(1.) _Illustrations of the Principles of Toleration in Scotland._
Edinburgh. 1846.
(2.) _The Headship of Christ and the Rights of the Christian People._
By the late HUGH MILLER. Nimmo, Edinburgh.
(3.) _The Cruise of the Betsy._ By HUGH MILLER. Nimmo.
(4.) _Evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons on the
Refusal of Sites for Churches in Scotland, 1847._
(5.) _Statement on the Law of Church Patronage, prepared by a
Committee of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, in
compliance with a suggestion of the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone._
William Blackwood and Sons. 1870.
We were enabled to present our readers last year with what we believe
to be the only full sketch in existence, drawn from authentic and
official documents, of the rise and progress during a quarter of a
century, of the Free Church of Scotland. From the figures there quoted
it was made clear that at the very time when the Archbishop of
Canterbury was proclaiming that this voluntary church was 'a failure'
financially, its yearly income, steadily increasing from £275,000 of
its earliest lustrum, had at last reached the highest point of
£400,000; and that just when his Grace was asserting that 'whereas for
a time it went forth triumphantly, now the ministers in all remote
places are utterly destitute,' these remote ministers had, for the
first time (although their number was doubled) attained the minimum
stipend proposed by Dr. Chalmers of £150 each. The organization and
machinery by which such a striking success has been achieved, as well
as the principles which gave the original impulse to the body, were
worthy of careful statement and study. Yet while devoting exclusive
attention to these, we became gradually conscious that we were
treading coldly upon the ashes of what history will describe as a
marvellous outburst of self-sacrifice. The pathos and the suffering of
that sad but noble year of 1843 have never yet been brought before
English readers, but there is not so much heroism among us that we can
afford to lose from the annals of this easy-going modern time so
startling a narrative.
'Ah! that was something like disestablishment,' said a minister of the
Free Kirk to us in the spring when the precedents of the Irish Church
Bill were being discussed. He had been arguing that besides assuring
their life-interests to the Irish clergy, it would be only fair to
make a present to them of their glebes and parsonages. 'You should let
a working-man take his working tools with him,' said our friend, and
he was not sorry when the House of Lords gave a million or so of money
to the new body. We were rash enough in reply to ask whether he got
any equivalent for a glebe when a quarter of a century ago he and his
two boys left the pleasant manse of B---- overlooking the Great
Strath. But we had touched too deep a sore. The old man cheerfully
turned it off with the words we have quoted above, but we could not
forgive ourselves; and the thing led us back to enquire into some
extraordinary scenes which took place in Scotland when many of the
present generation were too young to observe them.
For this chapter of forgotten heroism, in which men of kindred blood
and almost of our own generation took part, there are fortunately
authentic as well as vividly descriptive materials. The reports
presented year by year to the Scotch General Assemblies are the most
public of all documents, and are intended to invite challenge and
scrutiny. The evidence presented to the House of Commons Committee in
1848 is of great importance and of unquestioned authority. The
writings of a man of genius like Hugh Miller will carry part of the
truth down to other generations of readers. And yet, while much is
known, much must ever remain untold. Scotchmen, who are men of
education, and in a sacred office, are precisely the men to cover the
sharpest pangs of poverty, and dread of poverty, with an impenetrable
covering of reserve; and now that twenty-six years have passed, most
of those grave, suffering faces have gone down into a deeper silence.
Besides, the Free Kirk has come to be so proud of its extraordinary
success in reconstruction, that it has rather attempted (notably in
the recent debates in the House of Commons) to throw into the
background the anguish of its birth, and to dwell rather on the
achievements of the whole than on the sufferings of individuals. Our
business is now rather with the latter, and fortunately there is one
additional source whence this information can be derived. Dr. Thomas
Guthrie, of Edinburgh, is known chiefly by his philanthropic efforts,
after the example of Dr. Chalmers, to provide churches and schools
and ragged schools for the masses in the large towns of Scotland; but
the great achievement of his life, and one, too, for which men of all
parties can now join in his praise, was that marvellous tour through
Scotland in the year 1845, as the result of which parsonages, or
'manses' as they are called in Scotland, were actually provided for
the seven hundred ministers, most of whom had been left homeless a
year or two before, and whose places in the Establishment had all now
been filled up. In the course of this great 'circumnavigation of
charity,' he naturally became acquainted with facts and details, some
of which found their way into speeches published at the time, and it
is fortunate that we can still quote, from one of the greatest
platform orators whether of England or Scotland, some of the fresh
facts of that suffering time.
Until we recently came to the knowledge of these documents, we had the
feeling that this suffering must have consisted more in apprehension
or imagination than in actual privations--that the terrible dread
which haunted men who were giving up their whole livings had scarcely
any actual realization. And even though this turns out not to be the
case, it is plain from Dr. Guthrie's own statements, that all over
Scotland the approaching trial struck a chill to the hearts even of
those who were determined to face it:--
'I remember,' he says, 'in a certain district of country, a
minister said to me, "You think there is no chance of a
settlement?" I said, "We are as certain of being out as
that the sun shall rise to-morrow." I was struck by
something like a groan, which came from the very heart of
the mother of the family; they had had many trials in their
day: there had been cradles and coffins in their home, and
the place was endeared by many associations to the mother;
there was not a flower or shrub or a tree but what was dear
to her--some of them were planted by the hands of those who
were in their graves,--and that woman's heart was like to
break. I remember another instance, where there was a
venerable mother who had gone to the place when it was a
wilderness, but who, with her husband, had turned it into
an Eden. Her husband had died there. Her son was now the
minister. This venerable woman was above eighty years of
age; yes, and I never felt more disposed to give up my work
than in that house. I could contemplate the children being
driven from their home; but when I looked on that venerable
widow and mother, with the snows and sorrows of eighty
years upon her head, and saw her anxiety about two things,
namely, that Lord Aberdeen should bring in a bill to settle
the question, but her anxiety, at the same time, that if
Lord Aberdeen did not bring in a satisfactory measure, her
son should do his duty,--I could not but feel that it was
something like a cruel work to tear out such a venerable
tree--to tear her away from the house that was dearest to
her on earth.'
