The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

I20 THE HIGHLANDERS [parti
counterpart to a modern system of church government, con-
fessed!}' formed upon no ancient model, and the invention of the
sixteenth century. Each party has unfortunately been more
anxious to prove its resemblance to their own cherished system
of church government than to ascertain its actual constitution.
They have eagerly seized hold of every circumstance which
appeared to favour their hypothesis, and attempted to neutralise
and explain away whatever was adverse to their system ; but
until we find it impossible, from an impartial examination of all
the scattered notices of the history of the Culdee church which
have come down to us, to extract a consistent form of church
government, although that form ma}' have been a peculiar one,,
we are not entitled to assume, a priori, that the form of the
Culdee church must have been the same with some known form
of church government, and in consequence to disregard an}embarrassing
notice, however trivial. The obscurity which
attends this subject has arisen from various causes. We cannot
expect to find in the older writers much information regarding
the internal history of the country, because, while they anxiously
recorded the principal events of its external history, there was
nothing in its manners and form of societ}' to strike them as
peculiar or worthy of commemoration. With regard to the
Christian church established in the country the case is different,
for when we consider that at that period all Christian churches
possessed essentially the same form of government, and that a
form believed to be of apostolic institution, we may well suppose
that if the Culdee church differed essentially from other churches
in an}' important particular, that that circumstance would be
if we find
carefully recorded by ever}- ecclesiastical writer ; and
that ecclesiastical writers do impute peculiarities to that church,
we ma}- safel}- conclude that, with the exception of the differ-
ences of form mentioned by these writers,
it must in all other
respects have been similar to other Christian societies throughout
the world. Modern writers have added much to the difficulty of
the question by overlooking the fact, that the Culdee church of
Scotland was the offspring of the church founded in Ireland a
century before by St. Patrick, and by persisting in viewing the
Culdee church as it existed in Scotland unconnected with its
mother church, although it formed an essential part of that