BY THE REV. D. BEATON, WICK.
(Continued from page 245.)
V.—REV. ALEXANDER POPE, REAY.
AMONG the noted ministers who did strenuous pioneer work in the Highlands of Scotland, an honourable place must be assigned to the Rev. Alexander Pope, Reay. His father was minister of Loth, Sutherland, during the Episcopalian regimé. Alexander was the eldest son of a numerous family. He had received a liberal education, and possessing, as he did, talents of no ordinary kind, he made a good use of his advantages. “He was an accomplished classical scholar,” says Sage, “an intelligent antiquary, and was intimately conversant with science. When a young man, he became acquainted with his namesake, Alexander Pope, the poet. He went to England purposely to visit this celebrated man. Their meeting at first was rather stiff and cold, arising, it is believed, from his having taken the liberty of calling in travelling attire. After he had come in contact with the strong and well-furnished intellect of his Scottish namesake, however, the poet relaxed, and their intercourse became cordial.” But, however noted his accomplishments may have been in the fields of archaeology and literature, and they were of a very high order, it is more particularly to his work as a minister who was honoured to reclaim the rough, untutored material in his far northern parish in Sutherland and Caithness.* Alexander Pope was licensed by the Presbytery of Dornoch, 19th February, 1734, and on 5th September of the same year he was ordained minister of Reay. His parishioners were not only ignorant, but coarse in their manners, and vicious in their dispositions. Mr. Sage, whose father (Rev. Alexander Sage, afterwards minister of Kildonan, and son of the noted minister of Lochcarron, the Rev. Eneas Sage) acted as assistant to Mr. Pope, says of the Reay people that, “Like the people of Lochcarron, they were Episcopalians in name, but heathens in reality.” Pope was a man of extraordinary strength and dauntless courage, qualifications that were essential for the taming of the more turbulent elements in his parish. He was a man, also, of fervent piety and tireless energy in doing good. With a brave heart he set his face to accomplish a task that well might have unmanned a less brave and resolute spirit. Surrounded by a chilling indifference to the precious truths of the Gospel which he proclaimed, and confronted by active opposition
* Memorabilia Domestica, p. 43, 1st edition.
† The parish of Reay, prior to the arrangements made by the Boundaries Commissioners, was partly in Caithness and partly in Sutherland. The parish is now wholly in Caithness.
from ignorant men, his heart must have sunk within him many a time. But, undaunted, he set himself to accomplish the heavy task that lay before him, and tradition and story have been busy rehearsing the methods he adopted to bring about the desired reformation. Some of these, setting forth, as a background, the savagery and boorishness of his parishioners, may be apocryphal; but, unfortunately, there is sufficient evidence in the Church records to show that the parish of Reay, at the period immediately preceding the ministry of Mr. Pope, was in a deplorable state.
Desecration of the Lord’s Day, or Sabbath breach as it was called, was very common, and took many forms. The following cases, taken from kirk-session records, will give some idea of how matters stood:—Going to sea to fish, seeing a servant, drinking during sermon, winnowing corn, selling wethers to an English ship (Thurso), dancing, uttering horrid oaths and imprecations. Matters were so serious that, at a meeting of Caithness Presbytery held at Thurso, 18th February, 1719, the following finding, in connection with a day of Fasting and Humiliation, was come to:—”The Presbytery, taking to their serious consideration the manifold heinous, God-provoking abominations of all sorts abounding among all ranks in this corner, such as an unusual spate of uncleanness, outrageous drunkenness in the vilest degrees, horrid cursing and swearing, neglect of God’s worship in families, and absenting from, and that little regard to, the public ordinances, profanation on the Lord’s Day, by riding and travelling through the country about their ordinary business to that degree that they pass by several churches in time of divine worship. The cruelty, oppression, and injustice of all ranks; divisions, factions, animosities and contentions occasioned by the lamentable decay of the love of God and to one another in the Lord. The formal compact with the devil, some miscreants of late have been discovered to be in, through the practice of that mysterious wickedness of witchcraft, sorcery, and other horrid works of the devil, together with all the crying sins than can pull down the vengeance of a holy, just, and jealous God upon us, a sinful and wicked generation. And, as it is in Hosea iv. and 1: ‘The Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is little truth or mercy or knowledge of God in it; but, by lying and swearing, killing, stealing, and committing adultery, they break forth, and blood toucheth blood.’ All which have a loud call to us, the ministers of the Gospel in this corner, whose work it is to watch over souls, as they that must give an account in the Great Day, to invite our beloved people, especially such of them as sigh for the abominations committed in the land, to join with us in keeping of a day for solemn Fasting and Humiliation, to afflict ourselves before the Lord for the foresaid abounding sins and abominations, to implore the Lord’s mercy, and deprecate impending wrath. And, more especially, that such as have known the depths of Satan may be discovered. Earnestly
exhorting all our reverend brethren to be faithful and free, as the Lord shall assist them in holding out and enlarging on that most humbling subject of our heinous and abounding sins.”—Caithness Presbyterian Register.