For, as we formerly said, compared with this blow, the
disestablishment of the Irish Church was a fall into the lap of
luxury. Every minister in Scotland who adhered to the Church lost his
income in one day--Whit-sunday of 1843. On the same day they lost
their dwellings. The professors of divinity, with Chalmers at their
head; the missionaries, with Dr. Duff at their head; the humble
schoolmasters, with no great name to sustain them--were all turned out
at the same moment. And the great strain and crisis of conscience must
have been in the spring of that year, when those who in 1842 had
pledged themselves, with two-thirds of the Assembly, 'to endure
resignedly the loss of the temporal blessings of the Establishment,'
saw that there was to be no escape from the sacrifice. The dread and
depression must often have been extreme; yet it was not unmixed with a
sustaining joy, as in the case of the following story, with reference
to Dr. Charles Mackintosh (a venerated minister in the North, whose
memorials have recently been published), for which we are indebted to
a correspondent who is a native of the Highlands:--
'One morning in the spring of 1843, I jumped early out of
bed, for my head was full of marbles and peg-tops, and a
dozen or so of games before breakfast has its attractions
for a schoolboy. To my astonishment, I found my father down
before me; nay, he had evidently been there for some time,
for the moment I appeared he folded up the newspaper in
which he had been so unseasonably engaged, and--with a
break in his voice indicating an emotion that was quite
unaccountable to me--he asked me to take it at once over to
the manse, with his compliments to the minister. I went
very readily, for, besides the comfort of fingering the
marbles in my pocket, the hedge-rows were full of young
birds upon whom legitimate hostilities could be waged in
passing. But as I went I reflected on the austere and
stately image of the minister--a man everywhere respected,
but whose face inspired awe rather than love in the
beholder--(Had I not seen the town-boys break and scatter
round one corner of the street as soon as he appeared at
the other?)--and I resolved that my interview with him
should be short. And it was shorter than I expected, for I
had scarcely got out of the sunshine into the manse
evergreens, when I found him in the porch; and when I
offered him the newspaper, he showed me that he had already
got the _Times_, by some unusual express, and as he spoke
he patted my head and smiled--but such a smile, so full of
radiant kindliness! I was confounded; and as I went back
between the edges the birds sang unheeded while I thought
what could be up with the minister. Had anybody left him a
fortune? or had he met one of the shining ones walking
among the hollies in that early dawn? And it was not for
some weeks that I found out that this was what had
happened--the newspaper that morning had brought him the
vote of the House of Commons, finally refusing an inquiry
into the affairs of the Scotch Church, and so making it
certain that within a few weeks he and his aged mother
would leave for ever the home, at the door of which I saw
him; in which his father, the previous minister, had dwelt
peacefully before him, but which the son would now have to
quit without retaining a farthing of his income for the
future. Of course he came out, and 470 ministers with him.'
For the crisis followed in May. The disruption itself (as the actual
and final wrench given to the Church came to be called) concentrated
the anguish of the general sacrifice in a very painful, but, at the
same time, a more poetical form. Sir George Harvey, the present
President of the Scottish Academy, has painted the 'Leaving of the
Manse' with much dignity and power: the grey-haired pastor moving with
feeble steps from the well-known door; his wife's quiet tears, as she
guides the child whose pet lamb refuses to accompany it in its early
exile; the awe-struck respect of the rustics around, while the men
take off their caps, and the women throw their aprons over their faces
and sob. Yet the words which immediately follow what we have already
quoted from Dr. Guthrie, are, perhaps, the most memorable record of
the feelings which accompanied the final step:--
'I remember passing a manse on a moonlight night, with the
minister who had left it,--for the cause of truth, his
brother Scotchman earnestly adds--'No light shone from the
house, and no smoke arose. Pointing to it in the moonlight,
I said, "Oh, my friend, it was a noble thing to leave that
house." "Ah, yes," he replied; "it was a noble thing, but
for all that it was a bitter thing. I shall never forget
the night I left that house till I am laid in my grave.
When I saw my wife and children go forth in the gloaming,
when I saw them for the last time leave our own door; and
when in the dark I was left alone, with none but my God in
the house; and when I had to take water and quench the fire
on my own hearth, and put out the candle in my own house,
and turn the key against myself, and my wife, and my little
ones that night--God in His mercy grant that such a night I
may never again see! It was a noble thing to leave the
manse, and I bless God for the grace that was given to me;
but, for all that, it was a cruel and bitter night to me."'
The actual circumstances of departure must have been very various:
'One minister writes to us that he left the manse with his family in a
snow-storm, when the mountain was white with snow, and the sky was
black with drift; but that he never knew so much of the peace of God
as he did that night, when following his wife and children as they
were carted over the mountain, without knowing where they were to find
a place to dwell in.'
And in many places over Scotland, this was the beginning of sorrows.
In some parts, and especially in the large towns, the actual hardships
were nothing worse than diminution of income and straitened
circumstances; while in not a few cases even that was not felt. But in
the country, and especially in the Highlands, it was different. It was
some years before the manses were built, and homelessness added to
poverty pressed heavily on the outed ministers.
'I remember well,' writes the Highland correspondent we
have already quoted from, and for whose accuracy and good
faith we can vouch, 'how I used to watch one man, the
minister of the neighbouring parish of E----, who, like
many others, was unable to find a place to dwell in among
his own people, and had to come into the neighbouring town.
He was a scholarly and cultivated man, who in his early
days had attained much academical distinction at a Northern
University, but a weak chest and a threatening of heart
complaint now bore heavily upon him. Yet week after week,
as every Sabbath morning came round, he persisted in
driving away for miles through that first inclement winter,
to meet his congregation; and I can remember to this day
his keen, delicate face set to meet a heavy snow-storm from
the north-west, while a hacking cough shook his whole frame
as he set out on his journey, four miles of which must pass
ere he caught sight of the well-sheltered manse, which the
year before he had left for ever.'
But those who, like him, found shelter in a town dwelling, however
humble, were not worst off. The great difficulty was in the country;
even where harbouring the minister was not forbidden (as in some
cases, from a desire to crush out the movement, it was) by the great
landlords. And of course it was with this that Dr. Guthrie's facts
chiefly dealt.
'I have a letter here from a man who has suffered more for
gospel truth than any other I know. He says that he has
been obliged to pack two nurses and eight children into two
beds, in the small house to which they have removed. His
wife took a cold in October, which there was some
apprehension might end in consumption; and at my own table
he told me, what was enough to melt a heart of stone, that
when he and his family gather together at the family altar,
they have not room to kneel before Almighty God, and some
of them require to kneel on the floor of the passage before
they can unite together in their family devotions. Some of
our ministers write that they live in crofter's houses;
some in places as damp as cellars, where a candle will not
burn. One says he sits with his great coat on; another that
the curtains of his bed shake at night like the sails of a
ship in a storm. One minister, a friend of mine, lives in a
house which every wind of heaven blows through. On getting
up one morning he found the house all comparatively
comfortable, and wondered what good genius had been putting
it in order, when he discovered that a heavy shower of snow
had fallen, and stopped up the crevices of the roof.'
