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 01' 
 

 PRESBYTERIAN 
 
 TRADF-UNION;- 
 
 OB, 
 
 THE PLOT TO ROB 
 
 SHS 
 
 KIRK OF SCOTLAND IN CANADA. 
 
 TO MEMBERS OF THE DOMINION PARLIAMENT. 
 
 f BIOS 26 OaSSTTS. 
 
 HA-MITTON: 
 
 DUNCAN, STEWART & CO., 
 1875- 
 
 
 T 
 
:BKaoovl^3;iP 
 
PRESBYTERIAN TRADE-UNION ; 
 
 OB 
 
 THE PLOT TO EOB THE KIRK OF SCOTLAND 
 
 IN CANADA. 
 
 To the Honourable tJie Members of Parliament of Canada. 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 The deep laid plot to rob the Kivk of Scotland, which has long been 
 concocting, hae at last disclosed itself to the public in the bold attempt to 
 make your Honours sanction such a crime. Traitors in the Kirk, whose just 
 meed should be expulsion from her walls and from aU honourable society, now 
 make havoc of the Church they swore to defend. Wolves of the forest, 
 whose howl resounds from Ontario to Nova Scotia's shore, having thrown off 
 the sheep's skin, now rend the fold which gave them shelter, while foes out- 
 side who have no more right to it than the dogs of the prairies are clamorous 
 for the spoil. Men who have ate the bread of the Kirk all their life-time 
 now conspire with these foes to throw her down and let them in like a flood. 
 Clerics and quasi-clerics without number, many of whom never saw the in- 
 side of a college-door, and others had but a few months trimming within the 
 wooden walls of Kingston or Toronto, now throng our sanctuaries, placing 
 themselves on a level with the educated ministers of the Church of Scotland ! 
 Dissentersfrom the Established Church, and whose principles are diametrically 
 opposed to hers, now sacrifice any little principle they ever had to get you to 
 grant them her temporalities, while the traitors inside the Kirk in league 
 with them expect to share in the plunder ; and both parties, with the most 
 abject submission at your feet, implore your Honours to give them by law 
 what they so greedily covet. 
 
 This astounding piece of inteUigence has startled the whole community. 
 The attempt on the part of unprincipled traitors, backed by disloyal dissent- 
 ers, to plunder the loyal and Protestant Church of Scotland — strip her of her 
 possessions — seize, under a coloui' of law, her temporalities, and, erasing her 
 very name (that national and world-renowned r.iime which every laud pro- 
 nounces with honour) extinguish her, if possible, raising on her ruins a 
 spurious Presbyterianism, and, with all this, deceive your Honours as to 
 their intention by disguising their plot under the deceptive name of 'Union,' 
 and thus lead you unawares to sanction what they crave — such an attempt 
 at public robbery, without a parallel even in America, has roused the in- 
 dignation of all right-miuded men and all true subjects of the British Crown 
 throughout the whole Dominion. 
 
 When the notice first appeared that application would be made to 
 Parliament to enable deserters from the Kirk, along witli certain so-called Pres- 
 byterian sects to get possession of her property — "to liold," as they boldly say, 
 qft^r their desertion, property inalienably bequeathed to her faithful adherents 
 
 .fV 
 
 in nthor ■orrvr-. 
 
 rlc!_ 
 
 rnh aiid plunder them, — a proposal as insulting 
 
 your Honours as ruinous to their intended victims — many were astonished, 
 
 188385 
 
ami could hardly believe their eyes ! Yor this monstrous proposal is the same 
 tiling as if any opponents of the Church of Eome, or of England in Canada 
 were to ask you to empower them to share the respective properties of these 
 Churches e^jually with their rightful owners ; or, as if any wretched farmers 
 coveting the highly-cultivated land of a good farmer, should apply to you to 
 make them full sharers witJi him of its profits— or, as if any doUarless ill- 
 doers in the Dominion, envying a prosperous neighbour's wealth, were to 
 apply to you tor an Act to incorporate them all in one body, and, in the 
 words of your applicants, " enable them all united under one name, to hold 
 corporately after their union " the property belonging to all the said parties 
 in the same manner as it was held by each of them respectively previous 
 to the Union !"~m other words, make the respective properties which 
 belonged to each before the Union be thrown together, and then shared 
 equally by them all after the Union!!— that is, make both the dollarless 
 partners and the rich one aU share alike, and henceforth carry all one 
 purse!!! Very good idea this to get money easily— get law to rob one's 
 neighbour, and sap the foundations of the tenures of every kind of property 
 in the realm ! Nay, the appUcation implies much more than this; it imphes 
 nothmg less than the destruction of the party intended to be plimdered • for 
 while masking their designs under the deceptive name 'Union,' the cloven 
 toot appears in the statement that the name of the new sect they intend to 
 form shall be the "Presbyterian Church in Canada or British America," dis- 
 covermg that it is the design of your applicants both utterly to plunder and 
 destroy our Kirk without mercy, and obliterate the very name "Church of 
 Jscotland ' altogether, so as, if possible, to leave no trace or memorial of 
 their deeds behmd them. " This is the heir, come let us kill him, that the 
 uihentance may be ours!" is their sentiment. The whole movement in 
 short IS a daring conspiracy and revolt against the Parent Church, and their 
 attempt to seize her inheritance, after destroying her, a most scandalous 
 piece of dishonesty, the law being universally laid down that those secedin- 
 from anybody forfeit all right to its property. And the Act they wish voS 
 to pass gmng them power to do with our Kirk and its property as they 
 please, is an Act utterly subversive of the rights of property. Call it by auV 
 name you please, it is simply the confiscation of her property and an edict 
 ot persecution. For an Act to enable apostates and deserters from the Kirk 
 I°-n PI ^, ^' *^^^^^' ^P^stficy and desertion property belonging only to her 
 iaithlul adherents- to enable ahen sects to share therein, and even the peo- 
 ple by a majority of votes (and how easily this is obtained by bribery!) to 
 alter a any time her constitution and name, and give another her property- 
 property legally deeded, and solemnly vested in trust, to that Kirk, and there- 
 tore as much her rightful property as any other in the Dominion is that of 
 Its owner— IS an outrageous violation of every principle of morality and ius- 
 tice,_ and is as disgraceful to the Legislature that grants as to the parties that 
 
 When this bold attack on the rights of property became known, many 
 asked me, " Who could be at the bottom of this infamous plot "'• My an- 
 swer simply was, "Our traitors, of course! our political agitators! that 
 miserable section of our Synods both in the Upper and in the Maritime 
 Provinces composed of both Scotch and native ministers, who for years past 
 have been insidiously sapping the foundations of the Kirk, shaking the 
 
 n XTii f fi ^' n?^' *f ^Tl ^"If ^i"g extensively for funds of all kinds 
 piofessecUy for the Church of Scotland, when they had in view her destruc- 
 tion; monopohsmg the money sent from Bcotb.ind so as to Rtrft??"then their 
 
is the same 
 ill Canada, 
 es of these 
 3d farmers, 
 y to you to 
 larless ill- 
 h, were to 
 md, in the 
 ne, to hold 
 lid parties 
 Y previous 
 'ies which 
 en shared 
 
 dollarless 
 7 all one 
 
 roh one's 
 [ property 
 
 it implies 
 iered ; for 
 he cloven 
 
 intend to 
 rica," dis- 
 mder and 
 Church of 
 morial of 
 , that the 
 'ement in 
 
 and their 
 3andalous 
 ( seceding 
 wish you 
 7 as they 
 it by any 
 
 an edict 
 
 I the Kirk 
 ly to her 
 the peo- 
 
 Dery!) to 
 •operty — 
 nd there - 
 3 that of 
 and jus- 
 I'ties that 
 
 n, many 
 My an- 
 •rs ! that 
 Vlaritime 
 Bars past 
 king the 
 
 II kinds 
 destruc- 
 len their 
 
 ft 
 
 own position in wealthy towns, but outtiuij off all aid (where most needed) 
 from poor couutry congregations, to starve them into ' Union ' — preventing 
 the extention of the Kirk — crippling her energies by every means in their 
 power — bleeding in fact the Kirk nearly to death, and then reporting she 
 could not live; colleaguing with enemies to destroy her, dragging her at 
 length as a criminal before every Legislature in the Dominion to receive her 
 death-blow, and shamelessly glorying in throwing down the church of their 
 fathers ! — throwing dust, meanwhile in the eyes of the Church at home to 
 hide their plot. Such a widespread conspiracy against the Kirk is only 
 parallel (to compare Church with State matters) by the mutiny of the 
 Sepoys in India against the authority of their sovereign. In both cases you 
 see the same plans adopted, the same aggressive spirit, the same scheming 
 and agitation, seduchig of people from their allegiance, intriguing and con- 
 spiring with enemies, the same depreciation of British rule and assumption 
 of power, the same attempting to seize the property and trample on the 
 rights of others, and the same persecution of all who do not join them ; in 
 short, a deep-laid plot to overturn the existing power, and raise anotuer on 
 its ruins, and the same false reports sent to the Old Couutry to conceal it. 
 Their forming a league with our inveterate enemies, the Dissenters, now 
 openly compassijig the disestablishment of the Church of Scotland, does 
 itself show what their plot means. As for those open enemies, their hostility 
 is harmless compared with the treachery of the conspirators inside the 
 Kirk ; it is only part of the old battle which Dissenters have ever waged, and 
 are now waging, so fruitlessly against our Established Church. Your 
 Honours are indeed aware that ever since the establishment of the Protest- 
 tant Kirk in Scotland she has been exposed to the assaults of enemies. In 
 ancient times she had to contend against all the power of Home on the one 
 hand, and of England on the other, and in the maintenance of her just 
 rights, she passed through many trials and sufferings : for thus it is the 
 orc\inance of God that " through much tribulation his people should enter 
 the Kingdom." In times more recent we find that for a hundred years past 
 she has had enemies of a smaller sort sprung from her own bosom, the said 
 Dissenters, who left her for reasons they thought sufficient, but who, instead 
 of occupying an independent field, have remained thorns in her Ide, full of 
 bitterness to the mother to wbom they owe all the good they ever possessed. 
 And strange to say, their rancour was not confined to the Old Land, but has 
 been carried with them to the new, " nursing their wrath" till they could 
 pour it forth on some inoffensive Kirk ! And so in Canada, as in other parts 
 of the empire, wherever the time-honoured Kirk of Scotland planted her 
 standard, and the triumphant colours of the Scottish Covenant floated on 
 the breeze, there also her enemy was sure to find her. I can point to places 
 in Canada where the Kirk had long laboured in the Gospel, Avhen Dissenters 
 came and framed meeting-houses witliin a few yards of the Scots' Kirks to 
 obstruct the good work of the estabhshment. Oh ! shame, shame ! " tell it 
 not in Gath!" Yea, tell.it all the way, if you please, from Gath to New 
 Glasgow, and from Askelon to Ottawa, thai every one may know exactly the 
 animus of our foes, and let their tenantless meeting-houses stand as memo- 
 rials thereof. 
 
 To destroy the Established Chu.-ch of Scotland has thus ever been the 
 object of Dissenters at home and abroad, as ii persecution were a chief part 
 of their religion. For this they have lived and laboured— united and dis- 
 united, and united again with all who would help them against her— for this, 
 Proteus-like, ihey have changed sides anri forms, and names, passing under 
 
various ' voluntary ' designations until about thirty years ago they took the 
 name of ' United Presbyterians of Scotland;' shortly after which those of 
 them that were in Canada, findin;j; some fresh Dissenters from our own Kirk 
 who left us in 1844 in imitation of the Free Church of Scotland, readily 
 joined with these against us, both parties adopting an entirely new name, 
 ' Canada Presbyterian Church,' and both now sacrificing their very patriotism 
 with their principles (Canada having nothing to do with tJieir Presbyterian- 
 isra and Voluntaryism and Froechurchism, being diametrically opposed) 
 sacrificing, 1 say, their very patriotism with their principles, and out of very 
 doggedness and rage against our glorious national name, spiting themselves 
 to the extent of sinking and losing altogether the Scottish name, and assum- 
 ing (without a shadow of authority) a name unknown to Church history, to 
 catch some favour in Canada. Behold then our old foes the Dissenters, 
 Scotch U. P's., and Free Church imitators, appearing on the scene abroad 
 in a new shape, doubled and disguised under a (as usual) self-dubbed sou- 
 briquet of " Canada Presbyterian Church !" StartUng combination ! terrible 
 commination this against the true Kirk! When Herod and Pilate were 
 made friends it was fatal to Christ. And now let us see how this united body 
 whom I shall still call by their proper name 'Dissenters,' have carried on 
 the war against our peace-loving Zion. For many years they had fought 
 furiously against her in two divisions, attacking her right and left like two 
 demons under the seperate commands of Free and U. P. " The rains 
 descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon" the 
 devoted Kirk — but they prevailed nothing. The peace-loving Kirk of Scot- 
 land, founded on the Rock of Ages, and protected by her Divine Master, 
 remained unmoved by the windy storm and tempest ! New tactics were 
 resolved upon — the two commands were merged into one (their principles as 
 we said, sacrificed again) under the mysterious jargon of C. P. C. in the 
 Upper, and P. C. L. P. in the Lower Provinces, (which I suppose amount to 
 the same thing.) And now one grand united simultaneous assault was niade 
 — the Kirk never felt it ! New counsels were planned. To storm the strong 
 bulwarks of the Kirk was found impossible, but to win over t/ie conspirators 
 insidt the camp, who were now raging to destroy her, was very easy. The war 
 went on — but while the true sons of th^i Kirk bravely defended her leaguered 
 walls, lo ! to their horror a Hag of surrender was run up at Kingston, quickly 
 followed by others at Chatham, Hemmingford, Quebec and Charlottetown. 
 Fired with indignation at this treacherous movement, the whole Kirk from 
 Niagara to Nova Scotia denounced the traitoie, and threatened them with 
 condign punishment. All the assaults of the enemy outside were nothing to 
 this cursed conspiracy within the camp. All our hardships and sufferings 
 hitherto were nothing till now, when this miserable Sepoyism sprung up 
 among our own brethren. The mutineers, throwing off the mask, now 
 appeared in their true colours, and their re^olt disclosed itself in all its 
 horrors. Nothing but confusion and anarchy reigned around as brand- 
 ishing their axes, the conspirators broke down the carved work of the 
 sanctuary, and fired the gates to open a passage to the enemy. Fierce was 
 our struggle to extinguish the flames and save the stronghold — brother was 
 arrayed against brother — late friends turned on us like fiends — every wicked 
 passion of plunder and destruction was let loose, and every feehng of love, 
 gratitude, and fidelity trampled in the dust. Vainly did ve remonstrate 
 with them, and call on them as Kirkmen, both Scotch and Native, to lay 
 down the weapons of their rebellion, and remember their duty to their 
 Mother Kirk and their vows of allegiance to her, and even threaten them 
 
jy took the 
 li those of 
 r owu Kirk 
 lid, readily 
 new name, 
 patriotism 
 Bsbyteriftii- 
 ' opposed) 
 )ut of very 
 themselves 
 md assum- 
 history, to 
 Dissenters, 
 jne abroad 
 iibbed sou- 
 ml terrible 
 Pilate were 
 united body 
 carried on 
 lad fought 
 ft like two 
 ' The rains 
 upon" the 
 rk of Scot- 
 tie Master, 
 iictics were 
 rinciples as 
 , C. ill the 
 ! amount to 
 t was niade 
 1 the strong 
 conspirators 
 . The war 
 !r leaguered 
 ;on, quickly 
 trlottetown. 
 
