History of the Congregations of the United Presbyterian Church 1733-1900: Volume II – Rev Robert Small, D.D. (1904)
pp428-430
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Transcript: [Last paragraph of p429] There is a blank in the records now, but we know from other sources that Mr John Brown was called to Stow when a preacher, and that the Presbytery of Edinburgh appointed him to Haddington. His preferences are said to have lain in the other direction, but he was too loyal to the Church Courts, and too lowly in his own esteem, to utter a murmur. This congregation then called Mr David Forrest, but he was a young man of a very different stamp unruly, crotchety, and impracticable. Midholm came in shortly after, but the Presbytery of Edinburgh gave the preference to Stow, saving them from a second disappointment, and the Synod confirmed this determination in opposition to Mr Forrest’s declared wishes. From “Memoirs of his Life and Contendings”; we get insight into his mental exercise at this time, and the ingenuity with which he conjured up reasons for refusing compliance. For one thing, he fell back on an Act of Assembly more than a century old, which ordained that no preacher was to be eligible for a call until he had been at least half-a-year in public service. He also told the Synod, he said, that he could see no difference between intruding a congregation upon a minister and intruding a minister upon a congregation. Then further: “The people of Stow, seeing no appearance of my submitting to that settlement, gave up with their call in harvest 1754, and the Synod admonished and rebuked me, and put down in their Minutes that I submitted, which was not fact.”; He was ordained at Inverkeithing, and, so far as Mr Forrest was concerned, the Synod had rest for some time. |
p440
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Transcript: [4th paragraph of p440] After Mr Matthew, the first minister of Midholm, broke with the Antiburghers and went over to the other side, Selkirk seems to have been the headquarters of his supporters. The earliest Minutes of session show that he had three of the elders with him, one of them being a Selkirk bailie. But it was deemed better that Mr Matthew should remove from Midholm, and on 7th April 1752 the Synod transferred him to Auchtermuchty (East). Soon after this the Burgher congregation of “Midholm and Yarrow”; called Mr David Forrest, whom the Synod appointed to Stow, a decision which led to nothing in the end. In December 1754 they called the same preacher a second time; but his strength of will prevailed, and he became minister of Inverkeithing. In April 1756 they called Mr William Kidston, but Stow again got the preference. |
