Transcribed from the 1910 T. N. Foulis edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org
[Picture: Book cover]
[Picture: The Loupin’-on Stane]
ANNALS OF
THE PARISH
OR THE CHRONICLE OF DAL-
MAILING DURING THE MINISTRY
OF THE REV. MICAH BALWHID-
DER. WRITTEN BY HIMSELF
AND ARRANGED AND EDITED BY
JOHN GALT
ILLUSTRATED IN COLOUR BY
HENRY W. KERR, R.S.A.
[Picture: Decorative graphic]
T.N.FOULIS
London & Edinburgh
1 9 1 0
* * * * *
_September_ 1910
* * * * *
_Printed by Turnbull & Spears_, _Edinburgh_
INTRODUCTION
IN the same year, and on the same day of the same month, that his Sacred
Majesty King George, the third of the name, came to his crown and
kingdom, I was placed and settled as the minister of Dalmailing. {1}
When about a week thereafter this was known in the parish, it was thought
a wonderful thing, and everybody spoke of me and the new king as united
in our trusts and temporalities, marvelling how the same should come to
pass, and thinking the hand of Providence was in it, and that surely we
were preordained to fade and flourish in fellowship together; which has
really been the case: for in the same season that his Most Excellent
Majesty, as he was very properly styled in the proclamations for the
general fasts and thanksgivings, was set by as a precious vessel which
had received a crack or a flaw, and could only be serviceable in the way
of an ornament, I was obliged, by reason of age and the growing
infirmities of my recollection, to consent to the earnest entreaties of
the Session, and to accept of Mr. Amos to be my helper. I was long
reluctant to do so; but the great respect that my people had for me, and
the love that I bore towards them, over and above the sign that was given
to me in the removal of the royal candle-stick from its place, worked
upon my heart and understanding, and I could not stand out. So, on the
last Sabbath of the year 1810, I preached my last sermon, and it was a
moving discourse. There were few dry eyes in the kirk that day; for I
had been with the aged from the beginning—the young considered me as
their natural pastor—and my bidding them all farewell was, as when of old
among the heathen, an idol was taken away by the hands of the enemy.
At the close of the worship, and before the blessing, I addressed them in
a fatherly manner; and, although the kirk was fuller than ever I saw it
before, the fall of a pin might have been heard—at the conclusion there
was a sobbing and much sorrow. I said,
“My dear friends, I have now finished my work among you for ever. I have
often spoken to you from this place the words of truth and holiness; and,
had it been in poor frail human nature to practise the advice and
counselling that I have given in this pulpit to you, there would not need
to be any cause for sorrow on this occasion—the close and latter end of
my ministry. But, nevertheless, I have no reason to complain; and it
will be my duty to testify, in that place where I hope we are all one day
to meet again, that I found you a docile and a tractable flock, far more
than at first I could have expected. There are among you still a few,
but with grey heads and feeble hands now, that can remember the great
opposition that was made to my placing, and the stout part they
themselves took in the burly, because I was appointed by the patron; but
they have lived to see the error of their way, and to know that preaching
is the smallest portion of the duties of a faithful minister. I may not,
my dear friends, have applied my talent in the pulpit so effectually as
perhaps I might have done, considering the gifts that it pleased God to
give me in that way, and the education that I had in the Orthodox
University of Glasgow, as it was in the time of my youth; nor can I say
that, in the works of peace-making and charity, I have done all that I
should have done. But I have done my best, studying no interest but the
good that was to rise according to the faith in Christ Jesus.
