rence of the heritors and heads of families with the presentee, and that heritors' votes are to be rated according to the lands they possess in the parish; to this it may be answered, that we know no law, either in Church or State, rating the votes of heritors in Church affairs; and that it would be more honest and open to tell the heritors, elders, and heads of families, that we will go on to settle the presentee, if they have no objection against his life or doctrine, which they can judicially verify, than to ask their votes and consent, and yet pay no regard to them. We know no act of this Church that has determined how many heritors and elders make a tolerable concurrence, except a majority; and, indeed, if we were to lay the votes of heritors in the balance of the sanctuary, and so to judge of them, not by their numbers but by their weight, we own residing heritors ought especially to be regarded, seeing their edification is much concerned in the matter, whereas the edification of nonresiding heritors can be little or nothing concerned therein.

After praying the Assembly to appoint the moderation of a call at large, they concluded with the following representation

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:

And, as what we reckon a very pungent motive to this, we beg to lay before the venerable Assembly, in conclusion, a short hint of the sad consequences of this unhappy affair, the most fatal, not only to that people, but to this country side, and the interests of the Gospel therein, of anything that has befallen us for many years past. Our people have hitherto been so happy as to know little or nothing of violent settlements; but the settlement of Kilmaurs, agitated so long betwixt the people and the Presbytery, through the patron's refusing to drop it, and the people's invincible aversion to it, and the tossing of it so much and so long before Church judicatories, has made a very great noise, has fired many of the people of the parishes around, many of whom have espoused the quarrel, looking upon it as a common cause, which they know not how soon may become their own. It has not only driven the bulk of the parish of Kilmaurs into a kind of desperation to think of, and to threaten, a total separation from this Church, and to invite and join with the Seceding preachers of late visiting the bounds, but they are joined therein by multitudes in many parishes, several of whom have actually seceded from their own ministers, though before this emergency they were peaceable, showing no inclination to such divisive courses. So, as schism now spreads and grows with us apace, and is like to overrun not a little of this country, where it may end we cannot tell. Therefore, in the melancholy view of these dismal and natural effects, felt, feared, and increasing, we pray God may guide the Assembly in this weighty affair of so much importance to the weal of the Church in our once peaceable but now inflamed bounds, and may direct them to some happy expedience for quenching this flame, and the spreading plague of schism in this National Church.'

The Assembly disregarded this complaint, and ordered Mr Coates's settlement to be proceeded with, which took place 3d May 1739. Such was the dissatisfaction, that it was deemed expedient to escort Mr Coates to the pulpit by a party of soldiers on the first Sabbath after his ordination.* It was, however, too late to act otherwise. The people of Kilmaurs had already nearly all withdrawn from the Established Church, and acceded formally to the Associate Presbytery. Part did so on 18th July 1738, when the Rev. Messrs Thomson and Mair were appointed to observe a fast with them at Mearns, along with other Seceders in that district, on the 24th of August following. The Magistrates, Town Council, and Kirk Session of Kilmaurs, with one exception, and the great body of the people, acceded to the Associate Presbytery in March 1739; and the whole together were soon after formed into a regularly organised congregation. [The area of the congregation may be estimated by the fact that the baptismal-roll, 1745, registers baptisms of children whose parents resided in the parishes of Kilmarnock, Fenwick, Stewarton, Dreghorn, Beith, Dalry, Ardrossan, Kilbarchan, Lochwinnoch, Kilwinning, Dundonald, Ayr, Loudon, Strathaven, and Old and New Cumnock. The following congregations were disjoined from Kilmaurs, 1758-76: Colmonell, Kilwinning, Auchinleck, Beith, Ayr, Newmilns, Kilmarnock, and Stewarton, all of which disjunctions were vigorously opposed by the session of Kilmaurs.] First church built, 1743, on a piece of ground which was obtained from the heirs of Rev. Hugh Thomson of Towerhill, on a lease of five times ninety-nine years; sittings, 1000. £55 were contributed by Mr William Nimmo, an elder of the Established Church in Fenwick. He also gave four communion cups to the parish of Fenwick, on condition that the Secession Congregation of Kilmaurs should have the use of them, which was done * It is said that his two successors in 1778 and 1788 were also introduced by drum and bayonet. -Ens.

annually till 1746, when they purchased the number necessary for themselves. Second church built, 1789; sittings, 450. A new church was opened 26th March 1865, containing 472 sittings, and costing £1400.

