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 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
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 SAMUEL AQNEW, 
 
 OF PHILADELPHIA, PA. 
 
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 . BX 9083 .M32 1846 
 
 I Macfarlane, James, 1808 
 
 I 1866. 
 
 I Late secession from the 
 
 U — i'^.tiiirch of S_coJ:.land 
 
THE LATE SECESSION 
 
 THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 
 
EDINBURGH : BALLANTTNE AND HUGHES, 
 PAUL'S WORK, CA\ONGATE, AND 3 THISTLE STREET. 
 
 ^ 
 
THE 
 
 LATE SECESSION 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 CHURCH OF SCOTLAND 
 
 v/ 
 
 REV. JAMES MACFARLANE, A.M. 
 
 MINISTER OF DUDDIXGSTONE. 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AXD SONS, 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON. 
 
 M.DCCC.XLVL 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 CH.iP. I. — PRELIMINARY REMARKS, 1 
 
 II. — THE CHAPEL ACT, 1834, 21 
 
 III. — THE VETO ACT, 40 
 
 IV. — THE AUCHTERARDER CASE, AND THE AS- 
 SEMBLY 1839, 55 
 
 V. — THE REIGN OF DIPLOMACY, 73 
 
 VI. — THE REIGN OF INTIMIDATION, 87 
 
 VII. — THE CONFEDERACY, 103 
 
 ... VIII. — THE SECESSION, 119 
 
 li. — THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION, 144 
 
 X. — CONCLUDING REMARKS, 175 
 
 APPENDIX, 185 
 
V 
 
 THE LATE SECESSION 
 FROM THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND, 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 
 
 In- -submitting to the Public, as I now do most 
 respectfully, a few observations on the history of the 
 late Secession from the Church of Scotland, which has 
 assumed to itself the title of the Free Church, it were 
 worse than affectation in me to say that I discharge 
 my task without prejudice or bias of any description. 
 Assuredly it were presumption in any man to affirm, 
 that in any age, however unruffled the current of its 
 history has been, he can exercise an absolutely impar- 
 tial judgment on the events which are from month 
 to month transpiring. Such serene elevation, such 
 philosophic abstraction, and, let me add, such Chris- 
 tian equanimity, are of rare attainment, if indeed they 
 
 A 
 
2 PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 
 
 have ever been readied. And far less are tliey to be 
 expected in those periods, whether of civil or ecclesi- 
 astical commotion, when a new order of tilings is sup- 
 planting the old, and unlooked-for vicissitudes are 
 disturbing the thoughts like a convulsion of nature. 
 That at such seasons, when ancient landmarks are 
 removed, and fresh ones attempted — when a year does 
 the work of a century — and institutions long established 
 arc rudely assailed — institutions that have encircled 
 a country with the veneration of ages, imparting to it 
 a hio'her name, under the Providence of God, than 
 the arbitress of the political destinies of nations : that 
 then the mind of every spectator should vibrate to the 
 shock which threatens a nation, or endangers a church, 
 is not to be wondered at. When the whole atmosphere, 
 civil or ecclesiastical, is so completely disturbed, tran- 
 quillity is not to be looked for ; and he must be more 
 than man who claims it, whatever side he espouses, 
 or to whatever party he belongs. 
 
 But if distance be necessary for the gravity of the 
 historian, it is not so needful to the hghter work of 
 the annalist. There are opportunities of information — 
 there are facilities of reference — there are living men, 
 and facts fortunately not yet dead, not unworthy of 
 notice. Would it not be wrong to allow these to pass 
 away unchronicled ; or to be hurried prematurely to 
 their grave, and buried out of sight ? They are the 
 life of history, as they are the food of philosophy ; and 
 no one who values the prevalence of truth over error, 
 
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 3 
 
 or of knowledge over delusion and ignorance, would 
 seek to cover them with a funeral pall or a shroud. 
 Wliy should he ? May not facts shed their light upon 
 principles ? May not the occurrences of one year aid 
 us in comprehending the mysteries of another ? May 
 not an open crevice in the council-room of ecclesiastical 
 agitation, ere time has closed it, reveal its secrets, and 
 betray its tones ? Is there nothing to be gained by 
 marking the footprints of the vahant men, and the 
 leaders, and the captains ? Does justice require that 
 the oracle of to-day be imphcitly heard, and that the 
 dogmas of yesterday are of no more significance than 
 the leaves which the Sybil scattered in the wind ? Or 
 where were the fault, if, without presuming to read the 
 heart of a party whose pulse now beats so high, we 
 venture to feel that pulse at the wrist, marking the 
 rapidity of its movements, and the increasing velocity 
 of its speed ? At all events, against such an operation, 
 complaint cannot be taken by those who have made so 
 free with the scalping-knife, and, in their day and gene- 
 ration, short as it has been, have acquired the air and the 
 arts of the famiHars of the Inquisition. They cannot take 
 exception to it. The Church of Scotland has maintained 
 a silence the most dignified and becoming ; and that in 
 the face of the most unmerited obloquy. Amidst the most 
 gratuitous insults, and the discouragements they are 
 apt to engender, her church courts have been enabled 
 to preserve the even tenor of their way. By the 
 blessing of her great Head, whose glory she seeks, 
 
4 PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 
 
 and whose precious name she is unostentatiously, but 
 in sincerity, labouring to commend, her breaches have 
 been repaired. Her schemes of Christian benevolence, 
 over whose supposed destruction the shout of triumph 
 was so unfeelingly and prematurely raised, are holding 
 on their course. And if I now venture, as an indivi- 
 dual minister, to speak my mind boldly, and yet under 
 a deep sense of responsibility, it is more to unburden 
 my thoughts, than under any dread, by what is going 
 on around us, of any permanent injury to the Esta- 
 blishment, and far less of its downfall. 
 
 We submit then, at the outset, that the Free Seces- 
 sion was not the growth of a day, or a month, or a 
 year. It is not exclusively the work of 1834, or 
 1839 ; and much less of 1843. Conceiving, as we do, 
 that it owes much of its intensity to the character of 
 the times which preceded it, and, moreover, was in 
 some degree shaped by the complexion of the times 
 which gave it birth, a review of these seems all but 
 indispensable. These were, in many respects, pecuhar. 
 Scarcely had the present century opened on the religious 
 circles of Scotland, when a marked change began to ex- 
 hibit itself. That it was in material points a change for 
 the better, no one, we imagine, will gainsay, who con- 
 siders the epoch that preceded it. That might be 
 fairly pronounced at once a time of religious depression 
 and of religious inaction. That the doctrines of the 
 Cross, to which all other topics in the ministrations of 
 the pulpit ought to be subsidiary, did not obtain that 
 
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 5 
 
 prominence to which they were entitled, it were vain to 
 deny. Empty and unmeaning essays on the beauties 
 of virtue ; cold and formal harangues, which savoured 
 as much of the school of Plato as of Christ ; a strange 
 and most unphilosophical, not to say unscriptural, 
 reluctance to lay broad and wide the foundations of 
 morahty, on the only rock on which it could rest — 
 were, we fear, but too prevalently felt. If the theology 
 of the old worthies, whose works praised them in the 
 gates, had not altogether disappeared, at all events it 
 was but feebly recognised. Among the clergy its 
 unction became less and less palatable ; its nervous 
 and scriptural exposition of gospel truth proved more 
 and more uncongenial to a vitiated taste ; and, but for 
 tlie fact that no combination of circumstances, no 
 ecclesiastical confederacy, however extensive, could 
 banish it from the homes and from the hearth-sides of 
 the common people, it might have laboured under a 
 permanent eclipse. The prevailing hterature of the 
 day — under what might be called its Augustan age in 
 Scotland — did not tend to repress these tendencies, 
 and if in the remote rural parishes, where its influence 
 was least felt, it still operated in no small degree to 
 perpetuate the reign of rehgious indifference, what 
 could be expected in the metropohs, where its rule was 
 paramount and its mandates most obsequiously obeyed ? 
 In fact, the theology of Blair's Sermons, if theology it 
 can be called, was but a type of the age. Correct, 
 elegant, spiritless ; polished in their diction, but defi- 
 
6 PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 
 
 cient in religious sentiment ; perfect in their symmetry, 
 but without the fire of gospel truth to give them life ; 
 they formed the theme of all but universal attraction ; 
 and he who ventured to whisper dissent would have 
 been pronounced an outlaw from the religious common- 
 wealth. No wonder that the piety of the Church lan- 
 guished under so scanty and meagre a diet. We look 
 in vain for the symptoms of a vigorous and healthy 
 Christianity. Necessarily cut oif from subjects most 
 adapted to touch the heart and to determine the hand, 
 the disciples of this school were not likely to exhaust 
 themselves on any foreign service ; and hence, in the 
 highest wallis of religious pliilanthropy — in the recog- 
 nition of gospel privilege, and the responsibility it 
 entails — in the inventive zeal of rehgious enterprise, 
 acknowledging no limits but those of the globe, and no 
 narrower temple than the earth and the sky — we are 
 presented with httle but a dreary and melancholy 
 blank. But, by and by, a new order of things arose. 
 As the nineteenth century was running its course, the 
 waters of the sanctuary were stirred. Evangelical 
 preaching, hitherto superciliously treated as the effu- 
 sion of an excited imagination, if not as the indication 
 of a weak mind, was beginning to assume its proper 
 place in the services of the pulpit. Shghted elsewhere, 
 it had long found an asylum among the Dissenters of 
 Scotland ; and now, without abandoning them, its re- 
 viving influence was once more felt in the bosom of the 
 Establishment. A love of gospel truth spread rapidly 
 
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 7 
 
 among all classes of the compaunity. It was no longer 
 a solitary pastor here and there who appeared before 
 the people in the spirit of Paul, determined to know 
 nothing among them save Jesus Christ and liim cruci- 
 fied. The leaven spread. In the chief cities especially, 
 the ministrations of such were widely welcomed ; and 
 almost every successive vacancy gave an additional 
 impulse to the feeling which was now melting down 
 the sympathies of the people into one mass, and urging 
 them in one channel. Nor can it be forgotten, that 
 with an increasing sense of the importance of gospel 
 truth, there came an increasing sense of the importance 
 of gospel privilege. The spirit of religious achieve- 
 ment was not allowed to slumber ; it sought to plant 
 the tree of life in the remotest countries, and to an- 
 nounce the gospel of peace to the most savage tribes. 
 Through the whole body of the people the impressive 
 consideration of Christian responsibility began to cir- 
 culate, quickening into vigour aU their dormant ener- 
 gies. The exertions of the sohtary Christian swelled 
 into the resources cf the extended society; and the 
 desultory efforts of the few were thrown into the shade 
 by the powerful operations of the many who combined 
 for the diffusion of truth. In the history of missions, 
 as in the history of nations, the reproach of Scotland 
 was wiped out ; and, as though eager to compensate 
 for the past, and impatient to share in the honours 
 and triumphs of the Christian world, she was seen, 
 not so much holding out a single cup of water to the 
 
8 PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 
 
 passing pilgrim, as opening up a fountain in the desert, 
 to which myriads might repair. 
 
 The spectacle was at once most pleasing and pro- 
 mising to the Christian ; and I am old enough to re- 
 member that many devout and serious men, pastors 
 and people, within and without the pale of the Esta- 
 blishment, hailed it as the dawn of a bright and glori- 
 ous day. AYhether their anticipations were reahzed, 
 I must not now pause to enquire. It is sufficient for 
 my present purpose to remark, that this season of 
 reaction was not unmixed with evil. Unalloyed good, 
 perhaps, was scarcely to be looked for ; and in saying 
 so, I would certainly shrink from the sin of inflicting 
 a wound on the cause of evangelical religion. For- 
 tunately for the Church of God in every age, the 
 gospel in all its high and holy mysteries — in all 
 its sublime and distinguishing doctrines — in all its 
 bright and blessed promises — is not at our disposal. 
 " In the view of an intelligent and honest mind," says 
 the acute Mr Foster, " the religion of Christ stands as 
 clear of all connexion with the corruptions of men, and 
 churches, and ages, as when it was first revealed. It 
 retains its purity like Moses in Egypt, or Daniel in 
 Babylon, or the Saviour of the world himself while he 
 mingled with Scribes and Pharisees, or Pubhcans and 
 sinners. But though it thus instantly and totally 
 separates itself from all appearance of relation to the 
 vices of bad men, a degree of effort may be required 
 in order to display it, or to view it, in an equally 
 
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 9 
 
 perfect separation from the weakness of good ones." 
 Such an effort, however, is at no time improper, and 
 can never disserve the cause of evangehcal rehgion. 
 There may he indications given — there may be symp- 
 toms apparent — there may be excesses evolved — even 
 in seasons, comparatively at least, of much advance- 
 ment in the Christian world, which it were culpable 
 leniency to overlook. In their anxiety to shun one 
 extreme, not a few whose personal religion it were 
 worse than uncharitable to doubt, may touch the hmits 
 of another ; and in their recoil from what may be called 
 the frigid zone of Christianity, where there is no heat 
 in those beams that convey hght to the eye, may 
 pant after higher ardours in religion, and a higher 
 temperature in the Christian life, than can v>'ell be 
 borne. Nor can we forbear saying that this was largely 
 felt in the Church of Scotland about 1830, and for 
 some years previously. A tendency among many to 
 run into excess — a morbid love of excitement, which 
 gathered its nutriment from meetings, and schemes, 
 and platforms, to the neglect sometimes of the every- 
 day food of the gospel, became one of the marked 
 features of the time. It was but too plainly visible in 
 the Metropolis ; for one in Glasgow there were twenty 
 in Edinburgh whose minds were ever on the strain. 
 Unmindful of the truth, that soberness is an essential 
 ingredient in godliness, and that zeal without know- 
 ledge is vain ; they did not steadily weigh their plans 
 in the golden balances of the sanctuary. The nice 
 
10 PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 
 
 proportions of Christian duty were not always main- 
 tained. Primary obligations were often jostled by 
 secondary ones. The family became subsidiary to the 
 committee-room or the public hall ; and the homestead 
 of the heart, with the incessant and prayerful culture 
 of its affections and desires, was not so attractive as the 
 ample range of nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and 
 tongues. And in their pulpit attachments there were 
 multitudes not more staid. May I not appeal confi- 
 dently to many of the clergy, when I say that this 
 was a time of the utmost fickleness? Many there 
 were who seemed unable to settle down to any one 
 church, or to profit by any fixed ministry. The 
 newest intrant became, for the time, the most popular 
 man; and in circles which arrogated to themselves 
 almost exclusively the character of religious, serious 
 conversation bore no other meaning than a criticism of 
 this sermon, or of that minister — a useless panegyric 
 on the merits of one preacher, or a studied attempt to 
 depreciate those of another. The poor earthen vessel 
 in which the treasure was deposited was so often 
 handled as to be confounded with the pearl of great 
 price ; and, as a necessary consequence, there arose an 
 idolatry of men — a worshipping of names — the per- 
 nicious fruits of which we have lived to reap in an abun- 
 dant harvest. Indeed, in reading these words of Mr 
 Jay, we feel as though the capital of Scotlanti, about 
 1830, sat for its portrait, — '' Many are unsteady in 
 their" attendance and fickle in their attachment. Such 
 
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 11 
 
 hearers frequently attempt to justify themselves by 
 accusing the preacher : they are not capricious, but 
 can no longer profit under liis ministry. After, per- 
 haps, hearing a new preacher every Sabbath, and five 
 sermons a-week, and acquiring a fastidiousness and 
 vagrancy of mind that nothing can satisfy or fix, they 
 impute to him the effect of a change which has only 
 taken place in themselves. It is not an unusual thing 
 for those who were once ready to pull out their eyes 
 for liis sake, to leave liis labours, and to pass him un- 
 noticed in the street.'* 
 
 Were particularity necessary in such a topic as 
 this, we might readily cite many other points illustra- 
 tive of the excitabihty which prevailed. Various were 
 the shapes it assumed ; its existence was felt in almost 
 every circle ; and not a few ministers, who had not the 
 courage pubhcly to rebuke it, were known by their 
 friends privately to condemn it. It might be, that in 
 the public service of the sanctuary, it was not, at least 
 in tliis respect, the province of any man to separate 
 the chaff from the wdieat ; or, that it was no easy task 
 to dissect the noxious growth, without toucliuig the 
 vitals of religion ; or, that it was more than could be 
 expected of frail humanity, even at the altar, that it 
 should be nice in analysing the quahty of the incense 
 with which the air of a crowded church was then so 
 densely impregnated. Be it so. There it was — ripe 
 for change, ready for every topic of agitation ; and, 
 with strength enough, if unrepressed, to set the whole 
 
12 PKELIMINARY REMARKS. 
 
 course of the ecclesiastical world on fire. Without, for 
 instance, dwelling on the Row heresy, into which not a 
 little of this excitability rushed, and through which it 
 partially found vent, who has forgotten, even at earher 
 date, the agitation of the Apocryphal controversy ? Is 
 it not fresh in our recollection, with what vehemence 
 it burned, and with what vivacity it was maintained ? 
 Can we fail to recall the feuds it created, and the es- 
 trangements it produced ? Was it not true, that many 
 who hurried to the Assembly-Rooms, from one meeting 
 to another, would have gone away rather disappointed 
 had they not been refreshed with some new aberration 
 of the Earl Street Board ? Or, have we not proof still, 
 that when tongues were exhausted, and even charity 
 failed, so broad-cast was it on the face of society, that 
 the pencil" of the caricaturist took it up ? In this, I 
 am not animadverting on the controversy itself — its 
 merits are independent of the excitement it produced, 
 or, we should rather say, of the irritability it entailed. 
 And, far less is reflection cast on the distinguished 
 name with which that important contest was so closely 
 associated. There is no grave in Scotland — and I say 
 it most mournfully — next to that of my kindred, by 
 the side of which I would at this moment more softly 
 tread. Dr Thomson was undoubtedly a great man ; 
 and if the compact and stately ship afloat upon the 
 seas, cleaving the water under the ample canopy of 
 heaven, is not to be identified with every living thing 
 that streams in its wake, I am free to confess that 
 
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 13 
 
 liis memory is not to be burdened with all the heart- 
 burning, and turmoil, and agitation of the day. But, 
 most assuredly , the shock of the controversy was not con- 
 fined to the Bible boards of the country. If it was felt at 
 London, as well it might, Edinburgh did not preserve its 
 tranquillity. The great sea in which leviathan moved, 
 was not the only one stirred. The agitation spread 
 — the most quiet waters were troubled — academic 
 seclusion and domestic retirement were alike disturbed. 
 Bold and unmeasured language, keen and unbending 
 controversy, acrimonious and uncharitable censure — 
 which as little magnified the cause, as they could promote 
 the interests, of religion — became the fashion, we had 
 almost said the rage, of the day. Even on female 
 hps, which should ever bear the olive-branch of peace, 
 controversy ahghted as a bird of ill omen, not speedily 
 to take its flight again ; and though the waters were 
 afterwards assuaged, it was not till they had left be- 
 hind them, in the most secluded circles, many melan- 
 choly proofs of the wreck of the charities of the 
 Christian life. 
 
 Kor, if we pursue our investigations into what may 
 be strictly called the ecclesiastical world, will we find 
 matters at this periodni a much more settled state. 
 The Church had been for many years divided, by the 
 conventional notions of the day, into two great parties. 
 What were the distinctive features of each it is not 
 our province to determine. Perhaps, in their separate 
 spheres, they were not more fixed in their articles 
 
14 PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 
 
 of polity than were parties in the state, carrying with 
 them their characteristic appellations — aye, and glory- 
 ing in them — with scarcely a fragment left of their 
 ori2:inal creed. But whatever the abstract merits of 
 the two conflicting parties might be, it is beyond all 
 dispute, that, as this century rolled on, their relations 
 to each other became more and more disturbed. The 
 ascendancy of Robertson, wliich was all but paramount, 
 had been succeeded by the leadersliip of Hill — and that 
 too was waning. Other influences had sprung up — 
 the times were altered — a change had come over the 
 spirit of the age, and the courts of the Church could 
 claim no exemption. The Leshe controversy gave the 
 first decided indication of it. It was followed up by 
 minor contests from time to time, till, after the death 
 of Sir Henry Moncreiff and Dr Thomson, it was felt 
 on all hands, that, transferred from one of the scales of 
 the ecclesiastical balance, the increasing suffrages of the 
 clergy were rapidly giving preponderance to the other. 
 Nor were other influences awanting to prove that the 
 rule of the dominant party could not now be maintained. 
 Without giving credence to the Characteristics of 
 Witherspoon, which have more of the breadth of 
 caricature than of the veracity of history, it is not to 
 be denied, that in popular apprehension, their ascen- 
 dancy had been associated with days of coldness and 
 religious deadness. Under this dynasty, adorned 
 though it had been by much that was weighty in 
 talent and graceful in literature. Dissent had sprung 
 
PRELIMINARY REBIARKS. 15 
 
 up and taken deep root in the country. The sympa- 
 thies of the pubhc, if not shghted and contemned in the 
 general course of their pohcy, at all events had not been 
 consulted ; and when the era of reaction came on, 
 and the voice of the people came to be heard, it was 
 not to be thought it should exhaust itself in their 
 defence. Accordingly, as their opponents could not 
 but see their advantage, they were not slow to improve 
 it. Especially by the younger and more fiery mem- 
 bers of the party was the opportunity seized ; and, 
 henceforth, the term '' Moderate," did something more 
 for them than adorn a pamphlet or grace a debate. 
 Arrogating to themselves the name of Evangelical, they 
 hurled it at their antagonists as a term of reproach. 
 As the conflict thickened, it became their sliield, and 
 their sword, and their buckler. The students of 
 theology were scared by it, so frequently did it flash 
 upon their eyesight ; and, with it abroad upon the land, 
 the probationers of the Church could scarcely venture 
 to peep, or mutter, or move the wing. The rust was 
 not allowed to gather on it — it was none the worse for 
 the wear — it showed bright and clear on every plat- 
 form ; and if urged by an array of constitutional 
 names, or assailed by a phalanx of eccle^stical autho- 
 rities whose steady pressure was far from agreeable, 
 they who could use no other weapons might soon wield 
 this, putting to flight the collected wisdom of ages, 
 amidst the plaudits of an admiring crowd. It mattered 
 not that the gospel was preached as purely, and not 
 
16 PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 
 
 less sincerely, by many of those whom they sought to 
 stigmatize, as by themselves. It mattered not that the 
 ecclesiastical questions on which they were ready to 
 stake their existence were as little essentially con- 
 nected with the vital doctrines of religion as they 
 themselves were. Nay, it mattered not that the plans 
 of Christian benevolence, for the continued prosperity 
 of which the Church has so much reason to be thank- 
 ful, owed, under God in the majority of them, their 
 origin to those to whom they were opposed. To 
 Prmcipal Baird we owe the Education Scheme in all 
 its national import — a scheme which, in every part of 
 Scotland, and more especially in the Highlands and 
 Islands, has perpetuated his name as one of the most 
 indefatigable and most benevolent benefactors of his 
 race. To Principal Macfarlan we owe the Colonial 
 Scheme of the Church — second to none in its importance, 
 for its enlightened and Christian patriotism, and over 
 whose extended and still increasing usefulness we may 
 express the hope, that this revered father may be long 
 spared to watch with parental solicitude. And we 
 have not forgotten the scheme for the Propagation of 
 the Gospel in Foreign Parts, especially in India. The 
 name of Dr I|^glis can never be overlooked. In himself 
 he was a host. His fine analysis of the evidences of 
 Christianity is perfect in its kind. His defence of eccle- 
 siastical establishments will remain at once ^ monu- 
 ment of his intellect and a model of controversial dis- 
 cussion, bequeathed as a legacy to the Church in 
 
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 17 
 
 troublous times. In the business of ecclesiastical 
 courts, as of tlie public institutions of the city, he took 
 a deep interest. The resources of his acute and most 
 comprehensive mind were invaluable. And what man, 
 we would ask, even in the Secession, can forget his con- 
 nexion with the Indian mission ? We would quote the 
 language of Dr Duff — language which, perhaps, had 
 he now to utter it, he would shrink to use, but which, 
 we beg to say, is most valuable to our j^resent purpose ; 
 and in doing so we appeal from the reverend gentleman 
 without the church to the reverend gentleman within the 
 church, and in his best days, when, appointed as he was 
 by Dr Inglis, he submitted himself to his guidance. He 
 says, in liis account of the origin of the Indian mission : — 
 " What now seemed wanting was, that some one of 
 weight, authority, and influence, should arise, who 
 could embody the growing spirit at home and abroad 
 in an intelligible form, and clothe it in adequate and 
 appropriate expression. Such an organ of the widely 
 prevailing wants and -svishes of the pious members of 
 the Church of Scotland, it pleased the God of provi- 
 dence to raise up in the person of the late Dr Inghs — 
 a man of lofty and commanding intellect, .who seldom 
 failed to carry conviction by the marvellous ease 
 wherewith he disembarassed the most mazy theme 
 of its intricacies, not less than by the transparent 
 clearness of his statements, and the argumentative 
 force of his reasonings — a man, whose sagacity, 
 acuteness, and comprehensive business habits, were 
 
 B 
 
18 PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 
 
 universally acknowledged to be unrivalled — a man, 
 whose personal honour and high moral integrity were 
 held to be so unimpeached and unimpeachable, that m 
 almost all difficult cases of Church policy, he was con- 
 sulted with like freedom and confidence by opponents 
 as by friends — a man, finally, whose unobtrusive but 
 ripening piety threw a halo of mellowed lustre over 
 his latter days, irradiated his passage through the 
 dark valley, and ceased not to brighten onwards till 
 eclipsed by the more glorious sunshine of Jehovah's 
 presence." 
 
 But we must not enlarge. Suffice it to say, that 
 though Dr Thomson was gone, he had left behind him 
 a crop of Generals. They sprang up armed from the 
 soil — and armed to the teeth. A passion for debate, 
 a love of mere intellectual display — which nowhere, 
 not even in the Senate-house, can command respect, if 
 cultivated to the neglect of every other quality — and 
 which is, or should be, much more at fault in the 
 Church — a wholesale and uncomprising partizanship, 
 carefully fenced in by prejudice and nourished by mis- 
 representation, became prevalent. You could not 
 enter the hbrary of a divinity hall, or cross the thres- 
 hold of a presbytery, or mingle in clerical society, 
 without finding that the high-pressure system had 
 commenced. Students — mere babes in theology — could 
 lisp the phrases of the day; and, without obtaining 
 licence to preach the gospel, could use the freedom to 
 misrepresent it. And then all conventional etiquette 
 
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 19 
 
 was at an end. The good old rule, that a man should 
 keep the peace in his $rst Assembly, was at once ex- 
 ploded. The term of the ecclesiastical novitiate was 
 abridged. The old men held back, and what could 
 the young men do ? It was not for them to tarry at 
 Jericho. At once they rushed into the arena. To 
 break a lance with one, or to measure arms with another : 
 above all, to draw some blood, however Httle, from 
 a waning party staggering under blows which they 
 deemed irremediable — what other laurels could they 
 covet, what greater honours could they reap ? These 
 " gentle passages-at-arms," were not without their 
 heralds. The trumpets sounded, and they were of 
 brass — the ladies scattered their favours — the stu- 
 dents' gallery could not repress its applause. The notes 
 of triumph were prolonged in the coteries of the party, 
 till the distant Kirkwall sent back the sound. In sober 
 earnest, what with overheated assemblies within, and 
 multitudes of an excited temperament without ; what 
 with partisan badges and party cries fiUing every 
 synod and every presbytery ; what with a restless 
 craving for something new, of which the countless 
 overtures which crowded the tables of the Supreme 
 Court were pregnant witnesses — giving sure indication 
 that the age of the executive had gone by, and that 
 the age of legislation had come on ; it required no 
 prophetic eye to see that the Church of Scotland was 
 on the eve of a momentous chano'c. It mio'ht have 
 been a change for the better. Guided Avith wisdom. 
 
20 PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 
 
 and managed with discretion, our beloved Zion might 
 have emerged from a season of comparative inaction 
 into one of growing and most extended usefulness. 
 Her borders might have been enlarged ; her re- 
 sources might have been multiplied ; her influence 
 might have been felt, and more amply recognised, 
 among other Christian communities. The zeal and 
 energy so profusely expended on many a petty and 
 intestine war, would have found their scope in a 
 nobler field. Extending to the Dissenters of Scotland 
 the right hand of fellowship, and gratefully owning 
 their services rendered to the spread of the truth in 
 many districts, where but for them it would have 
 continued to drag out a miserable existence, the 
 Church might have hailed them, not as the antago- 
 nists of her usefulness, but as fellow-workers in the 
 Lord. But what could be expected of councils where 
 violence predominated over wisdom, and youth over 
 age ; where dogmatic assertion had the currency of 
 argument, and ingenuity passed for genius ; in the 
 keeping of those, who, when exhausted at home, re- 
 freshed themselves by hurling thunderbolts at their 
 dissenting brethren, the deep gashes of which, though 
 curiously and wondrously cicatrized, are not yet healed ; 
 of those whose special element was war and confusion, 
 and who, with studied neglect of all the amenities of 
 public life, fancied themselves undaunted presbyters, 
 only because they were intolerant men ? Time will 
 show. 
 
THE CHAPEL ACT, 1834. 21 
 
 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 THE CHAPEL ACT, 1834. 
 
 This may be fairly described as the first act in that 
 ecclesiastical drama which was soon to develope itself 
 in Scotland. It may be divided into two parts : 1st, 
 the admission of the ministers of chapels-of-ease (as 
 they were then called) into church courts ; and 2dly, a 
 quoad sacra division of the districts with which they 
 were connected — disjoining these from the original 
 parishes, and, so far as ecclesiastical discipline was con- 
 cerned, giving them sessions for the independent exer- 
 cise of ecclesiastical authority — and allowing these ses- 
 sions their representatives in Presbyteries, and Synods, 
 and in General Assembhes. Now, in regard to the 
 first of these, no man who looks at the subsisting con- 
 nexion of the Church with the State, can seriously 
 maintain that the privilege was at any time reserved 
 to the church courts of admitting whom they pleased 
 to their number. Was there a contract, or was there 
 not? Is there an act at all on the subject; and if 
 so, does it give the Church an unlimited and irrespon- 
 sible power of inclusion or of exclusion? Could the 
 
22 THE CHAPEL ACT, 1834. 
 
 General Assembly admit to its roll either one or more 
 of the Synod of Ulster ? — though this was more than 
 once liinted at ; or to take a case that was frequently 
 in committee, did even Mr Dunlop venture to say 
 that co-operation might in this respect be incorpora- 
 tion ; and that the Presbytery of London might be 
 represented in the Assembly as well as the Presbytery 
 of Edinburgh ? K he and his friends resisted such a 
 claim, and steadily disallowed it, then is it plain there 
 was a limit somewhere. But perhaps Scotland was 
 the boundary, and within this territory the Church 
 was irresponsible? Is tliis maintained? We should 
 imagine not ; at least it has not been affirmed in so 
 many words, though, if we may judge by speeches, 
 and by the " Claim of Right," nothing less would have 
 satisfied its advocates. That is to say, above all law, 
 and beyond all law, (except what is reserved to sove- 
 reignty or claimed by the popedom,) they grasped at 
 the power of creating ; and it is not an unpleasing one. 
 To make or to unmake by a word, has always been 
 an agreeable function. To infuse a little new blood 
 into an old and effete system — to have the power of 
 the privilege of counteracting one vote by two — to 
 keep a house in trim order by the introduction of a 
 few new brooms wliich you have plucked with your 
 own hands, or whose projecting points you have pre- 
 viously and privately tried, — why not ? It is, certainly, 
 deeply to be regretted there should be any check on 
 this, and that the ministry of the country have not 
 
THE CHAPEL ACT, 1834. 23 
 
 the power which the ministers of the Free Secession 
 claim ; and in the concession of which they have gra- 
 ciously signified they will alone return to office :* that 
 the legislature will set them, once and for ever, above 
 King, and Lords, and Commons. A convenient privi- 
 lege it would have been at many a crisis ; and, did 
 we believe the empiricism of the day, it might, on 
 more occasions than one, have renovated the constitu- 
 tion both in Church and in State. 
 
 Now, it is not to be forgotten in the review of this 
 part of the act, that the competency of such a pro- 
 ceeding on the part of the church courts, so far from 
 being acknowledged at the time, was expressly denied. 
 No small portion of the debate with which it was pre- 
 faced, hinged on this very point. And, whether we 
 look at the argument by which the incompetency was 
 urged by Dr Cook in his calm and discriminating 
 speech, or the support it received in the after proceed- 
 ings of the civil courts, where the legality of the act has 
 been so narrowly scrutinized, the conclusion appears 
 all but irresistible. With a clearness and precision, the 
 value of which cannot be disputed, when we consider 
 his profound knowledge of constitutional law, Dr Cook 
 said — " After calm consideration, I am decidedly of 
 opinion that it is ultra vires of the Assembly, to place 
 chapels on the same footing as parish churches. The 
 whole system of parish arrangements is the effect 
 
 * See Dr Robert Buchanan's speech at the In\erness Assembly. 
 
24 THE CHAPEL ACT, 1834. 
 
 of the legislature of the country. There are certain 
 civil privileges connected with them ; and ministers 
 inducted to parishes have, in consequence of such in- 
 duction, certain civil privileges which it is altogether 
 out of the question to suppose that an ecclesiastical 
 court could bestow upon them. As members of pres- 
 bytery, we have certain temporal acts to perform which 
 no man out of the Church can perform, and wliich we 
 would not have been warranted to perform, had not 
 the acts of legislature made us the established church 
 of the country. These are famihar to all ; but I may 
 mention the act of induction, in consequence of which 
 a right is given to the temporalities of our benefices ; 
 and if that induction were to be refused, we should be 
 answerable, not only to the ecclesiastical, but to the 
 supreme civil courts. Presbyteries are a civil as well 
 as an ecclesiastical court ; and I ask, how it is possible 
 for us, brevi manu, without interposition from another 
 quarter, to extend civil privileges to any set of men 
 whatever ? It is well known, that, partial as I am to 
 the Highland churches, I stood alone last year in 
 opposing that part of the enactment which introduced 
 them into presbyteries, and craved leave, without for- 
 mally dissenting, to state that opinion on any future 
 occasion." 'Nor is this weighty opinion met by the 
 fact (and we say it with the utmost respect* for the 
 gentleman whose name we use) that Mr Dunlop — not 
 a very old lawyer, and who had just appeared on the 
 arena of ecclesiastical politics, where he was afterwards 
 
THE CHAPEL ACT, 1843. 25 
 
 destined to act so conspicuous a part — that he assumed 
 a different position, and embraced a different view. 
 An attentive perusal of his elaborate speech, in which 
 all that could be urged in favour of the act was care- 
 fully gleaned from the law and from the practice of 
 the Church, leaves us in any tiling but a satisfied 
 mood. His premises are too wide, and his conclusions 
 wholesale. From first to last, zeal predominates over 
 knowledge. Its advocate, by permission of the supreme 
 court of the Church, at its bar in 1833, he has not 
 abandoned, as a member, his special pleading in '34. 
 And as his argument is not improved by the circum- 
 stance, that he had no sooner risen than he launched 
 at his opponent the opprobrious title of Erastian, 
 (forthwith to be stereotyped by his party, as a word 
 too good to be lost, having much of the ponderous sig- 
 nificance of sound without sense — and of wliich hundreds 
 have hved to say, as Dr Cook did on the occasion 
 referred to — " the learned gentleman is at perfect 
 liberty to use any terms he chooses,") so, in its con- 
 clusion, it is not magnified by the admission — " Even 
 supposing it were found by the civil courts that the 
 chapel ministers had no vote in civil matters, wh^re 
 would be the monstrous evil sufficient to prevent our 
 admitting them to the ecclesiastical privileges of their 
 office ? " And so, after all, there might be doubt of the 
 legahty of the admission of ministers of chapels-of-ease ; 
 and the spectacle might be reahsed, of men sitting in 
 common to-day, and anon severed to-morrow — of use 
 
 c 
 
2& THE CHAPEL ACT, 1834. 
 
 in the Church this month, but not to appear on the 
 sederunt of next month, as they would not yitiate its 
 proceedings and endanger its decrees. Rather a 
 curious specimen tliis of any court, whether supreme or 
 subordinate, of a church as by laiv estabhshed ! 
 
