780 



11 EN X IK. 



tenters, ranking, a* to numerical strength, next to 

 the United Secession, and therefore standing 

 second in the list of those dissenters who have | 

 withdrawn from the Church of Scotland. 



Under the domination of a party who have not , 

 now the ascendant in the Scottish church, the Gen- ' 

 eral Assembly of 1752 appointed the presbytery of 

 Dunfermline to meet at Invei keithing, during the 

 very time of the Assembly's sitting, to carry 

 through a violent settlement in that parish. Every 

 member of presbytery was enjoined, under pain of 

 censure, to attend, and to appear before the As- 

 sembly on the day succeeding that of the ap- j 

 pointed settlement, to give an account of their 

 diligence, or to answer for their disobedience. The 

 greater part of the presbytery did not attend, 

 and thus the settlement did not proceed. The 

 Assembly next day called the presbytery to account, 

 and Mr Thomas Gillespie of Carnock, who was all 

 along opposed to the settlement of ministers in 

 reclaiming parishes, was deposed from the office of 

 the ministry, while four of his co-presbyters were 

 provisionally suspended. Upon this, Mr Gillespie 

 proceeded to form at Dunfermline the first Relief 

 congregation. A few years later, Mr Thomas 

 Boston, son of the author of the ' Fourfold State,' j 

 voluntarily left his charge of the parish of Oxnam, j 

 and in the year 1757 erected a church in Jedburgh. 

 These two ministers, along with Mr Collier, who 

 afterwards deserted the Relief Church, formed 

 themselves, a few years afterwards, into a presby- 

 tery. They called themselves the Presbytery of 

 Relief, to intimate that they were willing to 

 relieve from that which the great body of the Scot- 

 tish nation have all along named the yoke of pa- 

 tronage. But this relief they professed themselves 

 able to give only to those "who adhered to the 

 constitution of the Church of Scotland, as exhi- 

 bited in her creeds, canons, confessions, and forms 

 of worship." 



Since the constitution of the presbytery of Relief, j 

 this portion of Scottish dissenters has steadily con- j 

 tinned to increase. For a considerable time, they 

 occupied towards the Church of Scotland a posi- 

 tion nearly analogous to that of the Wesleyan 

 Methodists in England to the established church 

 there. They professed no difference of opinion : 

 from the Scottish church, and cultivated inter- 

 communion, so far as that was found practicable. 

 But they have been lately withdrawing themselves 

 to a greater distance from the church from which 

 they originally sprung, and instead of having their 

 candidates for the ministry educated at the Di- j 

 vinity Halls of the Universities, they have now a 

 Hall of their own. They, however, require of ; 

 their students the same attendance at all the clas- j 

 ses in the university (theological ones excepted) I 

 which is required of candidates in the church of 

 Scotland. In 1830, there were seventy-nine min- 

 isters connected with the Relief Synod, and in 

 1839, there were 112. The Relief is the only 

 body of dissentients from the church of Scotland 

 from which no branch dissent has sprung. As a 

 church it still remains unbroken, but at the present 

 time there is a union between it and the Secession 

 church under proposition. 



RENNIE, GEORGE; a distinguished agricultu- 

 r.st, was born at the farm of Phantassie, in the 

 county of East Lothian, in 1749. His father, 

 James Rennie, was one of the most active pro- 

 moters of agricultural improvements in his day, 

 and his brother John Rennie, was the celebrated 



civil engineer, of whom a short notice is givtn in 

 the body of the work. 



George Rennie very early exhibited indications ( f 

 that activity, penetration, and intelligence, which 

 characterized his after years. He has recorded of 

 himself, that, while attending school, he used daily 

 to pass through the workshop of Andrew Meikle, 

 whose son was his companion, scrutinizing the ma- 

 chines and models from time to time passing under 

 the hands of that indefatigable and ingenious man. 

 He had an observant eye and a retentive memory ; 

 and in this way he gained some mechanical know- 

 ledge, and, what was of more advantage, an im- 

 petus was given to inquiry, and a turn lor the in- 

 vestigation of such new inventions or improvement* 

 in the arts as came, from time to time, afterwards 

 to be objects of public consideration and import- 

 ance. When a youth, he was sent to Tweedside 

 by his father, to make a survey of the state or 

 agriculture in those districts, and his attention was 

 there powerfully directed to the commencement of 

 a system of extensive improvement of their own 

 estates by several gentlemen, the fathers of agri- 

 cultural improvement in the south-east border 

 counties, such were lord Kaimes, Hume of Nine- 

 wells, Renton of Lammerton, Fordyce of Ayton, 

 and others. These improvements, which consisted 

 principally of enclosing, marling on a great scale, 

 and draining, appear to have commenced so far 

 back as 1750. James Rennie having died in 17G6, 

 when, consequently, the subject of our memoir 

 was only seventeen years of age, the journey must 

 have been undertaken anterior to that period, and 

 proves, not only his general powers of observation, 

 but his father's discernment, in having appreciated 

 the qualities for which his son was afterwards to 

 be distinguished. James Rennie having erected a 

 brewing establishment on the ground now occupied 

 by the Linton distillery, the superintendence of it 

 was, in 1765, committed to George. In this charge 

 he continued for one year, at which time the death 

 of his father occurring, the establishment was re 

 linquished, and allowed to remain in a dormant 

 state until the year 1770, when it was let to a 

 tenant. In 1783 Mr Rennie again took the.woiks 

 into his own management; and, having fitted them 

 up in a superior manner, commenced the business 

 of distilling on an enlarged scale. The distillery 

 remained in Mr Rennie's hands until 1797, when 

 the whole work was let in lease. 



The success of Mr Rennie as an agriculturist 

 soon came to be very generally known ; and t In- 

 accurate arrangements of his farm were a theme of 

 praise, as well as an incentive to emulation, among 

 the most discerning of his neighbours. Consider- 

 ing agriculture as fundamentally a practical science, 

 facts and actual experiments were the data on 

 which he went, sparing neither trouble nor expence 

 in setting to rest a variety of speculative opinions. 

 His keen perception and scrutinizing judgment 

 taught him, almost intuitively, the fallacy of a num- 

 ber qf these ; and others, which had some real 

 grounds for their support, but which had been render- 

 ed by time and error too abstruse or complicated, he 

 freed from the needless leaven encumbering their 

 operation, and thus simplified and established. 

 Above all, he taught, by the admirable way in 

 which his lands were laid out and kept, that farm- 

 ing requires the quick eye and the unremitting 

 hand, and that its general principles, though sub- 

 ject to the operation of soil and climate, are regu- 

 lated by intelligence and calculation. His property 