1st Minister.-DAVID SMYTON. Called to Holm of Balfron and Kilmaurs. These were the first competing calls that occurred in the Secession Church, and the practice then adopted of the Synod deciding respecting them continued till September 1833, when it was abandoned, and leave given to the individual who had received more than one call, or a translating call, to decide for himself. Mr Smyton was appointed by the Synod to Kilmaurs, and was ordained there 13th November 1740, the Presbytery requiring him to preach four Sabbaths in the year at Fenwick, four miles distant, four at Wallacetown, seventeen miles distant, six at Dalry, eight miles distant, two at Kilwinning, five miles distant, and the remainder at Kilmaurs.* Mr Smyton adhered, with the majority of his congregation, to the General Associate (Antiburgher) Synod, 1747. Mr Smyton at first voted with the Burgher party, because he would have consented not to make the question of the oath a term of communion rather than occasion a breach, though he conscientiously disapproved of its being taken by Seceders. After the Breach took place, he joined the Antiburgher party, as they coincided with his views..

In 1781 the congregation called Mr Allan to be colleague to Mr Smyton, but the Synod appointed him to Cupar - Angus, and in 1783 they called Mr Galbraith, who was appointed to Londonderry.

Mr Smyton and his session petitioned the Presbytery of Glasgow to enjoin uniformity in the mode of administering the Lord's Supper. Some ministers being in the practice of "lifting" the bread and cup before the consecration prayer, and others not doing so, while he considered the former mode essential to the right observance of the ordinance, the Presbytery referred the matter to the Synod for advice. The Synod, at the spring meeting in 1782, refused to adopt the overture, leaving it to the option of ministers to dispense the ordinance in either way. On the 21st of May of the same year, Mr Smyton and his session again petitioned the Presbytery, urging them to give an immediate decision in their cause. The Presbytery having expressed their judgment as coinciding with the advice given by the Synod, were about to converse with the petitioners, when Mr Smyton protested against this procedure, and appealed to next Synod. The Synod met in September, and were about to consider the cause, when Adam Gib entered his protest against hearing the appellants. The Synod dismissed Mr Smyton's protest and appeal, and renewed their advice, formerly given, to exercise forbearance in the

* There is a deed of the Associate Session of Kilmaurs, dated 21st December 1745, at which time the army of Prince Charles was pressing the siege of Stirling Castle, and levying contributions in most towns of the west of Scotland. It runs thus:-"Taking into our consideration the present call in Providence necessitating us and others to appear in arms for the defence of the Covenanted Reformation sworn to in these lands, and also in defence of our civil liberties, both of which are evidently struck at by a Popish Pretender and his adherents; we therefore enact, that we shall go in person, or others in our place, for the support and defence of our principles; showing, at the same time, that we own only our Protestant King, George II. But we are not hereby to be construed as countenancing anything that is wrong in the administration, or practice, or any part thereof; and we do this for the encouragement of others of our communion, who are willing and able to support and defend the same cause; and further, we resolve to take arms by ourselves, and only with those of our own profession.' (Signed) DAVID SMYTON, Moderator. SAMUEL HARPER, Session-Clerk.

[The above note is given by Dr M'Kelvie. The Rev. D. Robertson, in his notes sent to Dr M'Kerrow, mentions that "Mr Smyton and other male members of his church took up arms to oppose the Pretender in 1745. They refused to take the oath of allegiance; but such was the confidence of the Government in them, that they put arms in their hands, and sent an officer to drill them."-EDS.]

matter. Mr Smyton, upon this, expressed his dissatisfaction, and craved leave "that the door be left open to him at next meeting to act therein as the Lord shall direct." At the meeting held in May 1783, Mr Smyton renewed the question, when a committee was appointed to confer with him in order to remove any misapprehension he might have. The committee conversed with him, but found him resolute. He then urged the reversal of their deed of September last, and ultimately gave in a paper renouncing the authority of the Synod, and declaring he could no longer have connection with them, on account of their refusing to reverse the obnoxious deed. The Synod next day demanded that he should appear and withdraw this paper, which he having failed to do, they pronounced him contumacious, and suspended him from the exercise of his ministry. He continued his ministrations as if no such sentence had been pronounced upon him, his people at the same time adhering to him as before. In 1785, Mr Smyton, in conjunction with the Rev. Mr Hunter of Falkirk, and the Rev. Mr Proudfoot of Leith, who, like himself, were under suspension by the Church Courts, formed a Presbytery, which, after holding together only for a short time, broke up, and all the congregations connected with it again united with those of the Secession Synod. Mr Smyton died in 1789, being then in the 49th year of his ministry. Mr W. Robertson, whom his people had procured as his colleague after his separation from the Synod, left ten months after Mr Smyton's death, and the party that adhered to Mr Smyton died away. A part of Stewarton congregation had left and joined Mr Smyton, while a portion of Kilmaurs left Mr Smyton, and got sermon from the Synod. This latter party built a place of worship for themselves containing 450 sittings, and united in the support of a minister with the remains of the congregation of Stewarton, as before.t

* In the original title deeds, the property was vested in the managers as trustees for behoof of the United Seceding Congregations of Kilmaurs and Stewarton, under inspection of the Associate Presbytery. The adherents of the Synod brought an action in 1785. They founded the action on the fact, that the connection between Mr Smyton and the Presbytery had ceased-that they were the majority of the congregation, and that the pastoral relation between Mr Smyton and them had been dissolved; and they contended that he and his adherents should withdraw from the property, and allow them to take possession.

