Search -
Balmerino and Its Abbey: A Parish History with Notices of the Adjacent District
Balmerino and Its Abbey A Parish History with Notices of the Adjacent District Author:James Campbell General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1899 Original Publisher: William Blackwood and Sons Subjects: Balmerino (Scotland) Balmerino, Scot Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this boo... more »k you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER III CELTIC MISSION ABIES AND MONASTERIES ' The tidings come of Jesus crucified ; They come -- they spread -- the weak, the suffering hear. Receive the faith, and in the hope abide.' -- Wordsworth. At what period or by whose agency the inhabitants of Fife, and of its northern parts in particular, were converted from heathenism cannot be determined with certainty; but the labours of early evangelists, and the establishment of monasteries within this district, or near to it, may be briefly noticed as suggesting probable answers to these questions. In the year 397 St. Ninian built his white house, or stone church, called Candida C'asa, now Whithorn, in Galloway, with which a monastery was connected. Bede informs us that by the preaching of Ninian the southern Picts -- that is, the inhabitants of the country between the Forth and the Grampians -- ' forsook the error of idolatry and embraced the true faith."' As Fife formed an important part of this region, Ninian may have been its first evangelist. There was before the Reformation a chapel in the Constabulary of Kinghorn dedicated to him; but as the time of its dedication is unknown, it cannot with certainty be affirmed that Fife contains any memorial of his labours of undoubted proximity to his age. It appears that the effects of Ninian's preaching were not permanent, and that there was afterwards a general relapse of the southern Picts into paganism. Subsequent to Ninian's time a monastery was founded atAbernethv, and another at St. Andrews --...« less