Theological Essays and Other Papers Volume II Part 1

Theological Essays and Other Papers.

VOL 2.

by Thomas de Quincey.

SECESSION FROM THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND.

[1844.]

A great revolution has taken place in Scotland. A greater has been threatened. Nor is that danger even yet certainly gone by. Upon the accidents of such events as may arise for the next five years, whether fitted or not fitted to revive discussions in which many of the Non-seceders went in various degrees along with the Seceders, depends the final (and, in a strict sense, the very awful) question, What is to be the fate of the Scottish church? Lord Aberdeen's Act is well qualified to tranquillize the agitations of that body; and at an earlier stage, if not intercepted by Lord Melbourne, might have prevented them in part. But Lord Aberdeen has no power to stifle a conflagration once thoroughly kindled. That must depend in a great degree upon the favorable aspect of events yet in the rear.

Meantime these great disturbances are not understood in England; and chiefly from the differences between the two nations as to the language of their several churches and law courts. The process of ordination and induction is totally different under the different ecclesiastical administrations of the two kingdoms. And the church courts of Scotland do not exist in England. We write, therefore, with an express view to the better information of England proper. And, with this purpose, we shall lead the discussion through four capital questions:--

I. _What_ is it that has been done by the moving party?

II. _How_ was it done? By what agencies and influence?

III. What were the _immediate results_ of these acts?

IV. What are the _remote results_ yet to be apprehended?

I. First, then, WHAT _is it that has been done?_ Up to the month of May in 1834, the fathers and brothers of the 'Kirk' were in harmony as great as humanity can hope to see. Since May, 1834, the church has been a fierce crater of volcanic agencies, throwing out of her bosom one-third of her children; and these children are no sooner born into their earthly atmosphere, than they turn, with unnatural pa.s.sions, to the destruction of their brethren. What can be the grounds upon which an _acharnement_ so deadly has arisen?

It will read to the ears of a stranger almost as an experiment upon his credulity, if we tell the simple truth. Being incredible, however, it is not the less true; and, being monstrous, it will yet be recorded in history, that the Scottish church has split into mortal feuds upon two points absolutely without interest to the nation; first, upon a demand for creating clergymen by a new process; secondly, upon a demand for Papal lat.i.tude of jurisdiction. Even the order of succession in these things is not without meaning. Had the second demand stood first, it would have seemed possible that the two demands might have grown up independently, and so far conscientiously. But, according to the realities of the case, this is _not_ possible; the second demand grew _out_ of the first. The interest of the Seceders, as locked up in their earliest requisition, was that which prompted their second. Almost everybody was contented with the existing mode of creating the pastoral relation. Search through Christendom, lengthways and breadthways, there was not a public usage, an inst.i.tution, an economy, which more profoundly slept in the suns.h.i.+ne of divine favor or of civil prosperity, than the peculiar mode authorized and practised in Scotland of appointing to every parish its several pastor. Here and there an ultra-Presbyterian spirit might prompt a murmur against it. But the wise and intelligent approved; and those who had the appropriate--that is, the religious interest--confessed that it was practically successful.

From whom, then, came the attempt to change? Why, from those only who had an alien interest, an indirect interest, an interest of ambition in its subversion. As matters stood in the spring of 1834, the patron of each benefice, acting under the severest restraints--restraints which (if the church courts did their duty) left no room or possibility for an unfit man to creep in--nominated the inc.u.mbent. In a spiritual sense, the church had all power: by refusing, first of all, to '_license_'

unqualified persons; secondly, by refusing to '_admit_' out of these licensed persons such as might have become warped from the proper standard of pastoral fitness, the church had a negative voice, all-potential in the creation of clergymen; the church could exclude whom she pleased.

But this contented her not. Simply to shut out was an ungracious office, though mighty for the interests of orthodoxy through the land. The children of this world, who became the agitators of the church, clamored for something more. They desired for the church that she should become a lady patroness; that she should give as well as take away; that she should wield a sceptre, courted for its bounties, and not merely feared for its austerities. Yet how should this be accomplished? Openly to translate upon the church the present power of patrons--_that_ were too revolutionary, that would have exposed its own object. For the present, therefore, let this device prevail--let the power nominally be transferred to congregations: let this be done upon the plea that each congregation understands best what mode of ministrations tends to its own edification. There lies the semblance of a Christian plea; the congregation, it is said, has become anxious for itself; the church has become anxious for the congregation. And then, if the translation should be effected, the church has already devised a means for appropriating the power which she has unsettled; for she limits this power to the communicants at the sacramental table. Now, in Scotland, though not in England, the character of communicant is notoriously created or suspended by the clergyman of each parish; so that, by the briefest of circuits, the church causes the power to revolve into her own hands.