 Kirk from 
 
 them with 
 e nothing to 
 1 sufferings 
 
 sprung up 
 mask, now 
 f in all its 
 
 as brand- 
 ork of the 
 
 Fierce was 
 brother was 
 i^ery wicked 
 ng of love, 
 -emonstrate 
 itive, to lay 
 ity to their 
 eaten them 
 
 iov their treachery. Carried headlong by the vile lust of spoil and power, they 
 would listen to no proposals ; and aided by the foe outside, they increased in 
 numbers, and finally goi^.g over to the enemy's camp at St. John, shamefully 
 made terms with the foe. Some of these disgraceful terms were published, 
 but many kept secret, namely, that the Kirk's deserters were to be well paid 
 for enlisting into the enemy's ranks — the arch-traitor bargained to get all 
 the students of the new sect to fill his empty benches, though there waa 
 some grumbling about this. Each traitor minister made sure of doubling his 
 stipend either by annexing the congregation of some high-principled non- 
 conforming brother, or by getting a double share of the temporalities. One 
 from an island agreed to betray his Kirk only on condition of having $800 
 a year added to his stipend — they made him content with the half of it, 
 especially as his two brother clerics agreed to do the same for a fourth of the 
 money. There was some quarrelling about the disposal of funds to be 
 stolen from the Kirk, and of her Church Property, Manses, Kirks and Col- 
 leges, the new recruits of the enemy's army wishing to keep the lion's share. 
 The negotiations were once near broken off by such contentions when the 
 leader of the traitors rose and said, '' Friends and accomplices, we have done 
 much, and will yet do more when we have obtained the all important legis- 
 lation ; for of our spoils we cannot yet be sure till the law says so. Then I'll 
 make you all equal out of the confiscated possessions of the Old Kirk, whilk 
 I calc'late will amount to some hundreds of thousands, forby a guid hawl I 
 expect to draw by a Uttle manoevering frae the Colonial Committee !" This 
 speech silenced contention. A bribe moreover of $400 per annum from the 
 spoils of the Kirk held out to disabled ministers as a retiring allowance 
 induced a multitude who were never inside a college door to put on a white 
 tie, and join the confederacy. Among other things it was agreed to abohsh 
 the Gaelic language, as none of the ignorant Unionists could speak it, and 
 because the Highlanders stood true to their national Kirk. Many other 
 matters were discussed, but the spoliation of the Kirk of Scotland (concealed 
 under the name of 'Union') was the main point agreed on by all. The 
 spoil to be obtained thereby was immense in the eyes of the half-starved 
 Dissenters, and even of the traitor- jackals that provided the feast for them. 
 Perhaps to those present who knew the legal rights of parties, it was amusing 
 to see the robbers of the Kirk dividing in anticipation property to which 
 they must forfeit all claim, and the frantic joy of themselves and accomplices 
 at the thought of sharing it between them. Since the comsummation of 
 this piece of villainy man.> professions of affection and many sweet words 
 have passed between our old and new foes, and many coquettings between 
 them, to the infinite disgust of all true men of the Kirk — the villain trai- 
 tors generally concluding their black deeds of treachery by profanely taking 
 the Sacrament along with their accomplices, and then singing a hymn 
 together, whtn the only song that became them was, ''Such a parcel of rogues 
 in a nation/" 
 
 Meanwhile the defenders of the Kirk were as determined to maintain her 
 independence as her traitors to sell it, and stoutly manned her walls, and re- 
 paired her breaches. Not less eagerly did the foe renew the assault, and 
 hurl his wrath on the old battlements that proudly flaunted the scarlet and 
 blue colours. Powerfully re-inforced by the new schismatics, the joint-armies 
 of the enemy assailed us' with re-doubled fury on all sides. Pitched battles 
 from the remotest parts of the Provinces have been fought all the way up to 
 the ramparts of Quebec and Abram's Heights, and thence to Ottawa, 8,nd 
 fought by them in vain. Unable still, therefore, to overthrow our Zion so 
 
nobly (lefended, our foes and traitors are at their wit's end— one day launch- 
 ir.3 against us every Legislature in the Dominion, and the next'trying a 
 stratagem of soft words, to destroy us, and effect by fraud what, even united, 
 they cannot by force. But vainly do they show tlleir teeth, and vainly does 
 the wolf put on the sheep's clothing, and cry " I'niou ! Union ! ! " We will 
 neither be intimidated by their threats, nor deceived by their flattery, to 
 swerve a hair's-breadth from our high position as the Established Church of 
 Scotland. Gladly, yea generously, will the Church of Scotland receive her 
 erring children back to the fold- she keeps the way open for their return — 
 and earnestly desires their re-union with her ; but this can only be on one 
 proper basis— that of herself. The Church of Scotland is determined to hold 
 her honoured position; maintain her independence in the face of all enemies, 
 and s^corns to lose her national identity by union with any one. Friends of 
 the Kirk, be not deceived by the wolf's cry — what is " Union " to their body 
 is to yours dis-union and death ! Thus I have placed before your notice : 
 
 (I.) OUR AGGRESSORS: respecting whom (to speak first of the 
 Old Schismatics of 1844) some things will readily strike you ; 
 
 1. That on this side of the Atlantic there was no need for such Dis- 
 senters at all ; that whatever reasons might once exist in Scotland for dis- 
 sent, (for even there every cause of it is now removed), none ever existed in 
 Canada. As expressed by the Synod of 1844, and " agreed to by ali," the al- 
 leged causes of disruption at home do not exist here." This being univer- 
 sally admitted, even by the said Schismatics then in Synod, nnd our Kirk 
 being perfectly free, dissent therefrom was wholly unjustifiable ; and when it 
 originated with the said schismatics only fit'C days afler they had agreed to the 
 foregoing resolution, (strange inconsistency !) it was characterized by the 
 said Synod as "the most perfectly uncalled for, the mof;t utterly unaccount- 
 able schism which ever took place in the Church of Christ !"^= the so-called 
 " Canada Presbyterian " sect sprung from that schism, and, like their breth- 
 ren -n the Lower Provinces, united with the older Scotch Dissenters, being 
 therefore nothing but a poor iniitfition of, without a single reason for, the 
 Free Secession of Scotland, has tlnis gone on a wiong footing from its com- 
 mencement—been actually no Clu^rch at all, but, themselves bewg witnesses, a 
 collection of schismatics, without cause, in revolt against the true Kirk of 
 Christ, from the hour of their split down to the present day ! 
 
 2. That hi propagating dissent abroad, they have necessarily maintained 
 an aggressive policy towards tlie Kirk, using every means to injure her while 
 imposing on the credulity of the ignorant ; scattering broadcast their favourite 
 charges, that the Kirk of Scotland is the creaiare of the State; her stipend a 
 tax on the nation ; that the Queen is her head, while Jesus is theirs ; that 
 our receiving endowments in Scotland was selling the Lord Jesus for thirty 
 pieces of silver, (which silver pieces these changeable voluntaries now so 
 greedily covet). Anything laore false or ignorant cannot bo innigined. Tha 
 merest tyro in Scottish history knows that the Kirk of Scotland shaped her 
 own creed and con iitution from the Word of God alone, independently of 
 the State, and was fully organized as a Church under Christ, her only Head, 
 long before the State had anything to do with her; and that the State is X)nlv 
 in honourable aUiance with her at this hour, as well becomes a Christian 
 nation ; wliile, as to her moderate endowments, they are simply of the nature 
 of interest for value received, (in land and other property), by the landed 
 proprietor, which he is bound to pay to her under the most solemn national 
 
 * Sijfued bjT the Rev. Dr. Cook, Quebec, now himse:! aiding the new schism. 
 
lay launch- 
 t trying a 
 cen united, 
 •aiiilv does 
 VVe will 
 Hattery, to 
 
 Ohnrch of 
 receive her 
 r return — 
 be on one 
 lied to hold 
 11 enemies, 
 Friends of 
 
 their body 
 
 notice : 
 rat of the 
 
 such Dis- 
 id for dis- 
 
 existed in 
 //," the al- 
 ig univer- 
 
 our Kirk 
 nd when it 
 reed to the 
 tid by the 
 maccount- 
 e so-called 
 lieir breth- 
 ters, being 
 n for, the 
 Q its com- 
 i'ittiesses, a 
 e Kirk of 
 
 laintained 
 ( her while 
 r favourite 
 I' stipend a 
 eirs ; that 
 for thirty 
 's now so 
 Dtnl. The 
 laped her 
 idently of 
 nly Head, 
 ateisx)nly 
 Christian 
 :he nature 
 le landed 
 I national 
 
 ism. 
 
 compact, and which property and lands belong neither to him nor to the 
 people, but are, always have been, and will be, her own rightful property. 
 But it were endless to tell all the silly stories Invented by the enemies of the 
 Kirk. Lot me reply to them that the only "creature of the State" I know 
 of, will be the mongrel quasi-chur^jh which the said dissenting sects, sacri- 
 ficing all their boasted independence of the State, now humbly ask your 
 Honours to make for them. They lay at your feet stuff of different kinds, and 
 ask you, by legally uniting these heterogenous elements, to make a kind of 
 church out of them ; and make it any shape or form you please, they will 
 MiankfuUy receive it, granted only that you send the silver pieces aloi ^withit! 
 They implore you to be kind god-fathers and god-mothers to the little imp 
 expected to be born in June ! Not so the Church of Scotland — she vail not 
 allow you, gentlemen, nor any power on earth, to touch her creed or consti- 
 tution — she only asks, what she is entitled to claim, your protection while 
 defending her rights. 
 
 3. That they have used language the most opprobrious towards our 
 Kirk in their printed Protest, which, in imitation of the Free Church, they 
 issued at the time of their split in 1844. Charging the Church of Scotland 
 with corruption, and stigmatizing as false to their vows all who adhere to it 
 — which Church, the authors of said Protest had but five days before, declared 
 there was «^ cause for leaving! — it says that they "were bound to testify 
 against the defections and corruptions of the Church of Scotland ; that the 
 due and proper testimony against such, was a termination of the connection 
 of the Synod with her." It then says that our Kirk in Canada " is lending 
 the zveight of her influence to the support of principles which are incompatible with, 
 the purity and liberty of any Chirch, and which are fitted to do grievous injury 
 to the cause of the fiedeemer throughout the world;" also that, '■'■by leaving an 
 open door for the admission of ministers and elders from the Church of Scotland, 
 holding unsound vie^os on the great principles aforesaid, she has most seriously en- 
 dangered the purity of the Church, and brought even her independence into 
 peril, through the probable introduction of office-bearers, prepared to submit 
 to the same encroachments of the civil powers by which the Church of Scot- 
 laud has been enslavedV etc. It is needless quoting farther. This is suffi- 
 cient to show the General Assembly, and every Church of Scotland minister 
 at home and abroad, that we could never join with a sect holding such lan- 
 guage — language which brands every minister and -ntmber of our Church as 
 unfaithful to the Great Head of the Church, and which they hold to this 
 hour in said Protest. It consequently follows that every minister and member 
 of our Kirk in Canaiui who joins them subscribes to that document ; endorses 
 all the scurrilous statements of that piece of rubbish ; acknowledges that all 
 its cbarges against their Kirk and themselves are true and well-founded ; 
 that their Kirk, in fact, never was a Church, nor themselves ever ministers 
 of Christ at all ! Will our infatuated brethren consider this before they leap 
 blindfolded into the fatal Union ! 
 
 4. That in league with our brethren, the New Scliismatics, they have 
 formed a Presbyterian trade-union — a sort of ecclesiastical ring to promote 
 their own ends, and which, like all trade-unions, is forced on in defiance of 
 the feelings and rights of others. To seize our church property and rise to 
 power appears their object : for never would dissenters sock alliance with 
 the establishment, but to get hold of our Clergy Reserves, and never v.-ould 
 our treacherous brethren join with them, but for a full equivalent. Every 
 traitor rninibtor has counted the cost ; tlie bargain has been struclc, and the 
 agreement oome to. The disposal of our Churcli Property, Funds, Temporal- 
 
8 
 
 ities, Kirks, Manses, and Colleges, has been planned and agreed to. 
 " Union," therefore, is only a catcli-word for a scandalous piece of dis- 
 honesty , M^ n;^(J/«_tr ^y //^^ ^;>-^ ^ ^9^^/'/(,;/rt^ / AH who join it have stipends 
 increased ; all who do net are ostracised and threatened with the loss of 
 benefice, and consequently driven, as they now are, into Courts of Law to 
 protect themselves. 
 
 5. That the movement is but an echo of the great cry at home— part of the 
 last desperate effort which dissenters in Scotland and elsewhere are making 
 to assail the impregnable Kirk, and save their sinking cause, seeing the 
 ground now cut from beneath them by the late glorious abolition of patron- 
 age. It is amusing to see their inconsistency, hurry, and despair at this 
 moment. These are the men who for generations predicted the downfall of 
 the Kirk, and denounced patrona/,'e as the grand cause of all Scotland's woes 
 both in the Kirk and out of it : a id lo ! when by a kind Providence it is re- 
 moved, and the Kirk, "clear as ti\e sun," shines forth brighter than ever, 
 they are crying out ajainst its removal as their greatest curse! Oh I what 
 inconsistent selfish mortals we are ! It's truly lamentable to see them 
 dmnbfoundered at the suddan turn of events ; at hearing the jubilant shouts 
 of the Scottish nation rejoicing at the restoration of their National Zion to 
 her glorious position of 1690, and iie bright prospects which now lie before 
 her ! Scotland's Kirk, like her beautiful Metropolis, is truly a city set on a 
 hill streaming her light to the ends of the earth, and her enemies are con- 
 founded and in the dust. Alas ! what self lies beneath their disestablish- 
 ment cry ! Oh ! 'tis sad to see the false prophets trembling in their shoes 
 and howling, " Our occupation's gone I " as they see the streams of Scottish 
 population flow back to their natural channel, the good old Kirk, and iL'^ir 
 own meeting houses, like Indian canoes, when the tide is past, left high and 
 dry on the shores of fate without a hearer ! Mingling their piteous howls 
 and brays in Synod and Music Halls with the most frantic fulminations 
 against our good Kirk, and the falsest statements respecting both themselves 
 and her, they have through some radical scribblers in Edina scattered abroad 
 only the poison of lies to be greedily swallowed, alas ! by weak brothers on 
 this side of the Atlantic, and again spouted forth by them in sinall venomous 
 globules (misnamed Globes) at Toronto ! 
 
 6. That the New Schismatics of 1875, of whom we shall now speak, 
 are themselves in the same position with those of 1844, and with much less 
 excuse, and that the same language which the Synod thirty years ago ad- 
 dressed to the latter may justly, and with much greater force, be applied to 
 tiieraselves ; namely that theirs "is the most uncalled for, the most utterly un- 
 accountable schism wkich ever took place in the Church of Christ ! " Nay, 
 the schismatics of 1844 were able to state their reason for dissent which 
 their iUiterate imitators of 1875 don't seem to bo able to do. Not one of 
 them, not all of them togethei- have been able to render a reason for their 
 intended schism. And it is evident that these New Schismatics of 1875 
 have no more right to take away with them the good things of the Kirk than 
 had their predecessors of 18-14. Nay, the Schismatics of 1844, leaving their 
 Kirks and Manses behind them, behaved like gentlemen compared with their 
 pilfering, plundering followers of 1875 ! 
 
