One of its proed, directly let in the

visions, if not intend

calculated

to

courts of

law.

bill) to state and set forth the objections and reasons CHAP. XL in respect of which the presentee was set aside. He would not say that this part of the bill was intended, but he would say that it was at least calculated to lay the church open to the most destructive interference from the civil courts. Why was it enacted that the reasons of rejection should be specified? Just in order to give the civil courts an opportunity to take them up, and consider whether they were the reasons which, under statute, the church was entitled to reject upon; and if the civil court found that, in determining the rejection, the church had gone one hair's breadth beyond the ground marked out by the act, then the civil power would come in and coerce by pains and penalties." After making it manifest, by clear and conclusive argument, that this bill would rob the church both of its non-intrusion principle and of its right of selfgovernment, Mr. Dunlop indignantly exclaimed, "What boon did that bill confer which merely declared the law as it was? They could do as they They could were, without any new law. They could rescind the veto, abandon the rights of the people, and resolve to withdraw themselves from the struggle for their christian rights and privileges. And what then did the bill do? It removed doubts. Yes, it removed doubts, and these of different kinds. They might have looked for a more favourable enactment, that doubt was at an end. Many doubted as to the possibility of an effective revival of the call: many doubted whether, if they had stood upon the (positive) call, the Auchterarder case might not have been different from what it was, and they had hoped to have yet got perhaps

abandon

their princi

ples without the help of

this bill: and

this is what

the bill pel them to

would com.

do.

CHAP. XI.

The kind of doubts

which the

a favourable decision on that point. All doubt on
that head was now gone.
The bill, too, would remove

bill removed. the doubt that had been thrown out by Lord Brougham -a doubt which had never been felt in the court of session. It made perpetual the adverse decision which might only have been temporary. It chained them down for ever in fetters of iron to the law as it was now declared."

The Rev. Dr.
N. M'Leod's

The Rev. Dr. M'Leod, of Glasgow, had a much speech. better opinion of the bill than the preceding speaker. It was the great charm of the bill to the minister of the modern St. Columba's, that the bill was simply declaratory, and that it dealt so largely in the removal of doubts. "Let us dwell," said he, "on the fact that it is a declaratory bill. Its very title informs us, that its object is to remove certain doubts as to the objection of the people in the collation of ministers. Thinks the Now, Now, will any body say that there is no boon conferred

bill a great

tling doubts:

misses the

boon by set- by the settling of these doubts?" Dr. M'Leod failed point of Mr. to notice that the point of Mr. Dunlop's remark upon gument. the "doubts," lay here,-that the assembly could

Dunlop's ar

have removed them quite as effectually without the help of an act of parliament at all,—that is, by simply giving up the whole matters in dispute! The Rev. Doctor found no fault with a door being left open for the court of session. Anything else, he thought, "would be in the highest degree objectionable, as it might be made a tyrannical measure. Suppose, for Puts a case: instance, if I, Norman M'Leod, was presented to the The parts of parish of Eigg, inhabited by the clan McDonald, an Eigg. island in which, among its other curiosities, is shown

his being

presented to

a cave in which are still to be found the dry bones of

*

Holds that in entitled to

such a case he would be

get redress in the civil court.

Puts another

case: his being pre

sented to a Edinburgh.

charge in

the clan M'Donald, cruelly massacred long since by CHAP. XI. the M'Leods; and that an objection was raised against my presentation simply on the ground that I was a M'Leod, I would consider myself entitled to protection from a sentence on such causeless prejudice as this.' But while he would not have shrunk to intrude himself on the M'Donalds of Eigg, despite of all such hereditary enmity, he was not by any means an outand-out intrusionist. He could face the stern veto of the M'Donalds of Eigg-but not for a moment could he confront, with a similar hardihood, the young ladies of the modern Athens. "I shall suppose," said he, "another case which may, perhaps, come much nearer to the point. Suppose I had the offer of a church in Edinburgh. * * Suppose the Edinburgh congregation had no objections to me, but that some professors and teachers of elocution might say, 'No; his highland accent is a great objection:' and suppose there were many well-bred young ladies among congregation who had been sent to England to get a good accent, and who said,-We will not have him, for his accent is offensive: I say that this would be a legitimate objection, and in the face of it I would not take the living!" Unhappily for this intended display of chivalry and magnanimity, a friend of his own,—a certain remorseless Mr. Robertson of Ellon, who Mr. Robertspoke on the same side of the debate,-assured him M'Leod's there was enough in Lord Aberdeen's bill to keep him argument. out both of Edinburgh and Eigg. "His reverend friend, Dr. M'Leod," said Mr. Robertson, "had put certain extraordinary cases, at least extravagant ones: but in opposition to the judgment of his reverend

the

son of Ellon

Mr. Robert

son's account of the

cient to in

Assembly to

CHAP. XI. friend, he was not sure but both the cases put by him were comprehended under this bill." Notwithstandbill not suffi-ing, however, that the bill possessed these marvellous duce the powers, that there was a virtue in it sufficient to receive it. make the rotten bones of a dead M'Donald more than a match for the most eloquent of living M'Leods,—a virtue that would enable a jury of boarding-school misses to pronounce Ossian himself a barbarian, as unfit as his own wild bagpipe to discourse to ears polite, notwithstanding of all this, and though Mr. Robertson was at much pains to celebrate these wondrous properties of the bill, he could not succeed in persuading the assembly to adopt it, as a new palladium for the church of Scotland. The friends of reformation principles "feared the Greeks, even when The Trojan bringing gifts." The " Trojan horse," though the cluded from house was assured it was the pledge of lasting peace,

horse ex

the city.

was resolutely excluded. " The utero sonitum " was not sufficiently muffled. The clang of arms broke too loudly from its hidden recesses upon the ear. Its smooth and specious phraseology could not hide the sword and the shackles of the civil power,-the fines for the presbytery and the gags for the people—which the bill carried in its bosom. Even Dr. Simpson, of Kirknewton, would have none of it. "Come what Dr. Simpson's may," said he, at the close of an able and argumenta

speech.

tive speech, "the bill of Lord Aberdeen was one which, in its present form, the church could not accept. He would conclude by saying there might be danger in standing by the principles which they had avowed: but let the peril be what it might in standing to these principles, the peril would be ten

The Church

must stand

to

her principles, and all ha zards refuse

the bill.

times greater in receding from them. If the church CHAP. XI. of Scotland is to go down, let her go down maintaining, as she now maintains, her great fundamental principles, and she will go down amidst the universal respect of her people, and followed by their best affections. But let her recede from the principles she has avowed, and she will go down amidst the universal contempt of her people. Much has been said of the church of England, and on the want of intelligence on this subject, in the minds of Englishmen: but let them know this, that if the church of Scotland goes down, it is time the church of England were examining her own foundations. It was once remarked by the greatest and the best judge of the field of fight, and not of the field of bloody warfare merely, but of the field of debate- The battle of religious establishments is about to be fought, and Scotland is the battle ground.'" The speech was both a good and a brave one, albeit the speaker himself came afterwards to be of opinion that "the better part of valour is discretion."

The brave proved to he

speaker

of Falstaff's mind in the

end.

The Rev. Mr.

Begg's

The Rev. Mr. Begg, of Liberton, in a singularly effective speech, reminded the assembly of the consequences to which they must make up their mind in the event of their accepting this bill,-they must be prepared to intrude ministers against reclaiming con- speech. gregations, and that, if need were, at the point of the bayonet. Not, of course, that even their moderate friends would do this wantonly and gratuitously. He read an extract from Dr. Cook's evidence before the patronage committee of the house of commons, "with reference to the parish of Shotts, in which he, Dr.