Note 14 — PART I.—1809–1818

The first secession from the National Presbyterian Church of Scotland, as established at the Revolution, was in 1733, when differences on account of matters of administration, rather than any difference of theological doctrine, led to the foundation by Ebenezer Erskine of the dissenting communion called The Associate Presbytery or Secession Church. In 1747 this communion split itself, on the question of the obligation of the members to take a certain civil oath, called The Burgher’s Oath, into two portions, calling themselves respectively the Associate or Burgher Synod and the General Associate or Anti-Burgher Synod. The former in 1799 sent off a detachment from itself called the Original Burgher Synod or Old Light Burghers, the main body remaining as the Associate Burgher Synod; and it was to the second that Carlyle’s parents belonged, their pastor in Ecclefechan being that Rev. Mr. Johnston to whose memory Carlyle has paid such a tribute of respect, and whose grave is now to be seen in Ecclefechan churchyard, near Carlyle’s own.