The Rev. Alexander Auld, in referring to this period of spiritual darkness and barrenness, says:—“This long season of spiritual gloom was pierced in Caithness at some points and at some periods by rays of light. The parish of Reay was so favoured. Mr. Alexander Pope, who was settled there in 1734, was a man of rough edge, but vigorous and faithful—well fitted to grapple with the semi-barbarism of the times and with the prevailing ignorance of divine truth. His preaching was sound and evangelical, as is evinced by tradition and also by some of his written remains which we have had an opportunity of perusing.”*
Through his diligence, pastoral activity, and a courage which made light of difficulties, and with the Lord’s blessing, the barren wilderness became a fruitful garden. He had not only to battle with his parishioners, but the strong arm of the law had to be invoked to make the heritors build a church and a school. The church, which was erected in 1738, is still used as the parish church, and is interesting as the building in which the Gospel was proclaimed by such men as the Rev. Alexander Pope and the Rev. Finlay Cook. It stands by the King’s highway, on the road from Thurso to Tongue, and, though lacking in architectural beauty, it has an interest of its own.
Mr. Pope, in dealing with the wilder elements among his parishioners, adopted methods that would be considered outrageous for a minister of the Gospel in modern times. He usually carried about with him a small, stout cudgel, which was known as “the bailie,” and its use may be illustrated from the following incident:—On a Sabbath evening, after preaching, he was sitting at the end of the manse, which was in close proximity to the inn. The inn drew a very much larger congregation than the church, and, as the minister sat meditating how he could put an end to the revelry that was going on, two of the revellers approached him and invited him to join them. The minister refused the invitation, and spoke seriously to the men as to the manner in which they were desecrating the Lord’s Day. The men keenly resented the minister’s declination. “You are most ungrateful,” they said, “to refuse our hospitality, and, if you think that we are to give up the customs of our fathers for you, or all the Whig ministers in the country, you’ll find yourself in error. But come along with us, for, if we repeat your words to our neighbours, they’ll call to such a reckoning that you will be wishing you had never uttered them.” Mr. Pope told the men plainly that he was accountable to God, and that, as he was in the path of duty, he had no intention of retracting what he had
* Ministers and Men in the Far North, p. 13, 2nd edition.
said. With this announcement the men returned to the tavern, and in a few minutes the excited and intoxicated inmates poured out to settle accounts with the minister. Mr. Pope rose from his seat, placed his back to the wall, and with “the bailie” in his hand waited for the attack. But, before drawing blood or risking broken heads, the leader of the gang came forward with a bottle of whisky in his hand, and, deliberately filling a glass, offered it to Mr. Pope. The minister refused the proffered glass, and again spoke solemnly to the revellers. But they had not come to listen to a sermon from the Whig minister, and the bottle was flung at the minister’s head, while a rush was made at him by the leader of the band. A swift, well-aimed blow laid the first man at his feet. Others came forward, to meet with a like fate, until three or four savages lay in pain and agony on the ground. This was quite sufficient to dissipate the courage of the others, and they turned heel, leaving the Whig minister in possession of the field. Mr. Pope’s work that Sabbath evening can scarcely be called very spiritual, but it shows what he had to face when he went to Reay. Another instance of the manner in which he exercised discipline may be cited:—A small farmer had been cited before the session. The man appeared, and was told that he would require, according to the custom then in vogue, to appear before the congregation on the next Lord’s Day to be rebuked. “Before I submit to any such thing,” said the farmer, “you may pluck out my last tooth.” “We shall see,” said the minister, as he was dismissed. Mr. Pope arranged with three of his strongest elders to visit the man’s house the following Sabbath, and bring him, willing or unwilling, to church to satisfy discipline. After a conflict, the man was securely bound and led off to church, and in case he might make his escape, he was securely tied to a seat, with an elder guarding him on each side. When the time for the public rebuke came, Mr. Pope addressed the offender:—”You told us that we might pull the last tooth out of your head before you would submit to be where you are, but, poor braggart, where are you now?” Thereafter the man was duly and solemnly rebuked, and, though there is no record as to what became of him, the epithet applied by Mr. Pope stuck to him for life, and to his family for several generations.
