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CHAP. IX.]

COERCION BILL-CHURCH PATRONAGE IN SCOTLAND.

considerations but how to prevent the whole rural population from dying of hunger. Though the time has not arrived for making use of the disclosures of this report, and though much of it may be actually superseded by the operations of calamity, it remains a token of solicitude for the regeneration of Ireland on the part of the ministers in office during its preparation.

During the decline of Mr O'Connell's power, and the rising conflict between his repeal-party and that which was to be headed by Mr W. Smith O'Brien, while want was becoming aggravated, and famine was approaching, the amount of outrage in Ireland increased so grievously, that ministers introduced a Coercion Bill early in the session of 1846. The bill was framed strictly for the protection of quiet members of society-permitting the viceroy to award compensation to the maimed, and to the families of the murdered, under the attacks at which the measure was aimed. Under it, disturbed districts might be proclaimed, and night-meetings within. them prevented. The bill passed the Lords easily, but was vehemently disputed, and at last lost, in the Commons, where party-feeling ran high amidst the final agitation about the corn-laws, and the hopes and fears about the going out of the Peel ministry. It was generally understood that the defeat of ministers on this Coercion Bill-so mild of its classwas occasioned by a combination of parties; and the speeches of Lord G. Bentinck and Mr Disraeli, universally reprobated for their spirit, were regarded as manifestations of the real reasons of the result. At the moment when the Corn-law Repeal Bill was passing the Lords, the second reading of the government bill for Ireland was refused by a majority of 292 to 219, after a delay of five months, which would have been seriously injurious to the operation of the bill, if it had passed. The division took place on the 26th of June, three days before the announcement of the retirement of the Peel administration-a retirement which might have been rendered necessary by the failure of this measure, if it had not been, as was well known, determined beforehand, as a natural consequence of the carrying of the measure for which Sir R. Peel had returned to power-the repeal of the corn-laws.

We must look further back for the deciding cause of the retirement of the Peel administration. Before the end of 1845, it was clear that the potato-crop in Ireland was likely to be utterly destroyed by blight. Men whose vision was bounded by political partyspirit endeavoured to persuade others as well as themselves, that the avowed alarm of the cabinet for the food of half a nation was little more than a device to get the corn-laws repealed with the least possible difficulty; but men of more enlightenment and a more simple conscience had faith in the earnestness of the minister, in the reality of his solemnity, in the sincerity of the solicitude which marked his countenance and his voice, and in the truth of the abundant evidence which he laid before parliament of the probable extent of the approaching calamity. It was all too true. The work of preparation for a new age for Ireland was taken out of human hands; and a terrible clearance of the field

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of Irish soil and society was about to be made for the efforts of future apostles, and the wisdom of future legislators. The virtues of two parties of rulers were not, however, to be in vain. Under them the great truth had appeared that the causes of Irish misery were not political, but social; and both had done what they could to purge out the spirit of religious and political rancour which had hitherto poisoned every public benefit, and aggravated every social woe, of that unhappy country.

CHAPTER IX.

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HE ecclesiastical disturbances, whose beginnings have been noticed, were by this time becoming of the gravest import. Scotland was affording as complete an exemplification as the world has seen of the perplexities attendant on an alliance between the Church and the State. At the date before us, events were occurring which tested the merits of a scheme concocted by Harley, Bolingbroke, and Swift, in the palace of Queen Anne. By an act of 1711, the power of free choice, the liberum arbitrium, as to the appointment of pastors in the Scotch Church, was taken from the church-courts, by subjecting the power of the presbytery to the interpretation, and even control, of the civil courts. The minority of the General Assembly of that time approved of the act, which fulfilled their idea of the connection of Church and State. The majority protested against it, from year to year; but the protest, being of no avail, at length became little more than a form. The leading men of the time, the philosophers and men of letters, who represented Scotland to English eyes, were not earnest Churchmen-not earnest about religion at all; and the arrangement of 1711 suited their views very well, as being moderate, decorous, and tending to peace. They did not see what was going on, wherever a pastor whom the flock did not like was forced upon them. In a multitude of parishes, the patron nominated the minister; if the presbytery found him unexceptionable in 'life, literature, and doctrine,' they were then obliged to appoint him, however unacceptable he might be to the flock. There were many ways in which a minister, with whose 'life, literature, and doctrine' no fault could be found, might be unfit for the care of a particular parish. He might have a weak voice, or too much scholarship for a rustic congregation, or he might have town ways and ideas, or he might not speak Gaelic where the people understood little English. In such cases, the people would turn to the Voluntaries, and become Dissenters. We have before seen how dissent abounded in Scotland at the period of the Melbourne ministry, and how virulently the High-Churchmen of the Kirk regarded the Voluntaries, who claimed to be, and were, considerably more than half the nation. In 1834, an effort had been made to

