IRONGRAY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 63 
CHANGE FROM OLD STYLE TO NEw. 
It was in September, 1752, that the Act of Parliament 
decreed that September 2nd should be followed not by Septem- 
ber 3rd but September 14th. The country took the change 
with very bad grace, and certainly it was hard lines losing eleven 
days with nothing to show for them. The last entry in O.S. 
in our records was October 22, 1752; the next entry December 
15, 1752, is marked N.S. The entry of May 19th N.S. has the 
alternative 8th O.S. The change in Irongray was ominous. 
James Guthrie was the last of the Old Style ministers. He had 
seen “the killing times,’’ if tradition is true, he was the nephew 
and namesake of James Guthrie, the proto-martyr of the Cove- 
nant. He had seen as a young man prelacy deposed and Presby- 
terianism established. He had in the early days of his ministry 
been called upon to deal with those who had fallen away in the 
times of persecution. He had seen Nithsdale and disturbed the 
heroic Countess Winifred’s Christmas Eve. He had heard the 
Highland host retreat from England. The old romantic Scot- 
land of legend and song passed away in his life-time. The new 
Scotland of Edinburgh “ literati ’’ and “ moderate ’’ divines, the 
Scotland of “ Jupiter,’’ Carlyle, Hume, Robertson, and Adam 
Smith, had come in its stead. I wonder what thoughts passed 
through the old man’s mind when he thought of all the changes. 
he had witnessed. Did he say “the former days are better than 
these?’ or did he console himself with King Arthur’s 
philosophy >— 
‘‘Old order changeth, yielding place to new, 
And God fulfils Himself in many ways, 
Lest one good custom should corrupt the earth ?”’ 
Mr Dunlop, in acknowledging a vote of thanks, said the 
records of the parish had been fairly well kept, and certainly 
very much better than those of many others in the district. He 
also read Dr Hewison’s account of the trial of Isobell Walker 
—the sister of “ Jeanie Deans ’’—which appeared in the “ Scots- 
-man’’ on 5th May, 1906. -He had often intended, he said, to 
write a history of the parish, and would be obliged to any person 
who could supply him with well-authenticated facts. 
