Protestantism in Scotland - James Aitken Wylie

hold forth within empty walls. It was in vain that
the church doors were thrown open on Sunday
morning, few entered save the curates' dependents,
or the reprobates of the place; the bulk of the
population were elsewhere, listening to those
ministers who, not being comprehended in the Act
of 1662, having been ordained before the year
1649, were still permitted to occupy their pulpits;
or they had gathered by hundreds or by thousands,
devout and reverend, on some moorland, or in
some sequestered glen, or on some mountain-side,
there to listen to one of the ejected ministers, who,
taking his stand on some rock or knoll, preached
the Word of Life. It was exceedingly mortifying to
the bishops to see their curates despised, their
churches empty, and the people traveling miles in
all weathers to hear those whom they had extruded.
They immediately obtained an Act forbidding any
one to preach unless he had a license from a
bishop, and commanding the people to attend their
parish churches under the penalty of a fine. This
Act was termed the "bishops' drag-net." It failed to
fill the empty pews of the parish churches. One
tyrannical measure only necessitates another and
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