 7. That their so-called " I'nioii " is no union at all, but the completion 
 of the vevuit aujaiusL the Kirk iiiitiated by the Old Schismatics in 1844. As 
 Ml-. Bi-emnei- lately stated in his evidence before the liCgislative Committee 
 at Quebec, " the allegation cf t!ic Bill is not true. The Bill alleged that the 
 ob^oct was ' Union,' whereas it is merely the completion ';f their uchism of 
 
9 
 
 greed to. 
 36 of dis- 
 1 stipends 
 le loss of 
 if Law to 
 
 3 art of the 
 ■e making 
 eeing the 
 tf patron- 
 ir at this 
 3\vnfall of 
 ind's woes 
 e it is re- 
 han ever, 
 ►h I what 
 see them 
 ,nt shouts 
 1 Zion to 
 lie before 
 y set on a 
 are con- 
 establish- 
 leir shoes 
 if Scottish 
 and tL-^ir 
 high and 
 ous howls 
 tuinations 
 lieraselves 
 ed abroad 
 others on 
 venomous 
 
 >w speak, 
 nuch less 
 3 ago ad- 
 -pplied to 
 tterly un- 
 !" "Nay, 
 !nt which 
 3t one of 
 for their 
 3 of 1875 
 Kirk than 
 ving their 
 with their 
 
 ample tion 
 844. As 
 ommittee 
 i that the 
 ichism of 
 
 1844 The proposal before your Legislature is exactly the same as the one 
 brought forward and rejected by the Synod which met at Kingston in 1844, 
 the Synod pronouncing it (in words already quoted) ' the most uncalled for, 
 the most utterly unaccountable schism which ever took place m the Church 
 
 of Christ.' "* . . ,. 1 1. Ti*- T> ^ 
 
 8. That their so-called "basis of union (as noticed by Mr. iJremner) 
 has been most artfully drawn up, so as carefully to conceal f/ie real grounds 
 of difference between the Kirk and the Dissenters— is full of the most vague 
 statements calculated to mislead the illiterate, and obtain the bhnded assent 
 of coiK'ret^ations which were required to say "Yea" or "Nay" thereto 
 withou't examining the matter. Deceived by the promoters of "Union," 
 whispering in their ears " that they would still be the Kirk of Scotland after 
 they joined the ' Union,' " many had unknowingly put down their names, and 
 many returned as in favor of it wlio were utterly opposed to it. 
 
 9. That the assent thus blindly obtained was by a master stroke of 
 Jesuitism used in bringing about the abolition of the Church of Scotland in 
 Canada without alarming those who had thus in ignorance put down their 
 names, and before they had time to consider the matter. 
 
 10. That in their extreme anxiety to consummate this nefarious busmess, 
 and force the obnoxious "Union" at all hazards, the treacherous unionists 
 acted illegally in their late meetings at New Glasgow and Toronto the 
 meetings being no regular Synod meetings, but meetings in violation of the 
 constitution of the Kirk, to receive their own changed and therefore new remits, 
 without giving the people time to consider them, in terms of the Barrier- Act, 
 said meetings being convened at a wrong time and place, many names of 
 members being kept out of the Synod roll at Toronto ; business despatched 
 without receiving lawful overtures from Presbyteries, and congregations, and 
 measures involving the most sweeping changes passed without being sent down 
 to Presbyteries and Kirk sessions /7r a years consideration, and thus giving 
 the Church at large time for considering the nature of them and receiving 
 replies, thus over -riding the Barrier-Act of the Church of Scotland ; that the 
 Toronto meeting was held (slily enough) both at the time and place where a 
 Local Lei^islature was to meet chieHy composed of enemies of the Kirk, and hastily 
 closed immediately previous to its opening, so that Bills (no fewer than five 
 in number to overturn the Kirk !) which would not bear the light of day, or 
 the discussion of our people, might be forced through the Legislature at once 
 before they could be seen ! + So shamefully and hurriedly was all this done, 
 in defiance of the rights of Kirk people, that the Ft ivate Bills' Committee did 
 not take time even to tead, far less consider them ! All this is fully stated by 
 Mr. Bremner in his evidence at Quebec. " But," he says, " the most 
 glaring violation of the law was the disregard of the Act to prevent hasty leg- 
 islation. The reason for this was obvious ; the promoters of the Bills acknow- 
 ledged that unless they were rushed through at once there was less chance every 
 day of securing their'object. The more the matter was discussed, the greater 
 was the dislike to the proposals. In the resolution moved by Mr. Croil, 
 seconded by M. Myhie, it was proposed that the remit on which these Bills 
 are founded, should be sent down in terms of the Barrier Act. Now the 
 meeting at whicli the remits Avere considered, was not a next meeting at all, 
 far less a next annual meeting. No time therefore was allowed to the people 
 
 • Evidence of Mr. Bremner before the Private Bills Coinmitteo, Quebec. 
 
 t See an important document, '• The Protest of tli;' Picv. Robert Burnet of Hamilton, and 
 the Church of Scotland party ayaiust Union." 
 
10 
 
 to consider the matter. The meeting in Toronto was an adjourned meeting, 
 and the result was a denial of justice to the present petitioners. The meet- 
 ing of the Synod was in November, the Legislature met immediate}, i after, 
 rhero was no time to take legal steps until the Bills were presented, and the 
 Legislature was s.uzed J the matter." Mr. Bremner also said he had " a 
 letter from the gentleman conducting the case in Toronto, which showed 
 that the Bills had been forced through the Private Bills' Committee by Mr. 
 Fraeer, Commissioner of Public Works, the Committee not tahimi tivie to read, 
 Jar less to eonsider them:'* So much for the manner in which Bills of such im- 
 portance were treated bij the Ontario Legislature ! 
 
 11. That the Quebec Legislative Committee, seeing the violation of 
 Church Law, and the unwarrantable haate with which such important 
 measures had been rushed through the Legislature at Toronto, rejected at 
 hrst the " Union Bills " altogether, stating that their preambles had not been 
 proved tu their satisfaction. Every one, even Roman Catholics, were indig- 
 nant that Bdls of such importance, involving the fate of the noble old Church 
 ol Scotland, should be so treated. Even common people on the streets of 
 Quebec, were heard expressing their resentment " that a Church which had 
 been such a blessnig to Canada for generations, as the Church of Scotland, 
 should be snuffed out ot existence with as much indifference as they put out 
 their tobacco-pipes, by a parcel jf roughs at Toronto !" It spoke 'certauily 
 to a very low state of morals and barbarism that Bills of such importance 
 should be decided in a moment by those who di<^ not even read them, and pro- 
 bably were not able to understand them ; that fellows who last spring left 
 their rml-spUttiwi, should now slash and cut to pieces the venerable National 
 Church— scarcely knowing what it was— as so much useless lumber i A 
 sense of mjury and public wrong moved the hearts of the people. It was 
 evident to all that the minority, represented by men of the highest standing 
 m Church and State, had right vpon their side, which the majority had not ; 
 that the cause of the latter was bad, from the very turbulence of their pro- 
 ceedings, some of them even in the pulpit on the Lord's Day, having so far 
 torgot the sanctity of the place and day, as to lamich forth in tiie wildest 
 invectives against honourable members of the Quebec Legislative Council 
 because they did their duty in regard to the Bills. The Hon. Mr. Rosa 
 stated in the Council that " language almost incredible had been employed 
 by a certain minister and members of the Pl-esbyteriai' (Unionist) faith, with 
 respect to some members of this House." The Hon. Mr. Ferrier stated that 
 "Members of this House could not discharge their duties except imder the 
 penalty of being made ' butts ' for the vengeance of the dissatisfied ! The 
 Committee snnply desired to do their duty faitlifullv ; yet he had been at- 
 tacked so violently, that it appeared as if his assailant had lost his reason ; 
 saying that the Committee was totally incapable of deahng with the subject' 
 and did not understand it. (Hear, and laughter). Bv-and-bv the same 
 geiatleman addressed the Committee, and, as he did so, his eyes flashed as 
 ■t u^7^^ ^ maniac, and the moment he delivered his speech, he went off as 
 if half-a-dozen hounds were after him. He might attack a Legislature from 
 his own puipit, but he had no right to attack individuals by name who were 
 doing their duty conscientiously. He believed that gentleman was threat- 
 ening to send u}) petitions against the existence of the Legislative Council 
 (hear, hear; because it uuuld not do as lie wished! For his own part he could 
 not conscientiously promote Bills which had not been duly considered, and 
 
 • Mr. Bremner's evidence before the Quebec Legislative Council Committee. 
 
11 
 
 were opposed by sucli a highly respectable minority. He thought a year's 
 delay might he well. Unless Union was harmonious, it only tended to evil. 
 He had received a telegram which stated that if the Bills passed, all hopes of 
 • Union ' were at an end. It was quite evident from the conduct of the 'Union- 
 ists ' why they were not unanimous— </t»^j/- spirit ivas not Christian— &xid if 
 exhibited generally, the people of this mixed community could not live 
 
 together." ox- i. *. 
 
 The Hon. Mr. Starnes said, "he was very desirous that so important a 
 measure should be re-considered. He was not a Presbyterian, but he would 
 be sorry to do anything injurious to the noble old Church of Scotland. Nvie- 
 tenths of those interested knew nothinij of the Bills, and it was only fair tliey 
 should'have an opportuniny of considering them." 
 
 The Hon. Mr. Beaudry stated that "it was felt m the Committee that the 
 rights of the minority should be respected, and he believed that nothing 
 would be lost bv detaining the Bills for one year. The,/ had not even been 
 seen bif the parties! He believed that those opposed to them, as weU as those 
 who had been silent, were entitled to have them distributed hi/ the parties m 
 favour of ' Union: With these views he and the other members voted as 
 "they did, and he beheved that the interest of the different parties would be 
 best served by a year's delay. Those in the Maritime Provinces were equaUy 
 entitled to see the Bills and consider them leisurely." Thus fairly and 
 rationally did the gentlemen of Quebec Legislature deal with the subject- 
 how different h'oxn its treatment at Toronto ! , ,- j 
 
 12. That the "unchristian spirit'" of the Unionists forthwith discovered 
 itself seven-fold more than ever when they heard of the rejection of the Bills 
 by the Legislative Committee, in their violent attempts to upset their deci- 
 sion, desecrating the very Lord's Day in rousing up the rabble, and taking 
 the names of Sunday scholars even to swell out their petitions, to intimidate 
 the Council, and force them, right or wrong, to alter their decision and rush 
 the Bills through Quebec, as they had been through the Ontario Legislature, 
 before those opposed to them could read or see them! 
 
 13. That the objects pursued by the Unionists at such a sacrifice of 
 principle, and even of common decency, can be none other than pelf and 
 power. We have shown that the movement is mercenary— it is also pohti- 
 cal--reUgioii having nothing to do with it. Their object is to attain power 
 —by increasing their party to out-number Catholics, Episcopalians, Metho- 
 dists and others, and thus by a numerical force, carry things their own way 
 and to their own advantage' in parliament. But the movement points to 
 something farther ; the attack on our ecclesiastical, seems only preparatory 
 to an attack on our political institutions. What may be the end or issue of 
 the plot we cannot yet see, though the more it unfolds itself, it discovers the 
 more a spirit of destruction, selfishness, if not sedition. But as the loyal 
 Church of Scotland stands in the way of their schemes, it must, in the first 
 place, be swept aside. 
 
 14. That with the view of carrying out their objects, the Unionists have 
 for years back, (unlike preachers of the gospel), been acting the part of agi- 
 tators and sowers of sedition in the Kirk, sapping her foundations, crippling 
 her energies, degrading her by every possible means, scheming at the same time 
 with grasping easzerness for funds of all kinds for ministers, endowments, 
 augmentation, and especially for Queen's College, to obtain whicli its pro- 
 moters were moving heaven' and earth, publishing their wants everywhere 
 here and hi Scotland, (whence they got p lurge grant) creating quite a fer- 
 ment about their own and its necessities, nil people's hearts were stirred m 
 
12 
 
 the matter, and money flowed into the College in tens of thousands ! Now 
 all this was done (including a ii> Widows' and Orphans' Fund in the Marl- 
 time Provinces, only two years ago) profesneiUij for bslioof of the Church of 
 Scotlavil — onli/ on her dccoiint wax the money tjicen or received. But as it was 
 done by the very pa/'ties who are now foremost in putting the Church of 
 Scotland to death, it seems unquestionahle that, when they raised these 
 funds ostensibly for her, and since their wicked revolt was planned, as has 
 been discovered, they haJ that revolt in view, and intended to apply such funds 
 to their own purposes."^ And if this is really the case, and if they place it 
 beyond a doubt by attempting (aftar their disunion) to appropriate such 
 funds or propert; , it is plain that they are guilty of raising money on false 
 pretences, and are liable to be involved in a charge of dishonesty. 
 
 Lastly, the base treachery of our brethren will chiefly draw your notice. 
 To these men, who have compromised the honor and compassed the destruc- 
 tion of their own Kirk, let me now speak : Oh ! false brethren, what is this 
 that you have done ! — why betray the Clmrch of your Fathers ! — why sell your 
 birthright for a mess of pottage ! Was it faintness, fear, or the love of filthy 
 lucre that has made you traitors ? Only the last, it would seem ; for our 
 Ku'k both in the Upper and in the Maritime Provinces is strong, and well 
 furnished with every means of defence ; her resources, the temporalities, 
 wisely laid up for her future maintenance, far exceeding those of her 
 enemies. base men, to betray your trust, and conspire with our foes to 
 seize those temporalities and all her possessions, to share them between you ! 
 As for these foes they are honorable men compared to you ; you who have 
 ate the bread of the Kirk, and sucked her breast — the Colonial Committee — 
 your whole life-time, and now when you chinl\ you can get no more, basely 
 turn round and stab the Mother that nourished you ! 0, you base villains 
 (your conduct so outrages lue I cannot temperate my words^ was it for this 
 that the Church of Scotland ordained you ; that the people of Scotland 
 through all their churches and chapels raised such vast sums of money, and 
 that the Colonial Committer therewith paid your passage and maintained 
 you for years in Canada, granting at the same time such large endowments 
 to Queen's College ! Was not all this done on the distinct understanding of 
 your promoting solely the Church of Scotland, of gathering congregations , 
 erecting churche.' educating students solely in connection with her? Yet, 
 as false men, you conspire to overthrow her, diverting from its original pur- 
 pose her property to build rp her enemies, and form with them a new sect of 
 which Scotland knowsliothing. Ungrateful men ! who had in fact a mono- 
 poly of the Kirk's bounties, and many of you, both Scotch and native minis- 
 ters, educated at her expense, (for if sJie was kinder to one than another it 
 was to native ministers) is this the reward for all the blessings she has 
 heaped upon you ! You especially, who come from the Old Land, and pledged 
 to her protection by every sentiment of honor, you who so boasted of being 
 her great defenders, is this your fidelity to her ! Are ye so dead to every 
 right feeling, even affection and gratitude (feelings whicli have place even 
 in the breast of a savage) not to speak of patriotism, as to consent to the 
 annihilation ot your own Kirk, (your own beloved Kirk of Scotland) to 
 make room for her enemies ! For by leaguing with them you will not find 
 what you stupidly call "Union," but simply absorption ; yourname, interests, 
 iiidcpcndcncc, and iiiilontity all aosorbed and svvallowcu up uy your more 
 numerous partners, while theirs remains unchanged. One of them thus 
 frankly expressed himself to me : " Wliy, the Church of Scotland people 
 are surely bewitched ! FooUsh Galatians, to leave the faith of their fathers, 
 
