288 The Buchanites and Crocketford. 



and the incarnate Holy Ghost. The rest of the world would 

 perish, but she would never taste of death. Marriage was a 

 " bondag-e from which the world shall be delivered by the 

 people of God." All family bonds were loosed; and each 

 Buchanite — both body and eifects — was equally accessible 

 to all. Around these preposterous assertions there gradually 

 clustered a few other distinctive points of practice which are 

 thus described and vouched for by the poet Burns : — 



" Their tenets are a strange jumble of enthusiastic jargon. 

 Among others she pretends to give the Holy Ghost by breathing on 

 them, which she does with postures and practices which are scan- 

 dalously indecent. They have likewise disposed of all their effects 

 and hold a community of goods and live nearly an idle life, carrying 

 on a great farce of pretended devotion in barns and woods where 

 they lodge and lie all together, and hold likewise a community of 

 women, as it is another of their tenets that they can commit no 

 moral sin." 



And this was the woman who prevailed with the Rev. 

 Hugh White ! With such beliefs and practices one doesn't 

 wonder that the common-sense and decency -of Irvine were 

 outraged. One rather wonders that anybody at all, much 

 less a young and talented minister of the Gospel and an ex- 

 professor of logic, could be deluded into believing such a 

 horrible farrago. But "facts are chiels that winna ding." 

 " Friend Mother in the Lord " was clever and masterful, and 

 she had a fine gift of flattery. Besides, had she not promised 

 to all her followers a speedy translation from this wicked 

 world ? 



And so we now find Luckie Buchan in the open country 

 an outcast from the world, but attended by a devoted little 

 band of forty-six, one for every year of her age, who looked 

 to her alone for their salvation. They made a picturesque 

 group as they halted to consider the situation^ " each man 

 with a staff in the one hand and a small bundle in the other, 

 each woman with her coats kilted and a small bundle in a 

 handkerchief tied round her waist." The question was 

 pressing: — Whither, now that they had no home? True ; 

 their goal was heaven, and they might be summoned thither 

 at any moment. But they might not be called for many days, 

 and until they were called there was nothing for them but 



