86 



Notices of Remains of Pre- Reformat ion Charches, cfcc, in 

 Berwickshire. By John Ferguson, Duns. (Plates I., 

 II, III., IV., V.) 



"All ruins, glorious once, but lonely now." 



Browning, Paracelsus. 



It would be interesting to know precisely when and how the 

 light of the Christian Faith first penetrated the wilds of Lam- 

 niermuir and the marshy wastes of the Merse, but neither the 

 time nor the manner of its earliest advent to the district can be 

 ascertained with certainty. The old chroniclers, in the accounts 

 they profess to give of the introduction of Christianity into the 

 various parts of Scotland, are sometimes so palpably inaccurate 

 in their chronology', and the identification of the localities they 

 mention is, in many cases, so extremely doubtful, that we are 

 scarcely warranted in coming to any very definite conclusions on 

 the subject. There seems to be no reason to doubt, however, 

 after all due allowance has been made for the untrustworthiness 

 of our sources of information, that long before the departure of 

 the Eomans from Britain, about the middle of the fifth century, 

 Christianity had made considerable progress in the island. And 

 as the southern part of Scotland was, for a time at least, under 

 Roman sway, it is pi'obable that the religion of the Cross was 

 not altogether unknown in this part of the Borders. We know 

 too, that in the end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth 

 centui-y, the tribes that inhabited the region lying to the north 

 of the Solway Firth were converted to the Faith by the labours of 

 St. Ninian ; and it is scarcely conceivable that some knowledge 

 or rumour of his work and teaching should not have found its 

 way to the opposite extremity of the Border line. But it is 

 almost equally certain that the events which followed the with- 

 drawal of the Eoman legions — the incursions of the Northern 

 barbarians, the invasion of the Saxons, and the desperate but 

 unavailing efforts of the original inhabitants to maintain their 

 ground against the newcomers — completely extinguished for a 

 time, in this part of the country, whatever light of Christian 

 truth might have been feebly glimmering amidst the sur- 

 rounding darkness. 