 When we come to what may be called the second 
 part of the act — the annexing of parishes quoad sacra, 
 and the disjoining of these from their original parishes, 
 difficulties not less unsurmountable were not only 
 hinted at, but most anxiously urged. From time im- 
 memorial there had been but one way of doing this — 
 through the Court of Teinds, or rather through the 
 cornet for the plantation of kirks. Not, and we admit 
 it, that this court had been practically of much use in 
 the country. Fettered by rules, which it was next to 
 impossible to implement, it had hitherto existed more 
 as a thing of theory than of hfe ; and even in parishes 
 where the urgency of division was felt in the over- 
 whelming magnitude of its importance — for example, 
 in the barony of Glasgow, and in the West Church of 
 Edinburgh — redress, though anxiously desired, could 
 not be obtained. The preliminary amount of consent 
 on,the part of the heritors, which the statute required, 
 was scarcely to be expected, especially at a season 
 when the ecclesiastical world was so much divided ; 
 and we do not hesitate to say, that without some 
 modification of the statute, and some supplemental aid 
 from the public resources, even beyond the amount of 
 unexhausted teinds, and much more in the absence of 
 
THE CHAPEL ACT, 1834. 27 
 
 these, the facihties of division could not have been 
 great. But, whatever the value of the Court of Plan- 
 tation had been, or might be expected to be, the theory 
 of the constitution was easily read. That where an 
 act of parliament did not intervene, to this court alone 
 belonged the power of erection ; that without an appli- 
 cation duly lodged and formally sanctioned, no portion 
 of a parish could be disjoined from another, were 
 points of law on which, we believe, but few authorities 
 of any eminence were understood to differ. Nor cUd 
 it mihtate against tliis view, to say, that the di\dsion 
 proposed was only quoad sacra, and not quoad civilia. 
 For whatever purpose contemplated, the disjunction 
 inferred certain consequences, and involved certain 
 results, for which the Church was estabhshed. These 
 were not barely civil in their character, apart from 
 what is strictly ecclesiastical. Discipline as well as 
 doctrine, was the guaranteed provision of the State ; 
 and for any one to say, that within the pale of an es- 
 tablished church, where statute has provided certain 
 modes of division, the ecclesiastical courts were at 
 liberty to adopt one of their own : to erect parishes, 
 and to give these parishes, apart from their original, a 
 distinct name and existence ; authorising them to ad- 
 minister discipline witliin their bounds, and connecting 
 them by representation with the presbytery, and 
 synod, and General Assembly ; and then to meet every 
 objection with the cry — " Oh, it is only quoad sacra all 
 this," — is a condition of things with which our notions 
 
28 THE CHAPEL ACT, 1834. 
 
 of an establishment do not cohere. Indeed, the im- 
 potency of this arrangement was more than once felt 
 by the Assembly itself, long before the question was 
 raised in the civil courts. Could they always expiscate 
 their own act, and ^dndicate the jurisdiction of the 
 quoad sacra minister within his appointed territory ? 
 Did not cases occur of ecclesiastical discipline in which 
 the new and the original session came into direct 
 colhsion, and in the determination of which the General 
 Assembly found it prudent to utter an uncertain 
 sound ? Did they venture to say, that even for ec- 
 clesiastical ends, there was no more difference between 
 the original parishes of A and B, than between C 
 major and D minor — the latter being the mere crea- 
 ture of the Chapel Act ? If they could not, (and on 
 more than one occasion the awkwardness and uncer- 
 tainty of their procedure was sufficiently manifest,) we 
 may be pardoned for saying, that this was an act by no 
 means fitted to bear that weight of responsibihty which 
 has since been attached to it. And what of its expe- 
 diency, in an age when Scotland was rife with what 
 has been commonly called the Voluntary Controversy ? 
 The efficacy of example in the formation of pubhc 
 opinion, as in private hfe, cannot be overrated. Though 
 men justify their conduct by reason, and sometimes 
 bring their sentiments to the touchstone of abstraction, 
 yet they principally act from example. It is most 
 contagious in its influence ; and for the Church of 
 Scotland to furnish, as she did at this time, the spec- 
 
THE CHAPEL ACT, 1834. 29 
 
 tacle of unendowed ministers filling her church courts; 
 discharging the work of parochial ministers with no 
 other or liigher security than the Voluntary clergy of 
 the day, was, we apprehend, but a poor auxihary to 
 the multiplicity of her platforms, and the multitude of 
 her harangues on the utter impotency of the Volun- 
 tary system. If some innovations are dangerous, they 
 are not all equally so. There is a wide difference be- 
 tween one that favours the spirit of a constitution, and 
 another that contradicts it. The former may be com- 
 pared to the natural growth of the human body ; the 
 latter, to the violent dismemberment of its parts. The 
 former completes an imperfect analogy ; the latter de- 
 stroys just proportions. The former is the removal 
 of an obstruction which prevents the equable motion 
 of the machine ; the latter occasions the collision of 
 interfering principles. A little more patience and a 
 httle more harmony ; a little more of the caution of 
 age, and a little less of the headstrong impetuosity of 
 youth, and the anomahes, admitted on all hands to 
 exist in chapels-of-ease, might have been rectified in 
 a way at once constitutional and safe. "Where local 
 resources were exhausted by a continued effect, public 
 aid might have been secured. The facilities for sub- 
 division might have been increased, and that to a 
 greater extent than even by the well-directed bill of 
 Sir James Graham — now the act of the legislature. 
 The energies of the Church might have been kept at 
 one point, and urged in one direction. The " Re- 
 
30 THE CHAPEL ACT, 1834. 
 
 ligious Instruction Commission," though drawn from ^ 
 reluctant government, would have answered other ends 
 than in enriching a printer, or employing a few com- 
 missioners. Under a better advised system than that 
 which obtained the ascendancy, the constitution of 
 the Church might have been preserved inviolate, the 
 law courts avoided, and adequate provision for the re- 
 ligious instruction of the people secured. 
 
 It is painful to follow this Act through the contro- 
 versies it originated, and the evils it entailed. One 
 divergence readily paves the way for another. In 
 1839, the Assembly authorised presbyteries to admit 
 ministers of the Original Burgher Associate Synod as 
 ministers of the Church, and members of the church 
 courts, in the same way as ministers of chapels- of-ease 
 — which, among other peculiarities had this, that it 
 admitted to the status of parish ministers those who 
 had not taken the oath of allegiance — a statutory pro- 
 vision complied with by every minister of the Church, 
 and by every clergyman in a chapel-of-ease. Accord- 
 ingly, the presbytery of Irvine, in terms of those acts, 
 admitted Mr Clelland, minister of an Original Burgher 
 congregation in Stewarton, as a member of that pres- 
 bytery, and were about to divide the parish and to 
 assign him a district thereof, as a parish quoad sacra ; 
 whereupon the heritors, on the ground that this was 
 ultra vires of the church courts, brought the proceed- 
 ings under the review of the Court of Session, and 
 applied for an interdict, which that court granted on 
 
THE CHAPEL ACT, 1834. 31 
 
 the 13th of March 1841. On the 23d of January 
 1843, this interdict was made perpetual ; and though 
 an appeal to the House of Lords was taken at the 
 time, it was afterwards withdrawn. On the same 
 grounds as those maintained by the suspenders in the 
 Stewarton case, various parties who had causes de- 
 pending before different judicatories of the Church, 
 appUed for interdicts to the civil courts against those 
 judicatories proceeding with their causes, or giving 
 effect to their sentences, so long as ministers or elders 
 of parishes quoad sacra tantiim sat as members. 
 These interdicts were granted ; and at the very time 
 when the hands of the Church were full with other 
 matters not less onerous, as we shall afterwards see, 
 she had, on the grounds and merits of the Chapels Act, 
 to wage a war with the civil courts. Was tliis, I ask, 
 indispensable to her existence? Did this necessarily 
 flow from her position as an estabhshed church ? Was 
 there aught to prevent her retracing her steps, and 
 that without any infringement of her independence '! 
 Or could it be, that if for one man to confess an error 
 when opinion has been pledged and pohcy formed, be 
 a difficult task, it were scarcely to be expected where 
 thousands have been staked, and the whole pohcy of a 
 party is concerned ? Most assuredly I have no wish to 
 extenuate the list of the parties seeking redress in the 
 civil courts. I am not their apologist, and my argu- 
 ment does not require it. One man might be charged 
 with theft, another with drunkenness, and another witli 
 
32 THE CHAPEL ACT, 1834. 
 
 what has out of doors been called swindhng. Take it 
 as you will, enlarge upon it as you please, we have 
 still this to say — it was the doing of the Church. The 
 civil courts were not to blame ; in not one instance did 
 they touch what may be called the substance of the 
 case. No. They were not the abettors of sins, dis- 
 graceful in any profession, and much more in the 
 office of the holy ministry. With the evidence 
 taken they did not intromit. They did not say, or 
 pretend to say — this proof for the prosecution is in- 
 conclusive, and tJiat in exculpation, good. The form 
 of the libel was not challenged, except in the names of 
 the libellers, nor the particular mode in which the 
 sentence happened to be passed. This was admitted 
 on all hands to be the property of the Church — its 
 unahenable property. But this they said — and where 
 the fault? — You are not entitled to cut and carve at 
 parishes as you please. You are not entitled to con- 
 stitute presbyteries according to your own fancy. 
 There have always been two to a bargain. With your 
 acknowledged independent jurisdiction we do not in- 
 terfere. We do not say — and we are not entitled to 
 do it — whether the petitioner who has come to our bar 
 has been truly guilty of fraud, or drunkenness, or 
 theft ; — that is your business, not ours. But we are 
 entitled to say, that the sederunt of your court on a 
 particular day, and that fraught with the most import- 
 ant civil consequences, was not a legal one. You 
 admitted those to your roll, and gave them a voice, 
 
THE CHAPEL ACT, 1834. 33 
 
 who had no right to it. The presbytery is not exclu- 
 sively your presbytery, — the synod is not exclusively 
 your synod, — the General Assembly is not exclusively 
 your General Assembly : they are the courts of the 
 Church as by laiu established; and if you will purge 
 them of obnoxious members, (and the sooner you do it 
 the better,) purge your roll first, and then pronounce 
 yom" will. 
 
 I ask, what could be more fair — what more discrimi- 
 nating than this ? What more conclusive than the admi- 
 rable Note appended to an interlocutor of Lord Cun- 
 ninghame,* on one of the causes brought under liis cog- 
 nizance, and in which the argument now used is urged 
 with the calmest and yet the most urgent precision? 
 And yet this is the act, in the disallowing of which so 
 many thousands have been taught to beheve that the 
 headsliip of the Lord Jesus Christ in his own kingdom 
 has been outraged, and liis authority set at nought ! 
 Is there meaning in tliis outcry ? Is there the shadow 
 of justice in the statement, that the crown rights of the 
 Redeemer have been violated, and his holy government 
 trampled under foot? That there is no invasion of 
 the sole prerogative of the Lord Jesus Christ in the 
 compact formed between Church and State ; that acts 
 of parhament should be welcome to intermeddle, as 
 well with the doctrine which a Church preaches, as with 
 the disciphne it maintains ; that it should be prescribed 
 
 * See Appendix, A. 
 
34 THE CHAPEL ACT, 1834. 
 
 in tlie Confession of Faith, that the civil magistrate 
 " hath authority, and it is his duty, to take order that 
 unity and peace be preserved in the Church ; that the 
 truth of God be kept pure and entire ; that all blas- 
 phemies and heresies be suppressed ; all corruptions in 
 worship or discipline prevented or reformed ; and all 
 the ordinances of God duly settled, administered, and 
 observed ; for the better effecting whereof, he hath 
 power to call synods, to be present at them, and to 
 provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be ac- 
 cording to the mind of God" — that all this, enter- 
 ing as it does into the essence of a church as by law 
 established, should not only escape all remark, but 
 should form the subject of the loudest panegyric — so 
 very loud, that had you yielded a few years ago to 
 the strain of exaggeration which prevailed, you might 
 have almost concluded, that without state support 
 Christianity could not have existed — even under its 
 Divine head — in any country or in any age ; and yet 
 that, when decisions were given affecting the mere 
 sederunt of a presbytery, and the division of a parish, 
 the indignant reproach burst from their lips, that the 
 Redeemer had been hurled from his throne ; — furnishes 
 an anomaly which the ecclesiastical world, we are 
 bold enough to say, never witnessed before. The 
 only extenuation, if it be one, is, that the charge 
 wants a tone of sincerity to give it force. \Ve cannot 
 suppose it is really entertained, at least by those who 
 first gave it currency. They must know better than 
 
THE CHAPEL ACT, 1834. 35 
 
 not to see through their own indiscriminate use of 
 most holy phrases and most sacred themes. We must 
 comphment their heads at the expense of their hearts. 
 But what of the common people of Scotland, who have 
 been left a prey to their gifts and graces — to the 
 sopliistry of Dr CandUsh, and the broad staring wit 
 of jMr Guthrie ? Verily, they have not escaped ; and 
 could we paraphrase their reading of the interference 
 of the civil courts with the merits of the Chapel Act, 
 they, in all fidehty to their masters, would echo the 
 cry — that the Lord Jesus Christ had been dethroned. 
 Nay, it is more than likely, that the mhabitants of 
 Ross-sliire, and other regions still more remote, have, 
 from all they have heard on tliis point, gathered the 
 inference, that the glorious diadem of the Omnipotent 
 — the regaha of the Great King — the insignia of 
 Christ's spiritual dominion — outlined in all worlds, and 
 reflected in the waters of every Christian sanctuary 
 wherever a Saviour's name is preached, and a gos- 
 pel message heard — have been consigned, as by a hand 
 let down from heaven, to the sole and undivided cus- 
 tody of a special commission of the Free Secession. 
 
 Our astonishment is not abated by certain facts, 
 which must not be overlooked. To say notliing of the 
 opinions of Sir Henry Moncreiff, whose profound 
 knowledge of church law must always command re- 
 spect, and wliich is most appropriately referred to in 
 the civil proceedings* — we have to state this : — 
 
 * See Appendix, B. 
 
36 THE CKAPEL ACT, 1843. 
 
 In 1834 Dr Chalmers disapproved of the Chapel 
 Act. 
 
 In 1834 Dr Gordon disapproved of the Chapel Act. 
 
 In 1834 Dr Patrick Macfarlane, the moderator of 
 the Assembly for the year, said in his closing address, 
 that he "as strongly condemned that act,'' as he ap- 
 proved of another, (meaning the Veto.) 
 
 In 1834 Mr Michael Stirhng, of Cargill, voted with 
 Dr Cook against it. 
 
 In 1834 Dr Clason, one of the clerks of the Free 
 Assembly, appeared at the bar of the General Assem- 
 bly, along with Mr Runciman and myself, to oppose 
 the act. He was most hostile to it, and there echoed 
 the sentiments he had previously pubhshed in 1833, 
 when he said — " For myself I will say, that highly 
 as I would esteem the honour of sitting once more in 
 this ecclesiastical court, as I did when the minister of 
 a country parish, I would rather consent to forfeit that 
 privilege for life, than witness such a hazardous inno- 
 vation on the comely fabric t)f our establishment." 
 And what of the other, and, as we understand, the first 
 or principal clerk of the Free Assembly, Mr Pitcairn ? 
 Not satisfied with voting with Dr Cook in May, he 
 must needs enter his protest against it a month or two 
 afterwards, in the presbytery of Dalkeith, when, in 
 terms of the act, Mr Brown of Roshn claimed, admis- 
 sion to the presbytery. One of the reasons of his 
 protest is this — " Because, in our opinion, the admis- 
 
THE CHAPEL ACT, 1843. 37 
 
 sion of ministers of chapels-of-ease to be members of 
 the presbytery, without some permanent endowment 
 being secured to them, is unconstitutional.'' To this, 
 as appears from the records of the presbytery of Dal- 
 keith, Mr Bannerman adhered. He also voted with 
 Dr Cook in '34 ; and has hved to condemn, mth more 
 than ordinary violence, in a \dolent age, his own senti- 
 ments, at the expense of his neighbours. 
 
 There was one point, however, we had almost for- 
 gotten, and it is not to be overlooked. Li a heated 
 Assembly where party has unfortunately so often spoken 
 more than principle, the vague and undefined argument 
 of Presbyterian parity did more, perhaps, than any 
 tiling else to hurry on the catastrophe. The argument, 
 certainly, was specious. That men ordained to the 
 ofiice of the holy ministry should not be admitted to 
 the government of the Church — that they who, in 
 virtue of the pastoral tie, were appointed overseers of 
 the flock, should not be clothed with all the functions 
 wliich other pastors possessed — was admitted on all 
 hands to be an anomaly. But, then, it was argued, 
 there was only one way of curing tliis evil. It was 
 maintained that parity in an estabhshed church could 
 not be secure, unless, in every case, the platform of an 
 estabhshment was preserved inviolate. For the free 
 exercise of disciphne, for the unfettered and faitliful 
 superintendence of a parish, it was felt and maintained 
 that something more was necessary than a seat in the 
 
38 THE CHAPEL ACT, 1834. 
 
 church courts. Parity, by all means, we were ready 
 to hail ; but then our argument was, we could not have 
 it in an established church, without an endowment. In 
 the removal of one evil we apprehended the introduc- 
 tion of a greater. At all events, thus many of us felt 
 — so some of us said ; and, had we ever hesitated in our 
 opinions, we were not permitted to remain long without 
 proof of the correctness of our reasoning, and of the 
 propriety of our views. 
 
 You must suppose, then, the interval of a few weeks. 
 The Chapel Act has just been passed. The battle has 
 been fought and the victory won ; and Dr Cunningham 
 is abroad in all the flush of conquest. Accessions are 
 made to many presbyteries, and, among others, to the 
 presbytery of Edinburgh. About the month of July, 
 an ordination and admission is fixed to take place in 
 Roxburgh church. Dr Cunningham, the great advo- 
 cate of Presbyterian parity, is appointed to preside. 
 He ascends the pulpit. The preliminary services are 
 completed; the reverend gentleman is ordained; and 
 then comes the address. It is rather of a novel 
 description to a young brother standing on the thres- 
 hold of his ministry. Nevertheless, here it is — " Allow 
 me to congratulate you on the passing of that act 
 under which you are this day to be admitted to a seat 
 in the church courts. It has entailed upon yj;)u great 
 responsibilities. Not that you are altogether such as 
 we are. At all events, you are a little better than the 
 
THE CHAPEL ACT, 1834. 39 
 
 Dissenters ; and I trust that, by the blessing of God, 
 you will strive to prove it.'' Incredible as it may be, 
 such was the funeral oration of Presbyterian parity. 
 It had served its end ; and now, without ceremony, 
 it is buried out of sight. 
 
 Reqidescat in pace. 
 
40 THE VETO ACT. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE VETO ACT. 
 
 The year 1834 was signalised in the calendar of the 
 Church bj the passing of another act, destined, like 
 the former, to form the subject of a painful and pro- 
 tracted controversy. It runs in these words — '' The 
 General Assembly declare that it is a fundamental law 
 of tliis church, that no pastor shall be intruded on any 
 congregation contrary to the will of the people ; and, 
 in order that tliis principle may be carried into full 
 effect, the General Assembly, with the consent of a 
 majority of the presbyteries of this Church, do declare, 
 enact, and ordain, that it shall be an instruction to pres- 
 byteries, that, if in the moderating in a call to a vacant 
 pastoral charge, the major part of the male heads of 
 families, members of the vacant congregation, and in 
 full communion with the Church, shall disapprove of 
 the person in whose favour the call is proposed to be 
 moderated in, such disapproval shall be ^deemed 
 sufficient ground for the presbytery rejecting such 
 person, and he shall be rejected accordingly, and due 
 notice thereof forthwith given to all concerned. But 
 
TILE VETO ACT. 41 
 
 that, if the major part of the said heads of families 
 shall not disapprove of such person to be their pastor, 
 the presbytery shall proceed with the settlement 
 according to the rules of the Church. And further 
 declare, that no person shall be held entitled to dis- 
 prove, as aforesaid, who shall refuse, if required, 
 solemnly to declare in presence of the presbytery, 
 that he is actuated by no factious or malicious motive, 
 but solely by a conscientious regard to the spiritual 
 interests of himself or the congregation." * 
 
 Such was the legacy of many years of party strife 
 and contention ; and, as it demonstrated the weakness 
 of one section in the Church, it plainly announced the 
 ascendancy of another. That it is a measure of most 
 extensive import, is obvious in the due consideration of 
 it ; and that it vests in the male heads of families an 
 irresponsible power, no one can doubt. Their will is 
 evidently made paramount, and that, too, unaccom- 
 panied with reasons by which its soundness may be 
 canvassed or its value ascertained. Now, I need 
 scarcely say, that the Bible gives no countenance to 
 the conclusion, that the mere will of the professors 
 of Christianity forms the standard of divine truth. It 
 by no means warrants the inference, that the gospel of 
 Christ, involving, as it does, deep Adews of our own sin- 
 fulness and insufficiency, will always commend itself 
 
 * I quote from the Acts of the Assembly, '35, Avhen the interim 
 act of "34 was converted into a standing law of the Church. 
 
42 THE VETO ACT. 
 
 even to the professing followers of the Lamb. Men 
 are not naturally brought to realise the condition into 
 which sin has brought them — that the curse of the law 
 goes out and comes in with the unconverted sinner, 
 and that the day cannot be far distant from every one 
 of us, when, unless we can say of a Saviour's blood it 
 has cleansed me, and of a Redeemer's justifying right- 
 eousness it is mine, every iniquity will add to our con- 
 demnation, and every transgression will have its sting. 
 These soul-abasing views may, even within the pre- 
 cincts of the Church, draw forth the exclamation, " I 
 hate him, for he always prophesieth evil of me, and 
 not good;" and still may require the reproof, "Thou 
 sayest, I am rich, and increased in goods, and have 
 need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art 
 wretched, and miserable, and naked." And then, can 
 we forget the whole style of the prophetic ministry? 
 Did Moses, the servant of the Most High, earn the 
 approbation of his brethren by the attempt to che- 
 rish their national arrogance or religious rancour ? 
 Did Ehjah, when he appeared on the stage of sacred 
 history, win the approval of those whom he sought to 
 Avarn of approaching judgment? Was Isaiah likely, 
 in that hour when the people had learned to bow their 
 ear to religious flatterers, saying, " Speak unto us 
 smooth things, prophecy deceit," — was he liTiely then 
 to be welcomed by a degenerate race ? Did not Jere- 
 miah exclaim — " Woe is me, my mother, that thou 
 hast born me a man of strife, and a man of contention 
 
THE VETO ACT. 43 
 
 to the whole earth?" Or do any of the prophets, 
 from Moses to Malachi, use the language that com- 
 mended itself to a stiff-necked and rebellious race? 
 No ; we cast our eyes over the illustrious train ; we 
 listen to their voice, whether heard by the shores of 
 the Red Sea or on the borders of Canaan ; and what 
 is it that forces itself so vividly on the mind ? Not the 
 richness or energy of their expression, or the fascinat- 
 ing simphcity of their historic narrative, or the inimi- 
 table point of their didactic admonitions, or the tender 
 and affecting pathos of their elegiac odes, or the sera- 
 phic ardour of their eucharistic, and the deep-toned 
 impressiveness of their penitential hymns, or the 
 elevated and glowuig strains of their triumphal songs, 
 whether heard by the margin of the sea or under the 
 arch of the temple. It is the tone of rebuke, and 
 warning, and reproof, forced upon the ears of a reluc- 
 tant people ; the voice of one crying in the wilderness 
 — " Prepare ye the way of the Lord." Neither does 
 that voice die away upon the ear, when a new and 
 better dispensation occupies its place, and Christ him- 
 self appears the hving messenger of heavenly love. 
 The ministry of Sion, any more than the ministry of 
 Sinai, is not to be shaped or determined by the hosan- 
 nahs of the multitude. In short, Christianity has 
 thrown around all its servants the shield of its autho- 
 rity ; and never, but when the truth as it is in Jesus 
 is superseded or marred by human device, are men at 
 liberty to turn a deaf ear to the ministrations of the 
 
44 THE VETO ACT. 
 
 pulpit. "He that heareth you, heareth me; and he 
 that despiseth you, despiseth me," is the defensive 
 armour of the Christian priesthood ; and before now 
 it has stood it in good stead, in many a season of 
 backshding and of sin.* 
 
 We think, then, that these truths, when duly re- 
 alised, will serve, at least in some degree, to modify 
 the unmitigated tenor of what has been commonly 
 called the Veto Act. JSTor will they lose aught of their 
 effect, when we take them in connexion with the go- 
 vernment and disciphne of the church. That such a 
 government has been estabhshed in the kingdom of 
 Christ, no Presbyterian will deny; and as little will 
 it be denied, that there is authority connected with it. 
 
 ''^ In thus cursorily glancing at the argument from scripture on this 
 question, I am only availing myself of some observations w^hich I have 
 made elsewhere, and which appear to me conclusive. The argument 
 I consider a most important one ; and it may be seen faitlifully and 
 amply illustrated in the Pastoral Letter of Dr Muu' to the congre- 
 gation of St Stephen's. Never was letter more opportune. It was 
 published at a time when multitudes had imagined, that if the law of 
 the land was in one way, the gospel was quite in another ; and it 
 demonstrated this, that in maintaming miimpaired the constitution 
 of the Church, other quotations could be given than from Acts of 
 the Parliament or the Assembly. The scriptural analysis is com- 
 plete ; the tone of the letter truly affectionate ; and in laying his 
 own congregation under deep obligation by it, he has not less bene- 
 fited the Church, of which he continues to be one of the brightest 
 ornaments, as in the hour of her trial he has proved him»elf, under 
 God, one of her best props. We Avould also desire, under this head, 
 to refer to the valuable Letter of the Rev. Adam Tait ; a letter, 
 characterised at once by the most fervent piety and the most con- 
 clusive scriptural reasoning. A reply was attempted by the Rev. 
 James Buchanan. 
 
THE VETO ACT. 45 
 
 " Remember them that have the rule over you," said 
 Paul to the Hebrews, " obey them that have the rule 
 over you," — " submit yourselves ; for they watch for 
 your souls," — " they addicted themselves to the minis- 
 try ; submit yourselves to such." These inspired in- 
 junctions plainly indicate the existence of authority in 
 the office-bearers of the Church ; and though the appeal 
 to their testimony may be considered in some quarters 
 as savouring too much of arrogance in a Protestant 
 Chm'ch — though it may not coincide with the favourite 
 maxims of the day — nay, may be called Popish ; we 
 dare not disavow it. We beheve it to be the wiU of 
 Him who is head over all things to liis body, the 
 Church, that such a government should be upheld in 
 every age ; and that though not legislative or coercive, 
 but simply declarative and executive, the more vigor- 
 ously it is administered, the more valuable it wdll prove, 
 as the bulwark of Christian morals and of Christian 
 truth. Wliat then, I would ask, becomes of that go- 
 vernment, vested in the office-bearers of the Church, 
 when in the discharge of a duty the most solemn, a 
 duty than which there can be none more tender, even 
 the judicial trial of a man's fitness for the work of the 
 holy ministry in any particular parish ; I ask, what 
 becomes of it when the will of the people is raised to 
 the supremacy? Where is there a vestige of that 
 authority, when, in the discharge of a duty so momen- 
 tous — from the responsibiUty of which they cannot 
 relieve themselves — they meet and separate as a mere 
 
46 THE VETO ACT. 
 
 court of registration ? Where is the ruhng, or if you 
 will have it, the guiding hand of the Church visible, 
 in checking the eccentricities of popular feehng, or in 
 giving encouragement to the faintest breathing of 
 Christian piety and of Christian worth ? Let the Veto 
 Act but hold good, in all its unmodified sternness, and 
 this control is at an end. The elevation of one class 
 will not be purchased without the depression of another. 
 The rulers will be supplanted by the ruled — the land- 
 marks of authority will be removed; and, with no 
 reclaiming voice left them, "to which they can give 
 utterance, the office-bearers in the ecclesiastical court 
 will be impelled to discharge a duty for which they 
 alone are responsible, at the bidding of others — of 
 whose opposition they may perhaps most conscientiously 
 disapprove. Or are we sure, that in thus magnifying 
 the will of the people, in giving it an operation so free 
 and unfettered, untouched by the discipline of the 
 Church, and emancipated from its control, we shall 
 always subserve the interests of evangelical religion ? 
 Is there no danger to be apprehended from men — 
 members, it may be, of the Christian community — and 
 yet unimpressed with the love of the truth ? Is there 
 no jealousy to be felt, lest, in the unchecked and un- 
 questioned evolutions of this maxim, strange fire may 
 sometimes be kindled on the altar, and the ark of the 
 Lord be sometimes touched by unworthy hands ? For 
 ourselves, we must confess, that in our estimation the 
 prevalence of such doctrines is fraught with danger to 
 
THE VETO ACT. 47 
 
 all that is vital in Christianity itself. Partisans might 
 give currency to them ; they might, as vacancies oc- 
 curred, convene presbytery after presbytery on the 
 moderation day — a day which, in some parishes at 
 least, drew on apace in unseemly contention and un- 
 warranted prejudice ; they might issue the mandate to 
 the elders and ministers in convocation assembled, that 
 '' if the presbytery shall find that there is not a majo- 
 rity of persons on the roll dissenting, and if no special 
 objections be stated, they shall sustain the call, and 
 proceed to the trials and settlement, according to the 
 rules of the Church ; but if the presbytery shall find 
 that there is a major part of the persons on the roll 
 dissenting, they shall reject the person presented, so 
 far as regards the particular presentation, and the 
 occasion of that vacancy in the parish ; and shall, 
 within two days thereafter, intimate this their deter- 
 mination to the patron, the presentee, and the elders 
 of the parish " — but not thus do I see the government 
 of our Sion maintained, or expect its orthodoxy to be 
 revived and extended. I would have every court 
 within its bounds listen to the voice of a few, as well 
 as of the many. I would not have the religion of a 
 parish determined by the majority, whatever com- 
 plexion it may bear. I would not have a presbytery 
 compelled to admit, on their own responsibility, a man 
 as fit for a parish, because there are no dissents. I 
 would not have them necessarily forced to reject a 
 man, because the major party have been declaring 
 
48 THE VETO ACT. 
 
 against him. The principle of Non-intrusion would 
 then, in my apprehension, come to its true interpreta- 
 tion. It would be distinguished alike from popular 
 oppression on the one hand, and priestly domination 
 and tyranny on the other ; the balance of the sanctuary 
 would be maintained, the cord of sympathy that bound 
 the rulers and the ruled, would not be left to chsport 
 itself in every wind that blows ; and, placed upon one 
 platform, and distinguished by one aim, it might be 
 that more than heretofore the hearts of pastor and 
 people might be united. 
 
 This is, in my opinion, no mere picture of fancy, 
 but a fundamental principle in our ecclesiastical pohty, 
 and one worthy of being maintained. That polity, if 
 I have read it aright, proceeds upon the principle, that 
 whatever relates to the spiritual interest of the people 
 should be cared for by the church courts, and be 
 superintended by their control. In nothing is this so 
 anxiously displayed, as in what relates to the functions 
 of the holy ministry. Innumerable acts of Assembly 
 regulate this ; and in law, if not in practice — in the 
 constitution, if not in the history of the Church, the 
 utmost solicitude on this point has been displayed. 
 But in vindication of our view, we need only refer to 
 the First Book of Discipline — at all times a favourite 
 book of reference with our opponents. It is there 
 said — " But violent intrusion we call it not when the 
 council of the Church, in the fear of God, and for the 
 salvation of the people, offereth unto them a sufficient 
 
THE VETO ACT. 49 
 
 man to instruct, whom thej shall not be forced to 
 admit before just examination, as before is said." Does 
 this countenance the Veto ? Does this give umbrage 
 to the motley group of the Non-intrusionists, who, 
 though fighting under one banner, were yet distin- 
 guished by the most diverse sentiments? Does this 
 invest with all the formality of a fundamental principle, 
 the mere expressed vohtion of the major part of male 
 heads of famihes ? And if I do not thus read the Bible 
 — if I do not thus read the Books of Discipline — if I do 
 not thus interpret the statutes of the Church, what 
 shall I say, in the words of the inimitable pamphlet of 
 Sir Wilham Hamilton, " of the proof drawn from the 
 authority of Calvin and Beza, and the analogy of Pres- 
 byterian churches other than our own ? " It is the 
 smallest tribute of that most seasonable treatise, that 
 it came from the occupant of the chair of logic in the 
 University of Edinburgh. Correct almost to an axiom, 
 it is irresistible in its scholarship. After years of con- 
 flict it comes upon us with the most intense freshness. 
 The exhausted mind is brought back to first principles. 
 The springs of the controversy are touched, and they 
 are made to retrograde. With what nice and articulate 
 point is the word " voluntas " analysed ! Place along- 
 side of it the full-blown and luxuriant pamphlets of full 
 five revolving years — the laboured orations of Dr 
 Chalmers ; the twists and writhings of Dr Candhsh ; 
 the jests of Mr Guthrie ; or the arrogant assumption 
 of Dr Cunningham — and where are they ? They are 
 
 E 
 
50 THE VETO ACT. 
 
 blighted and blasted in a night. The frost has evi- 
 dently set in. The long stagnant atmosphere is cleared, 
 and the learned Baronet, with a vigour of intellect un- 
 surpassed in a protracted and most wayworn contro- 
 versy, fresh from the paternal tents of Calvin and Beza, 
 where he had not been unmindful of the " footsteps of 
 the flock," goes forth to look upon the enemy, and 
 with his sling in his hand, inflicts a blow more deadly 
 far than a thousand arrows. As there is precision in 
 the aim, so is there mortality in the wound. It needs 
 no repetition. The proof is irrefragable. The step is 
 measured — the aim is precise ; and should any one 
 doubt it, he may go to the battle-field, and there, with 
 the stone deeply infixed in its forehead, he will see the 
 prostration of a cause, which, with prouder challenges 
 on its lips than Gohath ever uttered — " exalted itself 
 as an eagle, and set its nest above the stars." * 
 
 How different from the Veto is the act under which 
 the procedure of presbyteries is now regulated in the 
 induction and admission of ministers I How thoroughly 
 does it harmonise at once with the dictates of reason, 
 and the principles of all church government ! How 
 fully does it develope the constitution of our national 
 establishment, in its nice adaptation to the reasonable 
 will of its members ! Equally removed from the over- 
 riding influence of popular clamour on the ojie hand, 
 and the not less dangerous tyranny of ecclesiastical 
 
 * The title of Sir William Hamilton's Pamphlet is— "Be not 
 Scliisraatics, be not Martyrs, by Mistake." 
 
