battle the father of Alexander Livingston was killed. The battle confirmed the prophecy of Thomas the Rhymer : "There shall the Lion lose the gylte, And the Libbards bear it clean away; The Lion of the stanza refers, of course, to Scotland; and the Libbards or Leopards to England. The Scots remembered the day by the name of the "Black Saturday." The warlike propensities of this Pinkie Cleuch hero may probably be taken as evidence that the Livingstons of the Scottish Church were sprung from a bold and resolute stock. Till there came upon the Rev. Alexander Livingston the frailties incident to advancing years he did his work in the parish faithfully. Some months after he entered. on his charge he was obliged to feu half of his glebe for the low rent of five shillings and twopence sterling. The stipend had been ten chalders of meal in the old times, but for some years after the Reformation it appears to have been greatly reduced. These early ministers had good reason to complain of the greed of the landed proprietors, who simply despoiled the Church of five-sixths of her property. Although the old ship was getting a new crew, that was no reason for entering her lockers and robbing her of her specie. "Well," exclaimed Knox, on hearing of the arrangement made by the lords of the congregation, "if the end of this order be happy, my judgment fails me. I see two parts given to the devil, and the third part must be divided between God and the devil." The scandal was too open and glaring, and some little part of the stolen property was restored, but there can be no doubt Alexander Livingston must have shared for some years the privations experienced by his brethren throughout the Church. In 1589, Livingston was appointed by the Privy Council one of the commissioners for the oversight of the Protestant Government and religion in Stirlingshire. Two years after, however, he had become so aged and infirm that he could neither preach nor exercise discipline. In the circumstances the presbytery advised him to get an assistant, but not till 1594 did they themselves take steps before the synod towards that end. What instructions this synod gave is not known, but seeing the minister of Monyabroch had a son who was then studying at the University of Glasgow with a view to the ministry, the matter was probably allowed to drop, the son being then able to give his father substantial help in the proper discharge of his parochial duties. Considering the disturbed state of the country, the life of Alexander Livingston had up to this year been spent in greater quiet than might have been expected. At this time, however, he became involved in an extraordinary case, which worked eventually his overthrow and deposition. The opinions of Lady Livingston had not conformed to those of the Reformers. Sticking to the old rites and observances, her conduct gave much scandal to the elders of the kirk. She was regarded by them as "a malicious Papist." In the circumstances Livingston, because he was 66 in near relation to the house of Callendar, and because Lord Livingston was his patron, and probably also because he was a man of mature years and large experience, and so, capable of dealing with a matter requiring delicate handling, was appointed by the Presbytery of Glasgow to wait in person on Lady Livingston and summon her to appear before them on the 13th April. The lady not being resident within the bounds of his parish it would have been well for him if he had put in a plea of want of jurisdiction when he felt the task to be uncongenial. This, however, he did not do. At their meeting Lady Livingston did not compear, and the letter she sent was regarded as wholly unsatisfactory. Mr. Livingston was again charged to wait on her ladyship for the second time, and to be present himself at the meeting to which she was summoned. Of this second call Lady Livingston took no notice. On the 23rd April, the minister of Monyabroch was commanded to summon her for the third time to attend before the presbytery on the 15th day thereafter, "on pain of excommunication," and "that the said lady may be won to God, the said presbytery ordains Mr. Patrick Sharp, Principal of the College of Glasgow, and Mr. John Cooper, to pass to the said lady on Friday this week, and confer with said lady anent the heads of religion." The commissioners exercised diligence in the matters entrusted to them, but were unable to convince Lady Livingston of the error of her ways. On the 1st March, 1597, "the presbytery ordains every minister within this presbytery to intimate next Sunday that Dame Helenor Hay, Lady Livingston, is excommunicated, and Mr. Alexander Livingston to do the same on pain of deposition." The whole conduct of Alexander Livingston in this matter greatly incensed the presbytery. He had been throughout lukewarm and reluctant, and during the progress of the case they had made this grave comment as to the state of his parish: -"As to Monyabroch," they noted, "neither exercise nor discipline is keepit by the minister there." Only a few weeks after the sentence of excommunication was promulgated against her ladyship, the fury of the presbytery broke upon the minister. He was summoned before the presbytery, "to hear himself deposed from the ministry at the kirk of Monyabroch, for inability to use discipline in said kirk as becomes." Taking no objection to sentence being passed, he was there and then deposed by the moderator "simpliciter and forever." Thus most unhappily terminated the long pastorate of thirty-seven years of Alexander Livingston, the first Presbyterian minister of Kilsyth. Possibly he was not so active in the discharge of his commission as he might have been; but surely to use a minister for the purpose of humiliating his near kinsman was, on the part of the presbytery, most indiscreet. There, however, the matter stands; Livingston, a grave old clergyman, tottering on the brink of the grave, was deposed, and the stigma attaching thereto remains; but the riddle of the right and wrong, who can read it now? His wife was Barbara Livingston of "the house of Kilsyth," by whom he had one son, William. He did not survive his deposition many months. Twenty-four years before him, the man “who neither feared nor flattered mortal flesh," the intrepid Knox, was laid to his rest, and now clear and bright there was shining another star in our ecclesiastical firmament. That star was Andrew Melville. CHAPTER II. Prelate versus Presbyter--WILLIAM LIVINGSTON, Voice and Appearance—The King, his Character—Melville, Welsh, and Bruce-Bishops Ordain Ministers-Perth Assembly-Jenny Geddes—W. Livingston Presented to Kilsyth-The Enmity of the King-Livingston Confined to his Parish-DeposedPresented to Lanark-Second Deposition-Imprisoned-His Curious Dream-Before the High Commission—Addresses Marquis of Hamilton-Glasgow Assembly—Last Appearance— Death. AFTER the meeting of the Scottish Parliament in 1560, the country enjoyed a period of comparative quiet after the storm of the Reformation. This quiet was reflected in the life of Alexander Livingston. With the deposition of Livingston, however, and the coming in of the 17th century, there began new troubles and there arose new dangers. Then began that struggle between prelate and presbyter which was to last for the next hundred years. The stirring life and career of the Rev. William Livingston, the second minister of Monyabroch, as it begins with the year 1600, takes us to the very beginning of this controversy, and leads us right onward through the first half of it. William was very unlike his father; he had no taste for compromise, was full of energy, of a disposition essentially combative, and may be well credited with having inherited the ardour of his grandsire, who fought and died at Pinkie. He had a heart hatred |