Grampian Club > Scotland, social and domestic

30 Introduction.
witch was hanged at Edinburgh. One of the ministers
of the city, with a humanity greater than was ordinarily
manifested by those of his profession, approached the
convict, and requested her to repeat after him the Lord's
prayer. The poor victim assented. "Our Father which
art in heaven," said the clergyman. " Our Father which
wart in heaven," said the woman. " Say," added the
minister, " I renounce the devil." " I unce the devil," said
the woman. The clergyman retired, and informed the
bystanders that the case was hopeless, since the witch
had invoked the devil twice. The poor woman had
spoken her mother tongue ! On the repeal of the
statutes against witchcraft, in 1735, many of the Scottish
clergy strongly remonstrated. In 1743, the Synod of
the Secession Church issued a declaration denouncing
the measure as invoking the displeasure of Heaven.
The rigid discipline of the Church did not materially
ameliorate the manners even of the clergy themselves.
John Kello, minister of Spott, was executed, in 1570, for
poisoning his wife. For the infraction of his marriage
vow, Paul Methven, minister of Jedburgh, sought pardon
from the General Assembly, in 1563. For a similar
offence Robert Menteith,* minister of Duddingston, was,
* The following notice of Robert Menteith, by a contemporary, we
have discovered among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum : —
"Upon the 17th of September, 1633, the lewd lyfe and sinful and
most filthy^ presumption of Maister Robert Menteith, son to Alex.
Menteith, merch 1 - burges in Ed r - , cam to licht by falling with ane honor-
able Ladie Dam Annas Hepburn, dochter to the Laird of "Wanchloun,
and spous to ane worthy and Nobill man, Sr. James Hamiltoun, son to
Sir Thos. Hamiltoun, who was president of Scotland. True it is the
foresaid Maister Robert Menteith was minister in Duddingstoun when
this noble woman was one of his Parochiners, for she dwelt in Priest-
field." She is described as " the maist beautifull woman that was in