in the year 1821),
were greatly blessed in their labours, which did much to revive the
drooping piety of the people. Crowds flocked to hear them, despite the
opposition of Moderate ministers and hostile lairds; and not a few
joined their communion, particularly that of the Wesleyans. They joined
them simply because they had “life,” and not, it is to be doubted,
because they approved of Arminianism more than Calvinism, or the
Independent rather than the Presbyterian form of Church polity. The
Seceders who obtained adherents, and did much good over so great a part
of Scotland from 1733 onwards, never appeared in Shetland till B&ore
than a century after that period. In 1839 they established a small
congregation in Lerwick.
The Baptists are also
represented in Shetland. Their largest congregation is in Dunrossness,
the scene of the ministry of Mr Sinclair Thomson, the founder of this
denomination in Shetland. Mr Thomson, whose ministry extended from about
1816 to his death, at the age of eighty, in 1864, was evidently a man of
great gifts and administrative powers, as well as graces. He was
originally a fisherman, and was entirely self-taught.
From about the third
decade of the present century, onwards, the Church of Scotland began to
show signs of revived zeal and energy. Her great movement, now so well
known as the “Ten Years’ Conflict,” did not excite in these islands the
interest its importance demanded. The evangelical party was not largely
represented in the county, and those who did belong to it did not take
much part in controversy. Towards the end of that remarkable period, the
principles for which the Church contended found an able exponent in the
Rev. John Ingram, colleague and successor to his father, the minister of
Unst. An eloquent and powerful preacher, a devoted minister, and a man
endowed at once with a warm heart and profound common sense, Mr Ingram
rendered then, as he has done since, great services to evangelical
religion and the Free Church. At the Disruption, when his brethren
proposed to abandon Shetland, as being too poor to support an unendowed
ministry, he was the means of preventing such a step.
One result of the
Disruption, in Shetland, was the planting of churches in districts which
had not been favoured with them before, being so distant from the parish
churches to which they were attached, that it was very difficult, if not
impossible, for the people to attend; or in parishes where the ministers
had long been unfaithful; or, like those described by Mr Haldane, who
“did not preach the gospel.” I could point to several districts where,
even within my own recollection, a mighty moral and spiritual
reformation has been wrought; but I shall only briefly mention one. The
people of the parish or district of Connings-burgh, the most northerly
district of the parish or ministry of Dunrossness, were formerly
notorious for their ignorance, poverty, drunkenness, quarrelsomeness,
and smuggling propensities. A boat’s crew of Conningsburgh men arriving
at Lerwick were pretty certain to leave it in an advanced state of
intoxication, but probably not before disturbing the peace of the town
by a fight Shortly after the Disruption, a Free Church, the first of any
denomination since the Reformation, was built at Conningsburgh, the
people of which had enjoyed the services of a faithful minister, in the
neighbouring parish of Sandwick, for some years before that event. The
people of the parish, with scarcely an exception, adhered to this
church, and the ministrations of their faithful pastors have been so
much blessed, that the formerly savage Conningsburghers have risen
greatly in the scale both of religion and morality. Very similar
results, although not on so large a scale, are following the recent
planting, in very necessitous districts, of United Presbyterian
Churches. The efforts of the various non-conforming bodies have produced
a most wholesome influence on the Established Church, in stimulating her
to greater zeal. With a laudable desire to care for the waste places,
she has, during recent years, placed missionaries in several destitute
localities, besides endowing two new quoad sacra parishes, and providing
them with ordained ministers. Much of the present prosperity of this
Church may be attributed to the judicious selection made by the Earl of
Zetland, when filling up vacant parishes. What has injured her more than
anything else, is the heavy assessments of late imposed in many
parishes, for the erection and repair of churches and manses. In several
instances, a charge of ten or twelve shillings, and in one case
seventeen shillings and sixpence, per pound, has been laid on the whole
rental of the parish, that of feuers as well as heritors. These
grievotis burdens would be much felt anywhere, but weigh peculiarly
heavily on the pockets of the Shetland proprietors, whose Poor Rates and
other assessments are already more than they can bear. They formed the
chief subject of his speech, when Mr McLaren, M.P. for Edinburgh, in the
spring of 1870, moved the second reading of his Bill for Abolishing
Compulsory Church Bates in Scotland. It is to be regretted the Church
cannot devise some mode of putting an end to this source of weakness to
herself, and irritation to the country at large.
In 1860, the timid
Protestants of Shetland were alarmed by the cry of “Popery!” Dr Stephen
De Junkovskoi, Apostolic Prefect of the Arctic Regions, escorted by two
priests of inferior degree, arrived at Lerwick, and founded an outpost
of the Church of Rome. Mission premises were soon afterwards secured,
but no church built; and since the death of tbeir accomplished
clergyman, in 1872, the few members of that communion (chiefly Irish)
have been left without a shepherd.
Episcopacy, which had
died out more than a century before, reappeared in Shetland in 1861,
when a mission was established at Lerwick, under the Rev. Robert Walker.
The labours of this worthy gentleman have been devoted chiefly to the
poor, the ignorant, and those who had lapsed from attendance at church
altogether; and the congregation which regularly assembles in the
handsome church of St Magnus is a very tangible proof of his success.
The school attached to this church, as mentioned in another connection,
has done much good to the many poor children who attend it.
A remarkable revival of
religion took place in 1862-3, chiefly through the instrumentality of Mr
John Fraser, a gentleman distinguished as much by his abilities and
varied accomplishments, as by his devotion to the glory of the Redeemer,
and the spiritual welfare of his fellow-men. Mr Fraser itinerated
through all the country and held numerous meetings. Wherever he went his
services proved most attractive, and crowds flocked to his meetings,
often from great distances, across dreary moors and stormy sounds, in
the coarsest of weather; while ministers and laymen of all evangelical
denominations warmly welcomed, and readily aided him; others, chiefly of
the Established Church, stood aloof, or offered opposition. Great
interest was awakened, and great excitement prevailed. Many foolish
things were no doubt done by foolish men, but there are the best reasons
for believing that this great movement was largely conducive, at once,
to the glory of God, and the everlasting welfare of mankind. These pages
are not the place to discuss the process by which this opinion is
arrived at.
The religious and
ecclesiastical history of Shetland, thus imperfectly sketched, presents
some curious anomalies, and contrasts with other countries. In most
countries, but particularly in Scotland, we find an adherence, more or
less, to certain religious principles, which prevent the people from
being shifted about with every wind of doctrine, and from changing their
creed to suit the ever-changing policy of the times. In Shetland, these
religious, or rather ecclesiastical principles, are, or at all events
have been, unknown. The “true blue ” Presbyterianism, which is such a
marked feature of the Scottish character, and which has exerted such a
powerful influence on the history of Scotland, is unknown there. The
Shetlanders have, in short, always in religious matters “sailed with the
running stream.” At the command of their rulers, they nominally
abandoned their Paganism, and adopted Popery. At the Reformation, again,
they readily attached themselves to the Protestant Church, though
sincere Papists at heart. During the prelatic times they were
Episcopalians, and after the Revolution of 1688 they became
Presbyterians. At the Disruption, again, only those who had acceptable
pastors who “went out” joined the Free Church. Shetland at the present
day is the stronghold of the Establishment; and, until the recent
increase of Wesleyan congregations in the larger towns of Scotland,
there were, curiously enough, in Shetland more Methodists than in all
Scotland together, thus showing how Arminianism, so distasteful to the
Scottish people, readily made progress there. The Free Church, though
powerful in two or three parishes, is feeble in the county as a whole. |