THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES Krom a phutDKi^U'li I'V M;irsli;ill Wane & Co., Edinburgh. /7 cOT^f^Zl^^^"^^ THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY BY PATRICK CARNEGIE SIMPSON, D.D. POPULAR EDITION HODDER AND STOUGHTON LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO ' Quis nesci primam esse historiae legem, ne quid falsi dicere audeat, deinde ne quid veri non audeat?' Cicero, De Oratorc. Q -^ K '-^iO PREFACE TO THE POPULAR EDITION THE alterations that have been made in this edition are little more than verbal corrections. A paragraph in Chapter vi. on the death of Dr. George Rainy — the Principal's brother — has been omitted as chronologically inappropriate. He died, not in 1859 ^s was there stated, but ten years later. One deletion, though only of two lines, con- cerns a public matter of some importance. In Chapter x. it was stated (in the first edition) that the Patronage Act of 1874 was carried against the ^j votes of a majority of the Scottish members. This iis an error, and the author wishes to express his [| regret for it. What misled him was reading a jotting to the effect that only fifteen Scottish Liberal members voted for the Bill (which is the fact) to mean that only fifteen Scottish members in all so voted. He is obhged to the Hon. John Gordon — a son of the promoter of the Patronage Act — for pointing out the slip. It is, the writer may add, the only error of fact in the book regarding an important matter of public history to which attention has been called. It may be mentioned that, in the opinion of some members of Dr. Rainy's family, the incident on a 573112 iv PREFACE TO THE POPULAR EDITION French battlefield, told in Vol. ii. p. 99, took place, not at Sedan, but at Metz. If this be the case, it would make the story still more interesting, as Sedan was a mere slaughter, while the siege of Metz was a great strategical operation, to understand and describe which implied real military knowledge. The author takes this opportunity of expressing in a word his thanks for the great kindness with which this book has been received, and that not least in quarters quite outside his own Church. One thing in the press reviews is at once so surprising and so significant, that he cannot help referring to it. There was no portion of this work for which the writer expected to have to stand sharper criticism than his discussion — surely not failing in frankness — of the merits of the judgment of the House of Lords in the Church case of 1904. As a matter of fact, with hardly more than one exception, scarcely a single protest has appeared against this part of the book, and certainly not the smallest attempt was made to say anything in favour of the judgment even in reviews, often of con- siderable length, in organs of public opinion which might be expected to be in sympathy with it. Is it then really the case that, as one of the ablest, most moderate and unbiassed of English journals actually said, ' Few people now but believe that the House of Lords decided wrongly ' (Spectator, October 9, 1909) ? It is shown in more than one page of this book what has been the verdict of history on the action of the PREFACE TO THE POPULAR EDITION v statesmen — very eminent men — who decided the political question concerning the Scottish Church in 1843. It seems already clear that the verdict of history will not be more favourable regarding the action of the judges — also very eminent men — who decided the legal question concerning the Scottish Church in 1904. P. C. S. PREFACE THIS work will be found to be, in many respects, an ecclesiastical history as well as a bio- graphy. It is the life of one whose career was not simply connected with, but practically identified with, the fortunes of a Church. Both the structure and the character of the book have been moulded in obedience to this primary fact. As regards structure, the chapters have been arranged, for the most part, according to the stages of the ecclesiastical story. The personal figure has never for long been lost sight of in this setting, but it has not been thought necessary continually to in- terrupt the narrative of the progress of public questions by a careful chronological insertion of minor matters in Dr. Rainy's personal life. Some of these minor matters — such as journeys and the like — have been intentionally omitted in order not to disturb the focus on important historical topics. The question to be settled regarding the character of the book is more difficult, and not ever}' reader may think that it has been settled rightl\\ There will be found in these pages not merely the narration of much of the history of the Scottish Church during the last three-quarters of a century, but also consider- able discussion of it. Now, certainly the ideal bio- graphy or history is that which merely tells its tale. viii PREFACE But Principal Rainy was, in an exceptional degree, the embodied apologia of his Church ; and it has seemed to the writer, after careful consideration, that this biography must be not merely a record of the policies and principles of that Church, but also, at least in some parts of it, their interpretation and vindication. To refrain from this would have been inadequately to exhibit Dr. Rainy's career as he himself viewed it. ^ The book, however, is meant to be — and it is to be hoped will be found to be — essentially a biography. Dr. Rainy was not a man to do very much to help his biographer. He was not a man to reveal his character in diaries or even in letters — many of the latter, it may be added, he did not even date. This life is certainly not one which could be made with merely scissors and paste. Therefore the present writer, who belongs to a generation later than Dr. Rainy's, has been obliged to be in continual debt to those who were the Principal's contemporaries and associates ; and to some of these, very special thanks should be recorded here. The one first to be named has now passed beyond earthly acknowledgments. Without the aid of Miss Christina Rainy — the Principal's sister — the earlier bio- graphical part of this work would have been little more than a meagre chronicle. She died when the book was less than half finished, and the whole of the second volume was deprived of the unique advantage of the always relevant, just, illuminating and most gracious comments of one whose sensitive and retiring nature succeeded too well in hiding from the PREFACE ix public that she was among the ablest as well as noblest Scotswomen of her time. With Miss Christina Rainy are to be associated in these words of acknowledg- ment all the surviving members of the Principal's family — Miss Charlotte Rainy, Dr. Rolland Rainy, M.P., and Mrs. Rolland Rainy, the Rev. Principal Harper, D.D., and Mrs. Harper, and Mr. George Rainy of the Indian Civil Service. The writer has greatly appreciated the confidence which has been reposed in him by the family in connection with this book ; he wishes that, in return, he could give them a worthier portrait of one who was to them more than any words could describe. Beyond this more intimate circle, the writer's deepest debt is to Mr. Alexander Taylor Innes, LL.D. In October 1906, Dr. Rainy conveyed to Mr. Tajdor Innes the mass of his public correspondence — extending over a period of fifty-five years — to be sifted and arranged. This task Mr. Taylor Innes completed with care and skill, to the immense advantage of the subsequent biographer. A few words from his report to Dr. Rainy's trustees may be quoted, for they explain why this book (as some readers will doubtless notice) does not contain a very large number of letters : — ' So far as the public life is concerned, I am satisfied that the main materials are to be found, not in the letters to Dr. Rainy or by him, but in his public acts, i.e. speeches and documents. His work was throughout done in the open, and even when it was preparatory and educative, it was con- tinually tested by being brought to the bar of reason and conscience, not in private correspondence merely but by a process of what has been called "thinking aloud" in the representative gatherings of the Church. Sources like the h X PREFACE authorised reports of the General Assembly, a complete set of The Daily Review, which should be still procurable, and the reports (always excellent) of The Scotsman throughout its anti- Free Church career are among the most important.' The direction thus indicated has been largely fol- lowed, though, of course, it has entailed much additional research. Of the further personal assist- ance which — ^in ways too numerous to mention and with a readiness and unselfishness which could not have been greater if the book had been his own — Mr. Taylor Innes has given during the writing of this book, the author cannot speak too warmly. It is possible to name here only a very few of the others to whom the writer is indebted. The accu- rate historical and legal knowledge of the Rev. Dr. Henderson of Crieff (Senior Principal Clerk of the General Assembly of the United Free Church of Scotland) has been of repeated assistance. In what were perhaps the most difficult chapters to write in the whole book, valuable and notably generous aid was given by Dr. J. Sutherland Black, the friend and prospective biographer of William Robertson Smith. In connection with important public matters in the last section of the history, the writer is greatly obliged to (among others) Lord Balfour of Burleigh and the Right Hon. R. B. Haldane. Thanks have also to be recorded for permission to use letters from various public men, and specially to the Gladstone trustees for their consent to the inclusion of important private letters to Principal Rainy from the late Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone. Many others, who kindly sent the writer information PREFACE xi or otherwise gave him assistance, are asked to accept this general expression of his indebtedness. The Rev. Professor Denney, D.D., and the Rev. G. H. Morrison, read most of the MS., and their criticisms and suggestions were always of value. The writer would like to add his acknowledgment of the interest which has been taken in the preparation of this book by the publishers and the printers, to whom he is indebted in many ways ; in particular, to Mr. Archibald Constable, who most kindly read the whole of the proofs and, on several points, gave most excellent counsel. Of the help and encouragement received from his wife, the writer will not here speak except to say that without these the book could not have been done. Two more general words remain to be added. One is that the preparation of this work, which has been both a laborious and a responsible task, has necessarily meant that the duties of the Minister of Renfield Church, Glasgow, have for the last two years had to be very inadequately discharged. He wishes to record here his deep appreciation of the consideration and loyalty which, in these circumstances, have been shown by his office-bearers and people to their minister. The other is this. In some chapters of this book there are — as was inevitable — discussions of questions which have long been matters of controversy between the Established and the Free (now United Free) Churches of Scotland. It will seem to some that it is unhappy to revive these controversies at a time when the relations between the two Churches are more friendly than they have been for two generations. xii PREFACE The writer is most sensible of this feeHng, and both respects it and shares it. But, clearly, it would not be right to allow even the laudable desire of seeking only the things that make for peace to direct the discharge of a public historical task. Moreover, the just reader will discern that, beneath the whole of even this controversial portion of Dr. Rainy's career, was the purpose of laying what he — whether rightly or not, certainly sincerely — conceived to be the only sure and safe and permanent basis for that re-union of these two branches of the historic Church of Scotland, to which the minds of many are turning to-day with new earnestness, and of which he once said that ' it is something to make the heart leap to think what that might be.' It is in the same spirit that this book is written, and to the realisation of this ideal it is inscribed. P. CARNEGIE SIMPSON. PS. — It may be right to mention that the whole of this book was out of the author's hands and in the press before the meetings of the General Assemblies of this year (1909), when the Church of Scotland, departing from the attitude described in Chapter xvn., took the important step of agree- ing to ' unrestricted conference ' with the United Free Church on the Scottish ecclesiastical situation and the main obstacles to union. TO • THE • CHURCH WHICH • IS • YET • TO ARISE IN • SCOTLAND UNITED • NATIONAL AND • FREE CONTENTS OF VOL. i CHAPTER I SOME FAMILY MEMORIES PAGE Ancestry — Kinship with Mr. Gladstone — Creich — Parentage . i CHAPTER H BIRTH, HOME AND YOUTH Childhood — Character of Father and Mother— University — A Moral Poem — Tour on the Continent .... 17 CHAPTER HI THE TEN years' CONFLICT The Principle of the Church's Freedom — Origin of the Struggle — The Auchterarder Case — The Strathbogie Case — Pro- posals in ParHament — The Claim of Right — The State's Refusal — The Disruption — The ' Residuary Assembly '— The ' glow ' of the Disruption ..... 40 CHAPTER IV THE VOCATION TO THE MINISTRY The Rainy Family and the Disruption — 'That year made me a minister ' — The New College — The Speculative Society — Personal Piety — Visit to the Highlands . . 78 CHAPTER V A NORTH COUNTRY PASTORATE The ' good ' Duchess of Gordon — Call to Huntly — Ordination xvi CONTENTS PAGE — Features of Huntly Ministry — Call to Edinburgh — Translation by the Assembly 105 CHAPTER VI THE HIGH CHURCH, EDINBURGH Death of Mrs. Harr}^ Rainy — Characteristics as a Preacher — Scholarship — Marriage — Death of First-born Son — Earliest xVppearances in the Assembly — Appointed Pro- fessor of Church History 126 CHAPTER Vn THE THWARTED UNION The Disruption and Union — Opening of the Negotiations — The ' EstabHshment Principle ' — Opposition — The De- bate of 1867 — The Anti-Union Campaign— Dr. Rainy's Pamphlet — A Middle Party — The Union postponed — Mutual Eligibility — A New Disruption threatened — Legal Opinions — The Compromise — Dr. Begg , . 148 CHAPTER Vni EARLY PROFESSORIATE Introductory Lecture — Characteristics as a Professor — Life of William Cunningham, D.D. — Case of Walter C. Smith — National Education — Deceased Wife's Sister Bill — Family — Two Letters of Sympathy .... 202 CHAPTER IX THE TOURNEY WITH DEAN STANLEY The Dean's Scottish Mission — The Prompt Reply — Prelacy and Presbytery — The Scottish Martyrs — Evangelicalism and Moderatism — Robert Burns — Establishment — Effect of Dr. Rainy's Lectures 222 CONTENTS xvii CHAPTER X PATRONAGE AND ESTABLISHMENT PAGE The Situation after the Disruption — Revival of the Estab- lished Church — A Change of Front regarding Patronage — Mr. Gladstone and the New Position — AboHtion of Patronage — A Last Chance — ^The Free Church and the Situation — Letter from Dr. Rainy to Mr. Gladstone — Movement for Disestabhshment 248 CHAPTER XI PRINCIPALSHIP AND LEADERSHIP Death of Dr. Candlish — Principalship of New College — Inaugural Lecture — Gladstone : Newman : Rainy — Delivery and Development of Christian Doctrine — Leader of the Assembly — Union with Reformed Presby- terian Church — City of Glasgow Bank Lottery Scheme — Death of Dr. Harry Rainy 283 CHAPTER XII THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE The Two Catholic Questions in the Modem Scottish Church — William Robertson Smith — The Encyclopcedia Britannica Articles — Effect on the Church — Professor Smith's Attitude — The Libel — Judgment of the Assembly of 1878 — A Memorable Scene — The Bible and Criticism — A Divided Church — A. B. Davidson 306 CHAPTER XIII THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE {continued) Movement for Compromise — The Rainy-Moncreiff Coalition — A Great Victory — The New Articles — The Case Revived — Final Judgment of the Assembly of 1881 — Review of the Casft 35^ xviii CONTENTS CHAPTER XIV AN ERA OF TRANSITION PAGE Robertson Smith : Edward Caird : D, L. Moody — Dr. Rainy's Addresses in America and at New College — Ruling Biographical Fact — Letter to an Enquirer — The Atone- ment — Jesus and Paul 404 CHAPTER XV THE CHURCH AND THE HIGHLANDS The Highland Problem — Convenership of the Committee — Visit to the Hebrides — The Disruption and the High- lands — Miss Christina Rainy — The Union Controversy in the Highlands — Dr. Kennedy of Dingwall — The ' Men ' — Deepening Division — False and True Highland Re- ligion — Dr. Rainy's Work as Convener — The Land Question— Concluding Impressions .... 429 CONTENTS OF VOL. II CHAPTER XVI A CRISIS IN DISESTABLISHMENT PAGR The Situation — Lord Hartington's Declaration — Corre- spondence between Dr. Rainy and Mr. Gladstone — Dr. Rainy undertakes a Public Movement — Definition of his Position — Principal Cairns — Principal Tulloch — The Question in 1885 — Further Correspondence with Mr. Gladstone — The Premier's Declinature to adopt Scottish Disestablishment — Dr. Rainy's Attitude — Review of Mr. Gladstone's Action i CHAPTER XVII THE ALTERNATIVE TO DISESTABLISHMENT Death of Sir Henry Moncreiff and Dr. Begg — Communications between the Churches in 1878 and 1886 — The Finlay Bill — Informal Conferences — Dr. Rainy on Schemes of Union 49 CHAPTER XVIII MODERATORSHIP OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY : PERSONALIA : TRAVEL : RAILWAY STRIKE The Moderator — Dr. Rainy's Moderatorial Address in 1887 — Death of the Hon. Ian Keith-Falconer — Utterance on Presbyterian Union — Closing Address to the Assembly — Home Life — Secular Interests — Visit to Australia — The Scottish Railway Strike of 1890 ..... 79 XX CONTENTS CHAPTER XIX THEOLOGIES AND CREEDS PAGH Case of Professors Dods and Bruce — Dr. Rainy and In- errancy — Change in the Church's View of Inspiration — The Confession of Faith — The Declaratory Act — Dr. Pfleiderer's Gifford Lectures and Dr. Rainy's Reply — Death of Dr. Robertson Smith 109 CHAPTER XX THE SITUATION FIFTY YEARS AFTER Jubilee of the Disruption — Mr. Gladstone's Letter — Dr. Walter Smith's Moderatorial Address — The Established Church and the Jubilee — Position of Disestablishment Movement — The Rosebery Goverrunent and the Question — Review of the Situation — Establishment and Union — Mr. Gladstone's Characterisation of the Leader of the Free Church 139 CHAPTER XXI PRE-UNION AFFAIRS : GENERAL CHURCH VIEWS Presentation of Portrait — Oxford Education — Henry Drum- mond — An Address from India — Dr. Rainy's most im- pressive Speech — Presbyterianism — Anglicanism — The Ministry — Christian Unity 164 CHAPTER XXII THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR UNION Revival of Union Proposals — Dr. Rainy's Attitude — Definite Step by the United Presbyterian Church — The Situation — Dr. Rainy's Act of Faith — Incident of the Joint- Hymnal — The Highlands — The Union resolved on — The Formula— The Plan of Union — Attitude towards CONTENTS xxi PACE the Minority — The Legal Question — Opinions of Counsel — Passing of the Act of Union — Waverers . , . i88 CHAPTER XXIII THE UNION : SECOND MODERATORSHIP The Closing Scenes in the Free Church Assembly — The Union Assembly — Dr. Rainy 's Moderatorial Addresses — Jubilee of the New College — Banquet to Dr. Rainy — Various Congratulations — The Action of the Minority — Celebra- tion of Dr. Rainy's Ministerial Jubilee .... 241 CHAPTER XXIV THE UNITED CHURCH AND THE OLD LEADER Case of Professor George Adam Smith — Spirit of the United Church — Temperance — Hugh Miller — General Letters — Later Writings — Spirituality of Character — Letters of Consolation 269 CHAPTER XXV THE LAW CASE AND THE JUDGMENT Statement of the Case — The Judgments of the Scottish Courts — Attempts at Compromise — First Hearing in the House of Lords — Lord Shand's Death — Second Hearing — The Appellants' Argument — The Respondents' Argu- ment — The Judgment — The Lord Chancellor — Lord Macnaghten — Lord Davey — Lord James — Lord Robert- son — Lord Lindley — Lord Alverstone — Historical Criticism of the Judgment — Dr. Rainy's Demeanour at the Time of the Decision ...... 300 CHAPTER XXVI THE CRISIS : THIRD MODERATORSHIP The Situation — The Judges' Responsibility for it — Attitude of the Church — Dr Rainy's Speech at the Commission xxii CONTENTS PAGtt of Assembly — Correspondence with Political Leaders — Public Meetings — The Church Sohd — Application of the Judgment — Eviction from the New College — The Great Convocation — Speech to Young People — Attitude of the Legal Free Church — Government Intervention — The Royal Commissions — Dr. Rainy during the Crisis — Third Moderatorship 354 CHAPTER XXVII THE DECLARATION OF LIBERTY Freedom and Justice — Risks of Complication — Progress of the Royal Commission ■ — Its Report — The Greater Question at Stake — The Assembly of 1905 — The Declara- tion on Spiritual Independence — The Crowning Act of Dr. Rainy's Career — His Place in the Succession of the Scottish Church — The Church's Freedom and the Law — The True Security of Freedom 403 CHAPTER XXVIII THE RESTITUTION OF JUSTICE The Prospects of Legislation — Application from the Estab- lished Church — The Bill — Negotiations for Amendments — Government Concessions — The Lords and the Bill — Unprecedented Character of the Churches (Scotland) Act — The Impaired Finality of Judicial Decisions . , 441 CHAPTER XXIX THE CLOSING YEAR : ILLNESS Death of Mrs. Rainy — Work of the Parliamentary Commission — The Situation in the Church — Dr. Rainy's Eightieth Birthday — Characteristics in Old Age — The Commis- sion's Allocations — Dr. Rainy's Last Assembly— Illness — Letters — Journey to Australia arranged — Last Public Appearances — ' The Sadness of Farewell ' . . . 468 CONTENTS xxiii CHAPTER XXX THE LAST JOURNEY AND THE END TAGR The Voyage — Last Sermon — Last Letters — Increasing Weak- ness — Melbourne — Last Sayings — Death — Funeral — Tributes in Parliament — ' A Prince of the Church ' . 502 [NDEX , . 517 CHRONOLOGY 1826 Birth (ist January) in Glasgow. 1838 Entered University of Glasgow. 1843 The Disruption. 1844 Entered New College, Edinburgh. 1849 Licensed as a preacher. 1851 Ordained to the ministry at Huntly. 1854 Transferred to the High Church, Edinburgh. 1857 Marriage. 1862 Appointed Professor of Church History. 1863-73 The Union Controversy. 1872 Reply to Dean Stanley. 1874 Beginning of movement for Disestablishment. Appointed Principal. 1876 Union with Reformed Presbyterian Church. 1876-81 The Robertson Smith Case. 1881 Appointed Convener of the Highland Committee. 1885 Mr. Gladstone's declinature to adopt Disestablish- ment. 1887 First Moderatorship of the General Assembly. 1888 Visit to Australia. 1890 The Dods-Bruce Case. 1892 The Declaratory Act. 1893 Jubilee of the Disruption. 1900 Union with the United Presbyterian Church. Second Moderatorship of the General Assembly. 1901 Ministerial Jubilee. 1904 Judgment of the House of Lords. The 'Church Crisis.' 1905 Third Moderatorship of the General Assembly. The Declaration of Spiritual Independence. The Churches (Scotland) Act. 1906 Death (22nd December) in Melbourne. CHAPTER I SOME FAMILY MEMORIES SIR WALTER recognised it as a ' national prerogative ' that ' every Scottishman has a pedigree.' The prerogative is permissible in a case such as that of the eminent Scotsman whose life is the subject of this work, for his ancestry includes more than one ancient and honourable family and may be traced to royalty itself in the kingly person of Robert Bruce. Whatever grist may be here for the genea- logist, there is nothing for the biographer, whose interest, as the name implies, is to depict what is of Hfe. But it is an essential part of the picture of a man's life, to recall such scenes and figures from the later generations of the stock whence he was sprung, as were sources of influences and inspirations that moulded his character and career. Principal Rainy's nearer ancestry combined, as did also his own nature, the grit of the Aberdonian with the fervour of the Celt. He took at times a humorous pleasure in claiming descent from an Aberdeenshire worthy who rejoiced under the nickname of ' the sweirin' elder ' ; but of him httle, perhaps fortunateh', is known, and we may begin with the Principal's great-grandfather, John Rainy (or Rennie), who was a farmer in Turriff. He was a Hanoverian in politics, VOL. I, A 2 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY and, in the days of the ' Forty-five,' his laird's wife and a certain Alexander Leslie, who were ardent Jacobites, directed some of the Pretender's troops against him. The soldiers plundered his goods and burnt his house and John Rain}^ was impoverished for life. But he had a noble revenge. After Culloden, when parties of the Duke of Cumberland's armies were raiding the Jacobites' property, he conveyed to his own house many of the valuables belonging to the lady who had led to his ruin and protected them there at no small risk. Then a strange thing happened, making a situation admirably suitable for the plot of a romantic novel. For his daughter, Isobel, fell in love with the Alexander Leslie who had informed against her father, and married him. Even John Rainy 's charity could not quite condone this and the marriage was a sore subject in his family. He had comfort, however, in the career of another of his children — his son George. The impoverished loyalist farmer of Turriff had managed to send this son to the University of Aberdeen, for another * national prerogative ' in Scotland is a good education for the family despite res angusta domi. George had to do the journey to Aberdeen on foot, and on the way he was attacked by highwaymen, who robbed him of his purse containing all that his father with so much difficulty had given him for the expenses of the ensuing session. Poor George, who was but a lad, was perplexed whether to go on or to go back and retired into a wood to pray for divine guidance. After a while, he decided to continue his journey and walked on ; but he had not gone far, when one of the robbers hastened after him SOME FAMILY MEMORIES 8 and threw down the purse, the contents intact. This brave youth, who could so rely on himself because he had learned so to rely on God, proved himself at the University an excellent scholar, especially in classics, and went on to study for the holy ministry. He finished his theological course in 1771 and was presented to the parish of Creich, which is situated in the eastern part of Sutherland. Across the Kyle or straits from Creich lies Kincardine. The minister of Kincardine at that time was the Rev. Gilbert Robertson, a highly esteemed man and one of the Robertsons of Kindeace, cadets of the house of Robertson of Struan. ' Mr. Gilbert,' as he was called by his people, was an evan- gelical and a staunch non-intrusionist ; indeed, in 1762, he had been summoned to the bar of the General Assembly to be rebuked for declining to take part in a forced settlement — that is, the induction of a minister to a parish in face of the protest of the congregation, whose consent to a call was held by the evangelical party to be, even in the days of Patronage, a funda- mental law of the Church of Scotland. It was only natural that the young minister of Creich should be at times a visitor in the house of his senior fellow- presbyter and neighbour in Kincardine, and he soon found reason for multiplying his visits. For Mr. Robertson had a daughter named Anne, who, owing to her mother's death, had early to assume the duties of lady of the manse. The obvious end of the story is that the daughter of the minister of Kincardine became the wife of the minister of Creich. The marriage took place in 1772. This Mr. and Mrs. George Rainy of Creich were the grandparents of 4 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY. Principal Rainy, and here, in his ancestry, met the Aberdonian and the Highland strains which existed, both so clearly, in his own character. It has been said of Mr. Gladstone, in connection with his mixed lineage, that he was * a highlander in the custody of a lowlander.' Principal Rainy 's nature was like that manse at Creich, where the strong man from the region of granite hid in his heart a bride with the Celt's gentle- ness, devotedness and chivalry. With the mention of Mr. Gladstone, it may be said at this point that it is through this Anne Robertson who became Mrs. George Rainy that the kinship, distant but quite direct, is established between the great statesman and the great churchman. She was, as has just been stated, the grandmother of Principal Rainy : on the other side, her great-great-grandfather, Robertson the second of Kindeace, was also the great- great-grandfather of another Anne Robertson, who married John (afterwards Sir John) Gladstone and was the mother of William Ewart Gladstone.^ This * Highland cousinship ' between two great men is interesting, but the deduction from it of a similarity of mind between them is far wide of the mark. There is nothing more to tell of the Aberdeenshire Rainys : in that district, the family practically died out. For the background of Principal Rainy's life, we may confine ourselves to his grandparents' Sutherland parish. Creich is a centre of what, at that time, was one of ' This sentence somewhat perplexes the imngination, but it cannot be reduced to simpler terms. However, a genealogical chart will make the matter clearer. Vide opposite page. C^ CO J ■t;o3 o rtU o o 4, tel^s ^1 bog a'" 1 = -■§8 05-3 £— ;- < £ -• K -c-o " J5 i! o O « « Mo 5^ o H CO Q < O H _0i o u ■ c E- u ^■3.54; o<_ a<« r M > C (u"0 0^,5 .£•0 0; 2 \>^ £5o OS « e □ Q "b u 3 |s e c.-= ^•s S^Ui P53 2i!'S 4J (^ 1° r:: «> 0.2 . c 1 airy F ster of the Re 05 " «■=::, >E» 6 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY the most favoured districts of the Scottish Highlands. Ever since the Reformation, the Sutherland peerage had been inherited by a succession described by the people in later and less happy days as ' the good earls.' The expression probably meant, in the first instance, earls supporting the reformed religion, but it meant also lairds personally associated with the life and well-being of the clan. This happy circumstance bore fruit alike in the social and in the religious life of the people. In the Sutherland of Mr. Rainy's time, there was not the squalor which was to be found in some other parts of the Highlands, and the tenants were generally fairly well-to-do and comfortable. Nor was there the moroseness with which, in many quarters, an orthodoxy knowing the name but not the spirit of the gospel, clouded the Celtic character. Social life, with its Highland music and dancing, had its natural gaiety, and with this, the Church, under even an evangelical minister such as Mr. Rainy (who used to send an elder to the dances as a guardian of propriety), kept in watchful and yet kindly touch. It is easy, of course, to idealise bygone days and, doubtless, there was another side to the picture. Still there is no little evidence to indicate that the Sutherland of * the good earls ' and of evangelical ministers represented Highland life and character almost at their best. One interesting and very im- partial witness to this may be mentioned. It is the reputation made at that time by the famous regiment known as the Sutherland Highlanders and later as the 93rd. The men of this most Highland of all Highland regiments may be taken as typical of their native SOME FAMILY MEMORIES 7 parishes, for one of the interesting things about its formation is that it was raised, not by forced enhst- ment from all quarters, but in response to an appeal to Sutherland clansmen from their chieftainess — the last regiment, I believe, to be thus created. Its military reputation is too well known to need restate- ment here. But it also exhibited, as has been recorded by more than one authority, a perfect pattern of discipline and moral rectitude.^ And the hold which their Presbyterian upbringing retained over them, the men showed by their action when they were stationed at the Cape. They formed themselves into a congregation, appointed elders, called a minister, providing his stipend by their own contributions, and so worshipped God as they had done with their fathers in the glens they loved so dearly. They were notable further as great buyers of books and for the regularity with which they sent money to their old homes. These brave, moral, churchgoing, reading men were natives of parishes such as Creich. Sutherland, with its small percentage of cultivated area, can never have merited that part of a famous Vergilian salutation which speaks of ' mother of fruits,' but, surely in those days, it merited the other part — ' mother of men.' In a manse in this favoured region, Mr. and Mrs. George Rainy lived for forty years. Life in a Sutherland manse towards the end of the eighteenth century is worthy of some description, for it is a picture of something now quite passed away. There is not in all the land to-day a house which has the business ' Vide J. Scott Keltie's Scottish Highlands, ii. 778 sqq. 8 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY done in it that was done in a house such as Mr. Rainy's at Creich. The hfe hved there was one of the utmost simphcity but of the most varied interest. Almost everything had to be home-made. Spinning went on continually — three wheels going all winter by the light of the kitchen fire, for candles, which were among the articles manufactured in the house, were precious. Then there were tanning and salting and other similar industries. There were a flock of sheep to be tended and a herd of cattle ; but the tender-hearted minister and his wife could never bear that their own beasts should be slaughtered, choosing rather to sell them and buy others to be killed for the table. There were the various operations of farm life on the glebe — that is the land belonging to the manse. There was plenty of fishing and shooting, for any one had liberty to catch salmon and there were no game laws. To the outward spectator, it was a remote life, but it had, to those living it, a world of activities and interests. The manse had, too, almost a public function. For there was no inn near, and people arrived at all hours to find shelter and a welcome. It was not a very large house and there was a large family, but ' where there is heart-room, there is house-room.' On Saturday evenings and Sundays the manse was always quite full, for many came great distances to church. Even this did not exhaust Mr. and Mrs. Rainy's High- land hospitality, for they brought up, in addition to their own children, two orphan nephews and a niece and, moreover, were seldom without one or two friends or acquaintances who, being in reduced circumstances, were invited to stay in the manse. How it was all SOME FAMILY MEMORIES 9 done, probably only the angel of the house knew, but there was a rigid rule of the exchequer that, by the end of the year, nothing must be left unpaid. In this home. Principal Rainy's father was a child — one of a family of ten. The children's lives were full of health and happiness. If they had no luxuries, they had no ailments. If they had not even what may seem among a child's necessities in toys, they found perhaps far deeper delight in a thousand things in nature. They roamed freely over the hill-side, making swords of rushes and boats of the long leaves of the yellow iris, and weU did they know where were to be found the earliest and the finest of the wild strawberry, the bramble and the juniper. A favourite playground was the sheep-cote, and the lambs were their pla^'mates in spring. Their school, too, was as simple as their play. The schoolhouse was a primitive fabric, with an uneven earthen floor, no ceiling to the roof, and the windows often broken. Repairs were chiefly provided for by the custom that when a marriage took place in the church, the bridegroom was expected to give something for the purpose, and a local rhyme records how an elderly and stingy Benedick, who tried to escape this tax, was pursued up the glen by the boys, who extracted it by mulcting him of his very kilt. By winter it is to be hoped there had been a sufficient number of marriages at least to mend the windows, but the supreme comfort then was a most capacious fireplace, the fire in which was fed by peats brought by the children. An observant experience had discovered that the chimney — so one of the pupils 10 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY has left on record ^ — ' vented best with the fire on one side.' This arrangement had the further advantage that it left room on the other side for a seat, which was naturally much sought after in cold weather, but, with native Highland courtesy, was always yielded to the manse girls if they cast towards it a wistful eye. The schoolmaster — commonly called simply Peter, not, I fear, from affection, but probably because his surname was too common to be distinctive — taught reading, writing and arithmetic, and also the translation of the Bible into Gaelic. The Bible was the standard school- book, and the first regular lessons in reading were always from the book of Proverbs. The more out- landish Biblical words formed the test of progress, and to read off at sight such a name as Maher-shalal- hashhaz proved the proficient scholar. Of course, it must not be thought that it was at this school that the manse children received all or the more important part of their education. They received that from their father and also from a tutor. But they attended Peter's school, and it always had a cherished place in their memories. The personal influence of Mr. George Rainy, and not less of his wife, in the parish of Creich was varied and deep. They did much for the temporal benefit of their people. On one occasion, when an epidemic of malignant fever broke out, not a medical man could be got to come and the minister and his wife fought heroically in the emergency. At another time, Mr. Rainy induced the laird of Skibo to lease portions of unused ' The materials for tliis paragraph have been gleaned from reminiscences written by Mr. Rainy of Crcich's youngest daughter, afterwards Mrs. Brown. SOME FAMILY MEMORIES 11 land at nominal rents and, by this means, many of the poorest tenantry managed to make homes for themselves. He encouraged a number of men to enlist in the army, which, in those days, before the great centres of modern industry had arisen, was the chief outlet for lads who wished to go afield in life. Men who had been under his pastoral influence were doubtless among those who gave ' the 93rd ' its name for valour and morals. The more distinctly spiritual aspects of Mr. Rainy's ministry cannot, from their nature, be specifically described, especially after the lapse of so many years. His name was long honoured in the north as that of a spiritual man and — despite the fact that he was never fluent in Gaelic — an impressive evangelical preacher. A remarkable state of things arose after his death. A certain Rev. Murdo Cameron was presented to the parish. Whether for adequate reasons or not, the people, to a man, were against him and opposed the call. But he was forcibly settled upon them. The induction of the minister could be forced, but not the attendance of the people. Nothing would induce them to * sit under ' (as the Scottish phrase is) a pastor thus imposed upon them. For two 3^ears they worshipped in the open air and thereafter in two long cottages which they erected. They did not secede from the Church of Scotland, but they would not recognise Mr. Cameron as their minister. And this they persisted in from 181 1 to 1843, when what they called ' the blessed Disruption ' gave them as their minister the well-known Dr. Gustavus Aird. All this may seem to be somewhat remote from the 12 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY story of the life of Principal Rainy. It really is not so. As has been said, a son of this Creich manse was his father, and, in his father's house, the imagination of the boy who was to become Principal Rainy received, from this Highland source, some of its earliest and deepest impressions. These he never lost. Principal Rainy was not, in the strict sense, a Highlander: he had much in his nature the reverse of Celtic and his whole career, with the exception of a brief period in Aberdeenshire (which is not in the Highlands), was spent in the two great lowland cities of Scotland. Yet no one will rightly view his life who looks only at the scenery in which its action took place, and does not see, in the dim background, or rather feel, those hills and straths with their simple and religious people and, clearest of all, the old manse with its interesting life, its deep piety, its loved figures. All this has a rightful place in Principal Rainy's biography, for it had an ineffaceable place in his imagination and his heart. I have recorded these family memories here because they are the memories on which he loved to dwell. We, however, can linger on them no longer, but must pass to the succeeding generation. Mr. and Mrs. Rainy of Creich had ten children, three of whom died young. Of the remaining seven, four were daughters, and they married happily and prosperously. The eldest, Margaret, became Mrs. Parker of Blochairn House, near Glasgow. She was a woman of fine character — her father used to say of her that * Margaret should be in the pulpit ' ; and Dr. Chalmers, who was a frequent visitor at Blochairn, SOME FAMILY MEMORIES 13 held her in the highest regard.