That was the first change--a change full of Jacobinism; and for which to be published was to be denounced. It was necessary, therefore, to place this Jacobin change upon a basis privileged from attack. How should _that_ be done? The object was to create a new clerical power; to s.h.i.+ft the election of clergymen from the lay hands in which law and usage had lodged it; and, under a plausible mask of making the election popular, circuitously to make it ecclesiastical. Yet, if the existing patrons of church benefices should see themselves suddenly denuded of their rights, and within a year or two should see these rights settling determinately into the hands of the clergy, the fraud, the fraudulent purpose, and the fraudulent machinery, would have stood out in gross proportions too palpably revealed. In this dilemma the reverend agitators devised a second scheme. It was a scheme bearing triple harvests; for, at one and the same time, it furnished the motive which gave a constructive coherency and meaning to the original purpose, it threw a solemn shadow over the rank worldliness of that purpose, and it opened a diffusive tendency towards other purposes of the same nature, as yet undeveloped. The device was this: in Scotland, as in England, the total process by which a parish clergyman is created, subdivides itself into several successive acts. The initial act belongs to the patron of the benefice: he must '_present_;' that is, he notifies the fact of his having conferred the benefice upon A B, to a public body which officially takes cognizance of this act; and that body is, not the particular parish concerned, but the presbytery of the district in which the parish is seated. Thus far the steps, merely legal, of the proceedings, were too definite to be easily disturbed. These steps are sustained by Lord Aberdeen as realities, and even by the Non-intrusionists were tolerated as formalities.

But at this point commence other steps not so rigorously defined by law or usage, nor so absolutely within one uniform interpretation of their value. In practice they had long sunk into forms. But ancient forms easily lend themselves to a revivification by meanings and applications, new or old, under the galvanism of democratic forces.

The disturbers of the church, pa.s.sing by the act of 'presentation' as an obstacle too formidable to be separately attacked on its own account, made their stand upon one of the two acts which lie next in succession.

It is the regular routine, that the presbytery, having been warned of the patron's appointment, and having 'received' (in technical language) the presentee--that is, having formally recognised him in that character--next appoint a day on which he is to preach before the congregation. This sermon, together with the prayers by which it is accompanied, const.i.tute the probationary act according to some views; but, according to the general theory, simply the inaugural act by which the new pastor places himself officially before his future paris.h.i.+oners.

Decorum, and the sense of proportion, seem to require that to every commencement of a very weighty relation, imposing new duties, there should be a corresponding and ceremonial entrance. The new pastor, until this public introduction, could not be legitimately a.s.sumed for known to the paris.h.i.+oners. And accordingly at this point it was--viz.

subsequently to his authentic publication, as we may call it--that, in the case of any grievous scandal known to the parish as outstanding against him, arose the proper opportunity furnished by the church for lodging the accusation, and for investigating it before the church court. In default, however, of any grave objection to the presentee, he was next summoned by the presbytery to what really _was_ a probationary act at their bar; viz. an examination of his theological sufficiency. But in this it could not be expected that he should fail, because he must previously have satisfied the requisitions of the church in his original examination for a license to preach. Once dismissed with credit from this bar, he was now beyond all further probation whatsoever; in technical phrase, he was ent.i.tled to 'admission.' Such were the steps, according to their orderly succession, by which a man consummated the pastoral tie with any particular parish.

And all of these steps, subsequent to the '_reception_' and inaugural preaching, were now summarily characterized by the revolutionists as 'spiritual;' for the sake of sequestering them into their own hands.

As to the initiatory act of presentation, _that_ might be secular, and to be dealt with by a secular law. But the rest were acts which belonged not to a kingdom of this world. 'These,' with a newborn scrupulosity never heard of until the revolution of 1834, clamored for new casuistries; 'these,' said the agitators, 'we cannot consent any longer to leave in their state of collapse as mere inert or ceremonial forms.

They must be revivified. By all means, let the patron present as heretofore. But the acts of "examination" and "admission," _together with the power of altogether refusing to enter upon either,_ under a protest against the candidate from a clear majority of the paris.h.i.+oners--these are acts falling within the spiritual jurisdiction of the church. And these powers we must, for the future, see exercised according to spiritual views.'

Here, then, suddenly emerged a perfect ratification for their own previous revolutionary doctrine upon the creation of parish clergymen.

