Note 271 — MEMORIAL CONCERNING THE HIGHLANDS WRITTEN BY ALEXANDER MACBEAN, A.M. MINISTER OF INVERNESS

This is a reference to the well-known story of the conversion of the islanders. The laird, a man ‘much respected,’ an elder of the kirk, reproved by the General Assembly for allowing his people to remain in popery, retrieved his character by driving his tenants from the Catholic chapel to the Protestant church with the vigorous application of a gold-headed cane, called by the Highlanders a yellow stick: from this the Presbyterian religion became known in the islands as Creidimh a bhata bhui, the creed of the yellow stick. Cf. Bellesheim’s Hist. Cath. Church Scot. (iv. 188).