He lingered till the autumn, and passed away at Oldcambus
at the end of September. It was with this background of change and
shadow that the ordination of John Cairns took place at Berwick on
August 6, 1845.

CHAPTER V

GOLDEN SQUARE

Berwick is an English town on the Scottish side of the Tweed. As all
that remained to England of the Scottish conquests of Edward I., it
was until the Union of the Crowns the Calais of Scotland. It thus came
to be treated as in a measure separate from England although belonging
to it, and was for a long time separately mentioned in English Acts of
Parliament, as it still is in English Royal Proclamations. This status
of semi-independence which it so long enjoyed has helped to give it an
individuality more strongly marked than that of most English towns.

In religious matters Berwick has more affinity to Scotland than to
England. John Knox preached in the town for two years by appointment
of the Privy Council of Edward VI., and in harmony with his influence
its religious traditions were in succeeding generations strongly
Puritan, and one of its vicars, Luke Ogle, was ejected for
Nonconformity in 1662.

After the Revolution of 1688 this tendency found expression in the
rise and growth of a vigorous Presbyterian Dissent; and in the
early years of the eighteenth century there were two flourishing
congregations in the town in communion with the Church of Scotland.
But as these soon became infected with the Moderatism which prevailed
over the Border, new congregations were formed in connection with
the Scottish Secession and Relief bodies, and it was of one of
these--Golden Square Secession Church--that John Cairns became
the fourth minister in 1845.

Berwick is one of the very few English towns which still retain their
ancient fortifications. The circuit of the walls, which were built in
the reign of Elizabeth, with their bastions, "mounts," and gates, is
still practically complete, and is preserved with care and pride. A
few ruins of the earlier walls, which Edward I. erected, and which
enclosed a much wider area than is covered by the modern town, still
remain; also such vestiges of the once impregnable Castle as have not
been removed to make way for the present railway-station. Beyond this,
there is little about Berwick to tell of its hoary antiquity and its
eventful history. But its red-roofed houses, rising steeply from the
left bank of the Tweed, and looking across the tid