^ The other daughters, Christina, Bell, and Anne, married respectively Hugh Tennent of Wellpark, the Rev. Angus Kennedy, minister of Lairg and subsequently of Dornoch, and Robert Brown, a Glasgow merchant. From these marriages is descended a large connection of cousins and second cousins, not a few of whom have attained distinction in life. Of the sons of the old Creich manse, the eldest was Gilbert, who was regarded as a lad of the highest promise. He went out to Demerara, but, to the sore sorrow of his parents, was there cut off suddenly by fever. The two other sons, George and Harry, went in the year of Trafalgar to Glasgow and attended the University there. After a while, George went out to Demerara, as his elder brother had done. He prospered there and became an influential man in the place. When he retired and re- turned home in 1846, he purchased the island of Raasay, off Skye ; but on his death and that of his only son, who did not long survive him, the estate passed out of the hands of the Rainy family. Harry remained in Glasgow. He was the father of Principal Rainy. Harry Rainy — ^he was Harry to the end, never Henry — was born in 1792 and was therefore thirteen when he came up to the University of Glasgow." The ' After her death, he wrote of his friendship with her. 'Such a friend- ship, so steadfast, so exuberant of all that was kind and beautiful and generous to me and mine, I never expect to see replaced in this world.' Dr. Chalmers had also a high regard for her son James, who became Sir James Parker, the eminent jurist. One of her daughters became Lady Cardwell, wife of the celebrated War Secretary. 2 It will give the reader who knows Glasgow an idea of the size of the city a hundred years ago, to add a fact Principal Rainy once mentioned — that when his father came to Glasgow in 1805, a house in Renfield Street (now one of the busiest central thoroughfares in the town) was advertised as '• country quarters.' 14 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY first time the young Highland lad stood up in the class and began to read a passage in Latin, his fellow- students greeted his country accent with unfeeling laughter ; but he had his consolation when, at the end of the session, the name ' Henry Rainy, Suther- land ' had a place in the prize-list both in Latin and in Greek. One of his class-fellows was John Gibson Lockhart, afterwards Sir Walter Scott's son-in-law and biographer, and the two were close friends. Both were manse boys, and therefore members of the same caste. There is a story told of a shy freshman entering the class-room for the first time and attempting to sit down beside Lockhart whom he knew, but finding the bench stoutly guarded by Rainy against all but ministers' sons, of whom, however, the newcomer proved also to be one and he was thereupon heartily welcomed. But though thus proud of being a son of the manse, Harry Rainy did not himself study for the ministry, but chose medicine. He pursued his medical studies with great zeal not only in Glasgow, but also in Edinburgh, London, and even Paris. His going abroad to study was a notable step at that time, for the Napoleonic wars had led to the separation of the nations and, in particular, of this country and France. He was in Paris when Napoleon, escaping from Elba, came on to the capital by that most marvellous journey in history which was begun by an adventurer with but a handful of followers and, in little more than a week, was completed by a monarch before whom Europe was alarmed. Paris seethed with excitement at the news of his approach. One day the door of Harry Rainy's room was tlirown open and liis landlady rushed SOME FAMILY MEMORIES 15 in. ' Have you heard the news ? ' she cried. ' What news ? ' * The Emperor is coming ! ' Rainy looked at her and then said quietly, ' Well, you know what he will do. There 's your boy. He '11 take him and send him off to the war. Perhaps j^^our boy will be killed. That 's what the Emperor will do.' The woman answered him with a burst of passionate feeling, * And though I had ten sons, I would give them to the Emperor ! ' It was Principal Rainy himself who told me this story of his father and I well recall how, when he came to these last words, he swung himself round in his chair and said, with a glow of enthusiasm he rarely exhibited, * Wasn't that fine ? Much as Harry Rainy would have liked to remain in Paris and though one of his professors — the dis- tinguished surgeon, Dupuytren — who knew Napoleon, promised to protect him, he could not afford to take the risk of being detained there indefinitely, and so he left and returned to this country. He settled in Glasgow as a physician and prospered in his pro- fession. It was in the same year that Dr. Chalmers came to Glasgow. The young doctor joined his congregation in the Tron Church and became a most zealous churchman as well as a warm personal friend and also the medical adviser of the great preacher. In 1818 he married. His bride was Miss Barbara Gordon, daughter of Captain Gordon of the 73rd and of Invercarron. Her mother was a Miss Munro of Achany, who was descended from the Munros of Foulis — a distinguished Highland family which from the Reformation onwards had supported every good cause. A well-known member of this family was Sir John 16 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Munro, fourth baronet of Foulis — called * the Presby- terian Mortar-Piece ' — and it is interesting to note that his sister married Colin Robertson, third of Kindeace, an ancestor in the family to which, it will be remembered. Dr. Harry Rainy's mother belonged. The marriage of Harry Rainy and Barbara Gordon was therefore the reunion of two lines which had already, a century and a-half before, come together. These were Principal Rainy's parents. Their first child was a daughter, named Annie, who was born in 1820. For five years she was an only child. Then, one New Year's Day, came the happy gift of a little boy, whom, in years long after, those who admired him often spoke of as a New Year's gift to Scotland. For this was the boy who was to become Principal Rainy. CHAPTER II BIRTH, HOME AND YOUTH ROBERT RAINY, then, was born in Glasgow on New Year's Day, 1826. On his last birthday, eighty years after, the Principal wrote to a friend who had sent him a message of congratulation : ' I suppose there must be as many people bom on ist January as on any other day, but I have always felt the day to be a distinction.' The house in which he first saw the light was 49 Montrose Street ; the site is now covered by the extensive buildings of the Technical College. A year or two later, Dr. Harry Rainy moved westward to 10 Moore Place (which was part of what is now West George Street), and this was Robert Rainy's Glasgow home. Three more children — in addition to Robert and his elder sister Annie, already mentioned — were born into the family. Two were daughters — Christina and Margaret — and one a son — George. But Margaret was lent for only fourteen months, and when Robert was a child of five, he was taken one bright summer day to a green grave underneath the shade of the Cathedral and taught that his little sister would rise again. VOL. I. B 18 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY In his early childhood he had very rosy cheeks, light blue eyes and golden hair that curled naturally over his head. The golden hair lasted far into life (till it changed to shining silver), but the eyes were seriously weakened by a sharp attack of inflamma- tion which he had while yet in the nursery. He was indeed a singularly unlucky child physically in his early days, though most of his mishaps seem to have been due to his own reckless spirit. He broke his arm no less than three times in attempting to reach impossible places. He overbalanced himself in climb- ing the railings in front of the house and fell straight on his head to the stone pavement in the area below. Most serious of all, in his tenth year he was one day sliding down the banisters of the staircase on his breast (a favourite way with him of tempting Providence), when he toppled over and fell twenty feet. His first words to his father who, hearing the crash, rushed to him fearing he was killed, were, ' I beg your pardon, sir ; I '11 never do it again.' Doubt- less, he never did this precise thing again, but his adventuresomeness remained a characteristic for many years to come. There is an extraordinary but entirely authenticated story of his student days, how he was ascending the spire of Antwerp Cathedral and at one point found the door leading to the next story locked, but he availed himself of a rope hanging from above outside the spire and climbing up by it got through a window and so on again by the stair as far as it was possible to go. At a later period, when he yachted a good deal, he enjoyed nothing more than to go out in a stiff half-gale and to crowd BIRTH, HOME AND YOUTH 19 on the last stitch of canvas that the boat could pos- sibly carry. As a child, he was not by any means brilliant intellectually. Certainly his father did not regard him as such, but Dr. Harry Rainy — one of the kindest and tenderest of hearts — was a somewhat severe disciplinarian who expected a good deal educationally from his children and seemed to think it salutary for them to be told they were far from clever. Their governess — Miss Gun — always claimed that she was the first to recognise Robert's superior capacities. After having been with her, the boy attended a some- what inefficient private school, where, it is alleged, he learned chiefly habits of trifling. Then he was sent in 1835 to the Glasgow High School, where excellent teaching was supplemented with a liberal use of the rod. Among his school-fellows there was Alexander Maclaren, who became the eminent Baptist preacher of Manchester ; but they were both shy boys and did not know each other intimately. Robert's chief companion was his own cousin, George Brown. The two had been baptized together and they both lived to be over eighty, in close and affectionate friendship. Robert took some prizes, but he had no ambition to shine as a scholar. He was, however, a great reader. Books of stirring history had a great attraction for him — Scott's Tales of a Grandfather and even Robertson's Charles V. — and he peculiarly enjoyed tales of chivalry. But he devoured all he could lay hands on from Butler's Hudihras to Blair's Sermons, and is said to have read Gibbon at a comparatively early age. The wide variety of his reading rather 20 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY than any marked application to his particular lessons seems undoubtedly to have been the noticeable thing about his youthful mind. He had a very happy home life. The Rainys' was a real home, pervaded not only with purity and affection but also with more than common family unity. Parental authority was a much graver thing in those days than it is now (of which Robert's ' Sir ' to his father after he had fallen downstairs was an instinctive recognition), but, in this home, it was combined with a very real love and also a remarkable confidence between parents and children. Among the brothers and sisters — and with them were often Parker, Tennent, Kennedy or Brown cousins — a most engrossing family life was lived. Much the oldest was Annie, who seems to have been a delightful child — brimful of spirits, witty, a leader of all games, a lover of all animals and kind to every one. Some of the happiest early recollections of the family centred round a spot on the shores of the Clyde near Kilcreggan, where for eleven years they spent the holiday months in a house called Ailey, which Dr. Harry Rainy rented. Here they had all the endless enjoyment of the country, with, added to its staple interests, the recreative devisings of their own brains which were equal to inventing anything from pirates' adventures to parliamentary debates. They produced a magazine of which Annie was editor, and established a college at which, with prophetic instinct, the subject of this biography was already addressed as ' Principal.' Indeed there was a somewhat exacting standard of intellectualisni about these young Rainys even in their BIRTH, HOME AND YOUTH 21 amusements. Their father may not have thought it wise to tell them they were clever, but there can be no harm in saying now that assuredly they were not dull. There are several letters written by the boy Robert during this youthful period, but they are entirely of a personal and private nature — notes about his lessons, messages of one kind and another and similar details of no permanent interest. The one feature in them that is of interest is their simple filial affection. It is evident the boy's parents filled a great place in his mind and heart. And this was true of all the children ; Dr. Harry Rainy and his wife had made a true love- match, and their sons and daughters soon came to share her reverence for him and his belief that she was the best woman in the world. If we would view aright Robert Rainy's early life we must attempt to see the figures of his father and mother. Dr. Harry Rainy was a fine-looking man. He had a light erect figure, an intellectual and sensitive face with delicate complexion and a quite beautifully proportioned head crowned with early silvering hair. He had an intense mind with keen and varied interests, chief among which were medical science and theology. His intellectual eagerness is shown by his learning German — not a common accomplishment at that time — in order to keep abreast of foreign scientific investigation in his profession, and Hebrew in order to satisfy himself about the interpretation of parts of the Old Testament. His views of things were held distinctly, even dogmatically, and he was a man who — for at least the more sacred of them — would cheer- 22 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY fully have gone to the stake. His heart was eager as his mind. He was quick in his emotions, easily moved alike to tears and to temper, now tender and now imperious. As lecturer and subsequently professor in the University of Glasgow — he was appointed to the chair of Medical Jurisprudence in 1842 — he was held by his students in great respect, not to say awe. Part of his duty as professor of Medical Jurisprudence was to give expert evidence in some criminal trials ; he did not like cross-examination. As a consultant, he came to have one of the best practices in the city. To very many families, he was indeed ' the beloved physician,' and to this day there are in Glasgow persons, now aged, who recall his kindness to them during some illness of their youth with the warmest gratitude. Every patient under his hands was a subject of his prayers — a fact which was revealed only towards the very end of his life when he mentioned it in counselling a young doctor * never to spare either pains or prayers over his cases.' He had been a decidedly Christian man from his early youth, but he appears to have returned from Paris in 18 15 so impressed with the avowed unbelief and unabashed dissoluteness which he saw there (though there he also met and greatly appreciated the Christian friend- ship as well as the scientific genius of Cuvier) that he resolved to give himself more earnestly than ever to what in Scottish phrase — a favourite phrase of Principal Rainy's — is often called ' the good cause.' As has been already stated, he joined Dr. Chalmers's congregation in the Tron Church, and, in 1818, he went with his famous minister to the new parish of St. BIRTH, HOME AND YOUTH 23 John's. It was in this parish that Dr. Chalmers carried out his notable social scheme of pauper management, and Dr. Harry Rainy was one of his most assiduous workers.^ He was ordained an elder — one of Dr. Chalmers's * boy-elders ' as they were called — in 1819 when he was twenty-six years of age. He became increasingly, as years went on, a confidant of Chalmers and of other leaders of the evangelical section of the Church of Scotland, and so came to have a place in the councils and struggles that led up to the Disruption in 1843. A man such as this could not but influence his children — especially such loving and loyal children as he had. Dr. Harry Rainy did not give, his son Robert his temperament. But he bequeathed a picture of Christian character which was never forgotten. He made for his family a very lofty and noble standard of life. ' He was,' the Principal said of his father years after, ' a man of singular sincerity and truthful- ness of mind.' Nothing about Dr. Harry Rainy was or could be base. He was incapable of anything unworthy of a Christian gentleman, li he did not transmit to his son his temperament, he transmitted a Christian noblesse oblige the ideal of which his son made one of the lodestars of his life. But in disposition, Robert Rainy was the child of his mother. Even in his physical appearance — not only his colour, but, as he grew older, his broad shoulders and massive head — he was a Gordon. Mrs. ^ An excellent account of this experiment is given in Hanna's Memoir oj Dr. Chalmers, vol. li. ch. xiii. One of Dr. Harry Rainy's visiting-books lies before me ; it reveals an extraordinary amount of patient detailed investigation to be done by a busy city physician. 24 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL 'RAINY Harry Rainy was in principles and sympathies in perfect unison with her husband ; in disposition, his perfect complement. She had a calm and even temperament. Hers was ' the heart at leisure from itself.' And yet her serenity and sweetness had beneath them a firmness and quiet strength upon which even energetic natures were glad at times to rest. Her influence on her son Robert, as on all her family, was undoubtedly deep, none the less so in that it was of that gentle kind which cannot be described. She had a lively mind and had a touch of the Jacobite in her sentiments — a touch which a Scotswoman is all the better for, provided, of course, it is subordinate to greater and sounder loyalties. But her shining quality was her lovingness of heart, which filled the house and overflowed far beyond it. Of this, one of her family ^ has written to me the following words, which need nothing added to them : — * I do not know when I first heard the thirteenth chapter of 1st Corinthians ; but it was no abstract idea of charity, it was the living image of my mother that informed every verse of it. Even the clause " charity never faileth " (though I knew what the Apostle meant by it) suggested to me rather that, in the worst extremity, she would never fail to afford comfort and help.' To these slight sketches of Principal Rainy's parents miist be added one of another figure, who, in his earliest days, was a very benediction in the house. The aged widow of Mr. Rainy of Creich lived with her son, Harry Rainy, and his wife till her death in 1833. She was a picturesque old lady, dressed always in the simplest black, with a widow's cap close fitted round ' Miss Christina Rainv. BIRTH, HOME AND YOUTH 25 her head and a frill to match round her neck. The best picture of her saintly spirit is in the tender and reverent memory of her b}' her grandson, the Principal (who was a boy of seven when she died), in one of his lectures on the Church of Scotland given in 1872 in reply to Dean Stanley : — ' Among my own very earliest recollections are those of an aged lady, very dear to me, whose life was one continued strain of overflowing piety, a long pilgrimage of faith, rising into an unbroken Beulah of praise and prayer.' All this means that, as a boy, Robert Rainy had what surely is one of the very best gifts to look back upon over a long life — namely, a very happy and a really Christian home. One may well apply to him — and most willingly would he have subscribed to them — the pious words of the purest of the Roman emperors : * To God I am indebted for good grandparents, good parents, a good sister, good teachers, good associates, good kinsmen and friends — nearly everything good.' ^ Brought up in such a home, it is not surprising if he was one of those who (to use a phrase of Justin Martyr's) i_ar£_discipled to Christ in their child- h^iod.' There is no outwardly marked act of religious decision in his youth, except that he was admitted as a communicant in the year 1842 in connection with St. John's congregation, .the minister of which at the time was the Rev. Dr. Thomas Brown. He was a notably regular attendant at public worship. But we have merely these outward facts. No one now survives who could give any report of his religious impressions at this period and he has himself left no ^ Meditatio7is of M. Aurclius Antoninus, i. 17. 26 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY indication of them. I venture, however, to recall in this connection a remark he once made to me to the effect that Tolstoi's way of stating the Christian hfe lacked something of saneness and even his way of exposing sinful life something of wholesomeness, probably because his conversion unfortunately had had to be so violent a reaction. Robert Rainy' s decisive religious experience, it may be safely said (if one may so far presume as to characterise it),, was not so much a reaction as a realisation — that equally genuine and equally evangelical type of conversion (though the word conversion seems inappropriate to describe it), which consists in the love and grace of God in Jesus Christ becoming, and that perhaps not at any special time but with the natural development of mind and heart and will, something personal and something vital. A Christian life thus originated is at once super- natural and normal. It is the Christian life of one who not only has been converted but has been converted and become as a little child, with a child's natural trust in its father, a child's sheer happiness in goodness, a child's instinct of recoil from the impure. This was the note of Principal Rainy's religion to the end, and it seems to have been so from the beginning. Along with his spiritual experience during the formative period of life, it would be of peculiar interest to trace his intellectual development, especially during his Lehrjahre at the University. But here, too, the necessary information is now beyond discovery. He has left no record of any kind of his early reading and any letters from him belonging to this stage give little indication of what stimulated and moulded his mental BIRTH, HOME AND YOUTH 27 growth. In this pregnant period of Robert Rainy's Hfe, the disappointed biographer has perforce to be content with the Uttle that can be gleaned from the records of the University Calendar and a very few contemporary letters. It was in 1838 — in, therefore, his thirteenth year — that he assumed the Glasgow student's scarlet gown (that touch of welcome colour in the city's leaden atmosphere) and entered, not of course the noble pile which now crowns the eminence of Gilmorehill, but the very dingy courts of the old College in High Street. It is unnecessary for our present purpose to spend time in describing what college life in Glasgow was in those days, for, to Rainy, the University was little more than the place where he attended classes. His happy home stiU remained the centre of his exist- ence. Certainly, he never knew the solitariness of the typical Scottish student's lot in lonely lodgings, nor the severe privations under which so many fought their way through their academic course with a bitter bravery which was sometimes the glory but was often rather the tragedy of Scottish University life. Rainy was the son of an eminent city physician (already a College lecturer and soon to be a professor) and was among the fortunates of the strangely mingled throng in the class-rooms. He took the regular course prescribed for graduation in Arts, namely, Latin (which in the Scottish Universities is called Humanity), Greek, Logic, Ethics, Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. Some of these classes met as early as half-past seven in the morning. The most famous of his teachers was Edmund Lushington, professor 28 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY of Greek, Tennyson's brother-in-law ; but the one who seems really to have awakened his intellectual interest was Robert Buchanan, professor of Logic and commonly called * Logic Bob.' In his first ^^ear or two at the University, Rainy apparently still had the indolence or at least (if the colloquial word be permitted) the ' easy-goingness ' which had character- ised him at school ; if any spot was to him a place of intellectual arousing, it was the Logic class. Buchanan was in no sense a great philosopher, but he was a real educationalist. He was an admirable teacher and excelled even more in the Socratic art of drawing out the mind by oral examination. Some- thing in the lecture — or, for that matter, not in the lecture — would suggest to him ' a good question ' which he would put to some student, and a conversa- tion, possibly a contest, between them would follow of a most invigorating kind. Rainy was only one of many of Buchanan's students who owed to him intellectual quickening. In the Logic class he took the second prize, the first falling to G. C. M. Douglas, who was distinctly the most successful student of his time and who became afterwards a Free Church minister and Principal of the Glasgow College of that Church as Rainy eventually became of the Edinburgh. The names most prominent in the prize-lists of this set of class-fellows are Douglas, Rainy, Harvey (after- wards Rector of the Edinburgh Academy) and Sandford (afterwards Lord Sandford, the eminent educa- tionalist) ; and of these Douglas was clearly first. Rainy was second again in Ethics as well as fourth in Natural Philosophy and fifth in Mathematics. On BIRTH, HOME AND YOUTH 29 the whole he had a distinguished, though not a triumphant academic record. He still somewhat dis- appointed his father by his lack of ambition to excel. The only picture — or rather, meagre material for a picture — of the Rainy of this period that I can pre- sent, suggests a quiet youth, fond of the grave study of philosophy and the gentle art of poesy. The following is an extract from a letter of one of his College friends, James Murray — a vigorous comrade, keen about out- door exercise, enthusiastic over Sir Walter Scott and a great admirer of Rainy. Murray writes to him thus : — ' Aye, poet indeed, when a poor soul can't take up his pen without running into rhyme at every line. And such rhymes ! O Byron, hold down thy face for shame. I had no idea before that the genius of Roseneath afforded such deep draughts of inspiration, and wish they would impart some of it to your humble servant who is becoming much alarmed about the state of your brain. You know all poets, with very few- exceptions, have turned out either scoundrels or madmen. Now I don't think you belong to the first class, else I 'd be hearing sad tales about Bob Rainy and every dimpled lass in the neighbourhood, but I am much afraid it 's no good sign of sanity when a person is afraid to look at a novel because it 's a little longer than usual and plunges headlong into the musty tomes of Reid, etc., and, with boot of that, writes gentle sonnets to huge rocks and heroic poems to savages. Indeed it is a motley occupation.' Unhappily, none of these ' gentle sonnets ' or ' heroic poems ' have survived. But there has survived one example of Robert Rainy 's muse in lighter vein. From his boyhood, he had a remarkable faculty for dashing off verses of a humorous character. Here is a specimen (written, probably, in his early University days), and it is worth recording if only for the revelation 30 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY it gives of the ironic spirit in the youth. It must, first, be explained that in those days there was a very plentiful supply of ' goody-goody ' books which inculcated somewhat inconsequent morals with their tales. Robert Rainy declared one day he could write that kind of thing and, currente calamo, produced the following, which his brother George, with a not less rapid pencil, illustrated ^ : — ' Come here, little children, and listen to me ; I 'U tell you a story as true as can be Of a very bad boy, of whom you might say He never went right when he went his own way. This very bad boy — he one day went out And saw an old woman wash clothes at a spout ; And what do you think ? By the ears the wretch caught her And held her old noddle right under the water. He held her there, panting and kicking and screaming, While all down her back the cold water was streaming, And there, I believe (though the thought makes one shiver) , If he hadn't got tired, he 'd have held her for ever. But mark the result ! When the fellow grew bigger, A roaming he went to the land of the nigger. And died in the desert for want of a bowl Of that very cold water that soused the old soul. Moral Now all ye good people who list to my lay, Give special attention to this which I say : If you will make old women the subjects of laughter Don't wander to deserts in Africa after.' ' I am indebted to Dr. Harry Rainy, Edinburgh, for permission to repro- duce these sketches by his father. 32 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY The youth who wrote these Hnes was the father of the man of eighty who (to anticipate for a moment one of the closing chapters of his career) described the judg- ment of the House of Lords in 1904 to an audience of children in an ironical parable about Jack's coat and the King of the Fairies which must be told in due course/ I have been able to glean but two meagre facts of his University life outside his classes — that he was a member of the College Missionary Society and also of a College political society. The former of these facts has some interest as indicating a certain firmness of character. The Missionary Society — or, as it was called, ' Association of Students for Missionary Exertions ' — was not in favour with the academic authorities. The Principal — the Very Rev. Dr. Macfarlane — had written of it, in quite the true moderate style, that it was his ' decided and avowed opinion that such exertions on the part of students are premature and injurious.' Rainy 's membership of this society shows, therefore, that he was distinctly identifying himself with the evangelical party. The political association to which he seems to have belonged was the Liberal Association ; at least, one of the few persons who now recall those days remembers hearing him in it make ' a fluent fervid speech ' on that side. This is interesting because Dr. Harry Rainy was a Conservative in politics. But I doubt if Robert Rainy was a convinced Liberal by this time. The probability is that the occasion of this speech was the candidature of Lord Breadalbane for the Lord Rector- ' Vide chap, xxvi., infra. I BIRTH, HOME AND YOUTH 33 ship ; and in this election, Lord Breadalbane won much support, not as a pohtical Liberal, but as one who had upheld the Church's liberties in the great ecclesiastical conflict then waging in Scotland. As his University career advanced, Rainy had to give his mind to a more serious question than verse-making or politics — the question, namely, of his profession in life. His own remark about this in after days is somewhat significant. * I was intended,' he said, * for the medical profession.' The expression suggests, what seems to have been the fact, that he was turning to this quite as much out of deference to his father's desires as from any very pronounced personal choice. Except that as a boy he wanted to be a sailor (which plenty of boys want), there is no indication of his having set his heart on one line of life more than another. A Scottish Arts student of that time naturally drifted into one of the three other faculties — Theology, Law or Medicine. Rainy does not seem to have thought of either the first or second, and his father's unconcealed hope that a son should be with him in his profession doubtless turned the scale. Before completing his Arts course, he took the class of Botany with the view of entering the medical faculty ; and he won a prize in it, though, it appears from Murray's letters, he carried on a good deal of his correspondence during the lectures. Another important event during this period was the marriage, at the age of twenty, of his sister Annie to John M. Balfour of Pilrig (and later of Strathkinness). How she was missed is indicated by a remark, told in one of Robert's letters, which the younger brother, VOL. I. C 34 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY George, made. Some minister had been preaching on how good it is to have the Lord as our portion. ' Is it as good,' asked George, ' as it would be if Annie was to come home ? Towards the close of his University course, Robert had an extensive Continental tour in company with his Uncle George (who had come home from Demerara) and his cousin James Brown. The route was from London to Antwerp (where took place the escapade on the spire already mentioned), up the Rhine and on to Switzerland ; thence across Mt. Cenis to Italy as far as Milan, Verona and Venice. The return was through the Tyrol and Germany, and, finally, Paris. He kept a journal during the tour and also wrote very regularly and fully to his family. These letters are, of course, chiefly occupied with accounts of the various places he saw, and, though these accounts are interesting and vivid, they heed not be reproduced here ; the day is past for loading biography with descriptions of scenes which most of us have seen for ourselves. A few general impressions of what interested and stirred his mind are all that concern us at present, for our aim is to see him, not the things he saw. I am sorry I cannot give his impres- sion of London, but the following extract from a later letter to his mother at once explains why and also gives a glimpse of a Rainy not unknown in after years : — ' Before lea'»/ing London I wrote both you and papa long letters, and it was not till I was on board the Antwerp boat that I discovered thoy were still in my pocket.' BIRTH, HOME AND YOUTH 35 Discoveries of this kind Principal Rainy frequently made in the course of his Hfe. He was disappointed with the much-vaunted banks of the Rhine and thought ' the vineyards look like rows of kail ' (anglice, cabbage).. What impressed him was vast things — the Alps in Nature or Milan Cathedral among buildings : ' vastness,' he declares, ' is a great element in beauty.' The churches interested him — ^he mentions visiting eight in Turin before breakfast — but he soon * corrected ' his preconceived ideas of ' the sublimit}'^ of Popish worship,' and considered that * very few of the Romish clergy are gentlemanly-looking.' One feature of the letters is the detail of observation and even measurement in them ; we have Baedeker to do this for us, but he did it for himself. The following description of the fortifications at Verona — where, too, he paced the circumference and counted the tiers and estimated the accommodation of the amphi- theatre with great care — may be quoted not only as illustrating this, but also because it is one of several accounts of fortifications, which evidently had a very special interest for his mind : — * The fortifications here present a curious mixture of the high walls of the old and the low massive bulwarks of the new style. In case George should be drawing fortifications or building them with bricks, you may tell him that he must not make the walls very high over the surroimding countr}'. But then, they are very thick and have a deep ditch before them, generally a dry one, and where the waUs jut out into a comer there is often a second little wall outside the ditch. ^ Then, there are not many embrasures or holes for the guns * This is made clearer by a diagram. 