The Synod itself gave no countenance to the prosecution. The case was pled before the Lord Ordinary. The party failed to prove that Mr Smyton's connection had ceased; for a member under suspension is a member still-suspension implying that there is something still sub judice. The Synod had not deposed Mr Smyton. They had not even formally agreed to drop his name from their roll. Each party was required to give in a list of their names to show which was the majority. Both parties excluded females, as not supposing right of property to belong to them, and each in its own way attempted to strike out a middle way in fixing the meaning of the word member. The Synod's party included all their males above seventeen, and made out 80; Mr Smyton's party included all above nine, and made a list of 140, and added to these 36 in Stewarton.

No deed of the Church Courts dissolving the relation between them and Mr Smyton could be produced-no party had ever petitioned the Courts to release them from their obligation, or dissolve the relation.

The Lord Ordinary (Monboddo) found :-"That the pursuers have not shown sufficient title to insist in this action, and assoilzied the defenders." The pursuers repeatedly reclaimed to the Court. But the Court adhered to the interlocutor of the Lord Ordinary, and found expenses due. Cost to the pursuers, £80.

[The above jottings, in Dr M'Kelvie's later hand, are given in the unfinished state in which he left them. Since the printing of this work began, the editors have, through the kindness of the Rev. John M'Kerrow, B. A., of Penicuik, had access to the original returns which were made by many ministers of the denomination to the Rev. Dr M'Kerrow when preparing his "History of the Secession Church." Among these papers there is one by the late Rev. D. Robertson of Kilmaurs, in which he states "that the Synod raised a law suit in 1809, to recover the Church property which Mr Smyton's party had retained, which was decided in favour of the Synod in 1822. The action cost the litigants on both sides £1300, and the property when sold yielded £300."-EDS.]

+ Dean Stanley, in a note (p. 36), to one of his "Lectures on the History of the Church of Scotland," has a remarkable reference to the "Lifting" Controversy. According to the Dean, the point raised by Mr Smyton was "exactly analogous to that which was recently raised by the English

After their return to the General Associate Synod, the united congregations called Mr M'Aul, who was appointed by the Synod to Aberdeen.

2d Minister.-GEORGE PAXTON, D.D., from Morebattle. Called to Craigend, Greenlaw, and the United Congregations of Kilmaurs and Stewarton. Ordained 12th August 1789. His health declining, he resigned the charge of Stewarton in 1795, and confined his labours to Kilmaurs. In 1805-6, he was unable to preach, and in 1807 he was elected Professor of Theology by the General Associate Synod. His people wished to retain him as their minister in Kilmaurs, but the Synod having come to the resolution of relieving their professor from all other duties than those immediately connected with his class, Mr Paxton resigned his pastoral charge, and removed to Edinburgh, where, the Synod now fixed the seat of the Divinity Hall. He was one of the protestors against the Union of the two great branches of the Secession in 1820, and helped to form the Synod of Original Seceders, to which he became Professor of Theology, and also pastor of a congregation in connection with the body. Had the degree of D.D. conferred upon him by the University of St Andrews, 1834. Died 9th April 1837, in the 75th year of his age, and 48th of his ministry.

Author of a Sermon on "The Office and Duty of Deacons ;" "Conformity to Christ as the First-born :" a sermon; "Letters to Rev. W. Taylor on Healing the Divisions in the Church;" a pamphlet entitled "An Enquiry into the Obligation of Religious Covenants upon Posterity;" "The Villager and other Poems ;" and "Illustrations of Scripture from the Geography, Natural History, and Manners and Customs of the East," 3 vols.

3d Minister.-DAVID ROBERTSON, from Kinross (East). Ordained 21st June 1810. Died 16th June 1846, in the 61st year of his age and 36th of his ministry. Author of a "Treatise on Infant Baptism;" a Sermon on "Ecclesiastical Covenanting;" a second on the "Scriptural Method of Supporting the Gospel ;" and a third on "The Sin of Teaching the Fear of God by the Laws of Men;" and "Discourses on the Apocalypse," 3 vols.

4th Minister.-FRANCIS CHRISTIE, from Edenshead. Ordained 26th October 1847. Died 30th August 1851, in the 32d year of his age, and 4th of his ministry. The congregation called the Rev. R. T. Jeffrey, M.D., Denny, who declined the call. 5th Minister.—WILLIAM M. TAYLOR, A.M., D.D., from Princes Street, Kilmarnock. Called to Sanquhar and Kilmaurs. Ordained 28th June 1853. Translated

to Bootle, Liverpool, 23d October 1855.

