Tweet
By Andrew Edgar, Minister at Mauchline (1885)
Preface
The Lectures published in this volume were in their first draught delivered in Mauchline during the spring of 1884. They formed part of a course of lectures on "Our Parish Church and Parish Records," and the object originally contemplated by them was to furnish the people of Mauchline with such scraps of Parochial History and illustrations of Old Church Life as could be gleaned from the Records of Mauchline Kirk Session.
After I had agreed to publish some of the lectures, it occurred to me that it would be desirable to recast them and widen their scope, so that interest in them might not be limited to people connected with Mauchline Parish. The lectures now published are accordingly altered from what they were when delivered. They are also very much lengthened, and although like a house that has been repaired and added to, they may shew more trace than is desirable of their original design, it is hoped that on the subjects of which they treat they will give a fairly full and correct account of Church Life in Scotland during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
I am aware that the title chosen for this volume is not free from objection, but it was the best title I could think of. There is a great deal of old Church Life that is not described in this volume. The higher forms and aspects of Church Life are little noticed, but that is because the traces and evidences of such life are not to be found in the official records I have had mainly to deal with. It has to be remembered also, that the lectures now published formed only the half of a course, so that the volume viewed as a treatise is incomplete. It was thought that the publication of all the lectures would make too large a book on a subject that is not of very general interest. The topics treated in the lectures not published were, I may here state, the Church's provision for the Poor, the Church's work in providing Education for the people, Marriages, regular and irregular, Baptisms and Burials, and the roll of Mauchline Ministers since the Reformation.
Besides having carefully read over all the extant records of Mauchline Kirk Session from 1669 to the present day of grace, I have had the privilege of examining the Records of the Presbytery of Ayr from 1642 to 1650 and from 1687 to 1796. I have also been favoured with a perusal of the Session Records of Galston from 1626 to (about) 1750, the Session Records of Fen wick from 1645 to 1699, and the Session Records of Rothesay from 1658 to 1662. I have not literally ransacked these Recorcs. but I have appropriated all that on a cursory examination caught my eye as bearing on the several subjects discussed in the lectures. To those who favoured me with an inspection of these valuable documents—my fathers and brethren of the Presbytery of Ayr, the Rev. John Brown of Galston, the Rev. J. K. Hewison of Rothesay, the Rev. John Hall of Fenwick, and Mr. Macnair, Session-clerk, Fenwick—I have publicly to express my thanks and obligations.
It is not necessary to enumerate the printed books that have been consulted and drawn from, in the compilation of the lectures now published, because these books are for the most part indicated by name in the passages where extracts from them are given. It may be stated, however, that as this volume is meant for the general public, and not for such readers only as are well versed in Church history and church law, I have not hesitated, wherever I deemed it advantageous for the purpose of exposition, to make quotations not only from books that might be counted rare, but even from some that are well known and easy of access to people in towns. I have also purposely violated what may be termed one of the canons of literature, by engrossing into the text of the lectures many and sometimes large extracts from session books.
This plan of composition, I am well aware, interrupts the flow of writing, and produces dull and heavy reading; but if I should succeed in making my meaning clear and in fully explaining all I attempt to expound, I shall not be dissatisfied with the result.
Nearly half of the volume is taken up with the subject of Church discipline, but in dealing with cases of scandal I have generally withheld the names of persons involved, when I thought it possible that such names could be identified with families still represented in the district of Mauchline. To this rule, however, I have made one notable exception. The public interest in the national poet is so absorbing, and people are so anxious to know the whole truth about his bright and sad career, that I have thought proper to tell nearly all that the Session Records of Mauchline have to say about him and the persons that figure in his poems. And the cause of this insatiate curiosity regarding all places and persons associated with Burns is not far to seek. The poetry of Burns more than that of any British poet, except perhaps Wordsworth, was the outcome of his own life and surroundings. An intimate knowledge of that life and of these surroundings is craved therefore by every one who makes the poems of Burns a study ; and although it is not in Session Records that we can expect to meet with what was best and greatest in the poet's life, we still long to hear from these Records the minutest facts they contain about him and his contemporaries.
I have only to add that although I have been at much pains to be accurate, I cannot flatter myself with the expectation that in a book containing so many statements as this does, both on matters of fact and on matters of opinion, no slip nor misjudgment will be found. One point on which, from following with unquestioning faith the statements made in popular works, my remarks are open to criticism and doubt, is the old monastic life at Mauchline. In Appendix F, I have done what I could to set what may be termed the new state of this question impartially before the public.
A. E.
The Manse, Mauchline,
2nd May, 1885.
