214 JOHN DUNCAN, WEAVER AND BOTANIST. 



though wielded in his name ; and who could not hate 

 Catholics or even atheists, because he loves all men, as 

 he loves all God's creatures. Their arguments on such 

 subjects were consequently frequent, and on John's side 

 almost fierce, so dead-earnest was he in what he identified 

 at once with patriotism and piety ; and it was then only 

 that they ever came near to inflicting pain on each other, 

 if not to quarrelling, for these subjects have caused division 

 between friends, families, and nations, when nothing else 

 could have done it. 



With such sympathies and such opposition to all State 

 interference in religious affairs, it would not have been 

 difficult to predict what side John would take in the long 

 and fiery disputes that culminated in the Disruption of 

 '43. He became a strenuous anti -patronage, anti-Erastian 

 advocate, a keen sympathizer with the dissentients, and an 

 ardent adherent of the party that formed the Free Church 

 of Scotland. 



The history of the remarkable struggle that issued in 

 the ecclesiastical revolution of 1843, in which four hundred 

 and seventy-four ministers of the Established Church 

 separated from her communion in one day, need here be 

 referred to only as far as John Duncan and his friends 

 were concerned in it, for it has been often written from all 

 points of view. It was a period of intense religious and 

 social excitement ; as John, speaking of it forty years after, 

 said, " Oh, it was a terrible time ! " In the Vale of Alford, 

 John lived near some of the scenes which are now historic 

 in connection with it. At Netherton, he followed its move- 

 ments with the deepest interest, visiting the places where 

 forced intrusions occurred, and keeping himself conversant 