THE VETO ACT. 51 
 
 power on the other ; giving to the intelligent mind of 
 all interested, the freest utterance ; so that no objection 
 may be repressed, no statement disregarded, which 
 reason may dictate, or language express ; while at the 
 same time, it leaves the platform of Presbyterian 
 government, unimpaired, in the keeping of its office- 
 bearers; — the Scotch Benefice Act must sooner or 
 later command the approval of all who would preserve 
 in their proper places, the patron and the people, the 
 presbytery and the presentee. To read it calmly and 
 dispassionately, must be to commend it. There is no- 
 thing jarring, nothing inconsistent in its regulations. 
 The privileges of the people are secured not less when 
 " jure devoluto" the presbytery nominates, than when 
 ipso facto the patron presents.* A fundamental rule is 
 not suspended when the church court comes into the 
 exercise of the power. There is no such unaccountable 
 tampering with principles, for which the highest of all 
 authority is arrogated — no such trafficking in Lord 
 
 * It is, certainly, not a little remarkable, that for several years the 
 regulations of the Veto Act included this one — " That cases of 
 settlement by the Presbyteries, jure devoluto, shall not fall under 
 the operation of the regulations in this and the relative act of 
 Assembly, but shall be proceeded in according to the general law 
 of the Church applicable to such cases." " The general laiu of the 
 Church affecting such cases,'' is a most convenient phrase, and, if 
 meaning any thing, intimates this, that the will of the people was not 
 to be consulted when the presentation of a presbytery was con- 
 cerned, as in the case of the presentation of a patron. What rule 
 could be more glaringly inconsistent with the principle on which the 
 Veto was framed ? It was at last erased, when the retaining of it 
 was no longer either decent or safe. 
 
52 THE VETO ACT. 
 
 Aberdeen's bill. Be it a noble patron with his host 
 of presentations, or a reverend court to which but one 
 has lapsed, the rule is the same. The privilege of ob- 
 jecting for any reason that may be competently urged, 
 is preserved inviolate ; and, that caprice may be check- 
 ed in the decision pronounced, it is expressly stipula- 
 ted, that, subject to the review of the superior courts, 
 the judgment of the presbytery shall be accompanied 
 with the grounds on wliich it is pronounced. What 
 can be more discriminating, what more equitable than 
 this ? Emancipated alike fromt he rigours of an un- 
 controlled patronage, and the domination of the mere 
 popular will, the ministers and elders of the Estabhsh- 
 ment now feel, for the first time for years, that, in the 
 discharge of their judicial functions, they are breatliing 
 in a court of justice ; nor can the day be very far dis- 
 tant, when, in the subsidence of that agitation which 
 has so long disturbed the religious community and im- 
 paired its perceptions, it will be widely acknowledged, 
 that, in the Benefice Act, the constitution of the Church 
 of Scotland has come to its just and proper interpre- 
 tation. And what of its working ? If since the Se- 
 cession an unexampled number of presentations have 
 been issued, and vacancies supphed ; if, in every corner 
 of the land, whether in the cities or villages, in parishes 
 more remote from the heart-burnings and contentions 
 of the day, or in others placed in the very focus of 
 agitation, one call after another has been moderated in, 
 till now the breaches of our Zion have been repaired 
 
THE VETO ACT. 53 
 
 and her walls rebuilt, even amidst the scoffings of the 
 adversary — it is not to be overlooked, that the harmony 
 of the Church has been maintained, and the efficiency 
 of the clergy secured. Under the good providence of 
 God, we cannot be too grateful for it. We cannot be 
 too thankful for a measure wliich, without attempt at 
 innovation, and professing to be nothing more than 
 declaratory of the constitution of the Church, has car- 
 ried us as through a tempest, to a renovated sky and 
 a serener atmosphere. 
 
 Compare with this the first days of the Veto. How 
 marked the contrast ! Scarcely had it emerged from 
 the mint, or, we should rather say, from the hot-blast 
 of the x^on-intrusionists, when its temper was put to the 
 proof. The vacancies were, of course, not very nume- 
 rous, and yet, with all the care which Lord Moncreiff 
 could take of his own measure, how troublesome did it 
 often prove to him ! We have not forgotten the many 
 causes it created, and the heavy judicial work it en- 
 tailed. Wliat a fund of humour did the roll of male 
 heads of famihes excite, to the indignant exclusion of 
 the bills of mortality ! Through what lengthened 
 sederunts did the author of the Veto work his way, lest 
 some country brother in his simplicity should count 
 the dead, in the assertion of a living and vital prin- 
 ciple ! In these days the gymnasium of the Church 
 was most opportune to the Court of Session ; for, 
 though they were afterwards found inconveniently 
 near, at that period they wrought most admirably. 
 
54 THE VETO ACT. 
 
 There was the Dreghorn case. There was the Dron 
 case. There was the Trinity Gask case. There was 
 the Eskdale Muir case. There was the Lethendy case. 
 There was the Logie Easter case. There was the 
 Auchterarder case. And then we must not forget the 
 case of Urr. One presentee after another was rejected. 
 The contest was severe as well as protracted. For 
 many months the neighbouring parishes were kept 
 in a state of ferment ; nor was a settlement effected 
 till the waters of the Orr ran black with ink. Such 
 were the palmy days of the Veto — and, in closing 
 this Chapter, I would ask, what well-conditioned ec- 
 clesiastic would ask for their return ? * 
 
 * In these observations, I do not refer to any point connected 
 with the pure Anti-patronage views. These, it is well known, were 
 not at issue in the Non-intrusion question ; nay, were positively dis- 
 claimed, as might be shown by simdry manifestoes, as well as by a 
 pamphlet of Dr MTarlane, Greenock, entitled, " Thoughts on 
 Popular Election," and Lord Moncreiif' s evidence on the subject 
 before the committee of the House of Commons. However, it 
 should not be overlooked, that, in touching the Veto Act, the charge 
 was here made, as under the Chapel Act, that the headship of Christ 
 was assailed. It was reserved, we believe, to Dr James Buchanan, 
 now a professor of theology in the Free Secession College, to make 
 the discovery. The argiiment was peculiar. The assmnption was, 
 that the privilege of dissenting without reason assigned or required, 
 was the inherent pi-ivilege of every church member ; and the reason- 
 ing was, that to deprive liim of this, was to touch Christ in the 
 members of his body. Let it be conceded. What, then, under the 
 Veto, became of the members of the Church — not made heads of 
 families j and what of the whole community of females ? Are th^se 
 branches to be lopped ojfrom the vine ^ 
 
THE AUCHTERARDER CASE. ^5 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE AUCHTERARDER CASE, AND 
 THE ASSEMBLY 1839. 
 
 We believe that we are not wrong in saying, that 
 on the decision of this year depended, under Provi- 
 dence, much of the future welfare of the Church. 
 The circumstances of the case were these : — In 1834, 
 the Veto Act was passed by a majority in our Supreme 
 Court, who acknowledged, (and it was the only ac- 
 knowledgment wliich as honest men they could make.) 
 that in the passing of that Act they did not mean to 
 infringe on the existing law of Patronage. Tliat it 
 did so infringe, however, was the opinion of a very 
 large minority ; and, for some time before it became 
 a matter of question in the Court of Session, it was 
 handled variously — in various ways — in speeches and 
 pamphlets, and in the accompanying comments of the 
 periodical press. All, however, were agreed in this, 
 that the Church had no title to pass that Act, whatever 
 principle it asserted, and whatever regulations it con- 
 tained, if these were inconsistent with the law of the 
 land. The day of trial was impending. In the year 
 
56 AUCHTERARDER CASE — 
 
 1835, a presentation was issued to 'the church and 
 parish of Auchterarder ; and in due course the presen- 
 tation was sustained, and a day fixed for the modera- 
 tion of a call. Dissents were asked in terms of the 
 Veto Act, and on a major part of the male heads of 
 families in communion tendering these, the presbytery, 
 on that ground, rejected the presentee. In this sen- 
 tence, neither the patron nor the presentee acquiesced. 
 Lord Kinnoul, conjunctly with Mr Young, instituted a 
 process against the presbytery of Auchterarder in the 
 Court of Session, to have it declared, that " they were 
 bound and astricted to make trial of the qualifications 
 of the pursuer, and are still bound so to do ; and if 
 in their judgment, after due trial and examination, the 
 pursuer is found qualified, the said presbytery are 
 bound and astricted to receive and admit the pursuer 
 as minister of the church and parish of Auchterarder, 
 according to law." Accordingly, counsel on both sides 
 were heard most largely ; the opinions of the Judges* 
 were given at unprecedented length, and on the 8th 
 day of March, 1838, the Lords of the First Division 
 
 * As by the assumption of the dominant party all the talent and 
 worth of the Church were on their side, so, of course, were all the 
 talent and wisdom of the Bench. On Lord Jeffrey, in particular, 
 was their adulation profusely heaped. Not that their panegyrics at 
 all affected this able and accomplished lawyer — ^the last T)f a race 
 crowned with other laurels than those gathered from the barren 
 floor of the Parliament House. If in 1838 he pronounced in favour 
 of the Church, he was candid enough to intimate, but a short time 
 ■before the Secession, that his opinions had been shaken. This he 
 
GENERAL asse:mbly, 1839. 57 
 
 found in favour of the pursuers. On the 3d April 
 following, a memorial was presented by the pursuers 
 to the presbytery, " to repair, so far, the injuries 
 decreed to have been done by taking Mr Young on 
 trial; and thereafter proceeding in his settlement as 
 minister of the said church without any further delay," 
 wliich memorial was referred to the synod, and by the 
 synod to the General Assembly, by whom the following 
 deliverance was pronounced : — "The General Assembly 
 sustains the references, approves of the conduct of the 
 Presbytery of Auchterarder and the Synod of Perth 
 and Stirhno; : authorises the Procurator for the Church 
 to appeal the judgment of the Court of Session in the 
 action at the instance of the Earl of Kinnoul and the 
 Rev. Robert Young against the said presbytery, so 
 soon as he and the other counsel for the presbytery 
 in the said cause shall think it expedient to do so." 
 That was accordingly done ; and on the 3d day of May, 
 1839, the House of Lords affirmed the judgment of the 
 the Court of Session. 
 
 I think, then, that I may fairly pronounce this a 
 
 did most unequivocally, when, in giving judgment on a church cause, 
 he read in court one of the most emphatic sections of Lord 
 Brougham's speech on the Auchterarder Case, and accompanied it 
 with the remark, that he had to confess that there was much to be 
 said for the argimient there urged. I think it right to note this, as 
 attempts have been made to cast doubts on this ingenuous statement. 
 I myself heard it, and I may be allowed to add, so did Dr Candlish, 
 who indicated sufficiently by his looks, that he did not misunderstand 
 the graceful acknowledgment. 
 
58 AUCHTERARDER CASE — 
 
 turning point in the liistory of the Church. I venture 
 also to say, that the solution of the dilemma into wliich 
 the Church had been brought, was not in itself a very 
 difficult one. Divested of all ambiguity, the question 
 might very naturally be put in this way — Does con- 
 science compel me to maintain an act which I would 
 not have passed, had I deemed it inconsistent with the 
 law of the land ? Does conscience compel me, as an 
 office-bearer in an estabhshed church, which appeals 
 the question from one civil court to another, to resist 
 a decision which, at my own instance, has been pro- 
 nounced? Is there notliing for it, but that in 1839 
 I should fight for the Veto Act tanquam pro arts 
 etfocis — if in 1834, and with my present knowledge, 
 conscience must have prevented me from supporting it 
 at all? 
 
 Premising, then, that we recognise, in this mode of 
 deahng with the case, an enhghtened perception of 
 duty — a tone of thought not the less praiseworthy, 
 that it may, in submission, have some little self-denial 
 to be exercised, some httle pride to be mortified — we 
 would also recall the fact, that, in the providence of 
 God, there was nothing that could force on a different 
 result. No path could be more open than was the 
 way of the Church in 1839. That, under a conviction 
 of the competency of their proceedings, the majority 
 of the Assembly in '34 had passed the Veto Act, we at 
 once concede. To this acknowledgement they are 
 entitled, not less from their own declarations, than 
 
GENERAL ASSEMBLY, 1839. 59 
 
 from the facts of the case. It is well known that the 
 opinion of the crown lawyers of the day was taken, 
 and that they pronounced it within the jurisdiction of 
 the Church. It is also to be remembered, that Lord 
 Moncreiff, whose opinion was entitled to much respect, 
 and whose influence in the Church was most extensive, 
 did, in placing this law on the statute-book of the 
 Church, pledge all he knew, whether of law ecclesias- 
 tical or law civil, that there was no danger. And it 
 cannot be disputed, that a change was needed in the 
 administration of the policy of the Church. Too nar- 
 rowly interpreted in the procedure of the church 
 courts for a long term of years, the privileges of the 
 people had been materially abridged — " Life, and 
 literature, and doctrine," had, in the practice, though 
 not in the constitution, of the Church, formed the limit 
 within wliich all objections to the presentee ranged — 
 and now, in the abandonment of the Veto, and with 
 the consent of their opponents — to be gathered from 
 the motion of Dr Cook in '34 — a larger scope might 
 have been given to the popular voice. 
 
 We are confirmed in this position by a reference to 
 the terms in which the judgment of the civil court was 
 given. A due regard to this must carry with it the 
 conviction, that no serious impediment existed to the 
 Church's falHng back on the position she occupied in 
 1833, and from which the sentence of the civil court 
 did not debar her. To what did that sentence amount ? 
 To notliing more than this, that the presbytery of 
 
60 AUCHTERARDER CASE — 
 
 Aucliterarder were bound and astricted to discharge 
 their statutory duty, and to take the presentee on 
 trial. Finding that that duty had not been dis- 
 charged — that, in giving effect to the mere will of the 
 people, and putting it on record as the ground of their 
 rejection, they had placed his trials in other hands 
 than those which the statutes provided — they were now 
 recalled to their own responsibility in the admission 
 and induction of ministers. 
 
 But did that decision impair, by one iota, the spirit- 
 ual functions of the Church ? Did it say — you shall in 
 no instance moderate in a call, or in any way hsten to 
 the voice of the people ? Did it cut off all retreat, by 
 pronouncing Mr Young, in virtue of his presentation, 
 minister of the church and parish of Aucliterarder ? 
 Did it say any more than would have been said, and 
 surely with justice, to any presbytery, which, in the 
 predominance of anti-patronage views, had refused to 
 receive a presentation from an undoubted patron, re- 
 jected his presentee, and handed over the appointment 
 to the people ? Or, moreover, we would ask, if the ad- 
 mission of the presentee to the parish of Auchterarder 
 followed as a necessary sequence of the decision of the 
 House of Peers. No one will maintain this. So, in all 
 likelihood, it would have ended — but not of necessity. 
 The presbytery had only to try him, and if, after trial 
 — a trial in which the reclaiming voice of the people 
 was not to be unheard, but most tenderly listened to 
 in every objection it offered, or in any remonstrance it 
 
GENERAL ASSEMBLY, 1839. 61 
 
 urged — he was found not suited to the charge, they 
 were free, in the emphatic language of Dr Muir, to 
 '•'cast" liim without mercy. 
 
 We apprehend that these circumstances, when duly 
 considered, leave but little doubt, with the reflecting 
 mind, as to the proper policy and duty of the Church 
 when the judgment of the House of Lords was finally 
 reported. And it is not to be forgotten, that the 
 expectation of such views preponderating in the 
 Assembly, over rasher councils, was largely and not 
 unwarrantably entertained. This compels us at once 
 to introduce the name of Dr Chalmers, who, for seve- 
 ral weeks previous to the meeting of tliis eventful 
 Assembly, encouraged hopes which he hved most 
 effectually to blast. And, in saying so, we are far 
 from charging him with intentional or premeditated 
 deceit. The inconsistencies of a pubhc life do not 
 necessarily imply this ; for it were a melancholy 
 thought, did the changes which ever and anon come 
 over the walk of the statesman and of the churchman — 
 chequering sometimes, with a hue not less varied than 
 the Ught and shade on the mountain brow, the history 
 of his life — lead to nothing but the dreary conclusion, 
 that there is nothing stable under the sun. There are 
 few men so truly great as to have escaped the charge 
 of inconsistency ; and more especially may it be ac- 
 counted for on other grounds than those of pohcy or 
 contrivance, where it may without presumption be said, 
 that impulse preponderates over discretion, and genius 
 
62 AUCHTERARDER CASE — 
 
 sometimes takes the place of judgment. With men of 
 this high-wrought temperament, the history of their 
 pubhc hfe often presents httle else than a rope of sand, 
 without continuity of parts or principle of union — 
 though from day to day, in the secret chambers of 
 imagery, they are spinning a gossamer thread of their 
 own — ^invisible to all but themselves in its coherence and 
 consistency. It is not that their heart does not beat 
 high with the most enlarged and Christian philanthropy 
 — it is not that they are insensible to motives and maxims 
 the most elevated and ennobhng — it is not that in the 
 hour of a nation's or church's need, they would trifle 
 away, in a game of caprice, the welfare of present and of 
 coming generations. Exempt from all such obliquity, 
 and willing to spend and be spent for the weal of the 
 commonwealth, they may yet, by a peculiarity of tem- 
 per, or an over facihty of mind, have failed in purpose 
 — and failed, too, at those seasons when the eyes of 
 thousands were turned upon them in anxious expectation. 
 By some unlooked-for evolution of their minds — by im- 
 pressions adopted at the moment, and, with the rapidity 
 of contagion, telling on every faculty and power — ^by 
 fresh thoughts caught up in feeling, and at once trans- 
 ferred from the heart to the head, there to occupy the 
 throne of judgment — by new turns of policy, starting 
 like a torrent from their bed, and rushing on in"a new 
 channel as proudly as though they had scooped it out for 
 themselves, while they are only obeying the guiding 
 hand of others and following their pick-axe — their 
 
GENERAL ASSEMBLY, 1839. 63 
 
 fondest admirers have been perplexed, and their best 
 friends rebuked — and the emphatic lesson has been 
 enforced — " it is better to trust in the Lord than to 
 put confidence in man ; it is better to trust in the Lord 
 than to put confidence in princes." And as I can 
 answer for myself, I can do it for many others, when 
 I say, that never was disappointment more bitterly felt 
 than m the appearance of Dr Chalmers in the Assembly 
 '39. Up to this point, as he had made no secret of his 
 sentiments, so did he declare himself prepared to act 
 upon them. They were sentiments, not of resistance, 
 but of submission — of acquiescence in a decision which 
 the Church could bear without derehction of duty or 
 abandonment of principle. On this his mmd was to 
 all appearance most conclusively made up ; so much 
 so, indeed, that the whole programme of his movements 
 in the approaching meeting of the supreme court was 
 known and canvassed, both by friend and foe. We have 
 not forgotten how, to meet him and to oppose the poHcy 
 which he suggested, the presbytery of Edinburgh 
 was disturbed by a motion to break the old rule of 
 rotation in the return of their clerical members to the 
 Assembly. Dr Chalmers was not to have it all his 
 own way, and every nerve was strained, especially 
 by Dr Cunningham himself, that he should be returned 
 that year to meet the influential pacificator in the tug of 
 conflict. The same scene occurred in the presbytery 
 of Glasgow, where a breach of the rotation system was 
 also tried, on the understood ground that Dr Chalmers 
 
64 AUCHTERARDER CASE— 
 
 might be defeated, and that the war party might 
 prevail. The attempt was fruitless. The presbyteries 
 remained firm — and, even with the help of their own 
 votes, (which, in opposition to universal suffrage, may 
 well be called particular) — Drs Cunningham of Edin- 
 burgh and Buchanan of Glasgow were left to take 
 the back seats. But they were not behind in their 
 policy. What faction is — and, we are constrained to 
 add, what ecclesiastical party? It is the pecuharity 
 of all such confederacies, that with the brand of the 
 wandering Jew on their forehead, they have the cry on 
 their lips of the venerable raven in the story — " Never 
 say die." Their tenacity of hfe is extreme ; and when 
 apparently dead, it is only by fiction — to gain a little 
 more time — to gather their breath. Then up they 
 spring at an unexpected hour. What open assault 
 cannot accomphsh, secret management may eifect. Not 
 to speak of well-trained spies, haunting the steps and 
 gliding into the very homes of the adversary — not to 
 dwell on the subtle device of female visitants, clad in 
 fair robes, and under the shelter of their sex going 
 out and in with immunity, doing the menial work of 
 drudges at the bidding of their rude taskmasters, and 
 carrying them home by night, not the honey of the 
 bee, but something akin to the gall of asps under their 
 tongue — not to enumerate the seductive approaches of 
 emissaries of every rank and age, vending their wares 
 and insinuating themselves into favour, till one strong- 
 hold after another has been whispered away, and gate 
 
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1839. 65 
 
 after gate unlocked, (for with all these feats of warlike 
 intrigue the annals of Non-intrusion are famihar,) we 
 have to record an achievement more wonderful still — 
 Dr Cunningham got round Dr Chalmers. Up to 
 Sabbath the 12th of May, and on Sabbath the 12th of 
 May, the reverend doctor was firm as a rock. The 
 Alps seemed not more insurmountable. But on Mon- 
 day morning, and by ten o'clock, the step of a General 
 was on them. The rocks underwent a strange and 
 most unaccountable change, their hardness gave way 
 — every formation, primary, secondary, and tertiary, 
 was dissolved, doubtless by a copious eifusion of vine- 
 gar from the breakfast table — the way was cleared — 
 and by Thursday the 16th, the Non-intrusion forces, 
 bag and baggage, passed over as on a beaten high- 
 way. The feat was next to miraculous. The victory 
 was certain ; and from his back seat, over which in- 
 visible laurels were hanging, the Hannibal of the day 
 could enjoy all the luxury and the repose of his 
 triumph. 
 
 To dip into the resolutions of Dr Chalmers, which 
 were ultimately carried, or to consider his laboured and 
 yet most energetic speech, is to feel disappointment at 
 every step. There is nothing calm — nothing discreet 
 — nothing measured — little that betokens the genius 
 of the ecclesiastical statesman — while there is much 
 that indicates the fire of the man. From first to last 
 his argument is an assumption. With a mind wliich 
 at no period dwelt on points of detail — on which, after 
 
 F 
 
66 AUCHTERARDER CASE — 
 
 all, general principles so often turn for their settlement 
 — with a native disregard he has never surmounted, 
 of the necessary and wholesome connexion of forms 
 with facts, and of facts with forms, interlacing each 
 other and mutually imparting strength — with a ne- 
 glect, almost supercihous, of statutes — treating them 
 more as the playthings of imagination, than as the use- 
 ful and homely tools by which theories should be con- 
 structed, and the poHcy of a Church or a State formed 
 — ^his oration on this great day of the Assembly was 
 a discursus. To say that it was powerfully spoken, 
 and most eloquently too, were a useless tribute ; and 
 more especially, perhaps, when we are censuring it. 
 But, having said this, we can add nothing more. 
 Based as it was on the report of the Procurator, which 
 conveyed nothing more to the Assembly than the 
 judgment of the final court of appeal — the House of 
 Lords — it yet travelled far beyond it. If it referred 
 to it at all, it was in a very subsidiary way. Sufficient 
 fuel was not there to be gathered for the flame. Other 
 topics were dragged in ; and, with a license to which, 
 in discussing a judicial sentence, there are but few 
 parallels — in a series of resolutions which go on hypo- 
 thesis, and not on facts of which the Assembly was 
 judicially apprised — in inferences drawn from»certain 
 statements in the speeches of Lords Cottenham, 
 Brougham, and Campbell, involving questions not yet 
 raised, and not before the Peers in substantive shape 
 — in a storm of declamation which, in a popular as- 
 
GENERAL ASSEMBLY, 1839. 67 
 
 sembly, is so very apt to bewilder the mind and to 
 carry all before it — the flag of resistance was unfurled, 
 and the war party prevailed. There was to be no 
 concession — no amity — no adjustment.* The resolu- 
 tions of Dr Cook and of Dr Muir were ahke in vain ; 
 and, with a majority of forty-seven against the former, 
 and of thirty-six against the latter, in a house, we 
 should say, of upwards of three hundred and fifty — the 
 position of the dominant party was taken, and its pohcy 
 formed.t 
 
 To this result, the " Independence Resolution" of the 
 Assembly '38 in no shght degree contributed. We 
 would be doing injustice to the quick discernment of 
 those who at that time led the councils of the Church, 
 
 * See Appendix, C. 
 
 t No one knew better than Lord Dalhousie the changes in Dr 
 Chalmers ; and well might he say to the majority of the Assembly, 
 the day after the deUverance was passed — " You have no doubt 
 gained, by the assistance of my reverend and learned friend, a great 
 victory. You owe him all gratulation for it. You should crown 
 him with your praises — decree to him all the honours of an ancient 
 triumph — carry him in procession to your capitol ; but, among your 
 arrangements, forget not to observe that peculiar form which 
 ordained that, at the moment when the victorious general stood 
 elate in his chariot, there should be placed near him one who, ever 
 and anon, should whisper in his ear of the alloy that mingles with 
 earthly glory. And so, when you have placed the reverend doctor 
 in his triumphal car, let this monitor tell how the victory he has 
 gained, though a brilliant, has not been, morally, a bloodless one — 
 that, by the speeches of yesterday, which led to yesterday's vote, 
 many of the firmest and fastest friends of the Church of Scotland — 
 sir, I could name to you a score at this moment — have had their 
 allegiance to her shaken, and felt that, in spite of themselves, their 
 best services are dissevered from her side.*' 
 
68 AUCHTERARDER CASE — 
 
 did we say that the judgment of the House of Lords 
 had come upon them unawares. As in March '38 
 they had, by the adverse decision of the Court of 
 Session, a pretty strong premonition given of the pro- 
 babihties of an appeal to the highest tribunal, they 
 prepared themselves for the result. Every precaution 
 was taken which skill could suggest, which, if it 
 could not avert, might obviate the effects of the 
 impending blow ; and hence that wire-drawn resolu- 
 tion — which, with an adverse decision to the plea 
 might amehorate their condition, and with a friendly 
 one could do no harm. And as it was well imagined, 
 it was appropriately introduced by one who could 
 enunciate it with becoming dignity, expound truths 
 no one disputed, and receive his reward in being 
 permitted to speak of the noble lords in the House 
 of Peers. Dr Robert Buchanan was selected for the 
 duty ; and he performed it well. He set forth — " That 
 the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, 
 while they unqualifiedly acknowledge the exclusive 
 jurisdiction of the civil courts in regard to the civil 
 rights and emoluments secured by law to the Church 
 and ministers thereof, and will ever give and inculcate 
 implicit obedience to their decisions thereanent, do 
 resolve, as is declared in the Confession of«» Faith 
 of this National Established Church, ' the Lord Jesus, 
 as King and Head of his Church, hath therein ap- 
 pointed a government in the hands of church officers 
 distinct from the civil magistrate ; ' and that in all 
 
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1839. 69 
 
 matters touching the doctrine, government, and dis- 
 ciphne of tliis Church, her judicatories possess an 
 exclusive jurisdiction, founded on the Word of God, 
 which power ecclesiastical, (in the words of the Second 
 Book of Disciphne,) flows immediately from God and 
 the Mediator Jesus Christ, and is spiritual, not having 
 a temporal head on earth, but only Christ, the only 
 spiritual King and Governor of his Kirk ; and they 
 do further resolve, that this spiritual jurisdiction, and 
 the supremacy and sole headship of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, on which it depends, they will assert, and at 
 all hazards defend, by the help and blessing of that 
 great God, who, in the days of old, enabled their 
 fathers, amid manifold persecutions, to maintain a 
 testimony, even to the death, for Christ's kingdom and 
 crown; and finally, that they will firmly enforce 
 submission to the same upon the office-bearers and 
 members of this Church, by the execution of her laws, 
 in the exercise of the ecclesiastical authority wherewith 
 they are invested." And who disputes the tenor of 
 this resolution? In '38 Dr Cook did not impugn it 
 in its natural and obvious meaning. Or what right- 
 minded Presbyterian has denied it since? That the 
 Lord Jesus, as King and Head of his Church, has 
 therein appointed a government in the hands of church 
 officers apart from the civil magistrate — is an article 
 of faith which, at all hazards, not only the Church of 
 Scotland, but every Christian chui-ch, is bound to 
 
70 AUCHTERARDER CASE — 
 
 maintain — and which, I must be allowed to add, our 
 own Zion has never relinquished — no, not even when 
 she stood as lately amidst the debris of actions and of 
 interdicts, which nothing but obstinacy had generated, 
 and a headstrong pohcy had provoked. But what- 
 ever the premises were, not so the conclusion. Why 
 load the records of the Assembly with a mere excerpt 
 from the Confession? The succeeding year shewed 
 this. The appHcation was made — the inferences were 
 drawn — Auchterarder came into play — and the " In- 
 dependence Resolution" was rendered available, despite 
 reason and logic, in contravention of express statutes, 
 and in the face of an admitted appeal to repel the 
 decision of the House of Lords. 
 
 It were wrong, perhaps, in referring to this, to omit 
 the argument it ultimately ehcited. As the proceed- 
 ing of '38 gave force to the deliverance of '39, they 
 jointly contributed to raise an argument of a descrip- 
 tion rather peculiar. The theory of co-ordinate courts 
 was evolved, and it was illustrated by the figures of 
 parallel lines running on, and yet never meeting. For 
 ^ conveniency the illustration was perfect; for refuge, 
 when hard pressed, invaluable. A church, established 
 by law, co-ordinate and independent of the civil autho- 
 rities in the kingdom, and yet, by successive acts of 
 these authorities, denuded of all her benefices ! Action 
 is accumulated upon action, and interdict after inter- 
 dict is disobeyed ; one stipend after another is arrested 
 
GENERAL ASSEMBLY, 1839. 71 
 
 to fructify in the pockets of patrons, or to replenish 
 the treasui'y of the Widows' Fund. And yet the 
 Church of Scotland is co-ordinate still — the parallel 
 lines are never meeting ! 
 
 JN'or can they now be permitted to point, in justifica- 
 tion of this first and fatal act of resistance, to other 
 and still more stringent decisions of the civil courts. 
 As was only to be expected, the battle thickened as 
 tlie day advanced. The judgment of the House of 
 Lords led inevitably to all that followed ; only that, if 
 the Church had not resisted the law, nothing else 
 would have followed. It was not to be supposed, 
 where civil uijury was inflicted, there should be no 
 redress. The Auchterarder damages ; the order of 
 the court on the presbytery to discharge its statutory 
 duty in the trials of Mr Young, wliich, by the law of 
 the land, it was hound and astricted to do ; the inter- 
 dicts served on the commissioners to Strathbogie, who 
 were expressly appointed by minute to declare vacant 
 the parishes of ministers deposed on no other ground 
 than their obedience to the declared law of the land — 
 and which has been perversely termed an interdicting 
 of the preaching of the gospel ; these, and various 
 other findings we need not enumerate, are reducible 
 to the same point, and fall to be explained on the same 
 ground. The fault lay at the door of the Church. 
 Here was the provocation given, and most pertinaci- 
 ously kept up ; and, whether we beUeve or not in the 
 prophetic gift of the author and promulgator of the 
 
72 AUCHTERARDER CASE. 
 
 Independence Resolution, when lie asserted, in the 
 presbytery of Glasgow, that he and liis friends had 
 foreseen, and had grounds to foresee — m the principles 
 adopted in the Auchterarder case sustaining the juris- 
 diction of the civil courts — all the subsequent decisioiis 
 as direct and necessary consequences from it — there 
 is no doubt whatever of the fact. It was too much 
 to expect that the restraints of duty — the sanctions of 
 statutory obligations — and the judgment of a tribunal 
 at whose bar the Church had stood in the attitude 
 of an appellant, should, by an abeyance of law, be 
 suffered to be openly and systematically repelled. 
 
THE REIGN OF DIPLOMACY. 73 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE REIGN OF DIPLOMACY. 
 
 The course of the dominant party once taken — the 
 Kubicon passed — -their game was liigh. It was plain, 
 from the first, that to enter into a conflict with the 
 courts of law, was neither more nor less than a war of 
 extermination ; and that, in refutation of the theory of 
 co-orduiate courts, it could only end in one way, in 
 the destruction of those who provoked it. Hence, it 
 was not unnatural that every expedient should be 
 tried, every remedy sought — that, penduig the actions 
 in the Court of Session, which were narrowly watched 
 while they were publicly shghted, there should run 
 on, consentaneously, a vein of diplomacy, that the 
 legislature might be pacified and its good-will secured. 
 
