of the Scottish bishops. For in executing these laws in days not
long passed, "so vigilantly were the Scottish Episcopal clergy
watched...that it was with the utmost difficulty they could
celebrate any of the services of religion. There are instances of
individual clergymen performing public worship no less than
sixteen times in one day.....The service was often performed in
farm-houses, or in the out-houses of the farmhouse, if these were
conveniently constructed. In either case the clergyman, the
family, and four persons were in the apartment, and dozens or
hundreds of others stationed themselves in as favorable positions
as they could, to listen to the prayers of the Church. Sometimes
divine service was celebrated under a shed, in which was the
number allowed by law, while the people stood at a small distance
in the open air. At times, again, when there was no apparent
danger; pastor and people met in the recesses of woods, in
secluded glens, and on the sides of sequestered mountains, where
the vault of heaven was their covering, the moss turfs their
humble altar, and perhaps a solitary seat their pulpit."
[Footnote: John Parker Lawson's _History of the Scottish
Episcopal Church_, pp. 300-302. See also the Rev. W. Walker's
most interesting _Life of John Skinner of Linshirt_, chap.
iii. To make the general statements in the text plainer, I add, in
a foot-note, some details which time forbade me to introduce into
the sermon. By the Act of 1746, "every person exercising the
function of a pastor or minister in any Episcopal meeting in
Scotland, without registering his letters of orders, and taking
all the oaths prescribed by law, and praying for his Majesty King
George and the royal family by name" was "for the first offence to
suffer six months' imprisonment; and for the second, or any
subsequent offence, was to be transported to some of his Majesty's