36 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY in the curtain or general line of wall, but they are numerous — two or three rows one above another — in the bastions or jutting out comers which can fire along the ditch. Then, if he were to go down into the ditch and stand with his back to the wall, he would see that the other or outermost side of the ditch was carefully built and perhaps lie would see loopholes in it, indicating that there was an underground gallery which could be filled with men, so as to place an enemy, who got down to the ditch, between two fires. But the only beings in the ditch here that I could see were a few cattle grazing and a great many lizards.' The letters, too, contain reflective passages, of which the following is an example : — ' I cannot say that I have found the Continent as strikingly different from our own country as I had expected. I had, as perhaps most untravelled people have, undefined notions of people and things abroad being different from those at home — I did not exactly know in what. But I have found that there are hills and lakes and rivers and waterfalls here as at home, that there are amiable people everywhere (witness Prince Schwartzenberg — if all princes and nobles were as kind and considerate, there would be fewer Chartists),^ and that, in short, the sun shines and the world turns round here very much as they used to do. Hence (though I by no means consider vaysoM' travelled) considerably more precision has been given to my notions of men and things. At the same time, there is quite a sufficient difference between things here and at home to prevent one from ever tiring. One has only to look out at the window or saunter into the street, in order to meet with something to occupy the attention, for everything, from the tower or spire of a cathedral to a ragged mahogany-coloured Italian or an advertisement of " whiskey d'Ecosse " in a shop window, furnishes subject for contemplation or amusement or reminiscence.' One more extract at any length from these letters must • This prince had been very kind to the Rainys' courier (who had injured his arm) and became very friendly to themselves. BIRTH, HOME AND YOUTH 37 suffice. I have said one need not nowadays quote descriptions, but the following passage shows how this youth of sixteen could feel, not only the unique sensuous charm, but, even more, the historic and almost personal spell of the widowed Queen of the Adriatic : — ' Venice — I cannot help returning to the subject — has more than answered my expectations. I expected much that was singular and much that was interesting, but I was not prepared for all that has crowded upon me since I came here. I do not refer to churches, crowded with Italian statues, or to galleries full of Tintoretto, for these excite little interest. But every palace with its marble pillars and grated windows seems as if there were a hundred tales full of interest connected with it. The city is a city of bygone ages. It exists as it did in the times of Dandolo and of the Foscari, of Lepanto, of the Inquisition and the Council of Ten. And every house and bridge and street irresistibly carries back the mind to the times when these were actual realities, not mere matters of history. Then, the gondoliers still exist a separate and distinct class. The night of our arrival, five or six gondolas swept past our hotel, the men singing in chorus ; and, as we saw them glance by in the clear moonlight and heard the beautiful cadences growing fainter and fainter as the singers became more distant, it was impossible not to revert to the times when Venice resounded to the song of the gondolier in the days of her triumph and her gladness. I wondered at the time whether, as of old, they were singing Tasso. It may have been fancy, but I thought that the song had a melancholy sound, as though they who sung it knew that the days of song were over for Venice and that she was hastening to decay, but yet refused to yield to despair and raised once more the song of ancient days to testify that true Venetian hearts were beating yet.' This is finely felt. Indeed to feel thus is the very meaning of travel while one is young. 38 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY While, as these extracts show, Robert Rainy immensely enjoyed this Continental tour, other references in the letters reveal how deep a place two things in Scotland had in his heart. One was his home. He sends constantly the most affectionate messages and says repeatedly there is no place like home. For example, to his young brother George he writes : — ' I often think of you and long to be with you, for though travelling is a very pleasant thing, yet there is no place so quiet and happy as home, and you and I ought to be very thankful that we have such a home. Good-night, dear George.' The other was the Scottish Church — now in the throes of a great struggle which was to reach its amazing climax within a year. It was evidently often in his mind. Even the amphitheatre at Verona suggested to him ' what a splendid place it would make for a church meeting.' To his mother he wrote : — ' Please give me in your next all the news about the Church, for of course Galignani never mentions it.' The reader, too, must now have some of the ' news about the Church.' For the ecclesiastical events then occurring or impending in Scotland were momentous, not only for the country, but, most personally, to Robert Rainy himself. The general impression he makes upon the mind at this period of his life — though the materials for judging are, as has been indicated, meagre — is that of a youth of certainly unblemished character, with convictions all on the right side and, moreover, possessing abundant latent intellectual capacity ; but at the same time, one who \ BIRTH, HOME AND YQUTH 30 had not yet done, or even promised to do, anything very notable, who had not yet really exerted himself or found any dominating purpose for his hfe, and whose very abilities would make it easy for him to yield to a natural indolence of disposition. Gladstone seems to have been not much more than an ordinary healthy and intelligent English boy, till he went to Oxford and was inspired by its influences and friendships. Glasgow is not so inspiring as Oxford ; its University did something for Rainy but not very much. What was needed to arouse his more lethargic nature to the possession of its full powers and the putting of them to purpose in life was nothing less than some really great event. This came to him in the crisis between Church and State which at this time was stirring his native country to its depths. This chapter opened by giving the date of Robert Rainy's birth. The exact day on which a man is born is a matter of no import- ance : the important thing is a man's period. The thing of destiny regarding the hour of this man's birth was that he was born at a time which meant that he was a youth, full of a youth's zeal and enthusiasm, when there broke on Scotland the great ecclesiastical and spiritual struggle which culminated in the Disruption of Church and State in 1843. CHAPTER III THE TEN years' CONFLICT IT were to miss the very aim of biogi'aphy to lose sight of the story of a Ufe in the events of an epoch. But in the case of Principal Rainy, it is in the events of an epoch that the clue to his life story, far from being lost, must be found. I therefore make no apology for telling here — it can be only in rapid outline — that chapter in Scottish Church History which is known as ' the Ten Years' Conflict.' It is impossible to picture Robert Rainy's early days with- out realising this great struggle the sight of which stirred his youthful mind ; and it is impossible to understand his career as a whole without understanding hrst the principles which he at least believed to be involved in that struggle and which he stood for and had also to strive and suffer for even in his last years. This chapter, then, is essential to Principal Rainy's biography although his name will not occur again in it more than once or twice. There is such a mass of fact in the story — into which I cannot enter in detail ^ — that it is well first to seize ' Dr. Buchanan's Ten Years' Conflict remains the best and fullest history of this period. It is written, of course, from the Free Church point of view ; but its account of facts is accurate, and it quotes largely from the speeches of all parties. The 'moderate' history of th(» period is Dr. Bryce's Ten Years of the Church of Scotland— 2l book which (probably not to the regret 40 THE TEN YEARS' CONFLICT 41 the essential principle at issue. A common impres- sion about the Disruption is that it was a dispute over Patronage. This is shallow histor}^ It was occasioned by a question about Patronage, but it developed into a far greater issue, and upon this things came to the crisis. Indeed, the immediately determining causes of the Disruption had, as we shall see, nothing to do with Patronage. That large issue may be stated in simple terms thus. The real principle at stake in the Ten Years' Conflict was just the question of liberty of consciencfi-for the Church. We all know what it is for a Christian man to claim liberty of conscience. But the Church claims to have a conscience to keep towards her Lord and Master as much as the individual Christian has, and for precisely the same reason. The individual claims it because Christ has given various commands and directions for the individual life, and these a Christian must be free to obey. In the same way, the Church finds that her Lord has given com- mands and directions for the life of His Church and she too must be free to obey. It is to be observed that this does not apply to all aspects of life. A man cannot plead conscience about everything : he can plead it only about moral and spiritual things. Similarly, the Church can plead conscience and can claim liberty of conscience only about spiritual things. She cannot claim it, for instance, about property ; but she must claim it in the agenda and credenda of her religious life. The Scottish Church has steadily recognised this distinction and her principle is therefore called of modern Established Churchmen) is little read. But the best way really to understand the story is to read the contemporary press. 42 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Spiritual Independence and is not to be confused with Hildebrandism. This was the issue at the Disruption and a brief survey of the history will make this clear. The trouble arose, as I have said, out of Patronage, or, rather, out of the ordination of certain patrons' nominees and their induction into pastoral charge. How it should arise at this particular place is easily explained, and the explanation may be of interest to ecclesiastical readers unfamiliar with Presbyterian order. The Scottish Church, unlike the Anglican, has always steadily adhered to the ancient catholic rule, laid down in the Sixth Canon of the Council of Chalcedon,^ that ordination to the holy ministry should not be given (except in the case of mission- aries) apart from induction to a specific charge. The reason of this rule is a deeply religious one. It is so great a responsibility for a Church to ordain in the name of Jesus Christ to His ministry that she must first most exhaustively test, so far as fallible human means can, whether a man is truly * called of God ' to this work. And, in the modern Scottish view, this is not adequately tested either by the examination by his brethren of his moral and literary attainment or even by his own, how- ever sincere, response to such a question as that in the Anglican ordinal, ' Do you think in your heart that you be truly called according to the wiU of our Lord Jesus Christ ? ' But it is further evidenced — * ^Nullum absohcte ordinari ikbere presbyterinii aut diacotiinn, nee quetn- libet in gradu ecclesiastico, nisi specialiter ecclesiae, aut possession/s, aut inartyrii^ nut tnonasterii^ qui ordinandus est pronunciatur.^ — {Cone. Oniti., Yen., 1585; ii. 325.) THE TEN YEARS' CONFLICT 43 not, of course, infallibly, but still in a way that carries moral weight — if a congregation of Christian people come to a presbytery saying that they have found that this man has a message from God for them, and that they desire he be appointed to have the charge of their souls. Then, the Church is encouraged to believe that God is really calling this man to the ministry and is going to use him in it, and may proceed to ordination with the prayer upon their lips which the Christians of the third and fourth centuries were enjoined to use when they announced the man they had chosen as their pastor, ' O God, strengthen this man whom Thou hast prepared for us.' ^ To this practice, then, of associating ordination, in all ordinary circumstances, with induction, the Scottish Church has faithfully adhered, and it gives to her ordination services — so simple, almost barren, to the outward eye — ^a significance which, without it, cannot but be lacking amid the most impressive ceremonial. But in practice it has one aspect which may, at times, be a disadvan- tage. Ordination is hnked to induction ; but induction is, of course, Hnked to various temporal matters and interests. Thus the spiritual act is brought very near the civil sphere, and any appeal made to a civil court regarding the temporal interests involved easily takes within its purview the spiritual function. As a matter of fact, this is exactly what happened in Scotland eighty years ago, and thus began a great conflict between the State and the Church. Patronage, which in its lay form had been abohshed from the Church of Scotland at the Revolution, had * ' O Deus, corrobora hunc qucin nobis preparasti.' — Caiiones Hyppoliti, ii. 44 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY been restored (in a shamefully unjust and underhand way) during the reign of Queen Anne. But the Act restoring it did no more than transfer the right of presentation, from the heritors and elders who had previously exercised it, to lay-patrons. It left un- touched the Presbytery's functions and it left untouched ' the call of the people ' which was an essential feature in the proceedings of an induction. For years after the passing of the Act of 17 12, no minister was ordained in a parish without a genuine concurrence of the con- gregation. But towards the middle of the eighteenth century, the reign of ' moderatism ' in the Church of Scotland began ; and, as it grew, this call of the people as an element in a minister's settlement became the merest form. It was never formally omitted, because it was one stage in the prescribed order of proceeding, but it became as contemptible as a conge d'elire. A single name attached was reckoned sufficient, even though all the rest of the congregation not merely declined to sign the call but actually protested against it. If any Presbytery scrupled to proceed in such circumstances, the moderate leaders — the greatest of whom was Principal Robertson, the historian — proved equal to the emergency by sending a ' Riding Com- mittee ' which was a commission of ministers, troubled with no such scruples, who ordained a patron's nominee despite any protest, and even, in some cases, under military protection. The effect of all this on the Hfe and interests of the Church of Scotland may be imagined. Not only did her spiritual interests suffer, but even her popularity waned. Serious secessions took place — notably in 1733 and 1752 — and THE TEN YEARS' CONFLICT 45 dissent, which hitherto had meant httle more than Episcopacy, became a new power. The moderate regime was gradually losing for the Church her title to be called national. But — to state a spiritual fact in terms of secular history — the times changed. An * evangelical ' party ^ grew in the Church and at length became dominant in the Assembly, Its greatest — though by no means its only great — name was Thomas Chalmers. This change bore fruit in many directions both in the religious life and also the ecclesiastical policy of the Church. In the latter, it led to two steps which brought on the great struggle. The evangelical majority of the Assembly felt that the. irreligious and often indecent intrusion of ministers against protesting congregations must cease. The Church no longer could in conscience to Christ, who said to her ' Feed My sheep,' consent to force into a pastoral charge a man where the solemn protest of the congregation made it manifest his ministry would be barren and injurious. Therefore, the call must be restored to its old place as a genuine concurrence of the people and thus made an indispensable element in a pastoral settlement. There were those who thought this might be done and should be done by the Church — the Presbytery in the first instance, or, if they failed, the Assembly on appeal — simply declining to ordain unless satisfied on this point. There is a great deal to commend such a line : as a rule it is wiser not to ^ I use in this paragraph, and shall, for convenience sake, continue to use through the chapter, the popular party names of 'moderate' and 'evan- gelical' for the two sides which developed in the struggle ; but such party names have, of course, always a certain unfairness about them. Among the ' moderates ' were men who knew the evangel. > ^ 46 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY introduce new legislation if you can accomplish your end by acting under existing law. If this had been followed, it would have been interesting to see if the civil courts would have attacked the Presbytery's simple discretion as to ordination. But this course was not followed, partly (I believe) because it would not have avoided the conflict in any case and partly because, since many presbyteries had a moderate , - majority, there would have been endless appeals, N^ disputes and delays. Therefore the Assembly passed, 'in^xSg4 what was called the _Yeto_Act — a law enjoining presbyteries not to proceed with the induction of a presentee against whom a majority of male members protested. This act was initiated by Dr. Chalmers. It was passed on the motion of Lord Moncreiff — one of the most eminent judges in Scotland. It had the express approval of the law officers of the Crown and received the special benediction of Lord Chancellor Brougham, who declared ' it was in every respect more desirable than any other course.' This legis- lative enactment became the very Hougomont in the ensuing battle. The other matter which the evangelical majority dealt wdth, also in this great reforming Assembly of 1834, was in connection with church extension. The moderate party, during their period of power, had done next to nothing to meet the spiritual needs of the rapidly increasing population of the country ; and one of the most notable developments of the revived life of the Church was the movement, inaugurated also by Dr. Chalmers and supported by wealthy Glasgow laymen who set up a large building scheme, to grapple THE TEN YEARS' CONFLICT 47 with this urgent national problem. A question came to be involved liere which also entered into the subse- quent struggle and should be stated briefly. The old endowments — called ' teinds ' or tithes — were, at the time of the Union between England and Scotland in 1707, placed in the hands of the Court of Session which was empowered to draw further upon them for ' the plantation of kirks.' But new churches could be planted only with the consent of heritors possessing at least three-fourths of the parish rental. This — through the unwillingness of heritors to consent to further tithing — proved a fatal obstacle to church extension, and the work had therefore to be done by voluntary effort. Churches thus erected were called * chapejls-of-ease.' Of course they were not under Patronage : the people could call their own minister, and they became a stronghold of the evangelical party. For this and similar reasons, the moderate party had done everything to discourage them, and to reduce their status and influence. In particular, the ministers of these churches were kept in an inferior and anomalous position. They were practically merely curates, with no sessions by which to enforce ecclesiastical discipline in their congregations and with no seats in the Presbytery. The Assembly of 1834 took up this grievance and, by passing what was called the Chapels Act, declared the clergy of these extension charges to be recognised ministers in the sense of the term which Presbyterianism knows — namely, rulers as well as teachers. The effects of this on the progress of church extension was at once marked, and, a year after, Dr. Chalmers announced that sixty-four new 48 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY churches were in course of erection. The Veto Act was also working with acknowledged success ; and, as the result of these two measures, the prospects of the Church of Scotland, both as a spiritual agency and a national institution, were never fairer than at this time. The cloud soon rose. Aristotle says that war arises out of small things and grows to great issues. It was so here. A certain Mr. Young was presented to the parish of Auchterarder in Perthshire by the patron, the Earl of Kinnoull. Two members of the congrega- tion concurred in the call : two hundred and eighty, out of three hundred entitled to do so, protested against it. The Presbytery, in obedience to the Veto Act, declined to proceed. Thereupon, Lord Kinnoull and Mr. Young raised an action in the Court of Session. In its first form this action was for the stipend and other temporal interests ; and this — in accordance with the view which has been already stated that all questions about temporal matters are not reserved by the Church but are for the State to determine — was a legitimate question for the civil court to decide. But, almost immediately, the crave of the action was amended, and the amendment was startling. It sought the civil court to declare that the Presbytery had acted ' illegally ' in declining to proceed with Mr. Young's settlement, and that it was ' bound and astricted ' to go on to examine his attainments in doctrine, morals and letters and, if he were qualified in these — that is, unless he were heretical, immoral or uneducated — was 'bound and astricted' to admit him as minister of Auchterarder. The case was heard THE TEN YEARS' CONFLICT 49 before the whole Scottish bench of thirteen judges, and, by eight to five,^ they gave judgment for the pursuers and against the Presbytery. On appeal, the House of Lords upheld this judgment. This judgment raised the gravest issues for the Church of Scotland. It was not merely that the terms of the Veto Act were declared ultra vires on the part of the Assembly. That — if that had been all — certainly could have been adjusted. Dr. Chalmers, who, it will be remembered, initiated that Act, would have agreed even to its being rescinded if that would have been an ending of the question. But this decision negatived not merely the terms of an Act but a large principle behind it. That principle was whether the Church of Scotland had, as an Established Church, any self- government in spiritual things in which she was free to judge and legislate according to her conscience to her Lord and in obedience only to His Word and the interests of His Kingdom. If, in exercising this, she trespassed on any material interest, clearly the civil courts should rule as to that ; but the Church claimed, in spiritual things — of which certainly whether a particular man should be ordained to the ministry and carry on Christ's work in a parish is one — to be responsible only to one Master and therefore claimed to be left free to regulate these according to her conscience to Him. Now the judgment in this case not merely denied the legality of the terms of the Veto Act, but repudiated this whole idea of an inde- pendent government in even spiritual things in an * It is important to notice the large minority which included, certainly, some of the ablest Scottish judges. VOL. I. D 50 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Established Church. The dicta of the judges made this repudiation unambiguous. It was laid down that it was from Parliament and Parliament only that the Church derives * all its powers.' The State will permit the Church the ' exercise of proper ecclesiastical functions ' : but ' the law and that alone gave that ' and ' defines what it has given.' The idea that any such rights or powers are to be thought of as given only from the Divine Head of the Church and therefore to be exercised only in obedience to His Word was treated with scorn. It was not in the mere judgment itself, but in the principle of law on which it was based, that this case was so serious. I do not wish to burden this narrative with quotations, but the matter is so vital that it should not be accepted at second hand, and I therefore give a few — only a few — of the judicial utterances in this suit or in similar cases which soon followed. 'The Establishment,' said the Lord Justice- Clerk, ' being instituted by the State, the competency of all its acts must be subject to the determination of the Supreme Court of Law.' Lord Meadowbank said * the Church, as an Establishment, is to be held as the mere creation of the legislature . . . and every power which it possesses is derived from the law.' The Lord President declared — the capitals and italics are his own in his printed judgment — that ' THE PARLIA- MENT is the temporal head of the Church from whose Acts and from whose Acts alone it exists as the National Church and from which alone it derives all its powers.' Lord Campbell held that ' while the appellants remain members of the Establishment, they are, in addition to their sacred character, public THE TEN YEARS' CONFIJCT 51 functionaries appointed and paid by the State and they must perform the duties which the law of the land imposes on them.' If they will not do this, it was added, it is not enough to say they leave the disposal of any question of temporality to the civil courts ; no, they must ' leave the establishment.' And a later case, to be mentioned presently — that of Strathbogie — ^revealed that the civil courts would, if necessary, press this claim to obedience to the most spiritual things. *We cannot ordain; but,' said the Lord President, ' we can order them to ordain.' * Not to do so,' chimed in Lord Gillies, ' would be an abdica- tion of our constitutional powers and functions.' ' If,' said Lord Mackenzie, ' the civil magistrates can make no order which implies that anything spiritual is to be done, the legal establishment of the Kirk is null and void and a fit subject only for national repentance.' All this doctrine was upheld in the House of Lords. The idea of resistance on the part of the Church, Lord Brougham denounced as ' preposterous ' and * indecent.' ^ Here was a revelation for the Cliurch of Scotland ! Not merely, be it said once more, that the Veto Act was ultra vires ; but that this utter erastianism was the condition of establishment. For if there was one Church in Christendom which thought and had the right to think she was protected, in her alliance with the State, from any civil domination in spiritual things, it was the Church of Scotland. It is impossible here 1 Lord Brougham's learned and exhaustive judgment— full ol his boisterous personality — deserves to be read by the student of the subject. Vide Scots Revised Reports, House of Lords Scries, vii. 165 ci sqg. 52 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY to give the statutory history of the compact between Church and State in that country. It must suf&ce for the present to mention two things. In the great Act of 1690, which settled the statutory condition of the Estabhshed Church in Scotland, it is to be noted that, first, the very terms which had declared the royal supremacy over ' causes ecclesiastical ' were actually repealed — I suppose Scotland is the one country in the world where such a thing has been done — and, secondly, the very words of the Confession of Faith were made statute law that ' there is no other Head of the Church than the Lord Jesus Christ,' and tEat He, 'as King and Head of His Church, hath therein appointed a government in the hands of Church officers distinct from the Civil magistrates.' It was on the strength of statutes such as these, that the Church pled that, in her estabhshment by the State, she had, as Dr. Chalmers phrased it, ' given her services but not her liberties, which were not hers to give.' The judges made it perfectly clear that any such plea in a court of law was futile, that all Church authority, in spiritual interests as in temporal, was derived from and was to be regulated by civil law, even if this, unhappily, meant directing the Church in the most sacred matters of spiritual duty. Thus the issue had become the question of the whole compact between Church and State in Scotland, and whether the Church could conscientiously continue that compact if this were the meaning of it. This grave question stirred the country as it had not been stirred for generations. Meetings were held all over the land. Pamphlets appeared literally in THE TEN YEARS CONFLICT 53 hundreds. There was hard hitting, for when Scotsmen take issue over a rehgious question they do not fall into 'the sin of Erasmus.' At the head of the battle for the Church's liberties was the greatest figure in Scotland of his time. In the almost contemporar\' (but so significantly different) struggle in England, Newman called Pusey 6 ixeyaq — ' the great one ' — and says he gave the Tractarians ' a position and a name.' Chalmers, from the sheer bigness of his humanity and the simple grandeur of his moral and spiritual character, was far more 6 /xeya? than even Pusey, with his most learned but still restricted mind and his deeply devout but sometimes painfully- strained nature, could be ; and his presence in the struggle was of untold value for the Church. Like Napoleon's, his generals were remarkabty young men — of whom the most notable were Candlish, Cunningham, and Buchanan — but they proved men of extraordinary power. With these, worked some of the noblest laymen who ever adorned the Scottish Church. Among them, one of the humblest was one of the greatest. The night of the Auchterarder decision, a stone-mason in Cromarty could not sleep ; soon afterwards, he came to Edinburgh, and as editor of the Witness — a newspaper founded in the interests of the Church's side in the conflict — Hugh Miller rendered unique services by articles which presented the rare combination of the vigorous and at times violent argument of the perfervicUim ingenmm of his race and a picturesqueness and grace of diction worthy of the gentle Goldsmith. The chief figures on the other side were not by any means so striking. The leader 54 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY of the moderates in the Assembly was Dr. Cook — a skilful and careful but quite unheroic person, who was commonly called the * eight-day clock ' from his tall, high-shouldered figure and the regularity and monotony of his movements and manner. Their inspiring genius was John Hope, the Dean of Faculty ; while the ablest minister on this side was James Robertson of Ellon, an acute and courageous debater and the only man of his party who could stand up to the unsparing dialectics of Cunningham and Candlish. There was a middle party led by Dr. Muir, a very respectable Edinburgh clergyman. Such were some of the leading actors in this great struggle. Meanwhile the conflict in the law courts thickened almost every day. The firing came steadily on. The Auchterarder case proved but the first of a whole series of decisions affecting the Church, and some of these were attended with circumstances that could not but further inflame the popular mind. I can refer to but one — the notorious case of Marnoch. A certain Mr. Edwards was presented by the Earl of Fife to the parish of Marnoch in Banffshire. He was well known, for he had been assistant in the district and had been virtually dismissed. Not a parishioner could be got to support the call but the village inn- keeper. The Presbytery of Strathbogie, within the bounds of which the parish lies, was prohibited by the Assembly from proceeding with the ordination. There- upon Mr. Edwards obtained from the Court of Session an order enjoining the Presbytery as was done in the Auchterarder case. Complications followed. For a majority in this Presbytery were on the moderate side, THE TEN YEARS' CONFLICT 5.5 and, on receiving the Court of Session's order, they intimated they would carry it out. For this they were summoned by their ecclesiastical superiors, but they were still determined that their duty was to follow the civil, rather than the ecclesiastical, court's orders ; whereupon the Assembly first suspended and then deposed them for ' contumacy.' The battle was now becoming h outrance. What ensued is almost incredible and, more than anything else, made the country realise the pass to which things had come. These seven deposed ministers of Strathbogie — unquestionably they ivere deposed, whether or not harshly and unjustly — met in Marnoch Church and ' ordained ' Mr. Edwards. I cannot stay to describe that extraordinary scene : the wintry snows without — the crowded con- gregation within — the unblushing assertion of the soi- disant moderator that he and his associates w^re there as * a part of the National Church assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ ' — then, the indignant exodus of the entire people, many of whom, with tears of sorrow and shame running down their cheeks, lifted their Bibles from the famihar places and went forth from a long-hallowed but now desecrated sanctuar}' — the disorderly crowd that took their places — and finally, the carrying through, amid scenes of protest and ridicule, of the forms of the solemn rite of ordination, with the peculiarly searching questions of the Scottish office,^ to the public scandal of religion. But a second thing followed, and it shows a pitch of feeling in the 1 E.g. — '6. Are not zeal for the honour of God, love to Jesus Christ and desire of saving souls your great motives and chief inducements to enter the holy ministr}', and not worldly designs and interests? 7. Have you used any undue methods, either by yourself or others, in procuring this call ?' 56 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY country which was capable of making grave judges of the Court of Session as fooHshly extreme as the most hot-headed cleric. These seven deposed ministers applied for an interdict forbidding certain ministers of the Church of ScotlaAd from preaching within the district in any church, school or even in the open air, and the interdict was granted. So stout a moderate as Robertson of Ellon felt that certainly this was a civil intrusion into the spiritual sphere. But it was also something else. It was a blunder. It evoked only contempt and defiance. The most distinguished preachers in the Church — Dr. Chalmers himself among them and such men as the popular Guthrie and the saintly M'Cheyne — went to Strathbogie and simply trod the interdict which was duly served upon them under foot, and yet the courts did not venture to touch them. The profanity of the mummery of Marnoch and the audacity of this attempted prohibition of public preaching scandalised Scotland. This unseemly and dangerous conflict could not go on. The issue was now plainly defined on both sides. On the one hand the Church of Scotland, with her historic doctrine of a government in her own office- bearers in spiritual matters ' distinct from, and in its own province, not subordinate to ' the secular authority, and with her now awakened conscience about the simple sinfulness of settling ministers without regard to the spiritual interests involved for the people, would not consent to a State alliance which denied this and claimed to domineer over it. On the other hand, • the law's statement was now repeated and final that this was the contract the Church, however unwittingly, THE TEN YEAKS' CONFLICT 57 had signed. The only proper course for her to follow was plain She must ask the State to reconsider the terms of this contract, at least in respect of this matter where difficulty had arisen. If this failed, then a graver question would arise. At this stage, then, the centre of the situation is transferred from the conflict in the law courts (though that went steadily on) to the political sphere. As soon as the judgment in the Auchterarder case was made final by the House of Lords, the Assembh^ appointed a committee to negotiate with the Government. Soon after, the settlement of the question w^as undertaken, on his own responsibility, by the Earl of Aberdeen, who introduced a bill into Parliament in 1840. It dealt simply with the difficulties over the Veto Act and there limited the right of the Presbytery to decline; to proceed with a call to cases wliere the objecting' parishioners could state adequate reasons. Dr. Chalmers greatly disliked this method. He felt that people — especially plain country folk — might rightty and instinctively know that a man w^ould not edify their souls and yet not be able to give demonstration of their grounds that would convince a Presbytery, and he would take a congregation's verdict, as we take a jury's or a political constituency's, without their reasons. Lord Aberdeen was much mortified that the Church did not take up his biU, and his correspondence about it with Dr. Chalmers led to rather painful mis- understanding. In the end, the bill was withdrawn. As the situation became more acute, a second attempt to meet it was made by another Scottish nobleman, the Duke of Argyll, who brought in a bill in 1S41. 