This new scruple was, in relation to former scruples, a perfect linch-pin for locking their machinery into cohesion. For vainly would they have sought to defeat the patron's right of presenting, unless through this sudden pause and interdict imposed upon the _latter_ acts in the process of induction, under the pretext that these were acts competent only to a spiritual jurisdiction. This plea, by its tendency, rounded and secured all that they had yet advanced in the way of claim.

But, at the same time, though indispensable negatively, positively it stretched so much further than any necessity or interest inherent in their present innovations, that not improbably they faltered and shrank back at first from the immeasurable field of consequences upon which it opened. They would willingly have accepted less. But, unfortunately, it sometimes happens, that, to gain as much as is needful in one direction, you must take a great deal more than you wish for in another.

Any principle, which _could_ carry them over the immediate difficulty, would, by a mere necessity, carry them incalculably beyond it. For if every act bearing in any one direction a spiritual aspect, showing at any angle a relation to spiritual things, is therefore to be held spiritual in a sense excluding the interference of the civil power, there falls to the ground at once the whole fabric of civil authority in any independent form. Accordingly, we are satisfied that the claim to a spiritual jurisdiction, in collision with the claims of the state, would not probably have offered itself to the ambition of the agitators, otherwise than as a measure ancillary to their earlier pretension of appointing virtually all parish clergymen. The one claim was found to be the integration or _sine qua non_ complement of the other. In order to sustain the power of appointment in their own courts, it was necessary that they should defeat the patron's power; and, in order to defeat the patron's power, ranging itself (as sooner or later it would) under the law of the land, it was necessary that they should decline that struggle, by attempting to take the question out of all secular jurisdictions whatever.

In this way grew up that twofold revolution which has been convulsing the Scottish church since 1834; first, the audacious attempt to disturb the settled mode of appointing the parish clergy, through a silent robbery perpetrated on the crown and great landed aristocracy; secondly, and in prosecution of that primary purpose, the far more frantic attempt to renew in a practical shape the old disputes so often agitating the forum of Christendom, as to the bounds of civil and spiritual power.

In our rehearsal of the stages through which the process of induction ordinarily travels, we have purposely omitted one possible interlude or parenthesis in the series; not as wis.h.i.+ng to conceal it, but for the very opposite reason. It is right to withdraw from a _representative_ account of any transaction such varieties of the routine as occur but seldom: in this way they are more pointedly exposed. Now, having made that explanation, we go on to inform the Southern reader--that an old traditionary usage has prevailed in Scotland, but not systematically or uniformly, of sending to the presentee, through the presbytery, what is designated a '_call_,'

subscribed by members of the parish congregation. This call is simply an invitation to the office of their pastor. It arose in the disorders of the seventeenth century; but in practice it is generally admitted to have sunk into a mere formality throughout the eighteenth century; and the very position which it holds in the succession of steps, not usually coming forward until _after_ the presentation has been notified (supposing that it comes forward at all), compels us to regard it in that light. Apparently it bears the same relation to the patron's act as the Address of the two Houses to the Speech from the Throne: it is rather a courteous echo to the personal compliment involved in the presentation, than capable of being regarded as any _original_ act of invitation. And yet, in defiance of that notorious fact, some people go so far as to a.s.sert, that a call is not good unless where it is subscribed by a clear majority of the congregation. This is amusing.

We have already explained that, except as a liberal courtesy, the very idea of a call destined to be inoperative, is and must be moons.h.i.+ne.

Yet between two moons.h.i.+nes, some people, it seems, can tell which is the denser. We have all heard of Barmecide banquets, where, out of tureens filled to the brim with--nothings the fortunate guest was helped to vast messes of--air. For a hungry guest to take this tantalization in good part, was the sure way to win the esteem of the n.o.ble Barmecide. But the Barmecide himself would hardly approve of a duel turning upon a comparison between two of his tureens, question being--which had been the fuller, or of two nihilities which had been seasoned the more judiciously. Yet this in effect is the reasoning of those who say that a call, signed by fifty-one persons out of a hundred, is more valid than another signed only by twenty-six, or by n.o.body; it being in the mean time fully understood that neither is valid in the least possible degree. But if the '_call_,' was a Barmecide call, there was another act open to the congregation which was not so.

For the English reader must now understand, that over and above the pa.s.sive and less invidious mode of discountenancing or forbearing to countenance a presentee, by withdrawing from the direct 'call' upon him, usage has sanctioned another and stronger sort of protest; one which takes the shape of distinct and clamorous _objections_. We are speaking of the routine in this place, according to the course which it _did_ travel or _could_ travel under that law and that practice which furnished the pleas for complaint. Now, it was upon these 'objections,' as may well be supposed, that the main battle arose.