 There are seasons, certainly, which sharpen men's 
 wits, and this was one of them. Not that these are 
 always of a salutary tendency. The nice pohsliing 
 of the intellect in the collision of mind with mind, is 
 not always beneficial to the churchman — especially in 
 the history of ecclesiastical diplomacy. If this must 
 be set a-going by interviews, and memorials, and 
 
 G 
 
74 THE REIGN OF DIPLOMACY. 
 
 appeals — should all the apparatus, ready made to the 
 hand of the politician, and by dint of which he accom- 
 plishes his work — systems of canvassing and caballing, 
 intermeddling with elections and hawking of petitions, 
 waylaying the member for the county, or browbeating 
 the minister for the crown — should these be used with- 
 out ceremony by those who minister at the altar ; nay, 
 receive consecration when the aggrandisement of a 
 church is involved — all we can say is, it will not be 
 the fault of the leaders of the Consistory that they 
 are not wielded with the utmost adroitness. More 
 than one page in history proves this. If London has 
 only seen one Sharp from Scotland, it has sent back 
 others sharper for their visit ; improved in their gifts, 
 whatever may be said of their graces. Give me a 
 season in the history of any rehgious community, 
 when political appliances come into free use : when 
 Dissenters, taking advantage of some propitious era 
 for the injury or the destruction of the establishment, 
 throw themselves en 'masse into agitation ; transmit- 
 ting, with the shuttle's quickness, a thousand threads 
 from platforms, and congregations, and synods, that 
 the fabric of the constitution may be repaired, and a 
 new web of their own thrown oif ; — or when Church- 
 men, under a self-created pressure, and from the effects 
 of which they would fondly escape, leave no ston© 
 unturned, whether in Parliament or out of it, that 
 their reign may be perpetuated, and their policy con- 
 firmed; — and I do not expect, at such a crisis, any 
 
THE REIGN OF DIPLOMACY. 75 
 
 extensive enlargement of the graces of the Christian 
 character, or of the charities of the Cliristian hfe. Or 
 show me a time when negociation upon negociation 
 is pending — show me on an open field, and under the 
 broad sky, two classes of men in conference, the one 
 the leaders of a church, and the other of a common- 
 wealth, met to settle a point of difference, to adjust the 
 balance disturbed by the dust of an ecclesiastical whirl- 
 wind — or, if you will, the equipoise broken by an al- 
 leged civil aggression — and I venture to say, that the 
 minister for the Church's home department will not 
 be behind the most diplomatic foreign minister for the 
 Crown. The former possesses peculiar advantages. 
 As ecclesiastical phrases come more fluently to his 
 lips, the exclusiveness of liis profession stamps them 
 sometimes with a fictitious importance. And they are 
 necessarily more vague. It is not a point of geography 
 between two contending nations — it is not a question of 
 disputed territory. The marches of the constitution 
 are not so easily cleared, or its landmarks fixed. In 
 consistency with the same theory, various interpreta- 
 tions may be adopted, and the most feasible proposi- 
 tions advanced. Hence the indefatigable nature of the 
 struggle, and the various colours it assumes. There is 
 much left to imagination, and not a little to exagge- 
 ration. PoUcy may do something, and time much. 
 Nothing is overlooked — nothing which danger can 
 suggest or ingenuity create; and if politicians may 
 
76 THE REIGN OF DIPLOMACY. 
 
 not shift their ground mth impunity, ecclesiastics 
 may.* 
 
 These thoughts are irrepressibly forced upon us 
 when we recall the various shapes which, pending the 
 actions in the civil courts, the assumed representatives of 
 the Church gave to their negociations in London. Not 
 that these were at first very well defined, even to 
 themselves. Under the first shock of the Auchterarder 
 case, and the Assembly '39, we believe that we are not 
 wrong in saying, that the plan of the movement party 
 was not immediately fixed. The judgment of the 
 House of Lords, though resisted, had not been unfelt ; 
 and it was not to be thought, that all at once, on the 
 hostile ground which was now occupied at the impe- 
 rious bidding of the leaders, the Non-intrusion forces, 
 so widely scattered over the face of Scotland, should 
 concentrate themselves in one point, or at once deter- 
 mine their line of action. Various calculations had to 
 be made at the commencement of a campaign, which, 
 promising as it did to be a protracted one, was also 
 fraught with the most important results. The sympa- 
 thies of the people had to be enhsted on their side, and 
 every precaution taken which the emergency dictated, 
 to prevent or to repair any defection from their ranks. 
 But, if there was necessary caution, there was no un- 
 
 • 
 
 * In proof of this, and as the best of all evidence, we give in the 
 Appendix, D, a letter from Mr Hog of Newliston, addressed to the 
 editors of the newspapers. 
 
THE REIGN OF DIPLOMACY. 77 
 
 necessary delay. The policy of resistance once taken, 
 the interests at stake were not to be trifled with ; and 
 what the Parliament House in Edinburgh could not do 
 for them, the Parliament of Great Britain might, by a 
 well sustained appHcation, be induced to confer. 
 
 And, verily, that same Parliament was well tried. It 
 were a tedious task to pursue the Non-intrusion com- 
 mittee through all their diplomatic windings. These 
 brought them into contact with two Ministries, and with 
 every section and semi-section in the political world. 
 Lord Melbourne and Lord John Russell, as well as 
 Sir Robert Peel and Lord x\berdeen, whether off 
 or on the Treasury benches, were alternately the 
 subject of their flatteries and complaints — ^Yhig and 
 Conservative, ultra-Radical and ultra-Tory, were most 
 impartially assailed. And perhaps, after all, the per- 
 fection of it was, that they had those in their ranks 
 who, dissimilar in politics, were yet at one in the eccle- 
 siastical movement. Tliis, apparently, was a great ad- 
 vantage. To have, at the same moment, united in the 
 same objects and prosecuting the same, plans, Mr 
 Buchan of Kelloe and Mr Crawford of Crawfordland. 
 with Mr Alexander Dunlop and Mr Graham Speirs 
 and Mr Earle Monteith — to see, as true yoke-fellows 
 in the great cause of Non-intrusion, Dr Chalmers and 
 Dr Gordon, not, it may be, in the same boat, but in 
 the same steam-carriage with Dr Candhsh and Dr 
 Welsh ; was a spectacle to which we were often pointed, 
 as worthy of all admiration. The point of admiration. 
 
78 THE REIGN OF DIPLOMACY. 
 
 however, we could never see. If some men call this 
 the fusion of partj politics in the intense action of re- 
 hgious feehng — for the solution of the anomaly I am 
 reduced to no such dilemma. I dechne touching its 
 horns ; and if I am not allowed to get quit of it with 
 the old adage, that extremes often meet, I must con- 
 tent myself with giving its counterpart. I ask, then, 
 what class of politicians saw it for the good of the state 
 to support them, even in the infancy of their demands ? 
 In which of their errands, multifarious as they were, 
 could they commend themselves to the intelligence of 
 England, as seeking what, in the circumstances, was 
 just, or what, under any political creed, was advisable ? 
 To talk of the Veto law being confirmed by an act of 
 legislature, while it was retained pertinaciously on the 
 statute-book of the Church, was out of the question — 
 and yet it was tried. To talk of the Duke of Argyle's 
 Bill, which, in point of fact, was neither more nor less 
 than the Veto in disguise — and which, at last, abandoned 
 by the chief of the Campbells in sometliing like dis- 
 gust at the parties with whom he had to deal, was 
 taken up by Mr Campbell of Monzie — was not less out 
 of the question ; and yet it was tried. To talk of the 
 liherum arhitrmm, which, being interpreted, meant, 
 that the Church should do as it pleased ; that they 
 should be vested with the statutory license of giving 
 effect, or not, to the dissent of the people, as they saw 
 fit ; putting it in the power of the dominant party — not 
 very scrupulous in their dealings, (as North Leith and 
 
THE REIGN OF DIPLOMACY. 79 
 
 Dalkeith, and other vacancies shewed) — by the same in- 
 strumentahty to extinguish one presentee and to carry 
 through another; that this should be asked was not won- 
 derful, but that it should be conceded, was a different 
 thing. And what of that "Claim of Right," which, 
 based as it was on 'grievances which they themselves 
 had originated, and of which a little timeous and well- 
 conditioned concession would at once have rid them, 
 threw all their former manifestoes into the shade ? It 
 is a most extraordinary document.* For intrepidity 
 of tone, for hardihood of assertion, for the breadth and 
 arrogance of its demands, it must ever hold a distinct 
 place on the rolls of Parliament, and in the records of 
 the crown. It protests, that " all and whatsoever acts 
 of the Parliaments of Great Britain passsed ivithout the 
 consent of this Church and nation, in alteration of, or 
 in derogation to the aforesaid government, disciphne, 
 rights, and privileges of the Church, are and shall be 
 in themselves void and nidi, and of no legal force, 
 or effect " — so much for intrepidity of tone. It asserts, 
 that " the Court of Session, a tribunal instituted by 
 special act of Parliament for the specific and limited 
 purpose of doing and administration of justice in all 
 civil actions, not confining themselves to the determi- 
 nation of civil actions, have, in numerous and repeated 
 instances, stepped beyond the province allotted to them 
 
 * For a full exposition of it we refer to the admirable speech of 
 David Milne, Esq., in the Commission of the Assembly, 31st Jan- 
 uary, 1843. 
 
80 THE REIGN OF DIPLOMACY. 
 
 by the constitution — have invaded the jurisdiction of the 
 courts of the Church — ^have subverted its government — 
 have illegally attempted to coerce church courts in the 
 exercise of their purely spiritual functions — have usurp- 
 ed the power of the keys " — this I call hardihood of 
 assertion on the part of those who were themselves 
 the aggressors, and who left no other alternative to the 
 Court of Session than this : — that, having conscien- 
 tiously decerned on an action which was not of their 
 seeking, they were not at liberty to do any thing else 
 than to follow it out to all its legitimate consequences. 
 And, to pass over other points in the manifesto — their 
 significant hint to the Queen about the breach of her 
 oaths ; their bold appeal to all Christendom, that they 
 were subjected to hardships for their adherence to the 
 doctrine of the sole headship of the Lord Jesus Christ 
 over his church ; their special pleading in the enume- 
 ration of grievances of which they complain — what, 
 we would ask, is the amount of their claim ? It is 
 neither more nor less than this : that there should be 
 reserved to them, under the highest sanction of law, 
 the sole right of determining for themselves what is 
 ecclesiastical, without let or hindrance of any descrip- 
 tion. Was this a claim for any Protestant church to 
 advance, or for any Protestant government to concede ? 
 It is not to be wondered at that the right honourable 
 baronet the Secretary of State for the Home Depart- 
 ment, shrunk at first from laying it before her Majesty ; 
 and that, even in this age of pohtical adventure, no 
 
THE REIGN OF DIPLOMACY 81 
 
 I 
 
 statesman of any note proposed to place it perma- 
 nently on the statute-book of the land. It was most 
 harmoniously cushioned. So, indeed, were all their 
 manifestoes — falling by their own weight, and that, too, 
 without leaving the negotiators of the Church the con- 
 solation of tliinking that they had failed by any defect 
 in their arrangements, or any very material apostasy 
 in their ranks. As the Houses of Parhament were 
 plied with their petitions, so were the private dwellings 
 of the members open to their appeals. Protocol after 
 protocol went forth from the committee, with its accom- 
 panying embassy ; and faces but too httle known at 
 home in the streets and lanes of Edinburgh and Glas- 
 gow, were as famihar in London, at that period usually 
 styled headquarters, as were the persons and faces 
 of the officials of Downing Street. 
 
 If we turn to Lord Melbourne, we ask what support 
 did the Non-intrusion party receive from him as Prime 
 Minister? Had he been able to accommodate them 
 in an easy and off-hand way, he would doubtless have 
 done it. He was not of an intractable disposition; 
 he was at the head of an administration, of which Lord 
 John Russell, the professed advocate of civil and reli- 
 gious liberty, was a prominent member ; and, surely, 
 had an outrage been perpetuated by half so flagrant 
 as the " Claim of Right" indicated, sympathy might 
 have been looked for, and a remedy found. But no ; 
 Lord Melbourne, who could lounge very good-natur- 
 edly, hat in hand, listening to other deputations. 
 
82 THE REIGN OF DIPLOMACY. 
 
 was a little more curt with them. He was not at his 
 usual trouble to pass over the matter lightly, in half- 
 assumed ignorance, but was at special pains to let them 
 know he could and would do nothing for them. Lord 
 John Russell steadily resisted them. Lord Dunferm- 
 line, Lord Campbell, Lord Cottenham, the Duke of 
 Sutherland, the Duke of Richmond — and, to come to 
 Scotland — Sir James Gibson-Craig and his friends, 
 were all in the most intense state of opposition. This, 
 of course, was greatly to the annoyance of Mr Earle 
 Monteith, Mr Graham Spiers, Mr Alexander Dunlop, 
 and others, who were seeking redress, and to whom it 
 would have been much enhanced had it come through 
 the intervention of their own political party. But no ; 
 Mr Fox Maule and Lord Breadalbane could not 
 manage it. The Dissenters in Scotland — Dr Wardlaw, 
 Dr Struthers, Dr Brown, Dr King, with all their ad- 
 herents, lifted up their voice against it ; (as well they 
 might, for, had the lofty pretensions of the Church 
 been conceded, no parties would have suffered more 
 than they by the excess of power newly acquired ;) 
 and the ministry of Lord Melbourne stood firm. So, 
 in truth, did the ministry of Sir Robert Peel ; though, 
 from peculiar circumstances, in a season of some little 
 excitement, when the question of Church extension 
 was largely agitated, they were brought more directly 
 into friendly connexion with the Church. And of all 
 the members of that Cabinet, there was no one ayIio 
 could, with better grace or more friendly intentions. 
 
THE REIGN OF DIPLOMACY. 83 
 
 entertain the question, than Lord Aberdeen. Most 
 frankly he did so ; and it is not to the disparagement 
 of one of the most distinguished of statesmen, and 
 of the most accomphshed men, of whom this age can 
 boast — it will always be in praise of the patriotism of 
 a nobleman of whom Scotland has so much reason to 
 be proud, that with the utmost simplicity of intention, 
 and with the most untiring zeal, he sought to allay the 
 agitation, and to restore the broken harmony of our 
 beloved Zion. Nor is this acknowledgement impaired 
 by the circumstance, that for his untiring eiforts to 
 please the dominant party, and to bring about a satis- 
 factory adjustment, he got, in return, their choicest 
 opprobrium. That was his recompense, as it was the 
 reward of all, who, out of office or in it — without or 
 within the Parliament — in presbytery, or synod, or 
 General Assembly — did not place themselves at their 
 disposal, and obsequiously obey their will. 
 
 In thus cursorily noticing, from '39 to '43, the move- 
 ments of the Non-intrusion corps diplomatique ^ we 
 would not have it supposed that they were never with- 
 out their misgivings as to the prudence and policy of 
 their procedure, or the special demands which they 
 made. While the harmony was undoubtedly wonder- 
 ful, it was not entirely unbroken. Sometimes, in the 
 provinces, thie subsidiary men had lost the old key- 
 note, or had not got the new one in time, and there 
 was a httle discord — or Mr Bruce of Kennet refused 
 to blow with sufficient violence, and Mr Hog of New- 
 
84 THE REIGN OF DIPLOMACY. 
 
 liston sent forth a querulous note — or Mr Maitland 
 Makgill was too high set, and Lord Breadalbane too 
 low — or the wooden edifices that were talked of, were not 
 the platform on which some of the company were very 
 ambitious of exhibiting — or Dr Chalmers himself, who 
 was the nominal leader, was now and then giving 
 forth an uncertain sound. Indeed, at no period of their 
 mutual engagement, was there implicit confidence 
 placed in him ; and, at one period in particular, he cost 
 his friends no little trouble. At the time when Lord 
 Aberdeen's bill was about to be introduced into Parlia- 
 ment, Dr Buchanan of Glasgow was in London. He 
 was the residuary member of a deputation which had 
 been there for some time previously, and who, unable 
 to remain any longer, bequeathed to him, in parting, 
 their best wishes and their advice. He was all but 
 plenipotentiary ; and he made use of his privilege. In 
 conference with Lord Aberdeen, we have reason to 
 beheve that he expressed no dissatisfaction with the 
 proposed measure ; as we have also reason to believe, 
 that, being present in the House of Peers on the night 
 when his lordship introduced his bill in a lengthened 
 speech, so much was the reverend gentleman pleased 
 with it, that he declared to a friend near him at the 
 bar, that he was off for Scotland, and hoped to obtain 
 Dr Chalmers's concurrence. Accordingly, down he 
 came ; and, as I understand it, he came first to Edin- 
 burgh. Dr Chalmers was not there ; he was across the 
 Firth at his residence at Burntisland. But Drs Cun- 
 
THE REIGX OF DIPLOMACY. 85 
 
 ningham and Candlisli were ; and if Dr Buchanan was 
 not allowed to cross the ferry, he was made to feel he 
 had crossed his friends. They took him to task — they 
 told him he was mistaken, and, like an obedient son of 
 the Church, like a well-disciplined member of the 
 band, he emptied liis pockets, discharged himself of 
 his London harp-strings, and betook liimself (with a 
 slight variation now and then, to give his music the air 
 of independence) to his old well-poised cadences and 
 monotonous tones. But Dr Chalmers was not so 
 easily managed. As he was a much more important, 
 he was also a much more difficult person to keep right. 
 'No pains, therefore, were to be spared that he might 
 be retained, having brought them much more popu- 
 larity — as since he has brought them much more 
 money — than any one else. Accordingly, as there was 
 some reason to fear that he might chime in with the 
 overture of Lord Aberdeen, he was privileged, for 
 about ten days, with a special coast-guard, or rather 
 body-guard. Every morning, by the first boat, some 
 friend or other paid him a visit ; he remained with 
 him all day, and returned by the last boat at night, to 
 make his report. Regularly as the evening came 
 round, a small party assembled at 13 Queen Street, to 
 hear progress. Mr Bruce, late of St Andrew's Church, 
 was especially in request on the occasion. It was an 
 anxious time ; and, it is proper to say, that their assi- 
 duity had its reward. While tides were ebbing and 
 flowing, Dr Chalmers, if not the leader, yet the 
 
86 THE REIGN OF DIPLOMACY. 
 
 great composer of the company, was kept in tune, and 
 Lord Aberdeen's bill was condemned as not in their 
 way.* 
 
 * As confii-matory of the statement, that for two or three days 
 at least after the introduction of Lord Aberdeen's bill, there were 
 men bold enough, or rather foolish enough, to think for themselves, 
 we may mention the fact, that the first article of the Scottish Guar- 
 dian, after the bill appeared, was not against it. While it acknow- 
 ledged it was not such a bUl as they would have sought — they yet 
 thought it was such a bill as the Church could receive and act under. 
 So said, for two or three days, the clergy of Glasgow, almost to a 
 man. But their masters in Edinbm-gh thought otherwise. Having 
 shaken Dr Buchanan into submission, Dr Cunningham made his ap- 
 pearance in Glasgov/, and there performed the same piece of duty 
 to others of the brethren. The bill was pronounced intolerable, and 
 the Scottish Guardian resumed its grumblings. 
 
THE REIGN OF INTIMIDATION. 87 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE REIGN OF INTIMIDATION. 
 
 We do not wish to magnify this chapter by caUing 
 it the Reign of Terror. There was no revolution 
 impending, though Dr CandUsh and his adherents 
 were abroad ; and, for the sake of eifect, to make their 
 enemies tremble and their female friends look pale, 
 they were rather in the habit of hinting at it. It was 
 a most self-flattering anticipation. That an institute 
 like the Church of Scotland, whose roots were not of 
 yesterday's growth, and under the shelter of which so 
 many myriads have been refreshed in their passage 
 to another world — which casts its shadow over the 
 graves of their fathers, and which, we trust, will long 
 smile in forgiveness over theirs — whose fibres were 
 interwoven with the best periods of our national 
 history, and the noblest institutions of the land — that 
 this should be in their keeping, and might be unmade 
 in a day, was unquestionably a topic of much self- 
 gratulation. The Voluntary controversy in which 
 they so boisterously indulged, whatever else it accom- 
 phshed, had entailed the delusion, that the Church of 
 
88 THE REIGN OF INTIMIDATION. 
 
 Scotland was part and parcel of themselves, so long 
 and loudly did they speak of it, and, having come to 
 the conclusion that as it had hved by them on the 
 field, it would die with them in the senate-house, 
 there was not an estate in the realm, the downfall of 
 which they did not consequentially anticipate. The 
 throne of the monarch, the hereditary rights of the 
 peerage, the privileges and prerogatives of the aristo- 
 cracy, were all scheduled oif for destruction in the 
 scheme of their direful forebodings. In such circum- 
 stances, so grave in import, and in their issue so 
 portentous, every thing was to be done to avert the 
 impending blow — their patriotism, not less than their 
 reUgion, required it at their hands ; and even though 
 a little wholesome coercion had been brought into 
 play, a little physical force been applied to control 
 their opponents, we beheve they would not have consi- 
 dered it very much mis-spent, as, in preserving them- 
 selves, they were only maintaining the Altar and 
 the Throne. 
 
 But in the necessary and unavoidable absence of all 
 those articulate monitors which tell upon the joints of 
 the body, we must do them the justice to say, they 
 were not slow in the inventions which tell upon the 
 mind. It is a vulgar idea which limits all torture to 
 the mere outward tabernacle. As the soul is the 
 nobler part, there may be ways of getting at it, and 
 which, for ingenuity of skill, throw to an immeasurable 
 distance the coarser implements of the feudal times. 
 
THE REIGN OF INTIMIDATION. 89 
 
 Witli a sufficiency of retainers beside tliem to do their 
 behests — with an obsequious company of followers 
 bred in the school of submission, and who, in token of 
 faithful service have given their judgments in pledge 
 to their ecclesiastical leaders, never perhaps to be 
 redeemed again — rit is not to be thought that the 
 champions of a party such as that we are now review- 
 ing, should brook contracUction to their arguments, 
 or opposition to their will. In proportion to the 
 pleasure they experience in numbering their friends 
 by fifties, they feel aggrieved in being obliged to 
 count their opponents by tens — and every successive 
 proof of unlimited confidence from the one quarter 
 makes them the less disposed to tolerate resistance 
 from the other. Hence, by no unnatural process, they 
 begin to vilify those they cannot conquer. Be it so 
 that they are not to be gained over — that after an 
 outpouring of vituperation, dignified it may be by the 
 name of argument, they are not to be brow-beaten — 
 that a small minority in a church court is hfting up 
 its head unabashed — then out comes their spleen. 
 Why trouble ourselves Tvdth men who are devoid of all 
 intellectual power? Why waste our ammunition on 
 mud- walls ? Why blunt the edge of our fine weapons 
 on the rock? Why level our battering-rams at a 
 crazy edifice not worth the demohshing ? Poor men ! 
 perhaps, after all, it is not so much their fault as their 
 faihng. It cannot be expected that they should be hke 
 us ; and we must not blame them too much if Provi- 
 
90 THE REIGN OF INTIMIDATION. 
 
 dence kas not given them our gifts — though, in one or 
 two cases, there is an appearance of those silly things 
 called graces ! 
 
 This, then, was the first contrivance in which they 
 indulged, and how largely I need scarcely say. But it 
 did not stop here. As men do not like to be told that 
 they have not mind enough to comprehend an argument 
 — Christian men should like less to be told they have 
 not rehgion enough to comprehend the gospel. This 
 was their next contrivance to scare their opponents ; and 
 I need not dilate on the unceremonious use which they 
 made of it. At first some little reserve was shown. One 
 of the narrowest questions of ecclesiastical policy that 
 ever distracted a church — namely, the Veto Act — could 
 not be expected all at once to assume very great magni- 
 tude and significance. It seemed all but acknowledged, 
 up to '39, that men might differ about it as about other 
 points of ecclesiastical government, without under- 
 valuing the blessed gospel of Jesus, or trampling his 
 crown in the dust. But after '39 all such. tacit tole- 
 ration was at an end. The existence of the party, not 
 less than its success, required that the feelings of the 
 pubUc should be propitiated and secured — and what so 
 likely to accomplish this, as in declaring the cause in 
 which they were embarked the cause of religion — the 
 cause of truth — the cause of God. Speedily, there- 
 fore, did these monopolisers of all the intellect of the 
 Church let the world know they absorbed all its reh- 
 gion. Comprehending within their ranks the good as 
 
THE REIGN OF INTIMIDATION. 91 
 
 well as the great, they were not only the props of the 
 constitution but the defenders of the faith. The circles 
 in which they moved were fragrant with piety — the 
 names that adorned their roll were encircled with a 
 halo of most saintly radiance — the standard around 
 which they gathered was emblazoned with the names 
 of patriarchs, and prophets, and apostles, and martyrs ! 
 And they did not leave it to others to sound their 
 praises. Fearfu, lest in that case they should wait 
 too long, or that an unthinking world might be slow 
 in making the discovery, they themselves announced 
 it. From the house-tops they did it ; and as it was 
 not a sohtary voice from their Sanhedrim which said, 
 *' Stand by — I am holier than thou " — it was not from 
 a single presbytery or platform they hurled their 
 fulminations at their opponents. The whole air was 
 thick with them ; and if, for several years, there was 
 any rivalry in their ranks at all, it lay in the coinage 
 of new terms of denunciation, and in the flippant use of 
 fresh terms of abuse. Did any one venture to think 
 that without any encroachment on the jurisdiction of 
 the Church, the law of the land might be obeyed ? he 
 was denounced as an Erastian. Did a second main- 
 tain that the measure of Lord Aberdeen might be 
 received by the Church as declaratory of its constitu- 
 tion? he incurred the anathemas so unsparingly 
 hurled at his lordship, of denying the crown rights of 
 the Redeemer, and of hurling him from his throne — 
 as though that could be done, even by Dr Cunningham 
 
92 THE REIGN OF INTIMIDATION. 
 
 or Dr Candlish, or any poor worm of the dust. Did 
 a third reserve to himself the privilege of thinking 
 that the ministers of Strathbogie were harshly used ? 
 he was pronounced " a traitor to his Lord and Master 
 — a scion of Moderatism," otherwise described as 
 *' The very Babylon, the Assyrian, and the Antichrist 
 of the Church of Scotland." Or did any maintain that 
 the Church was wrong, and that the Veto Act had 
 been better repealed? then did the Pope of the 
 party seat himself on liis throne, and declare, (avo 
 quote liis bull,) "It is true, indeed, in one sense, we 
 formed our decision originally under a mistaken 
 apprehension of what the civil courts would determine 
 to be the law of the land. But we are under no mis- 
 take as to the law of Christ. We thought that the 
 law of the land allowed — we ivere sure that the law of 
 Christ required — us to decide as we did. And what- 
 soever the law of the land may now be found, or may 
 be made to say, the law of Christ is not changed. The 
 question — should this man be pastor of Christ's flock in 
 this parish ? has already been settled according to tlie 
 mind of Christ" Most infallible man! so securely 
 perched as you were on the very summit of Zion, you 
 may be pardoned for playing so famiharly as you did 
 with the lightnings and thunderings of Sinai. 
 
 But it was not merely a rescript now and then 
 from their Pope, or a pamphlet from their press, or 
 a platform speech, that sufficed. They required other 
 and more frequent outlets for their indomitable zeal 
 
THE REIGN OF INTIMIDATION. 93 
 
 and their unquenchable bigotry. And this brings us 
 to their masterpiece. In '39 they had not a single 
 newspaper, with the exception of the Scottish Guardian. 
 This paper was started several years previously, chieliy 
 in consequence of the Voluntary controversy ; and, as 
 it was in the pay of the party, it was at all times ready 
 to do their work. But it was pubhshed in Glasgow, 
 and that was not convenient. Edinburgh required an 
 organ of its own, and one which in all parts of Scotland 
 might be regarded as official ; and the Witness was set 
 a-going. We are not entitled to cavil at the arrange- 
 ment — that was their business, not ours. But by this 
 time we have had some knowledge of newspapers, by 
 courtesy called religious ; and we may be excused for 
 doubting how far they have recommended the cause 
 they professed to defend. As it has been frequently 
 asserted, that under the " odium theologicum " clergy- 
 men have used liberties with each other that would have 
 been barely tolerated in other society, we fear that the 
 same immunity has been largely counted on by rehgious 
 newspapers. At all events, we can answer for the Wit- 
 ness. Without denying the talent of its editorship, we 
 may doubt its veracity — what cotemporary paper has 
 not called it in question? Without presuming to analyse 
 its tiles, now spread over a large space of territory, and 
 a larger space of religious controversy, we may ask, 
 what denomination of Christians, other than its own. 
 has it not honoured with its abuse ? Or, without pre- 
 tending to comprehend its articles, carefully constructed 
 
94 THE REIGN OF INTIMIDATION. 
 
 to magnify their author, and the vein of which, when 
 we have stumbled on them, we cannot always penetrate 
 for want of a geological hammer : we ask, what cha- 
 racter of worth in the ranks of its opponents has it not 
 either openly attacked or covertly assailed ? We appre- 
 hend that there is no small danger with some minds, 
 over-anxious in determining the first principles of crea- 
 tion, of losing their way in the process. Boring into 
 the earth, they may lose sight of the sky — the clear 
 heavens. Troubled about the crust of the globe, they 
 may gather around them enough of its dust to obscure 
 their vision ; and, anxious to refer every thing to Chaos, 
 they may bring their code of morals to the same 
 dubious point. Only give them their way in the 
 creation, or re-construction of the rehgious world, and 
 their fiat goes forth. Under their plastic hand all con- 
 trarieties are blended — light is put for darkness, and 
 darkness for light — primary things become secondary, 
 and secondary things become primary ; and while the 
 waters and the dry land, the heavens and the earth, 
 with all their tribes, are in a state of commotion, they 
 repose complacently on their own infallible attributes 
 and most original dogmas. And why stop here ? If 
 the Witness, with his coadjutors, has all but arrogated 
 the omnipotence of creation, of re-casting the religion 
 of Scotland, why not exercise, whenever he pleases, the 
 omniscience of judging it ? If his winged messengers 
 find their way into every parish, why may they not 
 vilify every parish minister? If his constituents bo 
 
THE REIGN OF INTIMIDATION. 95 
 
 tlie only men of the right stamp, why should they not 
 deal as they list with the Samaritans ? If the cause of 
 Non-intrusion be the cause of truth against error, of 
 God against Belial, of Christ against Caesar, why de- 
 prive him of the privilege of action ? The necessity is 
 laid on him ; and if a wholesale defence of their cause, 
 when defence seemed impossible — if a catching up of 
 every breeze, from whatever quarter, when the sail was 
 flapping on the mast — if a smile this day to Dissen- 
 ters, and next day a frown — above all, if a steady and 
 well-sustained fire, which invited ammunition at all 
 hands, against the clergy of the Church, wounding 
 them in their feeUngs, and impeding them in their 
 usefulness, and aiming at them in the ecclesiastical 
 courts — if these be recommendations, the Witness will 
 not go without its reward. From the first moment to 
 the last, it has been the prime minister of intimidation. 
 An organ for the mutterings of others, it has been the 
 forger of its own thunders. Misrepresentation and 
 abuse it has never spared, and it will doubtless continue 
 to use them while there are weak men to be frightened, 
 and timid men to be overawed. 
 
 In a hasty sketch like this, we do not pretend to 
 follow the party through all their acts of intole- 
 rance, or deeds of coercion, from '39 to '43. It is 
 enough to say, that their intolerance was no partial, 
 no evanescent feature in the character of the system, 
 but its most express and permanent image. We might 
 refer to the reported debates of innumerable meetings 
 
B6 THE REIGN OF INTIMIDATION. 
 
 of the cliurcli courts, and especially of the presbytery 
 of Edinburgh, where taunts and invectives were thrown 
 about with unscrupulous freedom. We might refer to 
 the incessant pubhc meetings in all the large towns of 
 the country, which, primarily intended to be the rally- 
 ing ground of their friends, furnished the opportunity 
 never to be overlooked, of misrepresenting or calum- 
 niating their opponents. We might refer to the so- 
 cieties they originated for the propagation of their 
 opinions, and the plans they adopted, under the shelter 
 of prayer-meetings, and addresses, and fast-days, of 
 poisoning the public mind with the most uncharitable 
 censures. AVe might refer to their mean attempts to 
 obstruct the progress and to mar the views of every 
 preacher who did not hand over his judgment and his 
 conscience to their keeping. Or we might remind our 
 readers of the assaults that were made on the divinity 
 hall. Hitherto it had escaped the storm. The aspir- 
 ants to the Church had been allowed to prosecute their 
 avocations undisturbed, and while maturing themselves 
 in their theological studies, had been permitted to 
 form their own opinions on the ecclesiastical questions 
 of the day. But now the reign of peace, as of tolera- 
 tion, was at an end : the divinity hall was invaded in 
 all the universities. The adherence of the students 
 was all but imperiously demanded, and woe be to those 
 who refused. They were significantly told, that the 
 names of all recusants would be retained on the black 
 hst; that they would not be forgotten when they appHed 
 
THE REIGN OF INTIMIDATION. 97 
 
 for license, and that if presented to a church due care 
 should be taken to apprise the parishioners of the sort 
 of men they had got. Alas ! for the " classic shade, 
 and the calm retreat." The vision was gone, — 
 
 " Est in secessu longo locus — insula portum 
 Efficit objectu laterum, quibus oranis ab alto 
 Frangitur inque sinus scindit sese unda reductos. 
 
 hie fessas non vincula naves 
 
 Ulla tenent, unco non alligat anchora morsu." 
 