58 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY This bill still dealt only with the questions raised in connection with the Veto Act, but it dealt with them adequately. It was virtually an embodiment of the Veto Act, giving a right of veto to male communicants which was to be set aside only if proved to be due to factious or careless prejudice — this limitation being nothing new, for the Veto Act itself provided for it. The Duke of Argyll's bill was in fact a carrying out of the simplest and sanest observation which any politician had made on the subject and which had been made by the most famous man in the nation. * The Kirk,' said the Duke of Wellington, ' should state clearly the rule which it proposed to adopt and that rule should be made the subject of an Act of Parliament.' The Argyll bill followed this counsel, and Dr. Chalmers and the evangelical majority in the Assembly accepted it. A notable effort was made to induce the whole Church to agree upon it. In one of the noblest speeches of the whole controversy, Candlish appealed to the moderate minority to save the Church by uniting over this measure. On the one hand, less than this the evangelical party could not in conscience accept ; on the other hand, the moderate party did not like the veto and had opposed it, but still they had lived under it and it could be no strain upon their consciences to acquiesce in it. If the Assembly was divided, the bill would never pass — and, already, it was seen another legislative failure was bringing the calamity of disruption nearer. It was one of the critical moments of the long controversy, and the speech was worthy of the hour. It hushed all party spirit. But it failed. The moderates received it with great THE TEN YEARS' CONFLICT 59 appreciation and in their reply desired (as one of them phrased it) * to imitate the spirit with which Mr. CandHsh had addressed the House ' ; but the dinner interval seems to have worked mischief, and when they came back after it they divided against the motion that the Duke of Argyll's bill ' ought to unite in its support all who feel they could conscientiously submit to its operation if passed into law.' The evangelical majority carried the motion (by 230 to 105), but a great chance was fatally lost. Historians on the moderate side in this controversy point out that it was less than reasonable for the evangelicals to call on their opponents to give up their opposition to the veto which had been the bone of the whole contention. But, in the first place, it was not the veto (for it had worked excellently) but the legality of the veto which had caused the trouble, and this the Duke of Argyll's bill adjusted ; and, secondly, the situation was one that demanded of every patriotic churchman the concession of anything short of what conscience could not give. So staunch an inheritor of the moderate tradition as Principal Story of Glasgow says the division was taken ' somewhat obstinately ' ; ^ and an historian so far removed from sympathy with the evangelicals as Principal Cunningham* of St. Andrews says ' it must ever be regretted that the Duke of Argyll's bill did not become law.' ^ However, possibly, little would have come of it, at least immediately, even if the Assembly had been unanimous, for the Whig Government was tottering to its fall and soon after was defeated in the House of Commons. Parliament 1 Life of Dr. Robert Lee, i. 36. * History of the Church of Scotland, ii. 60 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY was dissolved, and, as the result of the general election of 1841, Sir Robert Peel came into power. This brings us to the political stage immediately preceding the Disruption. But at this stage — as if things already were not complicated and critical enough — the situation was immensely aggravated by further and wider incursions from the law courts. For one thing, the Court of Session now began to enforce its decrees with penalties. It granted Mr. Young of Auchterarder a claim for damages against the Presbytery — the sum of £10,000 was sought, but the exact amount was left to be assessed by a jury — if it refused to proceed with his trials for ordination. But a second matter entered new ground and raised wider questions than ever. Appeals were taken to the Court of Session on the subject of the Chapels Act, which, it will be remembered, gave ministers of church extension charges a ministerial right to rule as well as teach by granting them sessions for the exercise of discipline and seats in presbyterial courts. The legal decision was given that this too was incompetent and ^iUra vires, ^ and the civil court went so far as to declare null and void a sentence of deposition which had been passed by a presbytery on a man for im- morality inasmuch as ministers of extension charges had taken part in the judgment." It is not necessary to go into these cases. But it is essential they be mentioned and their importance recognised. The' struggle was now seen to be no longer merely one of liberty on one matter — that of the pastoral tie. These cases had nothing to do with patronage or veto or non- * Stewarton case. ' Cambusnethan case. THE TEN YEAKS' CONI EICT 61 intrusion. Thus even the Duke of Argyll's bill would not now be adequate to meet the case. The Church's liberty was liable, apparently, to be assailed anyw^here. This matter of the extension ministers' functions raised no question of a patron's or any other civil interest. Their charges were what was called qtioad sacra — only as regards spiritual things. The churches had been built and the stipends were paid entirely by voluntary liberality. If the civil power could come in here, to limit these ministers' duties and right, to abolish their kirk-sessions and therefore their instru- ment of spiritual discipline and so on, it could come in anywhere. Though not bulking so large in the popular eye, these later decisions cleared the air for many minds, as were indicated by the words of a shrewd and impartial outsider. ' We have now in Scotland,' said Lord Cockburn, ' a thing called a Church, the spiritual acts of which the law condemns and punishes. ' The evangelical majority was seeing more clearly ever}' day that if all this was within the contract of Establish- ment, then they could no longer be part of an Established Church. Disruption was now staring them in the face. Were the}' driven to that ? The Church appealed to the new Government in an almost last effort to avert a national calamity. If this failed, the end had practically come. The tragic thing — and the culpable thing — is that it did fail. The Assembly drew up and ordered to be transmitted to Government a final statement of its claim. This historic ' Claim of Right ' — drawn up by Murray Dunlop, a layman who was to the Church during this struggle almost what Johnston of ^^'arriston 62 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY had been during the Covenanting struggle — was, in substance, that the Church freely possess her liberties * especially for the defence of the spiritual liberties of the people ' and be protected from the Court of Session ; and it was accompanied by a declaration that she ' cannot ' intrude ministers on protesting congregations or carry on church government subj ect to civil coercion, and also by a protest against all acts or judgments denying this freedom with which the Church had entered into her alliance with the State. The moving of the claim, declaration and protest fell naturally to Dr. Chalmers. It was carried by a majority of 131. It is thus to be distinctly noted that this is the claim of the Church of Scotland ; and therefore those who were faithful to it in the subsequent act of the Disrup- tion justly maintained it was not they who were secessionists from the avowed principles of the Church. This document — along with a petition against Patronage — was transmitted to the Crown through the Marquis of Bute, the Lord High Commissioner to the Assembly. While the Church was awaiting the answer to the claim. Dr. Chalmers felt tliat common prudence demanded that the possibilities of a refusal must be considered and the line of the Church's duty in such an eventuality discussed. Obviously this could not be done in the Assembly ; he therefore summoned a convocation of those adhering to the cause of non- intrusion and spiritual independence. This met in Edinburgh in the autumn of 1842 and over four hundred and fifty persons attended it. The two main questions discussed at this momentous meeting were, first, what is the remedy indispensable to meet the THE TEN YEARS' CONFLICT 68 situation ? and, secondly, in the event of no adequate remedy being granted by the Government, what is our duty as regards continuing wit! in the Estabhshment ? On both these questions, some difference at first emerged, but in the end a complete unanimity was reached. On the former, one whose name is to become familiar to us in subsequent pages, Mr. (afterwards Dr.) Begg, held that the remedy was to repeal the act of Queen Anne and thus drive the civil courts back by the way by which they had intruded. Chalmers, Cunningham, Candlish and many others deprecated making the point of intrusion over presentations the crux of the conflict : the real issue was deeper — the principle of the right of the courts to invade in any spiritual matter. Mr. Begg eventually gave in ; and the resolution of the Convocation does not mention Patipiiage._^but claims Spiritual Inde pende nce. The second question revea:ted~again divergence in the same quarter. Mr. Begg again found himself in some opposition. His view was that it was not a dut}^ to leave the Establishment merely on the ground of the civil court's judgment or even of the State's decHnature to give redress : he would not leave till * by a deed of the State the Church is erastianised ' — whatever that means. This view found little support. It was felt that the distinction betwixt the State and the law was meaningless : if the law had erastianised the Church and the State declined redress, there was no need to wait for more. It would lead to an impossible situation in practice : the Church and the civil court would continue in unceasing conflict. And it would not be honourable : to receive pa}^ from the State while o])cnh' 64 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY refusing to observe the conditions on which it was given was unworthy. One by one Mr. Begg's supporters fell away, and at last he himself concurred in the withdrawal of his view. Thus the serious resolution was taken that if the Government failed to give redress on the matter, not merely of patronage, but of spiritual liberty, disruption must follow. And this was agreed to by a convocation one of the leading speakers of which said ' the thought of a voluntary church was to him as darkness.' ^ In January 1843, the reply of the Government to the Church's claim was received. It dismissed the claim as ' unreasonable ' and intimated that the Government ' could not advise her Majesty to acquiesce in their demands.' The refusal was not improved by the man whose part it was to communicate it. No one need question that Sir James Graham, the Home Secretary, was a sincere and even high-minded man. But no one could call him a conciliatory man ; and a trenchant but impartial writer says truly that ' Graham's supercilious manner in dealing with repre- sentatives from Scotland and in announcing the decision of the Government was singularly unfortunate.' " Things were now almost at their last. A single slender hope remained. Above even the Government of the day is the House of Commons. Would the repre- sentatives of the nation look into the Church's claim even at the eleventh hour ? It is pathetic to see how the evangelical party — even when things seemed ' A record of the Convocation is to be found in Memorials of Dr. Candlish^ chap. ix. 2 M.C. (Mandcll Ciciyhton;, in Dictionary of National Biography^ xxii. 320. THE TEN YEAKS CONFLICT 65 hopeless and when they were bound to prepare for the worst (as they most legitimately did by organising a Sustentation Fund) — still sought to exhaust every expedient before taking the step of disruption. Nothing could be more unjust historically than the statement often made by superficial or biassed historians of this struggle that the separation was rushed by impetuous and impatient men. It was the dernier ressort of men who loved the old unbroken Church of Scotland and who valued establishment, and who went forth only after they had knocked at ever}' door in vain. Dr. Chalmers declared they would not leave till they were ' forced.' And so, yet once more, urgent representations were renewed to Sir Robert Peel. He was not insensible of the danger, though he seems to have been incredulous when told that nearl}^ five hundred ministers would ' come out.' Peel was not indifferent like his predecessor Melbourne, who seemed to imagine that statesmanship had exhausted its duty to the Scottish Kirk when he had bestowed upon it his habitual expletive ; nor was he unsym- pathetic like his Home Secretary, Graham, who ne\'er showed the slightest even imaginative appreciation of the conscience that was in the Church's claim. Peel had a far more earnest mind than the former and a far larger mind than the latter. His letters on the question give every impression of a desire to look at it justly and to do what his political ideas could permit. Thus he threw overboard the Dean of Faculty, Hope, who had been the instigator of the moderates from the first Auchterarder case onward, for his * extreme opinions' and ' the intemperateness with which he VOL. I. E 66 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY urged them.' ^ But Peel was ever, conscientiously and thoroughly, a Tory erastian, to whom establish- ment meant control and who could not agree to the idea of a free Church under any circumstances. Meanwhile the Government had their own advisers. It is now known, what was surmised at the time, that their advisers were not Dr. Cook and the leaders of the recognised moderate party, but Dr. Muir and the middle party ; the responsibility that must ever rest on these is a heavy one. Moreover, there had been about this time a slight defection in the evangelical ranks — a certain number, who came to be called ' the forty,' drawing back as the day for decision and sacri- fice came near — and this unhappy eddy gave Graham just the evidence he was looking for to support his ' firmness.' When, then, on March 7, 1843, a motion was made in the House of Commons by Mr. Fox Maule (afterwards Lord Dalhousie) to appoint a committee to inquire into the alleged grievances of the Church of Scotland, the Home Secretary — standing within a few weeks of a national catastrophe — opposed it on behalf of the Government, and declared of ' these pretensions of the Church of Scotland ' that ' the sooner they were extinguished the better.' " Of course, there- upon the motion was lost. The figures were 76 for it and 211 against it ; but it should not be forgotten that out of the 53 Scottish members, it was supported by 25 to 12. One does not need to be a Home Ruler in order to say that if there had been Home Rule in Scotland in 1843, there might have been no Disruption. ^ C. S. Parker's Sir Robert Peel, iii. 76. * 3 Hansard, Ixvii. 394. The whole debate is woilliy of perusal. THE TEN YEARS' CONFLICT G7 There remained now * the only way.' ' We now,' said Dr. Chalmers, * understand the legislature. They will not s'upport the established, but at the expense of the Christian, Church. We give up their support rather than part with our liberties.' And on i8th May 1843, the historic Church of Scotland was rent in twain. No less than 474 ministers — two-fifths of the entire number in the Church — left manses, stipends and all the earthly goods the State had given and, under Dr. Chalmers, went forth to continue the Church of Scotland Free. Peel and Graham might well say of it what Melbourne said (with his usual adjectives, which I omit) of the Catholic Emancipation Act — ' What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the fools said would happen has taken place.' The Disruption is at once the glory and the cata- strophe of the modern Scottish Church. Its heroism of sacrifice hushed, for at least a moment, even the enemies of the evangelical cause into an astounded homage. It so astonished worldly men that they forgot to criticise. When the news was announced in the Stock Exchange in Glasgow, the babel of voices stopped and a complete silence fell on the hearers. Nothing reveals an impression of this kind better than a perusal of the contemporary press. London news- papers, some of which had been venomous against Dr. Chalmers and his followers, changed their tone. In Edinburgh, the Scotsman, which had been in the habit of speaking of the ' pious fraud ' of * our conscientious Kirk agitators ' and of * priestly ambition ' as having been ' at the bottom of most of the non-intrusion proceedings,' surprised its readers by declaring of those 68 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY I who took the heroic step of the Disruption that ' so noble a sacrifice ought to dispel every doubt as to the purity of their motives and is enough to redeem greater errors than they have committed.' But, besides its heroism of sacrifice, which naturally struck the popular mind, the deed had another aspect which was justly noted by the shrewd observer of the period I have already quoted. ' It is/ said Lord Cockburn, ' the most honourable fact for Scotland that its whole history supplies.' That is the word for it — ^lionourable. Here was a large body of men who had most thoroughly believed that their concordat with the State safeguarded the Church's spiritual liberty ; but when that was repudiated by the State as well as denied by the law, then they made no evasive attempt to get behind this in order to save their worldly interests, but frankly and honourably, at whatever personal cost, resigned all the benefits of establishment and endowment. Opinion will always differ on the merits of the long controversy. But the deed of the Disruption itself is entitled for all time to the respect of every man who can recognise a great sacrifice for conscience and a signally noble discharge of obligation. Yet, with all this, there is in it an aspect that was catastrophe. It made a breach not healed to this day. Well, there are catastrophes and catastrophes. There are catastrophes — such as the Mahommedan capture of Constantinople — which, from the day they took place, have been unrelieved calamity. There are other catastrophes — such as (looked at from the Scottish view -point) Flodden — from which, in the course of history, has come good far greater than the evil. Emphatically THE TEN YEARS CONFLICT 69 in the latter class, is the Disruption to be placed. It has a negative aspect of division which every patriotic Scotsman and every catholic-minded Presbyterian must regret ; but that negative evil was probably inevitable for the securing of the far greater positive goods which were attained — the setting on a hill, so that since that time it cannot be ignored, of the principle\ that the Church must be free to keep her conscience] towards her Master : the development of the evangelical ' forces of the nation so that, not in Scotland only, but in many far heathen fields, they have done tenfold more for Christ's Kingdom than was done before : 1 even the rescue of the other school of Scottish religion from the deadness of the older moderatism, which is now a thing practically impossible ; as well as the i liberalising of many aspects of the national life. As ^ Goethe says, Der_.AMsgu^ig-giebLde.n-.Ilhate)i ihre Titel} This chapter is already too long, but it must not conclude without — what really is more important for our present biographical purpose than the mere narration of the events that led to the Disruption — some impression of the situation it created and the atmosphere that pervaded the new Free Church in the hour of her moral triumph. It was indeed an hour of extraordinary triumph — of even perilous triumph. To realise this, one must look first at the picture of what was called ' the residuary Assembly ' of the Establishment. Hugh Miller has often been blamed for calling it by that contemptuous name in the Witness ; but I find that the Scotsman, the day after the Dis- ruption, headed its report with the same title, and ' ' It IS iheu ouicome which j^ives dteda their title.' 70 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL KAINY declared the Assembly of the Establishment would be known as * the Rump.' The Whig newspaper corrected itself in a day or two, but the incident is real evidence of the impression made on quarters outside and even hostile to the Free Church as to the amount of intellectual or moral dignity remaining in the Establish- ment. The proceedings of this Assembly filled the cup of the Free Church's moral victory almost too full. In the most exclusively spiritual things, it capitulated to the civil courts ; and, in a most amazing way, it acknowledged it could not agree upon any answer to its opponents. The capitulation consisted not merely in that the Veto and Chapels Acts were not formally repealed but simply regarded as extinct,^ but in some- thing far more serious. The Strathbogie ex-ministers were not restored or reordained ; they were simply recognised as still ordained men as if no sentence of deposition had been passed against them. That sentence may or may not have been harsh and unjust ; but it was a spiritual sentence passed by the spiritual court which alone could pass it, and to declare it as having no existence because a civil court had reviewed it was an incredible surrender. It was too much for many even in that Assembly. There was a long and heated debate and a division ; but the motion not to repone, but simply to recognise these men as ordained ' as if the aforesaid sentence had not been pronounced,' was carried by 148 to 33. The Church bearing the name of the Church of Scotland declared that her very sentences of deposition in the name of the Lord ' Lord liCllKivcn pi oposed these sliould be 'rescinded' ; but Dr. Cook and even Mr. Koberison of Ellon insisted that that word be not used. The civil court's decree was sufficient rescinding. THE TEN YEARS' CONFLICT 71 Jesus Christ were open to be expunged in tlie name of Caesar. On this decision, Mr. Bruce of Kennet (father of Lord Balfour of Burleigh) left the Assembly, as the Marquis of Breadalbane had done shortly before. Their footsteps were indeed the vestigia morientis libertatis in the Establishment. The other matter — the admission of inability to answer the Free Church case — is a most curious story. Dr. Cook, with less than his w^onted sagacity, took up very seriously the Protest which the evangelical party had read before leaving on i8th May. He declared that ' a minute and comprehensive answer ' must be ' circulated throughout the country ' exposing ' its unjustifiable and unfounded statements.' A Com- mittee of ' the best wisdom of the House ' was appointed to do this, but, after more than one attempt, it did not accomplish its task. So it was continued and instructed to report to the meeting in August of the Commission of Assembly — which is practically a Committee of the whole House meeting at quarterly intervals between the annual sessions of the Assembly itself. When the Commission met, the report of the Committee was presented and (as the minutes authoritatively show) a day was fixed to discuss it. But, on that day, the members of the House deliberately abstained from attending, so that there was no quorum ; and that precious report has never been mentioned to this hour. In the whole history of public controversy, it would be difficult to find a parallel to this. That the failure to provide a quorum was deliberate is admitted by the moderate historian of the time ^ ; and that it was 1 Bryce, Ten Years of the Church of Seoiland, ii. 40S. 72 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY done to secure a supposed tactical advantage is revealed in a letter by the Convener of the Committee, Mr. Milne (afterwards Milne-Home), who wrote thus to the Lord Advocate, little dreaming it would ever be read by an amused public : — * The document is not public and yet it is known that an answer to the Protest exists. The Free Churchmen therefore cannot say we have shrunk from answering their Protest when they see by the papers that one has been prepared by the Assembly ; on the other hand, they have not got the answer to shoot at when they hold their Assembly in Glasgow next October.' ^ Comment would be cruel. ' To shoot at ' such a pitiable object as this poor timorous thing which has never once dared to show its face would be unsportsman- like. The whole performance is so abject that one has a kind of reluctance in dragging it forth. But it is of historical importance to recall this, not only because attempts have been made to make light of it,' but also to enable us to realise the feeling of the times. In a future chapter I shall make full recognition of the remarkable rehabilitation of the Established Church during the latter half of the century. But our subject at present is the situation at the time of the Disruption. • Biographical Sketch of David Milne-Honie^ LL.D.^ Ijy his daughter, p. 175- 2 Thus, I find, in one of the handbooks issued by the Church of Scotland Guild — A Faithful Chtirchiiia/], by the late Dr. Charteris— it is stated that 'the Protest was unanswered, not because it was " unanswerable," but because a nervous old man {i.e. Principal Lee, Clerk of Assembly] had lost the list of those who were to answer it' (p. 105). Principal Lee may have lost his list : that is nuite immaterial. But the Protest was answered and the answer was laid on the table, though never made public. The statement I refer to should not be left uncorrected in an educational handbook. Of course one does not for a moment suggest that Dr. Charteris nia.ue it other- wise ihan in good faith. THE TEN YEARS' CONFLICT 73 It is things such as these at that time which enable us to understand how triumphant — how perilously triumphant — the Free Church was. Is it altogether surprising if, in circumstances like these, there may have been subtly planted in the breasts of some in the jubilant Free Church the seeds of a pride which later (as I shall not fail to say more fully in due course) became a sin for which she was justly chastened ? While, however, there was the danger of pride, and while there was also in some quarters in the Free Church an unchristian bitterness — though there was that, perhaps equally, on both sides — still there was," transcending any such faults, a not less than wonderful exaltation of spirit in the Disruption days. I have heard Principal Rain}^ speak of ' the glow of ihr Disruption.' In this were at least these three elements. There was first an extraordinary sense of sheer relief of mind — the relief that follows upon a great moral duty at length clearly seen and now faithfully done. This must strike any student who reads the speeches and writings of the time. The Ten Years' Conflict had often been perplexing. Duty was often difficult. The situation was often complex. For it is right, surely, to respect a legal compact and it is not a light thing to lead a national Church to break its tie with the State. But when the law more and more explicitly insisted that ' this is the compact you have signed ' and also the State added that it would not even look at the idea of altering it, then duty seemed to become eas\^ — not easy in the sense of being light, for it meant the sacrifice of home and livelihood and the embracing of many hardships, but in the better sense of being i)lain to the 74- THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY conscience. How Dr. Chalmers used to pray during those wearing years that God would make ' the path of duty clear ' ! His prayer was answered ; and it was with not less than a joyful relief that men went forth, despite all the sacrifices, and sang till, as in Reformation days, * heavin and erthe resoundit,' Dune's Psalm : * Ev'n as a bird Out of the fowler's snare Escapes away, So is our soul set free : Broke are their nets, And thus escaped we ; Therefore our help Is in the Lord's great name, Who heav'n and earth By His great power did frame.' ^ This relief was so great that it almost disguises the sacrifices. Yet, there were most heroic sacrifices indeed for very many. It was not only ministers who suffered. It was not less their wives — delicate ladies turned out of comfortable homes to live in humble habitations and in sore straitened circumstances. Women should have as much of the honour of the Disruption as men — women who suffered quietly, and prayed silently and strengthened those who had to ^ The second Scottish metrical version of the 124th Psalm, with its stirring marching tune, is known as Dur/e's Psalm from the following incident. John Durie was a staunch Presbyterian preacher in the sixteenth century in Edinburgli who was banished, but the feeling thus aroused was so strong that the sentence was cancelled, anil he was allowed to return ; 'at whose returning,' says James Melville in his Diary, ' there was a grait concours of the haill toun, wha met him at the Nether Bow, and goeing up the streit, with bear heads and laud voices, sang to the praise of God, and tcstifeing of grait joy and consolation, the 124th Psalm, "Now Israel may say and that trewlie," etc., till heavin and erihe resoundit.' THE TEN YEAllS' CONFLIC T 75 stand ill the fight. And there must have been bitter elements too in that sacrifice — to see, not only women, but little children have hardship for their lot. Still, there is the gladness that shines through it all — the relief — the sureness that would not go back again for worlds. Nothing is supremely great that has not in it the note of joy, and the Disruption had this amid even all its trials. The second element in the glow of the Disruption was, of course, its amazing enthusiasm and consequent success, which carried the Free Church as on a wave. What she did was incredible. She had no puny infancy or timid childhood. From the day of her birth, she undertook to provide religious ordinances for Scotland on a national scale — support a ministry, build churches and manses, continue parish schools, found colleges, and, in addition to all this work in Scotland, carry on the entire missionary enterprise of the Church of Scotland, for one of the most eloquent facts, religiously, about the Disruption is that every mis- sionary of the Church except one ^ came into the Free Church. The programme sounds sheer madness. But the Free Church accomplished it. Money came in like steady rain at the rate of a thousand a day. In the very first year of her separate existence, she built five hun- dred churches. The Disruption did many things, and among them it taught Christian people how to give. There were some wealthy men who gave large sums, but unquestionably the feature of the liberality of the early Free Church was the self-denjdng generosity of humble givers. But people felt in those days as if the}' could give all they possessed for a cause of conscience ' 1 believe one lady inissionaiy in India. 76 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY like that. On all this, the world looked with a half- vexed admiration. It is difficult for us to realise to- day with what incredulity men heard of Dr. Chalmers's scheme for doing only one thing — the maintenance of a national ministry ; and when they saw not only that done by voluntary liberality but all the rest too, people began to feel that the Free Church * could do anything.' And so she could. For, you come to the bottom of all material resources, to the end of endowment however wealthy ; but you never come to the bottom of con- scientious conviction and what that can do for Christ's cause. You cannot exhaust that : it can do an^^thing. And this was the third element in the glow of the Disruption. No careful and impartial student can doubt that beneath all the ecclesiastical achievement and despite many failings, was a profoundly quickened religious faith and life. We are apt to discount this because, in later days, there was a tendency to live on the mere tradition of it. This does not alter but indeed assumes the fact that at the Disruption it was a great reality. It must have been a reality : the Dis- ruption was so great, so unprecedented an act that, if the thing was to be done at all, it could be done only by men who were thrown back simply on God to bring them through. All this combination of battle for principle, sacrifice for conscience, triumph after crisis, enthusiasm in sacrifice and service, and, lastly, spiritual quickening and deepening, made a great appeal to thousands of hearts. There was one section of the community to which it appealed with marked effect, and the mention of this will bring us back, after this historical survey, THE TEN YEAES' CONFLICT 77 to the proper interest of biography. One of the things whicli testify that the Free Church — with all her faults — had the root of the matter in her was the way in which her cause and even her ministry attracted the sympathy of the generous mind of much of the best youth in the country. There was, for example, no more reab sacrifice at the Disruption than that of the large number of students and licentiates of the Church of Scotland who adhered to the Free Church, though there were hundreds of vacant parishes with comfortable stipends lying ready for them in the EstabHshment. Similarly, there was not less than a rush of young men of quite exceptional distinction to the College of the' Free Church, which started with a much larger number of students than were in the theological faculties of all the four Scottish Universities put together. The Disruption had a chivalry in it that attracted many a young life and gave it a new allegiance. Among those thus influenced, was a certain under- graduate of the University of Glasgow who, we ha\'e already learnt, ' was intended for the medical pro- fession ' and to whose career we must now return. CHAPTER IV THE VOCATION TO THE MINISTRY THERE was no house in all Scotland in which the varying fortunes of the Ten Years' Conflict were followed with more anxious interest and also more intelligent knowledge than Dr. Harry Rainy's house in Glasgow. His intimacy with the evangelical leaders — particularly Dr. Chalmers and also Dr. Robert Buchanan, who was Chalmers's leading lieutenant in the West — gave him access to their inner counsels all through the struggle, and he shared much of this confidence with his family, on whose discretion he had absolute trust and the members of which, when the}' were grown up, he always treated as persons to be talked with as equals on such matters. The interest his eldest son, Robert, took in the controversy is indicated by the fact that in 1841 Dr. Buchanan took him to Edinburgh to the Assembly — a fact meaning more in those days than it would now, for travelling was an expensive luxury then. Dr. Buchanan wrote to the Rainys after arriving in Edinburgh : — ' We got here safely yesterday within four hours after a very pleasant journey. We went to the Assembly in the evening when Robert got his first sight of that Venerable Court. I took him this forenoon to the Commissioner's levee to see the 78 THE VOCATION TO THE MINISTTn' 70 little bit of State ceremonial that goes on there and to-morrow- he accompanies me to the Moderator's breakfast, where one gets something more substantial than a bow.' Rainy was a most enthusiastic attender of the pro- ceedings. He wrote his father that he had been ' sitting in the Assembl}^ from breakfast to dinner, and dinner to tea, and tea to supper, and then from supper till three or four in the morning.' These were stout old days when ' fathers and brethren ' could debate a great topic into half the night and the House did not, as now, become jaded and impatient at the paltry- hour of ten. The Assembly of 1841 was notable for the great appeal Candlish made, as has already been described, to induce all parties to unite in support of the Duke of Argyll's bill. The youth who, little though then he dreamt it, was destined to be Candlish's even greater successor in the General Assembly, heard the speech and wrote thus of it to his father : — ' Candlish's speech on Wednesday was most powerful and beautiful, and his appeal to the moderates I thought irresistible. But during the adjournment, they screwed up their courage and Dr. Hill, " of academic celebrity," made the counter- motion. The Witness, in its admirable sketches of the appear- ance and character of leading members of the Assembly, calls him " a solemn propounder of commonplaces." It is exactly his character.' This was, too, the Assembly which deposed the Strathbogie ministers, and that action was followed by an amazing proceeding on their part of which, in another letter to his father, he gave the following description : — ' I sit down to write you an account of an extraordinary 80 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY scene which I have witnessed at the General Assembly. An interdict has been attempted to be served on them suspending all proceedings in prosecution of this sentence on the Strath- bogie men. You are probably aware that had it been served in presence of the Lord High Commissioner, the parties so doing might have been imprisoned. Mr. Peterkin (agent for the Strathbogie men) took advantage of his absence to come and serve the interdict. Our party was, however, forewarned and orders had been given to the doorkeepers to admit no strangers to the body of the house. Mr. Peterkin on being refused admittance wrote in a letter to the Moderator, informing him that he had come, of the object of his visit and the fact of his being refused admission and asked if the Queen's Messenger-at-arms was to be refused access to the Assembly to serve the interdict. The answer written by the Moderator was that the Assembly was considering the case. As their first step, they sent a messenger to the Commissioner to inform him of the circumstances and to ask him to come to observe their proceedings, if he saw fit. The Commissioner came very promptly. When he came, the Moderator explained to him the circumstances and tendered the Assembly's thanks for his prompt attention to their request. He answered that he would ever be willing to attend to the requests of the Assembly and " to assert the dignity and prerogatives of the Crown against all by whom they might be assailed " — alluding to the attempted serving of the interdict. His promptitude on this occasion cannot be too highly praised — no Tory would have done as much for us. After his arrival, a great deal of stupid discussion and altercation arose as to the serving of the interdict, the moderates perversely confounding the legality of the source of the interdict with the question of whether it should be laid on the table. During the whole evening they were most riotous and the excitement rose to a pitch which I never saw equalled. I should have mentioned that, before the Commissioner's arrival, Mr. Peterkin sent in a jiote to say that the Messenger-at-arms (and himself), having waited three- quarters of an hour, had departed, leaving the interdict at the door in the hands of the officer of the Assembly. On the receipt of this letter, Mr. Cunningham moved that the paper stated to be left with the doorkeeper be laid on the table ; THE VOCATION TO THE ISHNISTKY 81 Mr. Brodic, that the debate on the eldership (which had been in progress when the affair began) be resumed as if nothing had happened ; and Mr. CandHsh that the Procurator's opinion should be asked. This last was adopted and the Procurator's opinion was that the House ought not at least to acknowledge the legality of such serving of the interdict. The struggle then lay between the other two motions of which Mr. Cunning- ham's was adopted, the other having been withdrawn. The moderates were throughout quite ferocious and at times the scene baffled description. As an instance of their petty yet teasing annoyance, they kept the House in hot water till the Ofllcer was called in to assure them that the documents laid on the table were the same as those left with him. The whole scene was one I w^ould not have missed for a great deal.' The event above described (and trnly, though with the frank partisanship of youth) was not in itself of very great historical importance in the controversy — except that to find a parallel for it, as for some other things in the Ten Years' Conflict, one would need to go back to Stuart times — but the description reveals the keen- ness of the party struggle and also young Robert Rainy's interest in the Assembly. He seems also to have visited the Assembly of 1842 for a day or more, but there are no letters about it. From these years till the year of his death in 1906, he must have been present at over sixty Assemblies — a record which few, I imagine, can have equalled. In the autumn of 1842 he was abroad and wrote, as we have read, asking to be told all about the Church. A sentence or two in the letters from his family in reply may be quoted, not that they contain anything new, but because they indicate the feehngs with which the approaching crisis was viewed in the Rain}' household. VOL. I. F 82 THE LIFE OF PRINCirAL RAINY Thus, for example, his mother writes to him in October 1842 : — ' Dr. Macfarlane of Greenock is here. He is very dull about Church matters. He quite anticipates a Disruption immedi- ately. The last intrusion leaves no alternative unless the legislature relieves them, and of that I have no hope. May the Lord direct and guide them to do that which will be most for His glory,' Robert's sister, Mrs. Balfour, wrote from a house in Fifeshire : — * Our new minister turns out to be a moderate in Church politics, but he is a good man. His politics signify little for all the time we are likely to sit under him ; for to all appear- ances the days of the Church of Scotland as an establishment are drawing to a close. Nobody seems to look beyond next May. A conference of the whole body of non-intrusion ministers is to be called in Edinburgh in November, at the suggestion of Dr. Chalmers, to consider what is to be done. The spirit of the Covenanters seems developing in their descendants. God grant that v/e may be strengthened to be faithhil when the time of trial comes. What do you think of your old friend Sir James Graham now ? Do you remember Christina's opinion of him from the beginning ? The prospects of the Church of Scotland are dark enough, but God may bring light out of darkness.' These two women could have counselled Sir Robert Peel more wisel}^ than Dr. Muir did. The light did not come till the great deed of i8th May 1843, when, at the first General Assembly of the Free Church of vScotland, Chalmers gave out the opening psalm : ' O send Thy light forth and Thy truth,' and the heavy thundercloud, which had for some time THE VOCATION TO THE MINISTRY 83 darkened the skies and had made in the immense area of the low-roofed Tanfield Hall a sombre gloom in which individual figures became almost indistinguish- able, was pierced with brilliant beams that turned the darkness into day. That historic scene Robert Rainy did not witness ; he was at home in Glasgow. But later in the day, he was waiting at the railway station for the train that should bring a broadsheet with the fateful news. When it came, he (and his cousin James Brown) ran with it all the way home and arrived, breathless but triumphant. Young Rainy 's enthusi- asm — denied the opportunity of cheering with the crowds that hailed the procession from St. Andrew's Church to Tanfield Hall in Edinburgh — had to find vent somehow, and found it in speed. ' The assembled family,' says Miss Christina Rainy, 'received the news of the Disruption with joy and with tears.' Next day, Robert was off to Edinburgh where obviously his spirit had been on the Disruption day. In the summer of that year, the family were again at their old quarters, Ailey, near Roseneath. Their minister there had been the Rev. Robert Story — father of Principal Story — and for him personally they had always had, and continued to have, a friendly regard.