Narrating this to a vast meeting in Glasgow, at the close of which he
announced that upwards of £10,000 had been subscribed during that one
day for his scheme, Dr. Guthrie added, with Scotch shrewdness, 'I said
to my friend, that I was glad he had told me that story, for if that
shower of snow did not produce a shower of notes, I would be very much
disappointed.' The story of the shower of snow was hearsay; but we
must make room for what the speaker testifies to having seen with his
own eyes.
'Some of you may have read of the death of Mr. Baird, the
minister of Cockburnspath, a man of piety, a man of
science, a man of amiable disposition, and of the kindest
heart, but a man dealt most unkindly by; although he would
not have done a cruel or unjust thing to the meanest of
God's creatures. I was asked to go and preach for a
collection to his manse, last winter. He left one of the
loveliest manses in Scotland. He might have lived in
comfort in Dunbar, seven or eight miles away, but what was
to become of his people? They were smiting the shepherd,
that they might scatter the sheep. No, said Mr. Baird, be
the consequences what they may, I shall stand by my own
people. I went out last winter, and found him in a mean
cottage, consisting of two rooms, a _but_ and a _ben_, with
a cellar-like closet below, and a garret above; and I
honestly declare, that the house was so small and so cold
that, when sitting by the fire, the one part of the body
was almost frozen, while the other was scorched by the
heat. Night came, and I asked where I was to sleep. He
showed me a closet; there was a fire-place in it, but it
was a mockery, for no fire could be put in it; the walls
were damp. I looked horrified at the place; but there was
no better. Now, said I to Mr. Baird, where are you to
sleep? Come, said he, and I will show you. So he climbed a
sort of trap stair, and got up to the garret, and there was
the minister's study, with a chair, a table, and a flock
bed. His health was evidently sinking under his sufferings;
and, but that I was not well myself, I never would have
permitted him to lie on such a bed. A few inches above were
the slates of the roof, without any covering, and as white
with hoar frost within, as they were white with snow
without. When he came down next morning, after a sleepless
night, I asked him how he had been, and he told me that he
had never closed an eye, from the cold. His very breath on
the blankets was frozen as hard as the ice outside. I say,
that man lies in a martyr's grave ... and I would rather,
like him this day, be laid in the grave, with a grateful
Church to raise my honored monument, than dwell in the
proudest palaces of those that sent him there.'
We have exscinded from these quotations, not only all polemics, but
such not unnatural expressions of indignation as the brethren of the
more unfortunate ministers slipped into. There is no injustice in
omitting these now, for the time has come when all parties, and in
particular most of the members of the Scotch Established Church, are
earnest in expressing their admiration of the heroism of those who
suffered. But, in order to bring out the story completely, and, in
particular, to do justice to the difficulties in the face of which the
enormous task of covering the land with voluntary churches and manses
and ministers was accomplished, it is necessary to go farther down,
and refer to another historical chapter. We allude to the facts which
came out in the Committee of the House of Commons on 'Sites for
Churches (Scotland),' in 1847. No doubt these hardships have nearly
all now passed away, and the great landowners, themselves chiefly
members of the Church of England, have, almost in every case,
consented to sell to the poorer congregations of the Church ground on
which to erect churches. But at first it was perhaps natural that men,
most of them imperfectly acquainted with their countrymen, should have
conceived it possible to stamp out, or starve out, the new church.
And, accordingly, some very strong things were done. The writer
happened to be acquainted with one district, where a gentleman of
large property, a man, too, of immense energy and public spirit,
entertained a passionate opposition to the popular movement, and had
been heard to declare, shortly before the disruption, that he would
'give five hundred trees from his woods, to hang the seceding
ministers upon.' Those innocent vegetables were, fortunately, not
called upon to bear the _novos fructus et non sua poma_, thus destined
for them; but Mr. R---- soon tried another course, which was
practically of not much more use. He suddenly issued a notice, that
every labourer on his estates, who did not go to the parish church,
should cease, after next Monday, to work on his land. Now, in that
part of the Highlands, as in most others, the people had gone out _en
masse_ with their ministers, and no one would go to the Established
Church for the heaviest bribe. What was the result of the attempt at
coercion? The result was simply this, that on that Monday no plough or
spade was touched on all his estates; and Mr. R----, proud and
passionate as he was, had simply and unconditionally to
surrender--knowing, too, that he had consolidated the whole
country-side in a bond of mutual allegiance, which would long survive
the living generation of men. The same sort of oppression was
attempted in particular cases for years afterwards. So late as 1847,
we find, in the evidence before Parliament, many cases, _e.g._, a
witness, whose family had been tenants of a farm, in Strathspey, for
many generations, 'probably since 1630,' saying, that 'there is a
general rumour prevalent in the district, and among the adherents of
the Free Church, that certain of their number may be made examples of
at the earliest opportunity, in the way of being evicted from their
farms, possessions, or holdings', and expressing his own lively
apprehensions in consequence. Nor was this general belief unfounded. A
poor woman, who had offered a shed on her holding, where the
congregation might meet, 'got a message from his lordship's factor,
through another person, that, in the event of her granting such a
site, he would withdraw her lease.' One Donald Cameron, in the same
place, who, being an elder in the church, had come out with his
brethren, was urged by the same middleman with the sensible argument,
'Why, I conceive you to be the greatest fool in the nation; might not
a minister who remained within the walls of a church, be as
instrumental in saving your soul, as those who preach in woods or
fields?' but, on this very fair reasoning failing to make him abandon
his own pastor and principles, he was summarily turned out of his
situation as the great man's overseer. But the most curious instance
of this sort of thing being carried out systematically is given in the
evidence of Mr. M----, of Skye, who was factor for Lord Macdonald, in
that island. In this case, not only was the minister refused a
holding, but a list was made out of all the collectors who ventured to
go round and gather up the small contributions of their brethren, and
all of them received summary notice to quit, some under circumstances
of the greatest hardship. The factor, who seemed, at last, to be
somewhat ashamed of the transaction, told the Committee that 'It was
Lord Macdonald himself who gave me the list of such as he wished to be
served with notices, on account of their being collectors. The day he
was leaving the country he gave me a list, and said, "Here is a list
of fellows that must have notice to quit."' One of the poor men
travelled all the way up to London to try to persuade his landlord to
be merciful; but, as the factor told the Committee, 'I rather think
his lordship did not look at his petition.' Nor was it merely the
officials connected with the Free Church who were turned out: the
innkeeper and the miller of the district were both ejected on account
of their being members, or, as the factor put it, partisans, of that
body. 'Being, as we considered, public servants, we thought it better
to remove them.' The Committee was very severe in dealing with the
allegations of partisanship made _ex post facto_ against these
unfortunate people, the factor not being able to say that he had ever
hinted such a reason to themselves. Mr. Bouverie's question to the
factor, 'Was any _locus penitentiæ_ allowed to the miller?' was met by
the curious reply, 'That would be interfering with the man's
conscience, if he thought he was acting rightly,' and Mr. Fox Maule's
rejoinder, 'And you think it was no interference with his conscience,
turning him out of his farm?' received the placid answer, 'No.' Niel
Nicholson, one of the unfortunate Free Churchmen removed at this time
to make way for a teacher of the Established Church, at the time he
received notice to quit, had a bedridden wife, and his son the eldest
of eight or ten children, laid up with a broken leg. Another man,
removed by a brother of the Established minister, after being ejected
from his land had nowhere to go, and lived for a considerable time in
a kind of tent by the roadside, at last receiving shelter from the
very factor of Lord Macdonald whose general conduct seems to have been
so harsh. The correspondence brought in evidence before the Committee
on this occasion was very instructive, as in the case of the following
laconic missive:--
'ARMADALE, 16_th November_, 1846.