recover the power which had been taken from the Church by the act of 1711; and apparently it succeeded. But the power of the State was not to be cast out from the Church so easily as at first appeared; and the Church found itself compelled to advance, or assert new claims. In the quarrel about these, the Establishment was rent in twain, and the Church of Scotland became a warning and a sign of the fate of all churches which have made the effort to maintain at once an alliance with the state and the principles of the Reformation.

The progress of dissent was so rapid after 1820 that the earnest members of the Kirk took it much to heart. Wherever they turned, in hope of bringing back the Voluntaries to the Church, they were met by the objection that the people preferred choosing their own pastors to having them nominated, in a compulsory way, by a lay-patron, who might or might not, according to his temper, listen to any objections on the part of his flock to his nominee. The earnest Churchmen saw that this lay-patronage must be got rid of; and petitions for its abolition so poured in upon parliament, that a select committee of the Commons was appointed in 1834 to consider the subject. The same agitation wrought in another direction-giving a large majority of non-intrusion members to the General Assembly, in which they had hitherto been the minority. While the committee of the Commons was sitting, the General Assembly passed an enactment, containing a declaration and a rule. The declaration was, that it was a 'fundamental law' of the Church that no pastor should be intruded on any congregation, contrary to the will of the people; and a rule was prescribed, by which the will of the people might be ascertained and manifested. A veto on the nomination was afforded to them. This is the celebrated Veto Act. Those who passed it professed to believe it to be perfectly compatible with the act of 1711; it was also declared to be so by the law-officers of the crown, and emphatically praised by the lord chancellor, who pronounced it to be 'in every respect more desirable than any other course that could have been taken.' For five years, the Veto Act worked so well that it is no wonder if those who devised and passed it supposed that the matter was settled, and that the Church had indeed recovered her powers. When the minority in the Assembly saw how acceptable a body of ministers-250 in the five years-was settled under this act, they first learned to approve it, and then to avow their approbation. The tendency to dissent was supposed to be subsiding, and the Scotch clergy instituted the movement for church extension which was described in a former chapter of our history.

There were secular persons, however, who were not satisfied to see the power of appointment to parishes dependent on the pleasure of the majority of the communicants. This dependence lessened the value of patronage, and, as these persons thought, its dignity; and they were by no means clear that the power given to the communicants by the Veto Act was compatible with the act of Queen Anne.

They were disposed to try the fact; and occasions for such an inquisition soon offered.

Lord Kinnoull presented a Mr Young to the parish of Auchterarder. The heads of families in the congregation did not like the appointment, and vetoed it. The presbytery were ordered to take him on trial. They refused to do so, on the plea that he could not be ordained because the ecclesiastical conditions relating to his call by the people had not been fulfilled. Mr Young applied to the Court of Session and the House of Lords to grant him both the civil benefice and the cure of souls. The decision of the civil courts was, that the presbytery must take him on trial, as he was competent in the three prescribed conditions-of life, literature, and doctrine; and the acts of the Kirk were not binding upon them. The Assembly did not contest this decision, as far as its civil relations went. They surrendered the stipend, house, and external privileges to the patron and his nominee. This was in May 1839.

The Church thus found that there really was an incompatibility between the act of 1711 and their veto law of 1834. The thing to be done now was to maintain the principle of non-intrusion, and endeavour to induce the legislature to modify the statute so as to bring the civil law into accordance with the conscience of the Church. While requesting this reform from the legislature, the Church acted mildly in regard to the veto law, suspending operations under it till the difficulty should have been accommodated. For two or three years no progress whatever was made; and through this delay circumstances arose which induced a more serious claim on behalf of the Church, and converted the whole affair into one of vital opposition.

