When the time for parting came in 1843, and the parish churches were left, the first object was to obtain temporary accommodation for the worship of God. Different methods were taken according to circumstances, and nothing in the whole history of that period is more remarkable than the strange variety of expedients that suggested themselves to the people in different parts of Scotland.
“The parish church of Cargill was vacated on the 4th June by its venerable pastor, who preached to eight hundred of his much attached flock in a barn belonging to Mr James Irving of Newbiggings. After solemn prayer that the Father of all would perfect His strength in their weakness, the reverend gentleman delivered an impressive discourse with a fervency which caused deep emotion, and tears started to many an eye not accustomed to weep, on beholding their aged pastor who had broke the bread of life amongst them for thirty-four years, forsaking all earthly benefits, that he might be at liberty to preach the Word of God in its purity. When the hour of worship arrived, the people from the surounding cottages were seen in crowds thoughtfully wending their way to the place of meeting, and in the midst, their aged and venerated pastor bearing the sacred volume beneath his arm.”
At Campbeltown, the Gaelic congregation found accommodation (4th June, 1843) at the distillery of Messrs. John Grant & Co. A large court belonging to the works had been “almost completely covered in with a wooden roof in a day and a half by the Highlanders themselves. From 1500 to 2000 gathered, and patiently endured the cold rather than desert their ministers of their cause.”
A still more remarkable transformation took place at Symington, in Ayrshire. “The very day after I left the old church,” says Mr Orr, “the elders and others set to work to find a temporary place of worship, and they fortunately procured for that purpose an old public-house, which was then empty. They took down all its partitions, threw all its rooms into one, had it all seated by the following Sabbath, and it was sufficiently large to hold a good congregation. I preached there for nine months with great comfort and satisfaction. My pulpit was an old door laid across two small tressles, and upon it a table and a chair; and it was the finest pulpit I ever occupied.”
Among the fishing population it sometimes happened that the only available building was a herring-store. Thus at Keiss, it is said – “for the first four months after the Disruption they worshipped in a barn, but when harvest came and the barn was required for farm purposes, they had to retire to a herring-store-house, in a compartment of which public worship was carried on, and wherein, to this day (1846) the people assemble.”
Sometimes wooden churches were errected. For two years, says Mr. Grant of Ayr, “we worshipped in a wooden church behind Alloway Place, which was opened by the Rev. Dr. Gordon of Edinburgh, in October 1843. It was infested by beetles, earwigs, and mice; annoyed by drops of rain in wet weather, and melting pitch in hot summer days. Yet these are the months to which I have referred as a time of special blessing.“ At Kirkhill, “A site for the church having been kindly granted by John Fraser, Esq., and Mr. John M'lennan, merchant of Beauly, having handsomely presented manufactured timber for a place of worship, the people assembled and gave their gratiutous aid in erecting the building. During Tuesday and the four following days, successive relays of workmen arrived, carrying their tools with them. On Saturday morning the preaching box was set up, and it was most interesting to witness the people coming from all quarters of the parish, and many from the neighbouring parishes, carrying forms on their shoulders, and anxiously placing them in favourable situations near the pulpit.”
But the expense of wooden buildings was sometimes greater than could be met in the face of other demands, and simpler expedients had to be tried Perhaps the simplest of all was one mentioned in the Witness newspaper: “We have lately heard of a friendly farmer in the west who, in gratitude to God for the abundant harvest, has arranged the stacks in his stack-yard in a circle, so that the sheltered space within may accommodate the Free Church of his parish.”
In various localities tents were procured. It was a remarkable example of the law of demand and supply, that before the first Assembly of the Free Church rose, a London manufacturing firm had a specimen tent pitched close to Tanfield, ready to take orders. There was one class of cases for which tents were held to be pecularly adapted – those in which sites had been refused. The idea was that as the tents were movable the people might carry their churches from place to place, in search of some spot where standing-ground could be had. As Mr. Dunlop stated in the first General Assembly, “Large tents had been provided which could hold about 500 people, and which did not weigh more than four hundred weight; so that they might be carried from place to place in a small cart or boat along the sea-shore or from farm to farm, so that when driven from one quarter, the people might escape the tyranny by transporting them to another.”
The most interesting of these scenes, however were the fields and hillsides and glens, where congregations unable to find shelter, met under the open canopy of heaven. “There has been a night of weighty rain,” writes Hugh Miller from Cromarty on the morning of Sabbath, the 23rd July, “the streets have been swept clean, and the kennels show their accumulations of sand and mud high over their edges. I awoke several times during the night to hear the gush from the eaves and the furious patter on the panes; and I thought of the many poor congregations in Scotland who would have to worship today in the open air.”
So it was amid such strange surroundings that from week to week hundreds of thousands of the most earnest minds in Scotland came together for the worship of God. If one could combine into a single picture of these various scenes, it would form a spectacle such as no country in modern times has witnessed, and one which, in the estimation of many, is not altogether unworthy to be associated with the memories of former days of trial and struggle. Many a time under these lowly roofs, or out on those bare hillsides, men's thoughts went back to the days of persecution when our covenanting forefathers met for the worship of God amid the glens and moors of our native land, or to scenes associated with memories more sacred still – the river-side at Philippi, where prayer was wont to be made – the boat floating on the Sea of Galilee, out of which One spake as man never spake – or the lonely desert which the presence of God turned into a Bethel, the very gate of heaven.
This Page Title – The Tabernacles of thy Grace. Places used for worship in the Disruption of 1843 The Wicket Gate Magazine "A Continuing Witness". Internet Edition number 107 – placed on line March 2014 Wicket Gate contact address – Mr Cliff Westcombe cw@wicketgate.co.uk If you wish to be notified when each new edition goes on line please send an e-mail to the above address Magazine web address – www.wicketgate.co.uk |