CHAPTER III
NEW MACHAR AND DAVID HUME
1737—1751
Soon after Reid’s return to Marischal College from his English tour, the young librarian was presented, by the professors of King’s College, to the pastoral charge of New Machar, a parish some ten miles to the north-west of Aberdeen. The fact that his kinsman, James Gregory, was professor in King’s may perhaps explain this unwonted exercise of patronage in favour of a graduate of the rival College.
The presentation, at any rate, raised a storm of opposition among the parishioners. It was the occasion of one of those conflicts of Church parties to which the law of patronage gave rise in Scotland in those days. The incidents of Reid’s introduction to ecclesiastical office form a characteristic picture. Rural prejudice was due in this case to various circumstances. It was partly influenced by a sermon, preached in the church of New Machar, on February 10, 1737, at the moderation of the call, by the Rev. John Bisset, one of the ministers of Aberdeen. Mr. Bisset had himself been minister of the parish ten years before. He was now a noted preacher in the North, and one with whom express concurrence of the congregation in an ecclesiastical settlement was a high article of
