The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-04-17

are fishermen and shepherds, most oi them talk only Gaelic and their religion is the purest, most uncompromising
 Preshyterianism. So far as they recog- nized authority outside of their own congregation 1t was that of the Free
 Kirk, They had built big church
 with their own money and thought they
 owned it.
 Two years ago the various bodies of
 Presbyterians that for one reason or
 another have broken away from the Church of Scotland decided to unite and
 to call themselves the United Free
 church. It would have been contrary 1 to their traditions and to the charaster
 of Scotchmen if every congregation had agreed to the union, There were dis
 senters, and illogically enough the new l United Free church has undertaken to
 discipline there The law courts have been appealed to and on the mainland more than one minister has been sent to jail for refusing to give up his church. At Ness the Free Kirk people who looked on the new union as noth- ing less than Erastianism and a falling from the faith, were in the great major ity. They turned out their back sliding
 minister and when the sheriff's men ap-
 peared to take possession of the church
 building, men, women and children fell
 upon them with sticks and stones and
 fists and Gaelic objurgation and drove
 them away in terror.
 The waters of the Minch are stormy
 in the winter; perhaps, too, the author
 ities hesitated to start religious TOW;
 at any rate the Ness folks were left in
 possession for couple of months.
 With the approach of spring it was de- cided that he sheriff's writ must be en- forced and a formidable expedition was fitted out Into three shores, Lanark Ross and Inverness, the sherlffs sped their Highland cross and eighty bold constables assembled at Kyle of Loch- alsh with their truncheons; targe and claymore would have been more in keeping. and the tartan plaid was missed early, His majesty's ship Bel Iona, six guns was in readiness to re- ceive them, and the mainland crusade set out to raid unsuspecting Ness.
 It was planned to fall upon the town
 in the night but the Minch is faithful guard for the vexed Hebrides. It shook the mainland constables thoroughly and made landing impossible. so the Bellona had to put in at Stornoway, which is twenty-five miles from Nesse; there all available vehicles were rekui the attacking force was packed into them and driven overland on q bitter cold night to within a mile of Ness town. There the eighty were drawn up in line and marched ty twos Sherffs and deputy sheriffs in the lead, to the church. The Bellona had around and was ready to use her guns. This was on Saturday. Women and children greeted them with hoots, after the Scotch fashion; the men looked on sullenly, Free Kirk minister had persuaded them to trust to the law courts and to abstain from vio- l ence. |
 The church was locked and barred, | however, so the eighty broke in and | ook formal possession. They kept pos | session. too, for they slept in the pews | hat night and turned the vestry into kitchen. On Sunday the United Kirk minister preac ched in Gaelic to the frag- | nent of the congregation that had fa ,ored the union and to the eighty con- tables. the Free Kirk people holding l heir own services in the schoolhouse. The exhibition of the governments purpose to use force, with the threat hat soldiers would be called in if the police were not enough, and the hope hat the law courts would soon decide he matter, brought about in the hurch in the course of the week an .greement to abstain from further re- istance, and the greater number of onstables was shipped back to the 
 The old covenanting spirit burns right in Ness. The people are peace uI and law abiding, but if it had not ] cen for the expectation that justice 'ould be done by the courts, it is likely hat blood would have been shed, and 'e might have seen a British gunboat a British town in order to nforce the demands of religious body | nat adjures the Church of Scotland, of 'hich King Edward VII is the official $ cad. It is a story that only MT. Bar @ could do justice to.-New York Sun.
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