The Highland Clearances

A recent lecture in Croick Church, Strathcarron on the Highland Clearances showed that many minister did more than popularly thought to bring about change in favour of the landless people. It was a very enlightening talk. Croick Church is notorious, of course: the church that kept its doors closed to about 90 evicted people, who sheltered in the graveyard for about a week before emigration and who etched names and heart-breaking messages on its window panes. The Free Church, in particular, it seems, did much more than was realised to alleviate the suffering of the people. They agitated to change the law which would make crofters more secure. This led, eventually, to the formation of the Scottish Crofters’ Union, today’s Scottish Crofting Foundation.

During these tough years some ministers encouraged ‘passive resistance’ to landlords and to watch out for their wily ways. And not one life was lost during the whole of this organised opposition.

More than ever is, today, being written about the Clearances. It is lamentable that many of my generation and previous generations went through school being taught so little on this period in which so many of our forefathers suffered. Alness, in particular, has a prominent place in the ‘agitations’ of the 1800s. In this year of Highland Culture it would be good to be more aware of that, wouldn’t it?

Passive resistance: the determination to not shed blood in pursuit of a just cause. It is an attitude requiring a steely resolve, wholehearted commitment. Today we associate it with Ghandi, Martin Luther King, etc. And surely, it can be used as an illustration of the ‘good fight of faith’.

Paul said that sin would not have mastery over believers. Great! But that implies that they must always maintain a watchful, vigilant attitude lest their gains be lost. Christians need to have determination, a steely resolve in face of the readiness of sin to claw back, in a wily way, the freedom that Christ has bought for them. It is tiring work: the Bible says we are at war with spiritual forces ranged against us.

When my grandfather returned to Skye from the Great War he, like many other Skyemen, was allocated land by the government as a tenant. Once, he was busy at work when a government official arrived. He said, ‘I’m here to put the rent up’. ‘And I’m here to keep it down’, was the veteran’s unsmiling reply. Quite how he intended to do that is not clear, but he won, temporarily, at least !

Resist the world. Paul wrote ‘our struggle is. .against the world forces of this darkness. . therefore take up the full armour of God that you may be able to resist . . and stand firm’. Ephes. 6:12,13