^ But this year, of course, the Rainys attended the Free ^ One has been obliged to pass so much of stricture against the moderates in the Assembly, that it is a pleasure to say here how, in reading the proceedings of the Established ('residuary') Assembly in 1S43, one is struck by Mr. Story's appearances. Not only did he strongly and ably oppose the shameful recognition, without any reponement, of the deposed Strathbogie ministers, but, when a member (a somewhat prominent layman whose name need not be recorded) was indulging in unworthy snCers about the 'sacrifices' of the outgoing ministers, Mr. Story rose and protested against this way of referring to brethren 'who had made a noble sacrifice,' and added, let not one word be spoken of them but with the utmost respect.' 84 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Church services which were held in the open air. Principal Rainy wrote many years afterwards the following description of these services : — ' During the summer of 1843, my father's family resorted for country quarters, as we had done for some summers before, to that part of the parish of Roseneath which looks out on Loch Long and down towards Dunoon and Arran. In previous seasons, the pedestrian part of the family used to cross the moor to the parish church of Roseneath, while those who were not up to walking proceeded to the same destination in a seated cart, by the beautiful road which, after winding at some height above the sea in full view of Arran and the Gourock and Greenock hills, turns inland through a valley and, crossing a peninsula, emerges again on the sheltered shores of the Gareloch and follows them up to the clachan of Roseneath. ' The arrangements for the Disruption congregation were made by Mr. Lome Campbell, the excellent Commissioner of that part of the Argyll estates. A saw-pit, adaptable beyond most saw-pits, was utihsed for the purpose. It was in the valley above referred to, and not very far from the site of the present Free Church, but nearer the Gareloch, if I remember right. The sawn planks helped the accommodation, and I am not sure but some shelter was knocked up which partly protected the congregation, or rather a few of them, for most of us sat sub Jove. It was a beautiful summer, and I remember some very hot Sundays. I remember still more the animation of the preaching and the cordiality of the hearing ; some who are gone hence are much associated in my mind with the peculiar mood of thankfulness, tenderness and hope which characterised 'these Sabbaths of 1843.' ^ These recollections, which Principal Rainy wrote many years after the Disruption, he concluded with the following sentence which records the pivot-fact of his career : * That year made me a minister.' The very brevity of the statement disguises the ' Annals 0/ the Disruption^ ch. xxii. THE VOCATION TO THE MINISTRY 8,5 religious principle that was beneath the fact it records. It is interesting to compare it with the most pious and earnest, but (as his biographer calls it) exorbitanth,- long, vague and obscure letter whicli Mr. Gladstone wrote when he informed his father of his reasons for desiring to enter the ministry of the Church.^ One could not imagine Principal Rainy considering himself called to the clerical life from general considerations, such as Mr. Gladstone adduces, about the dignity of the office, the grandeur of its end and of its means or even the sense of men's sin and danger. I am confident he would say that ever}^ Christian mind should feel the force of all this, but that such general considerations do not at all — or rather, do not sufficiently — show that God is appointing me to the work of the ministry. That will be more justly discovered or confirmed by the providential events of life. Principal Rainy had a continual sense of the insecurity of even sincere human reasoning about a matter such as this, apart from a humble looking for and learning of the calls of God in outward life. That he long pondered and prayed over the thought of becoming a minister need not be said ; but the phrase ' that 3'ear made me a minister ' means that an outward providence as well as an inward inclination settled the matter. It was in obedience not merelj^ to his own ideas but also to the situation in which God had placed his life, that this young medical student decided to change his career. When he asked his father's counsel — or, it would be more correct to say his father's leave — Dr. Harr}' ' Morley's Life of Gladsto7ii\ i., appendix, 635-40. ' ^\^^ '^y"' 86 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Rainy urged delay and verj'^ wisely. This was an exciting time ; a decision might easily be made too much under the feelings of the moment. And Robert was not yet eighteen. Dr. Harry Rainy advised his son, as any wise father in the circumstances would do, to consider it a little and be sure that such a decision was the result of a calm and matured judgment. The idea that in the father's mind was any kind of dislike to his son thus identifying himself with the Free Church is utterly the reverse of the fact, but his proposal of this delay seems in some quarters to have been taken advantage of to suggest this impression. Fift}^ years later, Principal Rainy wrote one of his few letters to the press to correct this misrepresentation, and this letter at once supplies the facts of this turning point in his life and is an interesting tribute to his father's character : — To the Editor of the 'Dundee Advertiser^ 2gth August 1896. Sir, — Your issue of the 24th has only now reached me. It contains an article in reference to myself, on which, so far as I am concerned, I have nothing to say except to thank the writer for his friendly disposition. But something is said of my father ; and, as I might be supposed to acquiesce in it if it passed uncontradicted, I ask for leave to put in a word of correction. According to the writer, my father ' had not been carried away by the Disruption wave,' and so ' opposed Robert Rainy 's projected change of profession.' ' Ultimately he gave a reluctant consent.' Further, reasons are given to explain how he came to ' resist at first the ardour of his son's conversion to Free Kirkism.' The facts are that my father lived in the full stream of the convictions and impressions which issued in the Disruption. He was probahly the most intimate and confidential lay friend THE V^OCATION TO rilE MlNISTliY 87 of Dr. Robert Buchanan. He hailed the separation of the Free Church from the State as a great act of duty as well as a relief from a strain which had become intolerable. I suppose that few persons contributed from the first to Free Church objects, in proportion to his means at the time, more liberally than my father did. Any intelligence I have of Free Church principles or any impression of their value, I owe primarily to my father and mother. It is true that my father was a son of the manse ; but, like many more of that honourable class, he regarded all the best traditions of his training as pointing to the course he took in 1843. The writer of that article has been misled, not unnaturally, I dare say, by some report of a circumstance verj' easilj' explained. It was in 1843 I spoke to my father about studying for the ministry. It was a ^'^ear of great excitement. My father did not wish me to come to so serious a decision rashly. Besides, as his practice was the best thing he had to leave to his family and he meant that, so far as it could be transferred, for me, he wished me to be sure of my own mind. He there- fore advised me to take a year to think of it and meanwhile proceed with medical study. I thought it ver}^ wise advice. But I never had reason to doubt that my father would rejoice to see me study for the ministry if my motives were right and if my decision was deliberate. I should like to add that my father was a man of remark- ably independent and progressive mind. Some matters on which we differed, ecclesiastical and scientific, were matters in which he was in advance of me and in which the progress of the years has shown me that I was wrong and he was right. — I am, etc. Robert Rainy. And so, during the winter of 1843-4, he continued the ordinary medical course, and he seems to have done so in no merely formal way, for he attended an extra- mural class in anatomy. There was much that happened during that winter which was calculated to deepen the claim which the Free Church had made on his heart. A General 88 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Assembl}^ was held in October in Glasgow under the dignified moderatorship of the Rainys' minister, Dr. Thomas Brown, of St. John's. The features of that Assembly were, first its missionary enthusiasm, and secondly, its extraordinarily smooth organisation of the various financial schemes of the Church ; but one notable utterance in it must have fallen with special weight on Robert Rainy's ears, namely. Dr. Chalmers's (appeal to ' Christian youth ' to ' consecrate itself to the ministry of the Word in the service of a Church which has no higher prize to offer^ now than^the prize ' of \\ inning souls unto God.' Then, this was the winter in which opposition to the Free Church took, in many quarters, despicable forms. An expiring feudalism roused itself to new activity by refusing sites, and stories came in of Free Church people worshipping on hill- sides and in caves or, as a last resort, on the shore below high-water line. And sadder tales still there were (though not more than a tithe of the truth about this reached any ear but God's) of the privations and even persecution to which some of the ministers who had left home and livelihood were exposed. Nor was it only ministers who suffered thus for adhering to the Free Church ; in many places, tenants lost their leases and servants their situations. I have no wish to dwell upon these now buried wrongs ; still we must remember here that they were part of the intense atmosphere of those days. Of the sacrifices of the Disruption ministry, it came to be said by some Estab- lished Churchmen that the real sacrifice was to ' stay in.' This may have liad a moment's plausibilit}^ on the Disruption day, as tlie clieers of tlic crowd liailed the THE VOCATION TO THE MINISTRY 89 procession that emerged from St. Andrew's Church. But ever}^ man in that procession — and most of all the humbler country ministers — knew this was but for a day, and knew the real hour of trial that awaited him. Yes, and those who did not join that procession knew this too. They may have had every right to claim credit for sincerity in their ' staying in,' but I do feel that, when the}" found themselves again in their com- fortable manses and with their assured stipends and thought of the lot of many of their former brethren and when they thought of those men's wives and little children— I sa}' I do feel that, on the subject of sacrifices, it would have been better that they had been silent. As I have said, I will not dwell on this ; but one can easily imagine how it would stir the chivalry that was innate in Robert Rainy's Highland blood when (for example) there came on a visit to his father's house that venerable Sutherland minister, over eighty years of age, whose own daughter was plainh^ enough threatened with eviction from her cottage because she gave him shelter.^ The reader must bid himself realise the impression things like this had on the mind of a generous youth in his eighteenth \'ear. The time of probation by which his choice of the ministr}' was tested came to its close and his mind was clearer than ever. His father now entirely concurred. So, having graduated Master of Arts at the University of Glasgow in April 1844, Rainy turned his face definitely to his new vocation and prepared to go to Edinburgh to the new theological college of the Free Church. His cousin, George Brown, took the same ^ The well known case of the Kev. Duncan M'C.illiviay of Lairg. 90 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY step along with him ; and so became visible the answer to a pra\'^er which (as their mothers always remembered) had been offered by the minister when these two cousins were baptized together, that it might be God's purpose to dedicate them to the service of His Gospel. Other Glasgow students went too, and among them the brilliant prize-taker, George Douglas. It is said to have caused Professor Robert Buchanan — the ' Logic Bob ' already mentioned — unconcealed vexation to receive from one after another of his more brilliant men, when he asked them their intended profession, the irritating answer, ' Ministr}^ of the Free Church.' There were over two hundred students in the New College when Rainy and his companions entered. The New College was an example of the amazing energy with which the Free Church rose to its responsibilities. The classes met first in hired rooms in George Street, but in three years the handsome building at the head of the Mound was erected at a cost of about fifty thousand pounds. The theological staff was the strongest divinity faculty in Scotland. And not content with theology, the Church was beginning to face the question whether it would not be necessary to create a free University, for attempts were made to oust men like Sir David Brewster from their University seats because they were Free Church- men and to reimpose obsolete tests in the interest of the Establislnnent. The Free Church did appoint professors of Logic, Ethics and Science ; but, fortun- ately, this battle did not need to go on, as tests were subsequently abolished (to the regret of nobody except THE VOCATION TO THE MINISTRY 91 the old moderate party in the Estabhshed Church) ' and the Free Church professors passed into University chairs, so that into this matter we need not enter. It was in view of this academic situation that the college was never called merely the Free Church Theological Hall, but was Novum Colleghim Edinense. It was, however, only with theology that Rainy had to do. His first professors were Chalmers, whose nomen fraeclanim ac venerahile gave dignit}^ even to the hired rooms in George Street, and \A^elsh (who, however, died in 1845), both of whom had surrendered chairs in the University at the Disruption ; and the two new appointments of the Free Church, Cunning- ham and Duncan. Cunningham was a most able professor. He had, within certain limits, immense learning and his trenchant logic made him a great lecturer. Men felt of him what is the essential thing for college students to feel about a professor — that he had^ the ^^ g bt to be JiLbisi-Cll^ir. * Rabbi ' Duncan was, admittedly, hardly an effective teacher, but he was the most distinct religious genius that Scotland has known for many a day. A m3'stic whose eyes verily beheld the invisible, a scholar who knew ever}^ folio of the fathers, an orientalist who read Sanskrit and Persian and Chaldee and Bengali as well as Hebrew and Arabic, a thinker whose philosophical aphorisms can be compared only to Pascal's, and, above all, a saint who, at times, awed men with his realisation of ^ In the Established Assembly of 1844, Principal Macfarlane carried a motion declaring that to permit University Professors to cease to be obliged to sign the Confession of Faith and profess adherence to the Established Church would be 'a dreadful injury to the Universities,' 'a measure fraught-with peril to ecclesiastical establishments and educa- tional institutions of every part of the British Empire,' etc. etc. 92 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY God's presence — this strange, wonderful man, ' with his long beard and flowing skirts, his lifted finger and glittering eye, his archaic language and supra-mundane thinking,' ^ was a figure none who saw him could ever forget. Rainy's opinions of his professors are indicated in some of his letters to his father. Dr. Chalmers seems to have made a profound religious impress on the College. He dwelt continually on the necessity of ' uniting learning and piety.' Rain^^'s admiration for Chalmers was deep and constant. Man}^ years later. Principal Rain}^ was asked one day by a student who was the greatest man he had met. The questioner expected the answer to be Gladstone. The answer was Chalmers and it was emphatically adhered to even in comparison with Gladstone. Of Duncan, Rainy tells a good deal, chiefly of how he wandered in the Hebrew Bible from a chapter here to a chapter there or even took them into the Pilgrim s Progress in Hebrew. But that he appreciated Duncan's remarkable spiritual character is shown by his attendance at a devotional hour which that professor had on Saturday mornings. His real master was Cunningham, who undoubtedly was the great stimulus in the College. Rainy seems to have been almost surprised to find his spiritual tone so high. He writes : — ' It is much more than might have been expected from one whose name has hitherto been so exclusively associated with ecclesiastical polemic. He has been insisting on such topics ' Dr. A. Taylor Innes in Biographical Introduction to A. B. Davidson's Sermons. Vide also the biographical sketch of Dr. Duncan by Professor William Knight in Colloquia Peripatetica. THE VOCATION TO THE MIXISTUV 03 as the importance of right motives for the ministry, and of our subjecting systems and confessions and everything else to the authority of the \\'ord and of the necessity of making it our constant study, and the duty of constant prayer in reference to all our studies.' Rainy lived to be Cunningham's biographer ; in the chapter in the Life of his professor (which was published in 1871) dealing with his academic work, he wrote the following impression : — * As Junior Professor of Theology, Dr. Cunningham's first duty was to prepare a course upon the Evidences of Revealed Religion. This course comprehended lectures on the provinces of Reason and Faith and also on the subject of the Rule of Faith. This course comprehending upwards of fifty lectures was delivered during the session 1844-45. Those who, like myself, were students in that year, remember well the impulse we received, not more from the material contents of the lectures than from the example of method (in the highest sense of the word) which they embodied. ... It introduced light and order into the somewhat miscellaneous reading which students affect, and the somewhat general and miscellaneous impressions with which they are apt to be contented ; and it corrected the disproportioned occupancy with single aspects and single departments of a great question which is apt to ensnare them. Many a day we left the class with a droll sense of disgrace, awakening as it were to discern the moral enormity of the mental confusion which we had heretofore tolerated or cherished. The first vivid impressions of what it is to face a,nd sift and do honest justice to a theological question came to many of us on those benches in George Street. There, too, the hill of knowledge rose before us to new dimensions as an actual and very considerable hill, as we had disclosed to us the amount of reading requisite in order to a " decent and respectable " acquaintance with our chosen profession ; while the summits on which a man might claim a more complete and comprehensive mastery rose in dim perspective far away. We all retain, and shall retain till we die, a peculiar association 94 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY with the standard of a " decent and respectable " acquaintance with any subject whatever.' ^ This, it must be remembered, was written almost thirty years after Rainy was a student. But it is interesting that even as a student his critical mind, with all its enthusiasm about his professor, marked the defect in Cunningham's mental texture. Cunningham was as orthodox as he was able (which is saying a great deal), and moreover his orthodoxy was of a hard kind. He was, in short, a Calvinistic schoolman. And his young student and intense admirer lays his finger on this, in another sentence Rainy wrote to his father of Cunningham : — ' His lectures are very able and interesting, but I miss the refined, reflective, philosophic spirit.' Young Rainy must have had considerable affinity with the philosophic spirit. It was represented in the College by Alexander Campbell Fraser, professor of Logic and Metaphysics — afterwards, on the abolition of tests, transferred to the chair of Sir William Hamilton in the University of Edinburgh. Rainy writes an enthusi- astic account of Fraser's opening lecture — of its style which, ' when it rises to eloquence, is the eloquence of thought and not of sound merely,' and of its contents which have * much of the sobriety and chastened character that belongs to earnest thinking.' He notes with satisfaction that Fraser will keep in view ' the principles recently propounded in Germany, which, as he remarked, cannot be much longer disregarded.' The close of the lecture he quotes with special care ; — ' Life of VVilliam Cunnin^ham^ D.D., p. 224. THE VOCATION TO THE ISHNISTRV 95 ' Fraser closed with some very interesting and instructive remarks on the relation of Philosophy to Religion and the use and necessity of a disciplined intellect in personal rehgion as illustrating that relationship. He showed that hitherto philosophy had been too much regarded as the antagonist of religion — that, on the one hand, we had a rationalism which withered up religious feeling, and that, on the other, evangelism had betrayed a tendency to disregard the importance of intellect in guiding the religious feelings. It was of great importance now, he said, to make a third and if possible more successful experiment, and to show that a disciplined intellect and a sound philosophy were neither unconformable to the truths of the Word of God nor incapable of being pervaded and dignitied by religious feeling.' Rainy's careful statement of Eraser's point of view shows his own agreement with it, and that he could add that ' every one seemed pleased with the lecture ' reveals that there was in the young Free Church something of liberal philosophical sympathy along with all its evangelical fervour. But we are interested here not only in Rainy's views of his professors but in their views and those of his fellow-students of him. As to his professors' opin- ion of him, the main fact is that Cunningham declared him to be * the ablest student he ever had ' ; while Dr. Chalmers wrote of him in 1847 to his mother : — ' I have the utmost liking and respect for your son as one of the most intellectual and, I hope, pious and altogether among the best conditioned of my students.' Of his fellow-students, the onl}- one I have been able to have conversation with was Dr. Walter Smith, the poet, and for long minister of the Free High Church in Edinburgh. Dr. Walter Smith said that Rainy was 96 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY at once and distinctly a leading man among his fellows, not so much in exact scholarship as in general power and particularly in debate. There was a college society which discussed not only theological but various public questions, and here Rainy always distinguished himself. In particular on one occasion when there was a debate on Voluntaryism, he showed the more ardent spirits who inclined in that way — and it is interesting to know voluntaries could be found in the New College of the Free Church at that date — the error of their ways in a most paternal manner. Dr. Walter Smith also said that Rainy was a youth of the most un- doubted piety. A similar witness comes from one of the most interesting o'f his fellow-students, Dhanjibhai Nauroji, a parsee whom the eminent orientalist. Dr. John Wilson of Bombay, brought home and educated for the ministry, and who wrote in a letter in 1907 after Principal Rainy' s death : — ' I had the pleasure of sitting near him on the same bench. I shall never forget his addresses in our prayer meetings on Saturday mornings. He was a person 6f strong conviction and he strove to magnify the riches and glory of the grace of God.' But the following incident — slight as it is — more significantly still indicates that Rainy as a student had struck at least the best men as one who should have a great future. On the day of Chalmers's funeral, in 1847, John Mackintosh, ' the earnest student,' ^ re- ' Jolin Mackintosh was a j^cmle, high-niindccl and scholarly youth, who, when at Trinity College, Cambridge, decided to enter the ministry of the Free Church. He died young. His memoir was written under the title of 'The Earnest Student' by Dr. Norman Macleod, who generously gave all the proceeds to the Missions of the Free Church of Scotland. THE VOCATION TO THE MINISTRY 97 marked to a companion tliat he expected that one day Rainy would fill Chalmers's place. Such youthful prophecies are often made ; but this one, in view alike of the character of the man who made it and the way in which history verified it, deserves to be recorded. Dr. Walter Smith's recollection of Rainy's ability in debate in his student days is confirmed by the latter's reputation in the Speculative Society. The * Spec ' is the most distinguished society connected with Edinburgh University and has always been an arena for rising orators in especially the legal profession. Rainy joined it immediately after going to Edinburgh in 1844, and was a most enthusiastic member. During his three 3^ears' connection with it (as an ordinary member) he was absent, as appears from the minutes, from onh' two meetings. He was elected one of the presidents and was also made an extraordinary member. I am indebted to the secretary of the Society for the year igo8 ^ for information as to Rainy's various contributions to the proceedings. Rainy read essays on ' The Aristotelian philosophy,' ' The remains of Etruscan civilisation,' and ' The Baconian philosophy.' In debates he spoke — to give but a few of his appearances — for the proposition ' that the Imperial Parliament is entitled to alter the articles of union between England and Scotland,' against the American declaration of independence (which, how- ever, I gather from a letter to his father, he was appointed to oppose), against the assertion that "the present extensive diffusion of cheap periodicals is • Mr. C. G. Pearson, Edinburgh, who most kindly extracted all the minutes referring to Rainy's connection with the Society. VOL. I, G 98 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY favourable to literature/ against the ' substantial equity ' of the provisions of the Irish Union, against the motion that * the treatment of Napoleon by the British Government in 1815 was justifiable,' against the justifiableness of the execution of Marshal Ney, in favour of ' Mr. Feilden's bill for reducing labour in factories to ten hours a day,' in favour of the declara- tion that ' the Government ought to compel proprietors to grant sites to the Free Church,' against the pro- position that ' Dr. Arnold holds sound views on the relation which ought to exist between Church and State,' for the continuriion of a verdict of ' not proven ' ; and on many other questions. The debates, he wrote to his father, lasted sometimes till three in the morning. That young Rainy was making a reputation in the Speculative became current talk : his mother was told that ' he was carrying all before him.' Unfortunately all his fellow-members who could testify to this have passed away. But the witness of one has been retained. Lord Rutherfurd Clark once said to a fellow-member of the legal profession, ' Why was not Rainy a lawyer ? He and I were in the Speculative together, and I never knew a more naturally powerful intellect.' This was said in 1873 : the impression, to be so lasting, must have been a very deep one. I may close this reference to his membership of the Speculative by giving the following incident which he narrates to his father and which reveals him in another aspect than that of power only in words : — ' In the Speculative on Tuesday night, an incident occurred which is growing into some importance. A number of the members have got into the habit of smoking and chatting in THE VOCATION TO THE MINISTRY 99 the library and neglecting their duties to the Society. It had gone so far as to be seriously injurious to the Society. On the night in question (I being in the chair) we concluded the business and called the third roU without giving them notice, thereby subjecting the loungers to a fine of two shillings each. They appealed against this fine last Tuesday, but the appeal was rejected by the Society. As a dernier ressort, they have given notice of a vote of censure on me for my conduct in the chair, and have been busily beating up for recruits to support them. I believe they have given such representations of the affair as to make a considerable sensation in the Parliament House and we expect a large detachment down from that quarter to support them. The discussion comes on next Tuesday. They wiU not be able to carry a vote of censure against me ; indeed, I think they will probably withdraw that. But I am afraid they will succeed in obtaining the remission of their fines, though not if I can help it.' I am sorry I cannot give the issue of the momentous struggle. I do not find it referred to in any other letter and the minutes of the Society are defective at the date about business. These indications of the impression Robert Rainy made on his contemporaries are few, but obviously this is only because more cannot now be recovered. They all point in one direction and that is that by this time Rainy had thrown off the comparative sluggish- ness that characterised his school and even, to some extent, his undergraduate days. The Disruption made him not only a minister, but also a stronger man than ever he had been. Great things now began to be expected of him. This reached his father's ears, but Dr. Harry Rainy, even years later, seemed hardly to realise he had a great son. It reached, too, his mother's ears ; * poor fellow,' she wrote of him (for a pious Scottish mother will rather pray for a gifted son than 100 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY boast of him), * if God gives him grace, I am not afraid for his abihties.' From the letters which Robert Rainy wrote home during his New College life, his mother must have learned good reason to hope the best for her son religiously as well as intellectually. They reveal that he was a devout and earnest student and, when he does speak of his spiritual life, it is searchingly and humbly. When he called on Dr. Chalmers in 1844 to ask what books he should study preparatory to entering the divinity classes, that great Christian man gave him a somewhat long list (' Butler's Analogy and Paley's Evidences to be read very particularly ') but added, ' above all, a prayerful reading of the Bible.' Rainy seems most faithfully to have followed this counsel. In his letters to his father are careful discussions of the meaning of portions of Scripture which show how really he was giving his mind to searching it. As to any more direct references to personal religion, his nature was essentially reticent, and it is in response to his father's remarks that he speaks at all ; but when he does, it is with sober yet severe self-judgment. Two extracts must suffice : — ' I received your note and I feel the advice it contains on the subject of theological study is very necessary to be attended to. We may be deceived so many different ways, may mistake so many different motives for the right one, and conclude so readily the existence of the right motive from the absence of some particular wrong one, that constant watchfulness is required ; and I find it very difficult to watch the heart where the intellect is thoroughly and keenly engaged. But what 1 have to regret most is the want of Godliness — meaning by that term a constant turning of the heart and affections to God at THE VOCATION TO THE MINISTRY 101 every opportunity. Thoughts about God and the things of God are, with me, far too much confined to the particuhir hours set apart for devotional exercises, and I have daily more cause to be struck with the enormous disproportion between the importance, the vast importance, of eternal things and the value I set on them if this is to be measured by the place they hold in my thoughts and affections.' ' I got your letter this morning. You mention the impor- tance of my having an abiding sense of my own sinfulness. There is one thing that I can often detect in myself in regard to this, viz. a disposition to regard sin as not properly or intimately my sin, to look upon it as something extraneous and separate from myself. The error I am convinced is a fatal one.' The date of these letters is 1845, when Rain}/' was in his twentieth year. Montaigne saj^s we are ' adult at twenty.' There is certainly the note of adult Christian experience in these letters. In Scotland, the theological curriculum is a serious attempt to educate candidates for the ministry in sacred learning, and lasts, in addition to the period of undergraduate study, four years. But even this is not regarded as sufficient. At the close of this pro- longed course of study a man becomes merely a * probationer ' — that is, he is licensed to preach (not, however, to celebrate the sacraments), and for a year or so is put to the practical work of preaching so that it may be tested how far he has capacity to use his knowledge for the edification of Christian congrega- tions. Why I mention this is because Robert Rainy took this period of probation with such remarkable seriousness. It never occurred to him to look at a pastorate till he had passed through his year of proba- tion, of which he speaks quite as definitely as he would 102 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL KAINY of any year of the prescribed college curriculum. All this is in harmony with the serious Scottish view as to the responsibilit}^ of a presbytery's granting ordination, about which something was said in the previous chapter. Of his own seriousness of view, both of him- self and of his life-work, at this stage, the following letter to George Brown is an indication : — ' I received your kind note. It referred to my position as being on the eve of taking licence. It is indeed a solemn position ; you will find it more and more so the nearer it comes. It surprises and confounds me when I consider how little I have felt the need of and practically sought specific education of the heart with a view to ministerial work. Most students I should suppose are in the habit of praying that they may be fitted for usefulness in the Church. But, besides this general feeling, there ought to be an earnest and specific exercising ol oneself unto all the graces that a minister specially needs. My defect in this, which I may have dimly suspected before, I now begin to see with sad and singular clearness.' He received licence from the Free Church Presbytery of Glasgow on 7th November 1849. ^^ ^^^^> ^^- Buchanan wrote to Dr. Harry Rainy that ' the feeling, deep and strong, in the presbytery was one of heartfelt gratitude to God for sending such a labourer into the vineyard.' Some time after licence, Robert Rainy accepted charge of a mission-station at Inchinnan, near Renfrew, (though he had other and better offers), and there he worked for six months. During that summer, he received an invitation from the Duchess of Gordon to go for at least a few weeks to Huntly Lodge, Aberdeenshire, partly to act as her chaplain and partly to supply the pulpit in the Free Church of Huntly (which the Duchess had joined), as it was THE VOCATION TO THE MINISTRY 103 without a minister. After considerable hesitation he accepted this invitation, and this led to his first pastor- ate and must be spoken of more fully in the following chapter. Before, however, we leave this period of his life, it should be mentioned that, at the close of his college course, he had (along with his brother George, who was now growing up to be a dearly loved companion) a somewhat long tour in the Highlands. Of this tour, he said that he ' never had in any journey more un- mixed pleasure.' He visited many friends and relatives, and I think he and George must have been attractive young men, for the kindness they experi- enced indicates something more than even Highland hospitality. The journey was extended as far as Cape Wrath, but it was chiefly in Sutherland. It was a journey of pietas (in the classical sense of the word) as well as pleasure. It included Creich, which he says to his father, has * what I would call a happy look ' ; and it enabled him to visit the grave of his grand- father — the Rev. George Rainy of Creich — there, and that of his great-grandfather — the Rev. Gilbert Robertson of Kincardine — in the burying-place of the Munros of Foulis. He visited also his grandmother's home of Achany. Besides these personal interests, the two things that he specially notes in his letters are the position of the Free Church and the depopulation of the land. With all his Free Church loyalty, however, it is interesting to note that he did not share the bigotry, too common in that time, which regarded it as a sin for a Free Churchman to cross the door of a ' bond ' church, for he writes from one place that 104 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY on Sunday, as there was no service in the Free Church, they went to the Estabhshed ; where, he somewhat dehcately adds, ' a very young man preached probably his first sermon.' The depopulation of Sutherland, he speaks of again and again. ^ Thus he writes : — ' Not a human being in sight, not a trace of man's hand except the beautiful road along which you walk ; and it becomes painful at last, like a mockery, to see the long miles of carefully made road without a soul on it.' A sadly changed Sutherland from that of the da}'s of the ' good earls ' and of Mr. George Rainy's ministry. ^ The cause of the depopulation was the 'clearances' of 1810-20. The subject will be further referred to when we come to write of the Highlands. Vide ch. xv., infra. CHAPTER V A NORTH COUNTRY PASTORATE THE ' good ' Duchess of Gordon, widow of the fifth Duke/ became a member of the Free Church of Scotland in 1846. While Marchioness of Huntly, she had passed through a very deep and decided spiritual change, and was from that time a most earnest, as well as a most beneficent, Christian woman. Unhappily, her home in Huntly, to which she retired after her husband's death, was within the bounds of that famous moderate presbytery of Strath- bogie, the achievements of which at Marnoch have already been chronicled. The most generous-minded of women and also a sincere believer in an Established Church, the Duchess found it impossible for her religious life to gain any kind of nourishment from these Strath- bogie ministers. ' Nobod3%' she said, ' need tell me about the moderates ; I know them very well ; I snould never think of consulting them on any religious subject or asking them to my house for spiritual profit ; all I can do is to invite them to dinner when the Duke of Richmond is here with the farmers at the cattle show.' In these circumstances, the Duchess cultivated more and more the fellowship of the evangelical 1 The title of Duke of Gordon became extinct on the death of the fifth Duke in 1836, but was revived in 1876 in the person of the sixth Duke of Richmond. 