History of Glenbervie

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1895 edition. Excerpt: ...censure. The Shorter Catechism lays it down that only works of " necessity and mercy " are to be engaged in on the Sabbath, and apparently the Kirk-Session of Glenbervie had considered the shearing of a few handfuls of grass on the Sabbath, to be none of these. At the meeting of the Session on 13th July, 1760, one of the elders reported that " it was current in the parish that a servant of James Scott in Tannachy, or other of their members was guilty of Sabbath breaking by Shearing Grass upon the sixth instant." A weekhad only elapsed beforethe Sabbath breaker was thus brought to book for his alleged misdeeds, and ordered to appear before the Session. That this meeting was considered of more than ordinary importance is attested by the fact that the full sederunt is mentioned in the record, which was not usually done. The evidence adduced is so full and so curiously put, that we here give the record of one of the witnesses entire. "Compeared Alexr. Walker, jun., in Buckie's Mill according to a citation given him by order of the Session, an unmarried man aged thirty years and upwards, being purged of envy, malice, and corruption, depones that upon the Sabbath's night, the sixth instant, he saw John Roe, servt to James Scott in Tannachy, taking up a bundle of grass upon a balk in the Bank of Tannachy and going a little up the said balk and laid it down, taking up more grass, and took it up again, and went away with it towards his master's house so far as he could decern, and that he did not see him shearing any grass. The deponent being interrogate what time of the night it was, answered that he could not fix upon an hour, but according to his knowledge it was before the twclfth hour said night. Causa scieutiec patet and...