Parish life in the north of scotland
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| The people of Avoch under his ministry became, what the spiritually discerning would denominate, "strong believers," i.e., persons who never encountered any difficulty in the exercise of faith in Christ. In former times there had been a minister in Avoch whom the people revered, and whose ministry had produced the most salutary effects. The General Assembly wished to translate him to Inverness, as being a larger sphere of usefulness. He refused to go, so the matter was left for determination to the people. They agreed to part with him. On leaving them he predicted that many years would elapse ere they would have a gospel ministry again. Poor Mr. Smith, during his incumbency, was invaded by the Dissenters. An Independent Chapel was set up close to his church. He did not like it, and it must be confessed, he had reason to dislike it; for, if matters were bad before, this made them much worse. This new sect made the mere fact of becoming Independents the head-corner-stone of hope for futurity, and Mr. Smith had little or no energy with which to correct the error. He died of paralysis, his death having been hastened by the operation of bleeding, performed upon him with all good intentions, by a neighbour. It took place 9th Dec., 1830, in the 44th year of his ministry. At his funeral, as his coffin lay upon two chairs, just outside the manse door, Mr. Stewart of Cromarty remarked to me that " nothing brought home to his own mind more forcibly the solemnity and responsibility of death than did the death of a minister."
Mr. Robert Smith, Mr. Stewart's predecessor at Cromarty, had, in his younger days been tutor in the family of Don. MacLeod, Esqre. of Geanies, Sheriff of the county. Through the influence of this gentleman he was presented to Cromarty, and ordained 21st May 1789. He was a sound, scriptural preacher, and a laborious, conscientious minister. His mind, however, was very secular. During the latter years of his life he had to contend with considerable opposition from his parishioners, which he sorely felt. He died 20th March 1824, in the 35th year of his ministry and 61st of his age. Mr. Alex. Wood, of Rosemarkie, was the last representative of a clerical pedigree of three generations in direct lineal succession in the one parish. Reared up in ease and comparative affluence, experiencing no difficulties for this world from youth to boar hairs but what might easily be removed, nor apprehending any evils, either temporally, spiritually or eternally, which might come upon him, he has continued to plod his easy way through life until, "fat and sleek and fair," he has reached the advanced age of threescore and ten. Not, indeed, that he had escaped the trials and grievances incident to "man of woman born" entirely; but he was naturally and largely endowed with that amount of stolidity and obtuseness of spirit as would almost bear with anything, however rousing and harassing to the ordinary feelings of humanity, and this always interposed to save him from that bitterness which, otherwise, he could not possibly but feel. He was rather nervous, moreover, arising solely from an excess of health and indolence, not to say over-indulgence in the luxuries of the table, so that his nervous fits, which otherwise might have passed off harmlessly enough, sometimes chose to associate themselves with some ugly symptoms of internal inflammation. Such symptoms usually manifested themselves on sacramental occasions, or when he had just commenced his annual visits for catechising. He, accordingly, made very dolorous statements to the Presbytery at their diets of " privy censure," just to save his head. Succeeding his father and grandfather, he entered upon his parochial duties very much in the same spirit as one would accept of the place and emoluments of some comfortable Government appointment, in virtue of which, however the duties might be performed, the income was secure. But it is needless to particularise any farther. Suffice it to say that he is now, at the age of 70, what I knew him to be at 37 - the same in eating and drinking, in sleeping and waking, in stoutness of body and inertness of mind, and almost the ,same in ministerial energy and usefulness. Of Mr. John Kennedy of Kilearnan I have already written in connection with my settlement in Resolis. His ministry was eminently acknowledged by his heavenly Master, and through grace he approved himself to be a faithful servant of the Lord Jesus. Mr. Alexander Stewart, who in 1824 succeeded Mr. Smith at Cromarty, I have also described. The Church had since the days of Principal Robertson been divided into the two sections of Moderates and Evangelicals, and the majority of our body being of the former, Mr. Grant, who was himself a staunch supporter of the Moderate interest, had been annually elected an elder to the Assembly ever since my induction in 1822, as he had also been for many years before. This year, however, the Evangelical members combined to oust Mr. Grant from his protracted monopoly. On each side parties were equally balanced, but with this