The book Arran; - Cook Clan

IMPROVEMENT AND EMIGRATION 205
was, in the open air. A record of their impression runs
thus :
' The ignorance of the Celtic inhabitants was great,
and as an instance of their rude ^ manners, Mr. James
Haldane mentioned, at his Jubilee Meeting in 1849, that on
a sacramental occasion he had been present, in a parish
church, when there was a pause, and none of the people
seemed disposed to approach the Communion tables. On
a sudden he heard the crack of sticks, and looking round
saw one descend on the bald head of a Highlander behind
him. It was the ruling elders driving the poor people
forward to the tables, much in the same manner as they were
accustomed to pen their cattle at a market. Had this
happened in a remote corner of Popish Ireland it would
have been less wonderful, but the Gaelic population of
Presbyterian Arran seemed accustomed to submit to this
rough disciphne without a murmur.' ^
Now any Highlander, or any one familiar with the external
forms of Highland religion, will recognise the fallacy
of this interpretation. It was, and to some extent still is,
a mark of Highland piety to be unwilling to ' go forward ' to
the Communion table, to delay, to hesitate, to be adjured by
the officiating clergyman, to be pushed and encouraged by
neighbours. Contrasting Highland and Lowland practice,
one well qualified to speak describes how Highlanders from
' sensitiveness of conscience, shrink from approaching the
table of the Lord, fearing that it is not legitimate nor safe
for them to do so.' ^ What Mr. Haldane saw was a perhaps
extreme and ludicrous instance of this modesty, but what
it certainly was not is the interpretation he puts upon the
incident.
The Haldanes left their deepest impression in the Sannox
1 Rude in the religious not mannerly sense, ' primitive ' rather than impolite.
^ Lives of Robert and James Haldane, p. 281.
' The Days of the Fathers in Ross-shire, by Dr. Kennedy, p. 139. Many pages are
devoted to a discussion of the Highland and Lowland practices in this connection.
The present writer can speak as an eyewitness of backwardness of this type.