More Tales of
the Disruption, and its Tragedies
After the Walk-out - where do the
people worship?
The more usual case was that which happened, at almost the
same time, to Dr. Thomas Guthrie of Edinburgh. In this case the Duke - Janet
Fraser's Duke - was proprietor of the parish, and as landlord refused a site.
The miserable people quietly withdrew to a waste spot of barren moor, and met
there in the open air. The Duke's factor and agent instantly served an
interdict on the trespassers, evicting them from even their open-air meeting on
the waste. Henceforth they had no place on which to worship except the
cross-roads on the public highway, and one Monday morning, after preaching to
them there, Dr. Guthrie sat down to tell his experiences.
"Well wrapped up,
I drove out yesterday morning to Canobie, the hills white with snow, the roads
covered ankle deep in many places with slush, the wind high and cold, thick
rain lashing on, and the Esk by our side all the way, roaring in the snowflood
between bank and brae. We passed Johnnie Armstrong's Tower, yet strong even in
its ruins, and after a drive of four miles, a turn of the road brought me in
view of a scene which was overpowering, and would have brought the salt tears
into the eyes of any man of common humanity."
Dr. Guthrie's driver broke
into sobs as he explained that the five hundred people waiting under some
leafless trees on the turnpike road were the congregation who had been refused
first a site to build, and then a site to stand upon; and who now waited on for
hours under the driving rain till they had sung their last psalm on that fierce
February day. It was not there only. So late as 1847 there were still
thirty-one cases in Scotland in which sites were absolutely refused; besides
many others in which very inconvenient and humiliating places were deliberately
offered - offered, too, to tenants who frequently had the threat of eviction
held over them if they ventured to build even upon these.
(From "Studies
in Scottish History" by Taylor Innes)
See the whole chapter
here..