SIR,--I refuse a site for a Free Church for your people.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
MACDONALD.'
But the same minister who was thus addressed as to his church, wrote a
very respectful letter to his landlord, as to his house, trusting
'that your Lordship does not really intend to drive me, with my young
and helpless family, out of my present dwelling-house.'
'I am willing to give any rents for the same which another
will offer; and should your Lordship not choose to give the
farm on any terms, I would be satisfied with the house, and
grass for two cows and a horse. The building of this house
cost me £150, and I have been at considerable expense in
improving the farm, for which, from the shortness of the
lease, I have had as yet little or no returns. Will your
Lordship allow me to observe without offence, that at a
time[50] when we are all suffering under the chastening
hand of our heavenly Father, it looks somewhat unseemly
that we should be the occasion of suffering to one another.
I have already taken the principal part in distributing
food supplied by the Free Church among your Lordship's
cotters and crofters in this country. I am at this moment
in receipt of nearly £40 (I may now say £100) from
respectable private parties in London, Edinburgh, and
Glasgow, with which I am helping to relieve much of the
present distress, besides lessening the burden of
supporting many of the people to your Lordship and tenants.
From all these considerations, I might naturally expect
some favour at your Lordship's hands.'
The answer to this letter came through, another factor, to the effect
that 'Lord Macdonald instructs me to inform you that he has received
your letter, and that it is not his intention either to grant you a
site or give you any lands;' adding that the landlord would not give
him any compensation for his improvements, and that 'he had brought it
all on himself' by persisting in staying with his present
congregation.
But with the House of Commons Blue-book before us, let us leave cases
of individual suffering for a time, and look at the case of whole
congregations. Throughout Scotland the Free Church was, with labour
and difficulty, erecting places in which to worship God. But in many
places the landlords refused a foot of soil on which to do it. The
congregations who met in the open air were not much to be pitied at
their starting, for it was summer, and a thorough soaking with rain
was the worst that befel them. But as the first winter of 1843
darkened down upon them, it was no wonder that men and women gathering
weekly under a canvas tent, and in some cases without even that, but
in the open air, under the bitter inclemency of the northern sky,
began to set up piteous requests to be permitted to meet under some
roof, or at least to be allowed land on which to erect a roof to cover
them. But in many instances this was refused; and during that winter,
in different districts of Scotland whole congregations of not men
only, but delicate women and children (after coming, as the Scotch
manner is, many miles to worship or to sacrament), remained through
each Sunday of December, January, and February, under whatever variety
of snow, sleet, slush, frost, rain, and ice, their native sky, rich
in such alternations, chose to pour upon them. Another year came
round, and though by this time a number of the proprietors had
relented, a great many stood firm, and the second winter showed the
same kind of suffering as the first. The following circumstances in
which one of the ordinary services in a congregation in the South of
Scotland, in February of the year 1844, was held, must have had
parallels during the same months, especially in Skye, and the Western
Isles, and the Highlands of Inverness and other counties. But it is
given by the Edinburgh minister who conducted the meeting, and whose
evidence on matters of which he was eye-witness we have already found
so graphic. In this case the congregation had met for some time in a
canvas tent on a piece of moor or waste ground by the permission of
the tenant; but the landlord, who had already refused a site,
checkmated this evasion of his will by procuring an interdict, or
order of Court, and the congregation were driven in the beginning of
winter to meet on the public road, and to try to erect their tent
there. But the tent could not be erected without digging holes for the
poles, and making holes in the public road was an illegal proceeding,
which they were afraid to attempt so soon after being driven off a
waste moor. Consequently, they met all that winter without shelter, as
described in the following private letter, written at the time, but
afterwards read publicly to the Committee of the House of Commons:--
'Well wrapped up, I drove out yesterday morning to Canobie,
the hills white with snow, the roads covered ankle deep in
many places with slush, the wind high and cold, thick rain
lashing on, and the Esk by our side all the way, roaring in
the snow-flood between bank and brae. We passed Johnnie
Armstrong's tower, yet strong even in its ruins, and after
a drive of four miles a turn of the road brought me in view
of a sight which was overpowering, and would have brought
the salt tears into the eyes of any man of common humanity.
There, under the naked boughs of some spreading oak trees,
at the point where a country road joined the turnpike,
stood a tent, around, or rather in front of which was
gathered a large group of muffled men and women, with some
little children, a few sitting, most of them standing, and
some old venerable widows cowering under the shelter of an
umbrella. On all sides each road was adding a stream of
plaided men and muffled women to the group, till the
congregation had increased to between 500 or 600, gathering
on the very road, and waiting my forthcoming from a mean
inn, where I found shelter till the hour of worship had
come. During the psalm-singing and first prayer I was in
the tent, but finding that I would be uncomfortably
confined, I took up my position on a chair in front, having
my hat on my head, my Codrington close buttoned up to my
throat, and a pair of bands, which were wet enough with
rain ere the service was over. The rain lashed on heavily
during the latter part of the sermon, but none budged; and
when my hat was off during the last prayer, some man kindly
extended an umbrella over my head. I was so interested, and
so were the people, that our forenoon service continued for
about two hours. At the close I felt so much for the
people; it was such a sad sight to see old men and women,
some children, and one or two people pale and sickly, and
apparently near the grave, all wet and benumbed with the
keen wind and cold rain, that I proposed to have no
afternoon service; but this met with universal dissent--one
and all declared that if I would hold on they would stay on
the road till midnight. So we met again at three o'clock,
and it poured on almost without intermission during the
whole service; and that over, shaken cordially by many a
man and many a woman's hand, I got into the gig and drove
here in time for an evening service, followed through rain
in heaven and the wet snow on the road by a number of the
people.'