You can read this book at http://www.electricscotland.com/bible/churchlifendx.htm
Alastair
Preface
The Lectures published in this volume were in their first draught delivered in Mauchline during the spring of 1884. They formed part of a course of lectures on "Our Parish Church and Parish Records," and the object originally contemplated by them was to furnish the people of Mauchline with such scraps of Parochial History and illustrations of Old Church Life as could be gleaned from the Records of Mauchline Kirk Session.
After I had agreed to publish some of the lectures, it occurred to me that it would be desirable to recast them and widen their scope, so that interest in them might not be limited to people connected with Mauchline Parish. The lectures now published are accordingly altered from what they were when delivered. They are also very much lengthened, and although like a house that has been repaired and added to, they may shew more trace than is desirable of their original design, it is hoped that on the subjects of which they treat they will give a fairly full and correct account of Church Life in Scotland during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
I am aware that the title chosen for this volume is not free from objection, but it was the best title I could think of. There is a great deal of old Church Life that is not described in this volume. The higher forms and aspects of Church Life are little noticed, but that is because the traces and evidences of such life are not to be found in the official records I have had mainly to deal with. It has to be remembered also, that the lectures now published formed only the half of a course, so that the volume viewed as a treatise is incomplete. It was thought that the publication of all the lectures would make too large a book on a subject that is not of very general interest. The topics treated in the lectures not published were, I may here state, the Church's provision for the Poor, the Church's work in providing Education for the people, Marriages, regular and irregular, Baptisms and Burials, and the roll of Mauchline Ministers since the Reformation.
Besides having carefully read over all the extant records of Mauchline Kirk Session from 1669 to the present day of grace, I have had the privilege of examining the Records of the Presbytery of Ayr from 1642 to 1650 and from 1687 to 1796. I have also been favoured with a perusal of the Session Records of Galston from 1626 to (about) 1750, the Session Records of Fen wick from 1645 to 1699, and the Session Records of Rothesay from 1658 to 1662. I have not literally ransacked these Recorcs. but I have appropriated all that on a cursory examination caught my eye as bearing on the several subjects discussed in the lectures. To those who favoured me with an inspection of these valuable documents—my fathers and brethren of the Presbytery of Ayr, the Rev. John Brown of Galston, the Rev. J. K. Hewison of Rothesay, the Rev. John Hall of Fenwick, and Mr. Macnair, Session-clerk, Fenwick—I have publicly to express my thanks and obligations.
It is not necessary to enumerate the printed books that have been consulted and drawn from, in the compilation of the lectures now published, because these books are for the most part indicated by name in the passages where extracts from them are given. It may be stated, however, that as this volume is meant for the general public, and not for such readers only as are well versed in Church history and church law, I have not hesitated, wherever I deemed it advantageous for the purpose of exposition, to make quotations not only from books that might be counted rare, but even from some that are well known and easy of access to people in towns. I have also purposely violated what may be termed one of the canons of literature, by engrossing into the text of the lectures many and sometimes large extracts from session books.
This plan of composition, I am well aware, interrupts the flow of writing, and produces dull and heavy reading; but if I should succeed in making my meaning clear and in fully explaining all I attempt to expound, I shall not be dissatisfied with the result.
Nearly half of the volume is taken up with the subject of Church discipline, but in dealing with cases of scandal I have generally withheld the names of persons involved, when I thought it possible that such names could be identified with families still represented in the district of Mauchline. To this rule, however, I have made one notable exception. The public interest in the national poet is so absorbing, and people are so anxious to know the whole truth about his bright and sad career, that I have thought proper to tell nearly all that the Session Records of Mauchline have to say about him and the persons that figure in his poems. And the cause of this insatiate curiosity regarding all places and persons associated with Burns is not far to seek. The poetry of Burns more than that of any British poet, except perhaps Wordsworth, was the outcome of his own life and surroundings. An intimate knowledge of that life and of these surroundings is craved therefore by every one who makes the poems of Burns a study ; and although it is not in Session Records that we can expect to meet with what was best and greatest in the poet's life, we still long to hear from these Records the minutest facts they contain about him and his contemporaries.
I have only to add that although I have been at much pains to be accurate, I cannot flatter myself with the expectation that in a book containing so many statements as this does, both on matters of fact and on matters of opinion, no slip nor misjudgment will be found. One point on which, from following with unquestioning faith the statements made in popular works, my remarks are open to criticism and doubt, is the old monastic life at Mauchline. In Appendix F, I have done what I could to set what may be termed the new state of this question impartially before the public.
A. E.
The Manse, Mauchline,
2nd May, 1885.
You can read this book at http://www.electricscotland.com/bible/churchlifendx.htm
Alastair