106 106 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY ministers of the Church, and Dr. Chalmers and many others among them were valued visitors at Huntly Lodge. When the Disruption came, it brought to her a problem of great perplexity. The principle of an Established Church was so ingrained in all her traditions and so commendable to her mind that, profoundly as she loved and honoured the outgoing party, she would not and could not go with them in 1843. It was not till three years later — one is not writing her life and need not go into particulars ' — that she felt she must, as a religious duty, take the step. It was not easy for her. It evoked strong opposition from her family and friends ; Lord Aberdeen, in particular, warmly remonstrating. It was done solely from religious necessities and as such is one of the significant facts of the varied history of this period. It was this ' good Duchess ' — so she was universally called — who invited young Robert Rainy to Huntly Lodge for a few weeks to be chaplain there to herself and her constant stream of guests, and also to officiate in the Free Church of Huntly which was vacant. While staying there, Rainy met a large number of interesting people, and his letters home have chat of an innocent kind about titled and other notable visitors which, however, was not meant to go further, and which I shall not quote. The visit was a very pleasant one and it is evident the Duchess greatly appreciated his services, for she urgently pressed him to prolong his stay, which he agreed to do. Meanwhile, his reputa- tion was a wide and a most favourable one, for com- ' Life oj the Last Duchess of Cordon, by the Rev. A. Moody Stuart, p. 266. A NORTH COUNTRY PASTORATE 107 munications from ministers and congregations began to come to him desiring his services. Among these were . requests from the West Church in Edinburgh, Kilmarnock, Lockerbie, Greenwich, and — it is interest- ing to add — Kilmany, which is so well known to the Scottish Churchman as Chalmers's parish All these he declined, in part apparently on the ground that he did not wish to put himself in the position of a ' candidate ' till the conclusion of the period of pro- bation which, he wrote to his father, expired in November. The drafts of his replies to these invita- tions are extant, and one small thing catches the eye in them which is, I think, characteristic. In at least two of them he wrote (in the draft) that he had ' prayer- fully considered ' the request ; but the word ' prayer- fully ' is scored out and the word ' carefully ' written above it. No one will suppose that this means that the former word was inaccurate ; what the deletion conveys is the reticence of Robert Rainy 's religion which, even in declining a call, would not proclaim, at least to strangers, its habitual piety. This sensitive reticence about his true spiritual self was character- istic always of Principal Rainy — indeed I will say that he carried it to a fault and did himself injustice b}^ it ; and yet how infinitely it is preferable to its opposite. Even in a letter to his father about some of these calls is the following, which might be mistaken for indiffer- ence, but which really was his entirely simple waiting u'pon God : — ' You mistake if you suppose my mind is much occupied with the question of my future position. When indeed any specific position presents itself as a possible contingency, I cannot 108 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY well avoid fonning some opinion upon it. But as to the subject in general, few things trouble me less. Indeed, I beheve I think less of it than I should.' This is the same characteristic of mind as that which we saw illustrated in his being called to think of the ministry, not from general considerations, but from the situation of the year of the Disruption. A ' specific position ' now, however, developed and so immediately before him that he was bound to face it seriously. The congregation of the Free Church at Huntly began to take steps with the view of calling him to be their minister. Rainy did nothing to encourage them to proceed. His almost startling humility at the thought of being a minister of Jesus Christ found expression in these words which he wrote to his father : — ' I trust 1 am convinced of it — that all happiness in life depends on following God's guidance in it ; though I am. far from feeling it as I ought, and there are higher ends to aim at even than our highest happiness. But it is a trying doubt at this crisis of one's history, tliis--whether, judging by one's past daily life (estimated on fair scriptural principles), there is really, in any measure, the right principle and the right aim ; and so, whether one is not on the verge of a fatal, irretrievable, practical mistake. And it is a saddening thought, when one is hearing on all hands hints of the possibility of being settled here, that one might be settled to be that most wretched of all possible beings, a popular, unblessed minister.' It seems almost a profanation to transfer these last solemn words to the public page ; and yet it is words like these that spoke the very soul of this man, beneath whose apparently cold reticence glowed the passion that makes the saint. A NORTH COUNTRY PASTORATE 109 The call went on and was signed with great hearti- ness and entire unanimity, which was the more gratify- ing as there had been unhappy divisions among the people during the last ministry. There was not a single dissentient. When news of this call was definitely communicated to Rainy (who had gone meanwhile to Glasgow), he replied as follows to the office-bearer who informed him of it : — •Glasgow, ^rd Dec. 1850. ' Dear Sir, — Your letter of the 29th ult. reached me on Monday. The call to which it referred has also arrived. The apparently general concurrence in that call lays me under a very serious responsibility in the matter, and I feel that I am bound to consider and decide upon it with all possible serious- ness and with much prayer for guidance to the only source of light. 1 do earnestly join in your prayer that God may order all this matter for His own glory in a way of mercy to the souls of us all. With many thanks for the considerate way in which you have expressed your concurrence in the call, and without adding more at present on a subject on which I do not wish to say much till I have made up my mind cjuite positively and finally, I remain, yours very truly, Robert Rainy.' A letter accepting the call was sent two days later. It was addressed to Mr. George Sellar. ' My Dear Sir, — As yowx name stands first among the signatures to the call, I think it right to let you know that after deliberate consideration and not without much hesitation, I have judged it to be my duty to accept that call. I do so in fear and with some sense, though not an adequate sense, ol my unfitness for the work in Huntly. But if God grant me the prayers of the people to whom I am to minister, I will not despair. My dear Sir, let us beseech God to rain down blessings upon us all, for surely we all greatly need them at Kis hand. Especially let us seek that He would put His Spirit within us. ' Will you intimate the contents of this letter to your no THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY brethren in the Eldership, as I have not time to write to all. — With kind regards to Mrs. Sellar, beUeve me, ever yours truly, ' Robert Rainy.' His ordination by the Free Church Presbytery of Strathbogie took place on 22nd January, 1851. A remarkable story is told of one of the ministers who took part in the ordination service — the Rev. Alex- ander Fairweather by name. On his return to his house, he observed to his family, * We have this day ordained to the ministry a young man who, if God spares him, will in time become the leader of the Free Church of Scotland.' This prophecy paralleled that of ' the earnest student ' on the day of Chalmers's funeral. To at least some eyes, there must have been something singularly arresting about young Rainy. He was now beginning the real work of life ; and of this he writes to his cousin and fellow-student, George Brown : — ' Those pleasant days of student irresponsibility are gone for ever. I would not have them back. I expect no more of that sort of thing in this world.' And to the same he writes, in another letter, of the future, and it is interesting to see how simple and humble were the expectation and ambition of the young minister whose reputation by this time made the whole Church expectant about his career : — ' You and I can never do eminent service in the Church by dint of talent or of learning (yet, these being necessary, surely we should pray that men may be raised up possessed of tenfold more of them than any of us known to me), but we might be eminently spiritual — grace could make us that — and A NORTH COUNTRY PASTORATE 111 thus might breathe a power into our ministrations and fit us for successful service — a success hidden and (^uiet perhaps but all the safer and more blessed on that account.' With all this humbleness and earnestness it was also with great happiness that Robert Rainy began his ministry, and in a letter to George Brown he says — ' If I am in it by a call and appointment of God, I can honestly say this — that to be a minister of the Free Church is an honour I would not exchange for anything earthly.' Huntly is an important provincial town and the centre of a large district, situated in the wind-swept uplands of Aberdeenshire, with keen, life-giving air, clear skies, open expanses of country and fine hills within sight. The people are a shrewd, hard-headed race of the strongest Scottish fibre, with — concealed at times beneath blunt speech — not only trueness but deep tenderness of heart. George MacDonald was born in Huntly and his ' Howglen ' depicts some of its features. When Rainy went, the local ecclesiastical events connected with the Disruption were still recent — the scene at Marnoch, the deposition of the seven Strath- bogie ministers, the preaching of Chalmers and others despite the Court of Session interdicts against them, and so on. But the Free Church had been weakened in the place by unfortunate division. When Rain}^ came at the age of twenty-five, he had not an easy task and for some time he had — to use his own phrase — ' to walk on eggshells.' There had arisen parties, and in particular a ' spiritual party ' who regarded them- selves as the real Church and all others as of the vvorld. The new minister's observation on this point 112 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY of view of the ' unco guid ' of the place was charac- teristic : — ' The opinion may be right or may be wrong, but it is an unsafe opinion for any one to hold in regard to his own case.' The Principal Rainy of a lifetime's experience of ecclesiastical troubles could not have said it better. This wisdom, combined with his own invariable fair- ness and courtesy and his high personal example of Christian behaviour, did its work and the evil spirit of division was exorcised. It was a delicate and anxious task, and in his letters home are indications of the ' chronic anxiety ' which lay upon his mind regard- ing it. Revisiting Huntly some fifty years later, he wanted to give the people the real credit of it all : — ' This was the way it happened. When they brought him to Huntly, having had but six months' experience, they evidently thought it would be a shame if they did not stand by him, and so before long everybody considered himself to be a sort of grandfather to him. Blunders and mistakes followed, some of which might have turned out very seriously. He could recall the peculiar thrill of vexation with which a man recognises that he has put his foot in it, but they knew that instead of coming to grief as men might do under similar circumstances, the congregation made it a point of honour to stand by the young minister in his difficulties. He therefore ascribed his success at Huntly to the hearty good feeling of the Huntly people.' This is all very well, but if there was one thing that the office-bearers and congregation united in testifying to, it was that it was the wisdom and grace of their young miinister that saved a critical situation. From this experience, Rainy drew wide lessons. Wlien he became a professor of Church A NORTH COUNTRY PASTORATE 113 History, he used to give, among his lectures on the early Church, a remarkable account of Montanism, treating of the Church as spiritual and therefore pledged to the purest ideals, yet as taking her place in God's scheme of things among human institu- tions and therefore as inevitably imperfect. He said once 'the lesson of that lecture was learned at Huntly.' From the first, Rainy threw himself with the deepest earnestness into his ministerial life. He worked steadily at all departments of his duty. His sermons, he wrote his father, ' such as they are,' cost him seldom less than ' eleven hours sitting ' each — two or so for arranging the outline and nine for composition. Although he thus laboriously wrote out his sermons, he did not read them in the pulpit but delivered them from memory. On one occasion his memory suddenly failed him ; he showed no sign of embarrassment but dived his hand behind his gown into a pocket, produced the manuscript and, unfolding it with great composure, read to the end. In his later years at Huntly, he preached from notes, but he declared he was * very lame in preaching in that way.' Into the substance of his preaching I shall not enter here, as this will be referred to at greater length in the next chapter ; but there can be no doubt of both the intellectual and spiritual impression his sermons made in Huntly. I shall give only two brief yet significant testimonies. A lady — a relative of the Duchess of Gordon — said to me they ail felt (she herself was but a }■ oung girl at the time) he had a unique power of ' making great things simple.' And many j^ears after, an old man said of VOL. I. H lU THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY his minister's teaching, ' he told us all that would happen to us in life and it all came true.' These were notes of his preaching all through his life. But what really impresses any one who inquires about Robert Rainy's work and influence at Huntly is not chiefly his preaching. It undoubtedly was the man himself that told. It was his high and honourable and also not less than holy character. The impression of this is unmistakable. They used regarding him in Huntly (so I am definitely assured) that Scottish phrase which means so much in depicting the life which is mani- festly deep in divine things — he was ' far ben.' The impression of spiritual religion he made on a whole district is not forgotten yet. There were men who indeed admired his sermons, but whose eyes glistened when they recalled his prayers. Yet he wrote thus to his mother : — ' I do not know anything I more need than to be taught to pray. It is so plain that I can never hope to plead successfully with my people till I have been taught to pray for them in right earnest.' And in another letter also to his mother he says in words which might well sum up a minister's aspira- tions : — ' Pray for me that I may at once desire, expect and work.' A minister's work is more than preaching, even with prayer behind it. A remark in one of Rainy's home letters is that ' dealing with individual souls is the crux clerici.' All this part of his pastoral work Rainy did with the deepest conscientiousness. In many A NORTH COUNTRY PASTORATE 115 letters to his father he tells of his concern about his class of preparation for first communion, or about some case of conviction of sin or some sick-bed or death-bed. He found the state of morals not high and the exercise of ecclesiastical discipline had to be painfully frequent : in attempting to bring a man in one case to a sense of repentance, he writes with a touching humility of the difficulty of it * between the hardness of his heart and the hardness of mine.' In a letter to George Brown, who had written to him about a greatly afflicted household known to them both, he tells the following out of his experiences in his visits of consolation : — ' I cannot say much of these things. I know far too little, personally, of deep affliction for a minister and sometimes teU my people so when I am visiting ; while I tremble to think how near it may be. It is easy for one outside the trial to speak of consolation. However, in speaking the other day to a Christian woman who had lost her husband in very trying circumstances and could not submit, though strugghng hard to do it, — after much talk' to no purpose I hit the case at last by suggesting that if ever she had really closed with Christ and struck hands with Him, she had absolutely engaged to forsake all, and that she could on no account take her word again when He put her to the proof. And following out that idea in connection with the promises to those who forsake all, it does seem to me a very beautiful thought, how in such afflictions those who stand to their pledged word and give up what He takes away shall find God taking up His stand by them (with that inexpressible Divine heart of His which Christ has displayed to us) that they may put Him to the proof on this question, viz. whether the love of a Creator and the grace of a Redeemer shaU not suffice to fill the void place which these bereavements leave in a creature's heart. It is plain it could not stand with God's uprightness in His covenant to offer less.' 116 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY This so serious and so spiritual reflection is in a letter dated 1851, when the writer of it was twenty-five. He was then quite inexperienced in bereavement and the reflection could be to him, as he himself describes it, but ' a beautiful thought.' It was still three years before he was to be called on to test its truth in life. These glimpses of Robert Rainy, at this period of his career, as a wise bishop of his congregation, a faithful preacher and a devoted pastor, show plainly a remarkably successful and earnest minister. So occupied was he with his ministerial work that he writes regretting he has not the time he would like for the pursuit of scholarship. Yet that he did study while at Huntly is certain, though he never preserved any record of his reading and the only witness to it was the local carrier, who used to report that, arriving or starting with his cart often in the small hours, he always saw the light still burning in the manse study. In general reading, he made Vv'hile at Huntly a speci- ality of books of military strategy — a field of interest to him all his life as it had been to his father. But his main interests were in matters of his ministerial work. This does not mean that he had the clerical mind, out of touch with human interests. Rainy was the last man of whom this could be said. But he was a man witli a chosen calling. He was a minister of the Church. There was his appointed life-work and his business was to that, not other things. He centralised life there always. This single aim continued all through his story. Principal Rainy's career was that of a man with large and varied natural capacities A NORTH COUNTRY PASTORATE 117 which, however, were very dehberately consecrated to one chosen service. To some readers this will diminish, to others it will deepen, the interest of this biography ; but one may recall Dr. Johnson's remark that ' the true genius is a mind of large general powers determined in some particular direction.' One thing that Huntly certainly did for Rainy was to develop in him that remarkable physical stamina which was to stand him in such good stead through a very long and arduous public life. He had a noticeably well-developed and well-knit frame. At Huntly he was a great, even a famous, walker. On one noted occasion, returning from a Christmas in his father's house in Glasgow, he walked from Aberdeen to Huntly (except a small portion of the way on which he got a 'lift ' from a friendly farmer), a distance of forty miles, and all of it in such deep snow that most of the j ourney was pursued on the tops of the stone walls or ' dykes.' A minister in that district must be fairly hardened as to weather, and not make too much fuss about rain and storm. Principal Rainy used to tell a stor}" of how one evening, having stayed talking till midnight in a neighbouring manse, he was walking home when a perfect hurricane of wind and deluge of rain — what I beheve an Aberdeenshire man would describe as ' black weet ' — came on. As the young minister battled on in the thick darkness against the tempest, a figure of another traveller loomed out and passed with the mere remark, ' Saft night — some jowie ' (anglice, ' rather damp.') A place with a point of view such as this about climatic conditions hardens men physicalh' — that is to say, when it does not kill them — and some of 118 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY its inhabitants, including some of its ministers, were notable examples of longevity. But Rainy was not destined to spend many years here. So able and so earnest a minister could not long be left in a country town. In 1853, rumours began to perturb his people that the important congregation of the Free High Church, Edinburgh, had set its heart upon him. This congregation was the representative in the Free Church of the historic St. Giles' High Church of Knox, both the ministers of which had ' come out,' with man}' of their people, at the Disruption. It was vacant through the death of the venerated and saintly Dr. Robert Gordon. At that time, several of the professors of the New College attended it, and one of the strongest advocates of the proposed call was Dr. Cunningham, who had succeeded Dr. Chalmers in the principalship and for whom, as we have seen, Rainy had the deepest respect. The young minister's attitude to the proposal was that it was his duty to remain longer in Huntly — ' the first caU, I take it, is the call of the people where I am ' — and he wanted to tell the High Church people to go no further. But they persisted. Principal Cunningham wrote him urgently, and so did other influential persons. A fellow-presbyter of Rainy's told him it did not matter what his own decision was, as the leaders of the Church were resolved to translate him to Edinburgh whether he liked it or not — ' a very summary view,' as he commented. On the other hand, the elders at Huntly came to him with a memorial signed by six hundred persons begging him to remain. In these circumstances. Rainy was bound to give the matter earnest and fair A NORTH COUNTRY PASTORATE 119 consideration and did so, as long letters to his father show. But he took things extraordinarily easily. To his mother he writes : — ' Of course I will not now hurry to a conclusion. You would be surprised if you knew how calmly I can do this. It hardly costs me an effort to banish the whole subject out of my mind when I please ; and indeed it is more from a sense of duty than of very lively interest that I even take it up for consideration. Of late years, I do not know how, this sort of disposition has increased upon me. I believe if the question were whether I should be executed at next Assembly, it would produce hardly the smallest effect on the comfort and serenity of my daily life.' And he was as independent of popular feeling as he was calm. This is also to his mother : — ' I have a great regard in this matter for the opinion of those who take a prayerful interest in me and in my usefulness. But as to the general mob of ministers and the public, all their opinions never did and never will weigh a grain with me. I have formed and expressed such opinions myself in other cases and know what they are worth. How much pains and how much prayer is ever expended in making up their minds on such matters, by most of those who deliver their opinions with the utmost confidence ? ' In another letter to his mother he writes thus in refer- ence to his father's evident inclination to the view that he should accept the call : — ' I would like to know whether papa has thought much of the possible effect of going to Edinburgh in the way of finishing me intellectually. Promotion to a post a man is not fit for, or not yet fit for, not unfrequently has that effect. I did not attach much weight to that view at first, knowing as I do how- much I need a strong stimulus — of which I certainly should be in no want in the Free High. But the more I think of it, 120 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY the more possible it looks. The effect would likely be, as many a time in the case of others it has been, that after a strenuous burst, under the influences of the stimulus, I should go done — and there would be an end of me. How would you like to hear of your son having gone done ? ' The call went forward, and on 12th April 1854 came before the Presbytery of Strathbogie. Principal Cunningham himself was among the Commissioners from Edinburgh to support it. The Presbytery invited the young minister to state his view and he replied that, subject to the judgment of the court, he considered it to be his duty to remain in Huntly. Thereupon the Presbytery declined to agree to the call.^ The decision was received with great enthusiasm. The Duchess of Gordon sent the following account of the scene to Mrs. Rainy : — 'Huntly Lodge, ^/r/7 15//;, 1854. ' My dear Mrs. Rainy, — I think you will like to hear something from one of the Huntly congregation on the subject which has so deeply interested us for some time past and which was brought to such a happy conclusion for us on Wednesday. I dare say your son has not told you how much all classes and all denominations have desired his remaining among us ; nor of the tears and shouts, however out of place, which were produced by his decision to remain among us. Both the ' It may be useful to some readers to state briefly what Presbyterian procedure in the matter is. When a congregation is prepared to choose a certain minister, it apphes to its Presbytery to 'moderate' a call to him. The call, wlicn duly signed by the members of the congregation, is con- sidered by the Presbytery, and, if approved, is transmitted to the Presbytery to whicli the invited minister belongs. Commissioners are appointed to urge it before this Presbytery, which also hears the minister concerned and Commissioners from his congregation, and thereafter agrees to it or the reverse. Usually the minister's declaration determines this ; but the decision rests with the Presbytery, and its decision may be appealed to the superior rnurts— first, the Provincial Synod and finally the (General Assembly. A NORTH COUNTRY PASTORATE 121 Messrs. R were among the weepers ; John, who was at the bar was crying all the time Dr. Cunningham and Dr. Tweedie were speaking, feeling convinced, as many were, that their arguments were unanswerable and that the High Church had the higher claim and that Robert Rainy was the fittest man for such a charge in all' respects that could be found. The respondents spoke of the danger of his removal, etc. But when called upon to answer, he gently dismissed the pleas of both parties, and with feeling and tact in method and manner which I can call nothing less than perfect, he declared his conviction that he ought to decline the call, and that the Presbytery of Strathbogie ought to refuse to release him. I cannot describe to you the effect of this declaration. Some applauded with hands, others with feet, but more with tears. Mr. James R , I am told, who had crept from his seat that he might hear better, threw himself on the side of a pew and sobbed aloud ; while some in another comer were much disposed to the same emotions. Dr. Cunningham was evidently disappointed. Dr. Tweedie said the number of happy faces in Huntly did much to reconcile him to the result. I trust it may be greatly blessed to us all and to our pastor himself, and that He who has not yet hid him from our eyes will fill him more and more abundantly with His Holy Spirit and enable him to win souls for Christ and to see fruits to his labour as he has not yet done. ' I trust the matter will not be carried further than the Synod, to which the Edinburgh deputation appealed. For really, there has been such an increasing feeling of regret at the removal of Mr. Rainy and proportionate joy at his remain- ing, that I do not think further emotions of this kind would be good for any of us. ' Monday. — We had a sermon yesterday which I trust I shall never forget : i Cor. i. 2 ; " Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours." ' Believe me, my dear Mrs. Rainy, with much regard, 5^ours very truly, E. Gordon. The Aberdonian is the last man lightly to give wa\' to his emotions ; yet this is the second scene we have read 122 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY of within this Presbytery of Strathbogie where even strong men wept. If the reader will in his imagination realise the difference between this scene in Huntly and the scene in Marnoch described in a former chapter, he will have some understanding of the difference the Disruption made in at least one district of the land/ The Presbytery's decision to decline to sustain the call was appealed not only to the Synod but, when that court upheld the finding, to the General Assembly itself. This was an unusual step — calls are rarely appealed — and it shows that the leaders of the Church were determined that the majus bonum ecclesiae justified this young minister of twenty-eight being brought to Edinburgh even against his will. Over the appeal, Rainy is as calm as before. He writes to his mother : — ' You are aware the appeal in my case is to go on. It is rather a pity, but you know how coolly I take all those things. I have seen the reasons of appeal presented by Tweedie and Cunning- ham. It amuses me rather that they both complain that I gave no reasons for my decision. They would have liked very weU to have had my reasons to worry at the bar of the Assembly, but I took care of that. Having made up my own mind, I think very little more about the matter. I will not reopen the question unless I see some very distinct reason which at present I don't. I am greatly vexed and affronted however at the conduct of my broccolis, which, after all the labour and pains of bringing them through the winter, will persist in getting ready all together like a regiment of soldiers in spite of all that can be said or done.' ' Huntly itself, I happen to notice in the Abetc/eeft Journal of March 2, 1842, was one of the places where military had to be quartered to prevent disturbanres when the Presbytery of Strathbogie met to ordain a 'forced' presentee. A NOKTII COUNTRY PASTORATE 123 And so goes he on to discuss his spinach and cauli- flowers and peas and beans and apples and pears, and a dozen other things hardly relevant to the pending appeal which would decide his career. Meanwhile, so strong a man as Principal Cunningham certainh^ was seems to have been much harassed over what he calls * this painful and perplexing affair/ He wrote long letters to Dr. Harry Rainy about it, as did, also, other leading men. At last — not to prolong the story — the appeal came before the Assembly on 22nd May 1854. By 170 to 36 it reversed the judgment of the inferior courts and decided that the minister of Huntly should be transferred to Edinburgh. Rain}^ took the decision — unwelcome though it was to his own view — very quietly, and merely remarked to his father it was satisfactory that the majority was so distinct. I have told the story of the call at some length, not from any particular interest in the call itself,^ but because it is so really illustrative of the man's character. Here was a critical step, yet he viewed it with at once the most entire coolness of mind and, beneath that, the most real religiousness. It was a step urged on him by very authoritative opinions — in particular, by the two men he most looked up to in the world, his ' master ' Dr. Cunningham, and his own father ; yet he put the call aside with an independence of judgment which only a very self-reliant or a very conceited man (and Rainy certainly was not the latter) could have shown. On the other hand, when the Church whose 1 Though it has interest of its own. It is rare in Scottish Church history for ministers to be transferred against their own judgment. Alexander Henderson's and Samuel Rutherford's are the two most notable cases with which I am acquainted. 