advantage to the Evangelicals, that one of their own number filled the moderator's chair. Mr. George Sinclair, eldest son and heir of Sir John Sinclair, Bart. of Ulbster, was the man upon whom their choice fell. This gentleman, born and brought up in the highest circles of society, had been a "lover of pleasure more than a lover of God." But "God's time of love" came. His heart was gained and given to the Lord, so that he became a vital, though not always a very consistent, Christian. As I had seen him in the days of his boyhood, though by no means intimately acquainted with him, I was deputed by my brethren to write to him, and to my communication he made the following reply:- "EDINBURGH, 21st Feb. 1825.” "MY DEAR Sir,-I had this day the honour to receive your kind intimation of the friendly sentiments and intentions cherished towards me by yourself and those esteemed members of your presbytery with whom you are of one accord and of one mind. I must candidly acknowledge that I should consider it a high privilege to be connected by so important a tie with Christian Brethren whom I very highly respect, and I should endeavour to discharge the solemn duty entrusted to me in such a manner as becomes the doctrines of Christ. I could indeed only undertake such an office in humble dependence on divine aid, for I feel the deep responsibility which attaches to it ; and I should now accept it with much greater diffidence than I should have done a few years ago when, as I now see, I was totally unfit for it. I then imagined that every one might aspire to such an appointment as a matter of course. I now perceive how arduous and honourable it is to hold any office connected with the Church of Christ, and that His strength alone can make our weakness perfect. I should be very sorry at the same time to create any dissension between yourselves and any of your brethren, and I should venture to recommend a very earnest recommendation of the conduct and sentiments of your former representative, though certainly if you have reason to conclude that his views do not accord with yours, and that my services would be more acceptable, I shall feel highly honoured by the appointment." "In regard to the certificates, I must request that you will have the kindness to write to my friend the Rev. William Mackintosh, minister of Thurso, on the subject, upon whose favourable testimony I have every reason to rely." " I had the pleasure lately to forward to Mr. Peel (Sir Robert) an application from the principal heritors of the parish of Reay on behalf of Mr. Finlay Cook, who, I hope, will be appointed assistant and successor at Reay." " I remain, my dear sir, with that regard which those who trust solely in Jesus feel towards brethren, though personally unknown, who cherish the same hope and rejoice in the same end.-Very truly yours, "GEORGE SINCLAIR." With the Christian sentiments which Mr. Sinclair's letter so simply and forcibly expresses Messrs. Kennedy, Stewart, and I were much satisfied. I was accordingly directed to write Mr. Mackintosh 1: of Thurso for his certificates, which I did on the 20th Feby., and to which, enclosing the certificates, he replied on March 4th. Mr. Mackintosh expresses the pleasure he "felt on hearing that we are likely to have Mr. Sinclair as our ruling elder; that he is a man of uncommon talent, piety, and benevolence; that during his residence at Thurso he visited the sick and the poor, to pour consolation into the heart of the former, and to supply the wants of the latter; that his beneficence was not confined to the parish, but that, in addition to all this, he has often been known to carry supplies in his carriage to other parishes in the county; that he now lives in Edinburgh, and though on a limited income, gives 36 bolls of meal to the poor of Thurso yearly, besides money and coals, and that thus, in all probability, the blessing of the widow, the orphan, and `of him that is ready to perish' shall light on his head." The day on which our Commissioners for the General Assembly were to be elected arrived, when Mr. Sinclair 2: was returned. In the month of March of this year (1825) I received an intimation of the death of Hugh Houston of Creich. He died at an advanced age on the 19th of that month in his son-in-law's house at Kintradwell. His name was associated with my earliest years. Long before I was born he had been a prosperous merchant at Brora. From small beginnings he rose, and made steady progress towards being one of the richest men in the county. During his mercantile life he dealt in every sort of thing that could possibly be bought or sold-clothes of every texture, groceries of all descriptions, leather and hardware. But he had also a foreign trade. In those days contraband traders frequented the Sutherland coast. Foreign smuggling vessels landed their goods at every creek and harbour at which they knew they would find purchasers. Hugh Houston at Brora dealt largely, after the fashion of the times, in these contraband wares. The revenue officers, or " gaugers," as they were called, were ever on the watch to make seizures, and were warranted to search private dwellings