18 
 
 they are rushing blindfolded on their own destruction. Are they so pig- 
 headed as not to see that we voluntaries gain everything by Union, while 
 they lose everything ? And after we are united we will make them feel that 
 we are their masters. The truth is, though we now profess great attachment 
 to those Kirkmen v/ho betray their Kirk, in; despise them in our heart. I tell 
 you this in frankness. Are they so stupid as not to see that we retain every- 
 thing unchanged, only vastly increased, while everything of the Established 
 Kirk with its principles is extinguished? We triumph — they yield. On 
 our side it is aggrandisement — on their's annihilation ! " Seeing then that 
 the Union-cry is the death-warrant of the Church of Scotland with all her 
 glorious principles for which your fathers bled and died, will ye, treacher- 
 ous men, listen to it ! By forming that wicked union Avith our foes you only 
 increase them, and do your best to annihilate the Church of the Martyrs and 
 Covenanters ; you promote not union, but disunion from the Church of Scot- 
 land ; you sin in the sight of God who hates all schism ; you grieve good 
 nen by your dishonorable conduct ; you forswear yourselves by breaking 
 your solemn ordination vows ; you belie your principles as upholders of an 
 Estabhshed and a National Church ; you strengthen the hands of her 
 enemies, madly seekmg her destruction, and would place her neck beneath 
 the heel of the destroyer ; you offend all true subjects of the Crown by des- 
 troying the Loyal Kirk and fostering disloyal schismatics ; you weaken the 
 Church at home by lopping a branch from it ; you do an unconstitutional, 
 an unlawful act — an unkind and ungrateful act, what is unnational, un- 
 patriotic ; you break faith with the people of Scotland who gave their money 
 only to promote the Kirk ; you break faith with the people in Canada who 
 gave subscriptions for the same purpose ; you wrong those preachers coming 
 from Scotland on the faith of being settled in Scotch Kirks here ; you injure 
 the Protestant cause in America by throwing down the great bulwark of 
 Protestantism ; you injure the best interests of Canada materially and spirit- 
 ually ; you injure civil and religious freedom ; you cast a slur on the Church 
 of your fathers ; you make her the derision of abjects that are not worthy 
 to be set with the dogs of her flock ; you say in ei'lect, that those who have 
 heaped upon her abuse of every kind did well ; that all the opprobrious 
 language of their protest was right and proper ; that their charge, that you 
 denied the Headship of Christ, was just and true ; you endorse their charge, 
 that the Church of Scotland Avas in fact not a Church, and yourselves not 
 ministers of Christ at all ! You brand with shame and dishonor, not only 
 your own names, but the names of all her great and good men who have 
 done so much to evangelize the world ; you teach the young to disrespect 
 their Kirk as they do their parents in America ; you teach the whole com- 
 munity to be covenant-breakers and false in their dealings, (for if ministers 
 deal falsely witli their Kiik, how can they expect the public to be faithful in 
 their worldly matters '?) ; you make yourselves robbers, for robbing the Kirk, 
 and swindling her out of her property either ivith or without law, is one and 
 the same crime in the siglit of God ; you aggrandize some ministers at the 
 expense of ruining othem, {or vfheve two congregations are "united," one 
 minister is cast adrift without a situation ; you act contrary to the wish of 
 the people who have been entrapped into " Union " against their will ; you 
 outrage the feelings of these faithful to the Kirk ; you are creating discord, 
 disunion, and division over the whole Dominion; unsettling the rights of 
 property, distracting and disturbing congregations, and shattering the whole 
 edifice of the Church of Scotland. Of that Church you are the betrayers 
 and murderers ; you have, in fact, in every Province (while exalting her 
 
14 
 
 guilty foe) dragged the innocent Church of Scotland as a criminal to be 
 buffeted and abused, and put to death by Legislatures composed of infidels, 
 barbarians. Episcopalians, Catholics, Schismatics, Dissenters, and enemies 
 of every sort shouting with the rabble, " Not this man, but Barabbas !" 
 You are plunging ni lawsuits, troubles, and expenses, your faithful brethren, 
 now forced to defend their rights before Courts and Councils. In a word, 
 instead of aiding your patriotic countrymen now fighting the battles of the 
 Lord, you are shamefully and ungenerously deserting them ; instead of 
 helping them to defend our National Zion, as wicked E donates you open her 
 gates to the enemy, shouting aloud to the Babylonians of every province, 
 "Rase it rase it, even to the foundation thereof!'" Such are your doings 
 in connexion with " Union," and they only need to be known to draw down 
 upon you the indignation of the world. 
 
 Intending to separate from the Church of Scotland, could you not imi- 
 tate her noble churchmen of 1843, who forsook all for the sake of their prin- 
 ciples ? But of course that was in Scothdid. "No other country in the 
 world," as Lord Jeffrey remarked, " could show such a spectacle ! " How 
 true his words! Other lands bnitale the great struggle, but lack the courage 
 and principle. Our new Seceders of 1875 will only secede if, snail-li. 3, they can 
 carry away their houses and temporalities on their back. They are not 
 ashamed to stand before the world boij.sting they will do so and so, [f Govern- 
 ment f/mnts them ,sn ami sn .' Your present position is one of the most pitiful 
 and disgraceful ever seen in the world before. You stand be+bre the world 
 like children watching the turn of the wheel of fortune. You stand like 
 weather-cocks ready to turn any way the wind blows. Having staked your 
 prospects on the turn of the Legislative wheel, you are anxiously waiting 
 its movement, and will go exactly as it goes. If Parliament grants you the 
 rich temporaliiies, which is all you desire, you'll desert, and burn your old 
 Kirk to-morrow, and set up under a new name ; but if not, you'll cling to 
 her like a burr, and not budge a foot. Depend upon it, you intend to be 
 merry martyrs anyhow : determined to look well after number one at any 
 rate ! You will witness a good confession provided you can keep the " loaves 
 and fishes ; " but if you can't, you won't ; you'll stick to them if they'll not 
 stick to you, and desert your recruiting party after taking its shilUng. What 
 that party will think of you I can't say — I fear they'll not think much of 
 you. But you don't mind what they think ; your minds are on something 
 else to watch how the temporalities move, and turn accordingly. Such 
 being your xa/e principles, you confess that Mammon is your guiding-star ; 
 that the sordid love of the dollar lies ot the bottimi. of the whole affair'. Un- 
 principled men, I am ashamed of you. Pity that such as you ever entered 
 our venerable Kirk, and the sooner you walk out of it the better. You are 
 no longer worthy the Imperial name, " Church of Scotland," that of "Pro- 
 vincial i*resbyterians " is good enough for you. And now you bid your souls 
 luxuriate in the prospect of fattening on the spoils of a plundered Church 
 — of preaching in Kirks no longer yours ; of eating, drinking, and making 
 merry in Manses which are stolen property — ah ! beware, a vision, dread, 
 and terriffic ! Tlie grim spectre of an accusing conscience will start before 
 you, disturbing your pleasing dreams ; you will see a hand continually writ- 
 ing on the Manse walls, " Stolen from tlie Kirk I " while your children will 
 point at you the finger of scorn, and a truthful posterity tJl the cause of 
 your unhappineas, namely, that your dwelliug-piaces were all got by 
 injustice. 
 
 Had you been honorable, instead of deserting her, you would have 
 
15 
 
 stood true to your Kirk, especially at present, when her foes are mustering 
 their strength against her, and the voice of the coming conflict is sounding 
 over Britain. And had you been so rich that you needed aid no more, your 
 duty was to refund to the Church at home, some part of 'vhat she lavished 
 on you here, thus placing at her disposal funds which might aid her mis- 
 sions in other lands. Or if resolved to take the cowardly step of deserting 
 her in the hour of danger, you should at once have resigned your livings, 
 the law being universal that those seceding from any body forfeit all right 
 to its property. But for you not only to desert her, but to take from her 
 property intended only for her faithful adherents, bespeaks an utter want of 
 moral principle ; yours is a gigantic robbery that should be placed alongside 
 many others for which America is famous. 
 
 Even had the Kirk been weak, there was no need to betray her. Look 
 at England — the whole Scotch Synod from the Tweed to the Thames mus- 
 ters only twelve congregations, yet though ill- supported, it" maintains its 
 independence in the face of England, scorning to loose its national identity 
 by union with other Presbyterians. But in Canada our Eirk was flourish- 
 ing, numbering nearly 200 churches ; partly endowed through her Clergy 
 Reserves ; well supported by Scoich settlers and the Colonial Committee's 
 grants, with a college to train native ministers for which she obtained an 
 Imperial charter. Nay, she had the high prestige of being recognised by 
 the British Government as on the same footing with the Church of England. 
 With such strength and resources she had no need of union ; yet with all ' 
 this, you have committed the parricidal act of basely delivering her up, 
 property, prestige, name, and independence, to the tender mercies of her 
 enemies ! Like base traitors you have thrown down her bulwarks which no 
 enemy could storm — while her true sons were bravely defending her, you 
 hoisted the signal of capitulation, opened her gates to the enemy, and let 
 them in like a flood ! Miserable traitors, what will they say in Scotland 
 when they hear of it ? They will disown you ! The General Assembly 
 will depose you ! The Colonial Committee will wring their hands and blush 
 for shame that they ever made you their "trusty friends" — you of Synod 
 Boards especially who monopohsed all their favors, who were to them as a right 
 hand and a right eye, from whom they drew all their inspiration and knowledge 
 of the Kirk abroad, and who have so deceived and wronged them. Ah ! poor 
 Colonial Committee, after aU the pearls you have showered upon them, do 
 they turn and rend you ! Foolish Committee, that patronised not the 
 friends, but the foes of the Kirk ; have you discovered at last that you were 
 warming a snake in your bosom — nourishing wolves that have rent the fold ? 
 Ah ! you are mortified, indignant that the Kirk's good money has been so 
 misapplied and thrown away, and you are determined to demand it back 
 from the Unionist traitors. False brethren of Canada, you see what is 
 awaiting you. Yo't seem to deprecate the storm gathering over all Scotland 
 to burst upon you, by sending in haste a deputation to her shores to gloss 
 things over a little, and throw some more dust in the eyes of the Assembly 
 in addition to what some of you threw two years ago ! Atrocious presump- 
 tion ! After completing the work of destruction on the Kn-k, you send a 
 deputation to tell the General Assembly you have done so ? No, not exactly, 
 this won't do. Your words, carefully prepared, must be smooth as butter, 
 and, like the ancient oracles, capable of two meanings, one for Scotland, 
 another for Canada. Should your deputation then speak doccijtively they 
 will profess to be a deputation from our Kirk ; assure the Assembly of your 
 undiminished attachment (you may say love,) towards the old Church of 
 
 I 
 
16 
 
 Scotland (meaning you intend to originate a new one,) say that they have come 
 to give the Assembly full information about their kind deed (the horrid deed 
 of slaughter) to the Kirk, and the motives whicli led them to commit it ; that 
 the Kirk is in a highly ^.rosperous state ; that you have done all you could 
 to promote her peace and prosperity, and prevent schism, and defend her 
 agamst Dissenters and all enemies; tell' the Assembly in one breath that 
 you have toiled night and day to build up the Ku-k (meaning the mongrel 
 imp of 1875) and (with a sly wink to their transatlantic friends) say next 
 that you have carefully (you may say, eagerly,) looked after temporalities 
 and funds sent from Scotland (tliat is, that you have appropriated them) 
 and done your utmost to promote her interest (those of the new sect) ; that 
 you glory in the name " Kirk of Scotland," (say nothing about your taking 
 her by the throat, and dragging her as a criminal before every Legislature in 
 Canada, to compel them to strip her of her possessions— strangle her, and 
 put her out of existence) in a word, say that she (meaning your trumpery 
 Unionism) is as strong as ever : but if the truth about i/our treacheiy reaches 
 the Assemhh/s ears, instruct your deputation to ft y for bare life, «' as if half-a- 
 dozen hounds were after them ! " 
 
 Should your deputation however, speak truth, they will say : " Mod- 
 erator of the General Assembly, we are ashamed to appear in your presence. 
 We come from Canada, a deputation from a so-called Synod illegally con- 
 vened last November, and from that section of it which represents only 
 treachery and rebellion. Our appointment therefoie is null and void. In 
 fact, ourselves were Dissenters till some years ago we got ourselves foisted 
 into the Kirk, r.nd all the time we have been in it, we have plotted her de- 
 struction. How successful we have been, let the following facts show : We 
 seduced from their allegiance to her the majority of her mir^isters and mem- 
 bers ; under the deceptive name of ' Union ' we got a x^ass of illiterate 
 people to join, telUng them they would still be the Church of Scotland. After 
 slily getting their names to a pices of rubbish called ' basis of Union,' by a 
 master-stroke of Jesuitry we used these in bringing about the abolition of tlw. 
 Church of Scotland in Canada ! Alas ! how we outraged the feelings of our 
 faithful brethren ! Determined to force the obnoxious ' Union ' at all 
 hazards, in defiance of all rights of the Kirk and her defenders, we at last 
 acted illegally at meetings at New Glasgow and Toronto last winter, over- 
 ridmg the Barrier-Act of the Church, and rushing our Destruction Bills 
 through Legislatures before the people knew thoir contents. Oh ! sad story ! 
 we are ashamed to go on. It was a dark, gloomy day, that we met at 
 Toronto to despatch the Kirk. It was the 5th of November, the Anniversary 
 of the Gunpowder Plot. Our Unionist plotting at Toronto on that day, to 
 blow up the Protestant Kirk of Scotland, is equal to anything that Guy 
 Fawkes and his assistant conspirators ever attempted ! Base conspirators 
 that we are, we dragged the innocent Church of Scotland as a malefactor 
 before every tribunal in Canada to receive her death-blow, shouting to the 
 rabble, ' Persecute and take her ! ' only let us ♦ share in the spoils.' Yet 
 God himself seems to be her Deliverer, for our great object to destroy her is 
 not gamed ; she will flourish.iu Canada in spite of us, and the more we per- 
 secute her, we fear she will flourish the more. We have at least done our 
 best to extinguish her in the fires of persecution. The injury we have done 
 to religion is incalculable. The whole Kirk in Canada, Presbvteries and 
 Congregations, we have rent t.. under ; a world of evil has been created, and 
 hostile feelings engendered which will not die out in the present generation. 
 Black day for Canada that we robbed her o^' t\^ sound Protestant Church of 
 
17 
 
 "Scotland, and gave her instead a spurious Presbyterianism ; robbed her of 
 the pure gold, and gave her the dross. When the first Schismatics left us 
 in 1844, we said theirs was " the most perfectly uncalled fer, the moet 
 utterly unaccountable schism which ever took place in the Church of Clu-ist." 
 But these words, after thirty years, we may, a hundred-fold more truly now 
 apply to our omu Our schism from the Kirk is altogether without excuse, 
 so much so, that we have never been able to assign one reason for it. It is 
 a movement of baseness, wanton wickedness, and ingratitude beyond ex- 
 pression. If black burnmg shame doesn't cover our faces for betraying the 
 Zirk of our native land, and having the audacity to come here and tell you 
 so, it is because we are dead to every fine feeling of human nature. Mod- 
 erator, we feel we have no right to be here ; we are only a sham, and as 
 soon as we turn our backs, and over the Atlantic, we will belong to a new- 
 fangled sect, to be shaped and set up next month by % Legislature itself 
 set up yesterday ! The beautiful classical name, ' Church of Scotland,' is 
 to be abolished, and a barbarous name substituted ; we need add no more. 
 "Such is the reward for all you have done for us ; for all the thousands your 
 Committee has showered upon us 1 We have destroyed to the best of our 
 ability your Kirk in Canada, and we come here to teU you so! " What 
 reply the General Assembly will give to your deputation, I leave you to 
 consider. 
 
 Having thus spoken of our Aggressors, let me now present to your 
 Honors, 
 
 (H.)— OUR DEFENDERS. 
 
