THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VI, Issue 275, 9 August 1878, Page 9

THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND.

Thirteen hundred years ago, when Ireland was rejoicing in the light of the Faith, and. enjoying the fruits of the labors of St. Patrick, Scotland was almost entirely in the darkness of heathenism and barbarism. The north of Scotland was peopled by the Picts, a race of the same Celtic origin as the people of Ireland, but wild, warlike, and roving, a race who painted their bodies, believed in Druids, and weie the terror of the Britons, and had gloriously resisted the Roman armies of Agricola. The southern Picts dwelling on the banks of the North had received the Faith from St. Ninian, but seem soon to have lost it. The isles off the western coast, and the western portion of Scotland were inhabited by colonies of Irish, or, as the people of Ireland were then called, of Scots. These Scoto-Irish leaving their own green isle, had taken possesion of that part of Scotland now known as Clydesdale and Argylshire, and were destined to become the parent stock of that famous and unfortunate House of Stuarts, around whose standard in the last drama of their history so many brave Irish soldiers were doomed to rally. These Irish invaders, or colonists, ultimately became the sole rulers of Caledonia, and from them it derived the name of Scotland. They appear to have lost the Faith at the time of which we arc speaking, or not to have been more than half Christianised. Such was the state of Scotland when S. Columba,, or as he is sometimes named, S. Columbkillc, with his twelve companions, left his beautiful green Isle of Erin and set sail in his frail bark of hides and wickerwork upon the blue waters of the Atlantic for the rugged and inhospitable coast of Scotland. He landed on a small isle called lona, and there he and his little apostolic band of Irish monks set up the torch of faith, and without delay set about to convert the Pagan people of the north. Time would fail to tell of the labours, the miracles, and the achievements of this glorious monk-apostle from Ireland. But a terrible day of weeping and mourning came over the Church of God. The greed of money, the lust of power, the concupiscence of the flesh wrought death and destruction in the ranks of the one fold. The shepherds were struck, the sheep dispersed, the monks and nuns driven from their cloisters, the lamp of the sanctuary was put out, a wooden table, bare and barren, substituted for the sacrificial altar of the living God, whilst some of the most magnificent abbeys were set fire to and reduced to a heap of black, gaping ruins. The Church of S. Ninian and S. Columba, of S. Aidan and S. Cuthbert, of S. Margaret and S. David, was ruthlessly despoiled and widowed. All that was left of its ancient organisation and splendour at the beginning of the nineteenth century were two missionai'y bishops, forty priests, eleven churches and chapels, two small seminaries, and about thirty thousand faithful. Nowhere did the Church of Scotland suffer more than in the Highlands, where S. Columba had preached, and nowhere was the faith preserved with greater fidelity and heroism. It would seem that the spirit of this great Irish apostle still rested mightily upon them. There had always been a constant relationship between the Churches of Ireland and Scotland. Even during the latter days of persecution this intercourse was kept up between Ireland and the Highlands. In the middle of the seventeenth century the Scottish priesthood had almost become extinct, and the scattered people of the Highland glens were left almost as sheep without a shepherd. To Ireland the Chief of the Macdonnell clan turned for help, and two Irish priests, Father Grey and Father White, crossed over to the Highlands and spent their lives, till death, in travelling over the mountains and through the glens of their wide district on foot, attired as poor peasants, administering the sacraments, and keewng alive in the hearts of this heroic people the torch of Faith an-.3*Tiie fire of Charity. In 1 7-16 the battle of Culloden was fought, but there was no brave, dashing Irish Brigade present, as at Fontonoy, to turn the fortunes of the day. Prince Charles fled into exile. A military garrison was stationed at Fort Augustus under the Duke of Cumberland, with orders to ruin and depopulate the district, and alas ! terribly did they do their work. The Highlanders were shot down on their mountains like rabbits, and the screams of innocent girls and women, outraged by a brutal soldiery, re-echoed through the mountains. Thousands, preferring exile to apostacy, left the Highlands for ever. In 1790 two thousand Highlanders emigrated to Nova Scotia, were followed three years later by three thousand more whilst others found a home in Canada, St. Edward's Island, and in Australia. The Catholic remnant that remained behind clung to their Faith with heroic fortitude, transmitting it to their posterity as their most precious inheritance. To this day there are whole districts, and vil ages, and groups of hamlets in the glens almost exclusively Catholic. The priests are few, the churches long distances apart, the people poor : nor is it an uncommon thing

for men and women to walk ten, fifteen, and even twenty miles to church on foot fasting, to receive the Holy Communion. It is in the midst of these brave and noble Catholic Celtic people, in the very district which was the scene of the Apostolic labours of Father White and Father Grey, in Ihe region which tradition says was once hallowed by the footsteps of St. Patrick, amidst those wild mountains which witnessed the miracles of St. Columba, and on the very banks of Loch Ness, on Avhose waters he used to steer his little skiff — it is here, I say, that the Benedictine Order is once more to return to Scotland ; and amidst such glorious historic associations as these to sing again those chants and hymns in the land which have so long remained silent and hushed. We yearn to do a great and lasting work for the Church in Scotland, and with the generous and ever ready aid of the great Catholic people of Ireland we shall accomplish it. The fathers of the Benedictine Order in England have accepted the old military building of Fort Augustus, and on the foundations of those walls, constructed to overawe the Highlanders and stamp out the Catholic Faith, are now rising the walls of the Catholic college, destined to provide foi youths a liberal education. A monastery which will be at once a sanctuary of prayer and a school for monastic missionaries, and hospice, where the scattered clergy of the north and western portion, of Scotland can assemble with their bishop and enjoy in retirement and solitude a week of spiritual exercise, and refreshen their spirits, worn down with the perpetual wear and tear of missionary solicitudes. — Father Vaughan, 0.5.8.