and warehouses for that purpose. I recollect to have heard Mr. Houston himself, when dining at the table of the late Mr. Walter Ross of Clyne, his parish minister, give a minute account of a narrow escape he had made many years before from a party of revenue officers who were informed of his being in the receipt of a large quantity of smuggled spirits, and were on their way to seize it. The means of rescue, he said, came from Mr. Ross, who, oil hearing of his perplexity, set himself to collect all the small carts and broad-shouldered men in the vicinity, appointing them to meet at the dead hour of night at his friend's shop door, to convey Mr. Houston's cargo of gin and brandy to the church of Clyne, and deposit them under the east gallery. This was done accordingly, and the revenue officers coming next day in full force found nothing to be seized. Winding up his business at Brora, Mr. Houston leased the farm of Clyneleish, in the neighbourhood of the manse of Clyne; it was occupied previously by Captain Sutherland. he then became major in the Sutherland militia, and afterwards purchased the property of Creich from W. Creich, bookseller in Edinburgh, which last purchased it from the family of Gray. My excellent and affectionate friend, Mr. Barclay of Auldearn, wrote me a letter on the 25th of March to remind me of my promise to preach to the children of his parishioners on Wednesday se'nnight, the 6th of April ensuing. There was also more work cut out for me. His people, he said, would be expecting a lecture on the evening of that day, according to use when a stranger engaged in such a duty. He then earnestly enforces the duty prescribed, from the consideration that many of his stated hearers expressed the wish that I should do so, but above all that many of them are hungering after the bread of life, and if their desire should not be complied with it would be a cause of regret. I complied with my dear friend's request, and did not repent of it. I had received from Mr. Stewart of Cromarty a letter, dated the 30th of March, about Dr. Chalmer's "favourite " overture, as he calls it, "regarding the course of study to be pursued by students of divinity." In the concluding paragraphs of his letter he mentions two things I was unable satisfactorily to explain. "It has just occurred to me also," he writes, "that it would be well you attended this rummaging committee of which you are a member. You might chance to obtain light oil two or three things which might be of use as to the order in which moderators were chosen. You have only to notice who were chosen at each synod meeting in times by-gone. We must take care, or this moderatorship will be a complete declaration of war." What Mr. Stewart meant by a "rummaging committee" was a committee of enquiry appointed to ascertain the order in which the moderators of the Synod of Ross were chosen. He attached very considerable importance to the matter, remarking, " we must take care, or this moderatorship will be a complete declaration of war." Now I was moderator-elect of the Synod of 1825, my election having been unanimous and without discussion. In the concluding sentence of his letter he remarked that "some symptoms were appearing at Cromarty which he did not much like." "1 should like," he added, "had we time, to have a serious confabulation with you." He wrote me on the 4th of April asking me to meet with him on Wednesday, the 13th of that month, at Daviston, between 12 and 1 o'clock to examine Mr. Daniel Bremner's school there, as this was a necessary pre-requisite for the drawing of the teacher's salary. I went accordingly, and the scholars were examined in the usual way. The school was on the foundation of the Christian Knowledge Society, an educational Institute distinguished in accordance with its object, not so much for the literary attainments and qualifications of its teachers, as for their unostentatious, but decided, personal piety. Daniel Bremner was one of those godly, though comparatively illiterate men. He had, however, as much knowledge as fitted him for giving to the children of the peasantry a course of elementary instruction as efficient as they had any occasion for. Daniel Bremner brought the energies of a spiritually enlightened mind to bear on the religious instruction of his pupils. At the commencement of my ministry we held monthly meetings for Christian conference, which continue to be held still. At these meetings Mr. Bremner, though residing in the parish of Cromarty, was a regular attendant, and was accompanied always by a John Clark, a kindred spirit with himself; his twin brother, if I may so speak, in Christ. Though John excelled Daniel in the clearness of his views, yet he was inferior to him in solidity of judgment. When John Clark spoke to the question, we noticed many brilliancies and strikingly apposite remarks, but accompanied with many flights of fancy and applications of Scripture more specious than solid. But when Daniel Bremner spoke our attention was rivetted. To the deep exercises of his mind he added a logical and consecutive method of expressing them, and the language he employed was simple and