pel in the afternoon,
and to baptize his child, which this day ye minr. did." As far back as
1149[7] there was a church in Gleneagles under the rule of
Cambuskenneth Abbey; and, indeed, according to the most likely
derivation, Gleneagles is the Gaelic rendering of the monastic "_Vallum
Ecclesiae_"--Glen of the Church. The present chapel seems neither of
age nor consequence enough to give a title. The first church, if it
stood on the same site, must surely have been a larger building. A
mile further up the glen, however, there rises a spring of the purest
water, once believed to have virtue in curing certain diseases, and
still called S. Mungo's Well. The saintly name and the fame of healing
point to this spot as the more probable situation of the old church.

Our only glimpse of Blackford at the Reformation shows slight
resistance on the part of some to the orders of the new church
government. On October 25, 1564, Sir Patrick Fergy--"sir" being
equivalent to the modern "reverend"--was cited before the Kirk-Session
of S. Andrews[8] as coming in place of the consistorial court, "to
underlie diciplyn for takyng upon hand to prech and minister the
sacraments withoutyn lawfull admission and for drawyng of the peopll to
the Chapell of Tullbarne frae ther Paroche Kyrk." On the same day,
"Schyr Johan Morrison efter his recantacion admittit reader in Mithyll,
was delaytit and summoned for ministration of baptisme and mariaige
efter the Papistical fasson, and that indifferently to all persones,
and also for profanacion of the sacrament of the Lordis Supper, abusyng
the sam in privat howsis, as also in the kirkyard about the kyrkyard
dykis and resavying fra ilk person that communicat ane penne, and in
speciall upon Pasche day last was, in the hows of Jhon Graham in
Pannalis he ministrat to ane hundreth personis. He oft tymmis called
nocht comperand beand of befoir divers tymmis monest to desist tharfra
under panis of excommunicacion now wordely mentis the sam to be execut
aganis hym and sa decretit to be used."

A relic of pre-Reformation days is the old church bell, which hung till
recently in the belfry of old Blackford Church. The bell is inscribed
with the words "O Mater S.D., O Mater S.D., O Mater S.D., I.S.," and
the sign of a hammer. The thrice repeated phrase is evidently a
contraction for "O Mater Sanctissima Domini"--"O Most Holy Mother of
the Lord."

From the Book of the Assignation of Stipends, 1574, it ap