 The case of Strathbogie, under this head, requires 
 special notice. Shortly before the judgment in the 
 Auchterarder case was pronounced, the presbytery of 
 Strathbogie had, in obedience to the Veto law, made 
 up a roll of communicants in the parish of Marnoch. 
 The moderation of the call took place, and a majority 
 of the male heads of families having dissented, the 
 presentee was rejected by the presbytery. After the 
 judgment of the House of Lords in the Auchterarder 
 case, he raised an action in the Court of Session, to 
 have it found, that the presbytery was still bound to 
 take him on trial ; and, in 1839, decreet was pronounced 
 to that effect. In these circumstances, as may be seen 
 by their own statement, the presbytery thought them- 
 selves bound to make their choice either to abide by the 
 Veto law, now declared illegal, or to give eifect to their 
 statutory obhgations as declared by the civil court ; and, 
 * accordingly, they resolved to take the presentee on 
 trials. Now, we do not say that the presbytery were 
 altogether right in this. We conceive that there was 
 
 I 
 
98 THE REIGN OF INTIMIDATION. 
 
 unnecessary haste in tlie resolution to which they 
 came ; and that, by a httle forbearance, and without 
 any undue provocation of the civil courts, their collision 
 with their ecclesiastical superiors, if not ultimately 
 avoided, might at all events have been greatly softened. 
 But whether their resolution was called for in the pre- 
 cise circumstances, and at the precise time or not, it 
 was avowedly taken on the ground of conscience and 
 duty — in virtue of their solemn engagements as minis- 
 ters of an established church, and in obedience to the 
 statutes of the land. And how did the Commission of 
 the Assembly act ? Did they make any allowance for 
 the peculiar circumstances in which the presbytery was 
 placed ? Did they seek to show them, by any process of 
 reasoning, that they had unduly magnified their civil 
 obhgations ? Did they, in discharge of a Christian duty, 
 from wlilch there is no relief, in the first instance deal 
 with the oifending brotherhood ? No. They suspended 
 them at once ; and, as a sequel to this, they proposed a 
 conference — the very idea of this communing not having 
 entered their minds, but being borrowed from the motion 
 of their opponents. The mistake was, that they put 
 it in the wrong place ; and as nothing could be ex- 
 pected from such an incongruous proceeding, recon- 
 ciliation was out of the question, and the raid of Strath- 
 bogie commenced. It is an event never to be forgotten. 
 With what alacrity of movement did the standing com- 
 mittee of agitation despatch their emissaries to the 
 province — with what untiring zeal did they provide 
 
THE REIGN OF INTIMIDATION. 99 
 
 supplies, that on every Sabbath day the tocsin of war 
 might be sounded — with what assiduous attention did 
 they penetrate every house and assail every parish- 
 ioner, making up for the neglected duties at home by 
 their faithful domicihary visits in the distance ! Every 
 feehng of tenderness, every suggestion of charity, 
 every idea of forbearance, was cast to the winds. The 
 reign of intimidation elsewhere, deepened here into the 
 reign of terror ; and, as at all hazards, the suspended 
 ministers were to be hunted down, the keenest and 
 choicest agents of Non-intrusion, recalled from other 
 quarters, were let shp here, to tear their character 
 and mangle their good name. Nor have we forgotten 
 how higher motives and considerations came to play a 
 conspicuous part on this troubled theatre. It was not 
 enough that they were finally deposed, and pronounced 
 fugitives from disciphne and outlaws from the Church. 
 The discovery was made, they had never been minis- 
 ters of the gospel at all. Severed from the Church of 
 Scotland, they were denounced as aliens from the com- 
 monwealth of Israel, and their parishes treated as a 
 heathen land. How self-complacently did one preacher 
 after another pubHcly congratulate himself, that, in his 
 mission there, a mighty door and effectual had been 
 opened to the preaching of the gospel ! How com- 
 passionately did they speak of the poor benighted 
 people in whose behalf the interposition of Heaven had 
 been manifested ! How eloquently did they discourse, 
 at more than one public meeting, of the wonders they 
 
100 THE REIGN OF INTIMIDATION. 
 
 had accomplished — of their faithful preaching, and of 
 their listening crowds ! For a season the India Scheme 
 was thrown into the shade — Dr Duff was forgotten — 
 the raid of Strathbogie assumed the air of a great 
 missionary enterprize; and, followed by the prayers, 
 as they were laden with the monies, of not a few of their 
 adherents who gave credit to their statements, the 
 heralds of this cause waxed stronger and stronger in 
 the proud anticipation, that, through their ministry, the 
 wilderness and the solitary place might be made 
 glad, and that the desert would rejoice and blossom 
 as the rose. It is only to be lamented, for the sake of 
 their consistency, that they should have ever thought 
 of retracing their steps. It is too well known to be 
 denied, that, in a negociation with the Lord Justice- 
 Clerk, they were quite prepared, on certain terms of 
 submission, to repone the brethren at Strathbogie. The 
 amount of submission required, we cannot specify ; it 
 is not material to our point. This much, however, we 
 know, that it ivas no condition of their reponement 
 that they should now he required to preach the gospel. 
 No such stipulation was made. The old ministers were 
 to occupy their old pulpits, and reign paramount in their 
 old parishes as aforetime. The Non-intrusion forces 
 were all to be withdrawn ; and once more was this 
 debateable land to be handed over to the uncovenanted 
 mercies of the heathen. What a commentary this on 
 their speeches, and professions, and prayers I 
 
 It is in the review of such scenes as these, that we 
 
THE REIGN OF INTIMIDATION. 101 
 
 are ready, with David, to say, " Let us fall now into the 
 hand of the Lord, (for his mercies are great,) and let 
 me not fall into the hand of men." There is much 
 that is sickening in the contemplation of men, frail 
 an'd fallible as ourselves, clothing themselves with in- 
 fallibility as a garment. There is much more pain- 
 ful still, in the spectacle of the office-bearers of the 
 same church, striving, in the neglect of their own 
 duties, to disturb and annoy their neighbours in theirs. 
 And yet how frequently was this done ! In how many 
 districts of the country were the parishes of the quiet 
 and peaceable invaded, with no other apology than 
 this — that if they would not hold meetings, and expound 
 (not the gospel of Jesus,) but the current dogmas of 
 the day, there were others ready who would do it for 
 them. And, not to enlarge, with what serpent-like 
 policy were some of the pubhc institutions of the coun- 
 try entwined in their embrace, from the folds of which 
 they are only now escaping. From first to last we 
 look in vain for the repose of liigh and unbending 
 principle. There is nothing like serenity in the 
 movement — nothing that savours of Christian confi- 
 dence in the men. There is more of the bustle of the 
 camp, than the order of the sanctuary — more of 
 tyranny than temper — more of a warlike crusade than 
 ♦ of an evangehcal enterprise. Such excesses, such 
 exaggerations of mind, such partisan measures and 
 despotic plans, are but bad apostles in any cause ; and 
 
102 THE REIGN OF INTIMIDATION. 
 
 in the inevitable retrospect of posterity, they will not 
 commend that one wliich proudly appropriated to 
 itself, when it was little more than wi^ithing in its 
 swaddUng-bands, the entire intelhgence and rehgion of 
 the land. 
 
THE CONFEDERACY, 103 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE CONFEDERACY. 
 
 It is not to be denied that we are all indebted very 
 much to each other for the warmth of our emotions, 
 and, we may add, of our prejudices. Tliis social instinct 
 is not abandoned when we leave our home and enter 
 the church, or when we pass from the church to the 
 crowded assemblage. And certainly it is not less in- 
 tently at work, when, by scowl and malediction, we 
 have secluded ourselves from others. Repulsion in 
 one quarter generates more intense attraction in an- 
 other ; and it is always labouring to keep itself warm : 
 it longs for a numerous companionship. If it cannot 
 make converts, it would at all events keep them. Its 
 comfort, nay, we would say the stedfastness of its 
 behef, depends not a Httle on the hundreds and thou- 
 sands it has secured ; so that if it loves to hurl thunder- 
 bolts at its adversaries, it would not less intently main- 
 tain the numerical strength, and prevent the defection, 
 of its friends. 
 
 Hence it is, that a time of conciliation is not incon- 
 sistent with a time of intimidation ; and that the face 
 
104 THE CONFEDERACY. 
 
 big with nothing but frowns, may at a moment's 
 warning clothe itself with the sunniest smiles. It de- 
 pends on the fact, whether the face be turned to friend 
 or foe ; or by a combination by no means unnatural or 
 i*are, it may be so arranged, that what is fitted to 
 scatter terror in the one quarter, may prove most 
 attractive in the other. Take, for example, a day of 
 tempest and gloom in the natural world. There is 
 thunder in the air, and as its distant mutterings draw 
 nearer, and at last break overhead, all nature cowers 
 and quails under the shock. Every creature is more or 
 less affected. But not in the same way. If the counte- 
 nance of the wayfaring man is darkened, and his step 
 unconsciously quickened — if in the remote wilderness 
 the pilgrim is arrested by the lightning's flash, touching 
 his heart as with a live coal from the altar, and -remind- 
 ing him of the distant sanctuary of his God, and the 
 sepulchre of his fathers — if in the city, and at the 
 hamlet, men instinctively seek their home, and when 
 the tempest thickens stand more erectly there, on that 
 sacred ground, as though they would ward off danger 
 from beloved ones, as though they were vital conduc- 
 tors to communicate with heaven ; — what shall we say 
 of the hillside ? The same storm which has attracted 
 men to their homes has driven the sheep to their folds. 
 They have responded to a different impulse. The in- 
 stinct of fear — unmitigated fear — has been strong within 
 them ; their very bleatings have been hushed, and 
 though innumerable but to the eye of the shepherd 
 
THE CONFEDERACY. 105 
 
 who knows tiiem, and has liis mark on them, they are 
 huddled together m one promiscuous mass. That 
 thunder-storm on the liills has done more for him 
 than a thousand keepers. It has called back some 
 wayward wanderer, or given feet to some timid fol- 
 lower, or kept within manageable bounds a section of 
 the flock that was looking wistfully to the adjoining 
 hills, around which, perhaps, and against his remon- 
 strances, the great Master Shepherd would not allow 
 him to erect even an invisible fence. And so it has 
 been with many a mimic thunder-scene on the theatre 
 of the world, and of the Church. Passmg in impotency 
 over the heads of some, it has aroused an echo, deep 
 and alarming, in the hearts of others. The timid have 
 been awe-struck ; the ranks of the wavering or discon- 
 tented, every day m.ore and more irregular, have once 
 more become compact ; the scattered company has been 
 gathered within their tents ; and though the sky again 
 clears, and nature puts on a smile of repose, these 
 menacmg tones are prolonged in the memory — they 
 haunt them like a ghost, giving significant warning of 
 the fulminations stored in the treasury of thunders, 
 for the enemy and ahen, and much more for the fugi- 
 tive and the apostate. 
 
 And as the value of these outbursts of ecclesiastical 
 inchgnation is to be judged of, not less by their reflex 
 influence at home, than by their direct influence 
 abroad, maintaining, as they do, the discipline of a 
 party, and preserving unbroken the continuity of its 
 
106 THE CONFEDERACY. 
 
 ranks, the same may be said of the exaggerations 
 in which the Non-intrusionists indulged. If it was no 
 pleasing thought to the unfortunate disciple of an op- 
 posite school to theirs, that he was dissociated from 
 the choir of the prophets, and from the company of 
 the apostles, the reflection was a pleasing one, that 
 they stood on sacred ground, over which heaven 
 shed its selectest influence. If the names of Knox 
 and Melville, and other champions of a reformed 
 church — names that might have added lustre to any 
 country, and must ever prove the glory of ours, were 
 invoked to augment the vials of their indignation ; they 
 were well fitted to sweeten the cup of self-congratula- 
 tion which circulated so freely from hp to lip, that 
 they were intoxicated with the draught. If the goodly 
 company of martyrs " of whom this world was not 
 worthy " were seen in vision bending over the field of 
 conflict, and frowning on the adversary, was not the 
 thought an inspiriting one, that they had caught up 
 the mantle, and were following in the footsteps, of as- 
 cended saints ? A magnificent dream certainly it was, 
 for those who could lay their sober senses aside to 
 admit it, that they were the representatives of patri- 
 archs, and prophets, and apostles — the successors of the 
 mighty dead ; and that a voice from the tombs of the 
 martyrs who had sealed their testimony with their 
 blood, had sent them forth on their high career. There 
 was much in all this to satisfy the morbid craving of 
 the human mind, much to command the assent of those 
 
THE CONFEDERACY. 107 
 
 who are ready to abandon what is real and substantial 
 for whatever is novel and pecuhar ; and he who con- 
 templates the age in which we hve, cannot but expect 
 that such pretensions will come to their fruition. In 
 fact, it is scarcely possible to over-rate the influence 
 which such apphances had on multitudes of the laity. 
 At little, or rather at no pains, to ascertain the merits 
 of their position, either in the hght of scripture or of 
 ecclesiastical law, they yet gave it all the weight of a 
 high-sounding testimony. Argument was superfluous; 
 reason was superseded by inspiration ; and numbers 
 without number, who had little time and less inchna- 
 tion to ponder the question of the day, were content 
 to take it with slavish submission from the mouths of 
 their accredited teachers. 
 
 It was not, however, to the assumed sanctity of their 
 position, or the fancied infalhbihty of their claims, that 
 the clerical branch of the confederacy was mainly in- 
 debted for its compactness and strength. Other agen- 
 cies were requisite to give consolidation to a movement 
 which, originated at first in the mere effervesence of 
 party spirit, could be maintained only by the same 
 means. The church courts afforded a natural channel 
 through which this might be accomphshed. These 
 church courts, as it is well known, are frequent in 
 their meetings. In the more prominent places of the 
 country the presbyteries assemble monthly, and, as 
 occasion demands, more frequently. Such meetings 
 give ample scope to continuity of effort ; and what with 
 
108 THE CONFEDERACY. 
 
 the half-yearly meetings of synods, and the annual re- 
 currence of the Assembly with the commissions attached 
 to it, it is sufficiently clear that there was no lack of 
 opportunities by which the movement of the parties 
 might be systematised, and their harmony preserved. 
 Hence it was, that in the leading presbyteries, which 
 gave tone and determination to the others, scarcely a 
 month elapsed without the apphcation of the party- 
 test. A motion of some sort or other, bearing on the 
 question at issue, was introduced and discussed. The 
 sense of the court was taken on it, and as they sought 
 to escape censure, or to merit approbation, all the 
 supporters of the party had to register their suffrages. 
 Absenteeism was not suffered — there was no pairing 
 off allowed, and far less any skuEdng — the shghtest 
 divergence of opinion was as Httle tolerated as the 
 greatest departure from the accredited standard — the 
 most wakeful jealousy was maintained — tracking every 
 footstep and marking every vote. Escape was next to 
 impossible ; and if, by any necessary cause, and by 
 leave of absence from head-quarters, the worn-out 
 partisan was permitted to enjoy a temporary respite, 
 it was only to find, on his return to the camp, his 
 accoutrements ready for him, furbished and bright, 
 with some new adminicles appended, increasing the 
 irritation of his wounds, and aggravating the pressure 
 of his yoke. 
 
 To pursue them closely through all the mazes of the 
 labyrinth, from which so few emerged who had once 
 
THE CONFEDERACY. 109 
 
 entered it, as little accords with our inclination as with 
 our ability to do it. The plans they took to keep to- 
 gether their clerical associates, are beyond our enume- 
 ration. We would simply remark, that as the clergy 
 lost no opportunity of secm-ing the concurrence and 
 co-operation of the people under their charge — now by 
 Non-intrusion sermons on the Sabbath-day, and anon 
 by courses of lectures and platform speeches on the 
 week-day — now by associations, male and female, en- 
 tering every house, and unceremoniously depositing 
 their insidious tracts and addresses in every family — 
 anon by monthly meetings for prayer and exhortation, 
 garnished with alternate humihations and thanks- 
 gi\ings, beginning with confessions of the sins of their 
 forefathers, and ending covertly with lauding them- 
 selves for the great tilings they had done, under the 
 specious guise of gratitude to God ; we say, that as 
 these practices were openly sanctioned and counte- 
 nanced by the office-bearers of the Church, they them- 
 selves, in turn, had to submit to a surveillance not less 
 incessant. At no period, from '39 to '43, was the 
 junta in Edinburgh asleep; and with their special 
 confidants in every presbytery and province, they 
 could readily, at the warning of a few days, give a 
 new shape and form, according to the exigency, to the 
 whole front of their ecclesiastical array. Their tactics 
 were beyond all praise; and of these the monster- 
 meeting at the West Kirk, on the occasion of the 
 Commission of the Assembly in August '41, gave ample 
 
110 THE CONFEDERACY. 
 
 demonstration. Not that any tiling new transpired 
 from this great convention of the ministers and elders 
 of the party. There was no new principle laid down 
 in the " Claim of Right," to which the minds of all 
 present had not already been familiarised. But it was 
 the pubhc attestation of their principles — it was the 
 comiterpart of the " Solemn League and Covenant" in 
 the olden time ; and to resile from a pledge so openly 
 given, would not be deemed either honourable or safe. 
 Every thing, however, appertaining to the confede- 
 racy, must yield to the Convocation, the last and the 
 master-stroke of the party — the boldness of whose 
 conception is not to be measured by its want of suc- 
 cess. It had a reference merely to the ministers, to 
 the exclusion not only of the people but of the elder- 
 ship ; and as it was chiefly intended to tell upon the 
 country, and especially upon the government, it was 
 not unnaturally confined to this order in the Church. 
 In a pecuniary point of view, they were the only 
 parties who had any thing to lose, and hence the selec- 
 tion of them to the exclusion of others. The season 
 was also pressing. The force of argument had been 
 exhausted ; and it might be, that the rulers of the land 
 might grant to numbers what they had not conceded 
 to manifestoes — hence the Convocation. It was not 
 impossible that, by presenting a bold front, and espe- 
 cially in an age when no style of agitation had gone 
 without its reward, the threatened repeal of the union 
 between Church and State in Scotland, by such a large 
 
THE CONFEDERACY. Ill 
 
 body of ecclesiastics as might be convened, would not 
 be unheeded. A reluctant Parliament might yet be 
 overawed; Sir Robert Peel, not inaccessible to such 
 modes of solicitation, might give way, and by the 
 month of May the cause might succeed. This, we 
 beUeve, was the great charm under whose potent 
 agency so many were convoked from all parts of the 
 country — not only proximate, but remote. It was not 
 merely that every synod and presbytery had its re- 
 presentatives there, — there was a call of the whole 
 party, and under circumstances and arrangements 
 which left no alternative to any man who had not 
 moral courage to resist. Distance was no excuse — 
 they announced it in time for the most distant islands 
 of the west. Inability to procure supply for their 
 pulpits was no excuse — the church-doors might be 
 shut. Want of means was no excuse — there were funds 
 ready at their disposal, on which they were invited 
 to draw. The want of accommodation in Edinburgh 
 was no excuse — there were lodgings provided, within 
 whose friendly circle nothing was likely to circulate 
 that could impair the effect or frustrate the objects of 
 the Convocation. 
 
 It met in St George's Church, Edinburgh, on 
 Thursday the 17th November 1842 ; and, after sermon 
 by Dr Chalmers, to which the public had access, it 
 passed over to an obscure street in the Old Town. 
 Was there meaning in this ? It was composed 
 entirely of the clergy, who — though summoned from 
 
112 THE CONFEDEEACY. 
 
 all quarters — were not unnecessarily to provoke 
 observation or remark. Nothing but the result was 
 to be pubhshed, and as the Convocation was to hold 
 for several days, there might have been danger in 
 any very prominent place of resort. It was not un- 
 natural that a quiet retreat should be sought, devoid 
 of all associations that could perplex or agitate the 
 mind — a virgin soil, in which were to be deposited, 
 for the first time, the seeds of a great ecclesiastical 
 movement. And as there was nothing in the neigh- 
 bourhood where they met to awaken the memories 
 of the past, there was less, perhaps, if possible, 
 in the chapel where they assembled. Like those 
 who filled its pews, it stood on the very verge of 
 the establishment — the fragment of an old secession 
 and the precursor of a new. All but devoured by 
 litigation, civil and ecclesiastical, it had formed the 
 entrance by which one clergyman had entered the 
 establishment, and now it formed the back door by 
 which hundreds were preparing to leave it. 
 
 On the occasion in question, every meeting was held 
 with closed doors — hermetically sealed to all but the 
 initiated. A ticket formed the badge ; and from these 
 collected tokens of sympathy and brotherhood the roll 
 was made up. The sederunt of the day bore the name 
 of each new entrant. If late in joining, he was not 
 allowed to escape. Whatever resolutions had been pre- 
 viously passed were put to him coram the Convocation ; 
 and in such formidable presence dissent was scarcely 
 
THE CONTEDERACY. 113 
 
 to be thought of. jN'or was much freedom of speech 
 to be expected, when, on a closer view, we analyse 
 the mode in which the business of every meeting was 
 conducted. According to our mformation, it was in 
 many respects pecuKar. And there was one feature 
 of it, in especial, not to be overlooked — the frequent, 
 we had almost said the incessant, use of prayer — of 
 prayer, that most precious of all our Christian privi- 
 leges. A devout apphcation to the Fountain of hght 
 and love was at once the duty and the privilege of all 
 who were there assembled ; nor, if in a right and 
 becoming frame of mind, could they prostrate them- 
 selves too frequently, or too zealously implore the aid 
 of Him who alone can bring hght out of darkness, 
 and order out of confusion. But as it is a liigh and 
 a holy privilege, it must be guarded from perversion. 
 It may be occasionally employed with very mLxed 
 feehngs. It may indicate, sometimes, even in the 
 most free use of it, other emotions than of reverential 
 homage and humble waiting on the Spirit for the 
 enhghtening and sanctifying and guiding mfluences of 
 his grace. We have the highest of all authority for 
 saying, that men are not to be heard for their much 
 speaking ; and all experience proves, and especially in 
 times of prevailing excitement, that there may be such 
 a thing as an attempt to take heaven by storm : 
 clothing our thoughts, and reasonings, and speculations, 
 in prayer, with the infallibility of the Divine mind and 
 the sovereignty of its decrees. And it is this which makes 
 
 K 
 
114 THE CONFEDEHACY. 
 
 an atmosphere charged with such supphcations, an ele- 
 ment of pecuhar danger. Though heaven is not thus to 
 be taken by storm, the mind of man — the citadel of the 
 heart — may. When argument assumes the air of a high 
 and holy fellowship with the skies, it looks like impiety 
 to resist it, and when a difference of opinion — a lurking 
 doubt — honestly and prayerfully cherished, and ex- 
 pressed in the company of the faithful, is not met by 
 reasoning, but by a call for supplication — a call repeat- 
 ed at every first appearance of diversity of opinion, as 
 though heaven were outraged, and God alone, by a di- 
 rect intervention, could quell the rebellious thought ; 
 where the wonder, if, under the continued pressure of 
 such a process, silence should be obtained, and outward 
 harmony secured ? Far be it from me to enlarge on 
 this feature of the Convocation, with any unbecoming 
 or unnecessary prolixity ; the subject is too sacred for 
 it. I leave it to the consideration of every devout and 
 serious mind, with this observation, that if, even in 
 apostolical times, and at the meeting of the Great 
 Council in Jerusalem, where diversity of opinion pre- 
 vailed, it does not appear that the statements of the 
 early preachers of the faith were interspersed with sup- 
 plications, the Convocation in Edinburgh might have 
 used them less frequently at the times and in the man- 
 ner in which they did. Surely, after the opening prayer 
 — after a devout recognition of the High and the Holy 
 One — there is space to be given to the free and unfet- 
 tered expression of conscientious convictions — in the 
 
THE CONFEDERACY. 115 
 
 very entertainment of which the opening prayer may 
 have had its return. These should not be stifled. 
 But when an infalhble standard is erected at the out- 
 set, around which all thought, as well as all suppUca- 
 tion, must rally itself — a standard never lost sight of, 
 and ever more raised as the exigency arises — it is easy 
 to see what must be the issue. In the first and best 
 ages of the Church, it was " when the disciples were 
 all of one accord in one place," that the Spirit descended 
 in the munificent communication of his power and love 
 — how changed the scene, when, in these last days, the 
 discord may be computed by the number of supplica- 
 tions that have been offered, and of interpositions that 
 have been made ! 
 
 There is another point to which we are constrained 
 to advert, in considering the resolutions which were 
 ultimately passed ; and without saying how far it 
 operated in securing adherence to these, we beheve 
 it mingled largely with their proceedings. It was the 
 calculation of their success in Scotland, should this, their 
 final appeal, fail ; the probability of which, however, 
 we are convinced, was not seriously entertained by the 
 great mass of its members, even long after the Convo- 
 cation. At the same time, as there was no harm in 
 being prepared for the worst, the subject was entered 
 on, and, in the language of the Presbyterian Review, 
 •' never, perhaps, was the scheme of a separate church 
 depicted in more glowing colours, or the likelihood of 
 its success invested with so much plausibihty, as by Dr 
 
116 THE CONFEDERACY. 
 
 Chalmers on the evening of Tuesday. Dr Paterson 
 well remarked, at the close of tliis splendid exhibition, 
 that really the Hfe-boat looked much better than the 
 sliip." It is but fair to add the next sentence of this 
 organ of the party — " Yet we do not beheve that this 
 address contributed, even in a single instance, to nerve 
 the courage of weak and withdrawing spirits." 
 
 The history of the Convocation, however, or even a 
 sketch of it, is not for us. It has yet to be written. 
 The unveihng of those many secret springs by which 
 it was managed-^the exposure of influences that were 
 brought to bear on the timid or the reluctant — the 
 invention of a system wliich, at tliis eleventh hour of 
 its existence, had to peril its all on a demonstration of 
 strength as the only expedient to avert its destruction 
 — these, and other topics connected with it, must be 
 reserved for one famihar with its mysteries. Mean- 
 while, we consider that we have not exceeded the 
 bounds of charity in treating it as we have done, even 
 as we honestly say that we have not exceeded our 
 convictions. I state it openly and unhesitatingly — 
 that in my apprehension it was nothing else than a 
 great ecclesiastico-pohtical movement to intimidate at 
 once the Cabinet and the Parliament. And if it failed, 
 as it signally did, why should we express surprise ? 
 What convention of ecclesiastics with shut doors, has 
 at any period of the Church's history accomphshed 
 any thing great ? What genial change in the progress 
 of mind has ever emerged from the precincts of an 
 
THE CONFEDERACY. 117 
 
 ecclesiastical despotism ? What stream of health, 
 starting from its bed like a torrent, and bearing on its 
 bosom " the cliief things of the ancient mountain, and 
 the precious things of the lasting liills," owns the Con- 
 sistory as its fountainhead ? Not thus do I read the 
 history of the Church, from the days of Elijah the 
 Tishbite even until now. Here and there I see a 
 sohtary man alone in his greatness. I hear the voice 
 of one crying in the wilderness, " Prepare ye the way 
 of the Lord." In Germany it is Luther — the Refor- 
 mation was not hatched in secret. In England it is 
 Wickliffe, whose remains were not allowed to rest in 
 the grave, but, by the decree of the Council of Con- 
 stance, were di'agged forth, burned, and scattered on 
 the waters of a neighbouring brook. " The brook," 
 says Fuller, " did convey liis ashes into Avon — Avon 
 into Severn — Severn into the narrow seas — they into 
 the ocean." In England still — (once the bulwark of 
 Protestantism, now so sadly dismantled by the foul 
 inroads of Popery) — it is Whitefield or Wesley, twin 
 brothers, abroad upon a field that is bathed in a flood of 
 returning radiance. And what of Scotland, the birth- 
 place of Knox, where the principles of the Reforma- 
 tion received an illustration inferior to that m no other 
 kingdom ? These things were not done in a corner. 
 They sprang, not from the cloister with its loopholes, 
 or the dim and fretted hall, where every crevice was 
 closed, and reason and conscience were placed in the 
 dark ; and if, since that glorious era of our emancipa- 
 
118 THE CONFEDERACY. 
 
 tion from the dominion of Antichrist, one ripple after 
 another has swept over the waters of the sanctuary, so 
 often stagnant in their course, it has been still the same. 
 The fathers of the Secession were but as two or three 
 pilgrims when they crossed the brook. Gillespie, the 
 founder of the Rehef, went out alone. In all, plans and 
 pohcy are disregarded — concert is not sought. Dispen- 
 sing with all intermediate agency, each man goes for 
 himself to a throne of grace. If there is much of the 
 closet — there is none of the conclave. If there is some- 
 thing akin to the free play of the electric fluid — there 
 is nothing in it of animal magnetism. for the mes- 
 merised meeting, paralysed but not quickened — soothed 
 by the action of mere animal heat — aifected in all its 
 sensibihties by influences as mysterious in their cha- 
 racter as they are discernible in their effect, and, after 
 the friction of a few days, leaving its subjects in pos- 
 session of nothing but a dreamy existence and torpid 
 powers! With such spell-bound associates you may 
 do any thing — every thing perhaps, but give a new 
 and generous impulse to the flagging history of a 
 kingdom or of a church. 
 
THE SECESSION. 119 
 
 CHAPTER yill. 
 
 THE SECESSION. 
 
 The Convocation was scarcely over, when on all 
 hands it became apparent that the crisis was impend- 
 ing. By the spring of '43, all the theories, not less 
 than aU the expedients, of the Non-intrusion party 
 were exhausted; and having failed by numbers to 
 intimidate the Government, and by their appeals to 
 influence the Parliament, to whom alone, and not to 
 the civil courts, they acknowledged themselves in any 
 degree responsible, they had nothing left to screen 
 them from the fast approaching Assembly. In one 
 way alone could the catastrophe be delayed. If even 
 then the policy of their procedure had been reviewed, 
 ^and the principles on which it was based calmly and 
 dispassionately scrutinised, they were not cut off from 
 all opportunity of retracing their steps. A door of 
 retreat was still open to them, and by a confession of 
 error — provided of course they had felt it — and a 
 laying down of their arms in an honest and well-prin- 
 cipled capitulation, they might have remained within 
 the precincts of a fortress, every pinnacle of which they 
 
120 THE SECESSION. 
 
 would now level with the dust. In all the circumstances 
 of the case, however, this was not to be expected. 
 For years they had looked at notliing but through a 
 magnifying medium, and now that the glass of expecta- 
 tion, so long at their eye, and fixed on the distant hills, 
 if perchance they could descry any friendly banner 
 ghmmering there, was for ever dashed to the ground, 
 it was not to be thouo^ht it had left the vision unim- 
 paired, and ready to adjust itself at once to the pressing 
 realities which lay so near. And as it was not to be 
 expected, perhaps it was as little to be desired. If it 
 be a dubious point, how far the bulwarks of the 
 Church would have been strengthened by retaining 
 them, there is no doubt whatever that the cause of 
 religion would have suffered. Seeing that the highest 
 obligations of Christianity, as well as its most invalu- 
 able blessings — that the very Crown Rights of the 
 Redeemer had, by an ecclesiastical fiction, been pledged 
 in the controversy — they could not be allowed to go un- 
 redeemed. Christendom, so largely invoked as a wit- 
 ness of the pledge, would have resented the indignity of 
 such a declinature. At all events, it would not have 
 passed unnoticed by the infidel and the profane. They 
 would not have failed to characterise it in their own 
 way ; and better it was that the Church of Scotland 
 should bear the weight of the separation, than that 
 the universal religion of Jesus — the common property 
 of the world — should be led forth by her friends, 
 bleeding and dejected, to meet the enemy in the gate. 
 
THE SECESSION. 121 
 
 The only question, we believe, which, for several 
 weeks prior to the meeting of the Assembly, occupied 
 tlie attention of those who were likely to head the 
 Secession, and to give it shape and coherence, was the 
 way in which it should be gone about and managed 
 with greatest effect. We say the attention of those 
 who were hkely to lead, for we have reason to believe, 
 that with the great mass of the party the unavoid- 
 ableness of the Secession was only reahsed when the 
 event actually occurred. Taught all along to believe 
 that Sir Robert Peel must yield ; and, moreover, that 
 the national church could not exist without them, 
 they cherished hope even to the last ; and as it was 
 not the policy of their guides to undeceive them, they 
 were allowed, so late as May, to repair to Edinburgh, 
 under the floating expectation that the evil might yet 
 be averted, and their status preserved. Indeed, it was 
 well known that the members of the standing commit- 
 tee were not at one as to the necessity of the case ; 
 and that, more than once, their discussions on it had 
 been far from harmonious. The decision, however, 
 was come to by fliose who all along had given tone 
 and movement to the party. Their separation from 
 the Church was conclusively settled ; and having pre- 
 pared their voluminous Protest, the question was, 
 when and how it should be presented. Their first 
 plan was, to meet the Assembly — to have it constituted 
 — to secure the appointment of a Moderator of their 
 own — and at their own leisure, and on a day of their 
 
 L 
 
122 THE SECESSION. 
 
 choosing, under the eye of her Majesty's Commissioner 
 to dissolve the Assembly, and to leave the Church. 
 And had this scheme succeeded, it might, in popular 
 apprehension, have much more magnified their posi- 
 tion, and strengthened their cause. It cannot be 
 doubted it would have increased the perplexities of an 
 opposing minority, dragged for days at their chariot 
 wheels — compelled to become witnesses of proceedings 
 as unconstitutional as they were unfair ; and at last the 
 reluctant spectators of some well-arranged and august 
 ceremonial. And it was not at variance with the con- 
 duct of men, who, for several months previously, had 
 prepared themselves for the worst by the most un- 
 blushing and unjustifiable efforts to dismember a church 
 they were solemnly bound to uphold. But in this ar- 
 rangement they were not destined to succeed. Their 
 majorities failed them at last, and it was found that the 
 Assembly was not to be altogether of their moulding. 
 This was a heavy blow and a sore discouragement — 
 and, if falling out at an unexpected hour, and on men 
 but ill prepared to put up with it, it had yet to be 
 borne. Their struggles could not alleviate the cala- 
 mity ; nor all the breaches in the rotation system of 
 return, sternly followed in every presbytery they 
 commanded, alter the fact. There it was before them ; 
 and had they been rash enough to doubt it, the 
 election of the Moderator, on the very threshold of the 
 meeting, would have dispelled the illusion. But as 
 they did not provoke that demonstration of the nume- 
 
THE SECESSION. 123 
 
 rical force of their opponents, they addressed them- 
 selves to the task of making the most of their own. 
 This was their wisdom ; and, accordingly, as the wheels 
 of time are not to be arrested, and far less rolled back 
 in their course, the 18th of May '43 — the opening day 
 of the Assembly — did not pass, till the act of the Se- 
 cession was accomplished. After sermon in the High 
 Church in usual form, Dr Welsh, the Moderator of the 
 previous year, repaired to St Andrew's Church, where 
 the Assembly convened. He engaged in prayer, and 
 when the prayer was ended, he said — " According to 
 the usual form of procedure, this is the time for 
 making up the roll ; but, in consequence of certain pro- 
 ceedings affecting our rights and privileges, I must 
 protest against our proceeding further. The reasons 
 that have led me to this conclusion are fully set forth 
 in the document I hold in my hand, and which, with 
 permission of the house, I now proceed to read." He 
 then read the Protest ; and having laid it on the table, 
 bowed towards the throne and withdrew, accompanied 
 by all the members who were prepared to abide by 
 the Protest. 
 
