James Bain (1828–1911) was a minister of the established Church of Scotland and a noted controversialist who, though conservative in theology, sought to oppose a culture of deference to landlords in the Scottish Highlands and especially the influence of the Seafield Estates.

)[7] James Bain is buried in St Clement's Churchyard, Dingwall, with his father and mother, his daughter Ella and his wife Jessie.

In 1885 he sued Lady Seafield, attempting to prevent her from building the second Grant Mausoleum in Duthil Old Parish Church and Churchyard, but lost the case.

[9] In 1887 he again sued Lady Seafield, seeking—again unsuccessfully—to cancel or reduce the contract by which the Estate gained from the Church the land on which the second mausoleum was sited.

[10] Throughout his ministry in Duthil, he challenged the Estate to bring the Manse of the established Church into a habitable condition for himself and his family, eventually winning this case in the Court of Session in 1894.

Cameron published a pamphlet, 'A challenge to prove the True Historic Church of Scotland' which contained the following accusations against James Bain:[13] Need it be observed here what were the circumstances that more immediately led to the shipwreck, so to speak, of this congregation?

I feel altogether compelled from a conscientious point of view to ask what respect or sympathy did Mr Bain show to the Countess Dowager of Seafield in her sad and heavy bereavement - lost her only dear husband and her only dear son, noblemen who were famous as good and noble proprietors, and representatives of a most famous clan, as well as unspeakable loss to their estates and people?

At its hearings at Kingussie, October 1883, James Bain gave evidence attacking the policies of the Seafield Estates as oppressive of the tenantry.

Stating his case in the Presbytery of Abernethy, the Synod of Moray and to the civil Court of Session, he successfully defended the right of the majority of ordinary members to elect the minister they choose.

[15] In his speech at one hearing, reported in the 'Elgin Courant and Courier', he took up the language of 'the masses; and 'the classes' then popularised by the Liberal Prime Minister, William Ewart Gladstone M.P.

[17] On the Cromdale Board, he supported moves to develop secondary education at Grantown Grammar School to allow students from Grantown-on-Spey and area to obtain university entrance qualifications.

A storm and a black cloud, accompanied with a dark thick mist, had come over the horizon, which endangered both ship and cargo, and the man at the helm, being not a great navigator, not a great expert at the compass, lost his track and steered the vessel upon rocks ahead and became a total shipwreck, and the cargo, intended for "Immanuel's Land," had been all lost.

To conduct a service of such length required a physically strong man, but Mr Bain in his youth was a splendid specimen of manhood.

The Session recall the robustness of his faith and the fervour of his expositions, which in the earlier days of his ministry drew great crowds to listen to his preaching.

The Session record their sense of his keen intellectual acumen, his great dialectical skill, his rare ability in defending positions which he deemed it his duty to hold, his indomitable courage and the straightforwardness and courtesy and absence of rancour from his nature.