 This is the Church of Scotland party, composed of all the upright and 
 high-principled men in the Kirk, as ministers true to their ordination vows, 
 as laymen true to her communion. The attitude maintained by this party 
 has been worthy of the Church to which they belong ; with true dignity they 
 have never replied to the insults of their opponents, but against their un- 
 lawful proceedings they have all along strongly protested. So far back as 1867, 
 the late venerable Dr. Mathieson, of Montreal, a man universally esteemed 
 m Canada, njbly stood up for the Church of Scotland against the incipient 
 designs of the Unionists. This gentleman, for above forty years the great 
 ornament of the Scottish Church, in Canada, and whose noble defence of 
 her rights on every occasion, and especially on the public one of presenting 
 the Address to the Prince of Wales at Kingston, in 1860, drew forth the 
 eiiconiums of every one, might well be called the champion of the Kirk in 
 Canada. To his unwearied efforts was mainly due the settlement of her 
 rights spiritual and temporal, the decision of the twelve Judges of England 
 affirming both to be exactly equal to those of the Church of England. °True 
 to the Kirk he loved so well, as respects at once her name, dignity, and 
 status, her doctrines and worship, her simple and beautiful forms, the 
 Doctor was ready on all occasions to do battle for the Kirk of Scotland. It 
 was the finest oratorical achievement we ever witnessed in Canada, when 
 at the Synod meeting with true dignity he would not even allow the very 
 subject of " Union " to be mentioned, branding as conspirators and traitors 
 those who would favor it, and completely silencing them by his unanswer- 
 able arffumeilta. Hia mfirnnrn.lilii ivnrrlo An n-na r-,nnac',^,-> rni.yxn.^ i( re -ii 
 
 the ministers of my Church left her, I would in my own person uphold her, 
 and aj^.sert her every right! " The Doctor rightly anticipated nothing but 
 iinarchy from a forced external lunon, where there was no unanimity of 
 heart and mind. " Even supposing all were agreed," he writes, " there ai-e 
 
18 
 
 insuperable objections to a genera union. We have an Imperial Charter^ 
 (reierring to Queen's College) which an Act of Parliament cannot annul, and 
 jre have a widows' and other funds which would be disorganized. I look 
 forward to the discussion of the question in the headlomj spirit of the timet 
 With great apprehension. The impracticability of the ihing renders it almost 
 hdiculous. The mischiefs that would involve churches ; the unsettlemerit of 
 the rights of property with the renunciation of the name ; the lawsuits that 
 would follow ; the bitterness and contentions that would arise out of it are 
 Warming." =!= 
 
 Such was the opinion of the Rev. Dr. Mathieson about " Union," a 
 man of all others the best qualified to judge what was best for his own 
 Church and reUgion in general in Canada from his long residence there, an 
 6pimon therefore of the greatest weight, and m that opinion he was sup- 
 ported by all the best men in the Church. So long as this noble man livedo 
 ttie embryo Unionists in their holes and hiduigplaces durst not play cheep I 
 After the lamented death of that eminent Divme. they came out of their 
 holes and corners uttering at first a faint squeak at Kingston, which being 
 repeated by lips of like ignorance, gradually spread to St. John, Halifax,- 
 Charlottetown, encreasing in sound hke the song of the frogs m spring, till 
 the murmur waxed into a howl or bray such as now reaches your Parha- 
 ment Halls. Stoutly has this Union-cry been met by another, " No Sur- 
 render !" on the part of the Church of Scotland. Stoutly and bravely ha*- 
 she all along contended fv-" her rights; entering her protest against the union 
 proceedings at every stage of them, and defending her honoured rights be- 
 fore every Court and Legislature in this country down to the present hour, 
 When, as your Honours are aware, there is a large and influential minority 
 composed of her leading ministers in Canada and Nova Scotia, and some of 
 the prmcipal men in the Dominion who are determined to stand true to the 
 Church of their fathers, and who now call upon you, as Protectors of 
 pubhc property, to do your duty and protect them in their vested rights. 
 
 (III.)— THE CHARACTER OP THE DIFFERENT PARTIES. 
 
 ,.« ^^^^ *^ *^** ^*3 ^een said, your Honours will perceive the immense 
 
 difference in point of character which exists between the two parties who 
 
 now approach your Parliament, the Aggressors, and the Defenders, and 
 
 will estimate it accordingly. Limit your observations to the two parties 
 
 Within our own Kirk. Look first at the " Union " party plotting treason 
 
 against the Church of their fathers even while eating her bread, fomenting 
 
 schism, if not sedition, over the country, leaguing with her enemies, and 
 
 making hovoc of the church they swore to defend. Look next at the 
 
 Church '-f Scotland party, standing true to every vow and principle for 
 
 which tueir fathers bled and died ; true to the best interests of Canada in 
 
 conserving to her the blessing of our Protestant Church, and promoting 
 
 peace, prosperity, and loyalty within her borders. On the one hand you 
 
 see a set of men betraying tiieir trust, forswearing their religion, and 
 
 tramphng their church in the dust : on the other, a band of inflexible 
 
 heroes nobly defending their Church, their principles, and their religion— 
 
 which ol the two parties do you admire ? 
 
 (IV.)— RIGHT versus WRONG. 
 
 • iu'^'Vit"® ",^"®J^"^ pJifiies than ranged for the coming struggle vou see' 
 m tne Church of Scotlai^d party liiijht defending herself against Wroivj and. 
 
 •Biography of tha late Kev. Alex. Mathieson, D.D. Montreal, 
 
19 
 
 also against mujht, for the traitors far outnumber the true men. You see in 
 fact a mord struggle (sufficient to fire the heart of every Scot),~a small 
 band of heroes, worthy of their country, true to her colours, fighting 
 agamst desperate odds to dehver a bleeding and downtrodden Kirk from 
 her betrayers and murderers. So, as told in immortal story, the small 
 band of Highland Heroes, though surrounded by hosts of traitors, withstood 
 all the assaults of the treacherous Sepoys at Luoknow and Cawnpore, as they 
 brought dehverence to the perishmg and the dying. You see the same 
 spirit, the same national ardour in these defenders of our Kii-k, true to her 
 sacred rights and blood- bought honours, and combating in her defence against 
 leagued oppression and treachery. , You hear the same sound of the 
 patriot's voice— the voice of her dehverer, the true slogan of the Highlanders, 
 the march of the clans coming to her rehef, rushing to rescue her out of the 
 hands of cowardly traitors and assasins : and it is a sight sufficient to fire 
 the breast of every patriot ! 
 
 (V.)-THE INJUSTICE OF THE MEASURE. 
 
 1 ^A^ ^'^^ *° *^"^^^® enemies to spoil her; traitors, after deserting her, to 
 hold her property ; and a rabble of a packed majoritv to vote her out of 
 existence at pleasure, and give her possessions to another, is simply an edict 
 of persecution against the Ku:k that should be placed alongside some of the 
 acts of the Jdflferies and Charleses ! The Church of Rome has her posses- 
 sions m Canada secured, the Church of England may multiply ber dioceses 
 there unmolested, but the Church of Scotland alone, though place- by the 
 imperial Parliament on the same footing with the latter, dare nc . Hft her 
 nououred. head, but she is in danger of being struck down by a Provincial 
 Legislature in the seventh year of its age ! Sad degradation for the ancient 
 and honourable Church of Scotland I Pitiful persecution, will it not defeat 
 its own end ? Such an act places the Kirk under ban and proscription in a 
 professedly free Province of the British Empire! The cruel i^rjustice ot it 
 wiU be evident to you when you remember that the law is universally laid 
 aown that those seceeding from any body foreit all right to its property, 
 as mstauced ir. the case of the seceding Free Churcb of Scotlancf in 1843 
 and all similar cases. Those intending to secede from us in 1875, and set 
 up a new sect with a new name stated in the BiU before vour House, must 
 submit to the same law with their predecessors. Our uew schismatics have 
 no more right to carry off the Kirk's property than had the old. Surely they 
 must see this, unless their moral souse (sadly blunted as to the distinction; 
 ot meum and tu,un)has blinded them into the belief that they can belong both 
 to their ».»• .wMind to the /uVA-, and thus draw two livings at once° Let 
 me inform them that such a thing cannot be ; such double-dealing and 
 pmrality ol professions is tolerated by no creed, Mahommedan or ^Mor- 
 mon, much less Christian: no rehgionists on earth are permitted tc act in 
 this shpsliodtnanner, to Oehw, to two bodies at once. From the moment theV 
 join the new sect they cease to be ministers and members of the Kirk of 
 bcotland. By their own foolish act they make as clear a separation from 
 .nlV . f '' T^ ^'f ^"'^ themselves cut off from her communion, just as 
 completely as though they had joined the said Mormons or Mahommedans. 
 iheir connexion with the orthodox and Christian Church of Scotland ^Jl 
 then cease and determine, and at the first meeting of our Church Courfca 
 they will be declared no longer ministers of the Church of Scotland, and tie- 
 yrmled from h^r ministry. By consequence they will not" be eligible for any 
 01 her hvings at home or abroad, nor entitled to draw or hold any of her 
 
i 
 
 80 
 
 property whatever, nor even admitted to her pulpit.. Your Honors will 
 perceive his to be -trzctly just and according to law : and for the CivS , ow 
 
 wofild t ^riT^'' I'T ^"'' "'^'^ f" "^^'* *° «"r P^«P«r*y' « right there 
 would be a deliberate trampling of justice under foot 
 
 The injustice of such an Act will be further evident to you from the 
 following reasons : '' 
 
 ^r,^ ^^?*"«« f.h® Presbyterian sects applying for it are alien to us-Catholics 
 tod Episcopalians have as much right as they have to apply for it 
 nlaJmr*'''*" '* intending to leave us, and join them, by such act'forfeit all 
 ChuTch! """" ^'""^^'^y-'^ b«i"g g'-anted only to bona ^e ministers of the 
 
 Because such an act would at any time despoil of then- livmgs those 
 
 ttelW'''"''" '' i'^ ^''^.r'' --^V^^S her baufes; ^d 
 towluch act of oppression they will never submit; for having right on 
 
 nerlv'f .,'^'\^-T" "ll^^^tedly lay claim, legally and rightfully, iTpro 
 
 com^f J?T ^'f *'*'^''? ^r« being educated in Scotland with the view of 
 he^e a^nd^JlTr • ^", ""I *'?« ^"^^^^-^ta^ding of being settled in our Kirks 
 have not * " ""'^ "'' inducted, which stranger preachers 
 
 nf X, ^?f Tt n ^ "^^""^^ property of our Kirk is the gift of her members or 
 of the British Government. Of all the Churches and manses in the Upper 
 idT <• ff^f ""^ Provnices nearly every one has been erected by funds 
 rai ed for that purpose m Scotland, and they are secured to her by special 
 
 fw .?n "'"'^'°'**J''-" \ *n ^ ^°'^^ Legislatures, the words of the deeds being 
 that Divnie worship shall be performed in said churclies in all time comiuT, 
 only in connection with, and according to the faith, doctrines, worship, dis- 
 ciphne, and government of the Estabhshed Church of Scotland." The 
 Clergy Reserves were granted to her by the British Government in 1858 in 
 Ch3; Onf ^''' ''''-'''' J}" Ca^'^da and her status as an established 
 Chuich Queen s College, Kingston, was specialh b^cured to l^er bv an 
 Imperial charter which no Act of your Parliament cau annul. Other in- 
 stitutions, trusts and funds for ministers, widows, orphans, and endowments 
 were given and devised to her by the donors and legator on the Sc 
 
 anotwT^r^ '^^'"If 'PP^^'^ '°^f y ^"^ ^''' behoof.\nd never ahenated to 
 a other body. Here hen are near y 200 churches, manses, glebes, tempor 
 alities, funds and colleges, the iitle to all which is bound down in tl 
 stray est poHuble terms to the Kirk in Canada in connection nith the Church u ' 
 fto n'L ' '^l *l^^^«veuues so secured that none but a bona fide minister of 
 ^ Inlf v!l' 1 ''°'" ^^y ''^^'"' *"" them-here is property as inalienably and ■■ 
 disputably hers as any property in the Dominion is that of its rightful owner 
 -estabhshed church property to which no Dissenter, Schismatic, or alien 
 nas any c aim whatever ; here are not only religious, but civif rights of the 
 highest importance involved. The palpable ancl flagknt injnstir: ^\tnZ 
 ing any such property I need not point out to your Honors. 
 
 WT l7/-^~™^ ^^/^^^ ^! T™ CHURCH OF SCOTLAND HER- 
 hJiLF to your regard (apart from any other consideration) furnish the 
 
 strongest motive fn*" rflifl«Hntr f.lio "RUl XT«+ +^ „„^„i. „^ 1 ' , . "^ 
 
 Jiistabhshed Church recognised for centuries, and therefore entitled to vour 
 iiighest respect ; not to speak of her renown as the great historical Church 
 and bulwark of the Reformation, and therefore endeared to the hearts of 
 
21 
 
 you from the 
 
 Prot«stantR ; not to apeak of her exalted position as a National Church 
 upholding the great doctrine, denied by the unsound Dissenters, that the 
 Lord is Head both of the link and of Uie kingdom — that *'the kingdom is 
 the Lord's ; and that He is the Governor among the nations ' ' — nor of her 
 being the beloved Kirk of a land dear to some of you — the land of arts and 
 arms, of romance and song, of mighty and glorious deeds — in a word the 
 Kirk so much loved and attended by your Soverign, Her moat Gracious 
 Majesty, the Queen, whom God ble? s and preserve ; to aay nothing of all this, 
 nor even of the groat work she is performing abroad ; a work lately noticed 
 in an EngHsh paper t setting forth her many schemes and missionary opera- 
 tions over the world, together with the vast amount of her colleetions raised 
 in Scotland for these objects, showing the strong hold she has on the attach- 
 ment of the people of Scotland, l and calling forth the unqualified admira- 
 tion even of those not belonging to her communion — to say nothing of her 
 labors in other lands, and confining your view simply to what she has dono 
 for Canada, how manifold are her claims to your regard ! Go back f ^ty 
 years to the time when your unenclosed forests heard only the howl of the 
 wolf and bear, or the warwhoop of the Indian ; when the rude log-house 
 was pitched where your cities now stand ; when missions were few, and these 
 chiefly devoted to the Church of Eome, and even then you find Missionaries 
 fr». ' the Scottish Church carrying the blessed tidings of salvation through 
 your land, and laboring to convert idolntors to the pure faith of Jesus. 
 Schoolc at that time were few, and the educated ministers of the Kirk sup- 
 phed the want by giving to the natives at once the blessings of Christianity 
 and the benefits of knowledge and civihzation. As in ages far remote, the 
 early missionaries of the cross and pious Culdees first imparted these bles- 
 sings to Caledonia, so these Caledonians imparted them to Canada. Engaged 
 in this good work of preaching the Gospel, and training up the young in 
 religious and secular knowledge, who can estimate the blessings they im- 
 parted ! When many years had passed, and when the luxuriant foliage of 
 the forest had nearly overgrown the old log-house where they first lived, 
 how many good people of Canada have I met in their sylvan retreats, who 
 told me they were indebted for all the learning and religion they ever had to 
 the good old Scotch ministers who long ago had christened them, given 
 them Bibles, and preached to them Jesus! How many a "wilderness 
 and solitary place was made glad " by the approach of these Scottish 
 missionaries, who scattered around them the blessings of religion and 
 humanity, as did others of the same nation in other lands, such as Moffat 
 and Livingstone in Africa, Duff in India, Burns in China, Geddie it. 
 Lrromango. McGregor in Nova Scotia, McDonald in Prince Edward 
 sland, ai" countless others over the world. I say, look to the time 
 './hen Canada received, so to speak, her Protestant education at the hands 
 of our Soottish ministers, and you will estimate the debt of gratitude 
 she owes to their Church. And while working the good work how many 
 their hardships and perils. How many highly educated Scotch ministers, 
 such as Drs. Mathieson, Urquhart, Machar, McDonald, and hundreds 
 more (the last namp(^ had no fewer than a dozen Gfelic congregations 
 under his charge in Prince Edward Island, all which he left 
 
 • Psalms xxii. 28. 
 
 t London Telegraph, copied into Church of Scotland Record, Jan. 1874. 
 
 } The gift of half a inilhon pounds to the Scetch Church lately, by Mr. Baird, is suffi* 
 cient proof of this. 
 
