Biggar and the House of Fleming

CHAPTER XIII.
The Uortfi and Snutn United frjes&i}t«rian
Churches.
T was the remark of a shrewd individual, that Biggar
has long been famed for the support which it gives
to "divinity and diversion." It is certainly the case,
that from the time of the Covenant downwards, the
people of the Biggar district have been noted for the extent of
their theological acquirements, their critical acumen in dis-
cussing abstruse points of faith, the strictness of their religious
opinions and practice, and their strong dislike to the undue
interference of the State with the Established Church. It
was naturally to be expected, then, that the immediate de-
scendants of the men who had contended and suffered in this
district for the covenanted work of Reformation, would look
with approving countenance on the stand made by the founders
of the Secession Church against the errors of the times. They
could not submit to see such defections as patronage restored,
the Covenants despised, heretical opinions openly promulgated,
vice and profligacy passingunrebuked, and a slavish subserviency
to the ruling powers pervading the leaders of the Church, with-
out feeling extreme sorrow and indignation, and applauding
the men who stood boldly forward to expose and condemn
them. This feeling was greatly deepened by the conduct of
some of their own pastors, in reading from the pulpit a docu-
ment regarding the apprehension of the persons concerned in the
execution of Captain Porteous, on the 7th September 1736, in
the Grassmarket of Edinburgh, and hence commonly called the
Porteous Paper. This document was ordered by the Govern-
ment to be read publicly by the Established clergy before their
congregations, on the first Sabbath of each month, for a whole