formerly been minister of New Machar, and was known all over the north as a popular preacher, a defender of evangelical religion, and an opponent of patronage.In this discourse, which is full of stirring appeals, he warns the people against the fear of man which bringeth a snare," against being intimidated by their landlords, and acting on the slavish principle, 'I am for the man the laird is for."Expressing his affection for a people to whom he had been minister for twelve years, he reminds them that when he left them their landlords had persuaded them to take a minister who had fallen into fornication and absconded.He complains of persons not residing in the parish, or though residing in it not attending gospel ordinances, interfering to serve a friend, referring, it is supposed, to a near relative of Dr.
Reid's.He asserts that the election of a minister is a Christian right, and that " the poor Christian in vile raiment may claim the same regard that is paid to him who wears the gay clothing, the gold ring and the goodly apparel." It is a poor and worthless story for any man to say, that you, the people, are tenants at will, and to improve this as if you were to have no will but theirs in the work of this day.Well may you reply that you are tenants at God's will, who can take them away with His stroke when they are thinking to have their wills of you.He exhorts them to trust in God and do what is right, and warns them that, even though they should by acting an unconscientious part secure an earthly habitation, yet they might soon be driven out of it." The appeal produced a powerful effect.The people, having no hope of getting their rights protected by the church courts, adopted a mode of expressing their feelings characteristic of the times.The tradition is that, when their minister came to the place, men dressed in women's clothes, ducked him in a pond; and that, on the sabbath on which he preached his first sermon, an uncle of his who resided at Rosehill, two miles off, defended him on the pulpit stair with a drawn sword.
I am not sure that the sphere to which Reid was now appointed was the one exactly suited to him, or that he was the fittest man to preach the gospel of Christ to a country congregation, or indeed that the old Scotch theory of connecting the church and the colleges so closely was the best either for the church or the colleges.For the first seven years he was in {199} the way of preaching the sermons of others, a practice very obnoxious to the people.The tradition is that on one occasion when at Fintray, three miles off, the lady of Sir -- Forbes thanked him for preaching on the previous sabbath so excel lent a sermon from Tillotson; whereupon he denied in strong terms that he had taken a sermon from Tillotson.To his confusion he found, on retiring to his bedroom, a volume of Tillotson's on his table, lying open at the place where was the discourse he had preached.Ashamed, not of the fact of his preaching another man's sermons, but of his being supposed capable of uttering a falsehood, he hastened to inform the lady that he had taken the discourse not from Tillotson's published sermons, but from a packet which he had otherwise.
But while thus obnoxious at his first settlement, he is said to have gradually won the good opinion of his parishioners by the propriety of his conduct, his conscientiousness, and his kindness.His popularity was increased when, in 1740, he married Elizabeth, -- the daughter of his uncle Dr.George Reid, physician in London, -- who endeared herself to the people by her kind offices to the sick and poor.There is reason to believe that in the later years of his ministry he became earnest in his Master's service.The tradition is that, in dispensing the sacrament of the supper, tears rolled from his eyes, when he spoke of the loveliness of the Saviour's character.The following dedication of himself to God is preserved in the manuscripts, and lets us see more clearly than any thing that has been printed by Dugald Stewart the deep feeling that lay beneath that calm outward demeanor.It is dated March 30, 1746.
