524 HISTORY OF THE OUTER HEBRIDES. 



In the Outer Hebrides, religious observances were doubt- 

 less stimulated by the Statutes of Icolmkill, drawn up in 

 1609 f r the improvement of the Isles ; and subsequently 

 by the Bond of 1614. The first Earl of Seaforth is 

 described as " a pious and religious " man. As patron of 

 the Lewis churches, he provided them with books, no doubt 

 of a devotional character, and he built a church in Storno- 

 way. And yet we find Bishop Thomas, in 1626, com- 

 plaining that the Earl had only paid the Bishop's father, 

 fifty merks of his dues, and was now refusing to pay any- 

 thing, denying all liability for Bishops' dues. In 1626, 

 there were only two ministers in Lewis, their parishes being 

 Barvas (including Uig), and Ui (including Lochs), the 

 living, in each case, being worth two thousand merks 

 yearly. But in spite of the regular payment of clergy- 

 men's stipends, the repair of " ruinous kirks," the abolition 

 of handfast marriages, the punishment of open immorality, 

 and the observance of the Sabbath, which the Statutes of 

 Icolmkill aimed at achieving, the theological beliefs of the 

 Long Island remained practically the same as before the 

 Reformation. In those places where the heritors belonged 

 to the Reformed Church, the people doubtless became, in 

 time, nominally Protestants, but there is abundant evidence 

 to show that down to the eighteenth century, the real 

 religion of the people was simply saint-worship, strongly 

 diluted by the pagan rites inherited from their Norse fore- 

 fathers. To this condition of things, a solitary exception 

 must be made, in the case of Stornoway, where Christianity 

 was probably of the orthodox type, Episcopacy and Pres- 

 byterianism alternately predominating. 



The state of religion in Lewis, in 1630, is clearly indicated 

 by the report of Captain Dymes.* He says that in their 

 religion, the islanders were " very ignorant, and have been 

 given to the idolatrous worshipp of divers saints " ; the saint 

 held in greatest veneration being " Mollonuy " (Maelrubha). 

 The church at Ness, dedicated to Maelrubha, was kept in 



* See Appendix F. 



