Martin Martin,[6] writing in 1698, describes the happy condition of the islanders at that date. ‘The Inhabitants of St. Kilda are much happier than the generality of Mankind, as being almost the only People in the World who feel the sweetness of true Liberty: What the Condition of the People in the Golden Age is feign’d by the Poets to be, that theirs really is; I mean, in Innocency and Simplicity, Purity, Mutual Love, and Cordial Friendship, free from solicitous Cares and anxious Covetousness; from Envy, Deceit, and Dissimulation; from Ambition and Pride, and the Consequences that attend them. They are altogether ignorant of the Vices of Foreigners, and governed by the Dictates of Reason and Christianity, as it was first delivered to them by those Heroick Souls whose Zeal moved them to undergo danger and trouble, to plant Religion here in one of the remotest Corners of the World.’
This Eden, however, was doomed to have its Serpent, and these simple folk were fated to be led into error by a man who seems to have been physically above the average of the islanders, for he is described as ‘a Comely, well-proportioned fellow, Red-hair’d, and exceeding all the Inhabitants of St. Kilda in Strength, Climbing, &c.’ Naturally he was illiterate, for the means of culture were altogether lacking in that lonely isle; but he was above his fellows, inasmuch as he was a poet, and, moreover, he claimed to have the gift of ‘second sight,’ a pretension which would naturally cause him to be looked up to by these Gaelic islanders. These qualifications which Roderick (for such was his name) claimed, naturally pointed to his becoming a leader of some sort; and he seems to have entered upon his vocation early in life, for, when we first hear of him in his public capacity, he was but eighteen years of age.
We have read how strictly the islands kept the Sabbath, and Roderick seems to have been the first to break through their customs--by going fishing on that day. As, according to all moral ethics, something dreadful will surely overtake the Sabbath breaker, it is comforting to know that Roderick formed no exception to the rule. One Sunday he committed the heinous and, hitherto, unknown sin of fishing--and, on his return, he declared that, as he was coming home, a ‘Man, dressed in a Cloak and Hat,’ suddenly appeared in the road before him. Needless to say, this apparition frightened him, and he fell upon his face before the supernatural being, but the Man desired him not to be afraid, for he was John the Baptist, who had come specially from Heaven, the bearer of good tidings to the inhabitants of St. Kilda, and with a divine commission to instruct Roderick in religious matters, which instruction he was to impart to his neighbours for their spiritual welfare.