154 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
The successors of Mr. Macgregor in the Gaelic Chapel have been numerous.
They were the Rev. James M‘Lauchlan, afterwards removed to the parish of
hloy, Inverness-shire ; the Rev. John Xlacdonald, afterwards of Urquhart,
Banffshire j the Rev. John Munro, afterwards of Halkirk, Caithness ; and the
unfortunate (he was thought to be insane) Duncan M‘Cuaig, who wa5 tried and
banished for theft in July 1831.l The succeeding pastor was the Rev, John
M‘Allister.
No. LXV.
THE REV. JAMES LAWSON OF BELVIDERE,
ii THE JOB OF PRESENT TIMES.’’
THIS Print, we are assured, is a striking likeness of MR. LAWSONw,h o is represented
in the attitude of receiving the General Assembly’s covered, buttoned,
and sealed Bible, which was handed to hirn by a member of the Assembly, when,
in answer to a question put to him as to where his creed lay, he pointed to it
as the only rule of his faith. The quotations inserted on the plate, at his own
request, on each side of the figure, entitled “The World and the Church,”
pre in allusion to his protracted process before the Church Courts.
The father of Mr. Lawson was proprietor of Eelyidere, a small estate in the
neighbourhood of Auchterarder. He had warmly opposed the settlement of
Mr. Campbell as Minister of that parish ; but, on finding himself in the minority,
he signed the call along with the other heritors. This opposition, trivial as it
may appear, is represented in Kay’s MS. as the primary cause of the course of
procedure afterwards adopted by the Presbytery of Auchterarder towards his son.
Shortly after the father’s death, young Lawson began seriously to think of
entering the ministry; and, after attending the usual number of seasons at
College, he applied to the Presbytery of Auchterarder to be licensed, at least
to undergo his trials for that purpose.
According to Kay, the Rev. Mr. Campbell had not forgotten the circumstance
of the Laird of Belvidere’s opposition to his settlement, and resolved to manifest
that vindictive feeling towards the son, which circumstances did not enable
occasionally became the associate of two well-known sporting gentlemen-then in the heyday of
youth and frolic-whose portraits we will have occasion to notice in a subsequent part of this work.
These manifestations of the spirit render the character of the Gaelic clergyman somewhat equivocal ;
yet it is but fair to state that his name ought not to be confounded, as has frequently been the case,
with that of the Reverend JaseTh Robertson, sometime minister of the chapel in Macdowall Street,
Paul’s Work, who was banished for forging certificates of proclamation.
The latest accounts represented hirn as
in a state of complete destltution.
This person became a teacher in Van Diemen’s Land.