When the judgment in the Auchterarder case went against the Church, and in favour of the laypatron, no demand was made on the presbytery and the people to receive Mr Young. When the fruits of the benefice were given up to him, they were left unmolested, and not required to surrender the spiritual freedom they held of declining the services of an unacceptable pastor. But, as there had been parties who had instituted a trial of the question thus far, so there were other parties who now resolved to push the experiment further, and ascertain what the connection between the Church and the State really was. The presbytery of Strathbogie had of old been celebrated for its zeal for the civil power, its loyalty to the sovereign, and its leaning towards Episcopacy; and now it was the scene of the decisive struggle between the powers of the Church and the State. In the parish of Marnoch, a Mr Edwards had been assistant to the minister for three years, and was then nominated for minister, on the pulpit becoming vacant. He was so unacceptable, that the call-the forms of which were preserved all this time-was signed by only one parishioner, while 261 out of 300 heads of families on the roll of communicants dissented. The one parishioner who signed the call was a publican; and he lost his business immediately. The court next above the presbytery-the Synod of Moraydirected the presbytery to reject Mr Edwards; but

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but such a consultation would have been of itself a surrender of the question. The seven members of the presbytery determined for themselves to obey the civil power; and they admitted Edwards to trials. They were brought to the bar of the General Assembly, where Dr Chalmers moved for their deposition from the holy ministry. Dr Cook, the leader of the State party in the Church-the Moderates,' as they were called-moved that the seven ministers at the bar should be dismissed, and confirmed in their present rank in the Church. Dr Chalmers obtained a majority of 97 in an assembly of 347; and the Strathbogie ministers were sentenced to deposition. Their parishes were declared vacant; and Mr Edwards was to be deprived of his licence as a minister of the Church.

The seven deposed ministers appealed to parliament; and their case was brought forward by Lord Aberdeen on the 15th of June 1841. Lord Melbourne let everybody see that he did not understand the matter: he had promised, certainly, to maintain the law, and he had no doubt the lord advocate would see that it was done; these were very difficult questions, but they seemed to him to lie within the Church entirely: and then he spoke so of the arrogance of the Church of Scotland, as to set the lords laughing. Lord Haddington rebuked the vacillation and indifference of the premier, declaring that it was owing to the weakness of the government-its carelessness or hesitation-that the

divisions in the Scotch Church had become what they were. The concluding statement of the premier was, that the government really meant to execute the law; and that the best way of doing that was to leave the law to execute itself. For I want of a few words of earnest declaration of the intentions of government, however, the impression was very general that the ministry were somewhat daunted by the imposing attitude of the ecclesiastical chiefs in Scotland, and disposed to leave the affair as much as possible to be managed in the Scotch

courts.

The deposed ministers obtained an interdict forbidding all preachers of the Kirk from entering their pulpits. The Assembly forthwith deputed one of their chief members to go and preach there, and encouraged various ministers to officiate in those parishes regularly and perseveringly; thus compelling their licentiates to break the civil law, because their predecessors had broken their ecclesiastical law. Penalties hung over the heads of the preaching substitutes; and penalties had been imposed on those whom they superseded. This state of things could not last or be endured. The number of public meetings which took place all over Scotland, and the vehemence of the speakers on both sides, began to be a significant warning to parliament, that talking and laughing, and even wrangling, were no longer serious enough for the occasion. In truth, the reader of the newspapers of that time feels little

inclination to smile, even in the midst of the extreme wonder which he feels at the point which partyspirit can reach. The evidences of wrath and hatred are too strong, and the mutual imputations too shocking, to leave room for any amusement. To an impartial reader it appears that there never was a case in which men might more reasonably hold opposite opinions. The case was one of difficult decision to the wisest; for the perplexity lay deep in an abyss of compromise, and by no means within the grasp of passion and partisanship. The language used in regard to the Church leaders on the one hand, and Mr Edwards and the seven Strathbogie ministers on the other, was, however, as violent as can ever have been used about monsters of vice. Such language led, as was natural, to violence of another kind. The pious attendants at church on critical occasions, and at public meetings, pelted one another with snow and with stones; and here and there, there was fighting enough to call for the interference of the police. The gravest thinkers, and men of the highest conscientiousness, saw more clearly, from month to month, that there was no alternative for the Church party but to withdraw from their connection with the State. The choice lay merely between this and the surrender of the spiritual powers of the Church. They had staked everything on their position, that the providing ministers for the people was a spiritual concern, though the disposal of the emoluments was a secular one. The State would not recede from its legal function of supporting patronage; and the ecclesiastical party must therefore separate its function from its partnership with the civil law.

