At the end of the seventeenth century, when Roderick, the religious impostor, or fanatic, lived, things spiritual were somewhat improved, although they only had the annual clerical visit. There were three chapels on the island, to serve a population of one hundred and eighty. One was called Christ’s Chapel, hardly discernible from one of their dwellings, being built and thatched in a similar manner; but it contained one of their chief treasures, a brass crucifix, which lay upon an altar therein. They paid no adoration or worship to this, but it was their most precious possession, being used, as are the gospels elsewhere, for the purpose of solemn asseveration, and it was also made use of at marriages and the healing of strife. The people observed as Holy-days Christmas, Easter, Good Friday, St. Columba’s Day, and All Saints. They ceased all work at midnight on Saturday, and kept the Sabbath, in this respect, very strictly, only resuming their ordinary avocations on Monday morning. They believed in the Trinity, and in a future state of happiness and misery, and that God ordains all things. They took great care with their churchyard, which they fenced round with stone, so that no cattle should desecrate God’s Acre, and they had a peculiar belief in the embodiment of spirits, and fancied that they could, at will, incorporate themselves with the rocks, hills, etc. Of the three chapels, one only seems to have been used, and this, not being large enough to accommodate the islanders, the whole of the inhabitants would assemble, on every Sunday morning, in the churchyard, and there devoutly say the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments. This form of worship was simple enough; but it seems to have been of recent introduction--_i.e._, about the beginning of the seventeenth century; when, somehow or other, there was a man upon the island who passed for a Roman Catholic priest, but who was so ignorant that he did not know the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, or the Decalogue correctly; and, consequently, he taught the poor people an incorrect version, but to him they owed the crucifix, and the observance of the Holy-days before mentioned, and with this teacher they were content until the year 1641, when one Coll McDonald, or Ketoch, fled from Ireland, and, with a few men, landed at St. Kilda, where he lived in amity with the inhabitants for nearly a year. He rebuked the so-called priest for his ignorance, and he taught the poor simple folk the correct version of the text of their very primitive worship--in fine, he was considered so far superior to the priest, that the natives would fain have deposed the latter; but this McDonald would not suffer.