hen asked wherein he believed, he answered, "He believed in white
meal, water, and salt. Christ was not God; for he came into the world
after it was made, and died as other men." He declared that "he did not
know whether God or the devil had the greatest power; but he thought the
devil was the greatest. When I die, let God and the devil strive for my
soul, and let him that is strongest take it." He no doubt had been
taught by the presbytery to mock religious rites; and when desired to
give God thanks for his meat, he said, "Take a sackful of prayers to the
mill and grind them, and take your breakfast of them." To others he
said, "I will give you a two-pence, to pray until a boll of meal, and
one stone of butter, fall from heaven through the house rigging (roof)
to you." When bread and cheese were laid on the ground by him, he said,
"If I leave this, I will long cry to God before he give it me again." To
others he said, "Take a bannock, and break it in two, and lay down one
half thereof, and you will long pray to God before he will put the other
half to it again!" He seems to have been an anti-trinitarian. He said he
received everything from nature, which had ever reigned and ever would.
He would not conform to any religious system, nor name the three
Persons,--"At all these things I have long shaken my cap," he said.
"Jock of broad Scotland" seems to have been one of those who imagine
that God should have furnished them with bannocks ready baked.

The extravagant fervour then working in the minds of the people is
marked by the story told by Clement Walker of the soldier who entered a
church with a lantern and a candle burning in it, and in the other hand
four candles not lighted. He said he came to deliver his message from
God, and show it by these types of candles. Driven into the churchyard,
and the wind blowing strong, he could not kindle his candles, and the
new prophet was awkwardly compelled to conclude his five denouncements,
abolishing the Sabbath, tithes, ministers, magistrates, and, at last,
the Bible itself, without putting out each candle, as he could not
kindle them; observing, however, each time--"And here I should put out
the first light, but the wind is so high that I cannot kindle it."

A perfect scene of the effects which the state of irreligious society
produced among the lower orders I am enabled to give from the manuscript
life of John Shaw, vicar of Rotherham; with a little tediousness, but
with in