When this letter was produced to the House it was taken advantage of
by Sir James Graham, with the view of bringing out that so sad a sight
must have had the effect of driving the minister who witnessed it into
some bitterness of expression in the pulpit, such as might perhaps
justify or excuse the Duke of Buccleuch. Said Sir James--
'May I ask whether your own feeling was not that some
oppression had been exercised towards those people? Ans.
Certainly; I felt that the people were in most grievous
circumstances, being necessitated to meet on the turnpike
road; and not only I, but I may mention in addition that
the person who drove me in the gig from Langholm to
Canobie, when we came in sight of that congregation
standing in the open air upon such a day, and in such a
place, burst into tears, and asked me, Was there ever a
sight seen like that?
'You have mentioned that "oppression makes a wise man mad;"
the feelings of the driver might be one thing, but you, a
minister of the gospel, would be very considerably excited
by seeing what you have described; you thinking it an act
of oppression upon the people? Ans. Deep feeling would be
excited--if you mean by excitement that I was ready to
break forth into unsuitable expressions, I say certainly
not; I felt when I saw it as if I could not preach, I was
so overpowered by the sight--to see my fellow-creatures,
honest, respectable, religious people, worshipping the God
of their fathers upon the turnpike road was enough to melt
any man's heart.'
Sir James was disappointed in the object of his examination, for it
turned out that Dr. Guthrie on this occasion had with some
deliberation avoided making any reference to the circumstances of the
congregation, and had turned all the feeling roused within him into
the channel of more fervid preaching of the common gospel.
This was in 1844; the following year the ministers, even in the
bleakest Highlands, began to have some comfort, for now the manse
scheme was set on foot, and was being pressed by Dr. Guthrie; but the
position of these unfortunate and exceptional congregations remained
the same. A minister in Skye, whom the Highlanders there regarded with
boundless veneration, but who was little fitted to face hardships (he
saw his family of eleven delicate children melt into the grave before
him), used to preach at Uig in the open air, with a covering over
himself, but none for the people. 'I have preached,' he says, 'when
the snow has been falling so heavily upon them, that when it was over
I could scarcely distinguish the congregation from the ground, except
by their faces.' Two years more passed on; and even then, in 1847,
there were still thirty-one cases in Scotland in which sites were
absolutely refused, besides many others in which very inconvenient and
humiliating places were alone offered, and in many cases had been
accepted. The House of Commons now took up the matter, and perhaps the
most curious thing in their investigation was the careful
cross-examination of medical men on the question whether it could be
proved that the members of the congregation who met winter after
winter in the open air had actually suffered, or at least had suffered
seriously and fatally from their compulsory exposure. No doubt they
were drenched with rain and chilled with sleet, and then they caught
cold and died; but were the medical men prepared to prove (so argued
the apologists of oppression in the committee)--could the medical men
say that their taking cold was the necessary consequence of the drench
and chill, or that the fatal result was due to this original cause,
and not to subsequent carelessness or blunders in the treatment? For
example, when 'Miss Stewart, Grantown, about eighty years of age, but
strong for her years, and of sound constitution, after attending
public worship of the Free Church in the open air, was attacked by
sub-acute rheumatism,' and died exhausted after four months of the
disease, no one could certainly say that the old lady might not have
taken rheumatism even if she had separated from her neighbours, and
gone peaceably back to the Established Church!
We shall quote no more, however, from the details of this Blue-book,
but it will be remembered that, after taking evidence extending to
nearly five hundred pages of print, the committee unanimously
concurred in expressing an 'earnest hope that the sites which have
hitherto been refused may no longer be withheld.' They held, and all
Englishmen will echo the opinion, that 'the compulsion to worship in
the open air, without a church, is a grievous hardship inflicted on
innocent parties;' while they found that even at that late date of
1847, about 16,000 people were still compelled so to worship, or at
least were 'deprived of church accommodation,' and were without 'a
convenient shelter from the severity of a northern climate.'
But though the site-refusing caused much distress to the people, still
the edge even of this fell chiefly upon the ministers. Driven out of
their old homes in one day, they were often refused new ones, and in
the great Highland counties denied even temporary shelter. Lodging
there was hardly to be got, and in many places the tenantry were
haunted with fears of what the consequences might be to themselves if
they gave house-room where their landlords had already refused a site.
'Many of these ministers' families,' said Dr. Guthrie in 1845, when
the facts were recent,--'some of them motherless families--are thirty,
and fifty, and sixty, and seventy miles separated from them. I think
of the hardship of many of these men going to see their own children;
and of children who see their father so seldom that they do not know
him when he visits them.' One of the most curious cases thus produced
was that of the parish of Small Isles--so called because it consists
of four little islands clustered together in the Atlantic. The
minister, Mr. Swanson, well known now as the friend from youth of Hugh
Miller--famous as a geologist, and much more famous as a Scottish
stonemason, gave up his home, 'placed far amid the melancholy main,'
and came out with the others in 1843; and a site both for manse and
Church being refused on the central island, where the whole
congregation adhered to him, he betook himself to what his friend, the
gifted editor of the _Witness_, dubbed the 'Floating Manse.' It was a
little yacht, 30 feet by 11 feet, in which he lived when visiting his
parish, his family, however, residing in Skye.
