Duthil: Past and Present.
By the Rev. Donald Maclean, Minister of Free St. Columba Church, Edinburgh. With a Prefatory Note by the Rev. Ewan MacLeod, Dornoch. Inverness: The Northern Newspaper and Printing and Publishing Company, Limited, 1910, viii. + 84 pp. Price, 1/6 net; postage, 2d. extra.
THIS interesting parish history from the pen of Rev. D. Maclean, Edinburgh, is dedicated to the memory of the late John MacDougall, Tomatin, who is described as:—”A Christian patriot, a wise counsellor and a lover and a friend of good people.” The history of the parish of Duthil is treated under the following headings:—The Remote Past; Historical Times; Evangelical Influences; “The Men”; The Disruption; Catechising; Rev. John Logan; Rev. Dugald Matheson; Rev. Ewan MacLeod; Effects of a Policy; Some Notables (Professor Henry Calderwood, Dr. James Martineau, Dr. Alexander MacLaren); The Future. The book opens with a brief reference to the early inhabitants, the Picts, whose existence is traceable in a number of place-names in the parish, which are given and explained by Mr. Maclean. He has adopted the view held by leading Celtic scholars, that the Picts spoke a language more akin to the Welsh branch of the Celtic family than the Gaelic branch. Another section deals with the leading families, and references are made to the clans to which they belong. The main part of the book is, however, taken up with an account of the prominent religious leaders in more modern times. These sections contain much interesting information about some of the leading ministers and worthies, such as Rev. John Graham, Rev. Peter Grant, Baptist preacher and poet, Peter Stewart, Joseph Mackay, William Grant, Duncan Cameron and others. There is a kindly reference to the Free Presbyterians of Duthil, and a tribute paid to the acknowledged piety and high moral Christian character of the leaders of this movement in Duthil. Mr. Maclean also deals with the question of “Separatism” which, to begin with, had certainly strong arguments in its favour, but which, as time went on, developed such peculiarities as to call forth expressions of strong disapproval from such men as Dr. Kennedy and Rev. Alexander Auld. Mr. Maclean refers to “the unusual views of Joseph Mackay, in the latter’s controversy with the Rev. Archibald Cook of Daviot and Moy, over the mysterious beginnings of the soul.” It was Mr. Cook, and not Joseph Mackay, who held the Traducian view on this subject. The book is well got up, nicely printed, and has, as a frontispiece, an illustration from Kennedy’s Principles of Toleration, showing the Free Church Congregation of Duthil, worshipping in the wood at Carr-bridge after the Disruption. Mr. Maclean has done his work well, and is to be congratulated on putting another stone on the building of the religious history of the Highlands.
Thomas Scott, the Commentator.
A Memoir of his Life. By the Rev. A. C. Downer, M.A., D.D. London: Chas. J. Thynne, Great Queen Street, Kingsway, W.C. Price, 3/- net; postage, 3d.
DR. DOWNER has written an interesting account of the life of the Rev. Thomas Scott, the well-known commentator on the Bible, and author of The Force of Truth. The Memoir does not profess to be exhaustive like “The Life,” written by Rev. John Scott, A.M., son of the commentator, but it gives a useful and instructive summary of the career of one whose name, as coupled with that of Matthew Henry, was almost a household word in past generations. Born at a small farmhouse in Lincolnshire, on 16th February, 1747, the tenth child of a family of thirteen, Thomas Scott was early acquainted with the struggle and hard work of humble life in the country. He was fond, however, of reading and of school, and, encouraged by his father, he early devoted himself to scholastic studies, in which he made ready and considerable progress. Eventually he became a minister in the Church of England; but at the beginning, in truly deplorable circumstances, for he was a disbeliever in the fundamental doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, and the Work of the Spirit, and a thorough-going believer in the principle of salvation by works. His Force of Truth is his spiritual autobiography, where he gives an impressive history of the remarkable way in which he was gradually delivered from “the power of darkness,” and led to renounce his errors one by one, becoming at length an able and zealous upholder of “the faith which he once destroyed.” Throughout this spiritual struggle he was much indebted for help to the Rev. John Newton, who was his near neighbour, and against whom he was previously very much prejudiced. The Force of Truth was much blessed to two eminent ministers of the past in Scotland—the Rev. Dr. Stewart of Moulin, Dingwall, and Edinburgh, and the Rev. Alexander Gunn, senior, Watten, Caithness. Scott succeeded John Newton at Olney in 1780, after Newton went to London, but at the end of five years Scott also accepted an office in the Metropolis—the Chaplaincy of the Lock Hospital—where he ministered for seventeen years. Thence in 1802 he returned to Buckinghamshire as Rector of Aston Sandford, where he concluded his laborious and useful life on 16th April, 1821, at the age of seventy-four years.
Dr. Downer gives a sympathetic account of the difficulties, neither few nor small, that Mr. Scott had to contend with in his career as preacher and author. Theological views in England have tended to run to either of two extremes—Hyper-Calvinism or Arminianism. Mr. Scott kept a straight Scriptural middle course—thoroughly Calvinistic, and yet insisting upon faith and repentance as duties upon the unregenerate, as well as graces in the quickened or saved. Dr. Downer informs us also that at the Lock Chapel, whenever Mr. Scott began to press home the obligations of gospel holiness, a number of his hearers began to cry out about legalism and Arminianism. His Commentary, which was a work of great toil in composition, and expense in publication, is not regarded by students of Scripture as a highly original work, but it has been much esteemed by sound divines, among whom was the late Rev. Dr. Love, as a clear, judicious scholarly exposition of the Word, free from fanciful interpretation. His discourse on “Election and Final Perseverance” is very valuable and well adapted to clear away difficulties on these important subjects. We must not omit to mention that Mr. Scott was one of the founders of the Church Missionary Society, which has been much blessed in the past in sending the gospel to the heathen. Dr. Downer, the author of this Memoir, is evidently a strong Church of England man, and some of his remarks have a “High Church” flavour which we do not quite appreciate. His book, however, is valuable as a well-written account of the life of one who was in many respects a great man, and an earnest servant of Christ. It contains various illustrations, and the type and binding are good. The volume will fill a useful niche in a student’s library.