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416 Gaelic Society of Inverness.
controversies and conflicts, giving rise to such unrest in oui' everyday
life, one not unfrequently hears long-drawn sighs for the
" Good old Times" to which no particular epoch has yet been positively
assigned. Amid the microscopical distinctions so unhappily
prevailing in our Presbyterian Churches, and the wranglings and
strife of rival factions, " the spirit of love and of a sound mind "—to
use the words of the large-hearted Christian leader, so recently
taken from us— " is often drowned in the uproar of ecclesiastical
passion." It would, I believe, be productive of the most beneficial
results in our religious as well as in our political life if, combined
with the "sweet reasonableness" and large tolei-ance of spirit
which so pre-eannently characterised Principal Tulloch, we had
more of such plain honest speaking as that of the great reformer,
John Knox, who learned, as he himself says, " to call wickedness
by its own terms—a fig a tig ; a spade a spade." But the so-
called " March of Civilisation " has changed the whole current of
our social and religious life, and afi'ected the si)irit of the age to
such an extent that it may be reasonably doubted whether the
most orthodox and constitutional Presbyterian in the Highlands
would now submit to the administration of discipline to which, in
days gone by, the Kirk-Sessions of Badenoch, without respect of
persons, so rigorously subjected the wandering sheep of their
flocks.
Knox's system of Church discipline has been described as a
theocracy of such an almost perfect character, that under it the
Kirk-Sessions of the Church looked after the life and conduct of
their parishioners so carefully that in ICoO Kirkton, the historian,
was able to say—" No scandalous person could live, no scandal
could be concealed in all Scotland, so strict a correspondence was
there between the Ministers and their congregations." The old
Church annals of Badenoch contain in this respect abundant evidence
of the extent to which the Ministers and Elders of byegone
times in the Highlands acted as ecclesiastical detectives in the
way of discovering and discouraging " the works of darkness," and
the gleanings which follow give some indication of the remarkable
powers exercised for such a long pei'iod by the Courts of the Church.
These gleanings have been extracted from the old Kirk-Session
Records of the parishes of Kingussie, Alvie, and Laggan, comprising
the whole of the extensive district, distinguished by the general
appellation of Badenoch—so long held and despotically ruled by
the once powerful family of the Comyns—extending from Corryarrick
on the west, to Craigellachie, near Aviemore, in the east
a distance of about forty-tive miles.
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