“To my young friends I would, as a parting word, say, look to the lives
and conversation of your parents—they were plain, honest, and devout
Christians, fearing God and honouring the King. They believed the Bible
was the word of God; and, when they practised its precepts, they found,
by the good that came from them, that it was truly so. They bore in mind
the tribulation and persecution of their forefathers for righteousness’
sake, and were thankful for the quiet and protection of the government in
their day and generation. Their land was tilled with industry, and they
ate the bread of carefulness with a contented spirit, and, verily, they
had the reward of well-doing even in this world; for they beheld on all
sides the blessing of God upon the nation, and the tree growing, and the
plough going where the banner of the oppressor was planted of old, and
the war-horse trampled in the blood of martyrs. Reflect on this, my
young friends, and know, that the best part of a Christian’s duty in this
world of much evil, is to thole and suffer with resignation, as lang as
it is possible for human nature to do. I do not counsel passive
obedience: that is a doctrine that the Church of Scotland can never
abide; but the divine right of resistance, which, in the days of her
trouble, she so bravely asserted against popish and prelatic usurpations,
was never resorted to till the attempt was made to remove the ark of the
tabernacle from her. I therefore counsel you, my young friends, not to
lend your ears to those that trumpet forth their hypothetical politics;
but to believe that the laws of the land are administered with a good
intent, till in your own homes and dwellings ye feel the presence of the
oppressor—then, and not till then, are ye free to gird your loins for
battle—and woe to him, and woe to the land where that is come to, if the
sword be sheathed till the wrong be redressed.
“As for you, my old companions, many changes have we seen in our day; but
the change that we ourselves are soon to undergo will be the greatest of
all. We have seen our bairns grow to manhood—we have seen the beauty of
youth pass away—we have felt our backs become unable for the burthen, and
our right hand forget its cunning.—Our eyes have become dim, and our
heads grey—we are now tottering with short and feckless steps towards the
grave; and some, that should have been here this day, are bed-rid, lying,
as it were, at the gates of death, like Lazarus at the threshold of the
rich man’s door, full of ails and sores, and having no enjoyment but in
the hope that is in hereafter. What can I say to you but farewell! Our
work is done—we are weary and worn out, and in need of rest—may the rest
of the blessed be our portion!—and in the sleep that all must sleep,
beneath the cold blanket of the kirkyard grass, and on that clay pillow
where we must shortly lay our heads, may we have pleasant dreams, till we
are awakened to partake of the everlasting banquet of the saints in
glory!”
When I had finished, there was for some time a great solemnity throughout
the kirk; and, before giving the blessing, I sat down to compose myself,
for my heart was big, and my spirit oppressed with sadness.
As I left the pulpit, all the elders stood on the steps to hand me down,
and the tear was in every eye, and they helped me into the session-house;
but I could not speak to them, nor them to me. Then Mr. Dalziel, who was
always a composed and sedate man, said a few words of prayer, and I was
comforted therewith, and rose to go home to the manse; but in the
churchyard all the congregation was assembled, young and old, and they
made a lane for me to the back-yett that opened into the
manse-garden—Some of them put out their hands and touched me as I passed,
followed by the elders, and some of them wept. It was as if I was
passing away, and to be no more—verily, it was the reward of my
ministry—a faithful account of which, year by year, I now sit down, in
the evening of my days, to make up, to the end that I may bear witness to
the work of a beneficent Providence, even in the narrow sphere of my
parish, and the concerns of that flock of which it was His most gracious
pleasure to make me the unworthy shepherd.
CHAPTER I
YEAR 1760
THE Anno Domini one thousand seven hundred and sixty, was remarkable for
three things in the parish of Dalmailing.—First and foremost, there was
my placing; then the coming of Mrs. Malcolm with her five children to
settle among us; and next, my marriage upon my own cousin, Miss Betty
Lanshaw, by which the account of this year naturally divides itself into
three heads or portions.
First, of the placing.—It was a great affair; for I was put in by the
patron, and the people knew nothing whatsoever of me, and their hearts
were stirred into strife on the occasion, and they did all that lay
within the compass of their power to keep me out, insomuch, that there
was obliged to be a guard of soldiers to protect the presbytery; and it
was a thing that made my heart grieve when I heard the drum beating and
the fife playing as we were going to the kirk. The people were really
mad and vicious, and flung dirt upon us as we passed, and reviled us all,
and held out the finger of scorn at me; but I endured it with a resigned
spirit, compassionating their wilfulness and blindness. Poor old Mr.
