Sang, Glory and praise and worship to God!
Loud rang the exultation. ’Twas the voice
Of a free people.”
William Sotheby.
THE formation and early history of the Free Church congregation of Blinkbonny is the subject of the following chapter; and I feel it to be one of special difficulty, not from any scarcity of interesting matter, but from the fear that my treatment of it may unhappily be misconstrued as an indirect attempt to promote sectarian interests.
Nothing is farther from my intention than to make the Established Church compare unfavourably with the Free Church. My desire is to present to my readers a sketch of some of the things that occurred, and of some of the persons that were engaged about them, in as far as my memory will enable me to recall these, not as a partisan, but as an annalist. I disclaim any such ambitious design as to attempt to embody in the “Bits” a description of what might be taken as a fairly representative Free Church minister and congregation of the Disruption times; and when I have to refer to matters relating to the churches as a whole, I will try to confine myself to what will tend to account for or explain the proceedings of the Free Church of Blinkbonny, without stirring up old questions, or unduly favouring any side.
DETERMINED, DARED, AND DONE.
It is not too much to say that the Disruption of 1843 was a great event, especially so for Scotland. The day on which it took place, the 18th of May 1843, is a day to be remembered, as during its course a noble spectacle of adherence to principle at great personal sacrifice was witnessed, of which any nation might justly feel proud. Nor were there awanting expressions of admiration; for even those who took the opposite side, and considered the Disruption as unnecessary and unwise, recognised it as a grand exhibition of Christian courage.
“All Rome sent forth a rapturous cry,
And even the ranks of Tuscany