would set himself, before excommunicating any one, to study the old, newly-translated book, that he might be better able to cope with the maligners of his Church. Before half completing his studies, however, his discourses would begin to assume a very questionable aspect. Little would they contain regarding the Pope, and little concerning the saints; and more and more would he press upon his hearers the doctrines taught by the Apostles. Anon, however, he would assume a bolder style of language; and sometimes conclude, after saying a great deal about the spiritual Babylon, and the Man of sin, by praying for godly John Knox, and all the other ministers of the Evangel. In short, the honest priest would prove the rankest heretic in the whole parish. And thus would matters go on from bad to worse. A few grey heads would be shaken at the general defection, but these would be gradually dropping away; and the young themselves would be growing old without changing their newly-acquired opinions. They would not all be good Christians;--for every one should know it is quite a possible thing to be a Protestant, sound enough for all the purposes of party, without being a Christian at all;--but they would almost all be reformers; and when the state should at length set itself to annihilate root and branch of the old establishment, and to build up a new one on the broad basis of the kingdom, not a parish in the whole of it would enter more cordially into the scheme than the parish of Cromarty. But however readily the people might have closed with the doctrines of the Reformation, they continued to retain a good deal of the spirit of the old religion. Having made choice of a piece of land on the edge of the ridge which rises behind the houses as a proper site for their church, they began to collect the materials. It so chanced, however, that the first few stones gathered for the purpose, being thrown down too near the edge of the declivity, rolled to the bottom; the circumstance was deemed supernaturally admonitory; and the church, after due deliberation, was built at the base instead of the top of the ridge, on exactly the spot where the stones had rested. The first Protestant minister of the parish was a Mr. Robert Williamson. His name occurs oftener than once in Calderwood’s Church History; and his initials, with those of his wife, are still to be seen on a flat triangular stone in the eastern part of the town, which bears date 1593. It is stated by Calderwood, that “Jesuits having libertie to passe thorough the countrey in 1583, during the time of the Earle of Huntlie’s lieutenantrie, great coldness of religion entered in Ross;” and by an act of council passed five years after, this Robert Williamson, and “John Urquhart, tutor of Cromartie,” were among the number empowered to urge matters to an extremity against them. [Sidenote: OUTBREAKING AT ROSEMARKIE.]