As time went on, Mr. Pope’s influence was beginning to tell, but, though the tavern was less frequented on the Lord’s Day, it was still a favourite gathering place on week-days, and the scene of many a fierce fight. The following incident is best given in Mr. Sage’s own words, as an evidence of the resourcefulness of the minister of Reay in dealing with rough and intractable material:—”One evening,” says Mr. Sage, “the landlady of the tavern came to him with the complaint that six men from a distance, who had come in the forenoon, had continued drinking ever since, that they refused to leave, and were now fighting with
each other, and that she was afraid they would break all her furniture, and set the house on fire. After re proving her for keeping so disorderly a house, Mr. Pope directed her to get a ladder and place it against the back wall of her dwelling, to fill so many tubs of water, leaving them at the foot of the ladder, and to await his coming. All this was done, and in about half-an-hour thereafter, when the topers were holding high carnival within, Mr. Pope, seizing one of the tubs, mounted the ladder, and, sitting astride the roof, removed some thatch and turf, and emptied the contents of the tub upon the Bacchanalians below. This was followed by a second and a third down-pour as quickly as Mr. Pope could be furnished with tubs of water from below, with which he was readily supplied by the active co-operation of the landlord and his wife. The consequence of this ready method with the drinkers may be easily conceived. Their coats were drenched, and, like so many bull-dogs under similar treatment, they let go their hold of each other and rushed out. Coming to understand, however, that the landlord and his wife had a hand in the matter, they were about to deal with them rather roughly, but Mr. Pope had already descended from aloft, and, with “the bailie” in his hand, stood beside them. It was enough, they all scampered off.*
Mr. Pope, while a thorough Evangelical, in two important matters took up an attitude that was the opposite of what might have been expected. The first refers to the position he took up in regard to the attempt made to abolish the Fellowship Meetings within the bounds of the Synod of Sutherland and Caithness in the middle of the eighteenth century. The controversy was carried on for years, and at length the matter came up before the General Assembly, when it was decided that the Synod was to withdraw its prohibition to these Friday Meetings. Men of thoroughly evangelical principles, such as Mr. Mackay, Lairg; Mr. Corse, Bowar; and Mr. Pope, Reay, were found on the side of the party who advocated the abolishment of these meetings, but there can be little doubt that the seed sown in these contentions bore fruit afterwards in the Separatism that characterised some of the leading Men of the Far North.
The other matter in which Mr. Pope took up an unexpected position, which caused him deep sorrow afterwards, was his consent to the deposition of the Rev. John Sutherland, Halkirk. In the space at our disposal, we cannot enter into a full account of this affair. Mr. Sutherland, if one is to be guided by the Presbytery Register, might have done more to satisfy his Moderate accusers, but they were evidently determined to get rid of him, and during his absence he was deposed. Mr. Sutherland was a son of the worthy Andrew Sutherland, one of the noted Men of Ross, and grand-uncle of the Rev. John Munro,
* Memorabilia Domestica, p. 46, 1st edition.
who was afterwards minister of Halkirk. David Steven remembered hearing his grandfather say that people would be arriving at his house from the distant parish of Canisbay by daybreak, on Sabbath, on their way to hear Mr. Sutherland. His preaching was blessed of the Lord to the spiritual benefit of many. A charge was laid against him affecting his moral character, and, on his failure to appear before the Presbytery to meet his accusers, his charge was declared vacant. On learning of the sentence, Mr. Sutherland remarked, “It will be many years before the parish of Halkirk again enjoys a gospel ministry, and before then none of these three lairds—my persecutors—nor their heirs, shall possess a rig in the parish.” A forecast that came true, and, strange to say, it was his own grand-nephew, the Rev. John Munro, who brought back the gospel to Halkirk after years of spiritual barrenness in the pulpit. Mr. Pope was present at the Presbytery which deposed Mr. Sutherland, but offered no opposition to the sentence. Shortly afterwards he was stricken with paralysis, and had to be carried to the church in a chair. He looked upon his trouble as a rebuke for the part he had in Mr. Sutherland’s deposition, and, in speaking of his affliction, used to say, “Oh! that black Presbytery.”*
But, with all his shortcomings, Mr. Pope was one who was honoured by his Master as a pioneer working in a difficult part of the vineyard. We readily pay an ungrudging tribute to the pioneers who levelled the forest and drained the land, turning a barren wilderness into a fruitful field, and shall we refrain paying a tribute to the memory of men like Eneas Sage, Lochcarron, and Alexander Pope, Reay, who, in the face of determined opposition, stood at their post and made proclamation of the King’s salvation, and saw, ere they died, that they had not lived and laboured in vain?