natural. He was therefore, of all who spoke, listened to with the deepest attention, and such who spoke after him followed chiefly in the line of those views which he had so forcibly expounded. On the 16th April I had a friendly letter from my cousin, Mrs. Matheson of Attadale, dated from Kildary, parish of Kilmuir, her mother's residence at the time. Mrs. Matheson was then a widow residing at Inverness with very limited means. In 1815 Mr. Matheson had got involved in many unfortunate speculations. His father left him an estate yielding a rental of a least £600 per annum, and a considerable sum of money besides. But entering into one losing adventure after another, the result was at last hopeless bankruptcy. The property, together with all his other effects, was sold to pay his debts and to defray law-expenses. He resided with his family at Inverness, and afterwards went to Canada, where he was employed in land-surveying, in which also he was unsuccessful. After his death his widow was supported by his friends. His eldest son joined a wealthy firm in Canton, at the head of which was his maternal uncle James, second son of Capt. Donald Matheson of Shiness, who, after nearly twenty years' sojourn there as an opium merchant, returned to his native country with half a million. He purchased first the property of Achany, then the island of Lewis, and afterwards the estates of Guids, Rosehall, and Ullapool, in the counties of Sutherland and Ross. He was returned member of Parliament, first for an English borough, and afterwards for Ross-shire. His nephew Alexander, 3: his chief partner whilst there, and head of the firm in Canton after his departure, soon followed his uncle to this country. Possessed of nearly a million sterling, he purchased large estates in Ross-shire, and he is, in point of extent of territory and valuation, the third proprietor in the county, his uncle (now Sir James Matheson, Bart. of the Lews, M.P.) being the first. Alexander Matheson's mother, and the sister of Sir James, in virtue of all these changes, was raised at once from poverty to affluence. Her son, on his arrival in Scotland, made his mother the object of his dutiful regards. Having purchased a villa in the neighbourhood of Inverness, he presented it to her, furnishing her at the same time with everything which wealth could procure to make her comfortable arid independent. I return to Mrs. Matheson's letter of the 16th of April. Having left Inverness by the coach, she came to Kildary with the intention of calling upon me by the way. But she came by the coach on the opposite side of the Cromarty firth, so could not accomplish tier object. "But," she adds, "I was proposing to myself the pleasure of seeing you on Monday next (the 18th), and proceeding from your house to Inverness on the Tuesday following, until I learned on my coming here that you were to be at Tain on that day attending the Synod. Will you therefore have the goodness to say when you intend returning home, and when it may be convenient for you to send me across the bill? My mother desires me to say that, if convenient, she would be most happy that you would breakfast with us on Tuesday on your way to Tain, in which event we can arrange when I am to leave." This arrangement, in all its friendly particulars, was carried into effect, and I distinctly recollect driving her over the hill to Kessock ferry. The Synod of Ross met at Tain on Tuesday, the 19th of April, 1825. I was elected moderator, as one of the youngest members of the Court. The Synod sermon was preached by Mr. David Carment of Rosskeen, the retiring moderator. His discourse was highly characteristic of the man. It was made up of cursory and passing sketches of Scripture doctrine, of anecdotes, and of hard hits against all who did not fall in with his views and notions, and all this, accompanied with nods and emphatic movements of his head, to give force and point to his application. On the 29th of April I was favoured with a letter from my truly Christian friend and brother-in-law Mr. Finlay Cook at Dirlot, in Caithness, where at this time he resided and acted with fidelity and vigour within the bounds of that wide and mountainous district which the Lord had appointed for him as the sphere of his labours. His son Alexander, who still lives, was then an infant, and shortly before had been "sick well nigh unto death." Mr. Mackay Gordon, who had attended my dear and venerable father during his last illness, was the physician in attendance there also. The fever from which the child suffered seemed to take a decided turn towards a fatal and immediate termination. The mother looked at the doctor, who could only reply by shaking his head and bursting into tears. It was then, however, that my excellent sister's Christian fortitude shone forth in its own dignity and strength. She had already been committing her now only surviving child to that covenant God to whom, after many a hard struggle, she had been enabled readily to give up her other two babes whom, in His inscrutable wisdom, He had already been pleased to take to Himself. Instead of indulging therefore in useless wailings, she