When this result was evidently becoming necessary, Lord Aberdeen, a member of the Peel ministry, which was now in power, made one last effort to preserve the unity of the Scotch Church by a bill, intended to remove doubts respecting the admission of ministers to benefices in Scotland. A similar bill, about which Lord Aberdeen and Dr Chalmers had misunderstood one another, had been proposed and withdrawn in 1840. It was not likely now, after three years of strong warfare, to be well received by Dr Chalmers and his followers; and it was hardly intended for them, but rather for the large body of clergy who were unwilling to leave the Establishment, and yet must have a clear settlement of their consciences, by a distinct knowledge of their case, if they were to remain. In 1840, 400 ministers and 2000 elders had declared in favour of the bill; but now, though it passed through parliament, it was too late to affect materially the condition of the Church. It provided that the presbytery to which any case of unacceptable nomination should be referred, should have power to inquire into the circumstances of the parish, and the number and character of objectors; and if the objectors should appear to be in the right, the presbytery had power to refuse to admit the nominee, being obliged, however, to specify the grounds of their decision. Next, the veto was abolished, being rendered unnecessary by the foregoing provision. In regard to the qualifications of a candidate, the appeal must lie to the church-courts alone, as the civil courts could not have any concern

with such a matter. The civil courts were, however, to hold themselves in readiness to interfere, in case of any excess of jurisdiction on the part of the church-courts. It was clear to all who saw how far the controversy now transcended the veto question, that Lord Aberdeen's Bill was no longer what the times required. It did nothing towards determining the province of civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction on any ground of principle. Several of the lords objected that it pronounced virtually against the decision in the Auchterarder case, and that it was inconsistent with the existing law of Scotland. The pleas in its favour all related to the necessity of allaying excitement in Scotland; and high legal authorities were adduced, which declared the bill to be strictly in accordance with the law of Scotland, and with the decision upon the Auchterarder case; and thus was there as much to be said on both sides among the lawyers as among the excited population in the north. It was the last day of July before the bill was discussed in the Commons, after its passage through the Lords' House. The thinness of the House shewed that even yet the full importance of the subject was not understood. Mr Fox Maule, who ought to know, said that the Church party, now called the seceders, took scarcely any interest whatever in the bill; and when Sir R. Peel resorted to quotations from speeches in the Assembly about reliance on the government for interference for the settlement of consciences, he was describing a time long gone by, and a state of affairs which could never be renewed. It mattered little now, as regarded the immediate difficulty, whether the bill passed or not. It became law on the 17th of August.

We have said that the Church party were now called the seceders. The time had indeed come. The Scotch Church was divided into irreconcilable parties. The incidents which led on to the secession were these.

At the last meeting of the General Assembly in 1842, two addresses to the crown had been proposed and agreed upon; one of which invited the attention of her majesty to the encroachments of the Court of Session on the spiritual jurisdiction of the Church; and the other prayed that the sovereign would order measures towards the abolition of church-patronage in Scotland. A memorial to the cabinet was also prepared; to which Sir James Graham replied in a letter issued on the 4th of January 1843. This was a letter of reasoning comment on the memorial sent in to ministers; and it presents a clear account of the government view-the view of the Moderates' -of the whole case. It occasioned much anger, and was spoken of with scorn-this 'chopping of logic while the Church was falling in pieces-this fiddling while the burning was going on; but it is evident that the party would have been more angry, and with better cause, if Sir James Graham had given a peremptory and unreasoned reply. The document ended with a clear declaration of government intentions. Government had been willing to attempt legislation, in a hope of a settlement; but 'the acts of the General Assembly.... have unhappily diminished, so far at least as the Church

CHAP. IX.]

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY-THE SECESSION.

