but to save them." Before receiving Mr Nairn's dissent, the Presbytery prevailed on him to delay the step till next meeting. At next meeting at Stirling, on the 22 December, he again gave in his reasons of dissent from the paragraph in question, which were received, but nothing was done till 3 February 1743, when the Presbytery agreed to withdraw the paragraph from their Act. They, however, gave Mr Nairn to understand that, unless he withdrew his dissent, the Presbytery would hold him homologating the sentiments they repudiated, and would proceed against him according to the rules of the Church. Mr Nairn, in spite of this warning, refused to retract, and a committee was appointed to deal with him. Immediately upon this appointment being made, Mr Nairn handed in a paper, entitled "Protest, Secession, and Appeal," and withdrew. When about to retire, the moderator, by appointment of Presbytery, cited him apud acta to compear before the Presbytery, in the house of the Rev. Adam Gib, next day at ten o'clock, but he did not comply. A committee was sent to Kirkcaldy to expedite matters, but without effect. He was summoned by the Anti-burgher Synod in November 1747, and appeared before that Court in January 1748, and boldly denied that subjection to the civil government was lawful; and at a subsequent meeting he was deposed. Few of his people took part with him in his second secession, but those who did so built a small place of worship for him at a short distance from the one from which he and they had withdrawn. Shortly after Mr Nairn's second secession, he formed a connection with the Rev. Mr M'Millan of Balmaclellan, and with him became joint founder of the Reformed Presbytery. He left his new connection some time after, and again returned to the Established Church. The congregation at Abbotshall, from which he had withdrawn, did not, however, consider their connection with Mr Nairn properly dissolved till the Synod by a public deed declared it to be so. Time with the Old Dissenters After the Revolution the United Societies lost all three of their ministers who joined the reconstituted Church of Scotland. For many years the Societies continued to worship in what was, in practical purposes, a small denomination with no ministers. After around 16 years John M'Millan joined the Society people but being a single ordained minister, lacked the authority