Simply to want the 'call,' being a mere _zero_, could not much lay hold upon public feeling. It was a case not fitted for effect. You cannot bring a blank privation strongly before the public eye. 'The "call" did not take place last week;' well, perhaps it will take place next week. Or again, if it should never take place, perhaps it may be religious carelessness on the part of the parish. Many parishes notoriously feel no interest in their pastor, except as a quiet member of their community. Consequently, in two of three cases that might occur, there was nothing to excite the public; the parish had either agreed with the patron, or had not noticeably dissented. But in the third case of positive 'objections,' which (in order to justify themselves as not frivolous and vexatious) were urged with peculiar emphasis, the attention of all men was arrested. Newspapers reverberated the fact: sympathetic groans arose: the patron was an oppressor: the parish was under persecution: and the poor clergyman, whose case was the most to be pitied, as being in a measure _endowed_ with a lasting fund of dislike, had the mortification to find, over and above this resistance from within, that he bore the name of 'intruder' from without. He was supposed by the fiction of the case to be in league with his patron for the persecution of a G.o.dly parish; whilst in reality the G.o.dly parish was persecuting _him_, and hallooing the world _ab extra_ to join in the hunt.

In such cases of pretended objections to men who have not been tried, we need scarcely tell the reader, that usually they are mere cabals and worldly intrigues. It is next to impossible that any parish or congregation should sincerely agree in their opinion of a clergyman.

What one man likes in such cases, another man detests. Mr. A., with an ardent nature, and something of a histrionic turn, doats upon a fine rhetorical display. Mr. B., with more simplicity of taste, p.r.o.nounces this little better than theatrical ostenostentation. Mr.

C. requires a good deal of critical scholars.h.i.+p, Mr. D quarrels with this as unsuitable to a rustic congregation. Mrs. X., who is 'under concern' for sin, demands a searching and (as she expresses it) a 'faithful' style of dealing with consciences. Mrs. Y., an aristocratic lady, who cannot bear to be mixed up in any common charge together with low people, abominates such words as 'sin,' and wills that the parson should confine his 'observations' to the 'shocking demoralization of the lower orders.'

Now, having stated the practice of Scottish induction as it was formerly sustained in its first stage by law, in its second stage by usage, let us finish that part of the subject by reporting the _existing_ practice as regulated in all its stages by law. What law? The law as laid down in Lord Aberdeen's late Act of Parliament. This statement should, historically speaking, have found itself under our _third_ head, as being one amongst the consequences immediately following the final rupture. But it is better placed at this point; because it closes the whole review of that topic; and because it reflects light upon the former practice--the practice which led to the whole mutinous tumult: every alteration forcing more keenly upon the reader's attention what had been the previous custom, and in what respect it was held by any man to be a grievance.

This act, then, of Lord Aberdeen's removes all _legal_ effect from the '_call_.' Common sense required _that_. For what was to be done with patronage? Was it to be sustained, or was it not? If not, then why quarrel with the Non-intrusionists? Why suffer a schism to take place in the church? Give legal effect to the 'call,' and the original cause of quarrel is gone. For, with respect to the opponents of the Non-intrusionists, _they_ would bow to the law. On the other hand, if patronage _is_ to be sustained, then why allow of any lingering or doubtful force to what must often operate as a conflicting claim? 'A call,' which carries with it any legal force, annihilates patronage.

Patronage would thus be exercised only on sufferance. Do we mean then, that a 'call' should sink into a pure fiction of ceremony, like the English _conge-d'elire_ addressed to a dean and chapter, calling on them to elect a bishop, when all the world knows that already the see has been filled by a nomination from the crown? Not at all; a _moral_ weight will still attach to the 'call,' though no legal coercion: and what is chiefly important, all those _doubts_ will be removed by express legislation, which could not but arise between a practice pointing sometimes in one direction, and sometimes in another, between legal decisions again upholding one view, whilst something very like legal prescription was occasionally pleaded for the other. Behold the evil of written laws not rigorously in harmony with that sort of customary law founded upon vague tradition or irregular practice. And here, by the way, arises the place for explaining to the reader that irreconcilable dispute amongst Parliamentary lawyers as to the question whether Lord Aberdeen's bill were _enactory_, that is, created a new law, or _declaratory_, that is, simply expounded an old one. If enactory, then why did the House of Lords give judgment against those who allowed weight to the 'call?' That might need altering; _that_ might be highly inexpedient; but if it required a new law to make it illegal, how could those, parties be held in the wrong previously to the new act of legislation? On the other hand, if declaratory, then show us any old law which made the 'call' illegal. The fact is, that no man can decide whether the act established a new law, or merely expounded an old one. And the reason why he cannot, is this: the practice, the usage, which often is the law, had grown up variously during the troubles of the seventeenth century. In many places political reasons had dictated that the elders should nominate the inc.u.mbent.