22 
 
 deeded to the Church of Scotland) spent their hfe-time in doing good to 
 Ihe people of this Dominion ! Thf se venerable servants of Christ ^/hose 
 apostohc labours will be long remembered, now " rest from their labours, 
 and their works do follow them." What works ? The winning of precioup 
 souls to Christ, the offices of kindness they performed, the good works of 
 oharity and benevolence they wrought among your people, ever breathing 
 a spirit of goodwill towards all men, never invading the ^-ights of others,— 
 never, tnuler deceptive name,i, compassing their destruction ; but quietly &v'^ 
 unostentatiously labouring only for the conversion of sinners, till, as tl ■> 
 result of their indefatigable labours in the vineyard in Canada, there are 
 now, besides Colleges, about 150 Churches in the Upper, and 50 in the 
 Lower or Maritime Provinces, all maintained by the Kirk, where the Gos- 
 pel, in all its purity, is taught your people from day to day. Such is the 
 work of the Scotch Church, for which Canada may bless Scotland to the 
 end of time ; and such is the Kirk, the best and truest friend of Canada, — 
 true to her people, true to your Government, true to your Queen ! And is 
 this the Church you would overturn at the howl of her enemies, to enrich 
 them with her spoils ? Is this the Churchy Canada's best friend, and with 
 so many claims to her regard, that by an obnoxious Bill you would devas- 
 tate, raising in its stead a spurious Presbyterianism, Canada's greatest 
 enemy ! Impossible ! Bear with me, gentlemen, if I speak with warmth 
 on such a subject ; for I speak of all that is dear and sacred to me on 
 earth, — the Church of oar fathers,— o/f/- National Zion,— the mother of us 
 all,— the Church of Scotland, which is the true Church of Christ, whope 
 benefits and blessings have been extended to every land, to every shore ! 
 And if captive Israel wept when Jiey remembered their Holy Place, I may 
 be excused if, in this tumultuous Babylon of America, I mourn over the 
 desolations of our beloved Zion. For if there is one blessing we enjoy 
 abroad, making us forget our exile, it is that of worshipping weekly in the 
 Scotch Kirk ; of hearing sound, Scotch sermons, and sitting with those we 
 love " under our vine and fig-tree,"— of training up the young in the good 
 old paths, the fear and love of God, and assembling them nightly around 
 the family altar, to praise their Creator in the simple and beautiiful forms 
 of our National Kirk : 
 
 " From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, 
 That make her loved at home, revered abroad.'' 
 
 What indignation then fills the breasts of Kirkmen to see ourselves 
 suddenly robbed of our religion, to see traitors casting down the Kirk we so 
 much prize, in connection with which we have been so happy and prosper- 
 ous,— our prosperity in fact derived from that connection ! What a shame 
 to hand over the fruits of her labours to aliens I For, as a great Missionary, 
 as well as National Church, the Kirk of Scotland has a policy of expansion, 
 seeking to take root in the furthest bounds of the British Dominions ; and 
 haying so long laboured in the Canadian vineyard, she has a right to see the 
 fruit of her labours, and not allow these to be seized by others. 
 
 Such then is the Church of Scotland — a blessing to individuals, to 
 families, and to the whole community in Canada. 'The benefits of this 
 National Church, with its missions at home and abroad, are indeed too many 
 to bo particularly insisted upon, and these are not least felt, and, we trust, 
 appreciated in this western part of the British Empire, where from the far- 
 thest backwoods of Canada to the Atlantic shores on the east, in settlements 
 thinly peopled, and destitute of religious ordinances, these have been 
 
28 
 
 fiuppUed by her, and the Goapel preached to the poor " without money aa^ 
 
 without price." , , .i. * •„ 
 
 To promote the reWjious interests of Scottish Presbytermns «iro«t/ that is, 
 belondng the Kirk, one of her schemes is speciaUy formed ; and to t^B 
 nS work she has for many years devoted her energies, sendmg out and 
 •llTJm, bothTX and Enghsh-speaking ministers wherever required, 
 W^n Xmen, yo "r^^^^^^ all'that il Church of Scotland has don^ 
 
 and °s doing to promote Christianity over the world, «f ^ ««Pf ^^,"y ;^ 
 Canada-when you think what a blessing she has been to Scotland and 
 ScotchVeopTe wherever they have settled-when you thmk of the strong 
 attachmen^^^^^^^ fathers and mothers (who are sleepmg in the dust 
 
 frovS bad%?r that noble Old Church which with their latest breath, 
 SrentTusted to our keeping as the best legacy they could leave us-when 
 vou consider the somidness of her doctrines founded on the word of God, 
 n taught in her Confession of Faith, her standards and catechisms-when 
 Tot Supon her long hne of great and illustr ous ^^n from tho hme o« 
 her Reformers. Knox. MelviUe, and Henderson down to those of Chahnera 
 Ktson. McLeod. ^nd countless others-when you th^^^^^ 
 armv of martyrs, confessors, and witnesses for the truth ot Je^us, wno oi 
 Xanksld ages, and both sexes, went to the flames and the scaffold in her 
 defence sealing thdr testimony with their blood-(time would fail to tell th© 
 hSry of all her noble defenders. Who has not read these books ''The 
 qln+«' Worthies '' "The Cloud of Witnesses," " Wodrow's History of the 
 Sutrings the Church of Scotland." " The Ladies of the Scottish Coven- 
 ^;fr.\^C of the Covenanters." "The History of the Reform, 
 
 ation in Scotland." and "The Subscribing of t^eNationa Covenants 
 -The Heroes and Martyrs of the Covenanted Kirk of Scotland The 
 vmv Years' Struggles of the Covenanters," giving an account ol all tne 
 sSh Cty^f^^^^^^^ martyrdom of Hamilton and TOiart. cW ^^^ 
 that of the Marquis of Argyle, Guthrie and Renwick the .last ^t the 
 rnnrtvrsWwhen I sav, you reflect how nobly our Protestant K^rk ot bcot- 
 Snd'la intended Tr^reUgious and civil liberty (which has rendered he, 
 a praise over the whole earth), how nobly and generous! v lier sons and 
 daughters have shed their blood in her '^efe^ce that she might be ai^^^^ 
 down a blessing to remote^i posterity, not in Scotland only, but ovei Hie wide 
 world. I feel assured when you think of all this and especia ly >vhat she is 
 doing for Canada, your regard for our National Church ^viU mcrease more 
 and fnore-never ;vm you sanction her spoliation-never will yo^^ ai^^^ 
 enemies to destroy her. but you wiii think it your highest duty and honou^ 
 to protect and uphold her. while the sentiment of some of you ^^U ^e that 
 of the holy meii by the rivers of Babylon, when they remembered Zion 
 "If I forget thee. National Zion.let my right hand forget her cmmmg.let 
 my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth." 
 
 But. gentlemen, if, instead of defending the Church of Scotland you 
 consent to the monstrous Bill before your House, whose scope is to destroy 
 her, which strips her of aU her possessions, and msultingly throws heibaoJc 
 a small pittance which they call ''liberality !'J<-wnch suffers other de- 
 nominations, no matter how heterodox to flourish, but stamps the Chi^^ 
 of Scotland out of existence as " a pestilence." encouraging the godless an« 
 aU enemies of our Holy Kirk, by mustering a rabble ol a ^^ajoritj-, uu« 
 raising a " union"-cry. to vote her out of existence, and swmdle her out ot 
 
 » ProfesBor McL^en at Toronto meeting. See "Mail," February 16tb, 1875. 
 
24 
 
 SnwprfVt''* '" f time commg-thus granting what our enemies crave, 
 power to persecute us at pleasure-in other words, placing our Kirk in 
 Canada under ban and proscription, much in the same way as was S of 
 the Huguenots m France under her Cathohc kings-should you, I say sully 
 
 persecution, then do so. Then times of tri.^ are before our Kirk, h„t God 
 uhn-.lejn,re~and she must present a spectacle worthy of herself n the dav 
 and ts fd't? • ?"^ ^'"''^'^^'^ ''" V^^* ^-« weatLred so man; storm? 
 
 aLin flop ft flf ""^ T""^ *"^l'' ^" t' ^""^ ^"*^ Sl«^o^« i"«tory, must 
 again lace the flames of persecution, but true to her ancient blazon " The 
 
 bush burinng, but not consumed," she will-God help hex -nas^^^^^^^^ 
 
 S c'anadtT' ' '' " ?^^ V^^^ "^'^ ^^ '''' childrJn 'on all trC ScotTmfn 
 in Canada, to rise m her defence. I recognize the ric^ht or the nower of 
 nobody legal or ecclesiastical, to legislate tway thcM)rivneges of m/church 
 yoi?'%llV'" '?^ ^r^^/r, "T ^^"y around ^ler af in the days oi 
 stake Think Jthp""^'' *^"v>i ?i *^^' ^^'^rlasti.g interests that a?e at 
 siaKe. Jhink of the unspeakable blessings which you and vour foref<.therH 
 
 ?ye you ;town"li?e "'*- '^ '"'^'"^ ™^ ^^^^ ^-*^' -^ Christ wiU- 
 The times of trial which are approaching will tvv the faith of Moma 
 showing who are faithful and who are false^ AlasYt at any shou d be 
 feut^tXhw' ^^P-i^lly; !h-ld break their orS^atS^vo^s and 
 without the shghtest cause seek the overthrow of a Church approved of 
 
 XcMwHo* m:r' ''l^'"^' '^ T "^r^ memorials, anSSd and 
 F^JvL , ^°"Sh so many centuries ; and all for what '> A bare idea ! a 
 
 o&onT W "tr ' *.'• ^^' "P. ^^ ^"^ "^y ^ ^i«l« upttart noveUy in 
 opposi ion to her— make a disgraceful compromise with her enemies — 
 
 tstySslS/^^^^^^ *''' --plotthigher5estruction,icreateaT^^^^ 
 
 Amei?ca to strffilP ^^'1'^^. "''"?''* *° *^^ ^^^^"^^^^^ «««*« already in 
 Ameuca, to struggle for a brief existence, and in a few vear^^ in bp «r.Hf 
 
 again into as many divisions by the inevitable tendency Tsect'ism^ 
 tTe%rlk3's'cSdVijl1 ^-*r ' Alas! thaLt slt^^^^^^^ 
 benefit but dptr^^lf ? r ^'''^ '""i' '^"^*"'S ^^^^^ ^^ delusion. No 
 nnSSoi *'^* detriment to religion, can flow from this movement which is 
 
 Mother till wW Vl ■ " ?!"" away,-pas8ing from one change to. 
 Mothei, till, what with mnovations, newfangled notions hfresies an« 
 
 IrSr" '".*"»"'"'» "' """='"■ y™ ""' be unahle to7eeo:.„ "e a, ytWn^ 
 
 wanting. Better even a number of diflferent sects. .o-nnpv„fi,, " -^ | 
 • Letter against Union, in " Mo„tA/y Recoui- of Nova Scotia, January. 1874. 
 
26 
 
 tyranny and darkness ef the Middle Ages ! But if there should ever be a 
 union of Dissenters with our Kirk, then, as a point of honour, let the 
 Mother Chiu-ch take the initiative in the matter. For it were both futile 
 and presumptuous for the little twigs to try to unite abroad, until the great 
 trunk unites at home. And then let it be on one propn- basin. Had the 
 so-called " Union," (a word I am so sick of hearing, I wish it were 
 abolished,) been one in which our Kirk would maintain her name, 
 independence, and all her honours,— the only basis I could accept,— 
 uniting under one common name, " Church of Scotland," used 'in 
 its purest and national sense, all the scattered sects of the Presbyterian 
 family— a union in which those who left us would come back to us, 
 again receive om- name, and be the same as before they left us— then 
 such a union would have been unanimous, and none would have rejoiced 
 more than I would at such a consummation. But it is a Union the reverse 
 of all this, and which has no such object in view, a union which is no union, 
 but the completion of the schism of 1844— no miion— but disunion from the 
 Church of Scotland with all its advantages and blessings,— nay, a union 
 which involves with the plunder of her property, her complete annihilation, 
 down to th« prescription of her very name, which is to be blotted out from 
 the list of churches, as if she were the blackest of crinmiah, and a strange 
 name substituted, " Presbyterian Church of British North America." " So 
 says their basis of union," page 11th. This fact, sufficient to fire the indigna- 
 tion of every Scot who has blood, and not ditchwater, in his veins, of course 
 renders union impossible. Lose the mnnc of the great historical Church of 
 bcotland ? No, indeed, not for aU Canada, United States, and Mexico to 
 boot, and much more than all that ! In the beautiful parable of our Lord, 
 the penitent prodigal, who left his father's house, is represented as coming 
 back to it. But those who left the Parent Church are impressed with no such 
 teelmgs of love and penitence. They have no desire to return to us, and 
 keep up the old honoured family name. We must go to them, but they 
 will not return to us. They demand the surrender of all we have, while 
 they surrender nothing at all. We must lose everything, while they lose 
 nothiug, and, in fact, have nothing to lose but what they have taken from 
 us ; (tor strip them of our Scotch Church standards, Scotch forms, Scotch 
 directories, Scotch creeds, Scotch psalms, Scotch everything, and you leave 
 them ske etons !) We have a glorious national name, while they have no 
 name to lose at all, but what they give themselves, and change every few 
 years as suits their convenience. Yet they demand the abolition of our 
 worW-renowned name, while they take care not to lose theirs, such as it is. 
 Their presumptious new title (self-dubbed, as usual) of "Presbyterian 
 Church of British North America," or, of "Canada," (for they are con- 
 tinually changmg) IS on a par with all their previous self-assumed titles ; it 
 IS just the ,>ld name anrrin,/ hmjcr i,round ! Not content with the Lower or 
 the Upper Provinces they now persume to take in all the Provinvrs. Here 
 Iresbyter IS only Priest writ large !" as Hudibras has it. They take care 
 to lose no ^ nctive feature, however repulsive, while we must sacrifice 
 every beaut, al principle as an Established Church. After "Union" they 
 will just be the old "United Presbyterian Dissenters " over again, but upon 
 a larger scale, while our Sstablished Kirk is quietlv nut out of Pxi^tenee. 
 nVli nl f «^Pt»ve /lame " Union " then is 'implied the utter extinction 
 the Church of bcotland m Canada. They are simply to be eiicreased, 
 
 and we abolished, to use their own words: on their side it is wi>,ran,lm'mmt 
 —OH ours unnihdatinn ! 
 
Viewed in any light, and even by the troubles, lawsuits, and discord 
 it has created over all Canada, their " Union "is an intolerable nuisance. 
 But viewed in its most serious aspect as involving the downfall of the 
 orthodox Kirk of Scotland, and thereby entaihng upon Canada a night o^ 
 darkness and oppression, this fact is sufficient to call into action the -most 
 inert of her mer bers, rouse all Kirkmen, both Scotch and Canadian, to 
 defend their con" ion inheritence — the Church and religion of their fathers. 
 Nobly did the p' pie in Canada support the Kirk, and if some of them are 
 being estranged rom her, this is to be aqcounted for only on the ground too 
 weU-known that then- treacherous spiritual guides, who have bled the Kirk 
 almost to death, have been drawing away their affections from her, delud- 
 ing them into the idea that she cannot live, thus chilling their hearts, and 
 ■dashing their hopes to the ground. Oh ! shameful treachery ! is this the 
 reward for all she has done for her ministers and her childi-en in these 
 colonies ? As a writer well observes : " She planted them here nt first, 
 she nursed them in their infancy, she assisted them in their weakness : — 
 she sent them ministers, she aided in supporting them, she has given of her 
 means to build churches, to endow colleges, to educate students : her 
 interest in our welfare, her readiness to help wherever help was needed, 
 has never faltered for a moment. These are facts which no one questions, 
 and they are facts, which in my opinion, apart from anything else, ought 
 to knit us all the more closely to the Parent Church." * Oh! thrice base 
 ingratitude for Scotch ministers especially, who owe all they have to her, 
 to seek her destruction ! Let the traitors be expelled and punished as they 
 deserve — let the Kirk be reheved from the incubus that has long weighed 
 on its energies, and, with a sufficient remnant of faithful ministers and 
 members left to carry on her work, there is yet a bright and glorious future 
 for her ir Canada, when she will shine forth, " fair as the moon, clear as the 
 sun, and terrible as an army with banners." Would that our infatuated 
 ministers would still retrace their steps ere it be too late — let their congre- 
 gations, at least, break their iron bonds, and cling to the Kirk, as to their 
 stronghold. Oh ! my countrymen, that I could vindicate her right to that 
 place in your affections to which she is so eminently entitled. And I doubt 
 not, that among you in Canada are many true and noble hearts — Israelites 
 indeed, who love our National Zion, and mourn her present desolations, 
 and whose sentiment is that of the pious captives by Babel's streams, who 
 " hanged their harps upon the willows and wept" when they thought of 
 Zion: " If we forget thee, National Zion, let our right hand forget her 
 cunning, let our tongue cleave to the roof of our mouth." 
 
