Note 165:1 — Chapter XIII

In 1762, Blacklock had received a presentation, as minister to the parish of Kirkcudbright. His induction was opposed on the ground of his blindness; and a bitter litigation ensued in the church courts, while the parishioners, having taken up the matter as vital in a religious view, persecuted him with all the savage and relentless cruelty of fanaticism. "No liberal and cultivated mind," he says, in reference to this dispute, "can entertain the least hesitation in concluding that there is nothing, either in the nature of things, or even in the positive institutions of genuine religion, repugnant to the idea of a blind clergyman. But the novelty of the phenomenon, while it astonishes vulgar and contracted understandings, inflames their zeal to rage and madness."