placed the child, until then lying on her knee, on the bed, sat down beside him, and without suffering a sigh to escape from her lips, or a tear to drop from her eyes, she waited in mute but humble submission for the final determination of the sovereign will of God. Mr. Cook himself was not present. He was in his closet at the time and on his knees, but soon entering the room he enquired for their sick son. "Hush," said his wife, "disturb not his last hour on earth." The devout but afflicted father said nothing, but acting on some grounds of encouragement he had got in prayer in reference to the use of means, he stepped softly to the table, took a tea-spoonful of sherry wine from a small glass, and gave it to his apparently dying infant. From that moment the child recovered. He has already attained to manhood, and has been working in the sphere of labour appointed for him in the Church of Christ. 4: In his letter Mr. Cook relates all this in his own simple way, and ascribes all the praise to Him who "bringeth down to the grave, and raiseth up again." Mrs. Cook was my eldest sister. From that solemn moment of her life in which she was made to feel the first saving impressions of Divine truth upon her heart, even to her dying hour, she "grew in grace," and abounded in all the genuine fruits of it. Her husband was of a kindred spirit with herself; no two individuals, in the divinely sanctioned relationship in which they stood to one another, could be helps more meet for each other than they were. In their low, thatched cottage and solitary abode at Dirlot I was frequently an eye-witness of their beautiful conjugal unity and harmony. They were constitutionally hot-tempered, but not one hasty word was ever, by any accident, even once exchanged between them. In their views, tempers, and dispositions they seemed to tread the same path, "to walk by the same rule and to mind the same things." As the devoted followers of the Lamb, whithersoever He in His wisdom thought fit to lead them through the ever-changing incidents of time, they were ever humbly tracing His footsteps as set before them in the Divine record - in the secret exercises of their souls-in their fellowship with God and with each other - in the unwearied and conscientious discharge of every Christian duty - in the exercise of brotherly love to all who bore the image and breathed the spirit of the Lord Jesus - and in all the ordinary occurrences of life. As a preacher of the gospel Mr. Finlay Cook might truly be regarded as an " able minister of the New Testament." To native talent, or high grasp of intellect, or literary attainments, or powers of oratory, he had not even the slightest pretensions. He was obviously the simple, unadorned "earthen vessel" in which, for the fuller "manifestation of the excellency of the Divine power," the treasure was deposited. When he preached, the first thing exhibited to men was the earthen vessel in all its ungainly rudeness of form. In delivering the first few introductory sentences of his discourse his auditors felt for him. It appeared to be little else than a bald, uninteresting statement of gospel truisms, every one of which not only exhausted itself, but presented an insurmountable obstacle to all further prosecution of the subject. He went on, however, in that strength which was very soon to show that it was "made perfect in weakness," and, whilst thus groping his way, he seemed to be utterly indifferent to the disgust or the approbation of his audience. At last, however, he fully entered into and warmed on his subject, and then, indeed, "the tongue of the stammerer was unloosed "-his lips were opened, his words were uttered freely, fluently, and without hesitation or repetition. He was borne onward, not by anything in himself, but exclusively by his subject. His hearers at once participated in the heavenly influence. Their minds were both roused and arrested; every eye was directed to him, whilst the deep anxiety depicted on their countenances betokened the entrance of his words, as "words of fire" into their very inmost souls. Their former but ill-concealed apathy disappeared, and was followed by an almost breathless attention. It might truly be said that, "they who came to scoff remained to pray." Nor was it only during these more elevated frames of the preacher's mind that the "arrows of the Almighty" pierced the sinner's heart, or that the doctrine of God's holy word, proclaimed by his lips, descended like the " dew of Hermon " on the souls of humble and anxious enquirers. But as often did "the still small voice" penetrate the soul of the hearer, while he who ministered the truth felt himself sorely straitened, and was preaching with so much doubt and hesitation as to render it often questionable to himself, at least, whether the words he was uttering were intelligible to any one or not. I have had opportunities of knowing some individuals who ascribed the first impressions of Divine truth on their minds to sermons preached by Mr. Cook when in such lowly and self-mortifying moods of mind. Download 1.26 Mb. Share with your friends:
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