Kilfuddy of the Braehill got such a clash of glar on the side of his
face, that his eye was almost extinguished.
When we got to the kirk door, it was found to be nailed up, so as by no
possibility to be opened. The sergeant of the soldiers wanted to break
it, but I was afraid that the heritors would grudge and complain of the
expense of a new door, and I supplicated him to let it be as it was: we
were, therefore, obligated to go in by a window, and the crowd followed
us in the most unreverent manner, making the Lord’s house like an inn on
a fair day, with their grievous yellyhooing. During the time of the
psalm and the sermon, they behaved themselves better, but when the
induction came on, their clamour was dreadful; and Thomas Thorl, the
weaver, a pious zealot in that time, he got up and protested, and said,
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that entereth not by the door into
the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a
robber.” And I thought I would have a hard and sore time of it with such
an outstrapolous people. Mr. Given, that was then the minister of
Lugton, was a jocose man, and would have his joke even at a solemnity.
When the laying of the hands upon me was adoing, he could not get near
enough to put on his, but he stretched out his staff and touched my head,
and said, to the great diversion of the rest, “This will do well enough,
timber to timber;” but it was an unfriendly saying of Mr. Given,
considering the time and the place, and the temper of my people.
[Picture: The Souter]
After the ceremony, we then got out at the window, and it was a heavy day
to me; but we went to the manse, and there we had an excellent dinner,
which Mrs. Watts of the new inns of Irville {9} prepared at my request,
and sent her chaise-driver to serve, for he was likewise her waiter, she
having then but one chaise, and that no often called for.
But, although my people received me in this unruly manner, I was resolved
to cultivate civility among them, and therefore, the very next morning I
began a round of visitations; but, oh! it was a steep brae that I had to
climb, and it needed a stout heart. For I found the doors in some places
barred against me; in others, the bairns, when they saw me coming, ran
crying to their mothers, “Here’s the feckless Mess-John!” and then, when
I went into the houses, their parents wouldna ask me to sit down, but
with a scornful way, said, “Honest man, what’s your pleasure here?”
Nevertheless, I walked about from door to door like a dejected beggar,
till I got the almous deed of a civil reception—and who would have
thought it?—from no less a person than the same Thomas Thorl that was so
bitter against me in the kirk on the foregoing day.
Thomas was standing at the door with his green duffle apron, and his red
Kilmarnock nightcap—I mind him as well as if it was but yesterday—and he
had seen me going from house to house, and in what manner I was rejected,
and his bowels were moved, and he said to me in a kind manner, “Come in,
sir, and ease yoursel’: this will never do, the clergy are God’s gorbies,
and for their Master’s sake it behoves us to respect them. There was no
ane in the whole parish mair against you than mysel’; but this early
visitation is a symptom of grace that I couldna have expectit from a bird
out the nest of patronage.” I thanked Thomas, and went in with him, and
we had some solid conversation together, and I told him that it was not
so much the pastor’s duty to feed the flock, as to herd them well; and
that, although there might be some abler with the head than me, there
wasna a he within the bounds of Scotland more willing to watch the fold
by night and by day. And Thomas said he had not heard a mair sound
observe for some time, and that, if I held to that doctrine in the
poopit, it wouldna be lang till I would work a change.—“I was mindit,”
quoth he, “never to set my foot within the kirk door while you were
there; but to testify, and no to condemn without a trial, I’ll be there
next Lord’s day, and egg my neighbours to be likewise, so ye’ll no have
to preach just to the bare walls and the laird’s family.”
