So well was the deprecated act received by the time-serving Synod of Ross, that they urged it into effect against one of their own body, more than a year before the ejection of the other nonconforming clergymen. In a meeting of the Synod which took place in 1661, the person chosen as moderator was one Murdoch Mackenzie;--a man so strong in his attachments that he had previously sworn to the National Covenant no fewer than fourteen times, and he had now fallen desperately in love with the Bishopric of Moray. One of his brethren, however, an unmanageable, dangerous person, for he was uncompromisingly honest, and possessed of very considerable talent, stood directly in the way of his preferment. This member, the celebrated Mr. Hogg of Kiltearn, had not sworn to the Covenant half so often as his superior, the Moderator, but then so wrong-headed was he as to regard his few oaths as binding; and he could not bring himself to like Prelacy any the better for its being espoused by the king. And so his expulsion was evidently a matter of necessity. The Moderator had nothing to urge against his practice,--for no one could excel him in the art of living well; but his opinions lay more within his reach; and no sooner had the Synod met, than, singling him out, he demanded what his thoughts were of the Protestors--the party of Presbyterians who, about ten years before, had not taken part with the king against the Republicans. Mr. Hogg declined to answer; and on being removed, that the Synod might deliberate, the Moderator rose and addressed them. Their brother of Kiltearn, he said, was certainly a great man--a very great man--but as certainly were the Protestors opposed to the king; and if any member of Synod took part with them, whatever his character, it was evidently the duty of the other members to have him expelled. Mr. Hogg was then called in, and having refused, as was anticipated, judicially to disown the Protestors, sentence of deposition was passed against him. But the consciences of the men who thus dealt with him, betrayed in a very remarkable manner their real estimate of his conduct. It is stated by Wodrow, on the authority of an eye-witness, that sentence was passed with a peculiar air of veneration, as if they were ordaining him to some higher office; and that the Moderator was so deprived of his self-possession as to remind him, in a consolatory speech, that “our Lord Jesus Christ had suffered great wrong from the Scribes and Pharisees.”