In 1844, Hugh Miller set out to visit his friend on a geological
excursion, the scientific record of which he has preserved in his
volume 'The Cruise of the _Betsy_,' where he also gives a most curious
account of the relations of Mr. Swanson, the minister, to the people
to whom he so clung. On one Sunday morning the geologist and his host
got ashore on their way to a low dingy cottage of turf and stone
(just opposite the windows of the deserted manse), which its former
occupant had built with his own money as a Gaelic school for the
people, and which they were obliged to use as a place of worship--'the
minister encased in his ample-skirted storm-jacket of oiled canvas
protected atop by a genuine _sou'-wester_, of which the broad
posterior rim sloped half-a-yard down his back; and I closely wrapped
up in my grey maud, which proved, however, a rather indifferent
protection against the penetrating powers of a true Hebridean
drizzle.' When they got in, the minister took off his sou'-wester, and
preached on 'God so loved the world,' and the visitor remarks how the
attention of his hearers to him who was not only their pastor, but the
sole physician, and that without fee or reward, in the island, was
increased by his new life of hardship and danger undertaken for their
sakes; for they had seen his little vessel driven from her anchorage
just as the evening had fallen, and always feared for his safety when
stormy nights closed over the sea. Next year Miller had himself an
opportunity of judging of this, for while he was on board the _Betsy_
'the water, pouring in through a hundred opening chinks in her upper
works, rose, despite of our exertions, high over plank, and beam, and
cabin door, and went dashing against beds and lockers. She was
evidently fast filling, and bade fair to terminate all her voyagings
by a short trip to the bottom.' They barely saved themselves by the
Point of Sleat interposing between them and the roll of the sea. The
'Floating Manse' will not be forgotten while the works of this
charming writer survive; but very much later than this, on Loch
Sunart, also in the West, a 'floating church' also had to be provided
in consequence of the refusal of a site; and the Sheriff of
Edinburghshire, himself a naval officer in his youth, testified to the
Committee of the House that in the winter of 1846 it answered very
well. It was moored about a hundred yards from the shore, and although
there was a little difficulty in the people going out in boats, still
it was possible to manage it. Many English pedestrians in Sutherland
have seen the famous Cave of Smoo, a vast cavern protected by a
natural gateway of rock, and with an interior chamber where a black
stream flows in perpetual darkness. It was here that the Free Church
congregation of Durness met.
'One minister has preached for two years in a deep sea pit,
which I saw in Sutherlandshire; God's sea is their
protection. No man can say he is ruler of the sea, though
he boasts himself possessor of the land. In a deep gully,
where the rocks are some hundred feet high, a hollow has
been closed in from the sea by a barrier of rocks, which
protects them from the Western Ocean, behind this they
meet; and there, some hundred feet down, where no man can
see them till he stands on the verge of the precipice, and
where they might have been safe from Claverhouse in the
days of old, that minister with his congregation, while the
waves of the Atlantic Ocean were roaring beside them, and
protected by that barrier of rock, met two winters and two
summers; and I know, from the determination of that man and
his people, that there they would have met till their dying
day if the Duke of Sutherland had not granted them
redress.'
But we were treating of the hardships rather of the ministers than of
the congregations, and Dr. Guthrie's question is pertinent,
'Where does the minister go after having preached in such
circumstances? Not in the case I have just mentioned, but
in another, the minister, after preaching to his hearers in
the winter snow, where there was no barrier or creek
sheltering them from the salt sea spray, had to go back,
not to a comfortable home, like you and me, but to a
miserable dwelling, where he had to climb to a lonely and
miserable garret, and in a place where there was little
ventilation, and in a room where he could have no fire, the
minister had to sit from week's end to week's end, till his
health was broken down, and he was obliged to retire from
the battle-field, forced away from it to save himself from
an early, and, I say, a martyr's grave.'
It need not be said that such cases as these were exceptional and
extreme; but, on the other hand, it is certain the facts in these
cases are accurately given, and are representative of other extreme
cases that were never published. Our last quotation from the eloquent
divine who laid the foundations of the homes of a whole Church (and to
whom we shall not apologize for quoting so many facts which are the
inheritance of the Church catholic) is interesting to the writer,
because the younger of the two ministers spoken of in it was one of
the first men whom he remembers in his childhood to have seen in the
pulpit. He gave up no manse in 1843, but belonged to another class,
the licentiates or candidates of the Church, who threw in their lot
with the body now to be stripped of all its prospects and emoluments.
The following visit, narrated by Dr. Guthrie, was to the old minister
of Tongue, 'a man of the highest character and the best affections.'
His son, whom we remember merely as a gentlemanly young cleric, with a
rather plaintive voice, which ranged through endless intonations and
cadences, and was provocative of meditation much more than of
thought, was at this time his father's assistant, and died of the
fever mentioned by Dr. Guthrie.
'The place where Mr. Mackenzie's old manse is situated is
near the small village of Tongue, the prettiest place in
all that country. He had a sort of ancestral right to
it--his family having had possession of it for about a
hundred years--and he had spent several hundreds of pounds
in improving the property, never dreaming but that his son
would inherit it after he was gone. It was told me that his
Grace of Sutherland wrote to him, expressing his hope that
he would not go out, considering how much he had done for
him. Mr. Mackenzie wrote back that he was not forgetful of
his Grace's kindness, but that he owed more to the Lord
Jesus Christ.... When I went to Tongue, where did I find
him? I passed the manse, with its lawns, its trim walks,
and its fine trees. I went on till I came to a bleak,
heather hill, under the lee of which I found a humble
cottage belonging to the parish schoolmaster, where this
venerable man and his son had found a shelter, and were
accommodated for four shillings a week. There was nothing
inviting about the house, though I believe the people were
kind enough. Before the door there was an old broken cart,
and a black peat stack, and everything was repulsive. I
opened the door of the single room, which served for
dining-room, drawing-room, parlour, library, study, and
bedroom, all and everything in one; and there, beyond the
bed, I saw him, nature exhausted. He had never closed his
eyes all night, having passed a night of extreme suffering;
and there, in exhausted nature, he was sitting half dressed
in a chair, in profound slumber, his old grey locks
streaming over the back of the chair on which he was
sitting--a picture of old age, a picture of disease, a
picture of death. I stood for some time before him, and as
I looked round the room I thought, Oh! if I had B----, if I
had any of the men here who are persecuting our poor Free
Church, surely they would be moved by such a sight as this!
I pushed open a door, and in a small mean closet I found
this venerable man's son--a minister of our Church, and a
man who would be an honour to any Church--lying on a fever
bed. His children were seventy miles away, for no house
could be procured for them in the district. The son had
never closed his eyes all night, his own sufferings having
been aggravated by his father's. I tried to console him,
but I was more fit to weep with him than anything else. I
only remember that he said something to this effect: "Ah,
Mr. Guthrie, this is bad enough and hard enough, but,
blessed be God, I don't lie here a renegade; my own
conscience and my father's are in peace." As I came back
amid the driving tempest, I confess that I was more like a
child than a man, so little was I able to resist what I had
seen; and as I came along I saw a little flower, that God
in his providence had taught, when the storm came on, to
close its leaves; and I thought, if God is so kind to this
little flower, he will never see the righteous man
forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.... When I returned
from the North a few days ago, I found a letter, informing
me that this venerable man was dead. Death has tied his
tongue: it has loosed mine. I believe that that man may
have died as much in consequence of the privations he
endured, as John Brown did from the pistol of Claverhouse.