 Let all then who love our Zion now stand true to her, and let those 
 who have long been strangers now return to her, seeing there are no reasons 
 for dissent at all. The Church of Scotland requires no union with any one 
 — but, like a kind mother, she keeps the door open for the return of children 
 who require it. Let all Presbyterian Dissenters then in every part of the 
 -empire, and of the world, now end their unjustifiable schisms, and re-unite 
 with her on a true basis — the only basis satisfactory to the General Assem- 
 bly — that of herself the Mother Church, and form a union worthy of the 
 name — not a r;;tle narrow Canadianism, but a union encirchng the globe. 
 That this day of her future prosperity is not far off can be easily foreseen ; 
 a sign of the coming brightness aheady gilds the eastern skv. Scotland 
 sends us the news that that Body which last left her may soon be expected 
 to return, fi-eii the lartje Free Church herself . Only last month her Divinity 
 
 * Letter against Union, in the "Monthly AWonl," Nova Scotia, .January, 1874. 
 
27 
 
 fstudents — her future ministers — "by a large majority," decided, "That the 
 grounds which led to the disruption of 1848 had been removed by the Pat- 
 ronage Act of the present Government." " It is no slight matter that the 
 Divinity Students, the future Clergy of the Free Church, should consider 
 that there is no longer anytliing in the law to justify a continued separation 
 of themselves and their fellows from that Kirk whence their Communion 
 ■<5ame out at the disruption -time."* Let us hope that the happy day, radi- 
 ant with the splendours of her primitive glory, when she shall gather all her 
 .children home, may soon dawn. " Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. They 
 shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within thy walls, and j)rosperity 
 •within thy palaces !" 
 
 And now the immediate duty of our Kirk both in the Upper and in the 
 Maritime Provinces is to prevent the passing of the obnoxious Bills in 
 Parliament, and should they pass, to apply direct to the Privy Council in 
 Britain for redress ; also to lay before the approaching General Assembly a 
 full account of the matter, memoriahzing them on no account to counten- 
 ance the present schism, or receive the sham deputation, but interpose 
 her authority to save the Kirk's temporalities here, and send out preachers 
 immediately to fill the empty charges. Her duty is to meet, as usual, 
 in Synods, and Presbyteries, however few her members, and exercise 
 .authority, as heretofore, over all Kirks in Canada and Prince Edward 
 Island, and all ministers persisting in their schism degrade from her ministry 
 and declare their churches vacant ; and in case of their presuming to occupy 
 such, to proceed against them by a process of civil ejectment. Her duty is 
 to lay claim also to all property, funds, trusts, and colleges, and to expel 
 from office any holders of chairs who have joined the revolt against her. 
 Every faithful minister will hold his Kirk though alibis people were unionists 
 — and every faithful congregation fond even the NiiKilletit jxirt of them ) will 
 hold their Ivirk, and prevent any one occupying its pulpit but a Kirk 
 minister, though treacherous Presbyteries were against them. In short it 
 is the duty of all true hearts — ministers and people — to have nothing to do 
 with the infamous ' union,' but hold out for the Church of Scotland. " No 
 Capitulation ! " "No Surrender ! " is your watch-word and your ory ! 
 
 In this great crisis of the Kh'k let us all rise in her defence. Our 
 leaders are already in the field — we must follow. Shall those who have 
 ■even no name struggle for their rights, and the Kirk do nothing whose name 
 is emblazoned on the rolls of history ? Shall others justly contend for the 
 repeal of Acts which aliijhthj affect them, and we not resist an obnoxious and 
 oppressive law whirh eompasties our renj destnietion ! Shall trivial and provincial 
 matters, even a New Brunswick school law, drive men almost into rebellion 
 against it, and shall we not strive for objects incomparably superior — the 
 glory of our National Church, the Crown rights oi our Redeemer ? Shame 
 will it be to every Scotsman in Canada if he comes not to her aid. The 
 question is now no longer a provincial, but a national one, in which the 
 honour of every Scot is implicated, and in which Scotland expects every son 
 to do his duty. Come then to her help every true son of Caled mia — all 
 who love the 
 
 Land of the heather and the thistle — 
 
 Land of the mountain and the flood — 
 
 Land of true heroes and martyrs — 
 
 Land of the Kiik and Covenant. 
 
 ■Come one and all to help your National Zion ! Up Scotsmen and Canadians 
 
 * Glasgo'io Neius, December, 1874, 
 
28 
 
 like true British subjects aucl true Covenanters, stand by the scarlet and blue- 
 colours that have triumphed on many a field. Defend that noble Kirk which 
 is your common birthright and inheritance, that has weathered the storra. 
 for hundreds of years, and will weather it as many more after all the 
 wretched "unions" and "disunions" of her enemies have gone to the' 
 winds. Let he^ ''•^ithful sous now rally around her in the hour of danger — • 
 hold up her arms in the coming conflict, and cUng to her the more because 
 of the tempest and the storm : 
 
 "Even as a child, when scaring winds molest, 
 Clings closer and closer to its mother's breast," 
 
 so let the stormy trials through which the Kirk has bravely passed, and may 
 now pass again, endear her to our hearts more and more. Defend that Zion 
 whose name to many of you is music to the ear in a distant land. High- 
 landers and Lowlanders of British America, ye who speak the ancient 
 tongue of Ossian and the beautiful language of Burns, up, and defend your 
 national rights — your national religion — let Parliaments and persecutors do- 
 as they please. Emulate, my countrjinen, the faith and high principle of 
 God's people in all ages. Tread in the path trodden by the feet of saints 
 and confessors — the path of your pious forefathers, who so loved the Kirk 
 that its verij name was precious to them — as the stones of Zion were dear to 
 Israel ; so the hallowed name, " Kii'k of Scotland," was dear and sacred to 
 their hearts. I warn you before God of the danger of forsaking the old 
 path ; of the sin of separating from a Kirk approved by God, and consecrated 
 by the blood of His holy Martyrs. Eemember the calamities which over- 
 took Israel for renouncing their national faith, and how bitterly they bewailed, 
 their misfortunes in Babylon. Be faithful then to the trust committed to 
 you by noble ancestors- Stand fast m the hberty wherewith Christ has 
 made you free, and be not entangled with the yoke of union bondage. Quit you 
 like men; be strong, for the day of trial is approaching. Highlanders 
 shoulder to shoulder ! Forward, every Scot, and aid your brethren nobly 
 fighting for their Kirk and country ! "I cannot stand by and see Eandolph 
 perish!" was the noble-hearted exclamation of Douglas on the field of 
 Bannockburn ; and you and I will be unworthy of the name of Scotland if 
 we allow our biethren to fight unaided — if we stand by and see our dearest 
 birthright and most valuable inheritance, the noblest Institution of our 
 nation, and the last vestige of her ancient Independence, fall undefended 
 into ti\e hands of her mortal foes ! 
 
 (Lastly.) FOE THE FOLLOWING EEASONS : 
 
 Permit me. Honourable Members of Parliament, still to trust that you 
 will defend our Church, and to entreat you to reject the monstrous Bill 
 before your House, whose scope is to destroy her : — 
 
 1. Because of the injustice of the measure, since it enables deserters 
 from our Kirk to hold after their desertion property belonging only to her 
 faithful adherents, and also alien sects to share it with them. 
 
 2. Because under the deceptive lame of " Union " it contemplates not 
 only the plunder, but the overthrow of the Venerable Kirk of Scotland in 
 Canada, after all she had done for it, to make room for a thing that has yet 
 even no existence. 
 
 3. Because such union is truly (lisiiiiiov, a lUsuniting from the pure 
 Church of Scotland, therefore from the Church of Christ. The Church of 
 Christ is one, one from the Old to the New Hemisphere, and all over the 
 
29 
 
 world. The schismatics, mttiiuj the cord, not letvithening it, break the unity 
 ■of this Church by setting up, among the snows of Canada, a separate iso- 
 lated sect, at the expense of separation from a Church extending from Scot- 
 land to India, Australia, South Sc Islands, South America, West Indies, 
 British North America and the ends of the earth ; by forming a small 
 Canadian •* Union " at the unspeakable sacrifice of disunion from a Church 
 encircling the globe ! Cut off from the great Trunk in Scotland, whence all 
 sap and nourishment is derived, how soon will the little twig in Canada 
 freeze, wither, and die ! 
 
 4. Because such disunion is sinful in the sight of God, who hates all 
 (scLi^m and discord. 
 
 5. Because it is offensive to all good and loyal men, who hate treachery 
 and disloyalty. 
 
 6. Because it involves in the commission of a great crime those minis- 
 ters of the Kirk who join the movement — the breaking of their solemn vows 
 taken on the day of tlieir ordination, when with uphfted hand, before God 
 and the people, they swore that they would be faithful to the Kirk till death. 
 Elders also are under solemn vows of fidelity to the Kirk ; and indeed all 
 communicants. 
 
 7. Because the advocates of " Union " have never been able to advance 
 one sinf/h' anjumcnt in defence of it, save a wretched expediency, which 
 means selfishness. 
 
 8. Because the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland has steadily 
 refused to sanction such a revolt against herself, (which is nothing less than 
 treason) saying, in her dignified manner to those who went to her, and with 
 a face of brass, impudently told hor that they intended to secede from her, 
 after all her Idndness to them, "that she would offer no objection to their 
 doing so!" which was tantamount to saying, "If ye be such rogues and 
 villains as to be capable of betraying and ruining the Kirk, which has been 
 as a nursing Mother to you from childhood, and after all she has done for 
 you in Canada, Nova Scotia, and other British Colonies, then the sooner she 
 is rid of you the better. She will not ask you to remahi with her against 
 your will. We have long given you aid anrl counsel, but if you despise both, 
 tind are dissatisfied with your connection with us, do not look to us for any 
 more, and separate yourselves, we pray you, from us, vnd turn to uni/ hand 
 you please." 
 
 9. Because the movement is unconstitutional. It is ultra rircs not only 
 of ourselves, but eveji of the Parent Church herself, to form such a "Union;" 
 not only because, holding the principles of both an Established and a National 
 Church, she can never unite with Dissenters or Voluntaries us such, but be- 
 cause she possesses no power to annihilate herself either at home or abroad, 
 and no right to legislate away her blood-bought privileges, which are the 
 common birthright of the whole Scottish nation. 
 
 10. Because it is opposed to our national feelings. Our love of kin and 
 country, and our love to our national Zion forbid it. We cannot bo guilty 
 of the revolting crime of dis-union from her, though we should be reft of 
 houses, of lands, and become the victims of persecution. We will cheerfully 
 suffer the loss of all temporalities, and let Babylonians and Edomites share 
 them between them — but we cannot lose Zion. Like true Israelites, our 
 sentiment must ever bo " If wc forgut thco, Jerusalem, let our nglit hand 
 forget her cunning." Connexion with the Kirk of Scotland is a sacred bond 
 never to be severed — her beautiful dear name never to be lost till exchanged 
 for the 7iew name above ! To renounce allegiance to her is sacrilege and 
 
80 
 
 treason. Every tie that connects us with the Mother Country should be- 
 maintained. Laws, customs, hterature, and commerce bind us to her , but 
 reUgion should be the stwnifest tie of all, makimj us all, whether natives of 
 Britain or of British America, uU ove/amihj in Christ. How devoted the al- 
 legiance of Catholic Canadians to their far distant head — ho .v beautiful the 
 attachment of Episcopal Canadians to the Church of England, though Can- 
 terbury is far away — and shall Presbyterian Canadians be less attached to 
 their own so and Mother Kirk, though its head- quarters be in a distant Isle?* 
 Shall the Scotchman especially, not revere and love her, so identified as she is 
 with the glorious history of his country ; her vory name, fragrant with me- 
 mories, speaking to him with the voice of years that are gone, when, in 
 youth's happy days, through the bonuie glens and hills of Scotland, he went 
 on the sw et peaceful Sabbath to the House of God with those whom he- 
 shall see no more. 
 
 11. Because it is opposed to every sentiment c' gratitude for the many 
 favours received from the Mother Church. To repeat the words of the writer 
 in the Monthly llecord: " She planted them here at first; she nursed them 
 in their infancy; she assisted them in their weakness; she sent them minis- 
 ters ; she aided in supporting them , she has given of her means to build 
 churches, to endow colleges, to educate students. Her interest in our wel- 
 fare, her readiness to help wherever help was needed, has never faltered for 
 a moment. These are facts which no one questions, and they, are facts,, 
 which, in my opinion, apart from anything else, ought to knit us all the 
 more closely to the Parent Church."* 
 
 12. Because it is breaking faith with the people of Scotland who sent 
 their money to Canada on the distinct imderstanding of its being used solely 
 for one special object — promotion of the Church of Scotland. 
 
 13. Becaixse it is breaking faith witii the people of Canada who gave 
 their subscriptions for the same purpose. 
 
 14. Because it is ungenerous to our defenders, those patriotic brethren 
 at Hamilton, Glengarry, Montreal, Pictou and other places, who are nobly 
 defending the Kirk against hosts of traitors. 
 
 15. Because it is unfair even to our opponents, the Voluntaries, many 
 of whom are as sincerely opposed to 'Union' as wc are, and one half of 
 whom, or rather three fourths, did not vote on the question at all. 
 
 IG. Because it is simply a movement on the part of ministers carried 
 away with schemes of ambition, and longiiig for wealtli and power. Covet- 
 ing iiis neighbour's vineyard, the Unionist hopes to double his stipend either 
 by annexing the congregation of his non-conforming brother, or by getting a 
 double share of the temporalities — he expects to gain also a little notoriety 
 by starting something new — all which novelty, sensationalism, and vanity 
 are condemned by the Word of God. 
 
 17. Because it is contrary to the wish of the people. I can testify that 
 everywhere from Ontario to Prince Edward Island, I lieard but one voice 
 upon this point. All acknowledge that there w?s no need of dissent at all on 
 this side the xVtlautic. Those who had been drawn into "Union" said that, 
 they had been told by their ministers and elders, "that they would still be- 
 the Church of Scotland." The thought of losing the Kirk had nearly killed 
 some aged people. The printed reports were false. In Prince Edward 
 Island, f«r r\;inM>lp, wljile i]\p. Pv(>shyt,f(vy was represented .as unH-uimously 
 for " Union," large Giehc congregations, (of the late Rev. Mr. M'Donald),. 
 
 •Letter against " Uuion" in the Monthly Record, Nova Scotia, .January, 1874.. 
 
81 
 
 far out-numberinp the English-speaking, were unanimously for the Kii-k of 
 Scotland, but their names and numbers were carefully excluded from the re- 
 ports. In Western Canada many had got their eyes open, as well as iii the 
 Maritime Provinces, and were determined to withdraw from the "Union," 
 and keep by the Kirk. More ministers also were in favour of the Kirk last 
 November meeting than there were in June. Certainly a re-action has be- 
 gun which no cunning will put down. The people are wakening up to the 
 importance of the question — the battle so nobly fought at Quebec by our 
 defenders, has itself kindled a fire over the country. The blood of High- 
 landers and Lowlanders is fairly roused at the dastard plot to rob them of 
 their religion and their Kirk, and are up in arms in her defence. The pass- 
 ing of the obnoxious Bills in youv Parhament may lead to serious conse- 
 quences. A low murmur is heard on all sides, increasing day by day, which, 
 long before the month of June, may burst in a terrific stoim over the whole 
 
 Dominion ! 
 