I have now to speak of the coming of Mrs. Malcolm.—She was the widow of a
Clyde shipmaster, that was lost at sea with his vessel. She was a genty
body, calm and methodical. From morning to night she sat at her wheel,
spinning the finest lint, which suited well with her pale hands. She
never changed her widow’s weeds, and she was aye as if she had just been
ta’en out of a bandbox. The tear was aften in her e’e when the bairns
were at the school; but when they came home, her spirit was lighted up
with gladness, although, poor woman, she had many a time very little to
give them. They were, however, wonderful well-bred things, and took with
thankfulness whatever she set before them; for they knew that their
father, the breadwinner, was away, and that she had to work sore for
their bit and drap. I dare say, the only vexation that ever she had from
any of them, on their own account, was when Charlie, the eldest laddie,
had won fourpence at pitch-and-toss at the school, which he brought home
with a proud heart to his mother. I happened to be daunrin’ by at the
time, and just looked in at the door to say gude-night: it was a sad
sight. There was she sitting with the silent tear on her cheek, and
Charlie greeting as if he had done a great fault, and the other four
looking on with sorrowful faces. Never, I am sure, did Charlie Malcolm
gamble after that night.
I often wondered what brought Mrs. Malcolm to our clachan, instead of
going to a populous town, where she might have taken up a huxtry-shop, as
she was but of a silly constitution, the which would have been better for
her than spinning from morning to far in the night, as if she was in
verity drawing the thread of life. But it was, no doubt, from an honest
pride to hide her poverty; for when her daughter Effie was ill with the
measles—the poor lassie was very ill—nobody thought she could come
through, and when she did get the turn, she was for many a day a heavy
handful;—our session being rich, and nobody on it but cripple Tammy
Daidles, that was at that time known through all the country side for
begging on a horse, I thought it my duty to call upon Mrs. Malcolm in a
sympathising way, and offer her some assistance, but she refused it.
“No, sir,” said she, “I canna take help from the poor’s-box, although
it’s very true that I am in great need; for it might hereafter be cast up
to my bairns, whom it may please God to restore to better circumstances
when I am no to see’t; but I would fain borrow five pounds, and if, sir,
you will write to Mr. Maitland, that is now the Lord Provost of Glasgow,
and tell him that Marion Shaw would be obliged to him for the lend of
that soom, I think he will not fail to send it.”
I wrote the letter that night to Provost Maitland, and, by the retour of
the post, I got an answer, with twenty pounds for Mrs. Malcolm, saying,
“That it was with sorrow he heard so small a trifle could be
serviceable.” When I took the letter and the money, which was in a
bank-bill, she said, “This is just like himsel’.” She then told me that
Mr. Maitland had been a gentleman’s son of the east country, but driven
out of his father’s house, when a laddie, by his stepmother; and that he
had served as a servant lad with her father, who was the Laird of
Yillcogie, but ran through his estate, and left her, his only daughter,
in little better than beggary with her auntie, the mother of Captain
Malcolm, her husband that was. Provost Maitland in his servitude had
ta’en a notion of her; and when he recovered his patrimony, and had
become a great Glasgow merchant, on hearing how she was left by her
father, he offered to marry her, but she had promised herself to her
cousin the captain, whose widow she was. He then married a rich lady,
and in time grew, as he was, Lord Provost of the city; but his letter
with the twenty pounds to me, showed that he had not forgotten his first
love. It was a short, but a well-written letter, in a fair hand of
write, containing much of the true gentleman; and Mrs. Malcolm said, “Who
knows but out of the regard he once had for their mother, he may do
something for my five helpless orphans.”
Thirdly, Upon the subject of taking my cousin, Miss Betty Lanshaw, for my
first wife, I have little to say.—It was more out of a compassionate
habitual affection, than the passion of love. We were brought up by our
grandmother in the same house, and it was a thing spoken of from the
beginning, that Betty and me were to be married. So, when she heard that
the Laird of Breadland had given me the presentation of Dalmailing, she
began to prepare for the wedding; and as soon as the placing was well
over, and the manse in order, I gaed to Ayr, where she was, and we were
quietly married, and came home in a chaise, bringing with us her little
brother Andrew, that died in the East Indies, and he lived and was
brought up by us.
Now, this is all, I think, that happened in that year worthy of being
mentioned, except that at the sacrament, when old Mr. Kilfuddy was
preaching in the tent, it came on such a thunder-plump, that there was
not a single soul stayed in the kirkyard to hear him; for the which he
was greatly mortified, and never after came to our preachings.