The Reformation came to the eastern Highlands fairly soon after it reached the Lowlands and Protestant Christianity became established in these areas within a generation. By the time Robert Bruce was exiled to Inverness during the reign of James VI, he was able to draw large crowds of listeners from the northern and eastern Highlands. It took the Protestant faith longer to take root in the western Highlands apart from Argyll (the leading family of Argyll were ardent Protestants at that time). Much of the details of the spiritual movements in the Highlands have been lost. Further, since vast areas of the Highlands only spoke Gaelic, it was inevitable that records in English were comparatively few. Still, there are many pieces of literature describing the Protestant spirituality that was found in the Highlands, along with biographical accounts and sermons of prominent ministers.
As far as Protestantism in the Highlands was concerned, prior to 1843 the only denomination (apart from a few isolated congregations of Presbyterians, Baptists, Congregationalists and Episcopalians) that covered the entire area was the Church of Scotland. In 1843, when the Free Church of Scotland separated from the Church of Scotland, it had almost 100% support in the Highlands. This situation lasted until 1893 when the Free Presbyterian Church was formed by those unhappy with developments in the Free Church. The situation was further complicated in 1900 when several ministers and elders, and many thousands of laypeople, mainly in the Highlands, refused to follow the majority of the Free Church into the United Free Church (a union between the Free Church and the United Presbyterian Church) and continued the Free Church. The result was that many Highland communities, in which a few years before there had been only one Presbyterian church, now had three or four separate congregations: The Free Church, The Free Presbyterian Church and the United Free Church (and where it was present, the Church of Scotland). In 1929, most of the congregations in the United Free Church joined the Church of Scotland. The current denominations all trace their spiritual outlooks and practice to the pre-1843 church, but it is inevitable that each has developed its own features through the passing of time.
In due course, I will put further material on this website. Most of the material was never in copyright (if it still is, I will say so), so you are free to do with it as you wish. Occasionally I have updated geographical references so that contemporary readers may locate places mentioned in the text. The point of the website is not to encourage a mindless imitation of what these persons did. Instead it is to note the piety and spiritual experiences of persons who knew the power of God in their lives, who had profound experiences of his presence, and who passed on to subsequent generations a living expression of Christian living of high attainment.
