to mention, the Cameronian Covenanters are glorified as saints and martyrs; and Episcopacy, its ritual, and worship are disparaged and villfied; and our children, who, in the absence of Church schools in country districts, are compulsorily sent to the Board Schools, are systematically indoctrinated, under the guise of "use and wont," in falsehoods and frauds such as these miscalled histories. It were much to be wished that more notice were taken of this hardship in the education of our children, and a remedy provided.
Mr Alexander Keith, the worthy son of a worthy father, the Parson of Deer already mentioned, was the Pastor of the remnant of the Cruden Congregation at the '45 period, and nearly twenty years later on. The inscription on his gravestone in the church-yard of that Parish is a touching proof of how deeply the iron had entered into the souls of the Clergy; and how they thought they had seen the last of the ancient Church of Scotland. The inscription is as follows:—"S. M. of the Rev. Mr. Alex. Keith, whose purity of heart, sanctity of manners, easiness of conversation, and unwearied attention to all the duties of his office as a Minister of the Church of Scotland under the many trying events of eight and forty years, rendered his life valuable, his death lamentable, and his memory precious. Ob. Oct. 27, 1763, Æt. 68. Ultime Scotorum in Crudenanis, Kethe, Sacerdos! Fratribus et Plebi diu memorande, vale!" I remember standing many years since at the side of the grave, in the company of the venerable Dean of the Diocese, Mr. Cumming of Longside, and reading the inscription. The Dean said to me, "The old man," the title by which he always spoke of his grandfather and predecessor, Dean Skinner, "The old man," said he, "wrote that epitaph," I went back upon the word "ultime." "But why 'ultime,'" I said. Never shall I forget the wistful look, the quivering lip, and the brimful eyes of my venerable friend, as he replied, "Ah! the Clergy of those sad days never expected to have any successors." The epitaph is one of the many proofs that might be adduced that the Church, at the lowest point of her depression, although "minished and brought low through oppression, plague, and trouble," clung to her inalienable title of the the Church of Scotland, which she maintained she had never forfeited. It was after the persecutions had virtually ceased, about the end of the last century, and when those who managed her affairs thought it would be indiscreet to assert the title when they were approaching the Legislature to be freed from the pains and penalties which had nearly extinguished her, that they described her as "the Scottish Episcopal Church," and sometimes as "the Episcopal Communion in Scotland." Probably the title page of her Eucharistic Office is the only document in which her ancient title is still proclaimed;—"The Communion Office of the Church of Scotland." John Skinner of Linshart, the accomplished divine and poet, the writer of the epitaph above described, and of many a scholarly Latin composition, and who died Dean of Aberdeen in 1808, lay in the jail of the county town for six months,
