QUARRELWOOD ChURCH AND ITS MINISTERS. 167 



tents and tabernacles, and had not one religious building in 

 Galloway and Nithsdale. They assembled often on the moun- 

 tain and the moor, and were called 'hillmen.' I have attended 

 divine service at the tent, when the fields were sprinkled with 

 snow, and the voice of prayer and praise had a peculiar solemnity. 

 My acquaintance with them does not go further back than . 



. the period of the ' Four Johns,' chief ministers of the party, 

 viz. : — Rev. John Thorburn, Rev. John Courtass, Rev. John 

 Fairley, and the Rev. John M'Millan. I have often heard the 

 old people in Nithsdale and Clydesdale speak with admiration 

 and affection of the ' four Johns ' as lovely examples of Christian 

 character and impressive patterns of ministerial fidelity. They 

 did much to stem the torrent of declining virtue and promote the 

 cause of truth and righteousness in a bad time.' I met with a Mr 

 Waugh thirty years ago, at Tatamagouche, from Annandale, who 

 left the country when they were in the flower of their fame, and 

 the old man regarded their ministry as the golden era of Came- 

 ronian history. I have heard Mr M'Millan preach and had some 

 "knowledge of the elder Fairley. John Fairley fearlessly attacked 

 the reigning follies of the age, and preached the gospel in a 

 familiar but forcible style of eloquence. In his great field days, 

 and in contending for the testimony of the martyrs, he was un- 

 sparing in the use of arrows, often broke a lance with the Pope, 

 and drove rusty nails into our venerable Establishment, and 

 lashed the Secession and Relief for their declensions." 



Speaking of the style of preaching of Henderson and Mason, 

 he continues: — " Near the end of last century — i.e., 18th century 

 — Rev. James Thomson (Quarrehvood) and Rowatt (Scaurbridge) 

 introduced a better style of preaching among the ' hillmen.' They 

 were popular preachers, and attracted great crowds to the tent in 

 Galloway and Nithsdale. I have never seen such gatherings since 

 in any part of the world, and I would go a long way to see such 

 another assembly. On the morning of a high communion Sab- 

 bath o\'erflowing valleys were in motion, and for ten or fifteen 

 or twenty miles you might have seen pastoral groups streaming 

 away to the hill of Zion, and the services were long and pro- 

 tracted, and before the last psalm would be sung — which was 

 loud as the sound of many waters — the dewdrops were on their 

 plaids, and 'the sentinel stars had set their watch in the skies.' 



