O One of the most curious phases of religious mania is that where the patient is under the impression that he is divinely inspired, and has a special mission to his fellow-men, which he is impelled to fulfil at all costs and under all circumstances. From the earliest ages of Christianity pseudo-Christoi, or false Christs, existed. Simon Magus, Dositheus, and the famous Barcochab were among the first of them, and they were followed by Moses, in Crete, in the fifth century; Julian, in Palestine, circa A.D. 530; and Serenus, in Spain, circa A.D. 714. There were, in the twelfth century, some seven or eight in France, Spain, and Persia; and, coming to more modern times, there was Sabbatai Zewi, a native of Aleppo, or Smyrna, who proclaimed himself to be Well out in the Atlantic Ocean, far west, indeed, even of the Western Isles, stands the lonely island of St. Kilda, or Hirta, as it used to be called, from h-Iar-tir, the Gaelic for West land, or West country. Its rocky sides are inaccessible, except at one landing-place, at a bay on the south-east, and it is the home and breeding-place of millions of sea-birds, whose flesh and eggs form the main supply of food for the inhabitants, and whose feathers, together with a few sheep and cattle, and what little barley can be grown, or butter can be made, pay the trifling rent required, and help to provide the bare necessaries of civilized existence. The inhabitants are not healthy, so many dying, as young children, of a disease locally known as the ‘eight day sickness,’ a disease which generally attacks them on the eighth or ninth day after birth, and mostly proves fatal in the course of a day or two. From this and other causes, including falls from cliffs, the population has remained nearly stationary, as is evidenced by the fact that for the last hundred years the inhabitants have averaged under a hundred. Indeed, at one time, in 1724, small-pox attacked the islanders, being imported by one of them on his return from a visit to Harris, and all the adults died Lying out of the ordinary track of boats, even of yachts, it is, even now, seldom visited, and in the last century no one except the steward of Macleod (whose family have been the possessors of St. Kilda for hundreds of years), who made an annual pilgrimage to collect the rent, ever came near the place. Its loneliness was proverbial, so much so that it was an article of faith that the arrival of strangers brought with them a kind of influenza called boat-cough, which was sometimes fatal. This singular disease does not seem to be confined to St. Kilda, for Bates, in ‘The Naturalist on the River Amazon,’ mentions certain tribes near Ega who are gradually becoming extinct from a slow fever and cold, which attacks them after they have been visited by civilised people. And in the ‘Cruise of H.M.S. Galatea,’ in 1867-68, it says, ‘Tristran d’Acunha is a remarkably healthy island; but it is a singular fact that any vessel touching there from St. Helena invariably brings with it a disease resembling influenza.’ This belief is amusingly illustrated in Boswell’s ‘Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides.’ ‘This evening he (Dr. Johnson) disputed the truth of what is said as to the people of St. Kilda catching cold whenever strangers come. “How can there,” said he, “be a physical effect without a physical cause?” He added, laughing, “The arrival of a ship full of strangers would kill them; for, if one stranger gives them one cold, two strangers must give them two colds, and so on in proportion.” I wondered to hear him ridicule this, as he had praised McAulay for The first printed account of this poor lonely island is, probably, in a little book by Donald Monro, High Dean of the Isles,3 1594. He there says, ‘The inhabitants therof ar simple poor people, scarce learnit in aney religion, but McCloyd of Herray,4 his stewart, or he quhom he deputs in sic office, sailes anes in the zeir ther at midsummer, with some chaplaine to baptize bairns ther, and if they want5 a chaplaine, they baptize their bairns themselfes.’ At the end of the seventeenth century, when Roderick, the religious impostor, or fanatic, lived, things spiritual were somewhat improved, although they only had the annual clerical visit. There were three chapels on the island, to serve a population of one hundred and eighty. One was called Christ’s Chapel, hardly discernible from one of their dwellings, being built and thatched in a similar manner; but it contained The people observed as Holy-days Christmas, Easter, Good Friday, St. Columba’s Day, and All Saints. They ceased all work at midnight on Saturday, and kept the Sabbath, in this respect, very strictly, only resuming their ordinary avocations on Monday morning. They believed in the Trinity, and in a future state of happiness and misery, and that God ordains all things. They took great care with their churchyard, which they fenced round with stone, so that no cattle should desecrate God’s Acre, and they had a peculiar belief in the embodiment of spirits, and fancied that they could, at will, incorporate themselves with the rocks, hills, etc. Of the three chapels, one only seems to have been used, and this, not being large enough to accommodate the islanders, the whole of the inhabitants would assemble, on every Sunday morning, in the churchyard, and there devoutly say the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments. This form of worship was simple enough; but it seems to have been of recent introduction—i.e., about the beginning of the seventeenth century; when, somehow or other, there was a man upon the island who passed for a Roman Catholic priest, but who was so ignorant that he did not know the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, or the Decalogue correctly; and, consequently, he taught the poor people an incorrect Martin Martin,6 writing in 1698, describes the happy condition of the islanders at that date. ‘The Inhabitants of St. Kilda are much happier than the generality of Mankind, as being almost the only People in the World who feel the sweetness of true Liberty: What the Condition of the People in the Golden Age is feign’d by the Poets to be, that theirs really is; I mean, in Innocency and Simplicity, Purity, Mutual Love, and Cordial Friendship, free from solicitous Cares and anxious Covetousness; from Envy, Deceit, and Dissimulation; from Ambition and Pride, and the Consequences that attend them. They are altogether ignorant of the Vices of Foreigners, and governed by the Dictates of Reason and Christianity, as it was first delivered to them by those Heroick Souls whose Zeal moved them to undergo danger and trouble, to plant Religion here in one of the remotest Corners of the World.’ This Eden, however, was doomed to have its We have read how strictly the islands kept the Sabbath, and Roderick seems to have been the first to break through their customs—by going fishing on that day. As, according to all moral ethics, something dreadful will surely overtake the Sabbath breaker, it is comforting to know that Roderick formed no exception to the rule. One Sunday he committed the heinous and, hitherto, unknown sin of fishing—and, on his return, he declared that, as he was coming home, a ‘Man, dressed in a Cloak and Hat,’ suddenly appeared in the road before him. Needless to say, this apparition frightened him, and he fell upon his face before the supernatural being, but the Man desired him not to be afraid, for he was John the Baptist, who had come specially from Heaven, the bearer of good tidings to the inhabitants of St. Kilda, and with a divine commission to instruct Roderick in Roderick diffidently objected to thus being made a medium, and alleged his incapacity to receive such revelations and act upon them; but the pseudo-saint cheered him, and bade him be of good courage, declaring that he would immediately make him fit for his predestined purpose, and, according to the poor fanatic’s account, gave him the following instructions: It was to be of primary importance, and as a visible sign of their belief, that his followers should observe Friday as a strict fast—so strict, indeed, that not a particle of food of any description must pass their lips on that day, nor might they even indulge in a pinch of snuff—a small luxury which they dearly loved. He next promulgated the comforting assurance that many of the deceased islanders were Saints in Heaven, and there interceded for those living; that everyone had his own particular advocate, and, on the anniversary of the day peculiar to each Saint, his protÉgÉ on earth was to make a feast to his neighbours of the very best of his substance, such as mutton, fowls, &c., Roderick, of course, to be the chief and honoured guest on the occasion. A sheep was to be sacrificed on the threshold of each house by every family (presumably only once a year), and this was to be done in a specially cruel manner, for no knife was to touch it, but its throat was to be hacked with the crooked spades they used in husbandry, whose edges were about half-an-inch thick. This was to be done at night, but no one might partake of the mutton that night under penalty of similarly slaughtering a sheep the next day for That he was keen enough in his own interests is exemplified in one of his promulgations. He picked out a bush upon a rising ground, which he christened ‘John the Baptist’s Bush,’ for there, he declared, the Saint had appeared to him; and this he ordered should be holy ground, which must never be defiled by the tread of sheep or cattle. He also built a wall—certainly not a high one—round it: and should, by chance, any unhappy sheep, in the lightsomeness of its heart, or succumbing to the temptation of the herbage, overleap this wall, and dare to browse upon the sacred soil, it was staightway to be slain—and Roderick and its owner were to eat its carcase. But, as the Saint evidently foresaw that some stiff-necked, and not properly-converted proselyte, might object to this disposition of his personal property and might refuse to have the sheep slaughtered, he commanded that such a recusant should be Anathema, cast out, and excluded from all fellowship, until such time as he saw the error of his ways, recanted, and expiated his sin by permitting the sacrifice. For discipline must be maintained in a religious body, as well as in a purely secular society; and Roderick had no intention of having his authority disputed. For minor offences he had a cheerful penance. No matter what was the weather, the sinner must strip, and forthwith walk or jump into the water, there to stand until the divinely-inspired one He was for no half-measures. This new Divine revelation must thoroughly supersede and root out the old superstitions; so he forbade the use of the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments—the whole formulary of the islanders’ simple faith—and substituted forms of his own. His prayers are described as rhapsodical productions, in which, in spite of the abolition of the old form of worship, he introduced the names of God, our Saviour, and the immaculate Virgin, together with words unintelligible either to himself or his hearers, but which he declared to have received direct from the Baptist, and delivered to his hearers, as in duty bound. He kept up his connection with St. John, and used to assert that every night, when the people were assembled, he heard a voice, saying, ‘Come you out, and then he lost all control over himself, and was constrained to go. Then would the Baptist meet him, and instruct him in what he was to say to the people. St. John evidently expected his disciple to exercise all his intelligence, for he would only say his message once, and never could be got to repeat it. On one occasion, Roderick could not understand it, or hardly remember a sentence; so he naturally inquired of the Saint how he was to behave. He got no comfort, however, only a brusque, ‘Go, you have it,’ with which he was fain to be content, and, wonderful to relate, on his return to his flock, he remembered every word he had been told, and could retail Naturally the women flocked to him, and he took them specially (some said too specially) under his protection. To them he revealed that, if