Apr. 20.
The Quakers of Edinburgh were no better used by the rest of the public than those of Glasgow. Although notedly, as they alleged, ‘an innocent and peaceable people,’ yet they could not meet in their own hired house for worship without being disturbed by riotous men and boys; and these, instead of being put down, were rather encouraged by the local authorities. On their complaining to the magistrates of one outrageous riot, Bailie Halyburton did what in him lay to add to their burden by taking away the key of their meeting-house, thus compelling them to meet in the street in front, where ‘they were further exposed to the fury of ane encouraged rabble.’ They now entreated the Privy Council to ‘find out some method whereby the petitioners (who live as quiet and peaceable subjects under a king who loves not that any should be oppressed for conscience’ sake) may enjoy a free exercise of their consciences, and that those who disturb them may be discountenanced, reproved, and punished.’ This they implore may be speedily done, ‘lest necessity force them to apply to the king for protection.’
The Council remitted to the magistrates ‘to consider the said representation, and to do therein as they shall find just and right.’[[207]]
June 1.
St Kilda, a fertile island of five miles’ circumference, placed fifty miles out from the Hebrides, was occupied by a simple community of about forty families, who lived upon barley-bread and sea-fowl, with their eggs, undreaming of a world which they had only heard of by faint reports from a factor of their landlord ‘Macleod,’ who annually visited them. Of religion they had only |1697.| caught a confused notion from a Romish priest who stayed with them a short time about fifty years ago. It was at length thought proper that an orthodox minister should go among these simple people, and the above is the date of his visit.
‘M. Martin, gentleman,’ who accompanied the minister, and afterwards published an account of the island, gives us in his book[[208]] a number of curious particulars about a personage whom he calls Roderick the Impostor, who, for some years bypast, had exercised a religious control over the islanders. He seems to have been, in reality, one of those persons, such as Mohammed, once classed as mere deceivers of their fellow-creatures for selfish purposes, but in whom a more liberal philosophy has come to see a basis of what, for want of a better term, may in the meantime be called ecstaticism or hallucination.
Roderick was a handsome, fair-complexioned man, noted in his early years for feats of strength and dexterity in climbing, but as ignorant of letters and of the outer world as any of his companions, having indeed had no opportunities of acquiring any information which they did not possess. Having, in his eighteenth year, gone out to fish on a Sunday—an unusual practice—he, on his return homeward, according to his own account, met a man upon the road, dressed in a Lowland dress—that is, a cloak and hat; whereupon he fell flat upon the ground in great disorder. The stranger announced himself as John the Baptist, come direct from heaven, to communicate through Roderick divine instructions for the benefit of the people, hitherto lost in ignorance and error. Roderick pleaded unfitness for the commission imposed upon him; but the Baptist desired him to be of good cheer, for he would instantly give him all the necessary powers and qualifications. Returning home, he lost no time in setting about his mission. He imposed some severe penances upon the people, particularly a Friday’s fast. ‘He forbade the use of the Lord’s Prayer, Creed, and Ten Commandments, and instead of them, prescribed diabolical forms of his own. His prayers and rhapsodical forms were often blended with the name of God, our blessed Saviour, and the immaculate Virgin. He used the Irish word Phersichin—that is, verses, which is not known in St Kilda, nor in the Northwest Isles, except to such as can read the Irish tongue. But what seemed most remarkable in his obscure prayers was his mentioning ELI, with the character of our preserver. He used |1697.| several unintelligible words in his devotions, of which he could not tell the meaning himself; saying only that he had received them implicitly from St John the Baptist, and delivered them before his hearers without any explication.’ ‘This impostor,’ says Martin, ‘is a poet, and also endowed with that rare faculty, the second-sight, which makes it the more probable that he was haunted by a familiar spirit.’
He stated that the Baptist communicated with him on a small mount, which he called John the Baptist’s Bush, and which he forthwith fenced off as holy ground, forbidding all cattle to be pastured on it, under pain of their being immediately killed. According to his account, every night after he had assembled the people, he heard a voice without, saying: ‘Come you out,’ whereupon he felt compelled to go forth. Then the Baptist, appearing to him, told him what he should say to the people at that particular meeting. He used to express his fear that he could not remember his lesson; but the saint always said: ‘Go, you have it;’ and so it proved when he came in among the people, for then he would speak fluently for hours. The people, awed by his enthusiasm, very generally became obedient to him in most things, and apparently his influence would have known no restriction, if he had not taken base advantage of it over the female part of the community. Here his quasi-sacred character broke down dismally. The three lambs from one ewe belonging to a person who was his cousin-german, happened to stray upon the holy mount, and when he refused to sacrifice them, Roderick denounced upon him the most frightful calamities. When the people saw nothing particular happen in consequence, their veneration for him experienced a further abatement. Finally, when the minister arrived, and denounced the whole of his proceedings as imposture, he yielded to the clamour raised against him, consented to break down the wall round the Baptist’s Bush, and peaceably submitted to banishment from the island. Mr Martin brought him to Pabbay island in the Harris group, whence he was afterwards transferred to the laird’s house of Dunvegan in Skye. He is said to have there confessed his iniquities, and to have subsequently made a public recantation of his quasi-divine pretensions before the presbytery of Skye.[[209]]
Mr Martin, in his book, stated a fact which has since been the subject of much discussion—namely, that whenever the steward |1697.| and his party, or any other strangers, came to St Kilda, the whole of the inhabitants were, in a few days, seized with a severe catarrh. The fact has been doubted; it has been explained on various hypotheses which were found baseless: visitors have arrived full of incredulity, and always come away convinced. Such was the case with Mr Kenneth Macaulay, the author of the amplest and most rational account of this singular island. He had heard that the steward usually went in summer, and he thought that the catarrh might be simply an annual epidemic; but he learned that the steward sometimes came in May, and sometimes in August, and the disorder never failed to take place a few days after his arrival, at whatever time he might come, or how often so ever in a season. A minister’s wife lived three years on the island free of the susceptibility, but at last became liable to it. Mr Macaulay did not profess to account for the phenomenon; but he mentions a circumstance in which it may be possible ultimately to find an explanation. It is, that not only is a St Kildian’s person disagreeably odoriferous to a stranger, but ‘a stranger’s company is, for some time, as offensive to them,’ who complain that ‘they find a difficulty in breathing a light sharp air when they are near you.’
Apr. 20.