The progress of religion among the people of Gairloch cannot readily be traced beyond the incumbency of the Rev. Daniel Mackintosh, minister of the parish from 1773 to 1802. Superstition of the grossest kind usurped the place of religion in ancient days. The Rev. James Smith, minister of Gairloch from 1721 to 1732, appears to have been the first Presbyterian clergyman who made a general impression on the people; in the time of Mr Mackintosh they had become, as he tells us in the Old Statistical Account (1792), sober, regular, industrious, and pious.
We have no records of the comparatively elaborate observances and ritual which undoubtedly attended the ministrations of the Church in Gairloch, with its fasts, festivals, and saints' days, before the Reformation. Some of the natives long clung to Episcopalianism, but the bald simplicity of Presbyterian worship was gradually adopted by the parish, and is the only form now known, except indeed an occasional Episcopal service for visitors at the Gairloch Hotel.
The present observances of the Presbyterian churches in the parish appear to have undergone little or no modification since the commencement of the nineteenth century, except by the secession of the Free Church in 1843, and that did not alter the articles of faith or the manner of worship.
As a rule the Sunday services are held at twelve o'clock, and are mostly in Gaelic. A short English service follows at two, and in some cases there is also a meeting at six.
Both the Established and Free churches hold to the doctrines laid down in the Confession of Faith and the Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Divines.
The sacrament of baptism is generally administered at the close of a Sunday service; the father is required to declare his adherence to the doctrines of the Christian faith before the congregation; there are of course no other sponsors.
The sacrament of the Lord's supper is "dispensed" at the Gairloch and Aultbea Free churches twice a year, and these are great occasions in the parish. There are three days of preparation before the Sacrament Sunday, and one day of thanksgiving after it. The first day is called the "Fast-day," and is observed as a Sunday.
Dr Mackenzie, who is an earnest Free Churchman, gives the following graphic and interesting account of the church attendance and religious observances in Gairloch prior to the "Disruption," in fact about 1820. The mode he describes of holding the communion services in the Leabaidh na Ba Bàine, or "Bed of the white cow," is nearly the same now as it was in the days he writes of sixty or seventy years ago, with one exception of importance, viz., that the sort of "Aunt Sally" game he mentions is now quite unknown. He says:—
"Our people then thought nothing of a ten mile walk to and from church. Many came by boat from the coast townships, and in fine weather the well dressed and mutched people filling the boats scattered over the bay en route to the different townships gave things quite a regatta-like look, that we shall never see again owing to the roads now everywhere. One of our largest tenants took his son to church for the first time, a mite of a man, who on being asked in the hand-shaking crowd after church, 'Well, Johnnie, what saw you in church?' replied, 'I saw a man bawling bawling in a box, and no man would let him oot.' Mr Russell made up for want of matter in his sermons by needless vigour in his manner. The said Johnnie is now risen to be a large wise landed proprietor in his old age in the Western Islands.