It is announ ced that an messenger agent and a at-arms are at the door demanding admittance. moderator begged leave to interrupt him for a moment, CHAP. XIII. that he might lay before the house an important communication he had that instant received. The communication in question, was a letter addressed to him as moderator, by Mr. Alexander Peterkin, agent for the Strathbogie ministers, intimating that there was a messenger-at-arms in attendance at the door of the house, prepared to serve the officials of the assembly with an interdict which had been issued that morning by the lord ordinary, one of the judges of the court of session, against the moderator, and all others, to prohibit them from carrying into effect the sentence of deposition, which the assembly had pronounced upon the seven ministers. Mr. Peterkin requested to know whether the doors of the house were to be kept closed, as they now were, against the messenger-at-arms. "As this matter," said Mr. Dunlop, "concerned not only the freedom, the independence and the dignity of the church, and of this its supreme court, but also deeply concerned the dignity of their sovereign lady the queen, whose commissioner was supposed to be present with them, he conceived that they should have his Grace's personal presence before any answer was returned to a message such as had been sent to them; and therefore he proposed that a deputation should be sent to his grace, the commissioner, to acquaint him with the message." The propriety of this course was too obvious to be disputed; it was accordingly at once assented to, and a deputation consisting of Mr. Dunlop, Principal Dewar, and Mr. Buchan of Kelloe, was authorized to proceed to Holyrood Palace and to inform his Grace of what had occurred. The interdict was, of course, A deputation Holyrood to inform the sent to sioner of the fact. CHAP. XIII. in the agent's possession early in the day,-but he had not ventured to attempt to get it served during the forenoon session of the assembly, when the commissioner was actually in the house. In the eye of the law, the presence of the queen's commissioner was the same thing, as the presence of the sovereign herself. To have served an interdict in the face of the implied by representative of the crown, would have been to charge interdict in the crown with having countenanced a violation of law. The Commis. The legal adviser of the Strathbogie ministers, not What would have been serving an presence of sioner. being prepared to venture on this somewhat hazardous experiment, attempted to steal a march both upon the house and upon his Grace, by coming upon the assembly at the evening session, at which it was not usual for the commissioner to attend. An order which the door-keepers had previously received, to admit into the body of the house none but members, defeated this little legal stratagem; and kept the agent and the messenger outside. The debate on the eldership had, meanwhile, been resumed, and the business was taking its ordinary course, when the deputation returned and stated that the commissioner would immediately be present. Having, no doubt, been made aware of what was going on, Mr. Peterkin and the messenger disappeared,―not, however, till the former individual before the had, by letter, acquainted the moderator that the interdict had been left in the hands of the door-keeper, and that through him, he, Mr. Peterkin, would hold it to have been duly served upon the parties against whom it was directed. The agent and the messenger retire from the door Commis sioner ar rives. The debate on the eldership was going on when the commissioner entered the assembly, and took his place Speech of the Commis on the throne. By authority of the house the CHAP. XIII. moderator publicly communicated to his Grace the circumstances which had taken place, and tendered to him the grateful acknowledgments of the assembly for his prompt attendance. "I shall at all times," said the commissioner, addressing the assembly, "endea- sioner. vour to be present with you when you require my presence. It is my duty to do so; and in the exercise of that duty I trust that I shall not be found wanting, whether that duty call upon me to uphold the rights of the assembly, or to support and maintain the authority and prerogatives of the crown, if they shall be attempted to be infringed from any quarter what ever." A long and eager discussion ensued, the object of which, on the side of the moderate party, was to draw forth an admission from the house that the interdict had been duly served. It was agreed that Mr. Peterkin, who had now come back without the messenger, should be allowed to lay on the table the papers which had been left in the hands of the doorkeeper; but the assembly declined to look at them, or to say anything about them whatever. Although this course sufficiently guarded the assembly from being held to acquiesce in this attempted outrage upon its independent authority as a spiritual court, the simpler and better way of accomplishing this end would, probably, have been to have followed the advice, given in a speech of eminent ability, by Mr. J. Clark Brodie, to take no notice at all of Mr. Peterkin's second letter to the moderator, but to go on with the business of the house as if nothing had occurred. In Resolutions adopted by the House in reference to this out rage. CHAP. XIII. reference to the whole proceeding, however, it was obviously necessary that some step should be taken to mark its true character, and to protect the assembly from the repetition of any similar assault upon its constitutional liberty. Accordingly, when the assembly met on the following Monday, and before any other business was entered on, a series of resolutions which, meanwhile, had been carefully prepared, was submitted to the house by Mr. Candlish, in which the affair of the interdict was fully narrated, and the important fact was stated that such an attempt had only once before been made in the history of the church of Scotland,— and that then it was resisted and finally abandoned. The resolutions further characterized the attempt in question as "a flagrant violation of the privileges of this national church, as ratified by the constitution and laws of the united kingdom, which expressly secure to this church and to the supreme assembly thereof, exclusive jurisdiction in all spiritual matters, and especially in the deposition of ministers, and in whatsoever affects the government and discipline of the church." Finally, the resolutions went on to declare, that this assembly is called solemnly to protest against this "intrusion of the secular arm into the ecclesiastical province, and to represent this most alarming state of matters to the rulers and legislators of this great nation, on whom must rest the responsibility of upholding the established church in the full possession of all her scriptural and constitutional privileges; to make her majesty aware of this act so derogatory to her royal prerogative and disrespectful to her royal dignity; and that, with this view, The Assembly protests against it. these resolutions ought to be transmitted to her majesty CHAP. XIII. the queen, in council, and that the general assembly resolve accordingly." Dr. Cook ob resolutions the House. carried by two to one. Dr. Cook said he must divide the house upon this "He would raise his voice against it, and jects to the question. argue against it, and protest against it, and never and divides submit to any documents of this kind." The house Resolutions did divide accordingly, and the resolutions were carried by upwards of two to one, the numbers being 189 to 90. The debate on the the eldership being at length fairly delivered from this interruption, was now resumed, and the recommendation of the committee was adopted by a majority of 89,-the numbers being 160 to 71. There were many other memorable incidents in the assembly of 1841; but the limits within which this history must be confined forbid their introduction. Let it suffice to say that, even in the midst of those painful embarrassments and anxieties that were now thickening around the church, never was the business of her supreme court gone through with greater exactness or more rigid fidelity. Her ordinary discipline, and all her missionary and educational enterprises were cared for as watchfully, and spirit of this prosecuted as energetically, as if no cloud had darkened her firmament and no danger had lain across her path. What was perhaps more remarkable still, was the entire absence from the discussions of this assembly of everything like angry or acrimonious feeling. Seldom, if ever before, had questions been debated so well fitted by their exciting character to betray men into the use of strong language, and to embroil them with one another. Nothing, however, of this kind Character and Assembly. |