 Such was the consummation of an act long threat- 
 ened, and at length completed, in which, if we cannot 
 say, with one of the historians of the party, that " the 
 pride of Scottish genius and the flower of Scottish 
 piety disappeared," — echoing liis Ichabod, *' the glory 
 has departed," we have no wish to conceal it, that the 
 Kands of the Church were weakened and its efficiency 
 
124 THE SECESSION. 
 
 impaired. The numbers, both of the clergy and laity, 
 who retired at the time, or ultimately signed the Pro- 
 test, are well known — their names are given in all the 
 chronicles of the party — and the list of parishes 
 vacant, and of sessions dismembered, and of churches 
 thinned, is not to be overlooked. In passing, however, 
 I make this remark, and I do it under the deep convic- 
 tion of its truth, that it were grievous misconception to 
 suppose that all who seceded did so on the substantial 
 merits of the question at issue. Of some of the clergy 
 I can assert this — of not a few of the eldership I can 
 assert it — and, above all, I assert it of thousands of 
 the people, who, in retiring from the church of their 
 fathers, gave no other indication than a wish to remain 
 with the particular pastor to whose flock they be- 
 longed. But it is not so much with the statistics of 
 the case I would occupy myself, as with its constitu- 
 tional bearing on the character and position of the 
 Church. And here we have a grave objection to take 
 to the terms in which the recent Secession has been 
 characterised — terms not less at variance with the 
 whole theory of an establishment than with the ele- 
 mentary principles of common sense. That theory 
 the veriest child may read. It is this. The State 
 endows the Church — the emoluments of the Church 
 are in its keeping and at its disposal, (I speak irrespec- 
 tive of the Articles of Union.) Is this granted ? Is 
 it admitted, in opposition to the ingenuity so freely 
 used, that Episcopacy has not slipped in in place of 
 
THE SECESSION. 125 
 
 Poperj^ and Presbytery in place of both, by some 
 conventional entail of the sanctuary, some piece of 
 ecclesiastical legerdemain — but that the will of the 
 State comes out, and that not merely in the constitu- 
 tion of the country, but in the necessity of the case — 
 at every step and in every change ? Is it so there is 
 a compact, not a compact of entail — we again use the 
 word — but a compact of pressing and everyday interest 
 — dependant on the will, and to be cared for by the 
 superintendance, of the civil magistrate, under all the 
 responsibihties of his trust ? If so, then we say, that 
 not only would the constitutional voice of the magis- 
 trate, formally expressed, if not through the alleged 
 nugatory and co-ordinate channels of the law courts, 
 yet through the supreme voice of the legislature, be 
 paramount in saying — " We do not recognise in you, 
 the existing ministers of the Church, the doctrines you 
 are bound to preach, and the discipline you are called 
 to maintain ; " but it might declare, " We are weary 
 of Presbytery, and we will try Independency." That 
 might be said, and emphatically, without touching the 
 principles on which an establishment is built. It might 
 be foolish — it might be mis-timed — but it could not be 
 illegal ; nor could the party ejected turn themselves on 
 the party preferred, and say — "We are the Church." 
 But our modern seceders have said so ; and that on 
 far lower ground than this — ground as untenable in 
 theory as it is preposterous in application. The 
 deriders of what is called, in the phraseology of the 
 
126 THE secession; 
 
 day, '' apostolical succession," tliey have claimed a 
 succession of another description. The Church of 
 Scotland is still their church ; and, as if some outrage 
 had been committed on the very theory of an establish- 
 ment, when their " Claim " was disallowed, they have 
 busied themselves in laying their hands on every parch- 
 ment, and seal, and appendage that comes in their 
 way — on deeds and titles, and household names of 
 every age and of every grade — that, on some future 
 day, they may produce their credentials, and serve 
 themselves heirs to the inheritance and to the patri- 
 mony of the Church. They might be better em- 
 ployed. That triumph is not to be gained by the 
 titles they appropriate, or the books they publish, 
 or the historical fallacies in which they indulge. And 
 if, by the theory of an establishment, not less cer- 
 tainly by the constitution of the Church of Scotland, 
 are they precluded from saying, " We are the 
 Church." Take it at the best. Admitting that 
 they had forced a majority in the supreme court for 
 the passing of the protest, did that infer that the 
 Church was bound by it ? Is there not such a thing as 
 the Barrier Act ? Is the Assembly of to-day to dictate 
 to the whole Church ? It was not for this that a fence 
 was wisely set up against all hasty legislation — against 
 rash and dangerous movements — against unconstitu- 
 tional innovations. Often had that fence been strained, 
 not unfrequently had it all but given way under the 
 pressure which tried it ; but on the 18th of May it 
 
THE SECESSION. 127 
 
 stood untouclied. It was not put to the proof. All 
 that could be said was, that certain ministers and 
 elders separated themselves on that day from the 
 establishment, leaving her weakened but not destroyed 
 — the Church of the constitution — the same in charac- 
 ter, though impaired in her numbers and in her 
 strength.* 
 
 On the same ground, we feel called upon to object 
 to the word wdiich has been so currently used to 
 describe the secession, incautiously indeed bv the 
 friends of the Church, but not unwittingly by its 
 enemies. It is the word " Disruption." Johnson 
 defines it — " the act of breaking asunder, a breach, a 
 rent." In none of these senses is it applicable to the 
 event now under review. There was no breaking 
 asunder of the Church of Scotland on the day when 
 the protesters retired from it ; nor, in its secondary 
 sense, was there a breach or a rent. One section here, 
 and another there, does not describe it — a fragment 
 at Taniield, and another at George Street, with the in- 
 tervening gap which the Protest had made, is not a 
 representation of the case. Accuracy of thought, not 
 less than historical truth, requires the abandonment of 
 a phrase which, at no time correct in its constitutional 
 bearins; on the Church, must be obviously faulty to 
 
 * I have argued this on the lowest possible ground. Of course, 
 I do not say that even a majority of the Church could dissolve a 
 union which the State has sanctioned, and which the State alone 
 ^'an competently breiUs. 
 
128 THE SECESSION. 
 
 the most indifferent onlooker, now that the temporary 
 evils of the Secession have been obviated, and every 
 vacancy filled up. As well talk of the disruption of a 
 bee-hive, when, on a summer day, it is casting off its 
 busy swarm, filling the air with their murmurs ; or the 
 disruption of a kingdom, when there are thousands 
 leaving, either of choice or necessity, their native land, 
 that they may breathe a freer air in the distance — or 
 the disruption of an army, when disaffection has been 
 busy in its ranks, and company after company has re- 
 fused to fight under their old banner, and to answer to 
 their old call. To the word " Eruption " we would not 
 have demurred. It is a cognate epithet, and so far 
 describes the catastrophe. We would not underrate 
 the force of the volcano which on the 18th of May 
 discharged it contents. For many months previously, 
 we had been walking on hollow ground — " cineres igni 
 doloso suppositos." But it broke up at last. The fire, 
 generated in the bowels of the earth, was too intense 
 to be retained. It demanded egress, and it got it. 
 The sweltering and molten flood rushed out, flinging 
 its fires and its vapour to the clouds. And yet we are 
 not without hope. Though the ashes are still hot under 
 our feet, they must inevitably cool. The landmarks are 
 still standing. The lava will spend its force : our 
 pleasant things which have been laid waste will be 
 repaired ; and they who fondly and foolishly imagined 
 that future generations, as they trode the soil over 
 which the deluge of fire had passed, would recognise 
 
THE SECESSION. 129 
 
 in it nothing but the biirying-place of a kingdom, or 
 the sepulchre of a church, may live to find that the 
 lava of destruction has proved the seed-bed of fertility, 
 impregnating the mass it has quickened — but not over- 
 powered — with increasing verdure, and beauty, and 
 fruitfulness. 
 
 And as we object to the epithet hurriedly struck off, 
 and but too currently used to characterise the seces- 
 sion, we must also take exception to the parallel em- 
 ployed to illustrate it. It was drawn from Scripture ; 
 not a few portions of wliich had already been pressed 
 rather quaintly into the service. But Daniel in the 
 lions' den would not now suffice. Moses was brought 
 upon the foreground, and the company of the Israehtes. 
 Why so, is not at first sight very clear. True, the 
 Jewish lawgiver and the attendant Hebrews did, under 
 Divine appointment, and on a memorable occasion, 
 make a great movement. If that, however, was the 
 analogy, it might have been shown in other ways, 
 without an unauthorised and spurious appropriation of 
 Scripture history. There are nothing but movements 
 aromid us on every side — movements political, and 
 movements ecclesiastical — movements physical, and 
 movements moral and social. There is no lack of these 
 for illustration ; and if, without trespassing on the 
 Bible, the ample page of history sufficed not for the 
 purpose, they might have drawn on the figure of an 
 army, discomfited but not conquered, marching out 
 T^ith all the honours of war ; or of a company of emi- 
 
130 THE SECESSION. 
 
 grants leaving their country, to which, by the aid of a 
 very httle mist, of which they had always at hand a 
 copious supply, they might have imparted a certain 
 dim and hazy interest. But, no ; nothing would serve 
 them but Moses and the land of Egypt. Not that they 
 spoke of its plagues — that might have been dangerous 
 — it might have provoked comparisons of rather an 
 odious kind. They spoke of the departure from 
 Egypt ; it was in every mouth ; and I have now before 
 me a tract, thousands upon thousands of which have 
 been scattered over the land, bearing this title, " Fare- 
 well to Egypt ; or the departure of the Free Church of 
 Scotland out of the Erastian Establishment." Now, 
 we are willing to concede much to the excitement of a 
 great occasion, and to the inflation of mind it all but 
 inevitably entails ; but we were scarcely prepared for 
 its taking this direction, or occupying this high ground. 
 Where is the analogy ? Are they the only representa- 
 tives of the true religion — the only depositaries of the 
 truth ? Have they alone been commissioned to bear 
 the ark of the living and true God through the wilder- 
 ness? Are there reserved exclusively for them the 
 pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, the hea- 
 venly manna to fall around their tents, and the waters 
 of Horeb to gush at their feet ? But perhaps it was 
 not so much to make themselves the children of Abra- 
 ham, as the Church of Scotland the land of Egypt, 
 that the parallel has been canonized. If so, on this 
 ground also we are as much m perplexity. Where, 
 
THE SECESSION. 131 
 
 we ask, are the implements of bondage of which they 
 complained ? We nowhere see them ; they must have 
 carried them off. We are put to no drudgery. There is 
 no impediment in our way to the discharge of any duty 
 by which Christianity may be honoured, and the name 
 of the Saviour magnilied. Our hands are free, our 
 pulpits are free, our kirk-sessions are free, our pres- 
 byteries, and synods, and General Assemblies, are all 
 free. In their departure, the iron rod of oppression 
 has been broken ; and, by and by, when a httle 
 further on in their journey, and on a closer inspection 
 of their sacks, they may begin to find they have made a 
 mistake — that they have left the jewels, and borrowed 
 the fetters and the chains. Indeed, if report speaks 
 true, there are some of their number who have already 
 found it out, and are beginning to think of a second 
 Exodus. Or when did our despots in Church and 
 State refuse to let them go ? Did we set a guard over 
 them to keep them ? Did we follow them when they 
 left ? Did we pursue them to the banks of the Water 
 of Leith, where they had their first encampment ? 
 Did we strive to allure them back by bribes, or to 
 drive them back by threatenings ? No. If on that 
 day the Church of Scotland was for a season Aveak- 
 ened in her resources, and crippled in her energies — 
 if, by a large secession, the amount and importance of 
 which she has never depreciated, our national Zion 
 was made to feel that under the visitation of God her 
 hands were enfeebled, and not a few of her pleasant 
 
132 THE SECESSION. 
 
 tilings laid waste, she lias this to say, that she followed 
 them not. Quietly and unconstrainedly were they 
 left to the freedom of their own will, and to the pe- 
 culiarities of their own position. As rapidly and 
 serenely as they pleased, were they allowed to say, 
 " farewell." If their retirement was felt — and most 
 tenderly too — the stern necessity under which they 
 acted, and which they could not control, was too 
 obvious to be misunderstood. If it created no sympa- 
 thy among those who remained, it awoke no indigna- 
 tion, and provoked no taunt. JSTo opprobrious words 
 were hurled after them ; and as they were not im- 
 peded by any missive from the Queen, they had not 
 to complain of his Grace her Commissioner, that he 
 enacted the part of Pharaoh, " and made ready his 
 chariots and took his people with him and pursued 
 after them." Indeed, if the parallel is to be kept up, 
 we have ground of complaint that they did not treat 
 us so much like Egypt as they should have done. 
 Why did they not go out all at once ? Why did some 
 of them tarry so long among the flesh-pots ? Why put 
 the Egyptians to the trouble of reminding them of 
 their brethren, and of showing them the way ? Why 
 cUd straggler after straggler hang on the outskirts of 
 a land he was destined to leave, at last overtaking the 
 main body, many days before him, only by a forced 
 march and the most unnatural strides ? We had 
 always imagined, that, fenced in by the guardianship 
 of Jehovah, " to whom belong the shields of the 
 
THE SECESSION. 133 
 
 earth," hid under the shadow of his wing, and kept 
 as the apple of his eye — that mighty host with Moses 
 at its head, though numerous as the sands of the sea, 
 and rusthng hke the leaves of the forest, went out as 
 one man on their heaven-directed pilgrimage. 
 
 Of these loiterers there were not a few of whom 
 many most curious things might be told ; but we must 
 content ourselves with referring to two of them. And, 
 first, we turn to a layman, Mr Hog of IS'ewliston. It 
 is well known among those to whom he now adheres, 
 that for many months prior to the eventful meeting of 
 the Assembly, he was in great difficulty of mind as to 
 the propriety of their whole procedure. This he gave 
 them good reason, on more than one occasion, to un- 
 derstand, in the Non-intrusion committee, of which he 
 was a member ; and so httle did they sympathise with 
 his doubts, — nay, so strongly did they resist them. — 
 that on one occasion they prevented his return to the 
 General Assembly from the presbytery of Linhthgow, 
 which he frequently represented. Meanwliile, on came 
 the meeting of the supreme court, and Mr Hog hung 
 upon the outskirts, reclaiming against the proposed 
 movement. The Secession took place, and Mr Hog 
 was not in the procession ; the Free Assembly held 
 several meetings, and yet the name of Mr Hog did not 
 appear on the fast swelhng Protest, — where was he ? 
 The 27th of May showed. On that occasion, in pre- 
 sence of a crowded Assembly, a letter was read from 
 Mr Hog, addressed to Dr Gordon, to be communicated. 
 
134 THE SECESSION. 
 
 wliich, among other things, says this — " If I have been 
 tardy in declaring myself, it is because I felt it my 
 duty to watch the last struggles of the Church as I 
 would the death-bed of an expiring parent, not feehng 
 at liberty to depart till the spirit was fled, and the 
 work of corruption begun ; " the Presbyterian Review 
 adding this, that " the reading of the letter elicited 
 loud cheers.'' From this, it appears how well and 
 how laudably Mr Hog had been employed. It would 
 seem he had been by the bedside of an old lady — ^liis 
 mother. Tenderly attached to her, he had waited on 
 her to the last, and only retired when the fast hasten- 
 ing corruption overpowered his nerves. What more 
 could you expect ? You could scarcely ask him, tor- 
 tured with such an exquisite sense, to remain over the 
 funeral ; it might have been dangerous. Besides, his 
 friends were far in advance, and their impatience was 
 proverbial. His absence, sufficiently marked already, 
 might, if further protracted, have excluded him for ever 
 from their company. He decided at once ; he quitted 
 the death-bed scene, nor cast behind one lingering 
 look till he found himself amidst the plaudits of liis 
 associates, attesting his sincerity by exhibiting neither 
 symbol of mourning nor symptom of grief; no, not 
 even a few crocodile's tears, with which the banks of 
 the Nile are said to abound. And as it happened, it 
 was just as well. Be it known to all, and especially to 
 the fugitive, that the old lady was not gone. Faintish, 
 indeed, she had been, as was only to be expected from 
 
THE SECESSION. 135 
 
 a copious bleeding to which she had been lately sub- 
 jected ; but life was not extinct. The sombre light of 
 the scene, especially with eyesight at no time good, 
 had created the illusion of her son ; and it came to a 
 climax, when the inflammatory matter of which her 
 veins were relieved was allowed to remain so near 
 him as to impregnate the air with its effluvia. Indeed, 
 the mother had recovered herself ere her recreant son 
 had gone ; she saw him retreating, and while we are 
 commissioned to say she has got over his loss — that it 
 has been more than compensated by the increasing 
 attachment and attentions of other members of her 
 numerous family — she by no means refuses him for- 
 giveness. She is well aware that she cost him two 
 or three sleepless nights. From the heart she pardons 
 him. But that he should have departed with " Egypt's 
 fine linen," not applied to his eyes, but to another 
 organ! — this has evidently rather annoyed the old lady ; 
 it has sorely tried her equanimity ; and though her 
 dispositions are most placable, she has it evidently in 
 contemplation to entrust to other hands than his the 
 custody of her bones to the land of promise. 
 
 But there is another loiterer of whom we must say 
 sometliinoj — the Reverend Mr Bruce. He also tarried, 
 and under circumstances not less suspiciously sympto- 
 matic of defection from the iS^on-intrusion encampment. 
 His reluctance, if not of older standing, was yet, if pos- 
 sible, of a more peculiar kind than that of his friend. It 
 showed itself not long after the Convocation, and broke 
 
136 THE SECESSION. 
 
 out on several occasions. In the Non-intrusion com- 
 mittee his murmurings were not suppressed — they 
 were loudly uttered, and formed the topic of anxious 
 consideration among his friends. Dr Candhsh favoured 
 him with a special visit on the subject, remonstrating 
 with him in no measured terms ; and the indignant 
 speech of Dr Gordon in the Waterloo Rooms, one of 
 the very few which he spoke, while levelled at all who 
 threatened an abandonment of their pledges and prin- 
 ciples, was universally interpreted as having a special 
 reference to Mr Bruce. Notwithstanding, his reluc- 
 tance to leave increased rather than diminished. He 
 did not conceal the fact, that the simple introduction 
 of Lord Aberdeen's bill into Parliament before the 
 sitting of the Assembly, would allow him to remain in 
 the Church — though how that could have freed him 
 from the Convocation resolutions no one saw. Such, 
 however, was his reasoning, Avhich had always a httle 
 of the peculiar about it. Even when known that no 
 bill would be introduced till after the Assembly, he 
 was still inchned to remain ; and on the 18th, when 
 by an irresistible attraction every ecclesiastic was 
 drawn to the central point — to that very church of 
 which he was the pastor, and within whose walls so 
 many were that day to bid adieu to the establishment 
 — Mr Bruce was nowhere visible. He did not join 
 the procession on its way ; nor till a day or two after 
 did he signify his adherence to the Protest. But we 
 must allow him to speak for himself, for so we are 
 
THE SECESSION. 137 
 
 convinced he is doing, when, in the funeral sermon 
 preached on the occasion of the death of the late Dr 
 Abercrombie, he uses these words — " It is known that 
 be was most unwiUing to quit the establishment, and 
 that, most intimately associated as we were together 
 then, as we continued to be to the last, I should be 
 Avell able to explain both what that was which so long 
 suspended liis decision, and why, when the crisis came, 
 he was seen so resolute as well as ready. JS'ow his 
 first apprehension was, that we should never be able, 
 without the pecuniary aid of the Government, to provide 
 at all adequately for rehgious ordinances throughout 
 the land ; and his next apprehension was, that, by 
 protest and separation, such animosities would be 
 engendered as he must strive to the very uttermost, 
 and to the last hour, to prevent. It was thus, that, 
 with all prompt and profound sagacity, his deep con- 
 cern for the religious character of the land, and his 
 almost unequalled love of charity and peace, did make 
 him seem for a time to hang back, and hesitate, as 
 one who could not decide. But the instant he saw a 
 settlement decreed, ivhich he believed ivould inevitably 
 extinguish that vitality in the Church for ivhich he 
 valued her, and, in the leaving only of deceitful and 
 most miserably turetched forms, destroy utterly the 
 power of godliness — the instant he saw this, he resolved 
 for himself to come out from her and be separate.'' 
 
 >Such is the statement, half apologetical and half 
 explanatory, in which Mr Bruce takes notice of the 
 
 Si 
 
138 THE SECESSION. 
 
 decision of his departed friend. Other representa- 
 tions, of a different kind, have been as universally cir- 
 lated, as Ihey have been generally believed. It is 
 confidently stated, that Dr Abercrombie did not leave 
 the Church on any other ground thayi that of sym- 
 pathy with Mr Bruce, to ivhose 'ministry he was 
 attached, and that he had no hesitation in saying so 
 on various occasions. But, be that as it may, we may 
 be permitted to say, that the explanation given is any 
 thing but intelligible. It is not to be forgotten, that 
 no other settlement of the question had been spoken 
 of than that embodied in Lord Aberdeen's bill, to 
 which Mr Bruce was not unpropitious. Of what other 
 settlement, then, does he speak ? It was known, on 
 the 18th, that nothing else was coming ; and yet, 
 neither on that day, nor for two or three days after, 
 was the discovery made, that the vitality of the Church 
 was gone. The fact was, we believe, that had he 
 remained much longer, his own vitaUty would have 
 seceded from his body. The throes and agonies to 
 which he was subjected, were, we understand, more 
 than flesh could bear. Daily beset by the importunities 
 of Tanfield, which were copiously administered, he 
 was not less haunted by the terrors of the Witness. 
 He gave way at last — and then comes out the an- 
 nouncement, that on the instant of his departure, there 
 departed also the life of the Church, leaving only some 
 deceitful and mcst miserably wretched forms. With 
 
THE SECESSION. 139 
 
 the exit of the Rev. John Bruce, the power of godliness 
 departed. Language hke this requires no comment. 
 It will be rightly interpreted, and duly appreciated, 
 both by friend and foe. Of little benefit to the church 
 he has joined, it can as little injure the church he has 
 left. Our Zion is not to be annihilated by it. His 
 old church of St Andrew's does not miss him ; its pews 
 are filled with an auditory much larger than he could 
 command ; and there, from Sabbath to Sabbath, is the 
 gospel preached, if not in the same way, yet not less 
 faithfully, and certainly not less intelligibly, than under 
 his ministry. Perhaps, after all, he might have been 
 passed by unnoticed. It is in the nature of things, that 
 they who have walked slowly should talk largely — by 
 the volubihty of their tongue they must make up for the 
 tardiness of their step. But a short while before, and in 
 his own estimation Mr Bruce was the very pattern of 
 meekness. Now, how changed ! He is no longer the 
 Moses of the ]S"on-intrusionists. Not in this character 
 does he come out on the great day of the Secession — 
 and if now, since his own little day, he has not 
 scrupled, by unkind and most unjustifiable language, 
 to injure the feelings of the living, and to trample on 
 the memory of the dead, he can scarcely qualify it with 
 the famous declaration, at the close of his pamphlet on 
 the Moderator ship controversy — " I have endeavoured 
 to do it, though at no small sacrifice of my personal 
 comfort, and Avell knowing that it may provoke, for a 
 
140 THE SECESSION. 
 
 time, some unpleasant coldness towards me on the 
 part of several whom I greatly esteem. Nor can I 
 think this resolute discharge of duty uncongenial with 
 the exercise of the gentler virtues, when I read how it 
 is written of the meekest of all the men that ever Hved 
 upon earth, that when he spied an Egyptian smiting 
 a Hebrew, he slew the Egyptian and buried him in 
 the sand." ifc 
 
 And now we must bid adieu to the 18th of May, 
 and to the " Farewell to Egypt." It is a day not to 
 be forgotten in the annals of the Church. There 
 were friendships broken on that day, and ties the 
 most endearing snapped — churches were stripped of 
 their ministers, and almost every pastor, at least in 
 the cities and towns, lost some of his flock. The worst 
 of it was, that houses were divided — and that, on the 
 future Sabbath-days of not a few families in the land, 
 there was nothing but the melancholy prospect, but 
 too sadly realised, of parents and children, and sis- 
 ters and brothers, dwelling under the same roof, but 
 not meeting at the same sacramental table, nor fre- 
 quenting the same church. Verily, there is lying 
 somewhere a fearful responsibility! Let us say, 
 meanwhile, in parting with our brethren, that if they 
 had grave cause of offence with us, they have taken a 
 strange way of showing it. Have they not carried 
 Egypt wholesale with them into the wilderness ? Its 
 calendar is theirs — they have no month Abib — they 
 
THE SECESSION. 141 
 
 count by Pharoah — witness the meetings of their 
 General AssembHes. Its nomenclature is theirs — they 
 have carried with them the key to the hieroglyphics 
 — witness the pyramids of theu' own erection, covered 
 with the same symbols, and grotesquely marked 
 with the same names. Its rites are theirs — they have 
 no " beginning of months," no '' first month of the 
 year" — as witness their new moons and solemn feasts. 
 This may suit the memory — it may be convenient for 
 the almanac — but it is very trying to the judgment. 
 If " farewell" was to be the word, it might have been 
 pronounced in a better temper, as it should have been 
 certainly said in a firmer tone. And where is the 
 authority under which they acted their anomalous 
 part ? One man, for instance, scourging his glebe ; and 
 another cutting down its trees with sacrilegious axe ; 
 and a third applying his whetted knife closely to the 
 root of the rose-bush which hung so gracefully by the 
 manse door. Perhaps, after all, these, and a variety 
 of other acts far more flagrant, were quite becoming — 
 they were only the spoihng of the Egyptians. Di- 
 rectly in communication with heaven, it is not to be 
 questioned they had its authority for all they did — 
 even in pilfering the emblem of " the bush burning but 
 not consumed." Time, however, will show that. As 
 it is not a woodcut that makes an emblem, it is not an 
 emblem that makes a Church. Our appeal must lie 
 elsewhere, far beyond the modern fires of Horeb, and 
 
142 THE SECESSION. 
 
 the croaking voice which says, *' Come and see this 
 j^^reat sio-ht." 
 
 We close with the language of Dr Chalmers, and say : 
 — " We hold, that by means of an endowed church, and 
 a territorial division of the country into parishes, there 
 is secured a greatly fuller and wider dispensation of 
 the lessons of the gospel through the land, than by 
 means of any such arrangement as might come spon- 
 taneously forth of all the zeal that exists for Christi- 
 anity on the one hand, and of all the desire that 
 exists for the reception of Christianity on the other. 
 That this zeal should have its ebbs and its alternations, 
 is no better argument for the destruction of an esta- 
 blishment, than is the fluctuating supply, by inunda- 
 tion of water from the Nile, for effacing or lilling up 
 those ducts of conveyance which serve for the irriga- 
 tion of Egypt. Through it is the descent of living water 
 from the upper sanctuary, which transforms the sons of 
 nature into holy and heaven-born men ; this does not 
 supersede an earthly tactics, and an earthly mechan- 
 ism for the right distribution of it. Should the Nile 
 cease from its overflows, there would be no fertilising 
 influence conveyed over the land, through the dry and 
 deserted channels by which it was intersected. And 
 should the Spirit of God withdraw the showers of his 
 grace from our nation, we have no such blind confi- 
 dence in the virtue of frameworks, as to look for a 
 sanctifying influence from the mechanism of pulpits 
 
THE SECESSION. 143 
 
 and parishes. Nevertheless, it is good to uphold the 
 sluices, and reservoirs, and aqueducts of Egypt ; for 
 when the Nile shall again rise above its banks, that is 
 the apparatus by which its water shall be most bene- 
 ficially dispersed over the fields of the territory."* 
 
 * Chalmers' Works, vol. xvii., p. 119. 
 
144 THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 
 
 This Church has now existed for about three years, 
 and has given ample proof of energy and zeal. Its 
 plans have been conducted on a scale of unusual 
 magnitude, and its success such as to throw into the 
 shade the operations of any religious denomination 
 that has yet existed on Scottish ground, prolific as it 
 has been of dissent. It includes about 716 congre- 
 gations,* whereas the United Secession, which ranks 
 next in numbers, has only about 360, and the Relief, 
 about 115. This is doubtless a great fact in the eccle- 
 siastical history of the day — sufficiently great, we would 
 think, to put the adlierents of the new sect beyond 
 the temptation of absurdly magnifying their numbers, 
 and grossly exaggerating their claims. Their num- 
 bers, certainly, combined with those of other Pres- 
 byterian Dissenters, do not overpower the Establish- 
 ii^ent — to say nothing of the outcast multitudes whom 
 nothing but an establishment can overtake — nor, in 
 
 * Many of these are nothing more than what are commonly 
 knoMii by the name of " Stations." 
 
THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 145 
 
 point of territorial occupancy, is theirs the position of 
 the national Church. They have not accomphshed 
 the erection of an ecUfice in every parish, though, in 
 the absence of the necessary funds, or, we should 
 rather say, of the necessary adherents, they have 
 made the most of appearances. For example, they 
 plant a church on the verge of one parish, to accommo- 
 date the stragglers from two or three ; and in asking 
 their supporters to what parish it belongs, they will 
 say the parish of A, or B, or C, according to the par- 
 ticular person they address, or the spot on which they 
 happen to stand, and on whose behalf they wish to 
 make demonstration. Or they call that a church 
 which is so in nothing but the name — having no pastor, 
 perhaps, and but a handful of people. Or they de- 
 signate the congregation which has met for the last 
 three years in the Music Hall, Edinburgh, in the 
 centre of the New Town, by the name of the High 
 Church, which rears its venerable head in the heart of 
 the Old. Or Dr Brown, Glasgow, has the Free " St 
 John's " gifted to liim, with its profuse ornaments and 
 little idolatrous niches, that from its lofty tower he 
 may now and then take a distant glimpse of the " Old 
 St John's " in which he once lectured and preached. 
 Or they accomplish an acliievement more wonderful 
 still ; and within two or three acres of ground in the 
 metropolis of the West, the '' Tron Church," and "St 
 Andrew's," and " St David's," rear their heads, with 
 the word " Free," attached to them, blazing away like 
 
146 THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 
 
 united fires, and keeping each other warm — at once 
 displaying their purity and their pride, in forsaking 
 the contaminations of their old Erastian neighbour- 
 Iioods, and the contagion of poverty in the humble 
 dwelHngs with which they are surrounded. All this 
 and much more have they done in support of their 
 claim to the national supremacy — if to the admiration 
 of their own followers, not a little to the surprise of 
 the other Dissenters of Scotland, whom they once re- 
 baked from the high places of the Establishment, for 
 the love which Voluntaryism displayed for the wealthy 
 districts of a city or country, to the neglect and 
 abandonment of the poorer. 
 
 And yet, with every deduction from their preten- 
 sions which justice demands and common sense dic- 
 tates, we are now met with the existence of a new 
 and most formidable body of dissent in the existence 
 of the Free Secession. And first we would look at its 
 denominational peculiarities. These cannot be very 
 well ascertained, and are rather to be gathered inferen- 
 tially from statements than directly from documents. 
 Saving the protest lodged with the Church on their 
 retirement, they have issued no other manifesto from 
 which any thing very authoritative is to be gleaned ; 
 and that, though carefully worded to give it a doctrinal 
 air, cannot fairly be pronounced such, any more than 
 the question of a church establishment. Ask a mem- 
 ber of the United Secession if the headship of the 
 Lord Jesus in his own house be violated in the esta- 
 
THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 147 
 
 blislimeiit of any form of religion by the civil magis- 
 trate, and he will answer in the affirmative; ask a 
 Free Seceder, and he will answer in the negative. Ask 
 the latter if the supremacy of Jesus in his kingdom be 
 infringed by the rejecting of the Claim of Right, he will 
 vehemently say. Yes ; ask the former and he will firmly 
 say, No — if the principle of an establishment he a scrip- 
 tural one. Again, ask the old Seceder if there be any 
 value in the fundamental principle of jS'on-intrusion, 
 as defined by the Veto law, without the recognition of 
 the unscriptural nature of Patronage ; and he will re- 
 pudiate the dogma. Ask the Claim of Eight, and the 
 several authorised papers of the Non-intrusion com- 
 mittee, and these will tell you, that the affirming of 
 the Veto law by no means requires the abohtion of 
 patronage ; and that, whereas without the former they 
 could not remain in the Church, they could manage to 
 put up with the latter. And yet these are the minute 
 distinctions through wliich we must pick our way in 
 the thorny path of the new Secession. At one with 
 the Church of Scotland, as with the leading Dissenters, 
 in doctrine and discipline, there is but a shght diver- 
 gence from either in circumstantials. In their origin 
 they are not anti-patronage, whatever they may be- 
 come in their progress ; even as in the outset they 
 were not what is commonly termed " voluntary," what- 
 ever opinions they may ultimately espouse. 
 
 But if their denominational peculiarities are not very 
 well defined, nor distinguished much, if at all, from the 
 Church from which they have retired, or the leading 
 
148 THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 
 
 Dissenters in Scotland with wliom they are now mixed, 
 they are not quite so invisible in another way. The 
 absence of a creed, I mean differential and tangible, 
 is amply compensated in a thoroughly organised 
 and well sustained ecclesiastical confederacy. This, 
 we would say, is the peculiar feature of the Free 
 Secession, and marks them off, historically, from every 
 other denomination and sect. It naturally springs from 
 the circumstances which gave them birth. If measures 
 and not men originated at least one secession in Scot- 
 land, men and not measures, we believe, created this 
 last one. The fruit of a mistaken and most obstinate 
 policy — the necessary sequence of a convocation stu- 
 diously contrived by a few to gain the adherence of 
 the many — it obeys the same laws and acknowledges 
 the same rule. It is the few ruling the many — the 
 sections in Edinburgh ruling the synods in Scotland ; — 
 Dr Candlish and a copartnery not very large managing 
 all the doctors, and pastors, and preachers, in the land. 
 The oligarchy still exists, and exists in a form that 
 has but little in common with the freedom of Pres- 
 bytery. ISTot that the framework of this system of 
 church government has been abolished. On the con- 
 trary, it has been carefully preserved in every gra- 
 dation of its church courts, and in all the outward ap- 
 paratus necessary for its existence. There is the 
 kirk-session, and the presbytery, and the synod, and 
 the General Assembly — each in their own walk, and 
 regulated by their own forms — legislative, ministerial, 
 and judicial. But a closer inspection will show us that 
 
THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 149 
 
 these are maintained at the expense of all that is 
 peculiar to the free and unbiassed exercise of Pres- 
 byterial government. Scarcely had the first Free 
 Assembly passed over — in the public deliberations of 
 which but few took part, and these the prominent 
 men of the Secession — when precautionary measures 
 were taken to continue a harmony of sentiment, to 
 which, at the outset, a common solicitude and common 
 danger had in no sHght measure contributed. As 
 these receded from the view, the apprehension was 
 not unnatural, that many who had passively aided in 
 seeking the destruction of one Church, might not be 
 so passive in the construction of another. Questions 
 there were to be settled, in which diversity of opinion 
 might naturally prevail ; claims there were to be ad- 
 justed, of the utmost delicacy, bearing not less on their 
 own independent position than on the relations to be 
 estabhshed with other Dissenters in the country ; ar- 
 rangements there were to be made as to the disposal 
 of their available force, and the disbursement of their 
 available funds — all of which required harmony in 
 their settlement, as on that alone depended their suc- 
 cess. Besides, with the great body of their followers 
 out of doors, unity was the secret of their strength ; 
 and at all hazards it was to be maintained. Ac- 
 cordingly, scarcely had the first Assembly passed over 
 when the utmost jealousy of the ordinary method of 
 conducting the business of the church courts began to 
 exhibit itself. The secret conclave took the place of 
 
150 THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION, 
 
 the public court ; or, where it did not supersede it, it 
 reduced it to nothing but a name. The pubHc, ex- 
 cluded at eleven o'clock, were admitted at two ; or, 
 excluded in the forenoon, were admitted freely to the 
 evening pageant, to admire the harmony of its colour 
 and the unity of its design. Before the court was con- 
 stituted, the business was settled. The motion to be 
 made, and the decision to be given, were properly 
 adjusted. This and that member known to be refrac- 
 tory, were reduced to obedience. Every argument, 
 whether springing from a common interest or a com- 
 mon danger, was doubtless used. The discontented 
 and the dissentient were duly plied ; or, should every 
 other remedy fail, a resolution was framed with all the 
 ingenuity they had at command, under whose gene- 
 ralities every form of opinion on the point at issue 
 might, with the utmost complacency, find its appropri- 
 ate shelter. Nor has this been the whole amount of 
 the infringement. Alien as this mode of management 
 is to the free play of sentiment and opinion, there is 
 another feature in it more adverse still. In the free- 
 masonry of their party, they are not allowed even a 
 provincial grand-master. Edinburgh absorbs all ; and 
 if the provinces be consulted, it is not to judge, but to 
 act ; not to decide, but to execute. Centrahsation has 
 come to its perfection. Not a movement in any dis- 
 trict, however remote — not a question raised or dis- 
 cussed — not a vacancy filled, or preacher disposed of — 
 but owns the imprimatur of the metropolitan conven-. 
 
THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 151 
 
 tion. The imperiiim in imperio was never more tho- 
 roughly reahsed than in the Home Mission committee ; 
 and even there, narrow as it is compared with the 
 church courts over which it exercises despotic sway 
 in every corner of the land, might we find, on inspec- 
 tion, its cipher and telegraph in the keeping and in 
 the cognisance of but few of its members. 
 
