Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

INSULAR LHUUCUK!!i. 397
cularlyin Ireland; and Bishop Nicolson, whose calmness
and soundness of judgment give him great authority on
all those questions, says that the secular and regular
clergy of Ireland were then equal to all the rest of the
inhabitants. Yet as it is plain that the buildings which
I have been describing cannot be of so high an age, and
as the history of the Western Islands will not allow us to
think that such establishments could then have made so
extensive a progress, we must probably fix the period
of the power or sway of the church in these islands, at a
later date, and, as I have already suggested, at that of
the government of the Romish Church, rather than under
the time of St. Columba's rule.
I had occasion to notice, on a former occasion, the
harmony subsisting between the Protestants and the Ca-
tholics in this country; and it is a fact which I presume
cannot fail to give pleasure to all parties. This general
feeling is strongly confirmed by an event that occurred
during the commotions which the year 1760 produced in
Scotland on this subject ; the Protestants of Inverness
having formed an armed association to prevent an attack,
which was feared or threatened, against the Catholic
Chapel in Strath Glas.
Though I have here noticed the religious character of
the ancient Highlanders, as far as it appears to me that
it can fairly be inferred from the facts before us and
from the very little information which has reached us,
and though I have done this for the purpose of counter-
acting what appears to me a false opinion which has pre-
vailed on this subject, it is one that I have purposely
avoided as it relates to modern times. Yet I have scarcely
succeeded in omitting all notice of what, I must confess,
has always struck me in the character and conduct of
this people, as far as I have had opportunities of obser-
vation. I did think, that, at this very day, the High-