But the ancient practice had authorized patronage: by the act of Queen Anne (10th chap.) it was even formally restored; and yet the patron in known instances was said to have waived his right in deference to the 'call.' But why? Did he do so in courteous compliance with the parish, as a party whose _reasonable_ wishes ought, for the sake of all parties, to meet with attention? Or did he do so, in humble submission to the parish, as having by their majorities a legal right to the presentation? There lay the question. The presumptions from antiquity were all against the call. The more modern practice had occasionally been _for_ it. Now, we all know how many colorable claims of right are created by prescription. What was the exact force of the 'call,' no man could say. In like manner, the exact character and limit of allowable objections had been ill-defined in practice, and rested more on a vague tradition than on any settled rule. This also made it hard to say whether Lord Aberdeen's Act were enactory or declaratory, a predicament, however, which equally affects all statutes _for removing doubts_.

The 'call,' then, we consider as no longer recognised by law. But did Lord Aberdeen by that change establish the right of the patron as an unconditional right? By no means. He made it strictly a conditional right. The presentee is _now_ a candidate, and no more. He has the most important vote in his favor, it is true; but that vote may still be set aside, though still only with the effect of compelling the patron to a new choice. '_Calls_' are no longer doubtful in their meaning, but '_objections_' have a fair field laid open to them. All reasonable objections are to be weighed. But who is to judge whether they _are_ reasonable? The presbytery of the district. And now pursue the action of the law, and see how little ground it leaves upon which to hang a complaint. Everybody's rights are secured. Whatever be the event, first of all the presentee cannot complain, if he is rejected only for proved insufficiency. He is put on his trial as to these points only: 1. Is he orthodox? 2. Is he of good moral reputation? 3.

Is he sufficiently learned? And note this (which in fact Sir James Graham remarked in his official letter to the a.s.sembly), strictly speaking, he ought not to be under challenge as respects the third point, for it is your own fault, the fault of your own licensing courts (the presbyteries), if he is not qualified so far. You should not have created him a licentiate, should not have given him a license to preach, as must have been done in an earlier stage of his progress, if he were not learned enough. Once learned, a man is learned for life. As to the other points, he may change, and _therefore_ it is that an examination is requisite. But how can _he_ complain if he is found by an impartial court of venerable men objectionable on any score? If it were possible, however, that he should be wronged, he has his appeal. Secondly, how can the patron complain? _His_ case is the same as his presentee's case; his injuries the same; his relief the same. Besides, if _his_ man is rejected, it is not the parish man that takes his place. No; but a second man of his own choice: and, if again he chooses amiss, who is to blame for _that_? Thirdly, can the congregation complain?

They have a _general_ interest in their spiritual guide. But as to the preference for oratory--for loud or musical voice--for peculiar views in religion--these things are special: they interest but an exceedingly small minority in any parish; and, what is worse, that which pleases one is often offensive to another. There are cases in which a parish would reject a man for being a married man: some of the parish have unmarried daughters. But this case clearly belongs to the small minority; and we have little doubt that, where the objections lay 'for cause not shown,' it was often for _this_ cause. Fourthly, can the church complain? Her interest is represented, 1, not by the presentee; 2, not by the patron; 3, not by the congregation; but 4, by the presbytery. And, whatever the presbytery say, _that_ is supported.

Speaking either for the patron, for the presentee, for the congregation, or for themselves as conservators of the church, that court is heard; what more would they have? And thus in turn every interest is protected.

Now the point to be remarked is-that each party in turn has a separate influence. But on any other plan, giving to one party out of the four an absolute or unconditional power, no matter which of the four it be--all the rest have none at all. Lord Aberdeen has reconciled the rights of patrons for the first time with those of all other parties interested. n.o.body has more than a conditional power. Everybody has _that_. And the patron, as necessity requires, if property is to be protected, has, in all circ.u.mstances, the revisionary power.

II. _Secondly_, How _were these things don?_? By what means were the hands of any party strengthened, so as to find this revolution possible?

We seek not to refine; but all moral power issues out of moral forces.