124 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY servant he was, called him to go, he obeyed at once. All these were characteristics of Principal Rainy to the end. He preached his farewell sermon in Huntly on 25th June 1854, the text being the words of the Benediction. The following is part of his closing utterance to his people : — * And now, dear brethren, it becomes my duty to end my ministry among you by bidding you farewell. That ministry is over now. I remember that, when I first came among you as your Pastor, I preached to you on the matter and the manner and the ends of the ministry of the gospel. I was looking forward to my ministry then ; it is another matter, 1 confess, to look back on it when it is over. I might find it hard to preach from that text to-night in the same terms in which I preached from it then. Yet, though I am bitterly conscious of sins and shortcomings in my ministry which I am no more to have any opportunity to repair, I think I can say with the witness of a good conscience that I have not preached anything to you but what I believed in my conscience to be the truth of God ; and that I have not greatly cared what else you found or marked in my sermons, if you found and marked that divine truth. And amid all the corruption and sin which have too lamentably influenced the aim of my ministry as well as marred its exercise, I think I can say that in the course of it, nothing would have gladdened me so much or did so much gladden me where any such thing was known to me as the consciousness of being instrumental towards the spiritual and eternal good of some of you. I think I can say with all sobriety that if God were this night to take away my speech and throw me aside from all further usefulness, yet with the assurance that my ministry had been owned of Him in the saving of a company of souls in this place, I would count myself the happiest man under heaven.' Then he closed, ' testifying for the last time the salva- tion that is in Christ,' and appealing ' to those of you A NORTH COUNTRY PASTORATE 12.5 who are unsaved ' and with whom ' another ministry has run its course,' and asking ' Will you not hear me for the last time ? ' That closing sermon was long remembered in Huntly and there were those who, to use Newman's phrase, ' owed their souls ' to it. A few days later, Robert Rainy left the manse, early in the summer morning, to catch the coach for Aberdeen. His last act was to gather some carnations from the garden for his mother : they were her favourite flower. He little knew, as he gathered them, that, if his star was about to rise in public fame, it was also to shine in a darkened sky. CHAPTER VI THE HIGH CHURCH, EDINBURGH IN 1854, when Rainy came to Edinburgh to be minister of the Free High Church, he came not only to the city in which all his subsequent life was to be lived, but to the very place in it which was to be the theatre of his whole career. Situated on the finest site in the Scottish capital — the site of the old palace of the Guises at the head of the Mound— is the New College, on one side of the quadrangle of which is the High Church, while behind it is the great hall of the General Assembly. Rainy's life was to be minister of that church, professor in that college, and, above all, leader ot that Assembly. The most sensational event of the great crisis of his old age was his and his Church's eviction from these historic buildings, and the last message he received before leaving for his voyage to die in a distant land was their restoration. The location of his career to this spot is typical of that concentration of it to the one chosen purpose of his life of which I have already spoken. His coming to Edinburgh evoked much interest and he preached his opening sermon to * a crammed congre- gation,' which, however, a witness records, * he never seemed to notice.' He was still very young-looking, but grave ; his figure lithe, his head massive and 180 THE HIGH CHURCH, EDINBURGH 127 crowned with gold ; and he had that alert step which he retained even to old age. All this was the more noticeable since he succeeded one who had the most venerable and dignified figure in the whole Scottish Church — one whose very entry into the pulpit was a solemn call to worship. But the youthful minister made at once a profound impression by a thoughtful spirituality beyond his years. He was surrounded with an atmosphere of interest and admiration, and his father wrote to him to take care of the temptation to vanity. It was in this very hour of prosperit}^ that there fell upon his life its first solemnising sorrow. In the same week of his induction, a message summoned him to Glasgow. His mother was very ill — was sinking. Before he arrived she had passed away. He could but be told of the inexpressible calm and happiness of her last hours and of the words she had said about himself shortly before she died. Dr. Harry Rainy, knowing Robert would not arrive in time, mentioned his name and she responded, * I may well remember him ; even in his boyish, thoughtless days, he never cost me a moment's pain.' Then she committed him to God ' to bless him and make him a blessing and keep him,' adding, ' he has now great opportunities and he has great abilities, and I hope he will be a burning and a shining light.' All this he could but be told when he arrived too late. In a letter written to George Douglas some three weeks later, he says : — ' I cannot tell you the mixture of thankfulness and bitterness I felt after my arrival, when I stood alone in her room at the foot of the bed watching the aspect of happy sleep — the vcr\' 128 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY look, except the closed eyes that shall open no more in this world, with which she used to waken up and smile at me with- out speaking when I stood there three or four weeks before.' Thus the first conspicuous responsibility of his career began under the shadow of his first great sorrow. That week in July is not one of which a biographer has much to tell, and yet it meant more to his life than any week he had lived. In the same month, he writes to his father : — ' I begin to feel more fully now the reality of our loss. At first I could not take it in. I earnestly pray that God may make the impression permanent. Even apart from that, I have felt a great change of late, in connection, for instance, with my translation as decided by the Assembly and other things. I have begun to feel much more than previously as if I saw through to the end of my life and as if the veil of mystery that gives such interest to the future had vanished.' The ministry begun under these impressions continued for eight years. The place which the new minister of the High Church took among the notable preachers in Edinburgh at that period is not easy to define. He was in no sense a popular preacher. He had nothing of the exuberant oratory with which Dr. Guthrie drew a crowd of all classes to the neighbouring church of St. John's, nor even the immense nervous force with which Dr. Candlish kept his great congregation of St. George's. Indeed it must be said that many of Rainy's hearers felt his style heavy and dry. I gather he never had much of the manner of the preacher. Possibly he was somewhat oppressed by having always to preach before men he looked up to as greatly his seniors and even masters — he had three professors in THE HIGH CHTTRCH. EOrNRURGH 129 ins congregation and laymen S14CI1 as Graham Speirs and Earle Monteith — and it must be remembered he was only twenty-eight when he came to the High Church pulpit. But, at least, some of his hearers, and these among the most intellectual and spiritual of them, found him unequalled. Dr. Marcus Dods, who half a century later became his successor in the principalship of the New College, and who at the time we are dealing with was a student in Edinburgh, says that his re- membrance is that, while some of the sermons were dry, still, if he went to hear any other preacher, he lost more than he gained. Dr. Dods has recorded his impression of Rainy's early preaching in these words : — ' Certainly he did not strive nor cry. But if spiritual vision counts for anything in preaching, if religious imagination that saw the whole comedy and pathos of human life in the light of God's patience and love, if profoundest reverence and simplest faith, if the most far-reaching and uncommon thoughts expressed in commonest words count for anything — then I should say we had no preacher at all on the same level.' Another most competent witness as to the character of Rainy's earlier powers as a preacher is Mr. Alexander Taylor Innes, subsequently the author of an influential treatise on the Law of Creeds in Scotland, and well known as an authority on Scottish ecclesiastical matters. Mr. Taylor Innes's lifelong friendship with Principal Rain}^ began at this time, and he states that he was ' originally attracted to him exclusivel}' b}' his preaching.' He goes on : — * The lack of movement and machiner}^ within the sermons and of colour and illustration on their surface combined to VOL. I. I 130 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL KAINY prevent their popularity, b.it to those who found access into them at all, their influence was powerful and permanent. Their central strength seemed not so much that of the man's personality even, as of the Divine seen shining behind it. I still prize his sermons not onlj^ above all others I have heard — and I have heard Manning, Liddon and Spurgeon all in one day — but above his own highest platform and public utter- ances.' But Mr. Taylor Innes can give us more than the general recollection. A young student at the time of Rainy's High Church ministry, he noted down a large number of the more characteristic sayings of his favourite preacher's sermons. It will interest the reader to have at least a selection from these, which, however, it is just to add, are what struck most only one hearer, and therefore, as Mr. Ta3dor Innes himself notes, may suffer in selection and perhaps in form ' from the predilec- tions of the young Highlander who took them down.' While therefore, they may not exemplify all sides of Rainy's earlier preaching — perhaps they exemplify the severer side rather than the more winning — certainly they reveal one who, whether or not he was what people call a great preacher, said great and solemn and spiritual things to those who had ears to hear. Here are some of these : — ' There are those who make progress in adjusting the practice of sin to the use and even enjoyment of religious ordinances. We may wound the conscience with sins and sear it with repentances.' • If v/e perish, our greatest curse will be that we must take with us for evermore — down — down to the depths of hell, the image (jf God.' ' Is there not reason to fear that there are many who make use ot ihr gospel of Christ to shake off more entirely the idea THE HIGH CHURCH, EDINBURGH 131 of sacrifice than is done in the falsest and foulest superstition under the sun ? ' ' \\''hat Christ will be to you in time, is set forth in the bread and wine. What He will be to you in eternity, earth has no symbols to declare.' ' Obedience is the very pulse of spiritual life.' ' In all your future existence, you will never reach a point when the past will bear any proportion to the eternity yet to come.' ' That race of stately strangers upon the earth who looked for the city that hath foundations — all the glory of the world grows pale before the glory of their good report through faith.' ' Our whole heart and conscience have become miserably stunned bj^ the fall.' ' " I am the Almighty God." It is a profane thing to supplement His power, to seek securities for His promises.' ' The pleasure which sin gives is the lying earnest of the promises it is never to perform.' ' Is it not a miserable thing that there is not a quick and sharp sense of the contrast between our own lives and the life of Christ ? ' ' We have justified ourselves and refused to justify Thee : we have forgiven ourselves and have shrunk from being forgiven by Thee : we have added yet this to all our sin that we have approved of all our sin.' ' We trust in Christ — the answer to all possible questions. Who would look further that can look so far ? ' ' In each of us a separate course of sin has been fulfilled.' ' Judgment to come is one of those things that need only to be wisely asserted. It does not need to be proved. Conscience will do that.' ' It is natural for us to think lightly of sin. But there are other beings in the universe — holy beings — who love righteous- ness more than they love the breath of life and whose hearts would quail with the beginnings of an eternal despair at the thought of the slightest shadow upon righteousness.' ' It is the characteristic of God that He does not make haste. Jonahs and Elijahs in all ages have called bitterly upon Him to make haste ; but He will not do it. His providence moves on great wheels whose height is dreadful.' 132 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY ' That is a strange feeling of disquiet which we feel at times on a beautiful summer evening. It is the feeling of contrast between what is without and what is within — the beauty of the house and the knowledge we are aliens in duv Father's house. We must say we will arise and go to our Father.' * As sure as sin strikes up against law, so sure will law in the end strike down at sin.' ' Are you not conscious of having often tried to deceive yourself, tried hard to blind and outwit yourself — and that with arguments such as you would not venture to use to the simplest sinner you ever sought to lead astray along with you ? ' ' Many men are not infidels who ought to be so.' ' Men do not believe that religion can ever be pleasant — that the God who made them can make them happy.' ' It was never a lie that spoke the gospel to human needs : it is far too good to be false.' And — to close these extracts — here are two or three sentences from a sermon preached on some ecclesiastical occasion which are interesting in view of the speaker's subsequent career : — * The longer I live, I iind more and more the evil of ecclesi- asticism as apart from living Christianity. If we do not take care, we [of the Free Church] shall find ourselves outshone by Churches that have not had our privileges in the possession of true principles about some parts of truth.' ' In the work directly committed to her by Christ, the Church must act herself — has no choice. Some things that are by the way she may yield : in faith, for example, truths of science, or, in practice, material possessions. But what Christ has given her to believe and confess and what Christ has given her to do — in these she may not yield.' ' There is no Christian who attains all that he should be ; Init, if he falls from it in aim, he is fallen away. So with a Church.' Most of tl)e quotations are dated in Mr. Taylor Innes's THE HIGH CHURCH, EDINBURGH 133 notes and the dates are generally 1856 or 1857, when Rainy was just over thirty. No quotations, however, can give the really impressive thing about his preaching, which lay not in even this or that memorable utter- ance but in his quiet power of taking the congregation — or at least many in it — with him into the very presence of divine and eternal things. If one might be permitted (though, exegetically, it hardly is per- missible) to take in a good sense what St. Paul says, of course in a bad sense, about the Colossians as * dwelling in the things they have not seen,' that might express it. All through his life. Principal Rainy's preaching was preaching that made people think about God — God in Christ, God in history, God in experience — and therefore, whatever other qualities it may have had or lacked, it always had greatness in it. It may be interesting to add to these extracts from his more public religious teaching, an example of his way of directing the individual conscience. The following is an extract from a letter to a young lady in the congregation who had attended his class of pre- paration for first communion but who hesitated to commit herself to the public profession of Christ at His table : — ' I am a little disappointed, for I hoped you might be led to see your way. You do not gain anything, but, on the contrary, risk much by any course of action which tends to foster the impression in your own mind that one may occupy a middle ground. As to what you call " a dreadful thing to vow " — if you mean by it that your present mind is to keep it an open question whether Christ's will or yours shall have place on any given occasion, that you wish to be uncommitted in order to have leave to take your own way if it shall seem good to you — 134 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY that is indeed a reason for not becoming a communicant and equally a reason for resigning any pretence of any interest in Christ. For it is a distinct assertion of independence against the Creator and Redeemer. I do not suppose you to mean this, though I do not think it amiss to contemplate how serious a matter it would be to mean it. But, if you mean, as I suppose, that you feel no way assured enough of what your heart may turn out to be to make any promises as to your future course, then all I can say is I am glad you do not, and would not be at all sorry if you suspected it even more. I find in my own heart, I shall make no vows as to what it shall prove willing to do, I do not say at every step of life's journey, but even at the next temptation I meet. But when I find Christ .engaging for what He will do for those who come to Him, that He will strengthen and carry us on, that those who trust in Him will find Him a Saviour — then I, who have in my heart everything to let me see I need a Saviour (if sin and folly need one), trust. I pledge myself because I trust Him. I shall have many a reason to be ashamed of myself, but in the end I shall not be ashamed. He will keep His promise to me as well as to many a sinner before me. The Lord of glory has won my confidence : I think He hsts. I do not know whether ever a more unworthy and unstable sinner was allowed to trust in Him. But I will not deny that I trust in the Saviour. I must ask you to think over this seriously, for I see nothing indicated by you but indefinite postponement, which I greatly dread. As to " the religion I teach," believe no more of it than He teaches ; but do believe Him.' The above letter I have quoted at some length, partly because it so reveals the personal religion of its writer and also because it is typical of Principal Rainy as a spiritual director. It shows his tender and yet searching and even unsparing pressure on the single issue of the relation of the heart and will to Jesus Christ. It shows, also, how gravely he left the responsibility of decision with the individual conscience. He would plainly, indeed authoritatively, state the THE HIGH CHURCH, EDINBUlUHl 135 question of personal religion ; but he seemed to be on his guard lest his statements about it might be taken by those whom he was speaking to as their response to it. In talking of the intimate decisions of the spiritual life, there was a place where he stopped ; the person talking to him felt that he himself must take the next step — or know quite clearly he was refusing to take it. It is not necessary to refer to other aspects of his High Church ministry. From the public point of view this was not the most effective period of Principal Rainy's life (though enough has been said to indicate its real influence on individuals) ; but from the point of view of the development of his own mind, it was most important. It was during these years that he matured his mind with scholarship. I imagine he already discerned that probably his best service to the Church would be not along the lines of preaching but rather along those of theological study. Certainly he had no ambitions at this time of ecclesiastical leader- ship. He steeped his mind in the Fathers and the great historians — especially in Augustine. The project of writing the great Latin father's life seems early to have attracted him, and he accepted the task from a publisher and amassed material for it. But, alas, this remained a dream never to be fulfilled. It was sometimes said of Principal Rainy in later days that he could not claim exhaustive scholarship, and this was true for the simple reason that his life of ceaseless public work and controversy left little time for learning. But he always knew and knew well the sources — the great historical authorities — and his 136 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY knowledge of these dated from these years. He set about furnishing his hbrary, and ahnost his only extravagance in life was his liking for fine copies of the Fathers and other standard works. In one of his letters he refers with his often recurring irony to his new folios : — ' I feel sensibly more learned ever since they came. Have you ever noticed the deceptive feeling which befools into so delightfully foundationless a conceit of ourselves ? I have felt great in casuistry ever since I got Taylor's Ductor Duhitantium, though I neither have read it nor have any immediate intention of doing so.' But it was by no means only the older learning he read, but also the German criticism which was then appearing on the horizon of theology. His attitude to this is worth noting, because it is so disappoint- ingly inhospitable. He writes thus, for instance, of Ewald : — ' He is one of a class of minds we have hardly any specimen of in this country and which constitute rather an interesting phenomenon. Very remote from mere infidelity, men with a great deal of earnestness and real respect for the historical religion of the Jews and of the Apostles as a truly divine revelation whose excellence they will enthusiastically illustrate, and yet men who apply the freest criticism to all the records, hold perhaps that no book of the Old Testament existed in its present shape till long after Solomon, thoroughly give up the historical existence of Adam and Eve, consider Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as three different versions of the misty traditional personage, etc. It is coming into this country a good deal and will do so more and more, so that I have little doubt we shall have a fight for the sacred record in which, besides putting, as it ought to he put, the general grounds with regard to what Scripture is and must be held to be (which these Germans so THE HIGH CHURCH, EDINHUUGH 137 thoroughly overlook) we shall have to meet them on their own ground and show the intrinsic untenablcness of their theory on any supposition. I wish we may have men competent to do it.' Readers of the life of Dr. Pusey may recall how similarly the Tractarian leader, when a young man, reaUsed that German criticism ' will all come upon us in England and how utterly unprepared for it we are.' ^ It is clear that, at first sight, Rainy regarded this only as something to be fought : Pusey, on the other hand, was suspected of having come under its influence. But the Scottish Churchman lived to work out the problem of the Bible and criticism both theo- logically and ecclesiastically, as we shall see ; while the English Churchman, who with his German and Hebrew scholarship might have aided in this, came in the end really to shut his eyes to the question. Whatever may have been Rainy's interest in purely theological study, he did not allow himself to be exclusively absorbed in it and his letters indicate he was reading widely in general literature, especially poetry. The Idylls of the King and Maud were appear- ing at this time, and he was a keen Tennysonian. But his chief pleasure in poetry w^as in the Greek tragedians, and most of all in Homer. In fiction he was a great reader of Scott, but lie could read trashy novels as well as classics. He was familiar with German literature — both religious and general — and kept up this familiarity most of his life. A friend, who was studying the Minnesingers, induced him to versify for him in English some of their songs. The following is a specimen of these renderings by Rainy. It is * Life of E. B. Fusey, D.D., i. 77. 138 THE MFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY founded on Heinrich von Morungen's Vergchne Treue, but is really an independent poem on the subject of spiritual despair : — * Wilt thou never cease, O heart perverted, Thine airy dreams, thee more and more misleading ? Art thou not deceived and deserted, Of hope bereav'd, and left in anguish bleeding O, there were rainbow hues adorning ^ With life and hope my path of morning; Night is falling coldly, darkly, sadly. And I am void of trust — yet trusting mad!}'. Life's fresh spring and manhood's strength were given To the fair world that promised joy for ever; Down and down my headlong course was driven Through the sweet years — bright years, returning never. And dark days now are pressing on me. The spell like iron lies upon me ; I am moulded to my own undoing, What I pursued, I cannot cease pursuing. In my path I know despair is standing, And yet the heart the old fond dreams is breeding ; God I hear entreating and commanding, And yet is day to day unchanged succeeding. In vain ! For nought my years were given. O, had I sought Thee, Lord in Heaven, As these lost years in delusion bound me, I had been safe — Thine arms had been around me.' These verses — hampered, of course, by the metre and rhyme of the original — reveal one whose soul was attuned to poetry if not, perfectly, his ear. Rainy not infrequently attempted verse but never seriously did his best at it ; and indeed he once said ' mine is rather the comic muse.' In this period a great change took pkce in his domestic life. On December 2nd, 1857, when he THE HIGH CHURCH, EDINBURGH 139 was nearly thirty-two years of age, he married Susan Rolland, daughter of Adam Rolland of Cask in Fife. The Rollands were members of the High Church and the young minister, in the year he came to Edinburgh, had admitted Susan Rohand to the Communion. Mr. Rolland was a staunch Churchman and had taken his place in the historic procession which Dr. Chalmers led to Tanfield Hall at the Disruption. His only daughter, who was twenty- two at her marriage, was of a frank, happy and absolutely true character. She entered warmly into all Church interests, as indeed became one who was proud to claim descent from John Row, the friend of Knox and probable joint-compiler with him of the Scots Con- fession of Faith. John Row was minister of Carnock,^ and the onh' minister officiating at the Rainys' wedding was the Rev. William Gilston, who was minister there at the time of the Disruption. The lives thus united were spared to each other to within two years of their golden wedding. But within a short time after their marriage, a deep and tender sorrow fell upon Robert Rainy and his wife in the death of their first-born son, who lived only a few weeks. This loss was a never-forgotten era in their married life. It cut deep into both of them, and long afterwards was referred to with undiminished tenderness of feehng. Many years after, one winter day white with snow. Principal Rainy, after standing at the window some time watching it, turned round and said quietly to his famil}-, ' little Harry was ^ Carnock had other distinguished ministers besides John Row; James Hog, one of the ' Marrow men,' and Thomas Gillespie, ' the father of the Relief,' were there. 140 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY buried on a day of snow.' Of his sorrow at the time, the father wrote in a letter to George Brown thus : — ' It is quite a new experience to have lost a child, and one that is not known and estimated till it actually arrives. In the case of a little child, there is nothing bitter in the feeling, but the sorrow goes a great deal deeper than I ever imagined in thinking of others ; and there is a peculiar tenderness in reference to a baby just because it is so little and so dependent which is quite irresistible. It was a strange thing to come away from Edinburgh the other day, thinking of the little grave all alone in the Dean Cemetery, It is strange to think of a child of ours in heaven, so far before us now. He was a very placid tranquil little fellow just beginning to smile in recognition to his mother. Life seems deeper now somehow, and enriched rather than impoverished.' Life was now testing in very deep ways — by a mother's death and a first-born son's — the ' beautiful thought ' Rainy wrote about bereavement at Huntly when he knew ' far too little personally of deep affliction.' Of the more surface aspects of his life in Edinburgh at this time there is not much to gather from his letters. He was a very keen and somewhat ironic observer of men and things, but he never had an atom in him of the gossip, and his correspondence is notably free of those trivial personalia which have so much attrac- tion for some minds. The following will suffice as a specimen of his social observation. It refers to the Crimean War : — ' The tone of the enlightened public as represented at dinner parties comes very much to this — that everything has gone wrong because everybody has been in the wrong, and every- body should be forthwith recalled, cashiered and the like, for a warning to posterity. There are, however, individuals of a more penetrative turn of mind, who, by attentive gazing into the mill-stone, have come to deep conclusions as to where the THE HIGH CHURCH, EDINRURGU 141 real fault has been, who has been in tlie right and who in the wrong in the chaos at Balaclava and the like. These go about instructing the more indiscriminate public. But as, unfortun- ately, no two of these penetrative individuals agree as to what precisely is the rotten place or who are the rotten persons, they breeze into little duels about it which perplexes the unsophisti- cated and rather gives fresh force to the opinion that it has been through and through a bungled job. However, all agree that the conduct of our soldiers has been in every way admirable and that the war must be fought out thoroughly to a clear conclusion. In ecclesiastical affairs he seems at this time to have taken a very detached interest, and, as has been said, he certainly had no ambition towards leadership. But Dr. Candlish had his eyes on him and at least on two occasions simply laid hands on him and made him take a responsible part in the Assembly. Dr. Candlish was the most generous soul that ever breathed ; he never had a thought of preserving his own position and rej oiced in nothing more than in bringing forward younger men. In the" Assembly of 1859 he made Rainy move the motion on what was called the * Glasgow Students' Case.' The particulars of this case it is quite unnecessary now to recall : it hinged on a charge of unsound doctrine made by a very orthodox and dogmatic professor in Glasgow — Dr. Gibson — against some of his students. The affair was a tempest in a teacup, but it had been magnified in some quarters into a great theological issue and caused a long debate. It is enough for our present purpose to quote the following contemporary impression from the pen of an eye-witness of the nature and effect of Rain3''s maiden Assembly speech : — 142 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY * Candlish put Mr. Rainy up to move his resolution. Mr. R. is minister of the High Church adjoining the College, quite young but about the cleverest man the Free Church have. He had never spoken in the Assembl}^ before and only knew he was to speak then, in the morning. However he began, cleared away a lot of the dust that Dr. Begg had kicked up, took the points of the case one by one, expounded them so clearly that one could understand it without the papers, kept the Assembly and the crowded galleries quiet for an hour or more, Candlish sitting motionless with folded arms the whole while, evidently in intense satisfaction, and the Professor's friends surprised and silenced. The speech is said to have been the best for years delivered in the Assembly.' ^ ' From that time,' says Dr. Peter Bayne, ' the young mind of the Free Church put its trust in the new leader.' The other occasion on which Candlish made him take the lead was in the great debate on Australian Union in 1861. The question at issue in this debate may be briefly stated, for it had a direct and important bearing (as. we shall see in the next chapter) on the history of the Free Church of Scotland. After the Disruption, part of the Presb3^terian Church in Victoria adhered to formal connection with the Established Church of Scotland, while part dis- approved of this, and they eventually separated. But in 1859, ^ union on an independent basis as the Presby- terian Church of Victoria, identified with neither of the two home churches to the exclusion of the other, was happily consummated. This union embraced not only the Established and Free Church sections ■ This is from a letter I h.ive found dated 26th May 1859, written by William liror.k, then a Divinity student, afterwards minister of the Baptist Church in Hampstcad, London. His Assembly descriptive notes, of which the above is one spccim 'n, are picturesque and discerning. THE HIGH CHURCTI, EDINBURGH 143 but also the voliintar}^ United Presbyterian body. A few of the Free Church section, however, dechned to accept this and claimed that the Free Church of Scotland should recognise them and them only as in their communion in the colony. By an overwhelming majority, the Assembly of the Free Church, on Rainy 's motion, repudiated the claim and recognised the United Church in Victoria. It was the same Pro- fessor Gibson who moved the contrary view, but he was defeated by 341 votes to 64. Rainy's speech was long and able, but it was overshadowed by the tremendous philippic of Principal Cunningham, who made on this occasion perhaps the greatest speech of his life and simply annihilated the claim of the sepa- ratists to be the representatives of the Free Church of Scotland. That Rainy should have been called on to lead the Assembly on this occasion is of real interest in view of his subsequent career. For what the Church's decision in the case meant was just this — that on the basis of historic Scottish Presbyterian standards and where the obstruction of a State con- nection was eliminated, the Free Church of Scotland is all for union embracing establishment men on the one hand and voluntaries on the other. Principal Rainy's ecclesiastical career was the embodiment of that position. But not even these two successful efforts in the ecclesiastical arena quickened his ambition for the life of a Church leader. He distinctl}^ evaded the claims of ecclesiastical business and still cherished his ideals of scholarship. Then occurred the event which seemed to open the way for the realisation of 144 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY these ideals. This was the death of Principal Cunning- ham, which took place in 1861 — only seven months after his great speech on the Australian question. There was a very close tie between Rainy and his ' beloved master,' at whose feet he had sat as a student and whose minister he now was. The touching and trying duty fell to him to make the Principal aware of the gravity of his illness and to speak words of faith and hope in his last hours. The dying man gave Rainy his blessing, saying with much emphasis, * The Lord bless you, be with you, strengthen you, keep you ! ' Before he died, the great gladiator of the Disruption conflict was heard to breathe Melanchthon's prayer, * A rabie theologorum, libera nos, Domine,' and the most learned dogmatist of his day passed with the simplest words of religion on his Hps. When the Assembly of 1862 came to fill up the vacancies caused by Cunningham's death — he held both the principalship of the New College and the professor- ship of Church History — it had little hesitation. Candlish was made Principal and Rainy appointed to the professorship. In a valedictory letter to the High Church congregation, intimating his acceptance of this as ' probably the call to the work to which the rest of my life ought to be devoted,' Rainy wrote : — ' Should I decline this appointment, I should have to carry on my ministry subject to distraction and a divided interest not favourable to its success, arising from the so often expressed convictions of many of those best qualified to judge, that I ought, sooner or later, to serve the Church in a chair, and that I ought to make preparation for that kind of duty. I have felt satisfied that Ihc choice between the two kinds of work THE HIGH CHURCH, EDINIUJUGH 11,5 must be made at the earliest opportunity and made decisively ; and I have upon my own mind no doubt that the choice I have made is that which it was my duty to make.' His parting service in the High Church was an impressive scene in which both preacher and hearers were moved. The congregation gave him and Mrs. Rainy a gift of a silver salver bearing a cheque ; some balance over being spent in toys which were sent to ' the little Rainys ' — an addendum which greatly touched the parents' hearts. Thus closed Robert Rainy's pastoral life. He was inducted to his chair by the Rev. Sir Henry Moncreiff, Bart., and he delivered his in- augural lecture in the New College on 7th November 1862. Placed at the age of thirty-six in the chair of Cunningham, Rainy now seemed to be in full prospect of realising his long-cherished hope of a life devoted to theological learning. It was not to be. The very year of his appointment saw the rise in the Church of a question which speedily led to most serious and bitter controversy into which Rainy was inevitably dragged ; and this proved to be but the lirst of a series of public questions to which, much as he would have preferred to be with his books, he had to come forth and sacrifice his time and his strength. This biography is that of a man who wanted to be a scholar and who, comparatively early, attained a scholar's seat, but who, by a strange irony, from almost the day he attained it was constrained to give scholarship a secondary place and be primarily a leader of ecclesi- astical policy. His ambition was to study and teach or write Church history : his task, to make it. VCL. I. K 146 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY At this point, then, we have reached the close of what — apart from his mere childhood and youth — may be called the first period of Principal Rainy's life ; and the stage, it may be added, was fitly marked by his Alma Mater, the University of Glasgow, conferring on him its honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity. To the reader who has thought of Dr. Rainy (as I can now henceforward call him) only as an ecclesiastical leader, it may seem that we have been long in coming to this public work of his life. But no one will understand the ecclesiastical leader whose policies we must now so largely record, without first realising — and the foregoing pages have failed if they have not revealed it — that it was from no ambition for public life, certainly not controversial life, that Robert Rainy's career was what it was ; but, on the contrary, his own choice would have laid down very different lines for himself, and his own prim- ary interest was something much deeper. Part of the fascination of Principal Rainy for those who knew him was that this man, compelled to assume leadership, had no ambition (as he wrote in a letter already quoted) to do * eminent service ' but only to be ' emi- nently spiritual ' ; that, forced into the forefront of battle after battle, he had set his hopes on the refine- ment and quiet of the life of a scholar ; that, often appearing to be, or at least charged with being, a wily ecclesiastic, he was really one with a child's heart of trust and love and obedience towards God. It was this subtle paradox of character and career that, in part, made him so interesting ahke to friend and opponent. If the reader would appreciate the man THE HIGH CFIUIICH, EDINBURGH 147 behind the ecclesiastical story we must now record, he must understand that to that man ecclesiastical policies were not his deepest concern and not even his own ambition for his career. CHAPTER VII THE THWARTED UNION IT is obviously desirable that a biography should seek to follow somewhat closely the chronological sequence of the life which it depicts. But as the ques- tion to which reference has been made as arising almost immediately after Dr. Rainy's appointment to his chair in 1863, gave rise to a controversy which lasted till 1873, it will conduce to clearness if this chapter gives a vidimus of the whole of that struggle. In this case, we must in the next chapter retrace our steps to notice other interests of Dr. Rainy's life during the same decade. The question at issue w as that of union between the Fr ee Churc h and the next largest branch of non- established Presbyterianism in Scotland, namely, the United Presbyterian Church. This body was itself a union, consununated in 1847, between the two secessions which have been already mentioned in our sketch of the history leading up to the Disruption as having been driven out of the Church of Scotland in 1733 and 1752 respectively under tlie moderate regime. The proposal to unite this Church and the P""ree Church led to the saddest conflict in the ecclesiastical history of the century and, after ten years of effort, it was, for the time, abandoned. Gladly indeed would one 148 THE THWARTED UNION 149 pass over this second and inglorious * ten years' conflict ' which makes a painful contrast to the former struggle bearing that title. One could write the story of 1833 to 1843 as one proud of one's Church : not so can one write the story of 1863 to 1873. But having spoken frankly of the Established Church in the time when it was all but stranded in the days of the ' residuary Assembly,' one must speak equally frankly of the time of ebb which, in part of the Free Church, succeeded the mighty surge of the Disrup- tion. Our present biographical purpose does not necessi- tate the giving of a detailed account of this ' Union Controversy.' But there are two features about it which the reader must grasp in connection with the career of Dr. Rainy. It brought him at a stride into that front place in ecclesiastical affairs which he occupied afterwards all through his life ; and — what is even more important to be noticed — it revealed the ' opposition ' (to use the parliamentary phrase, but one, from this date, unhappily appropriate in the Church) against which his whole future leadership had to contend. From the date of this controversy, the Free Church was different from what it was before, and had ' parties ' in it as it never had had before ; and the problem of its guidance, which was the problem of Principal Rainy's career, became one of peculiar difficulties and embarrassments. No just estimate of his ecclesiastical policy can be formed which does not understand this. It will all appear as we go on. The union of Scottish Presbyterianism had always been a cherished thought in the mind of the evan- 150 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY ^gelical section of the Church of Scotland, It was, las I have said, moderatism which had caused the liecessions in the eighteenth centur}^ and one of the //hopes connected with the evangehcal ascendency from /1 1833 onwards was that these bodies might be brought / I back into a purified Church of Scotland. As we know, the historical development was forced into unexpected channels and the evangelical party, instead of creating an establishment to which others might return, had themselves to give up establishment. But, even in the very act of Disruption, they carried with them aspirations after unity. The Free Church became immediately the focus of a wider evangelical fellow- ship than the unbroken Church of Scotland had known • for generations. At a great meeting held in Edinburgh within a few weeks of the Disruption, Dr. Chalmers was hailed as the ' Apostle of Union.' In the autumn Assembly of the same year, referring to the various messages which had been sent to the Free Church from sister Churches, he declared his delight with such ' movements of convergency ' as all in his own ' favourite direction,' and trusted ' their landing-place will be incorporation.' As a matter of historical fact, the Disruption — so often represented as schismatical — did more to raise interest in the subject of union than any other act for many generations in Scottish Church history. In 1852, a small body, called the Original Secession — the most notable minister in which was Dr. Thomas M'Crie, son of the historian of that name — was in- corporated with the Free Church ; but the larger issue of union with the United Presbyterian Church was THE THWARTED UNION 151 not tabled till 1863. There were two things which prepared the way. One of these was religious and the other ecclesiastical. The former was the wave of revival which passed over parts of Scotland in the years 185^-60. This was a real factor in the promotion of the subsequent union proposals. It brought the more evangelical men of the two Churches into warmer spiritual contact, and this, more than any other thing, inspires the thought of outward unit}^ The ecclesi- astical factor that supplemented this w^as the decision of the Free Church in the Australian case which has been already mentioned. The Australian union, which the Assembh^ of 1861 so emphatically endorsed, embraced United Presbyterians ; why then could not a similar union be effected at home ? The revival led many good men to long for it ; the decision made men talk of it. And in 1863 the proposal was formally raised in the Synod of the United Presbyterian Church, largely through the influence of Dr. (afterwards Principal) Cairns, who was not only one of the leading men in his Church but one of the noblest and most honoured Christian men of his generation.