III. PROBATIONERS AND STUDENTS
James Dodson
158
I. BEFORE THE THEOLOGICAL HALL
It is impossible to give a complete list of those who set out as students of the Reformed Presbytery before the institution of the Hall. For the most part their existence becomes known only when they apply for licence. Sometimes a student acted as Clerk of Presbytery. The following is an imperfect list:—
JOHN M‘NEIL (or M‘Neillie) carries a somewhat pathetic figure, for, though he served the Old Dissenters well for many years, he was never ordained. He was born about 1666 and was a licentiate of the Church of Scotland, but was disowned by them on October 1, 1708, when he took his stand beside M‘Millan. His name first appears in the “Conclusions” on August 6, 1707, when he is appointed to draw up reasons of protest against the Union with England. Patrick Walker, who had little good to say about the Cameronians, speaks of him as “specially concern’d in their public prints,” and “principally concern’d in their public managements” (Hay Fleming’s edition of Six Saints of the Covenant, I, 147–8; II, 126, 151, 175). The continuance of the Church after the death of M‘Millan was a constant source of anxiety to the Societies during M‘Millan’s lifetime. In 1732 the “Conclusions” state that “it is the mind of the General Meeting unanimously that Mr John M‘Neil be further dealt with to accept ordination,” but as formerly no effective steps were taken. This is the last occasion on which he is mentioned in the transactions of the Church, and he died on December 10 following. He married Beatrix Umpherston, who survived him, dying in her 91st year on February 27, 1763.
PETER REIKIE was licensed in 1751, and adhered to the dissentients of 1753. He dealt with the points in dispute in A Letter to a Friend in America, 1754. He was ordained by them to Ireland on November 4, 1765, but was the cause of much trouble, and was deposed for contumacy on November 5, 1766. He continued for some time to preach in Glasgow to an irregular congregation. See Couper, “A Breach in the Reformed Presbytery,” Records Scot. Church Hist. Soc., I, 6.
PROBATIONERS AND STUDENTS 159
JOHN GLENDINNING. The maternal uncle of the father of Rev. T. Halliday, Airdrie, “had finished the usual course of education for the sacred ministry, and was just about to obtain license to preach, in the connection of the Reformed Presbytery when . . . he died at Pentland.” Memoir of Halliday, by Dr Andrew Symington, p. viii.
ARCHIBALD GRIEVE was licensed at Peebles on June 7, 1760, but his course was short, for he died on October 3 of the same year, aged 26. He is buried at Pentland.
WILLIAM MARTIN was ordained on July 2, O.S. 1757, at Rasharkin, Ballymena, Co. Antrim. As long as there was no Irish Presbytery he occasionally attended the meetings of the Scottish Presbytery. On March 11, 1772, it was intimated that he had gone to America, apparently without the necessary permission, and the Presbytery concluded that his conduct was “disorderly and scandalous.”
WILLIAM JAMES was apparently a student from America, and was taken under the care of the Presbytery on March 1, 1765. He was licensed at Leadhills on December 21, 1765. He was ordained at Bready, near Londonderry, in 1765. Reid’s Hist. Pres. Ch. Ireland, p. 362.
DANIEL M‘CLELLAND was a student from America who was, like James, taken under the care of the Presbytery on March 1, 1763, and was licensed at Leadhills on December 21, 1765. He was ordained at Laymore, near Ballymena, Ireland (Reid, p. 362). At a meeting of the Reformed Presbytery at Quarrelwood on April 9, 1765, he was sent to America. His after career was strange. According to a minute of July 12, 1769, the American adherents of the Church found M‘Clelland “had gone into such loose opinions and practices,” that they had “declined his ministry.” The Presbytery therefore declared “any relation subsisting between the said Mr M‘Clelland and the people under their inspection in America, to be null and void.”
JAMES M‘KINNEY was born at Cookstown, Co. Tyrone, Ireland, in 1759. He was licensed by the Scottish Presbytery at Sandhills on June 11, 1781, and was apparently soon after ordained at Kirkhill, Ireland. In 1783 he asked permission to go to America, but it was refused. He seems, however, to have gone in 1793, and acted as a missionary. He was settled at Galway, New York, in 1799, and in May 1804 accepted a call to Chester County, South Carolina. He died on September 10, 1804.
160 THE REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
SAMUEL ALEXANDER, who came from Ireland, was licensed at Sandhills at the same time as M‘Kinney. He seems to have been ordained by the Irish Presbytery in 1783 at Bready. He afterwards went to America, and on June 4, 1792, was authorised by the Scottish Presbytery to constitute himself, along with M‘Kinney and the elders there, “in a judicative capacity, to judge and determine concerning all matters relative to that people which may come before them and to send to the Presbytery here regular accounts of their judicial procedure.”
PETER ROBINSON (or Robertson) was from the Glasgow Calton congregation of the dissentient Synod of 1753, and applied for licence. On November 5, 1783, it was reported to the Presbytery that, having had his trials postponed, he had gone “incontinent” to the Relief Presbytery “in disgust and chagrin.” The Presbytery ascribed his conduct to his “great defect of natural and Christian prudence,” and spoke of his “bold and arrogant pride, self-conceitedness and an affectation of singularity.” For his subsequent career, see Small’s United Presbyterian Congregations, II, 299. A brother, Archibald, from the same congregation, became Relief minister of Bellshill.
— SMITH. On March 4, 1798, there appeared before the Presbytery for trials one whose Christian name is not given—he is referred to as “Mr Smith.” His exercise was not sustained, and he was put back. For the next two years it was constantly reported that he was too ill to attend. When he appeared on November 12, 1800, one discourse was delivered, and it was not sustained. The Presbytery unanimously resolved that he did “not possess suitable qualifications” for the ministry.
JAMES REID was taken on trials for licence first on August 17, 1803, but was not licensed till June 10, 1805. Thereafter he received the usual appointments till 1820. He then seems to have become discouraged, for the North-Eastern Presbytery recorded they “were of opinion that it was his duty to preach the Gospel,” but he seems to have withdrawn his name as a probationer.