 18. Because of the Discord it is creating in Canada. Before "Union" 
 was heard of, our sects lived in tranquiUty " under their vme and fig-tree." 
 As soldiers of opposing armies often tiingle together in a time of peace till 
 the trumpet sounds, so with kindly feelings our different sects dwelt together, 
 helping one another in every good work : — 
 
 " But hark, the tent has changed its voice — 
 There's peace and rest nae langer!" 
 
 All at once a horrid discord blast, misnamed " Union," sounds through the 
 camp, and in an instant all is uproar and confusion. The attempt to rob 
 people of their "religion," which even a heathen would sooner die than 
 lose, and force them together into an unnatural and galling yoke, puts an 
 end to our harmony. Like faithful soldiers, true to our creeds, we part 
 asunder. Nothing now is heard but the sound of separation on all sides. 
 Not " Union," but Disunion, Discord, and Division start up like so many 
 Demons over the whole Dominion ! Driven by Synods and Presbyteries, the 
 people are forced to declare on what ide they are on by the mouth of June. 
 Angry and unchristian feelings are kindled. Let any one read the " Mimthly 
 Eeconl," of the Lower, or the '' Preshijtcndit;' of the Upper Provinces, and 
 he will see the result of the blast that has been blown. Pitched battles have 
 been fought in all directions in Ecclesiastic and Legislative Halls, where the 
 stoutest struggles ever known in their annals are still waging.* Presbyteries 
 and people are arrayed against each other. We can now hardly live toge- 
 ther in our mixed society, our sects are so opposed. Kirk is ranged against 
 Kirk, creed against creed. Late peaceful congregations are rcut asunder ; 
 a world of evil has been created, and hostile feelings engendered, which will 
 not die out in the present generation. Such is the Union-plot, and such 
 its baneful fruits even already ! for which the ministers who concocted it 
 stand responsible. 
 
 19. Because it is detrimental to liberty. All unions are. Thus the 
 Sheffield Trade-Unions involved the murder of many who Avould not join 
 them. And so the Presbyterian Trade-Union is even already a persecuting 
 tyranny. One minister in the Maritime Provinces — the only one, we be- 
 Hevo, in hi? Presbytery who stood true to the Church of Scotland— lost both 
 his Churches for doing so. What is this but persecution ? Others are 
 
 • See " Pt-eshyterian" March, 1875, " The Battle for the Union Bills." See also an 
 excellent leiter by the Rev. Gavin Lang, Montreal, correcting the mistakes and defects of 
 the said article ; with another in the Church of Scotland Record, 1875. 
 
82 
 
 obliged to defend themselves in courts of law. Unlike the broad, free, 
 loving Church of Scotland— the Church of the educated and liberal- mnuled— 
 the "Union" supposed, of so many narrow-minded and tight-laced bodies, 
 with its cast-iron rules, exclusiveness, illiteracy, and want of principle, 
 will be an oppression, and its enormous taxation a load under Avhich the 
 people will groan. Congregations will be ruled with a rod of iron ; the 
 GaeUc language abolished ; and ignorant, raw lads sent as ministers, whe- 
 ther they will or not ; and then the silly folk who have gone for " Union ' 
 will lament their folly, and give all the hairs on their head to hear a good, 
 sound Scotch sermon once more. 
 
 20. Because of the legal difficulties in the way. As you are aware, the 
 question will not be decided (adversely) by any Canada Legislature— the 
 high rank of the Church of Scotland making it an Imperial question of the 
 highest moment— to the seat of Empire it must go. Should your Parhament 
 sanction the Acts of the inferior Legislatures to deprive that Church of 
 her possessions and rights, the matter will be carried at once before the 
 Imperial Privy Council in England. " I appeal unto Ciesar," said the great 
 champion of Christianity, when he found it necessary to vindicate his civil 
 rights ; and we shall follow his example. 
 
 21. Because it is a PoUtical movement, fraught with danger, their ob- 
 ject being to attain power, and outnumber other sects, and thus carry things 
 their own way, Fulitical voluntaryism has long characterized Dissent both 
 at home and abroad ; and the levelling principles of Voluntaries (if fully 
 carried out) would lead to revolution — would lead them to aboUsh the 
 coronation-oath itself ; to do away with the Sabbath ; untie the marriage 
 bans ; desolate the country with a godless education ; fling the Bible out of 
 the schools (as is so lamentably the case in Ontario and New Brunswick) ; 
 train up the young without the knowledge of God ; raise up a nation of 
 infidels, neither fearing God nor regarding man ; pull down all religious 
 EstabUshments reared by the piety and wisdom of our great Eeformers ; 
 demoli'dii a national acknowledgment of religion ii' Scotland and England ; 
 thus removing the foundation-stone of the Treaty o.^ Union between the two 
 kingdoms, imperillin.sj; their peace, and perhaps inaugurating civil war ; de- 
 throne, in short, the blessed Saviour himself as the rightful King of Nations ; 
 j itroduce a national atheism, and make havoc of religion throughout the 
 Empire and the world ! To such ends do principles of Political Voluntaryism 
 inevitably lend its adherents, if fully carried out, though perhaps they are 
 themselves not aware of it. Their levelling principles lead them to over- 
 turn all institutions, national and ecclesiastical ; to desire perfect equality 
 in all things ; to have all things in common ; in short, to have all one purse. 
 Such a class are really Communists, and dangerous to society and the State. 
 Their daring attempt'to pull down the beneficent and loyal Kirk of Scotland, 
 and openly strip her of her possessions, ahowH what their jtriiiciple.s are. " If 
 they do these things in a green tree, what will they do in a dry ? " But 
 their principles are still more, and it well becomes you to oppose then: 
 measure, 
 
 22. Because it seems to be a precursor of Bebellion. So I am informed 
 by intelligent men who liave been in Canada near forty years, and who state 
 that there is a feeling abroad among the «' Unionists" very like that which 
 preceded the Rebellion of 1837. Many have been wlu-spenng, lu accord- 
 ance with their principles of PoUtical Voluntaryism, that they will soon have 
 not only Church, but State matters their own way ; that after demolishing 
 the loyal Church of Scetlaud, which stands in their way, they intend to 
 
S8 
 
 move in a ;n>,r ,Hr,'cPim ; tlmt the attempt to ovorfhi-ow a BritiMh Clim-ch 
 rronlvafS pveparatovy to making an attack on other Bnt.«h mstitu- 
 
 ons If BO totheir '<Uni<.nisnr' is shnply "Foniamsm" appear- 
 ratno4 lis under a new nan.o ! and well doen xt become yum- 
 
 ono'r as Lawgivers of the land, .uul responsible to your Queen and 
 . ItT to fi-own on such a movement, fraught with danger wh;ch we can- 
 n Wsfe but which, matured a Uttle more, and carried ont to the till 
 "tcnrtheh- l^Ltanj jl^inciples lead, «my yet require to be settled by the 
 
 ''''^'^VfimiuBe of the claims of the Church of Scotland herself t. your 
 ..ga^ai^S of all enlightened Can^ul.ans These chjnns as we f uUy 
 st-Itod snrin.' not from her status as an Established oxi.uch (ancl the moie 
 I s eV h "h^ of voluntaryism in America the more 1 pnze the Ide s- 
 
 ugof an Established church) not from lu.r histoncal -^-^^^^J^^^^^^ 
 s^rit and world-wide labonrs, but from her long assiduous labouis ot love 
 
 '" 'K^l^:'i^^^e.i. of Canada demand the maintenance of 
 the Churfl ^Scotland. As to her ..,.././ interests what does she reqmre. 
 PonulXm ■ to obtain which her agents are abroad. And where ? chieil> 
 oll^ m^ery of great men, Scotland. And what aay they ? hpeakmg 
 t y a ESurgh their woi'ds are, " Come to Canada where you may have 
 the land yon clear." But Scotchmen arc rehgaons men, and prize their 
 'Sr n^ tha all the land in Canada. Should tliey hear then that your 
 Sament has sanctioned the spoiling of their Kn-k, y^nr ^"gents "^^f 
 vm tlX and long before they wile them to your f o^^- fhus Canada 
 1 \i,o u««+ nnnnlation and her progress is retarded indefinitely. 
 '''''^^^rt:^:-::^'! ttL^ of C.^nada demand its continuance. 
 Canatriike all new countries is overrun with adv;enturers ot every creed 
 S liefproximity to the United States renders her ^-g«--^^^^^^ 
 to evil influences emanating from irrehgions classes m that and And 
 espec ally when a scientific infidelity is spreading arovmd and when dissent^ 
 hg seds are reducing the standard of education, and ^ven adm t g to 
 their desks (they have no pulpits !) men who were never framed, of all things 
 tlrwori clnada most requires a learned, sound, and gospel ministry 
 ike «iat of the Kirk of Scotland, to counteract the evd "^fl-"«- ^^^^-'f;^ ^ 
 still more when we look at her extensive regions in the North-west onlj 
 bel nnin' to be opened up, where the settlers, few and far between, are un- 
 ble to support a Gospel ministry, and where, for an indefinite ponod to 
 one tlT y\vill requii4 external aid,-the benefits of connection with the 
 3hy and philanthrophic Church of Scotland are incalculable. Th t 
 Church through her Colonial Committee, supplies the want so much needed 
 an w ich none other can supply, by sending ot her o,n, ..,7..».s. laithful and 
 earned ministers to preach the Gospel to the poor, "without money and 
 ithovft price." In the best interests of the Dominion then, both v,.trn.d 
 •UKl sPr?f../, your honors will act wisely in protecting and encouraging the 
 National Kirk of Scotland. , . ^ i 
 
 Fiually,-BecauBe every sentiment of lienor «'^d.i"f ^i^^^Xst'Tv tl^'pH JJte 
 
 v«U.nt flip P.ills (Bills 80 uniu^t that they were rejected at tnat hy me iuvaie 
 
 W Comiu tee of the Legi' lative Council of Quebec). Your h,«h vocation aa 
 
 : ec'ioTofer; right, a^.cred and civil. -^^^f-^fZ^t^'^lno^^ ^h 
 , , ,„ pi.„„,i, -,cr'-in°t her """r'^p"'"-"- Althouirh we are tlie ininoiu,^ , imu, 
 
 made latelv to unite certain bodies named the English and the Unitea i.tesD^ 
 r^.B bul I small minority of the latter, refusing to cut their historical con- 
 c 
 
84 
 
 I 
 
 nexioii willi the Sootiisli branch of their church, the matter was abamloneJ, it 
 bt'iii^' ruled at tlie general Synud moetin« at Edinburgh that " the majority had 
 no [lowt^r or riL^lit wiiatnver to forco tho minority to adopt their views." And so 
 in Scotland hHrself, where the question of Union between the Free and the United 
 PreHbytei-'an bodien was agitated with the utmost keenness by its advocates for 
 nine l,)ng yeiuH, the matter was finally abandoned two years ago in consequence 
 of a mnaliininoriti/ of the Free Cburcli refusing to join with Vohintaries or Dis- 
 sentorrt, and threatening, if Union was forced, " to lay legal claim to dl the vast 
 n -operty belonging to the whole Free Church of Scotland ! " In this case, also, it 
 WHS ruled that'*' ihe majority had nj right or power whatever to force their views 
 on a reluciinit minority, however small, who^e claim to the whole church property 
 the Law would undoubtedly sustain." Had our brethren in Canada only followed 
 these Chii^tian examples of the Old Country I should not to-day have been troubhng 
 yon with this letter. Kur^dy you will say it is their duty likewise to abandon a scheme 
 so opposed by their brethren, and respecting which not a fourth of the Synod have 
 even expr-sHed an opinion. But to rush on headlong with their wild union scheme in 
 delianceofnll law, canon and ecclesiastical, and trampling on all rights aacrccZ and 
 civil, and oven on the tenderest national feelings of their countrymen, is what they 
 wdl find will not be submitted to. No! they will find that the battle has yet to 
 be fouslit on another soil ; that in the same manner as the Free Church ministry 
 acted when union was threatened U be forced upon them, but with much stronger 
 reason as an Established C'liurch, will the the minority in the Scotch Church, 
 Canada, (if union is forced) lai/ lecjal claim to all propertif whatsoever helowjing 
 to her in this Dominion, and that before the Highest Tribunal of the Empire ! 
 That your Honors will anticipate the decision which may be expected from that 
 August Bcdy, and refuse to pass an Act so unjust I cannot doubt. Had the 
 "Uliion BilU" like the " Land Purchase Bills," been to compel the Church of 
 Scotland to sell her property for equivalent, even this had been unjust. How 
 much m<n-e so when their scope is to strip lier of her property, whether she will 
 or not, and divide it among traitors and aliens! Certainly if your Government 
 justly rejected even the " Laud Purchase Bills " because of their injustice, infi- 
 .itely more cause have they to reject the " Union," alias. Church Robbery Bills, 
 whofe scope is to rob and ruin her without mercy, without giving her a cent of 
 compensation!!! That our high-minded and highly-esteemed Governor General 
 will I efuse his assent to tliese unjust Bills— so destructive of the rights of property, 
 I cannot doubt. And oven as I lo' e Canada, and her people, and desire their best 
 interests temporal and spiritual, so I oppose tliis confederacy calling itself 
 "Union," before whose plundering spirit no property she has, Protestant or Cath- 
 olic, will be rafe for a moment, and wliose radical principles, tvranny. and illiteracy 
 are not for Canada at all. Canada, as part of a monarchy, and with a beloved 
 Soveiign, mu'.t Have nothing to do with the treacherous and disloyal ; but uphold 
 oMly what is loyal and true. Canada must not be imposed upon by a seif-cou- 
 Btit'nted schismatical sect which is not a church at all— by a thing not even yet 
 come into existence, and which will have no authority for its existence. She must 
 have what will truly benefit her ; not the teaching of half-taught clerics, but that 
 of educated ministers; not a fnlfe gilding, but the pure gold; not a spurious 
 Presbvierianism, but the real Church of Scotland. 'J'hat by your decision— a 
 decision in accordance with that given at first by the Legislative Committee at 
 Quebec— Canada will do herself tlie honor of defending right against wrong; of 
 repelling our aggressors and shielding her loyal Church of Scotland, so long her 
 benelacror, sotlue to her best interests, true ta htr people, true to her Govern- 
 ment, and true to her Queen there can be no doubt. 
 
 Trusting, Gentlemen, that you will excuse the liberty I take in addressing 
 
 \ou, 
 
 I have the honor to be 
 
 Yours with profound respect, 
 
 A FRIEND OF THE KIRK. 
 
 HAMTTiTON, C.\NAr>A WeST, 
 
 March, 1875. 
 
ndoneJ, it 
 tjority had 
 " And BO 
 he United 
 ocates for 
 neequence 
 eB or Dis- 
 il the vast 
 Me, also, it 
 heir views 
 Il property 
 y followed 
 I troubling 
 1 a scheme 
 yno.'l have 
 Boheme in 
 tacred and 
 what they 
 las yet to 
 1 ministry 
 h stronger 
 h Church, 
 
 belonffhifj 
 
 Empire ! 
 from that 
 
 Had the 
 Church of 
 ust. How 
 r she will 
 overnment 
 slice, infi- 
 herij Bills, 
 
 a cent of 
 )r General 
 f property, 
 3 their best 
 lling itself 
 it or Cath- 
 id illiteracy 
 
 a beloved 
 t)ut uphold 
 
 a seif-oou- 
 t even yet 
 
 Stie must 
 !S, but that 
 a spurious 
 decision — a 
 tnmitteo at 
 wrong ; of 
 long her 
 er Govern- 
 
 addrnasing 
 
 HE KIRK.