same to be kept in retentis, and appointed Mr Cameron to draw up an answer thereto. While attending a funeral in 1711 M'Kie was assaulted by some supporters of M'Millan. Two years later, when M'Kie's friends went to plough the glebe for him, M'Millan's followers rose against them, as John Johnstone recorded in the Old Statistical account: "When some of Mr M'Kie's adherents went to plough the glebe for his behoof, those of his competitor rose up against them, cut the reins in pieces, turned the horses adrift, and threw the ploughshare into the adjoining lake. Some threatened violence to the minister's person. An infuriated female actually attempted the execution of it, and would probably have effected her purpose, had he not interposed his hand between his throat and a reaping sickle with which she was armed. His fingers were cut to the bone. The glove which he wore was carefully preserved, as a memorial of the providential escape he had made. Another woman who was present, exclaimed, "Shed no blood", and her advice was followed. It was remarked by the country people, that the intending assassin never prospered afterward, and that by her own hand she terminated a life which she felt herself unable to endure." Constant appeals were made by M'Kie's adherents to the lord-justice clerk and solicitor-general, but the civil government manifested a disinclination to interfere, and the disorders continued in Balmaghie until M'Millan voluntarily resigned in 1715. Old Dissenters ministry Though retaining M'Kie's pulpit, M'Millan had since 1706 really acted as minister to "the Suffering Remnant of the true Presbyterian Church of Christ in Scotland," commonly known as the Cameronians, whose chief distinctive tenets were that no sworn allegiance was due to the monarch or government, on the ground that they had rescinded the covenants and the acts of the Reformation period. M'Millan's call by the remnant, which acquired and retained until 1743 the nickname of the "Macmillanites", was signed at Crawfordjohn in October 1706. M'Millan's accession was in fact of the utmost importance to the "United Societies". Their isolation originated in a movement of lay men and women who were dissatisfied with the Revolution settlement of Presbyterianism, at which the Covenants were ignored, and until 1706 they met only as fellowship "Societies". Since the death of James Renwick in 1688, and the defection of their three remaining ministers, Shields, Linning, and Boyd in 1689, they