A REVIEW of a book entitled “Duthil, Past and Present,” recently appeared in the Free Presbyterian Magazine. The reviewer chiefly dealt with the literary merit of the work and of its author, the Rev. D. Maclean, Free Church, Edinburgh, and the present writer feels no inclination to say one word against the favourable report, in this respect, then given; but he is of opinion that from some other standpoints of a critical nature, the review (with no reflection on the reviewer) requires to be supplemented. On reading the book he was painfully struck with some of its contents, which could not have appealed in the same way to the reviewer, who is not familiar with the district traversed. For example, Peter Stewart receives some praise for his sterling piety, which no enemy could deny—the man’s memory is embalmed in the minds of the people of these districts as a great man of God. That he spoke against some of the ministers of the then Church of Scotland, no one desires to deny, but the kind of ministers they were should be considered, and duly recognised. Anyone reading the “Days of the Fathers in Ross-shire,” by the late Dr. Kennedy of Dingwall, will find hard things said in it against some of the clergy of Ross-shire, but no one thinks of accusing him of asperity. Mr. Maclean unwisely rakes up ashes in which there may be still some fire. It seems very bad taste to resurrect a scurrilous song, composed of old by one of the lowest characters in the valley of the Spey, against such a godly man as Peter Stewart. Of course, the author was a minister, but that makes the mistake doubly imprudent.
William Grant receives praise which he very well deserved, and so does Duncan Cameron; but anyone who reads the book will come away with the impression that they, along with some others not mentioned by name, persecuted the late Rev. John Logan. It is a great pity that this thing of the past has been raked up. The real cause of the trouble, as we are reliably informed, was that when William Grant became infirm, for he lived till he was ninety-two years, he asked Duncan Cameron and a few others to come to his house once a month to hold a meeting on the Sabbath evening. To this proposal they assented. Mr. Logan objected to this meeting being continued, and remonstrated with Duncan Cameron for going to it. He offered Mr. Logan to put off the meeting to once in three months, but nothing would satisfy Mr. Logan but the discontinuance of it altogether. Duncan Cameron refused to do this, with the result that Mr. Logan began to denounce it from the pulpit, and Cameron resigned his eldership. The meeting was continued, as it should have been. If Mr. Maclean had made some effort to get at facts, the writer thinks he could have found out that Mr. Logan repented of this occurrence on his death-bed in Glasgow, and that he said, weeping, to a friend who visited him: “My conduct in Duthil! But I mistook my friends for my enemies.” It ought to raise the reputation of this true servant of Christ that he had the grace and humility to confess his mistake so sincerely.
The flattery lavished so freely by Mr. Maclean on a brother-minister, and the facility with which the said brother returns it in the Preface, are injudicious features. If the commendation had been reserved for the faithful and pious dead, the value of the book would have been enhanced. “Charity covereth the multitude of sins.”
N. C.