[3] It is lightly tied with a piece of red thread, and John Murdoch's legible and elegant handwriting is found on all the sheets except the final verso.

[4] Murdoch had similar religious views to William, and probably transcribed the manuscript in 1765 when he was working at Alloway, adding only grammatical corrections and language alterations.

[5] In 1875 the manual was transcribed and published for the first time by McKie and Drennan of Kilmarnock with a largely biographical introductory essay by a noted Burnsian, James Gibson of Liverpool.

The religious views expressed are more relaxed than rigid Scottish Calvinism and have been compared to Arminianism, named for the 17th-century theologian, Jacobus Arminius, of the University of Leyden.

[1] The "Auld Licht" orthodox Presbyterians frequently used the term "Arminian" as a criticism of the more liberal views of the 'New Licht' ministers such as William Dalrymple whom Robert Burns mentions in "The Kirk's Alarm":[1] "D'rymple mild, D'rymple mild, Though your heart's like a child, And your life like the new-driven snaw, Yet that winna save ye, Auld Satan must have ye, For preaching that three's ane an' twa."