 That this is an anomaly, and of no small magnitude, 
 in the history of the Free Secession, cannot well be 
 disputed. That it is foreign to the spirit of that parti- 
 cular form of ecclesiastical government it has all but 
 supplanted, will as little be doubted. And that, like 
 all systems of despotism engrafted on a free constitution, 
 and in which the springs of power and influence are 
 kept contrary to their natural bent only by the utmost 
 intensity of pressure, it may have its recoil, we may 
 safely predict. Of this revulsion of feeling indications 
 have already manifested themselves ; and the existence 
 of a tyranny, too marked to be overlooked by all 
 beyond the pale of the Secession, has at length drawn 
 forth the voice of complaint from within its own bor- 
 ders. Discontent has found utterance ; and, in language 
 not to be misunderstood, has urged its complaint.* Not, 
 however, that this comes with the best possible grace from 
 the quarter from wloich it has emanated. If this oli- 
 garchy be oppressive, as it is said to be — so subversive 
 of all Christian liberty among the members, and of 
 
 * See " Prospects and Perils of the Free Church," by the Rev. 
 Mr Lesley, one of its ministers. 
 
152 THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 
 
 freedom in thought or utterance among the ministers 
 of the Secession, savouring more of Prelacy than Pres- 
 bytery, and more of Popery than either — httle have 
 they to complain who have given it consolidation and 
 strength. Seldom have men, in the retribution of 
 Providence, more richly merited the chains they wear. 
 Did not their own hands forge them ? Did they not 
 love them so well, that, in the name of " freedom," they 
 held them up to the gaze of the world as their 
 triumph and boast ? Did they not cry aloud, in the 
 hearing of others, on the Convocation-day and the 
 Secession-day, " Come, place yourselves under this 
 gentle yoke?" Yes. Whoever else may complain of 
 the liberties of a deliberative court violated, and the 
 functions of presbytery reduced to nothing but a 
 name, it is not for those to do so who, in self-immola- 
 tion, bound themselves to the chariot wheels of an 
 ecclesiastical despotism. They must submit to their 
 lot. The time was when they might have made better 
 terms for themselves ; when, in consenting to leave 
 the Church of their fathers, they might have stipulated 
 for freedom of opinion — and, were it only for decency 
 for a very little freedom of speech. But they omitted 
 to do it ; or, if they longed for a privilege to which 
 for years they had been strangers, they knew it would 
 be refused. It will be refused them still. It is not 
 the fashion for any despot in Church or State, and 
 far less for a conclave of them, to resign, without a 
 struggle, the mitre or the crown. Of voluntary abdi- 
 
THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 153 
 
 cations there are but few examples on the page of 
 history, and the pith of a revolution is not to be ex- 
 tracted from a pamphlet or a speech. 
 
 II. The Free Secession have, without question, raised 
 large sums of money — the amount of which we do not 
 pretend to give. Their own organs have not of course 
 understated it, and they must be referred to for the 
 alleged amount. On their large collections, however, 
 whether obtained at the church door or through the 
 agency of the deacon's court, whose importunity is 
 well known — whether in aid of schools or missions — 
 whether for the support of the local minister or in aid 
 of their great sustentation fund — we have one or two 
 remarks to make. And we would say, in the first 
 instance, do not forget that they are a new sect in the 
 country. The zeal of such is proverbial, and money, 
 in this commercial age, is the test of sincerity. Give 
 a little, and the balance is struck, and you are pro- 
 nounced wanting in principle — give much, be liberal in 
 your gifts or in your alms, and you are forthwith pro- 
 nounced a stanch Seceder, a well-principled man. , In 
 such circumstances, the brass key which unlocks the 
 pew-door, is good — the silver one, better — but happy 
 is he wdio can wield a gold key ; the Free Church 
 paradise flies open to him. Besides, it is not to be 
 overlooked that the Free Secession assumed, what may 
 be called, a very monied-hke look from the beginning. 
 What a noise was made about the sacrifices of the 
 clergy ! How incessantly were the public told of the 
 
154 THE CHUUCH OF THE SECESSION. 
 
 deprivations they underwent! How carefully were 
 the abandoned livings, with the value of manse and 
 glebe, counted up, and rated at a sum which, to say 
 the least, was not borne out by the Instruction Com- 
 mission ! This was the vein into which the thoughts 
 of their suporters were most sedulously turned ; by 
 those, too, who should have been the last to urge it — ■ 
 the clergy themselves ; and it has been wrought hke a 
 mine. Much precious ore has it turned out. The 
 man who once gave his pence for the propagation of the 
 gospel at home and abroad, now gives his shilhngs — 
 by the enlargement of the gift he demonstrates his 
 sincerity. The man who once grudged a penny to the 
 church-plate for the behoof of the poor, now puts in a 
 pound for behoof of the minister, and that settles his 
 character in the count and reckonino* of the deacon's 
 
 o 
 
 court. A httle sacrifice, a little self-denial, a small 
 abandonment of the perishing dross of the world, 
 becomes the symbol and badge of the party. To this 
 all must conform, as they would prove themselves 
 worthy of the cause they support ; and, above all, of 
 the extruded pastor under whom they are placed. 
 
 We have another remark to make, that, as the con- 
 tributions of the Free Secession became, in virtue of 
 their dissent from the establishment, more intensely 
 active, so have they become more intensely exclusive. 
 In the circumstances, perhaps, this was only to be 
 looked for. As it is a law in the history of mind, that 
 one master principle of action in the ascendency 
 absorbs all others, leaving no scope for the play or 
 
THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 155 
 
 exercise of inferior motives — so are the impulses of 
 the heart, not less than the movements of the hand, 
 governed by the same rule and determined by the 
 same guidance. A man's mind, at best, is finite, and 
 so is his purse. Enlarged and capacious as both may 
 be, there is a point where all further tension is at an 
 end; and in proportion as you try their expansive 
 power in one direction, you may look for contraction 
 in another. And so it has been with the charities of the 
 Free Seceders. Laid under a powerful arrest at home, 
 they have, if not in the same proportion, yet to a great 
 extent, resiled from all other foreign services. Of this 
 proof might be given from the contribution list of most 
 of those charitable institutions, whether in Edinburgh or 
 in the provinces, through which their party influence 
 cannot be propagated, or their party name magnified. 
 But we would confine ourselves to one, certainly not 
 the least important, in the Metropohs ; one of the 
 fairest ornaments of the city, and to which even the 
 bigotry of irreligion can take no exception — I mean 
 the Royal Infirmary. I find, by a statement which 
 has just appeared in the public prints, that, on the 
 occasion of the last collection in Edinburgh in behalf 
 of tliis most beneficent hospital, there were contributed 
 — by the 
 
 Established Church, ^459 
 
 Episcopalians, 375 
 
 Free Church, 104 
 
 Dissenters, 301 
 
156 THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 
 
 By a reference to the Report of '43-'44, 1 have ascer- 
 tained that the sum contributed at the church-doors 
 was — 
 
 By the Establislmient, . . . . .^398 
 
 By the Free Church, .... 183 
 
 In this year, the first after the Secession, it is worthy 
 of note, that 
 
 EstabHshed St George's collected, . ,^61 5 
 
 Free St George's, £G0 
 
 EstabHshed St Stephen's, . . . 80 11 10 
 Free St Stephen's, non-existent, 
 
 EstabHshed St Andrew's, . . . 68 8 
 
 Free St Andrew's, 
 
 EstabHshed St Mary's, . . . 27 9 
 
 Free St Mary's, 14 
 
 Last year these same churclies ran thus — 
 
 EstabHshed St George's, . . . ^72 9 2 
 
 Free St George's, .^£37 7 6 
 
 EstabHshed St Stephen's, . . . 78 14 
 
 Free St Stephen's, 
 
 Established St Andrew's, . . . 76 
 
 Free St Andrew's, 10 
 
 Established St Mary's, . . . 38 19 
 
 Free St Mary's, 
 
 A reference to these two years will show our argu- 
 ment. With a decided increase of contributions in the 
 Establishment, there is as decided a decrease in that 
 of the Secession ; still further confirmed by the fact, 
 that whereas in the first year after the Secession, out 
 
THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 157 
 
 of twenty-one churches belonging to this denomination, 
 ten collected ; last year there were only seven. This, 
 after all, we believe, gives but an inadequate view of 
 the extent to which the abridgement has gone in the 
 maintenance of institutions which could ill be spared. 
 If the public collections have suffered, the private Hsts 
 of contributions have still more rapidly deteriorated. 
 Separated in their sympathies from the establishment, 
 they are seceding perceptibly from the established 
 institutions of the country. If the Church has been 
 weakened, the stock of public charity and general 
 tenderness has not escaped. The common pathway 
 of humanity has been deserted. Free Churchism is 
 filling the mind and emptying the pocket. Every 
 thing must give way to this. The care of the poor, and 
 the cure of the diseased, and the refuge of the destitute 
 — all must yield to the overpowering influence of one 
 predominant motive, which, full of little contrivances 
 to catch applause on its own proper ground, will not 
 take its chance of reaping its honours in the promis- 
 cuous fellowship of the world. This is no field for 
 them ; and as they are yet in their infancy, and fuUy 
 alive to the danger of being lost in the crowd, per- 
 haps the only way of securing their services would be 
 by inviting them to erect a dispensary, and infirmary, 
 and house of refuge of their own. 
 
 Or, another remark may be made on that great 
 pecuniary reservoir unto which so many streams have 
 l)een diverted, and by which not a few fountains and 
 
158 THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 
 
 rills have been dried up, to the manifest injury of 
 cities, and famihes, and neighbourhoods. It is tliis : — 
 If this large and capacious basin has been fed at the 
 expense of others, it has been not less carefully nui^sed 
 at the expense of the honour and credit of the Free 
 Church itself. And in proof of this I need only refer 
 to the weU-known understanding under which the bond 
 of the Convocation was framed, and the Secession com- 
 pleted. It is too well known to be denied, that the 
 extent and compactness of the confederacy turned 
 upon the arrangement that " aU things were to be 
 in common," — at all events, such was the stipulated 
 agreement. For the maintenance of himself and family, 
 the pastor of the remotest rural parish was not to be 
 v/orse off than the pastor of the richest congregation in 
 the city ; and the provision of a church for Mm was 
 to be regulated by the same rule. The edifices and the 
 livings were to be all alike — share for share, and 
 building for building ; and, should times prove propi- 
 tious, ornament for ornament was to be the hne and 
 the plummet of all their ecclesiastical architecture. It 
 was the basis of the contract signed at the Convocation, 
 and it was pubHcly ratified but a few days after, when, 
 amidst the applause of the multitudes who heard the 
 details, speaker after speaker dwelt on the brother- 
 hood they had established, and on the fair model of 
 the primitive church about to be revived. Has that 
 contract been fulfilled ? Has sameness of architecture 
 been preserved ? Or, if that be unseemly, has a neces- 
 
THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 159 
 
 sary variety been obtained by a parity of expense? 
 Has the simple and unadorned building in the strath 
 of the Highlands, cost as much as the church in a town 
 in the Lowlands ? Or, to confine ourselves to a more 
 limited space, what do we make of Glasgow ? Are all 
 the churches there modelled after Free St John's, 
 or even after Free St Enoch's and Free St David's ? 
 Or what of Edinburgh ? Has it been faitliful to the 
 contract, so largely quoted and so ostentatiously 
 shown? No. As if in derision of all pledges, the 
 city first to hear of them was the first to see them 
 broken. The bankruptcy commenced there, and 
 the very last man who should have broken the 
 ranlvs was foremost in doing so. Dr Candhsh for a 
 brief period contented himself with a humble edifice. 
 There, one would have imagined, lay at once his pride 
 and his strength ; the honest pride of some little self- 
 denial, in entering, every Sabbath-day, a lowly fabric 
 on Lothian Koad, that through the surplus wealth 
 wliich assembled there, his liberality might abound to the 
 necessities of others — that all things might be equal ; 
 and his strength also, in the maintenance of his faith 
 with his brethren, and in the public preservation of 
 his honour. But, no. Other maxims and motives 
 began to prevail. After a very short interval, the 
 unadorned building was handed over to the High- 
 landers as good enough for them, and within a stone- 
 cast another was erected. It cost as many tliousands 
 as^ the other cost hundreds ; and there it stands, a 
 
160 THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 
 
 memorial of another disruption than that of the Esta- 
 bhshment ; and a stable monument to the name of Dr 
 Candlish. Who can analyse the feehngs of the far- 
 travelled and churchless pastor, when at an Assembly- 
 time he visits the spot, and in the glance of an eye 
 sees the memorial of the pledges and promises of the 
 Convocation, formed amidst the brickwork of Egypt, 
 like the hearts of the master builders, now turned into 
 stone ! 
 
 " 'Tis the last keystone 
 That makes the arch : the rest that there were put 
 Are nothing, till that comes to bind and shut ; 
 Then stands it a triumphal mark ! Then men 
 Observe the strength, the height, the why and when 
 It was erected ; and still, walking under. 
 Meet some new matter to look up and wonder." 
 
 Or what of the equal living as well as the parallel 
 church ? Has that part of the agreement been ful- 
 filled ? Is there no one pining in poverty, while 
 another is favoured with plenty ? Are town and 
 country, city and suburb, pensioned after the same 
 rate, and graduated by the same scale ? Methinks 
 that was due to the recorded declarations of 1843 ; but 
 how different the result! 'Not more unequal is the 
 architecture of the Free Secession, than the annual 
 disbursement of its resources. If the sustentation fund 
 has its fixed data — say £120 — each separate church 
 has its shding-scale, varying from £10 to £400. All 
 things in common determine the one, every thing to 
 myself determines the other. The local fund is but 
 
THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION^. l(Jl 
 
 partially general, and the general fund is but feebly 
 local. There is no great harmony, and very little 
 correspondence between them ; so that, if the balance- 
 sheet of a church which compasses sea and land to 
 make proselytes to its cause, shows annually so well in 
 the sums collected, and the donations given — whether 
 to the building fund and the sustentation fund, or to 
 the individual minister and the particular fabric — we 
 can only say, that, in our apprehension, its bulk is in 
 some degree to be attributed to the breach of the 
 promise which served materially to give to the Seces- 
 sion, at the outset, its numbers and unity. 
 
 But, apart altogether from these incidental points 
 connected with the income on which the Secession is 
 built, and through which its pretensions have been so 
 largely advanced, we have something to say as to the 
 means by which it is secured. It has been generally 
 held by those who advocate the scriptural character of 
 an establishment, that there is no small advantage to 
 be gained from a secure and permanent endowment for 
 those who minister at the altar. On this much stress 
 has been laid in the general course of argumentation 
 to which, of late years, this most debatable of all 
 subjects has been subjected, and nowhere more so 
 than in the recorded opinions of those who have re- 
 cently left us. The argument is, that in the external 
 circumstances of the clergymen there should if pos- 
 sible be nothing existing which might tend, even 
 remotely, to repress his energy or to damp his zeal ; 
 
 o 
 
162 THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 
 
 and that he comes all the more freely to his work, and 
 is not the less likely to be faithful in its discharge — in 
 " warning, and encouraging, and reproving " — that in 
 worldly circumstances he is independent of those 
 among whom he preaches, and toils, and prays. But 
 if this be true, what can we make of the case where the 
 pastor is taxed to the extremest degree in his feelings, 
 in drawing forth the contributions of his people ? 
 What of the case where ministerial fidelity is tested 
 by the amount of monies collected or contributions re- 
 ceived ? What of the case where, to prove his success 
 and to commend himself to an approving brotherhood, 
 the zealous pastor must ply his people with all the 
 importunities of a religious mendicant ? What of the 
 case where giving supersedes doing — and that is 
 pronounced the highest walk of Christianity from 
 which all but the opulent are debarred? Above all, 
 what can we make of a system which, gigantic in 
 its aims, is not less so in its demands — levying its 
 contributions on a scale of largest dimensions — 
 laying under tribute the poor man in his hovel, not 
 less than the rich man in his mansion; multiplying 
 its emissaries with scrupulous care, that no source of 
 revenue may be untried; and scattering its missives 
 with unwearied assiduity, that no congregation may 
 fail in its charities — still accumulating but never satis- 
 fied — making the last exaction the apology for a new 
 one much more arbitrary in its nature, and more ex- 
 cessive in its amount? ''If we wish," says Isaac 
 
THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 163 
 
 Taylor, no mean or prejudiced authority on any 
 question, and least of all on this, " to see what is now 
 vauntingly termed the Voluntary principles fully 
 evolved and ripened under a summer heat, we have 
 
 only to turn to the Papacy. What has happened 
 
 once may happen again, and will do so under hke cir- 
 cumstances. We need not draw upon imagination in 
 conceiving of the natural course of events, and the 
 operation of common principles. The Church, we may 
 suppose, instead of being befriended by the State, is 
 barely tolerated, or perhaps oppressed. The clerical 
 body, including, as it may, many high-minded and 
 disinterested individuals, is yet, as a body, (what body 
 is not ?) actuated by the ordinary motives of our 
 nature, and tends therefore, with a steady and silent 
 momentum, toward its corporate aggrandizement — its 
 wealth, it ease, its credit, and its secure enjoyment of 
 special prerogatives. Every corporation shifts itself, 
 if it be possible, from precarious ground, and moves 
 toward that which is firm. If, then, the State does not 
 lend its aid in this endeavour of the clergy to sub- 
 stantiate their honours and revenues, a resource will 
 be found of another sort, and the minds of the people 
 will be worked on with proportionate eagerness, in 
 order to make sure of their subserviency. Exaggerated 
 doctrines will supply the place of legal provisions. 
 The claims of God's ministers will be asserted in a 
 hyperbohc yet insidious style. The merit of the 
 offering laid upon the altar of tlie Church will be 
 
164 THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION, 
 
 overrated in a manner that at once enfeebles morality 
 and corrupts doctrine. Genuine virtue will be made 
 to give way to fictitious virtue. The just symmetry 
 or relative magnitude of duties will be enormously dis- 
 torted. And yet all this while there is no com- 
 pulsion, there is no tax-gatherer or farmer of tithes — 
 no state alliance. The Voluntary principle is in its 
 full triumphant course. Nevertheless, a system of 
 spiritual despotism, as cruel as it is foul, is fastening 
 on the necks of the people. Why do any people 
 submit to an unarmed tyranny of this sort ? Nothing 
 binds to obedience but sentiment and opinion. Their 
 goods would not be distrained were they flatly to 
 refuse their accustomed quotas. Why do they sub- 
 mit? Ask the Christian commonalty of the third 
 or fourth century ; ask the European nations of 
 the ninth; or, not to go so far, ask our contem- 
 poraries and countrymen, the starving inmates of 
 Irish hovels."* We must be permitted to add, nearer 
 home still — ask the members of the Free Secession, f 
 
 But we must not dwell on tendencies when we are 
 furnished with facts — at least with one fact, which 
 exhibits on a large scale the peculiar evils to which 
 
 * " Spii-itual Desi^otism," by the author of the " Natural History 
 of Enthusiam," page 54. 
 
 t In proof of the intensity of pressure on the popular purse, we 
 might refer to the last earnest " Appeal " of Dr Chahners on the 
 finances of the Free Church. In reading it, we are perplexed — we 
 are stunned. We feel as though placed in a mighty factory, where 
 multitudes of noisy machines are plying their task, rather than 
 
THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 165 
 
 we refer — I mean, the appropriation of the monies 
 which, through the hands of their deputation, they 
 received from the slave-hokUng churches in America. 
 This is an act which, on the part of the Free Secession, 
 has been as openly accomphshed as it has been 
 strongly and generally condemned ; — and in saying so, 
 one would think that a reference to the circumstance 
 is enough. As I understand it, we are now living in 
 the nineteenth century. We have been taking credit 
 to ourselves for much hght ; and the idea has been as 
 fondly cherished as it has been widely circulated, that 
 while there is no article in morals that has not been 
 rightly determined in the school of Christian ethics, 
 they are gaining their ascendency and asserting their 
 proper place in the councils of Christian nations. On the 
 great question of slavery, our congratulations have been 
 peculiarly loud. That Wilberforce did not live in vain 
 — that, after years of conflict most anxiously sustained, 
 the cause of our common humanity came to its triumph, 
 and was enrolled on the statute-book — are topics 
 of national interest familiar to all of us. Hailed as the 
 victory of truth over error — of an enlightened Chris- 
 
 within the precincts of a Christian church. Why should Dr Chal- 
 mers exhaust himself in such service ? Can it be, that he who has 
 exhibited in its largest dimensions theoretically, should complete the 
 task by demonstrating experimentally, on a scale of proportionate 
 magnitude, the utter impotency of the Voluntary system ? And in 
 proof of " exaggerated doctrine," we give in the Appendix, E, the 
 notes of a sermon preached by Mr Guthrie, on the fidelity of which 
 the fullest dependence may be placed. 
 
166 THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 
 
 tianity over a code of morals on which selfishness is 
 but too plainly stamped — it was also welcomed as the 
 commencement of a new era among all the nations of 
 the earth. The anticipation was cherished, that the 
 amehorating influence of British justice, in harmony 
 with the voice of conscience and of God, touching the 
 chains of the captive, and bidding the bond go free — 
 would be gratefully recognised in other kingdoms ; 
 and that, as every sea was swept of that dire visitant 
 the slave-ship, the most secluded recesses of Christen- 
 dom, where slavery had intrenched itself for ages, 
 should be purged by the same purifying breeze. 
 America, especially, was not overlooked. That, despite 
 its boasted liberty, slavery should there have its 
 stronghold — nay, that in the Christian temple it should 
 erect its shrine, gathering its priesthood and collecting 
 its incense, not from the veriest dregs of the political 
 world, but from the tribe of Levi, bearing in their 
 hands the vessels of the sanctuary — must ever remain 
 one of the greatest blots on the page of history, and 
 on the religion of our Saviour and God. The liberties 
 of mankind, so largely asserted elsewhere, not less 
 than Christianity, seemed to require its destruction — 
 and, without any violence done to the law of nations, 
 America had been made aware of it. It needed not 
 to be thundered at the cannon's mouth. She required 
 no emissaries to tell her that the religion of Jesus had 
 been outraged within her borders. No exaggerated 
 declamation was needed to convince her, that the 
 
THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 167 
 
 freedom of which she boasted was but a wi^etched 
 form, while the far-famed Union was cemented by 
 tears and by blood. It had been proclaimed in every 
 Christian senate-house — and as Europe looked on in 
 expectation that at no distant period America would 
 prove herself worthy of her freedom, by the repu- 
 diation of cherished prejudices and the sacrifice of 
 unholy gains, Christianity was not indifferent to the 
 prospect, or careless of the arrival of the long-pro- 
 tracted jubilee. But come when it may, the Free 
 Secession have not to say that they have accelerated 
 its approach. Scarcely had they seceded from the 
 Church, when they took a position the most remote 
 from the common sympathies of Christendom. They 
 sought America, but not as the precursors of freedom, 
 or the heralds of its cause. That was no business of 
 theirs. For money they went — and, that obtained, 
 what mattered it from what quarter it came? It 
 might be it was gathered (to say the least) on doubt- 
 ful ground, from wliich others might shrink — that the 
 cries of thousands had been lodged with it, and that 
 these cries had reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth 
 — that did not affect the value of the currency, or the 
 colour of the com. It might be that churches were 
 reared and pastors maintained by the ungodly traffic 
 — that the ministrations of the pulpit had been pros- 
 tituted to its defence — and that, under its withering 
 blight, all that was fair, and lovely, and of good report, 
 had been foully and fatally blasted — that awoke no 
 
168 THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 
 
 pity, and elicited no tone of remonstrance. Their 
 spirits were not " stirred within " them. It was not 
 for them to be vexed with Egypt, where they had 
 gone down for help. The small cords of their indig- 
 nation were twisted after another fashion and plied in 
 another way. Their scourge was reserved for the 
 Church of Scotland ; and, as in mockery of the scenes 
 where they stood, they doubtless pronounced it a 
 house of bondage and a den of thieves, we are not 
 informed that they called aloud in the hearing of these 
 American money-changers, and in sight of the tables 
 where something else than " oxen, and sheep, and 
 doves," had been sold — " Take these hence ; make not 
 the house of God a house of merchandise." 
 
 I am aware that the appropriation of this money by 
 the Free Church has been openly defended ; and 
 defended against the remonstrances with which, from 
 various quarters, it has been assailed. This I consider 
 not the least melancholy feature in the transaction. 
 Had it perpetrated no other evil than by retarding, by 
 a few months or years, the march of improvement in 
 one of the great quarters of the globe, it was still to be 
 reprehended. But it has entailed other evils. It has 
 thrown us back on a code of ethics, against which, 
 apart from all reasoning, the reUgious world, quickened 
 into new life, and emancipated from old errors, rises 
 with instinctive aversion. Their line of defence is 
 essentially West Indian. The foregone conclusions, 
 and the exploded pohcy of a party which sought to 
 
THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 169 
 
 retard the triumph of truth by a strange admixture of 
 arguments drawn from an immature state of reUgion 
 in the Jewish economy, and a graduated scale of their 
 own, by which the great-grandson may possibly share 
 in rights of which his fathers were unrighteously 
 deprived, — these are again virtually revived. We are 
 carried back to the vicinity of the pest-house, and 
 that pest-house a church. The approach is most cau- 
 tious — it is not to be needlessly disturbed. Not a 
 look and not a tone betrays the reverend visitant from 
 Scotland. Deaf he is to the rattle of the chain — 
 blind he is to the signals of distress to wliich all 
 Europe is awake. His own case is urgent — his nerves 
 are strung — he ascends the pulpit — he asks the sym- 
 pathy of the slave-holders for an oppressed and out- 
 raged Christianity in " the land of the mountain and 
 the flood ; " and, touched by the appeal, the purse- 
 strings of their charity are unloosed. Filled with the 
 sense of his own wi^ongs, it is not for him to remember 
 the affliction of Joseph ; and as he retires arm in 
 arm with the minister of a sanctuary where, perhaps, 
 but a Sabbath-day before, there was notice given of 
 an auction of slaves, the property of the church, and 
 sold for its behoof, he carries with him his preferred 
 sympathy, and, it may be, has the promise of his 
 prayers. Verily, such conquests are not to be envied, 
 any more than the " impressions " of Mr Lewis, one 
 of the deputies, who, in the published account of his 
 visit, says this — " We have no hesitation in pro- 
 
 P 
 
170 THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 
 
 nouncing slave-holding a sin, and calling on all slave- 
 holders to abandon it; — we have as little in pro- 
 nouncing these men foolish and unwise luho would 
 proscribe and cast out of the Church those luho, like 
 Abraham, have been born and bred to the evil — have 
 seen it practised by the best as well as the ivorst m^n 
 from their youth up — have been visited as yet only 'by 
 scattered rays of that light which has fallen in all its 
 fulness on British Christians, the result of twenty 
 years' moral agitation against the trade, and twenty 
 years more against slavery itself. Men coming out of 
 moral evil are to be dealt with very differently from 
 men returning to it ; even as men coming out of doc- 
 trinal error are in a different position from men falling 
 into it. We are wont to make this distinction, having 
 regard to men's imperfect light ; and, assuredly, if we 
 desire to do men good, and lead them by the hand out 
 of sin and darkness of any kind, it is by dealing with 
 them as we would desire to be dealt with in hke cir- 
 cumstances — remembering the slowness of our own 
 moral perceptions, whilst we grieve at their tardy con- 
 victions of rectitude and justice. But, while urging 
 these views, which I think must commend themselves 
 to every man's conscience, I am compelled to express 
 my regret at the uncertain sound yet uttered by the 
 Presbyterian churches of America, and at their ex- 
 treme timidity and slowness in taking any part in this 
 great question, even that part to which they are called 
 in vindication of the violated privileges of their own 
 
THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 171 
 
 churches." And as httle do we envy the feelings of 
 the committee of the Free Church, when, after their 
 deputies had returned, and put a few thousand miles 
 between them and their money-giving friends, they 
 report this to their Assembly : — " The committee 
 might further observe, that the real question which 
 has been raised, so far as the conduct of this Church 
 is concerned, is, not whether the American churches 
 ought, or ought not, to refuse the privilege of their 
 communion to all slave-holders ? Nor whether they 
 are, or are not, as faithful as they should and might 
 be, in exercising disciphne against all the moral 
 offences, and all the cruelty and neglect which the 
 existence of that relation is apt to cause ? Nor whether 
 they are doing all that they should and might do to 
 influence public opinion and the legislative councils, 
 with a view to the aboHtion of this nationally sinful sys- 
 tem? — But ivhether this Church, having been brought, 
 in God's providence, into intercourse tvith these 
 churches, as regards the interchange of brotherly 
 sympathy and aid, is bound to refuse the tokens of 
 their attachment which their people have given, and to 
 renounce and repudiate all further friendly correspond- 
 ence with them ; or, is not rather at liberty, or under 
 an obligation, to continue to cultivate a good under 
 standing luith them; taking care always to do so for 
 the very purpose of faithfully exhorting and admonish- 
 ing them to a full discharge of their duty in this mat- 
 ter, to themselves and their country, as well as to the 
 
172 THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 
 
 oppressed." Such sophistical reasoning cannot gloss 
 over the enormity of the case. America sought not 
 them — they sought America. They found their wa}^ 
 to the Southern States, not the least wealthy in the 
 Union — and into the heart of churches, ivliicJi, as 
 cJmrches, had a vested interest in the slave-trade, and 
 >shared in its profits. They remonstrated not. Money 
 alone they wanted, and money they got ; and though 
 urged to refund, they have declined to do it. Is this 
 the high-toned bearing of men alive to the evils of 
 slavery — who would patriotically sweep it from the 
 statute-book of a nation — and yet leave it to prey on 
 the very vitals of a. Christian church ? 
 
 It were needless, however, to dwell upon a sub- 
 ject conclusively settled everywhere else but in the 
 councils of the Free Secession. If across the Atlantic, 
 and in the southern states of America, the existence of 
 slavery is proclaimed, in religious perceptions blunted, 
 and morals degraded, and sensibilities crushed, it is 
 not to be thought that they who have cherished its 
 companionship and shared in its gains should preserve 
 unimpaired the nicer instincts of the Christian hfe. 
 By an inevitable law, they must pay the penalty of 
 their affiliation. And, for the vindication of Scotland, 
 we say they must bear it alone. They stand isolated 
 and apart. On no other denomination do we find the 
 impress of the brand. Protestation against it has been 
 tendered, but in vain. Retract ! — no ; not a hair's- 
 breadth ! is still the watchword of the party ; and it 
 
THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 173 
 
 must content all who are beyond their pale, to look on 
 — the astonished witnesses of an appropriation that is 
 without palliation, and without excuse, ^ay, in the 
 midst of it all, we must bear to hear still of their close 
 and exclusive affinity to all that is illustrious among 
 the Hying, and high and ennoblmg among the dead. 
 The successors of Knox and Melville in the past, they 
 have, in the language of their favourite journal, '• the 
 three master minds of Protestantism, in our day, 
 united in setting their seal to the Free Church of Scot- 
 land — Thomas Chalmers, Isaac Taylor, and Merle 
 D'Aubigne." Be it so. If the j have them, they would 
 do well to keep them. Already have they parted 
 company with the memory of Dr Andrew Thomson. 
 In the office-bearers of a community — whose coffers 
 have been replenished from the slave-holding churches 
 in America — whose deputies crossed the sea, to return 
 laden with the spoil, unabashed by the British flag 
 under which they sailed, and unrebuked by the waves 
 of the Atlantic, to whose rpUing waters all but slavery 
 is free — ao-ainst whose outrao-e of the common law of 
 Christianity the voice of remonstrance was raised, 
 only to find that the receiving-houses at home had 
 completed the work of Transatlantic robbery — that the 
 dollars had been melted, and were not now to be dis- 
 tinguished from the current coin of the realm ; — in such 
 men, so unaccountably stinted in the fair proportions 
 of humanity, and so strangely seared in their Christian 
 sympathies, I for one indignantly decline to recognise 
 
174 THE CHURCH OF THE SECESSION. 
 
 the representatives of one whose opinions were never 
 sold unto bondage — who Hved and died a freeman — 
 and whose noblest triumph it was, ere his sun went 
 down — and it went down almost at noonday — that, with 
 Clarkson and Wilberforce, and other kindred spirits, 
 he hurried on the era when the blood-stained page was 
 erased from our history, and Africa once more echoed 
 to the cry — '' How beautiful on the mountains are the 
 feet of him that bringeth good tidings ! " — that ill-used 
 land, where the merciless stranger had been welcomed 
 as the deadly breath of the pestilence. " Give me the 
 whirlwind ! " said Dr Thomson, in his last public effort, 
 and at the close of his stirring appeal for the imnfie-^ 
 diate emancipation of the slaves — that was Jacob's 
 voice, and there is music in it to the ear of suffering 
 humanity. *' Feed me, I pray thee, with that same 
 red pottage, for I am faint," — that is the voice of 
 Esau. And " he sold his birthright for a mes^," 
 
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 175 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 If, in the observations which 1 have thus submitted 
 to the consideration of the pubhc, I have spoken my 
 mind honestly and fearlessly, I trust that I have not 
 done so in acrimony of temper, whatever may be said of 
 my boldness of speech. I am quite aware, of course, of 
 the criticism to which these observations will subject me, 
 and of the sharp ordeal through which they must pass. 
 Nor can I plead ignorance of the temper and bearing 
 of those to whom they must prove any thing but 
 palatable. Brought into contact with them on many 
 occasions, I know full well that they are little inchned 
 to brook opposition to their will; and that, though 
 reserving to themselves the privilege, and employing 
 it too, of pronouncing largely on the character and 
 condition of Christian commimities other tlian their 
 own, they are but little disposed to concede this privi- 
 lege to their neighbours. But as I am not amenable 
 to their jurisdiction, they are not to be troubled with 
 my appeal. It hes elsewhere ; — to an inteUigent, and, 
 let me add, to a Christian pubhc, not fettered by their 
 
176 CONCLUDING RE^IARKS. 
 
 dogmas, nor harassed by tlieir rule — exercising an im- 
 partial judgment on our recent troubles in the Church ; 
 and prepared to pronounce calmly and dispassionately 
 between us and them — between the Church from which 
 they have retired, and that which they are labouring 
 to erect. 
 
