$10 Notes and Sketches. 



really felt the theological opinions of the time were no 

 doubt severe, and the prevailing notions concerning 

 Christian liberty narrow and restricted. It does not, 

 however, betoken any great depth of insight, nor is 

 it indicative of a true and adequate comprehension 

 of facts in their due relations or a really cosmo- 

 politan philosophy, to misapprehend totally the dis- 

 tinction between earnest piety of even the gloomier 

 sort, and simple fanaticism or pure hypocrisy. In the 

 regions to which we have had reference, and during the 

 time under notice, an actively religious spirit was 

 certainly not a prominent feature. With considerable 

 show of reason it might be said the very reverse was 

 the case. The dominant Presbyterianism managed 

 parish affairs creditably ; supplied a reasonable propor- 

 tion of passable sermons, prevailingly of the type of 

 theology known as " Moderate," as contra-distinguished 

 from "Evangelical/' weekly; carried on the stated diets 

 of catechising, yearly, and took oversight of the schools ; 

 its ministry yielding a man here and there destined to 

 eminence more or less, as occasionally, too a brother 

 with pronouncedly erratic tendencies, who ruled his 

 diocese after his own queer fashion, and left his corres- 

 ponding moral impress upon a generation of parishioners 

 when he had disappeared from the scene. Episco- 

 palians, who, in due course " suffered" for their non- 

 jurant principles, did not bulk largely ; neither did 

 the followers of the first or second Secession. The 

 feelings of contempt and aversion with which Seceders 

 were regarded were very general ; as one can readily 

 understand from occasional references made to them 

 by contemporary writers. A sufficiently pointed ex- 

 ample of the estimation in which they were held 

 by the landowning class is furnished by the articles 

 and conditions of tack for his lands, registered in the 

 Sheriff Court books of Aberdeenshire, in February, 1 781 , 

 by Alexander Eraser, of Strichen. In the second Article, 

 in which are specified the various offences for which 



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