There was some mercy in the dragoon's pistol; it put an end
to the man's sufferings at once. But he is now in his
coffin, and they cannot disturb him there.'
'And what I pray this meeting to remember,' concluded the speaker, 'is
that there are other men in similar circumstances.' There were others,
not a few; but most of them now dwell where they hear not the voice of
the oppressor; and though family records all over Scotland might add
not a few pages to our chronicle of constancy, these are generally too
sacred to draw upon. Enough has been said to recall us to the
circumstances of straitening and suffering under which the
extraordinary work of church organization and construction which we
formerly sketched was carried on; and to remind us that the favourite
motto of the Scottish church, _Nec tamen consumebatur_, has more
modern applications than to those days of the Covenant
'Whose echo rings through Scotland to this hour.'
But this subject has at present a more than historical interest. The
paragraph referring to Scotland and its urgent educational needs in
the Queen's Speech at the opening of this Session, followed by the
immediate introduction of a bill by the Lord Advocate, which was
promptly opposed by his political opponents, on the ground that it
confessedly cuts off the parish schools from any connection with the
Established Church, reminds us of perhaps the most cruel chapter in
the whole history of suffering in 1843. The parish school-masters of
Scotland have always been a most meritorious but very ill-remunerated
set of men; and it might have been hoped that whatever severities a
mistaken sense of duty might have led those in power to exercise
towards the ministers and leaders of the Church after 1843, these
humbler members not being themselves ecclesiastical officials, might
have been allowed to remain in the possession of their hearths and
homes. But it was not so. Many of the schoolmasters were elders of the
Church. All of them were to a certain extent educated men, and took an
interest in the questions raised as to the Church's right to be free
from patronage and from civil dictation generally. The consequence
was, that not a few of them came out along with the other laymen who
followed the ministers in 1843, prepared to take their share of the
pecuniary burdens which were thus brought upon the community. But this
milder lot was not allowed them. They, too, like the ministers, had
their Bartholomew's Day. They would gladly have clung to their humble
daily work in the school-house, and more gladly still to the little
home built generally at the end of it, during the week, with bare
liberty on the Sabbath to join with either congregation in worship;
but it was not to be. Throughout Scotland, every schoolmaster who
joined with the Church in fulfilling its pledge of 1842, was at once
ejected from his small house, and deprived of his smaller income; and
the consequences to them and to their families were in many cases
misery, approaching almost to starvation. The result to education was
not disadvantageous; for the Free Church, having thrown upon it the
burden of so many men deprived of bread, for no other crime than their
attachment to itself, was in no mood to shrink from the duty. It at
once added to the rest of its organization an education scheme. Homes
were gradually built for the ousted schoolmasters, and in as many
places as possible they continued to teach the same children of the
same hamlets where they had previously dwelt. The Free Church has now,
or had very recently, 620 schools and 645 teachers, and taught upwards
of 60,000 of the youth of Scotland, many of whom were in the most
remote and destitute parts; while its normal schools are reported by
her Majesty's inspectors as the most efficient in Scotland. Yet for a
proper national scheme, such as has for many years been desired in
Scotland, the Free Church would at once be ready to give up an
organization so interesting in its origin, and so powerful in its
results. Some years ago, in the midst of the keenest opposition by the
Conservative party and the Established Church, the choice of a teacher
of any denomination was allowed to the heritors; and next year,
whatever else is done on this most important subject, it is plain that
the last strands of exclusive connection will be parted.
The remaining matter which may come before Parliament during the next
session is one in which the other Voluntary and Presbyterian Churches
of Scotland are quite as much interested as that which dates from
1843. It is the proposal to transfer the patronage of the churches
from the few existing possessors, partly to the landowners, and partly
to the communicants of the Established Church, but excluding other
parishioners. A Committee was appointed in 1869 by the General
Assembly, to watch over a legislative measure to this effect, and
their first step was to go to the Prime Minister. In answer to Mr.
Gladstone's questions, they explained that the chief reason for the
sudden change of sentiment on the part of a body which had hitherto
been distinguished by its uncompromising defence of the present rights
of patrons, was a desire to conciliate the Presbyterians outside by a
deference to their well-known views. On this point, and on the
proposal generally, Mr. Gladstone requested that a formal memorial
might be drawn up, not only 'because it is desirable that the
Government should have in their hands some statement with some degree
of authority,' but also to instruct 'the Parliament of the three
kingdoms' in a matter which Scotchmen alone can be expected accurately
to know.
The desired 'Statement on the Law of Church Patronage' has accordingly
now been issued and transmitted to the Government, and will doubtless
be laid on the table of the House. It is a very remarkable document,
giving the ecclesiastical history of Scotland with great fairness
until it comes down to quite recent times, but making it in
consequence quite impossible for any Legislature with the least sense
of justice to reconstitute church endowments in the way desired. It
narrates how patronage was abolished in Scotland at the Revolution
settlement; and how its restoration by an Act in 1711 (protested
against by the Free Church in 1843 as altering a thing reserved from
the jurisdiction of the Union Parliament) was 'one of the acts of a
conspiracy for the purpose of bringing back the Stuart dynasty to the
throne.' The Assembly of 1735 stated in an address to the King, 'That
it was done in resentment against the Church of Scotland.' Bishop
Burnet, present at the passing of the Act, says it was intended to
'weaken and undermine' the Church of Scotland. The 'Statement' then
goes on to show how it was not merely the Free Church that protested
against the outrage: the Assembly of 1812 protested that 'the Act
abolishing patronage must be understood to be a part of our
Presbyterian constitution secured to us by the Treaty of Union
forever;' and for seventy years in succession thereafter the Assembly
yearly instructed its Committee to attempt to get redress. Gradually,
however, as the cold eighteenth century crept on, a party began to
dominate in the Church which took the same view of patronage which was
afterwards formulated by Dr. Mearns and Dr. Cook, and by the aid of
the civil courts became finally triumphant in 1843. And thus followed
the first secession. Ebenezer Erskine, a great name in those northern
regions in that dark century, protested publicly that 'those professed
Presbyterians who thrust men upon congregations without, and contrary
to, the free choice their king had allowed them, were guilty of an
attempt to jostle Christ out of his government.' He and three other
ministers were thereupon deposed in 1733, and 'appealed unto the first
free, faithful, and reforming General Assembly of the Church of
Scotland.' The second secession, in 1752, was a still more exact
parallel to the third great schism of 1843, for the founders of the
Relief Church in 1752 were driven out, like Dr. Chalmers and his
friends, because they refused to take a personal part in ordaining
those whom the patron had presented, but whom the people refused to
receive. These circumstances are very fairly narrated in the
Statement, which farther refers to the evidence given before the
Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Law of Patronage in
1834, as giving 'the best summary of the historical and legal aspects
of the question which we possess.' That Committee, it is stated, came
to no definite finding, because the necessity for doing so was
superseded by the Act of the previous General Assembly, giving the
people a veto against an unacceptable presentee--an Act which was 'not
passed without a full assurance from the law officers of the Crown in
Scotland that it was quite within the power of the Church.' Within a
year thereafter, however, a question arose as to this, and a narrow
majority of the Scotch judges, backed by the House of Lords, held that
it was not within their power. The Church at once took steps to appeal
to the Legislature to correct the anomaly, and concede the power which
was questioned; asking only that in the meantime the courts should not
force them to take a part in violating with their own hands those
rights of the Christian people which they had affirmed. The refusal to
allow this brought on the disruption. The 'Statement' winds up with
pointing out how 'the non-intrusion controversy thus passed into that
of spiritual independence;' and 'it was on a question thence arising
in regard to the respective provinces of the ecclesiastical and civil
courts that the secession of 1843 actually took place.' They add,
however, that though in 1836 the Church refused to condemn patronage
altogether, and was satisfied with the supposed security of the Veto
Act, in 1842 this as well as other matters came to maturity, and the
General Assembly resolved, 'That patronage is a grievance; has been
attended with much injury to the cause of true religion in this
Church and kingdom; is the main cause of the difficulties in which the
Church is at present involved; and that it ought to be abolished.' Far
from conciliating opponents, however, this resolve was made part of
the reason by the courts and the moderate party for driving its
authors into disruption.
