Surely his Grace of Argyll ought to know, that the fascinations of Iona are by no manner of means attributable to the present ducal proprietor. They are by no means attributable to the climate, nor to the soil, nor to the rocks, nor to the neighbouring mountains; they are not attributable to modern architecture; they are not, therefore, attributable to any natural or artificial, but rather to a supernatural, nay, to a celestial agency! The priceless charms of Iona are to be ascribed to the incomparable genius of the Catholic religion, which his Grace of Argyll sets down as “mediæval superstition;” and the matchless treasures of Iona are to be ascribed to those devoted men, whose hearts throbbed with that heaven-born religion, and whose hands erected to God those beauteous structures which are, forsooth, “the monuments of the dull and often corrupt monotony of mediæval Romanism!”
J. Stewart M’Corry, D.D., The Monks of Iona; in Reply to “Iona, by the Duke of Argyll”; London (1871).