And it may be well, therefore, rapidly to sketch the history of religion, which is the greatest of moral forces, as it sank and rose in this island through the last two hundred years.

It is well known that the two great revolutions of the seventeenth century--that in 1649, accomplished by the Parliament armies (including its reaction in 1660), and secondly, that in 1688-9--did much to unsettle the religious tone of public morals. Historians and satirists ascribe a large effect in this change to the personal influence of Charles II., and the foreign character of his court. We do not share in their views; and one eminent proof that they are wrong, lies in the following fact--viz., that the sublimest act of self-sacrifice which the world has ever seen, arose precisely in the most triumphant season of Charles's career, a time when the reaction of hatred had not yet neutralized the sunny joyousness of his Restoration. Surely the reader cannot be at a loss to know what we mean--the renunciation in one hour, on St. Bartholomew's Day in 1662, of two thousand benefices by the nonconforming clergymen of England. In the same year, occurred a similar renunciation of three hundred and sixty benefices in Scotland. These great sacrifices, whether called for or not, argue a great strength in the religious principle at that era. Yet the decay of external religion towards the close of that century is proved incontestably.

We ourselves are inclined to charge this upon two causes; first, that the times were controversial; and usually it happens--that, where too much energy is carried into the controversies or intellectual part of religion, a very diminished fervor attends the culture of its moral and practical part. This was perhaps one reason; for the dispute with the Papal church, partly, perhaps, with a secret reference to the rumored apostasy of the royal family, was pursued more eagerly in the latter half of the seventeenth than even in any section of the sixteenth century. But, doubtless, the main reason was the revolutionary character of the times. Morality is at all periods fearfully shaken by intestine wars, and by instability in a government. The actual duration of war in England was not indeed longer than three and a half years, viz., from Edgehill Fight in the autumn of 1642, to the defeat of the king's last force under Sir Jacob Astley at Stow-in-the-walds in the spring of 1846. Any other fighting in that century belonged to mere insulated and discontinuous war. But the insecurity of every government between 1638 and 1702, kept the popular mind in a state of fermentation.

Accordingly, Queen Anne's reign might be said to open upon an irreligious people. The condition of things was further strengthened by the unavoidable interweaving at that time of politics with religion.

They could not be kept separate; and the favor shown even by religious people to such partisan zealots as Dr. Sacheverell, evidenced, and at the same time promoted, the public irreligion. This was the period in which the clergy thought too little of their duties, but too much of their professional rights; and if we may credit the indirect report of the contemporary literature, all apostolic or missionary zeal for the extension of religion, was in those days a thing unknown. It may seem unaccountable to many, that the same state of things should have spread in those days to Scotland; but this is no more than the a.n.a.logies of all experience ent.i.tled us to expect. Thus we know that the instincts of religious reformation ripened everywhere at the same period of the sixteenth century from one end of Europe to the other; although between most of the European kingdoms there was nothing like so much intercourse as between England and Scotland in the eighteenth century. In both countries, a cold and lifeless state of public religion prevailed up to the American and French Revolutions. These great events gave a shock everywhere to the meditative, and, consequently to the religious impulses of men. And, in the mean time, an irregular channel had been already opened to these impulses by the two founders of Methodism. A century has now pa.s.sed since Wesley and Whitefield organized a more spiritual machinery of preaching than could then be found in England, for the benefit of the poor and laboring cla.s.ses. These Methodist inst.i.tutions prospered, as they were sure of doing, amongst the poor and the neglected at any time, much more when contrasted with the deep slumbers of the Established Church. And another ground of prosperity soon arose out of the now expanding manufacturing system. Vast mult.i.tudes of men grew up under that system--humble enough by the quality of their education to accept with thankfulness the ministrations of Methodism, and rich enough to react, upon that beneficent inst.i.tution, by continued endowments in money. Gradually, even the church herself, that mighty establishment, under the cold shade of which Methodism had grown up as a neglected weed, began to acknowledge the power of an extending Methodistic influence, which originally she had haughtily despised. First, she murmured; then she grew anxious or fearful; and finally, she began to find herself invaded or modified from within, by influences springing up from Methodism. This last effect became more conspicuously evident after the French Revolution.