they followed him faithfully, eternal bliss should be their portion, and that they should go to heaven in glorious state, riding upon milk-white steeds. For them he exercised his poetic talents (for he composed long, rhapsodical rhymes, which he called psalms, and which were sung by his flock), and he taught them a devout hymn, called the ‘Virgin Mary’s,’ which he declared she had sent specially to them, and that it was of such wonderful efficacy, that whoever could repeat it by heart would not die in child-bearing; but, of course, so valuable a gift could not be imparted gratis, so every scholar was mulcted in a sheep before she was instructed in the potent hymn. Yet, as with many another, a woman was the primary cause of his downfall. It was his behaviour to a woman that first opened the eyes of his deluded followers, and showed them that their idol was fallible, and that his feet were ‘part of iron, and part of clay.’ The wife of Macleod’s representative found favour in his sight; but, being a virtuous woman, she told her husband of the Prophet’s wicked advances; and these two laid a little trap, into which the unsuspecting, but naughty, Roderick walked. It was very simple: the husband hid himself until he judged proper to appear—confronted the guilty man—spoke burning words of reproof to him—thoroughly disorganised him, and brought him very low—made him beg his pardon, and promise he would These doubts were further confirmed by one or two little facts which led the people to somewhat distrust his infallibility, especially in one case in which his cousin-german Lewis was concerned. This man had an ewe which had brought forth three lambs at one time, and these wicked sheep actually browsed upon the sacred bush! Of course we know the Baptist had decreed their slaughter, and Lewis was promptly reminded of the fact—but he did not see it in that light. His heart was hard, and his sheep were dear to him. He argued that, from his point of view, it was unreasonable to kill so many animals, and inflict such serious damage to their proprietor, for so trivial a fault—and, besides, he would not. Of course there was nothing to be done with such an hardened sinner but to carry out the law, and excommunicate him; which was accordingly done—with the usual result. The poor simple folk, in their faith, looked for a speedy and awful judgment to fall upon Lewis and his sheep. ‘But what gave rise To no little surprise, Nobody seem’d one penny the worse!’ And then they bethought them that, if it were The chaplain who accompanied the steward, and who was sent over from Harris by Macleod, purposely to look into this matter, made the Prophet publicly proclaim himself an impostor, compelled him to commence with his own hands the destruction of the enclosure round the sacred bush, and scatter the stones broadcast—and, finally, the steward, whose word was absolute law to these poor people, took him away, never to return. The poor credulous dupes, on being reproved for so easily complying to this impostor, with one voice answered that what they did was unaccountable; but, seeing one of their own number and stamp in all respects endued, as they fancied, with a powerful faculty of preaching so fluently and frequently, and pretending to converse with John the Baptist, they were induced to believe in his mission from Heaven, and therefore complied with his commands without dispute. Of his ultimate fate nothing is known, the last record of him being that, after having been taken to Harris, he was brought before the awful Macleod, to be judged, ‘who, being informed of this Fellow’s Impostures, did forbid him from that time forward to Preach any more on pain of Death. This was a great mortification, as well as disappointment, to the Impostor, who was possessed with a fancy that Mack-Leod would hear him preach, and expected no In October, 1885, public attention was particularly directed to St. Kilda, and the story cannot be better told than by reproducing some contemporary newspaper paragraphs. Morning Post, October 9, 1885.—‘A letter has been received by Principal Rainy, Edinburgh, and has been forwarded to the Home Secretary from St. Kilda. The letter was found on the shore of Harris, having been floated from St. Kilda in a little boat made of a piece of plank. The letter was written by the clergyman of St. Kilda, by direction of the islanders, asking that the Government should be informed that their corn, barley, and potatoes were destroyed by a great storm, in the hope that Government would send a supply of corn-seed, barley, and potatoes, as the crop was quite useless.’ Ibid, October 21, 1885.—‘The steamer from Glasgow, carrying supplies to the starving people of St. Kilda, reached the island on Monday, and safely landed the stores. The islanders were in good health, but their crops have been swept away, and, but for the supplies sent by the steamer, they would have been in very perilous straits for food. Intelligence of the distress of St. Kilda was first made known by bottles thrown into the sea.’ Times, April 8, 1886.—‘A Parliamentary paper has been issued containing a report of Mr. Malcolm McNeill, inspecting officer of the Board of Supervision, on the alleged destitution in the island of St. Kilda, in October, 1885, with Another newspaper paragraph not only confirms this, but adds to our knowledge of the island and its inhabitants. ‘Mr. Malcolm McNeill ... reported on the 24th of October that the population of St. Kilda—seventy-seven souls in all—were amply, “indeed, luxuriously,” supplied with food for the winter. The supplies included sheep, fulmar, solan geese, meal, potatoes, milk, fish, tea, and sugar; and a large sum of money, said to average not less than £20 a family, was known to be hoarded in the island—a large profit being derived from tourists. Mr. McNeill states that a former emigrant, who returned from Australia for a few months in 1884, spread discontent among the people, who now showed a strong desire to emigrate, and in this he suggested that the Government should assist them. Dr. Acheson of the Jackal, reporting on visits paid both then |