 Of such an appeal I am not afraid. If there are 
 those who entertain the conscientious opinion, that 
 every establishment of rehgion by the civil magis- 
 trate is wrong in principle, they will do the Church 
 of Scotland the justice to believe, that in holding 
 an opposite view, she would not wilfully compromise 
 those spiritual privileges and functions which inhe- 
 rently belong to every church, whether established 
 or not. The office-bearers of that Church are 
 not conscious of having done so ; and I know that 
 I can claim the concurrence of almost all the Evange- 
 lical Dissenters in the country, when I say, that the 
 conduct of those who have now seceded — their pohcy 
 and their plans, their struggles and their strivings, 
 when in the Establishment, to keep possession of its 
 emoluments — however coincident with the "Voluntary" 
 views of the day, awoke no sympathy, and commanded 
 no response. Though studiously courted, and courted 
 for a purpose too plain to be mistaken, the Dissenters 
 were not won. Till the Secession was over there was no 
 intermingling ; and even now, occupying as they do 
 common ground, and bound though they are, to a 
 certain extent, by a community of interest, I cannot 
 
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 177 
 
 see the golden chain of a wholesome and undivided 
 Christian sympathy imparting to them unity and 
 strength. That there has been the semblance of this 
 I do not deny. Essays have been written on the all- 
 important subject of Christian union ; but these, instead 
 of hastening its arrival, have only made more palpabl}^ 
 plain the differential points on which almost every 
 denomination is most vigorously entrenching itself. 
 Deputations have entered the hall of Tanfield, but they 
 have learned to become much more chary in their 
 visits, and much more cautious in their eulogies. A 
 time of reserve has succeeded a season, apparently at 
 least, of unbounded confidence ; and not unnaturally 
 have the sister branches of the Secession learned to 
 distrust those, who, steady to no purpose but their own 
 aggrandisement and the destruction of the Church, 
 at one time elevate their protest, emblazoned with the 
 insignia of an estabhshment, and anon depress it ; at 
 one time cry out for the abolition of all tests in the 
 universities of Scotland, and anon for tests that will 
 exclude all Dissenters but themselves ; at one time 
 expanding their arms so widely as to overtake in their 
 embrace the universal family of the faithful ; and again, 
 so closely compressing them as not to leave admission 
 for the most fractional portion of the great Christian 
 commonwealth. 
 
 It were an anomaly, certainly, in the Christian world, 
 did a secession, originated and conducted as this has 
 been up to this day, become the herald and the harbinger 
 
178 CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 of the millennial reign of love. Its own declarations 
 would have it so ; and there were some, perhaps, not 
 unwilhng to entertain the hope, that in the providence 
 of God, the recent attempt, of which they were the 
 originators, might lead to the most blessed results. 
 The formation of the Evangehcal Alliance was not un- 
 welcome to many devout men of various churches and 
 creeds. The reign of separation and division every 
 where had been a long one ; and, in some places, the 
 warfare had been pecuharly keen and protracted. 
 What can be more repugnant to the bee^utiM idea 
 which our Saviour gives us of his Church, as one fold 
 under one shepherd, than the aspect of that Church, 
 split into different sections, frowning defiance on each 
 other, *' as though the epithet ' militant,' when apphed 
 to it, were designed to announce, not a state of conflict 
 with the powers of darkness, but of intestine war- 
 fare and division ? " What more extraordinary, than 
 that they who differ only on one subject, and that 
 perhaps of very inferior moment, should contend 
 with more fierceness than has been usually dis- 
 played for all that is vital and important in Chris- 
 tianity itself ? Who can tell how often the perplexed 
 and bewildered mind has received its final and 
 fatal shock from this spectacle of sin, and folly, and 
 pride ? Who can calculate how often it has provoked 
 the displeasure of Him whose name is love, arresting 
 the outgivings of the Spirit, and leaving the Church in 
 many an age to its own dark and bewildered course ? 
 
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 179 
 
 These are evils most deeply to be deplored, and we 
 have the confession of the most eminent men of all 
 churches that deserve the name, that a new spirit and 
 energy must arise ere Christianity possess itself of the 
 empire decreed to it in the fulness of time ; and that the 
 principle of repulsion must be destroyed, which keeps 
 Christians alike from each other and from the com- 
 mon centre where they should unite and repose. In 
 proportion, however, to the importance of the subject, 
 and the magnitude of the interest at stake, should 
 be the watchful jealousy with which it is guarded. 
 And in thk I do not refer to mere orthodoxy of 
 views, or harmony of sentiment on the great and 
 essential points of Christian doctrine. That is in- 
 dispensable — a unity of mind so replenished with the 
 love of the truth as it is in Jesus, that, when com- 
 pared with this, all minor points fade into insigni- 
 ficance. But more than this is required. As there 
 must be no heresy to mar the harmony of the symbol, 
 there must be no latent grudge to destroy the sym- 
 pathies of the heart. The heart, not less than the 
 head, must be in good order in all such alhances; 
 and then only can they be expected to prosper ; — when 
 from no motive of policy, but under the guidance of 
 principle — ^filled with a holy love to all the brotherhood, 
 by whatever name or denomination they are known — 
 cherishing no antipathies to any, but sincerely wishing 
 the welfare of all, men are striving prayerfully, and 
 striving earnestly, to quench the fires of controversy, 
 
180 CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 that tlie gospel may shine every where with its pure 
 and peaceful light. On such an alliance we would 
 look for a blessing, even the blessing of Him whose 
 emblem is the dove, and who alone can effectually 
 move on the troubled waters of the sanctuary. But 
 is it otherwise with any one who would seek to take a 
 conspicuous part in such a movement ? Does faction 
 creep into it, only to employ it as one among many 
 instruments to accomplish its designs ? Is a league to 
 be formed, which, full of love in England, discharges 
 itself, on Scottish ground, in the most vindictive ana- 
 themas ? Is British evangelism to be bound together 
 in the closest brotherhood, not that the triumph of 
 truth may be advanced, but that the reign of faction 
 may be the better perpetuated? Of such mock alli- 
 ances the evils are incalculable. And they are worse 
 than a mockery and a delusion. They are an insult 
 to the Christian body, and they bring dishonour on 
 the Christian name. Bound together, not by the cords 
 of love, but by the bands of bigotry, they will do more 
 harm to religion than all the ravings of the unbehever, 
 or the dreams of the sceptic. More than a thousand 
 open contests on the field of the world, will they dis- 
 serve the cause of the gospel. The studied exclusion, 
 or the contumelious treatment, of a single section of 
 the Christian commonwealth, is the manifestation of a 
 spirit which, in different circumstances, will take um- 
 brage at all. This is the " plague " spot in the feast 
 of love — this the " dead fly " in the ointment of the 
 
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 181 
 
 apothecary ; and not till relieved of this foul and noxi- 
 ous spirit, may we expect that, in these distracted 
 days, the cause of Christian union will come to its full 
 and unfettered triumph. 
 
 It is a day much to be longed for, even as it is 
 earnestly to be prayed for. There is in the moral, as 
 well as in the physical world, an irreversible law, 
 under the ceaseless influence of which, every form of 
 existence is joining its kindred elements — combining 
 by its power the diversilietl features of society into 
 systems of harmony and union. By the apphcation 
 of various tests to the development of character, the 
 statesman, the philosopher, and the sensualist, accor- 
 ding to theh^ prevailing habits, are ever surrounding 
 themselves vrith those who exhibit the moral or the 
 intellectual features of the family to which they them- 
 selves belong. The process of assimilation is never 
 at rest ; and kindred join kindred, concentrating in 
 their collective capacity the evil or the good which 
 form the principle of their union. Why should such 
 a process be retarded any where in the Christian 
 world ? He who knoweth what is in man deemed it 
 not good for his people that they should be alone, each 
 individual pursuing his course by himself He com- 
 manded their association in churches, in the bonds of a 
 close and endearing fellowship ; and established ordi- 
 nances of public worship, and requirements of social 
 intercourse, that in the due observance of these they 
 might strengthen one another's hands, and encourage 
 
182 CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 one another's hearts on the road to heaven. And this 
 is the standing law of the Christian world, from the 
 obligation of which she is never relieved. In primi- 
 tive times it circulated far and wide the praises of the 
 Saviour — eliciting from the pagan the well-known 
 exclamation, " See how these Christians love one 
 another;" and if the religion of Jesus is to appear 
 again in its pristine glory — " bright as the sun, and 
 fair as the moon, and terrible as an army with 
 banners," — it must display its loveliness by showing its 
 love. A common sohcitude, not less than a common 
 interest, must bind the hearts of all God's people 
 together. They must stand in close order as a 
 phalanx that has yet a foe to meet, a victory to 
 achieve, and a conquest to gain — and if the kingdoms 
 of this earth are to be reclaimed from the usurped 
 dominion of the god of this world — if, through the 
 effusion of the Spirit on the thirsty ground, and by 
 the agency of men whom He hath called to a know- 
 ledge of the truth, the visions of prophecy are to be 
 reahsed, and " the wilderness be a fruitful field, and 
 the fruitful field be counted for a forest " — it must be 
 when, in the history of all the redeemed, the love of 
 a crucified Saviour is filling the whole soul, and en- 
 larging the sphere of their spiritual vision — leaving no- 
 thing to be felt but the treasures and the triumphs of 
 Christianity. Oh, that this salvation of God were 
 come out of Zion, and that the dispersed of Israel 
 were thus gathered into one ! Such a blessed revival 
 
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 183 
 
 in the Christian world — such a holy blending of heart 
 ^yith heart in the career of duty — such a triumphant 
 refutation of the reproach of the worldling — such a 
 gracious healing of our divisions — such a happy union 
 of the friends of the Redeemer upon the foundation of 
 the prophets and apostles, Jesus Christ himself being 
 the chief corner-stone — what homage would it yield — 
 what mighty strength would it impart to the spread of 
 pure and undefiled religion ! The gracious promise 
 would receive its fulfilment, " Ye shall go out with joy, 
 and be led forth with peace; the mountains and the 
 hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all 
 the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead 
 of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of 
 the briar shall come up the myrtle tree ; and it shall 
 be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that 
 shall not be cut off." 
 
APPENDIX, 
 
 A. 
 
 The particular N'ote referred to has not been obtained in time 
 ifor press. It is well known to all conversant with the question, 
 and was largely commented on at the time of its appearance. 
 We may also refer to his Lordship's Note on the Alves case, 
 April 1843 ; and on the Cambusnethan case, in January last. 
 
 28#/t November, 1821. 
 
 Sir H. Moncreiff then gave in his reasons of dissent fi-om 
 the resolution of last meeting on the subject of the memorial 
 and petition of the Governors of George Heriot's Hospital, 
 which were read as follows : — 
 
 " I dissent — 1st, Because there is no example which can be 
 regarded as a precedent of the erection of a new landward 
 parish by the exclusive authority of a Presbytery, or of any of 
 the ecclesiastical courts of Scotland. Though three examples 
 — from the parishes of North Leith, Ferry-Port-ou-Craig, and 
 ^trichen, have been founded on as if they were precedents in 
 point, these examples are quite inapplicable to the case before 
 
 Q 
 
186 APPENDIX 
 
 the Presbytery — the two first having been erected by Act of 
 Parliament, without the least reference to the decree of a Pres- 
 b}'tery ; and the parish of Strichen, though it was nominally 
 erected by a Synod, having afterwards received the ratification 
 of Parliament because, without this ratification it was held to 
 be both ineffectual and illegal, and was therefore expressly, 
 and in terminis erected anew ; while having been besides an 
 erection upon teinds, if a Synod could have had the power which 
 the Synod of Aberdeen assumed, it would have been an example 
 of a proceeding which, as far as the Church was concerned, 
 going beyond the case for which it was quoted, proved too 
 much, and therefore can prove nothing as a precedent. 2d, 
 Because the new erection created by the Presbytery is declared 
 in their decree to be an erection quoad sacra only, though it is 
 an unquestionable fact, that down to the present time there is 
 not one example upon record of the erection of a parish quoad 
 sacra ioMum^ either by the Court for Plantation of Kirks, or by 
 any Presbytery of the Church ; and that, though there are many 
 examples of annexations quoad sacra^ these cannot, as prece- 
 dents, warrant the disjunction and erection of new parishes quoad 
 sacra tantum, without any direct precedent or authority whatever. 
 3d, Because the examples chiefly relied on as precedents are all 
 taken from burghs, in which the division into parishes within 
 the burghs does not prevent the diff'erent districts from remain- 
 ing, in many respects, substantially but one parish, notwith- 
 standing the division, and are quite inapplicable to the present 
 case. 4th, Because there is no example, before this decree of 
 the Presbytery dissented from, of the erection of a parish, within 
 which there are no inhabitants to form a congregation at the date 
 of the new erection ; and that, in this respect, the decree of the 
 Presbytery is without any parallel or precedent whatever in the 
 records, either in the Court of Teinds, or of the ecclesiastical 
 courts. 5th, Because, though it is admitted that Presbyteries 
 have no power to make new erections where the livings of the 
 incumbents are to arise from teinds, it appears clearly, from 
 the precedents which have been quoted as precedents for the 
 decree of the Presbytery, that many of the parishes originally 
 created by the sole authority of the Church Courts on funds 
 
APPENDIX. 187 
 
 independent of teinds, have ultimately had the stipends of the 
 incumbents augmented from teinds, as in the case of the second 
 charges of Haddington and Cupar ; and that it must be equally 
 ev^ident, that if such a proceeding can still be resorted to, the 
 Church Courts would have a power of erecting parishes indi- 
 rectly on teinds, as well as other funds — a power which has 
 never yet been openly contended for, and which, if it could 
 ever be legally claimed, would etFectually counteract all the 
 law which has hitherto been understood to exist on the 
 subject. 6th, Because the Act of Parliament in 1707, by 
 which the present Comt for Plantation of Kirks w^as esta- 
 blished, professes to remedy " the prejudice which had before 
 redounded to this nation through the want of an established 
 and fixed judicature" for plantation of kirks and valuation of 
 teinds ; and gives to the court, which was by that act created as 
 a fixed and permanent judicature, the power, without limitation 
 or reserve, of transporting kirks, disjoining large parishes, and 
 erecting and building new kirks, under the conditions specified 
 in the Act. And it seems to be an irresistible conclusion from 
 the language of that Act, that it could not have been in the 
 contemplation of the Legislatm'e, that there were to be still ex- 
 isting in the kingdom no less than seventy-eight co-ordinate 
 courts besides, who were to have the power of exercising a 
 large proportion of the same jurisdiction. 7th, Because the 
 cases quoted in support of the co-ordinate jurisdiction of Pres- 
 bj'teries, taken from the powers vested in the Sheritfs', or other 
 civil or criminal courts, are all cases founded on positive 
 statutes, which can have no analogy to the power assumed by 
 the Presbytery, which no statute had ever authorised. 8th, 
 Because the act of Parliament requires, that in every disjunction 
 or new erection, the consent of the heritors of at least three 
 parts in four of the valuation of the original parish, shall 
 be obtained before the decree can be legally pronounced, and 
 that it does not appear to the dissenter that any evidence to 
 this effect was laid before the Presbytery, when they pronoun- 
 ced the decree in question. That though a report was made to 
 the Presbytery that there had been a meeting of heritors held at 
 South Leith, no evidence was laid before the Presbytery that 
 
188 APPENDIX. 
 
 the heritors of three parts in four of the valuation of the parish 
 had either attended that meeting, or signified any consent on 
 the subject ; and that in the opinion of the dissenter, with such 
 documents as were before the Presbytery, no decree of dis- 
 junction or erection could have been legally pronounced. 
 9th, Because there are a variety of civil rights vested in 
 every parish legally constituted, to the exercise of which, a 
 parish erected contrary to law might be completely incompe- 
 tent ; and because, in all the circumstances, it was very inex- 
 pedient that the Presb}i;ery should have assumed a power of 
 erecting a parish, to which so many serious and legal objec- 
 tions can be stated. 10th, Because the Governors of George 
 Heriot's Hospital, in the memorial and petition, have prefeiTed 
 to reserve to themselves, as the authors of the endowment, 
 the patronage of the new-erected parish, although both the 
 House of Lords and the Court of Session have long ago decided 
 that the right of patronage in a new erection belongs to the 
 patron of the original parish within which the new erection is 
 made. 
 
 (Signed) H. Moxcreiff Wellwood. 
 
 C. 
 
 MOTIONS ON THE AUCHTERARDER CASE — 
 DR cook's motion. 
 
 In the year 1834, the General Assembly passed an interim 
 act on Calls, whereby it was enacted and ordained : — " That it 
 shall be an instruction to Presbyteries, that if, at the moderating 
 in a call to a vacant pastoral charge, the major part of the male 
 heads of families, members of the vacant congregation, and in 
 full communion with the Church, shall disapprove of the person 
 in whose favom* the call is proposed to be moderated in, such 
 disapproval shall be judged sufficient ground for the Presbytery 
 rejecting such person, and that he shall be rejected accordingly, 
 due notice thereof being forthwith given to all concerned.' 
 
APPENDIX. 189 
 
 The cliiu'cli and parish of Aiichterarder havmg become vacant 
 in August 1834:, on the 16th September thereafter, the Earl of 
 Kinnoul, as patron, issued a presentation to the said chm'ch and 
 parish, in favour of the Rev. Robert Young, preacher of the 
 gospel. The presentation having been sustained by the Pres- 
 bytery, an opportunity was afforded, in terms of the foresaid 
 act and relative regulations, to the male heads of families to 
 give in dissents from the call and settlement of ]\Ii* Young, as 
 minister of the parish ; and in consequence of dissents having 
 been tendered by a majority of the male heads of families, ]Mr 
 Young was afterwards rejected as presentee to the said church 
 and parish of Auchterarder. 
 
 Thereupon, the Earl of Kinnoul and Mr Young instituted, 
 in the Com-t of Session, a process of declarator against the 
 Presbytery of Auchterarder, concluding, inter alia, that it should 
 be declared, that the rejection of Mr Young as presentee, was 
 ultra vires of the Presbytery, in violation of statutes libeUed on, 
 and to the serious injury of their patrimonial rights as patron 
 and presentee. 
 
 The Presbyteiy of Auchterarder having transmitted the sum- 
 mons executed against them to the Commision of the General 
 Assembly, which met in November 1835, and the Commission 
 having heard a statement from the Commissioners of the Pres- 
 bytery of Auchterarder, were, as the record bears, unanimously 
 of opinion " that this is an action which ought to be defended, 
 and therefore recommend to the General Assembly to authorise 
 the Procurator to conduct the defence at the expense of the 
 Chm-ch ; and, in the meantime, approve of the offer of the Pro- 
 curator to take charge of the cause in the name of the Presby^ 
 tery of Auchterarder, so far as may be necessary, before the 
 meeting of the next General Assembly." 
 
 The process having been defended, accordingly, by the Pres- 
 bytery of Auchterarder, under the sanction, and at the expense, 
 of the General Assembly, the following judgment was pro- 
 nounced by the Court of Session: — "Edinburgh, 8th March, 
 1838.— The Lords of the First Division having considered the 
 cases for the Earl of Kinno.d and the Rev. Robert Young, and 
 for the Presbytery of Auchterarder, and additional plea in de- 
 
190 APPENDIX. 
 
 fence admitted to the record, and having heard counsel for the 
 said parties at length, in presence of the Judges of the Second 
 Division, and Lords Ordinary, and having heard the opinions of 
 the said Judges, they, in terms of the opinions of the majority of 
 the Judges, repel the objections to the jurisdiction of the Court, 
 and to the competency of the action as directed against the 
 Presbytery. Further, repel the plea in defence of acquies- 
 cence : Find that the Earl of Kinnoul has legally, validly, and 
 effectually, exercised his right, as patron of the church and 
 parish of Auchterarder, by presenting the pursuer, the said 
 Robert Young, to the said church and parish : Find that the 
 defenders, the Presbytery of Auchterarder, did refuse, and con- 
 tinue to refuse, to take trial of the qualifications of the said 
 Robert Young, and have rejected him as presentee to the said 
 church and parish on the sole ground — as they admit on the re- 
 cord—that a majority of male heads of families, communicants 
 in the said parish have dissented, without any reasons assigned, 
 from his admission as minister : Find, that the Presbytery in so 
 doing, have acted to the hurt and prejudice of the said pursuers 
 — illegally, and in violation of their duty — and contrary to the 
 provisions of certain statutes libelled on ; and in particular, 
 contraiy to the provisions of the statute 10th, Anne, chap. 12, 
 entitled, "An act to restore patrons to their ancient rights of 
 presenting ministers to the churches vacant in that part of 
 Great Britain called Scotland — in so far repel the defences 
 stated on the part of the Presbytery, and decern and declare 
 accordingly ; and allow the above decree to go out, and be ex- 
 tracted as an interim decree — and with these findings and de- 
 clarations, remit the process to the Lord Ordinary to proceed 
 further therein as he shall see just. (Signed) C. Hope, I.P.D." 
 In terms of the authority given by the General Assembly to 
 the Procurator for the Chm'ch, on the 24th May, 1838, to 
 appeal the judgment of the Court of Session, so soon as he 
 and the other counsel for the Presbyteiy in the said cause shall 
 think fit, an appeal was entered to the House of Lords, by 
 whom the following judgment has been pronounced : 3d May 
 1839 : — " It is ordered and judged by the Lords Spiritual and 
 Temporal, in Parliament assembled, That the said petition and 
 
APPENDIX. 191 
 
 appeal be and is hereby dismissed this house, and that the said 
 interlocutor therein complained of be, and the same is hereby 
 affirmed." 
 
 Under these circumstances, it is moved, " That the Act on 
 Calls, commonly denominated the Veto Act, having been thus 
 declared by the supreme civil tribunals of the country, to in- 
 fringe on civil and patrimonial rights, with which the Church 
 has often and expressly required that its judicatories should not 
 intermeddle as being matters incompetent to them, and not 
 within their jurisdiction, it be an instruction by the General 
 Assembly to all Presbyteries, that they proceed, henceforth, in 
 the settlement of parishes according to the practice Avhich pre- 
 vailed previously to the passing oft hat act ; keeping specially 
 in view the undoubted privilege of parishioners to state, at the 
 moderating in the call, any relevant objection to the induction 
 of presentees ; upon which Presbyteries, after hearing parties, 
 shall decide — it being in the power of these parties to appeal, 
 if they see cause, to the superior chm-ch courts." 
 
 DR Chalmers's motion. 
 
 The General Assembly having heard the report of the Pro- 
 curator on the Auchterarder case, and considered the judgment 
 of the House of Lords affirming the decision of the Court of 
 Session, and being satisfied that, by the said judgment, all 
 questions of ci\^l right, so far as the Presbytery of Auchterarder 
 is concerned, are substantially decided, do now, in accordance 
 with the uniform practice of this Church, and with the resolu- 
 tion of last General Assembly ever to give and inculcate im- 
 plicit obedience to the decisions of civil courts in regard to the 
 civil rights and emoluments secm-ed by law to the Church, 
 instruct the said Presbytery to offer no further resistance to the 
 claims of Mr Young or of the patron, to the emoluments of the 
 benefice of Auchterarder, and to refrain from claiming the jus 
 devolutum^ or any other civil right or privilege connected witli 
 the said benefice. 
 
 And whereas the principle of Non-intrusion is one coeval 
 with tlie Reformed Ivirk of Scotland, and fonns an integral 
 part of its constitution, embodied in its standards, and declared 
 
192 APPENDIX. 
 
 in various acts of Assembly, the General Assembly resolved 
 that this principle cannot be abandoned, and that no presentee 
 shall be forced upon any parish contrary to the will of the con- 
 gregation. 
 
 And whereas, by the decision above referred to, it appears 
 that when this principle is carried into effect in any parish, the 
 legal provision for the sustentation of the ministry in that 
 parish may be thereby suspended, the General Assembly, being 
 deeply impressed with the unhappy consequences which must 
 arise fi'om any collision between the civil and ecclesiastical 
 authorities, and holding it to be the their duty to use every 
 mean in their power, not invohing any dereliction of the 
 prmciples and fundamental laws of then- constitution to pre- 
 vent such unfortunate residts, do therefore appoint a com- 
 mittee for the pui-pose of considering in what way the privileges 
 of the National Establishment, and the harmony between 
 Church and State, may remain unimpau-ed, with instructions to 
 confer with the government of the country if they see cause. 
 
 DR MUIR'S motion. 
 
 Resolved, — ^I. That the Chm-ch, in order the more effectually 
 to accomplish that which has ever since been the design of her 
 enactments relative to the calling and inducting of Ministers, — 
 viz., the securing for vacant parishes of persons not only irre- 
 proachable in moral character, sound in doctrine, and of ade- 
 quate learning, but also suited to the parishes to which they 
 ■are nominated, — did pass the Act on Calls, commonly termed 
 the Veto Act, 
 
 II. That, in passing this Act of her own will, and carrying it 
 into effect, the Church was influenced by the belief, that this 
 Act being not only in its natm-e, but also in its consequences, 
 strictly and purely spiiltual, there was no necessity to obtain 
 previously the concuiTence of the Legislature to it. 
 
 in. That the decision of the Supreme Civil Tribunal, in the 
 recent case of Auchterarder, has determined that the conse- 
 quences of this Act do infringe on civil and patrimonial rights ; 
 and that hence it is ascertained to have been incompetent for 
 
APPENDIX. 193 
 
 the General Assembly to enforce the said enactment, without 
 having first obtained the sanction of the Legislatm*e. 
 
 IV. That the Church, however, Avhile giving and inculcating 
 implicit obedience to the decisions of the Civil Courts in all 
 matters relating to a civil right, ought not to forego the steady 
 prosecution of her ovra. high pm'pose of securing more eflTectually 
 the appointment of ministers not only sound in doctrine and 
 morals, but also suitable to the pai-ishes to which they are 
 nominated. 
 
 V. That the suitableness of presentees for the parishes to 
 which they are nominated, and all cu'cumstances and conside- 
 rations for ascertaining that suitableness in each particular case, 
 whether as to the situation or mind of the people, or as to the 
 special qualifications of the Presentees themselves, ought to 
 become the subjects of investigation and judgment to Presby- 
 teries, in the discharge of their solemn duty in the filling up of 
 vacancies, as well as the usual and general qualifications in 
 candidates for the sacred ministry. 
 
 VI. That a Committee be appointed to consider and to report 
 as to the plan which may be best calculated for attaining this 
 important end, and whereby, consistently with the acknow- 
 ledgment and enforcement of such civil rights as are recognised 
 by the law of the land, the spmtual interests of the Christian 
 people, the judicial character and privileges of the Ecclesiastical 
 Courts, and the professional character and usefulness of proba- 
 tioners, may be eff'ectually maintained, and the union between 
 Chm-ch and State be preserved entke. 
 
 D. 
 
 Sir. — Having just read a Narrative by Dr Candlish, relating 
 to Certain Recent Negotiations for the Settlement of the Scot- 
 tish Church Question, intended, I presume, as a justification of 
 the part which he and his friends have taken in the matter, I 
 cannot allow one or two obsen-ations which he has made, re- 
 garding the sentiments and conduct of the Minority of the 
 Assembly's Non-Intrusion Committee, to pass altogether un- 
 
 R 
 
194 APPENDIX. 
 
 noticed, more especially as these obseryations are calculated to 
 mislead tliat portion of the Chm-ch who may take then- infor- 
 mation and then* position from the JSTan'ative in question, with- 
 out refeiTing to, or suflSciently considering, the published 
 TVIinutes of the Committee. 
 
 On every occasion where Dr Candlish refers to the opinions 
 of the Minority, he speaks of them as having discovered a new 
 interpretation of the Clauses which formed the basis of negotia- 
 tions with the Government. 
 
 At p. 25, Dr C. says, " I now see that the words of either 
 clause are susceptible of an interpretation^ which did not occur 
 to me, or to any of us, at the time, although it has since been 
 brought forward by some Members of Committee." 
 
 At p. 27, reference is made " to that third interpretation^ 
 which some our Mends of the Committee have since put on the 
 clause." 
 
 Again, at p. 28, he says, " At the time of these negotiations 
 I certainly thought, and but for the interpretation since put 
 upon the words by some Members of the Committee, I might 
 still think, that either Sir George Sinclair's clause, or the clause 
 suggested in its stead, when considered by itself, apart from 
 the rest of the Bill, might be regarded as a Non-intrusion 
 measm-e." 
 
 From these passages, any reader of the NaiTative might 
 presume that the minority of the Committee had, by some 
 process of ingenious criticism, arrived at an interpretation of 
 the clauses proposed, which we ourselves did not at first see, 
 which they did not evidently bear, and which we had endea- 
 voured to get the Committee to adopt. 
 
 The plain matter of fact is, that we had for some time 
 observed a disposition to be quit of the negociations of October 
 altogether. When, therefore, at the Conference with the Soli- 
 citor-General, om* friends of that Deputation put an interpreta- 
 tion upon the Liberum Arbitrium which we considered manifestly 
 inconsistent with former negociations, and sought to bind the 
 Committee to this inteipretation as the minimum measm*e of 
 Legislation to which the Church could consent, we felt ourselves 
 imperatively called upon, by a regard to our own consistency 
 
APPENDIX. 195 
 
 as well as to the Chm'ch's safety, to endeavour to bring back 
 the Committee to then* former position. 
 
 This will be made apparent by viewing in juxtaposition the 
 clauses in question, and the substantive part of the motion sup- 
 ported by the minority on the 31st December. 
 
 By Sir George Sinclair's clause, a power of rejec- 
 tion IS allowed to the Church, " in respect that the reasons 
 and objections^ though not in the judgment of the Presbytery in 
 themselves conclusive^ are entertained by such a proportion of the 
 parishioners as^ in the opinion of the Presbytery^ to preclude the 
 prospect of the presentee! s usefulness in that particular parish^ 
 
 The Committee's clause, for the purpose of " fully 
 accomplishing the object intended," was fra:med as fol- 
 lows : — " Or #r respect that the said objections or reasons^ though 
 not in themselves conclusive in the judgment of the Presbytery^ are 
 entertained by such a proportion of the Parishioners^ and enter- 
 tained BY THEM so STRONGLY, as to render it, in the opinion of 
 the Presbytery, taking into accol^^t the reasons and ob- 
 jections AS aforesaid, and the degree to which they 
 prevail, inconsistent with their duty, or with the spiritual interests 
 of the parish, to proceed with the settlement of the presentee as 
 minister of that particular congregationy 
 
 The minority, on the 31st December, declare by their 
 motion that they consider as " inadmissible — a measure of 
 settlement leaving the Church courts at full and uncontrolled liberty 
 to reject the presentee in every instance, in respect that the objections 
 and reasons, though not in themselves conclusive in the judgment of 
 the Presbyteiij, nor such as the court in any way homologates, 
 are yet entertained, and after dealing with the objectors, continue 
 to be entertained, by such a proportion of the parishioners as to 
 make it, in the opinion of the Presbytery, inconsistent with their 
 duty, or with the spiritual interests of the parish, to proceed with 
 tJie settlement of the presentee in that particular congregation^ 
 
 A comparison of the above will show whether the minority 
 have adopted any new interpretation of the clauses foiining the 
 the basis of agTcement in October. 
 
 The fact is, that Dr C. and some of his friends had changed 
 their minds as to that basis of settlement long before. He 
 admits, at p. 21, that " ]\li' Hope's communication in October 
 
196 APPENDIX. 
 
 changed his opinion in regard to Sir George Sinclair's clause." 
 It is only matter of astonishment, therefore, to me to find him 
 asserting in one of the passages quoted above, " that, but for 
 the intei-pretation since put upon the words, by some members 
 of the Committee," he " might still think, that either Sir George 
 Sinclair's clause, or the clause suggested in its stead, when con- 
 sidered by itself, might be regarded as a Non-intrusion mea- 
 sure." The substantive part of om- motion is identical, and was 
 intended to be identical, with the Committee's o-v\ai clause, 
 except that we left out that portion of it which required the 
 Church courts, in coming to a judgment, to take into account the 
 reasons and objections — an omission of which Dr Candlish and 
 the fi-amers of the clause in question cannot sm-ely complain, 
 seeing that the presence of these words in it affords the strong- 
 est ground for an argument that it warrants an interpretation 
 which they are anxious to repudiate, unless, indeed, we are 
 always to read by contraries ; and as it has already been main- 
 tained, that to entertain strongly means to entertain weakly^ or 
 rather 7iot to entertain at all, so reasons and objections may mean 
 bare dissent. J, M. HoG. 
 
 Newliston, January 27, 1842. 
 To the Editor, &c. 
 
 E. 
 
 NOTES OF SERMON BY iMR GUTHRIE, 11th JAN. 1846. 
 " I am a stranger and sojourner with you." — Genesis, xxiii. 1-4. 
 
 " Abraham never actually possessed any of the land of 
 Canaan except the part which he bought for a gi-ave ; but he 
 had it all in promise. He believed in this promise, and looked 
 forward to the time when it would be fulfilled. Jacob was in 
 the same circumstances ; and when he died in Eg}^t, made his 
 sons carry him up and bury him in the same grave which 
 Abraham had purchased. Joseph also enacted a promise from 
 
APPENDIX. 197 
 
 his brethren, to cany up his bones when the time of the promise 
 should come. Now, as Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph, were 
 strangers in the land of promise, so, my friends, are we stran- 
 gers and sojourners on this earth. They possessed not Canaan, 
 neither should we this earth. They had Canaan in promise, 
 and so have we this earth in promise ; for you will find the 
 world, or this earth, among the things enumerated by St Paul 
 as pm'chased by Christ for his followers. And as certainly as 
 the Israelites obtained possession of the land of Canaan, so 
 certainly will the saints possess the earth, at the resm'rection. 
 The Israelites had too Exoduses — one from Egypt into the 
 Wildeniess, and another out of the Wilderness into Canaan. 
 Now all Christians have thi*ee Exoduses — one when they are 
 converted, a second when they die, and a tliird at the ResmTCc- 
 tion. At this last Exodus, they shall be put in possession of 
 the promised earth. But, my fi-iends, many forget that the 
 earth is only given in promise, and they will possess it just now. 
 They add acre to acre, and field to field, and estate to estate, 
 and call themselves proprietors ! — proprietors of the earth ! ! 
 And, worse than the very heathen who sold Abraham a gi-ave, 
 they will not sell a Christian people as much space as they may 
 build a house to worship God in ! — to fall on then- knees on ! ! — 
 or to bmy their dead out of their sight ! But let me tell these 
 
 proprietors, that they will get only six feet of it at the last. * 
 
 *********** 
 
 *' But in the last place, let the cu'cumstance of om* being 
 strangers and sojom-ners on the earth prevent us from setting 
 our affections upon it and the things that belong to it. I think 
 there is scarcely a gi-eater sin which a man can be guilty of than 
 this. And I agi'ee with an old divine, who says that there are 
 more examples than one in the Bible of di-unken Christians, 
 more than one of lying Christians, more than one of unclean 
 Christians, but only one of a covetous hoarding Christian — 
 namely. Lot — and that God burned hun out of it. And if any 
 of you, my fi'iends, are hoarding Christians — if God loves you, 
 He will burn you out of it. So far as I can understand the 
 Bible, it appears to me that David — the best king that ever 
 wore a croAvn — did not leave his great wealth to his sons and 
 daughters, but to build the Temple of Jerusalem. And you 
 
198 APPENDIX. 
 
 should do likewise. What would a Christian man do with lay- 
 ing up gold ? What would a Christian man do always living 
 here ? The sailor would not be always on board ship, nor the 
 soldier always on the battle-field, and what would a Christian 
 do with his gold when he dies ? It will not purchase one drop 
 of Christ's blood — nor of the balm of Gilead. No, my Mends, 
 you cannot take your gold across yon stream that separates 
 this world from the next. There are only two things which 
 you can carry across that stream — your sins, or the righteous- 
 ness of Christ. Let us do, then, my friends, with our gold as 
 they do in heaven — tread it under our feet." 
 
 THE END. 
 
 EDINBURGH : BALLANTYNE AND HUGHES. 
 

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