Blair Collection > Book of Common Order, commonly called John Knox's Liturgy

xvi Notices of Bishop Carswell.
to visit certain prescribed districts, and to see to the
proper organization of the Church and the administra-
tion of Christian ordinances.
Five such superintendents were appointed in 1560,
and among these was John Carswell, who had Argyll
and the Isles assigned to him as his district. Such an
appointment would not have been made in the case of
a man destitute of the necessary qualifications. The
other superintendents chosen were men of distinction
in the Reformed Church, and it is not to be supposed
that an exception would be made in the case of Cars-
well. He must have been known as a man of character
and attainments ere the leading men of the period
would have fixed upon him for so important an office.
No doubt the number of ministers eligible for the office
was small, the field of labour was wide and difficult,
extending as it did to the Outer Hebrides, and the
state of the people was such as to render it essential
that the man who presided over the interests of the
Church there should be a man of prudence, acquirements,
and enterprise. Carswell makes reference to his duties in
a letter written to Mr. Campbell of Kinzeancleuch, and
dated off Dunoon, the 29th May 1564.' In that letter he
says : — ' As for the continewance, as is befoir writtin, it
' sail be vsit, bot becaus I pas presentlie to Kytire, and
' thaireftir to the His, to veseit sum kirkis, I can nocht
' be at the Generall Assemblie, and thinkis that my
' travell now in the His may do mair gude to the Kirk
' nor my presens at the Assemblie ; becaus the His can
1 Wodrow Miscellany, p. 2S6.