Bishop George Hay
Bishop and writer, b. at Edinburgh, 24 Aug., 1729; d. at Aquhorties, 18
Oct., 1811. His parents were Protestant, his father having been a
non-juring Episcopalian, sentenced to banishment for his adherence to the
Stuarts in 1715. Destined for a medical career, young Hay began his
studies at Edinburgh university, and when barely sixteen found himself
summoned, after the battle of Prestonpans, to attend the wounded soldiers
on the battlefield. He afterwards followed the army of Charles Edward for
some months; but before the decisive fight at Culloden illness compelled
him to return to Edinburgh. He was later arrested for having participated
in the rising, and taken to London, where he was kept in custody for
twelve months. Here a Catholic bookseller named Neighan gave him his first
insight into Catholic teaching, and on his return to Scotland he studied
Gother's well-known work, "The Papist Represented and Misrepresented". An
introduction to Father Seaton, a Jesuit missionary at Edinburgh, was
followed by a prolonged course of instruction, and Hay was received into
the Catholic Church, making his first communion 21 Dec., 1749.
Debarred by the penal laws from graduating or receiving his medical
diploma, he accepted an appointment as surgeon on a trading vessel bound
for the Mediterranean. While in London, on his way to join his ship, he
became acquainted with the illustrious Bishop Challoner. The result of
their intercourse was that May determined to enter the priesthood, and on
the arrival of his vessel at Marseilles, Hay journeyed to Rome, where he
studied in the Scots' College for nearly eight years. Among his
fellow-students was the future Cardinal Erskine. In April, 1758, he was
ordained priest by Cardinal Spinelli, and on his return to Scotland was
appointed to assist Bishop Grant in the important district of the Enzie,
in Banffshire. In 1766 Bishop Grant succeeded Bishop Smith as Lowland
Vicar Apostolic, and soon afterwards procured the appointment of Hay as
his coadjutor. He was consecrated on Trinity Sunday, 1769, and
thenceforward for nearly forty years sustained practically the whole
burden of the vicariate.
Of strong constitution and untiring energy, as well as sterling piety and
zeal, he did an immense work for religion in Scotland during this period.
The stress of his ministerial labours did not prevent him from doing much
active literary work. He published the first English Catholic Bible
printed in Scotland; but the work which secured his own reputation as a
religious writer was his complete cycle of Catholic doctrine entitled "The
Sincere, Devout, and Pious Christian" published 1781-86, and still
recognized as a work of standard value. Bishop Hay's own life was a
perfect example of that ordered devotion and assiduous labour which he
inculcated in his writings, and his calm and equable temperament was proof
against the many trials and difficulties inseparable from his position as
a Catholic prelate under the penal laws. The Scottish Catholics, numbering
at this time some 25,000, were, through the operation of these iniquitous
statutes, in a condition little better than that of slaves or outlaws.
Bishop Hay's efforts to procure some relief for his co-religionists
aroused a storm of fanatical fury, and in February, 1779, the chapel and
house which he had recently built in Edinburgh were burned by the mob.
Very inadequate compensation for this outrage was made by the magistrates,
and the outbreak of the Gordon Riots in England, in 1780, further delayed
the long-hoped-for relief. In 1793, however, Bishop Hay had the
satisfaction of seeing his flock released by Act of Parliament from the
most oppressive of the penal laws. He had meanwhile laboured not only for
the Church at home, but also to improve the condition of the national
colleges at Rome and Paris. His great object, in regard to the college at
Rome, was to have it placed under the control of Scottish superiors. His
efforts on behalf of the institute in Paris were interrupted by the French
Revolution, in which it was entirely swept away. The bishop's last public
work was the foundation of a new seminary at Aquhorties, in Aberdeenshire,
and here, after transferring, with the sanction of Pius VII, the entire
government of the Lowland District to his coadjutor, Bishop Cameron, he
died, deeply regretted, at the age of eighty-three.