They exhibit no very vigorous thinking; they contain no very striking sentiments; but for clearness of statement, and fairness in unfolding the views of opponents, they are perhaps unrivalled. It has sometimes been said that Principal Hill has stated the opinions of the Arminians so strongly as to create a suspicion that he sympathised with them. None but a bigot would make the remark. A man may be a Calvinist, and yet be honest. A man may be orthodox, and yet be just to the heterodox. A man may firmly hold his own opinions, and yet count it a sin to distort or falsify the opinions of others. If Arminians, Arians, or Socinians have strong arguments, it is right we should hear them, for it is only thus that we can hope to arrive at the truth. If professors of theology are to urge the strongest reasons they can find on one side, and only the weakest on the other, they will soon be exposed to the derision, not only of their adversaries, but of their own students. The unflinching believer and the wise man, when called to lecture on controversial divinity, will purge his heart of the leaven of religious rancour, and give, with balanced impartiality, the views and the arguments alike of friends and of foes. For several years after the Leslie Controversy was terminated, no question of general interest agitated the Church. There was, however, a quickening power abroad. New men were arising, bringing with them new ideas and new life. For long the Moderate party undoubtedly comprised the most accomplished men in the Church: the Wild, as their opponents were frequently called in derision, were too often illiberal and antiquated in their ideas; but now there was no such disparity. The Popular champions had thrown off the clothes which their grandfathers had worn, and appeared in garments suited to the fashion of the day. The Moderates had, in fact, now brought upon themselves the reproach of illiberality. They had done so by shutting their pulpits against the ministers of every Church in the world but their own; and they had done so by attempting to exclude Leslie, on the plea of infidelity, from the mathematical chair. In 1810, the "Edinburgh Christian Instructor" appeared, under the editorship of Dr Andrew Thomson, and did for the liberal party in the Church what the "Edinburgh Review" was at the same period doing for the liberal cause in the State. At length, after half a century of importunity, parliament heard the prayer of the indigent ministers of the Church of Scotland, who had cried almost night and day for relief. Statesmen and senators had at last been convinced that it was not their interest to keep so many of the Presbyterian clergy on the footing of a mendicant order. Sir John Sinclair says that the acknowledged merits of the clerical contributions to the Original Statistical Account of Scotland conduced to this end, and that he himself as editor urged their suit on the Government. On the 15th of June 1810, an Act was passed "For augmenting Parochial Stipends in certain cases in Scotland." In the preamble to this act it is set forth, that in many parishes of Scotland, on account of the depreciation of the value of money, the stipends of the ministers had become inadequate to their support, and that, on account of the valuation and purchase of the teinds, no fund existed out of which an augmentation could be got; that it was expedient that means should be provided for raising all such stipends to £150 sterling; and that it appeared an annual sum of £10,000 would be sufficient for the purpose.2 It was therefore enacted, that every year £10,000 out of the public revenues should be set apart and appropriated in the hands of his Majesty's Receiver-General for effecting this object. The clerks of all the presbyteries of the Church were instructed by the act to make up accounts of all the parishes within their bounds, the stipends of which did not amount to £150. When these accounts were received, the Lords of Session, as Commissioners of Teinds, were empowered to consider any applications that might be made to them from ministers whose stipend fell short of the minimum fixed upon, and which could not be augmented under the laws already in force. The lists being made up, rectified, and recorded, the Barons of his Majesty's Exchequer issued a warrant to the Receiver-General to pay to each of the ministers named the sum specified as necessary to make up his stipend to £150. Thus many of the ministers of the Church of Scotland were rescued from humiliating indigence. When the lairds who held the Church's lands and enjoyed the Church's services refused to provide a decent maintenance for its ministers, the imperial parliament generously set apart the requisite sum out of the public revenues, and so the Scotch clergy were raised above beggary without any violence being done to the pockets of the Scotch proprietary. The Crown, however, annually receives a large revenue from bishops' rents and teinds, which is more than an equivalent for what it gives. 1 Life of Sir John Sinclair. ? The grant was afterwards increased to £12,000, One hundred and fifty pounds is now understood to be the lowest stipend of any parish minister in Scotland.1 This he enjoys, together with his manse and glebe; and upon this many men of no very lofty ambition, and no very prodigal habits, manage to live, and even, to marry a wife and rear a family. In the Church of Scotland no stipend is very high; none very low. Unlike the Church of England, it has no bishoprics with £10,000; no rectories with £3000; but neither has it any parishes with only £30 a-year. It has no such wealth, and no such poverty. It presents something like parity in this respect, though it should in nothing else. This equal distribution of the Church's wealth has both its advantages and its disadvantages. It keeps away the curse both of riches and of poverty; but it discourages that emulation and ambition which are necessary to the development of great talents, and the performance of eminent services.2 In 1813 the question of pluralities was again raised. There was nothing uncommon in a minister holding at the same time a professorship in a university, and a parish in the city where the university stood; but it was uncommon for a minister to be at once the occupant of an academic chair, and the incumbent of a parish distant many miles from the university seat. Instances of this, however, had occurred, notwithstanding the many acts of Assembly condemning non-residence 3—so long the curse both of the English and 3 1 Yet the minimum stipend in Scotland is not always exactly £150. The sum in aid received from the Exchequer is a fixed sum, determined by the average price of grain during the nine years preceding 1810. When the grain happens to be higher than this average, the stipend rises proportionally above the £150, and so vice versa. What is here said does not apply to the ministers of quoad sacra parishes erected under Sir James Graham's Act. The minimum stipend is there fixed at £120. 