6th Minister.-ANDREW GRAY, from Glasgow (Renfield Street). Ordained 29th April 1857.

AUCHINLECK (Now EXTINCT).

Auchinleck is a village in the parish of the same name, Ayrshire, 1 mile from Old Cumnock, and 13 east of Ayr.

ritualists and their opponents, respecting the elevation of the consecrated elements." The ingenious lecturer was never more thoroughly mistaken; and if any of his Scotch friends have given him this view of the significance of "lifting" they are grievously to blame. Mr Smyton had no ritualistic idea in his mind: the point on which he stood out was merely rubrical. The question simply was whether, in administering the Lord's Supper, the minister is not bound to adhere literally to the words of institution (1 Cor. xi. 23), which say that "the Lord Jesus the same night in which He was betrayed took bread: and when He had given thanks, He brake it." The taking, or touching, or "lifting" of the bread, and afterwards of the cup, was held to be a part of the prescribed Scripture order of administration; but the notion that the act was meant to imply anything akin to what the ritualists intend by the "elevation of the consecrated elements is rebutted, were it not otherwise known never to have entered the heads of the "Lifters"-by the fact that the "lifting" was to take place before the "consecration " prayer. It is to be hoped that Dean Stanley has not read other portions of our history as blindly as he has done this; and that, in general, he is more accurate in point of fact than when he says, in the same note, that the "schism between the Lifters and the Anti-Lifters at last emerged in the Old and New Light!"-EDs.

This congregation originated with a praying society which met in Wallacetown, a sequestered spot on the Water of Glenmuir and north side of Airsmoss, where the Rev. Richard Cameron fell, with eight of his adherents, in a skirmish with the King's troops on the 20th of July 1680. This society had existed from the times of the Solemn League and Covenant, and had in common with many others in Ayrshire, Nithsdale, Annandale, and Galloway, been under the inspection of the Rev. Mr Hepburn of Urr. These societies, in four different papers in which they designated themselves "The Societies of the South and West," publicly declared their adherence to the Testimony emitted by the Associate Presbytery in April 1738. The Rev. Messrs Nairn and Mair preached at Wallacetown, the meeting-place for the Societies in Ayr, Cumnock, and surrounding district, on the last Sabbath of June 1738. This station was afterwards supplied alternately with the station at Kirkconnel, the general meeting-place of the Seceders in Nithsdale, on an average once in three months. Mr Smyton was ordained at Kilmaurs in 1740, and was required to preach four Sabbaths in the year at Wallacetown; but the Presbytery at the same time agreed "that the said Correspondence of Wallacetown (comprehending Ayr and intermediate places) shall be considered only so far under Mr Smyton's inspection for some time, that they shall have access to be represented by their elders in the session of Kilmaurs for the removing of scandals that may fall out among them, or when there are additional elders chosen among them, that he may keep session with said elders as his convenience can allow; but that he be not obliged to visit the sick, or visit families in that corner, and that it shall be optional to him to examine some days when he goes there to preach; and that the said Correspondence of Wallacetown shall endeavour to lay themselves out to have a minister to themselves, if it shall please the Lord to increase their number, and they shall have a supply of young men from the Presbytery if demanded."

This demand, however, was not made till 1756, when the Society of Wallacetown obtained a disjunction from the congregation of Kilmaurs, and was formed into a separate congregation. The station at Wallacetown was then abandoned, and a place of worship was built at Rigg, a retired spot about half a-mile southeast of the village of Auchinleck, from which village the congregation took its

name.

1st Minister.-ROBERT SMITH, from Midcalder. Ordained 1763. Resigned 31st January 1809. Removed to Kilwinning, where he died, 12th June 1817, in

the 84th year of his age.

Author of a pamphlet, entitled "Self-Inconsistency Exemplified, wherein Burghers' Opposition to their own Profession is Exemplified ;" and a treatise "On Original Sin.”

The congregation called Mr Isaac, who died while under call; 2d, Mr Smith, son of the former minister, who died while on trials for ordination.

2d Minister.-Robert Crawford, from Craigmailen. Ordained 29th October 1811. Resigned 1813. Admitted to Elgin (First), 2d January 1817.

The congregation called Mr A. Scott, who was appointed by the Synod to Crieff. 3d Minister.-PETER M'DERMANT, from Ayr (First). Ordained 3d April 1816. Mr M'Dermant was one of the protestors against the Union of the two great branches of the Secession in 1820, and, with his congregation, remained apart. He died in 1833, in the 50th year of his age, and 17th of his ministry. Author of "Progressive Holiness: " a sermon.

The congregation of Auchinleck is now in connection with the Synod of Original Seceders.