YEAR 1804
IN conformity with the altered fashions of the age, in this year the
session came to an understanding with me, that we should not inflict the
common church censures for such as made themselves liable thereto; but we
did not formally promulge our resolution as to this, wishing as long as
possible to keep the deterring rod over the heads of the young and
thoughtless. Our motive, on the one hand, was the disregard of the
manufacturers in Cayenneville, who were, without the breach of truth, an
irreligious people; and, on the other, a desire to preserve the ancient
and wholesome admonitory and censorian jurisdiction of the minister and
elders. We therefore laid it down as a rule to ourselves, that, in the
case of transgressions on the part of the inhabitants of the new district
of Cayenneville, we should subject them rigorously to a fine; but that
for the farming-lads, we would put it in their option to pay the fine, or
stand in the kirk.
We conformed also in another matter to the times, by consenting to
baptize occasionally in private houses. Hitherto it had been a strict
rule with me only to baptize from the pulpit. Other parishes, however,
had long been in the practice of this relaxation of ancient discipline.
But all this on my part, was not done without compunction of spirit; for
I was of opinion, that the principle of Presbyterian integrity should
have been maintained to the uttermost. Seeing, however, the elders set
on an alteration, I distrusted my own judgment, and yielded myself to the
considerations that weighed with them; for they were true men, and of a
godly honesty, and took the part of the poor in all contentions with the
heritors, often to the hazard and damage of their own temporal welfare.
I have now to note a curious thing, not on account of its importance, but
to show to what lengths a correspondence had been opened in the parish
with the farthest parts of the earth. Mr. Cayenne got a turtle-fish sent
to him from a Glasgow merchant, and it was living when it came to the
Wheatrig House, and was one of the most remarkable beasts that had ever
been seen in our country side. It weighed as much as a well-fed calf,
and had three kinds of meat in its body, fish, flesh, and fowl, and it
had four water-wings, for they could not be properly called fins; but
what was little short of a miracle about the creature, happened after the
head was cutted off, when, if a finger was offered to it, it would open
its mouth and snap at it, and all this after the carcass was divided for
dressing.
Mr. Cayenne made a feast on the occasion to many of the neighbouring
gentry, to the which I was invited; and we drank lime-punch as we ate the
turtle, which, as I understand, is the fashion in practice among the
Glasgow West Indy merchants, who are famed as great hands with turtles
and lime-punch. But it is a sort of food that I should not like to fare
long upon. I was not right the next day; and I have heard it said, that
when eaten too often, it has a tendency to harden the heart and make it
crave for greater luxuries.
But the story of the turtle is nothing to that of the Mass, which, with
all its mummeries and abominations, was brought into Cayenneville by an
Irish priest of the name of Father O’Grady, who was confessor to some of
the poor deluded Irish labourers about the new houses and the
cotton-mill. How he had the impudence to set up that memento of Satan,
the crucifix, within my parish and jurisdiction, was what I never could
get to the bottom of; but the soul was shaken within me, when, on the
Monday after, one of the elders came to the manse, and told me that the
old dragon of Popery, with its seven heads and ten horns, had been
triumphing in Cayenneville on the foregoing Lord’s day! I lost no time
in convening the session to see what was to be done; much, however, to my
surprise, the elders recommended no step to be taken, but only a zealous
endeavour to greater Christian excellence on our part, by which we should
put the beast and his worshippers to shame and flight. I am free to
confess, that, at the time, I did not think this the wisest counsel which
they might have given; for, in the heat of my alarm, I was for attacking
the enemy in his camp. But they prudently observed, that the days of
religious persecution were past, and it was a comfort to see mankind
cherishing any sense of religion at all, after the vehement infidelity
that had been sent abroad by the French Republicans; and to this opinion,
now that I have had years to sift its wisdom, I own myself a convert and
proselyte.
Fortunately, however, for my peace of mind, there proved to be but five
Roman Catholics in Cayenneville; and Father O’Grady not being able to
make a living there, packed up his Virgin Marys, saints, and painted
Agneses in a portmanteau, and went off in the Ayr fly one morning for
Glasgow, where I hear he has since met with all the encouragement that
might be expected from the ignorant and idolatrous inhabitants of that
great city.
Scarcely were we well rid of Father O’Grady, when another interloper
entered the parish. He was more dangerous, in the opinion of the
session, than even the Pope of Rome himself; for he came to teach the
flagrant heresy of Universal Redemption, a most consolatory doctrine to
the sinner that is loth to repent, and who loves to troll his iniquity
like a sweet morsel under his tongue. Mr. Martin Siftwell, who was the
last ta’en on elder, and who had received a liberal and judicious
education, and was, moreover, naturally possessed of a quick penetration,
observed, in speaking of this new doctrine, that the grossest papist
sinner might have some qualms of fear after he had bought the Pope’s
pardon, and might thereby be led to a reformation of life; but that the
doctrine of universal redemption was a bribe to commit sin, the wickedest
mortal, according to it, being only liable to a few thousand years, more
or less, of suffering, which, compared with eternity, was but a momentary
pang, like having a tooth drawn for the toothache. Mr. Siftwell is a
shrewd and clear-seeing man in points of theology, and I would trust a
great deal to what he says, as I have not, at my advanced age, such a
mind for the kittle crudities of polemical investigation that I had in my
younger years, especially when I was a student in the Divinity Hall of
Glasgow.
It will be seen from all I have herein recorded, that, in the course of
this year, there was a general resuscitation of religious sentiments; for
what happened in my parish was but a type and index to the rest of the
world. We had, however, one memorable that must stand by itself; for
although neither death nor bloodshed happened, yet was it cause of the
fear of both.
A rumour reached us from the Clyde, that a French man-of-war had appeared
in a Highland loch, and that all the Greenock volunteers had embarked in
merchant vessels to bring her in for a prize. Our volunteers were just
jumping and yowling, like chained dogs, to be at her too; but the
colonel, Sir Hugh, would do nothing without orders from his superiors.
Mr. Cayenne, though an aged man above seventy, was as bold as a lion, and
came forth in the old garb of an American huntsman, like, as I was told,
a Robin Hood in the play is; and it was just a sport to see him, feckless
man, trying to march so crousely with his lean, shaking hands. But the
whole affair proved a false alarm, and our men, when they heard it, were
as well pleased that they had been constrained to sleep in their warm
beds at home, instead of lying on coils of cables, like the gallant
Greenock sharp-shooters.