The church of Scotland, which, as a whole, had exhibited, with much un.o.btrusive piety, the same outward torpor as the church of England during the eighteenth century, betrayed a corresponding resuscitation about the same time. At the opening of this present century, both of these national churches began to show a marked rekindling of religious fervor. In what extent this change in the Scottish church had been due, mediately or immediately, to Methodism, we do not pretend to calculate; that is, we do not pretend to settle the proportions. But _mediately_ the Scottish church must have been affected, because she was greatly affected by her intercourse with the English church (as, _e.g._, in Bible Societies, Missionary Societies, &c.); and the English church had been previously affected by Methodism. _Immediately_ she must also have been affected by Methodism, because Whitefield had been invited to preach in Scotland, and _did_ preach in Scotland. But, whatever may have been the cause of this awakening from slumber in the two established churches of this island, the fact is so little to be denied, that, in both its aspects, it is acknowledged by those most interested in denying it. The two churches slept the sleep of torpor through the eighteenth century; so much of the fact is acknowledged by their own members. The two churches awoke, as from a trance, in or just before the dawning of the nineteenth century; this second half of the fact is acknowledged by their opponents. The Wesleyan Methodists, that formidable power in England and Wales, who once reviled the Establishment as the dormitory of spiritual drones, have for many years hailed a very large section in that establishment--viz., the section technically known by the name of the Evangelical clergy--as brothers after their own hearts, and corresponding to their own strictest model of a spiritual clergy. That section again, the Evangelical section, in the English church, as men more highly educated, took a direct interest in the Scottish clergy, upon general principles of liberal interest in all that could affect religion, beyond what could be expected from the Methodists. And in this way grew up a considerable action and reaction between the two cla.s.sical churches of the British soil. Such was the varying condition, when sketched in outline, of the Scottish and English churches. Two centuries ago, and for half a century beyond that, we find both churches in a state of trial, of turbulent agitation, and of sacrifices for conscience, which involved every fifth or sixth beneficiary. Then came a century of languor and the carelessness which belongs to settled prosperity. And finally, for both has arisen a half century of new light--new zeal--and, spiritually speaking, of new prosperity. This deduction it was necessary to bring down, in order to explain the new power which arose to the Scottish church, during the last generation of suppose thirty years.

When two powerful establishments, each separately fitted to the genius and needs of its several people, are pulling together powerfully towards one great spiritual object, vast must be the results. Our ancestors would have stood aghast as at some fabulous legend or some mighty miracle, could they have heard of the scale on which our modern contributions proceed for the purposes of missions to barbarous nations, of circulating the Scriptures, (whether through the Bible Society, that is the National Society, or Provincial Societies,) of translating the Scriptures into languages scarcely known by name to scholars, of converting Jews, of organizing and propagating education. Towards these great objects the Scottish clergy had worked with energy and with little disturbance to their unanimity. Confidence was universally felt in their piety and in their discretion. This confidence even reached the supreme rulers of the state. Very much through ecclesiastical influence, new plans for extending the religious power of the Scottish church, and indirectly of extending their secular power, were countenanced by the Government. Jealousy had been disarmed by the upright conduct of the Scottish clergy, and their remarkable freedom hitherto from all taint of ambition. It was felt, besides, that the temper of the Scottish nation was radically indisposed to all intriguing or modes of temporal ascendency in ecclesiastical bodies. The nation, therefore, was in some degree held as a guarantee for the discretion of their clergy. And hence it arose, that much less caution was applied to the first encroachment of the non-intrusionists, than would have been applied under circ.u.mstances of more apparent doubt. Hence, it arose, that a confidence from the Scottish nation was extended to this clergy, which too certainly has been abused.

In the years 1824-5, Parliament had pa.s.sed acts 'for building additional places of wors.h.i.+p in the highlands and islands of Scotland.' These acts may be looked upon as one section in that general extension of religious machinery which the British people, by their government and their legislature, have for many years been promoting. Not, as is ordinarily said, that the weight of this duty had grown upon them simply through their own treacherous neglect of it during the latter half of the eighteenth century; but that no reasonable attention to that duty _could_ have kept pace with the scale upon which the claims of a new manufacturing population had increased. In mere equity we must admit--not that the British nation had fallen behind its duties, (though naturally it might have done so under the religious torpor prevalent at the original era of manufacturing extension,) but that the duties had outstripped all human power of overtaking them. The efforts, however, have been prodigious in this direction for many years. Amongst those applied to Scotland, it had been settled by Parliament that forty-two new churches should be raised in the highlands, with an endowment from the government of [pound symbol]120 annually for each inc.u.mbent. There were besides more than two hundred chapels of ease to be founded; and towards this scheme the Scottish public subscribed largely. The money was intrusted to the clergy.