is concerned, these reasonable hopes; and her majesty's ministers, now understanding that nothing less than the total abrogation of the rights of the crown and of other patrons will satisfy the Church, are bound with firmness to declare that they cannot advise her majesty to consent to the grant of any such demand.' This letter must be answered; and circumstances occurred in the Assembly which allowed the Church party to have all their own way in answering it. It was a matter of contention in the Assembly, and also before the civil courts, whether a certain class of the clergy, called quoad sacra ministers-being the incumbents of nonparochial churches-should have the position and privileges of parochial ministers. As the judges differed on this point, it was no wonder that the Assembly divided eagerly upon it. Five of the judges sanctioned the claim of the quoad sacra ministers, and eight rejected it. Their opinion was declared on the 20th of January. On the 31st, the Assembly, constituting itself a commission, was to resolve on a reply to Sir James Graham. Dr Cook, the leader of the Moderates, moved the exclusion of the quoad sacra ministers who were present, as disqualified by law from sharing in the business. Dr Cook's motion was negatived by a majority of 92; and the mover, with his minority, retired from the meeting whose proceedings could not be legal. A committee was formed by those who remained, for the purpose of preparing a petition to parliament, which was presented by Mr Fox Maule, in the Commons, on the 7th of March. The House, after a debate of two nights, decided by a vast majority -211 to 76-against appointing a committee to consider the petition. Not only the result, but the tone of the debate, shewed the Church party that they had nothing more to hope for from parliament. Everybody spoke respectfully and decorously of the Church of Scotland; but nobody, except the members of the government and a few other speakers, seemed to know or care what the controversy was about. The House was quiet, but indifferent. Members were conscious of their ignorance, and had no hope of clearing up their minds by means of a single debate; so they sat still, and probably wished the matter over. One keen disappointment to the Church party was that Lord John Russell went against them on this occasion, after having seemed to admit their claims in a letter to his Scotch constituents of the city of London. It was not likely that the Whigs, who never shewed themselves clear or decided on the question when they were in power, should have mastered the subject now; but the Church party attributed the change in Lord J. Russell's tone to his having received false information about the spirit and purposes of the Church party. It was believed that he was misled by some 'Scotch Liberals,' who declared, only one week before the secession, that the number of ministers who would give up their endowments would not exceed six.

Far indeed was this from the truth, as was seen when the memorable 18th of May 1843 arrived. From the hour when the decision of parliament became known, the non-intrusion party pushed

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their preparations vigorously. Lecturers traversed all Scotland, canvassing for support for the Free Presbyterian Church, about to take its place in opposition to the Church of Scotland. A fund was to be raised for the erection of churches and the support of ministers. Missionary objects were naturally united with the primary aim of protesting against the usurpation of the State over the Church. 'We shall indeed,' said Dr Candlish, on the 21st of March, cultivate our own districts; we shall have stated congregations, with stated elders and ministers; but we shall have our tours of preaching too -our visits to all-comers of the land; and I believe that yet, by God's blessing on our free and faithful preachings, in the highways and hedges, in barns and stables, in saw-pits and tents, we shall yet regenerate Scotland, and have multitudes of those who are now perishing for lack of knowledge to listen to the glad tidings of salvation.' Though the season was one of severe commercial distress, £300,000 were subscribed in a few months for the support of the Free Church.

The next important matter was the election of commissioners to the General Assembly. The quoad sacra ministers had but little chance of election after the decision of the majority of the judges on their claims. A persuasion prevailed that the Moderates would have all their own way in the Assembly The 18th of May would shew.

The windows along the way were crowded on that day; and so was the gallery of St Andrew's Church, where the Assembly held its sittings. The nonintrusion members were cheered as they entered. One of their leaders, Dr Welsh, moderator of the former Assembly, took the chair. After prayer,

he did not, as is usual, proceed to make up the roll, but instead, read the protest in which the nonintrusion members had recorded the grounds of their secession from the Assembly, and from alliance with the State. It was an act of excellent temper, taste, and prudence, in the seceders then to withdraw, without seeking controversy. To the number of 169 they took their hats, and walked out of the church. As the foremost of them appeared at the door, the crowd in the streets set up a cheer; and the cheering continued, with few pauses, and only the disturbance of a few hisses, all the way to a hall at Canonmills, where 300 more seceding clergy and a large and sympathising auditory awaited them. In Dr Chalmers's ensuing address, he took the pains which might be expected from him to explain that the seceders were not Dissenters. They left a vitiated establishment, but adhered to the Church, and claimed to be a more real Church than that which remained Established. This was true now, as it had been true in regard to ancient secessions; and, as in their case, the matter will probably end, after a few years of protests against Voluntaryism, in the Free Churchmen being numbered among the Voluntaries of Scotland.

On the 20th, there was a demonstration which somewhat derogates from the dignity of the occasion. The Marchioness of Breadalbane was received in the hall with loud cheers. In the course of proceedings this day, complaints were made that great landed proprietors would not grant the smallest portion

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