The candour and fairness of the earlier historical part of this
memorial will always give it importance; but the gross inadequacy of
the practical measures proposed has subjected it in Scotland to an
unfair amount of ridicule. Dr. Cook, as the head of the moderate
party, the proper representative of those who stayed in in 1843, at
once protested against it, asserting that patronage is essential to
the stability of the Church of Scotland. Dr. Tulloch, of St. Andrew's,
as representing the broad section of the Church, repudiated it two
days after. Mr. Story, the biographer of Dr. Lee, and Dr. Wallace, who
is Dr. Lee's successor in Edinburgh, made haste to attack it also. The
great difficulty within the Church seems to be the proposed refusal to
admit all parishioners to vote for the parish minister. So long as he
was appointed by a single laird or nobleman, who might be a stranger
altogether, that difficulty was not felt. The people were excluded,
but they were excluded equally. It is now proposed, however, that the
minister should be paid by the whole country, but should be appointed
by the communicants of the Established Church alone, excluding the
members of the older and properly anti-patronage bodies, who have all
the same creed, but whose principles of Church polity the Established
Church, itself a minority of the nation, is only now adopting. It is
clearly the vague sense of injustice and wrong thus caused which is at
the root of the dissatisfaction everywhere expressed with the proposed
measure, even by members and ministers of the Scottish Establishment
itself. But another more important result has been the clear
recognition that there is no chance of thereby 'conciliating' the
older anti-patronage Presbyterians or uniting the Church. Last year we
expressed the belief that any fair proposals or endeavours on the part
of the Establishment would have the effect of at least producing a
pause in the projected union of the voluntary Presbyterians outside.
The 'Statement' to be laid before Parliament has had decidedly the
effect of consolidating that union, and there is no doubt now that it
will go on, though probably in the meantime rather by way of mutual
co-operation. A very short time will see the Free Church, the United
Presbyterian Church, and the Reformed Presbyterian Church--all the
large Presbyterian communities who have protested against patronage,
and whose leading principle is the liberation of religion from State
control--absolutely united in their work, and partitioning Scotland
between them. It need not be said how hopeless is the proposal to
choose this time for asking Parliament to reconstitute the endowment
of a minority of the Scotch people at the expense of the whole, or how
fatal to the Church the success of the scheme would be, even if it
could be expected to succeed.
The movement is more likely to be in quite another direction. Dr.
Wallace, in his paper on 'Church Tendencies in Scotland,' and some
other men not belonging to his party in the Kirk, have rather
indicated that the Highlands of Scotland, with which a large part of
our paper has dealt, should be handed over from their own body to that
disestablished church which for the last twenty-five years has with
increasing success taken charge of it. In July last, this subject came
up in the House of Commons, in the discussion upon Mr. M'Laren's
Church Rates Abolition Bill for Scotland, a measure which its able and
energetic mover has withdrawn, upon receiving a promise from the
Government to introduce one next year upon their own responsibility.
On some matters raised by this bill differences of opinion were
expressed. Mr. Graham, member for Glasgow, said that he knew from
experience that 'a large number of his constituents--the enormous mass
of the people of Scotland--bitterly resented these compulsory
assessments;' while his colleague, Mr. Anderson, opposed the bill as
premature, on the ground that 'if, as is very probable, in the course
of a few years the House should think proper to disestablish and
disendow that Church, its property will have to be handed over to the
State.' But the special matter of the Highlands, a scandal which even
the friends of the Establishment are desirous to see wiped out at any
expense, was brought forward by Mr. Ellice, who 'agreed with the hon.
member for Edinburgh, that in many parts of the country the Church of
Scotland was but the caricature of a Church, and that the presence of
the Established Church, in places where it was only represented by
five or ten persons, was a reproach to the Legislature. He hoped the
Lord Advocate, when dealing with the question, would also deal with
those useless churches and manses which were a standing reproach to
common sense, and ought no longer to be supported.' The Lord Advocate
was cautious in his rejoinder to this appeal, restricting his
observations to the Highland churches and manses '_provided by_
_Parliament_ at a time when the Church numbered a larger portion of
the population than it does now.' With regard to these--the annual
payments in connection with which form, perhaps, the most offensive
example of mere waste of public money at present existing--the
Government officer said, 'So far as I have been able to ascertain, it
would be in accordance with good sense to make provision whereby that
accommodation, which is not profitable either to the kingdom or the
Church, might close.' Any money saved in this direction will almost
certainly be devoted to the education of Scotland; for the Free Church
will refuse a concurrent endowment which would include Roman
Catholics, and the long Conservative battle against a good Education
Bill beyond the Tweed, cannot be successful for ever. When the Scotch
Presbyterians form their Union (in which as Mr. Gordon pointed out in
Parliament, there is no reason why the members of the present
Established Church should not join), they will undertake a weighty
responsibility for the religious good of Scotland. But the weight
which they unite to bear will be easy, compared to that crushing load
which fell upon one of them in 1843, and which yet became to it only
such a burden 'as wings are to the bird.'