2 "Were I speaking here as a legislator," said Lord Chancellor Thurlow, in the House of Peers in 1784, "I would say that the wellbeing of Scotland was deeply concerned in making a more liberal provision for the clergy. I would have higher promotion, higher hopes, and greater preferment. It is that alone can keep the clergy in a situation to be of use to religion; for he must be a wretch indeed whose hopes are bounded by the scanty preferment of that country.' 3 Dr Meiklejohn was minister of Abercorn and Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Edinburgh. Mr Walker was minister of Moffat and Professor of Natural History in Edinburgh. Leaving Moffat he went to Colinton, still retaining his professorship. Bowers' History of the University of Edinburgh, vol. iii. pp. 225, 226. the Irish Church. In 1800, Dr Arnot, Professor of Divinity in St Andrews, was presented to Kingsbarns, a parish six or seven miles distant; and though his induction was opposed it was ultimately effected. A worse case, to be followed by more important consequences, now occurred. Mr Ferrie, the Professor of Civil History in the University of St Andrews, was presented to Kilconquhar, a parish twelve miles distant. It was evident that he could not reside in his parish, and at the same time attend upon his duties in the University. The presbytery therefore refused to admit him to the pastoral charge, unless he promised to demit his professorship immediately after his ordination. He declined to do this; the case went up to the Assembly, and, by the narrow majority of five, the presbytery was ordered to proceed with his settlement. The agitation did not subside when this particular case was decided. It increased. It had hitherto been thought that the law of Residence would have prevented such an abuse. Thomas Chalmers, the minister of Kilmany, who was now beginning to take an interest in ecclesiastical business, thought, and many thought with him, that no special law. was required in such a case. Such a union of offices, he held, was wrong at common law, and that was enough.1 The main ground, however, on which the judgment of the General Assembly, in the case of Professor Ferrie, was grounded, was, that there was no specific law of the Church which met such a case. Where there was no law, there was no transgression. The enemies of pluralities took the hint, and resolved that, if there was no law to prevent such a case as Ferrie's, there should be one. The General Assembly is a legislative as well as a judicial body. It can make laws where there are none. Where a defect is discovered, it can be supplied. The Synod of Angus and Mearns brought the matter before the Assembly of 1814; and, after a keen discussion, it was declared to be inconsistent with the fundamental laws of the Church for a minister to hold any office which required his absence from his parish. As this act was regarded as merely declaratory of acts already in existence, it was not sent down. to the presbyteries for their consideration, but entered at once upon the Assembly Record. The defeated Pluralists seized upon this to renew the con1 Hanna's Memoirs of D Chalmers, vol. i. test. They declared that the act was really a new act, and therefore required to be subjected to the ordeal of the Barrier Law. Principal Hill put forth all his strength to prove this in the Assembly of 1815; but he was encountered by a young man who greatly revered his character, and generally followed in his footsteps. It was his own nephew, George Cook, the minister of Laurencekirk, the historian of the Reformation and the Church of Scotland, and destined to become the leader of the Moderate party in troublous times. The veteran captain was defeated by his own subaltern, and the act pronounced to be declaratory, and therefore in force without transmission.1 But the followers of Dr Hill drew vigour from defeat They raised the cry that the Church was in danger. The Barrier Act, the very palladium of their liberty, it was said, was contemptuously cast aside. Presbyteries were pushed out of the way. The General Assembly had usurped the powers of the universal Church. The Act of 1814 must be rescinded if the constitution of the Church was to be preserved. These sayings were sown broadcast among the presbyteries; the presbyteries believed them, and resolved to make a stand for their rights. Overtures upon overtures came drifting into the Assembly of 1816, praying it to undo its own legislation, as unsanctioned by the presbyteries. The agitation succeeded, and the obnoxious act was repealed.2 But it was repealed only to be replaced by another of a similar mould. To this new act Principal Hill lent the sanction of his name and the weight of his eloquence. Like most men who have thought upon the subject, he was convinced that a system of non-residence must be the ruin of the Church. Parishes were not meant to be sinecures. It looks ill for an English rector to hold a parish in Yorkshire, and reside during the year at Tunbridge or Bath. It would have been worse if a Scotch minister could have held a living in Perthshire, while he resided at St Andrews or Edinburgh, and that at a time when locomotion was slow and difficult. feeling was widely prevalent in the Assembly; and accordingly an overture was framed, transmitted to the presbyteries, and, being approved of by a great majority, was in 1817 converted into an act. By this act it is declared that no pro 1 Cook's Life of Principal Hill. Hanna's Memoirs of Chalmers, This |