The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

CHAP. VIII] OF SCOTLAND 119
religion exists in the numerous stone monuments and circles
which have remained, and may still be seen in such profusion,
in spite of the ravages of time, the zeal of early converts to
Christianity, and the consequences of agricultural improvement;
and there can be little doubt that a comparison of these
interesting monuments,
in connection with the few historical
facts on the subject which are known, would afford a curious
and sufficiently accurate picture of the nature of that ancient
religion. The conversion of the northern Picts to
Church. Christianity took place in the sixth century, and was
effected by the preaching of St. Columba, whose
memory is still regarded with veneration by the Highlanders as
the great apostle of their nation. The form of church government
established by him in the north of Scotland was of a very
peculiar nature, and is deserving of some notice, as well from
that circumstance as from its having given rise to a modern
and bitterness. In the Christian
controversy of unusual length
church founded bv that great man, and afterwards termed the
Culdee Church, the zealous Presbyterian sees at that early period
the model of a pure Presbyterian government, and the great
principle of clerical equality acknowledged in a remote and
obscure island, at a period when the rest of the world submitted
willingly and blindly to Episcopal supremacy. The devout
believer in the apostolic origin and authority of Episcopacy can
discover nothing essentially different from the diocesan episco-
pacy which was at that time universal in Christian churches ;
and the Roman Catholic sees evidence of the existence of his
own peculiar doctrines in that church which both the other
parties are agreed in pronouncing to be the solitary exception
to the universal prevalence of its dogmas and the earliest witness
against its corruptions. When a controversy of this nature has
arisen regarding the constitution of an early Christian church,
it is manifest that that church must have possessed considerable
peculiarities of form and character, and that it must in some
respects have differed from the other churches of the period.
If in no respect distinct in form or doctrine from the generality
of Christian societies of that period, it is difficult to conceive
how any doubt could have arisen as to its polity ; and it is still
more difficult to suppose that it could have presented an exact