_That_ was right, but mark what followed. It had been expressly provided by Parliament--that any district or circ.u.mjacent territory, allotted to such parliamentary churches as the range within which the inc.u.mbent was to exercise his spiritual ministration, should _not_ be separate parishes for any civil or legal effects. Here surely the intentions and directions of the legislature were plain enough, and decisive enough.

How did the Scottish clergy obey them? They erected all these jurisdictions into _bona fide_ 'parishes,' enjoying the plenary rights (as to church government) of the other parishes, and distinguished from them in a merely nominal way as parishes _quoad sacra_. There were added at once to the presbyteries, which are the organs of the church power, two hundred and three clerical persons for the chapels of ease, and forty-two for the highland churches--making a total of two hundred and forty-five new members. By the const.i.tution of the Scottish church, an equal number of lay elders (called ruling elders) accompany the clerical elders. Consequently four hundred and ninety new members were introduced at once into that particular cla.s.s of courts (presbyteries) which form the electoral bodies in relation to the highest court of General a.s.sembly. The effect of this change, made in the very teeth of the law, was twofold. First, it threw into many separate presbyteries a considerable accession of voters--_all owing their appointments to the General a.s.sembly_. This would at once give a large bias favorable to their party views in every election for members to serve in the a.s.sembly. Even upon an a.s.sembly numerically limited, this innovation would have told most abusively. But the a.s.sembly was _not_ limited; and therefore the whole effect was, at the same moment, greatly to extend the electors and the elected.

Here, then, was the machinery by which the faction worked. They drew that power from Scotland rekindled into a temper of religious anxiety, which they never could have drawn from Scotland lying torpid, as she had lain through the eighteenth century. The new machinery (created by Parliament in order to meet the wishes of the Scottish nation), the money of that nation, the awakened zeal of that nation; all these were employed, honorably in one sense, that is, not turned aside into private channels for purposes of individuals, but factiously in the result, as being for the benefit of a faction; honorably as regarded the open mode of applying such influence--a mode which did not shrink from exposure; but most dishonorably, in so far as privileges, which had been conceded altogether for a spiritual object, were abusively transferred to the furtherance of a temporal intrigue. Such were the methods by which the new-born ambition of the clergy moved; and that ambition had become active, simply because it had suddenly seemed to become practicable. The presbyteries, as being the effectual electoral bodies, are really the main springs of the ecclesiastical administration. To govern _them_, was in effect to govern the church.

A new scheme for extending religion, had opened a new avenue to this control over the presbyteries. That opening was notoriously unlawful.

But not the less the church faction precipitated themselves ardently upon it; and but for the faithfulness of the civil courts, they would never have been dislodged from what they had so suddenly acquired.

Such was the extraordinary leap taken by the Scottish clergy, into a power, of which, hitherto, they had never enjoyed a fraction. It was a movement _per saltum_, beyond all that history has recorded. At c.o.c.k-crow they had no power at all; when the sun went down, they had gained (if they could have held) a papal supremacy. And a thing not less memorably strange is, that even yet the ambitious leaders were not disturbed; what they had gained was viewed by the public as a collateral gain, indirectly adhering to a higher object, but forming no part at all of what the clergy had sought. It required the scrutiny of law courts to unmask and decompose their true object The obstinacy of the defence betrayed the real _animus_ of the attempt. It was an attempt which, in connection with the _Veto_ Act (supposing that to have prospered), would have laid the whole power of the church at their feet. What the law had distributed amongst three powers, patron, parish, and presbyter, would have been concentrated in themselves. The _quoad sacra_ parishes would have riveted their majorities in the presbyteries; and the presbyteries, under the real action of the _Veto_, would have appointed nearly every inc.u.mbent in Scotland. And this is the answer to the question, when treated merely in outline--_How were these things done_? The religion of the times had created new machineries for propagating a new religious influence. These fell into the hands of the clergy; and the temptation to abuse these advantages led them into revolution.

III. Having now stated WHAT was done, as well as HOW it was done, let us estimate the CONSEQUENCES of these acts; under this present, or _third_ section, reviewing the immediate consequences which have taken effect already, and under the next section antic.i.p.ating the more remote consequences yet to be expected.

In the spring of 1834, as we have sufficiently explained, the General a.s.sembly ventured on the fatal attempt to revolutionize the church, and (as a preliminary towards _that_) on the attempt to revolutionize the property of patronage. There lay the extravagance of the attempt; its short-sightedness, if they did not see its civil tendencies; its audacity, if they _did_. It was one revolution marching to its object through another; it was a vote, which, if at all sustained, must entail a long inheritance of contests with the whole civil polity of Scotland.

'Heu quantum, fati parva tabella vehit!'