Five Hundredth Anniversary of Martyrdom of Paul Crawar.—Five hundred years ago Paul Crawar, a native of Bohemia, suffered in Scotland at the stake for his faith. He was not the first martyr in Scotland for the faith. In 1407 James Resby, a follower of Wyelif, was burnt at Perth. Knox in his history of the Reformation says that they “put a ball of brass in his mouth to the end that he should not give confession of his faith to the people, nor that they should understand the defence that he had against their unjust accusation and condemnation.”
The Formation of the Secession in 1733.—The recent General Assembly of the Church of Scotland recalls the misdeeds of the fathers and the infatuated policy that led to the formation of the Secession, Relief and Free Churches. Two hundred years ago the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland confirmed the sentence passed on the Rev. Ebenezer Erskine, Stirling, by the Synod of Perth and Stirling for his Synod sermon in which he strongly denounced Patronage. Erskine and his supporters—James Fisher, Kinclaven; Alexander Moncrieff, Abernethy; and William Wilson, Perth—were declared to be no longer ministers of the Church of Scotland. This was the beginning of that stupid and wrong headed policy that ultimately split the Church
of Scotland in two at the Disruption in 1843. In December, 1733, the Seceders formed themselves into the Associate Presbytery at Gairney Bridge and as the event is of more than ordinary importance in the ecclesiastical history of Scotland we may return to it later on.