^ .Com- mittees were appointed by the supreme courts of the two Churches to enter into negotiations. The Convener of the Free Church Committee was Dr. Buchanan, and Dr. Rain}^ was a member. Unfortun^itely, none ' It had, however, I find, been brought before the United Presbyterian Synod two years earher, and, though it was then passed from — only one session having raised it — a member whose name-was afterwards to become widely known and respected, ' Mr. Hutton of Paisley,' expressed the hope that this did not mean that they would not look very cordially upon it. The name of Sir George Sinclair, Bart., an elder of the Free Church, also merits mention as that of a pioneer of union, though his proposals, made so early as 1856, did not bear immediate fruit. 152 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY of Dr. Rainy's letters bearing on the earlier stages of the Union discussion are extant, but those who knew his mind at the time testify that what reall}' attracted him in the movement was nothing merely ecclesiastical, but was simpl}' a Christian satisfaction at the prospect of closer brotherhood with men like John Cairns, and the strengthening of the evangelical life of the nation by union between the Church of the Disruption and the noble strain of conviction and piety which had descended from the old Seceders. The two Committees soon got to work. They met with great cordiality and hope, but it may be questioned if their methods were the wisest. They drew up what came to be called ' the programme ' — an enumeration of eleven points about which dis- cussion or definition seemed needful. These points ranged from matters of deep doctrine such as the Atonement to questions of finance such as the Susten- tation Fund. It was well known, however, what was the crucial thing in the * programme.' It was the question of the religious function of what Scottish ecclesiastical phraseology called the * Civil Magistrate,' or what now we call the State. The United Presby- terians were ' voluntaries ' ; and had not Dr. Chalmers on the very day of the Disruption declared for the Free Church that ' we are not voluntaries,' and did not the Claim of Right assert * the right and duty of the civil magistrate to maintain and support an establishment of religion in accordance with God's word ' ? Moreover tliis difference was accentuated by the recollection of an old controversy with the Seceders on tliis very subject in days before the Dis- THE THWARTED UNION 1^3 ruption, when many men, then in the Estabhshed Church but now — that is in 1863 — in the Free Church had said very hard things about voluntaryism. Here lay the real difficulty in the way of union. On this an important paper was drawn up giving, first the 'principles held by the two Churches in common,' and secondly ' views about which the two Churches differ.' When this paper came to be looked at, the difficulty began to disappear. In the first place, the voluntaryism of the United Presb3^terians was found to be an entirely different thing from what it had been represented to be. What had been charged against the Seceders in the old days of the Voluntary controversy was a purcl}^ secular and oven atheistical view of the State, which laid civil rulers under no kind of obligation to obey God's word or recognise His Church. It was against this that Dr. Chalmers and others had fought and from which they desired to dissociate the Church of the Disruption. Now, whether in the heat of controversy the position of the old voluntaries had been exagger- ated by their opponents or whether they had been driven into extreme statements' of it themselves or whether their sons in the United Presbyterian Church had modified the views of their fathers, need not here be discussed. The important point for our present purpose is that, from the statement of the principles held in common, it was apparent that the voluntary- ism of the Church with which the Free Church was considering union was in no sense whatever an atheistic secularisaiion of the State. The United Presbyterians heldTas strongly as any Free Church men did that the 154 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL KAINY State is ordained of God and that ' the civil magistrate must_riila-in obedience to God's Word ' and even ' further the interests of the rehgion of Jesus Christ among his subjects.'^ Moreover, there was entire agreement as to how this should be done, in such matters as marriage and the Sabbath and so on. The old secular voluntaryism — if it ever existed except in the heat of controversy in which nine men out of ten overstate positions — was dead, so far at least as the United Presbyterian Church was concerned. One single point of difference remained. From the views on which the Churches differed, it appeared that the United Presbyterians held that the State, while it might do many things for religion, should not under any circumstances establish and endow a Church, while the Free Church held that, in certain circum- stances, it might and should do so. But even on this single point two things were to be observed — one on the United Presbyterian, the other on the Free Church side. It was to be clearly noted that the United Presbyterian ' view ' was not in any sense a term of communion. It was unquestionably their view ; but they had no wish to impose it as an article of the United Church. All they asked was that no article of the United Church should prohibit it. On the other hand, the Free Church view — that in certain circumstances, establishment and endowment were permissible — was no more than a bit of mere theory. The circumstances which, the Free Church * The words 'among his subjects' admit this is to be done by the State gud State. It is only in his official capacity, not as a mere individual, that the civil magistrate has * subjects.' THE THWAKTED UNION 155 held, would permit such action on the part of the State were ' that he [the civil magistrate] abstain from all authoritative interference in the internal government of the Church ' and tliat ' her spiritual independence is preserved entire.' The very meaning of the Dis- ruption was that these terms had been declared im- possible by the State. There was not in 1863 the smallest practical likelihood of the State offering the '\ Free Church establishment and endowment of an}- kind, not to say of the kind she could accept. More- over the Free Church position went on to say that,( even if its own terms were possible, * it must always ) be a question to be judged of according to times and circumstances whether or not such aid ought to be given by the civil magistrate and whether or not it ought to be accepted by the Church.' The Free Church acceptance of establishment was then, first, a point never likely to become what the French term actualite^, or we call practical politics ; and, secondly, one which, even if it did, was to be treated as a matter of expediency to be * judged of according to times and circumstances.' The whole business thus became narrowed down to a single question. That question was this. Was this abstract theory of the legalit}^ of establishment and endowment so embedded in the avowed principles oFThe Free Church of Scotland that, even though it had no practical prospect of realisation, and even thonglfno one proposed to exclude it, still it must be reiferafed in the constitution of a United Church to the exclusion of any one holding the voluntary view ? On this question, those who might fairly be called the 156 THE LIFE OF PHTNCIPAT. RAINY great authorities on Free Church principles — notable among whom was Alexander Murra}^ Dunlop, who had drafted the Disruption documents — never had a moment's dubiety. Yet it has been so persistently maintained by some Scottish ecclesiastics and also latety by a predominatingly English — never once by a purely Scottish — court of law that this ' principle of establishment ' is part of the fundamental constitution of the Church of the Disruption that it may be well here to state briefly but explicitly how this not only is not the fact but is the precise contrary of the fact. The prima facie case for such a view is obvious. Unquestionably, while the Disruption was impending and when it took place, the claim of the Free Church party for spiritual liberty was made on the basis of Establishment and was a claim that the Church should be free while yet . established. But no historian who adequately appreciates the situation can fail to under- stand this. The very point of the argument of the outgoing party was that this trouble had arisen not from any change in the position of the Church but from the new position assumed on the part of the State. Now what was the position that the Church occupied ? It was as a matter of fact the position of a Church established. Therefore it was from that posi- tion that the party of spiritual independence stated its claim, maintaining, as I have said, that it was not they that had taken new ground — voluntary or any otlier — but the State. From this ground they could argue their claim with exceptional force, both because they could appeal to civil statutes which they held had THE THWARTED UNION 157 guaranteed and legal decisions which they held had affirmed their liberty, and also because by the sacrifice, if necessary, of their position as an estabHshment, they could, in the last resort, make the more impressive declaration for liberty. Obviously the fact of their being an Establishment gave them an exceptional vantage ground, and both naturally and rightly from that vantage ground they fought. But this is not at all the same thing as saying that what they were fight- ing for were the two things — liberty and establishment. The one was the principle the Church was fighting for : the other merely the place she was fighting from. It is the failure to appreciate this simple historical situation which is the root of all attempts to make civil establishment a Free Church principle as spiritual independence is. Now this is not simply an individual opinion : it was the official view of the Free Church. Immediately upon the Disruption — that is immediately after being driven from the vantage ground I have spoken of — the Church set itself to consider how much of the position she had taken while yet in establishment she was going to impose in the altered conditions. The question was the more important because the Claim of Right of 1842, while all through a claim not for material things but for liberty, did in one phrase express the hope that the Church may again enjoy the benefits of establishment ; and the Protest of 1843 did, in one parenthetical sentence, speak of the State's ' right and duty ' in that respect. There- fore, immediately after the Disruption, the Free Church appointed a committee to consider how 158 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY much of all this was to be made binding principles in the Church. The committee reported that all that was called for could be accomplished by means of the formula — that is the form of adherence to these (and other) standards of the Church. This formula, then, was adopted as the express means by which the Church declared what were her binding principles. And what is this formula ? Nothing could be more explicit. It distinctly (and, I shall show immediately, deliberately) refrained from committing the Church to more than the * general principles ' as to * the spirituality and freedom of the Church of Christ and her subjection to Him as her only Head, and his Word as her only standard.' ^ This cannot be too clearly stated. The Free Church, even in the excitement following on the Disruption, was wise and far-seeing and therefore declined to bind herself and her office-bearers down to any of the accidents of her position — grounds of argument, ways of stating or applying the principles of liberty and obedience — but only to these principles themselves. And this was done deliberately. Dr. Candlish's son-in-law. Dr. ' I quote the whole of the new question in the formula bearing on this : ' Do you believe that the Lord Jesus Christ as King and Head of the Church has therein appointed a Government in the hands of Church officers distinct from and not subordinate in its own province to Civil Government ; and that the Civil Magistrate does not possess authoritative control over the regulation of the affairs of Christ's Church ; and do you approve of the general principles embodied in the Claim, Declaration and Protest adopted by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1S42, and in the Protest of ministers and elders, commissioners from Presbyteries to the General Assembly, read in presence of the Royal Commissioner on i8th May 1843, as declaring the views which are sanctioned by the Word of God with respect to the spirituality and freedom of the Church of Christ, and her subjection to Him as her only Head and to His Word as her only Standard?' THE THWARTED UNION 159 Archibald Henderson — a principal clerk of the General Assembly and a man of notable precision of state- ment — has testified his recollection of how clearly that leading Disruption authority was resolved ' not to make the mistake of asking those who came after us to approve of any words we had uttered or any action we had taken in expounding or defending those principles,' but only of ' that Divine truth regarding the spirituality and independence of Christ's Church which is laid down in the Divine Word.' ^ This has been emphatically corroborated, in recent years, by practically all of the very few who could recall the period. I shall quote only one testimony — that of the late Dr. Kelman of Leith ; and I quote him because he was not only a man of great personal integrity but also rather an * anti-unionist ' in the controversy of 1863-73 and thus unsuspect of the desire to explain things away in the interest of union. In 1904 Dr. Kelman said : — ' I am old enough to remember the drawing up of the Free Church formula by a committee shortly after the Disruption and the adoption of it two years later by the General Assembly. The formula and the questions accompanying it determined what are the fundamental principles of the Church. That committee comprised among its members Dr. Chalmers, Dr. Cunningham, Dr. Candlish, Dr. Buchanan, Dr. Begg and Dr. Gibson. And I remember distinctly that it was not by accident but intentionally that they did not include in the formula the establishment principle. The fact is that at the time of the Disruption, the so-called establishment principle was very generally (but by no means unanimously) held by indi\-iduals ^ Vide speech by Dr. Henderson in Assembly of 1905. 160 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY in the Free Church ; but it was intentionally excluded from being one of the fundamental principles of the Church.' ' In my humble judgment, evidence such as this satisfies the historian — whether or not it satisfies the jurist looking at certain documents and reading them without knowledge of their historical setting — that certainly in fact and in intention the Free Church refused to make establishment one of her binding principles. Not that she had no principle on the subject of the State's relation to religion and to the Church. But she dis- tinguished between a principle and a mere mode of applying that principle. She had learned a distinguo on the very subject from her great theological master. Dr. Cunningham taught as emphatically as man could ' the essential difference between the general duty or obligation alleged to be incumbent on nations and their rulers with reference to the promoting true religion and the welfare of the Church of Christ and the specific measures which they may be warranted and called on to adopt in discharge of their duty for the attainment of this end.' '^ The question of the latter is * comparatively speaking one of detail, or at least of inferior importance,' and about it * men may differ ' who concur in the general duty. He attacks writers like Beza and Grotius for failing to appreciate this distinguo. Later he goes on to apply it to the docu- ments of the Free Church, saying the formula binds to ' general principles ' — he himself uses italics — in these documents. It was Dr. Cunningham's pen that drew up tlic formula, and it is the very irony of fate that has * Reported in Lci/h Olfscn'cr^ 13th August 1904. 2 Cuiininyham's Historical Theology', ii. 561-66 and 5S5-S7. THE THWARTED UNION 161 declared that the Church is bound to that from which he thus so expHcitly meant her to be freed. It would be easy to give further quotations to show that Dr. Cunningham supported this view. He visited America in 1844, and this is what he said of the American voluntary Churches on his return (the italics in this case are mine) : — ' The great body of those you meet are rather anxious to express their abhorrence of any Union between the Church and the State. But I find at the same time a very general admis- sion of the great scriptural principle for which alone we contend, that, in virtue of the principles embodied in God's M'ord, the obligation is laid upon nations and rulers to have regard to the moral government of God as supreme and the welfare of Christ's Church. The general admission of the doctrine is all we care about.' Dr. Cunningham said this to the Assembly of 1844 to its entire approval. Principal Rainy used to say sometimes that * it would not do for men to say they knew the principles of the Free Church better than Dr. Cunningham did.' . Whether or not it may ' do/ it has been done. Led along lines of evidence and argument such as these, the Free Church — one may say, as a practically unanimous whole — had no difficulty in entering on the Union negotiations and there were the highest hopes that the}^ would be successfully and happily carried through. The Union reports — presented with great ability and eloquence by Dr. Buchanan — were adopted in 1864 and 1865 with but very few dissentient voices. The man who soon was to become the great anti-union leader — Dr. Begg — was cordial, and, holding the state- ment of the United Presbyterians in his hand, declared VOL. I. L 162 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY that he anticipated * a favourable issue in the prose- cution of this enterprise.' Well might he so hope. There had been a small Presbyterian union in Scot- land in 1826, and at the LTnion Committee Dr. Begg declared he would be satisfied if he could get terms of agreement such as these. Dr. Candlish there- upon tabled them, and the United Presbyterians not only accepted them as a basis but went beyond them to meet the Free Church ; and for their improve- ment Dr. Begg claimed — probably quite justly — the credit. Yet as I have said, he became later the implacable opponent of the Union. The point is that whatever the reason of Dr. Begg's opposition was, it was not the articles of agreement, but must be sought in something beyond these and later. For a year or two, then, after the commencement, the Union negotia- tions — while requiring care and tact — seemed to have no serious opposition to dread. So strong was the tide for union, that another Church — the Reformed Presbyterians or * Cameronians,' the oldest noncon- formists in Scotland, who had stood apart from the Revolution Settlement of 1688 — ^joined in the negotia- tions to the great satisfaction of the other Churches concerned. It was about 1866 that the sky became overcast. It is not easy to state how this came about. Not one thing alone did it. The situation became com- plicated in various ways. In the first place, the United Presbyterians, not unnaturally or unjustly, began to press for a decision as to whether there was or was not anything to prevent union, especially as regards the matter of the views of the THE THWARTED UNION 163 Churches on Estabhshment. Then some people — some of them good people, others perhaps more political than anything else — raised the question of ' a wider union ' and the proposal was made that the scheme in hand should be set aside and a larger plan initiated which should embrace the Established Church. Political feeling awoke — it was intensified by discus- sions arising at the same time over Education Bills — and strong Church-and-State men became apprehensive at seeing the nonconformity of the country becoming so consolidated. All these things, however, were small in comparison with the spirit which began to manifest itself within the Free Church herself. From the beginning, there had been those — such as the Glasgow professor. Dr. Gibson, whose name has been already mentioned in connection with the Glas- gow Students' case and the Australian Union — who held the surrender of the positive insistence on ' the principle of establishment ' to be unfaithfulness to the Church and to Scripture ; this ground — even if we think it demonstrably wrong — was honest and worthy. But round this, there gathered a great deal that was not worthy. The truth of the matter is that the proposed union, while it did not sacrifice an^^ principle of the Church of the Disruption, did sacrifice something of its position, and this, in turn, sacrificed something of what one must call Disruption pride. It has to be frankly admitted that, in the twenty years that had elapsed since the great act of 1843, there had grown up, in sections of the Free Church, a kind of worship of the Disruption. Let it, in justice," be remembered what a really wonderful thing it was 164 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY to live through the Disruption conflict — to have personalty shared its splendid sacrifices and then its amazing success. It is not inexplicable that even good men should have come to look on it as a kind of final achievement and viewed jealously anything which seemed to be moving on from it, forgetting that even the saints must go * from strength to strength.' The greatest men in the Church were ahve to this danger and surmounted it, but it existed strongly — though perhaps half-unconsciously — in many good men, among whom were some of those who gave the Free Church her reputation (and it was one of the symptoms of the evil that the Church was a trifle too conscious of this reputation) for great spirituality and godliness. And if this was the case with good men, how much more was it so with those in the Free Church who were not deeply religious and who represented ' the natural man ' within the Church ? If ever there was a Church movement kvhose roots and aims were spiritual, it was the Dis- ruption ; and yet, of course, there was that in its battle and victory which could appeal to the natural man, and the movement carried along with it — as even spiritual movements do when they are full in flood — ^many who strongly and, in a way, quite sincerely stood by the evangelical cause though its motives were not the motives of their own hearts and lives. And thus, when the actual excitement and enthusiasm died down, there remained not the spirit of the Disruption but only the tradition of it. There grew up in a part of the Free Church a kind of evangelical moderatism whose whole spiritual credit THE THWARTED UNION 165 lay in the conservation of the past. With this was mixed another element. There remained in the Free Church — which had been a strongly dominant party in an overwhelmingly dominant Establishment and which came out still claiming to be the Church of Scotland — traces of that partly social, partly political, partly ecclesiastical ' national-churchism ' which looks with a patronising superiority upon dissenters — a feeling which exists in many really Christian men but which is as absolutely unchristian as almost any sentiment can be with which one servant of the Lord Jesus Christ regards another. I have said all this because it is true and because it was all part of the situation. But it must not be exaggerated. It must be quite understood that the great part of the Free Church was free from this evangehcal moderatism and ecclesiastical pride. In particular, as we shall soon see from his utterances, Dr. Rainy was entirely superior to it. But it existed to a degree sufficient to wreck the Union. By this I do not mean that all who opposed the Union did so with these motives. That were a most unfair thing to say. But the anti- union spirit fed and fattened upon these influences, and they — far more than any force of reasoning about Free Church principles — ultimately thwarted union. In the Assembly of 1866 — for we must return to the narrative — opposition was impending rather than expHcit. Dr. Buchanan's motion to advance the matter by transmitting the report to Presbyteries was carried by 439 to 7. It was supported by Dr. Begg, but in a most curious speech which, as Dr. Candlish 166 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY said, * exaggerated every point of difference that existed between us and our friends with whom we are negotiating.' But there was Httle show of party division, and Mr. Spurgeon, who visited that Assembly, spoke of the Free Church as ' so happily united that you have no right hand and no left in this House.' It was the last Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland of which such a remark could be made. The situation in 1867 is indicated by Dr. Rainy in the following extract from a letter to George Brown early in that year : — ' As regards the Union question, we have, I may say, com- pletely ended in Committee all that can be done on the first head of the programme (civil magistrate) ; we have also pretty well done what we can to the second head (other doctrinal mattters) and had full conference regarding the Atonement. This being so, the United Presbyterians especially press us to say distinctly whether the ascertained difference on the first head is a sufficient bar to union or whether it is not. They say it is no use going further unless that is settled and threaten not to resume negotiations unless this question is distinctly answered. They are made the more teethy about this by Begg's overture to our Presbytery, and others elsewhere, to the effect that the Assembly should exhaust the whole eleven heads of the programme before deciding anything about any one of them. This is part of Begg's policy of obstruction. It makes the U.P.'s more sensitive because the opponents in their own body are disposed to say that it is all in vain j^ou go as far as you can in formulating agreements with the Free Church ; they will never concede to you any room for voluntaryism, but will only make use of each concession to screw you up to some new one. For my part I believe the Assembly is fairly called on to answer the (juestion which the United Presbyterians have put and which the Reformed Presbyterians are greatly inclined to put to us. I suspect also that the proceedings in the U.P. THE THWAR TED UNION 167 and R.P. Synods, which meet before our Assembly, will compel us to answer. We refused to be shut up to answer questions in Committee because we are clear that any division on the subject should not be forced on in Committee, but should take place in open debate before the w^orld. The United Presby- terians were not pleased at our declining to speak out in Com- mittee and told us plainly that the effect might be to increase their dififiiculties in carrying the question clearly through their Synod. For my part all these theoretical matters are settled points with me — that is, I see no bar to union in them.' In the joint-committee, the Free Church leaders gained their end of avoiding a division there as to whether the ascertained difference about establishment and endowment was a bar to union, but they practi- cally pledged themselves to face the question at the Assembly, and it was clear that there might be opposition. The following sentences from a letter of Dr. Cairns indicate this : — ' Dr. Buchanan made a noble statement, conceding all that was required and declaring that it w^ould be morally discredit- able in their Assembly, if they had found any bar, not to say so. I expressed for myself the conviction that such statements were enough, and that as no one had yet said there was a bar, silence gave consent. Drs. Begg and Gibson now came forward, not to say they had discovered a bar to union, but that they would hold themselves free in the Assembly to take the course they deemed right,' ^ This then was tlie situation when the Assembly of 1867 met — a clear question to answer with * 3^ea ' or ' nay ' and a 3'et unmasked amount of opposition ' Life of John Cairns, D.D., LL.D., by A. R. MacEwen, U.D., 527. This admirable biography contains an excellent account of the Union history from the United Presbyterian side. 108 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY to apprehend. It was at this critical juncture that Dr. Rainy stepped into the very front place in the Church. On the morning of the day — 30th May 1867 — fixed for the Union debate, on entering the densely crowded hall, he was dismayed to receive a message from Dr. Candlish, who was unwell, asking him to take his place in moving the Assembly's judgment. Thus came it about that, 'on,' as he said in a sub- sequent Assembly, ' twenty minutes' notice,' Dr. Rainy found himself moving the critical deliverance that there was no * bar to union ' so far as the first head of the programme — that is so far as the question of establishment and endowment — ^was concerned. It was one of the greatest speeches of his life. Into its detail of argument, demonstrating that establish- ment and endowment are not more than an applica- tion of the Church's general principle as to the religious duty of the State and one to be considered according to circumstances, I cannot enter, and I content myself with quoting two passages which exhibit the spirit of the speaker. Here is a plea which onl}^ a historian and a catholic could utter, for something more than merely inward and spiritual unity : — ' Yes, sir, we greet one another cordially as brethren and we meet in committees and on platforms and in various other ways. Some of us have become members of the Evangelical AlHance, and we have various ways of expressing the unity that remains to us across the divided lines of our Churches. Ah, but there was a time, gone by long, long ago, when all those who in any place confessed a common Lord exercised their imity around the same communion table, and in the courts which Christ had set up, and not in such committees and alliances as we have THE THWARTED UNION 169 been compelled to plan because we had fallen from the others. There was a time when it entered into no Christian mind that, in any place, those who confessed our common Lord were to sit down contented with a unit}^ that was not expressed and could not be in Christ's ordinances and Christ's institutions. There was a time when, if anything fell out to break it, men were grieved and humbled and Apostles wrote moving letters to the Churches concerned ; and after the Apostles were gone, the Church of Rome sent her letter to the Church of Corinth to entreat them to be visibly one in the institutions and ordinances which Christ gave them to express and to exercise their unity. There was such a time, and if since post-apostolic times the Church has gained something — and I think it has gained much — yet surely it has lost something too. There was some- thing they had in the early Church, when they met around the same communion table and in the same institutions just as naturally as they went to one martyr-death together — there was something then which we have not now. Therefore we are bomid to aim at it — we are bound to seek it as we can.' In his concluding appeal, Dr. Rainy referred to the feeling I have described which clung to the sentiment of the Disruption days. ' This/ he said, ' is an argu- ment from sentiment, but ' he added, ' in so far as sentiment separates itself from. duty, it must be from duty that we take the principles we ought to follow\' Then, as he closed, he revealed, as he rarely did, the religious passion that glowed beneath his reserved nature : — ' While I think my own natural tendencies are so conservative that I would always gladly cling to the past if I could, I confess I am pressed upon by the present, and still more, I think I hear the future crying to us with a voice we cannot mistake. It is the future that is the great question — the future that lies between us and the coming of Christ. The past ! — it is gone, gone with its high memories and grand associations and \\orthy deeds and its worthies at whose feet we sat to learn. But the 170 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY future is before us and it is gathering for our children. What are we to do for the future ? What position are we to take for the future ? And if any one says, Do you suppose you can gauge the future, create the future ? I answer, No ; I am not so vain as to think that ; but only let us take care that we take up the position our Lord is calling us to take up in awaiting the future. I know it is not the decisive argument, but I confess it would wring my heart to think that after all that has come and gone between this Church and the United Presbyterian Church, we are to fall back from an approximation and go forth to work apart, and fulfil what seems to be the inevitable destiny of Churches so situated — to make and find out differences (because differences do not exist), to find them out, to manufacture them and to fight for them. Is it in this position we must wait the future that lies between us and the coming of th Lord Jesus Christ ? * Dr. Begg moved an amendment in * the longest speech/ his biographer supposes, ' that he ever made.' It proposed that, owing to ' the immature state of the question ' and considering the fact ' while only one- third of the members of this Church are entitled to be present in the Assembly,^ the people of the Church at large have never been consulted in regard to this matter at all,' the Assembly reserve judgment till the Union Committee report on all the heads of the programme. Dr. Begg, in his speech, declared himself * a friend of union ' ; yet he must have known, as every other man in the Assembly knew, that this dilatory amendment, refusing to meet the plain question which the United Presbyterians were pressing, meant practi- ' This refers to the fact that an Assembly is composed of representatives of .the Presbyteries to the extent — ministers and elders in equal numbers — of one-third of their number. Dr. Begg's biographer admits that this clause in Dr. Begg's motion 'amounted to a declaration of the inability of any Assembly to do anything ' {Memoirs of James Bcgg^ D.D-, ii. 501). THE THWARTED UNION 171 cally ending the thing. He emphaticalty maintained that estabhshment and endowment were principles of Scripture and of the Confession of Faith, as well as of the Protest of 1843. He was not going to have that Assembly Hall made ' the grave and mausoleum of an unanswered and unanswerable protest.' And though ' anxious for union,' he would resist ' in every competent form deviation from the testimony which the Free Church had maintained.' A great debate followed. As it proceeded, it became obvious that Dr. Begg's motion was winning little support, and a second amendment, couched in more careful and conciliatory terms, but containing the same instruction to the committee to go on with all the programme and avoiding any answer to the question whether under the first head was any ' bar,' was moved by Dr. Nixon — a respected minister of a non-progres- sive type of mind and with remarkable, though also almost interminable, oratorical powers. The de- bate waged on all day and was adjourned to next morning. In the afternoon of the second day. Dr. Rainy rose to reply. He began quietly, and indeed laboured for a while. Then he suddenly roused. If the anti- unionists had honestly said that here is a bar to union, he could have at least respected that ; but this evasion, coupled with professions of good- will to -the cause of union, stirred his indignation. He told the House plainly ' that if you adopt Dr. Begg's motion the negotiations go off.' He poured scorn on the argument that establishment and endow- ment are in the Confession because of the texts 172 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY appended to it, which Dr. Begg had incautiously main- tained/ He impeached the idea of the impotence of the Assembly as ' fiat and sheer and simple congregation- ahsm and nothing else.' Dr. Begg sat under it as long as he could but at length rose to defend himself, and the now excited House saw the Hthe, fair man on the one side and the stalwart, grey on the other, facing each other and challenging each other across the Clerks' table. It is right to say that no word was said by either which was improper in form or even unchristian in spirit. It was simply the direct personal encounter of two powerful leaders who had come to a dividing point as to the whole idea of the duty and the destiny of the Free Church of Scotland. When Dr. Rainy sat down, the ovation he received was tremendous. ' The cheers,' says the Scotsman report, * with which the concluding passage of Dr. Rainy's speech was accompanied and followed were continued for several minutes and were again and again renewed, many of the audience, particularly in the students' and public galleries, hurrahing and waving their hats.' The division followed. Dr. Nixon's motion defeated Dr. Begg's by 90 votes to 61 ; and then the former — now supported by Dr. Begg — was put against Dr. Rainy's, which was carried by the large majority of 346 to 120. Amid the applause with which the result was greeted, Dr. Begg advanced ' The text, appended to chap, xxiii. of the Confession, ' Kings shall be thy nursing fathers and queens thy nursing mothers,' was the favourite example of this. It was pointed out that the same verse (Isaiah xlix. 23) goes on to say that ' they shall bow down to thee with their faces towards the earth and lick up the dust of thy feet,' which might justify the papal temporal supremacy as much as the former clause justifies endowments. THE THWARTED UNION 173 to the table. He handed in a ' protest ' against the decision, and thereafter he, followed by two or three others, intimated resignation of membership of the committee negotiating union . Wherein a ' protest ' (in a supreme court) means an3^thing more than a dissent, I have never found any one learned enough to tell me ; but it was a new thing in the Free Church Assembly and therefore seemed more. Later in the story, people began to understand that already Dr. Begg was keeping his feet clear in view of the possibility of an appeal to the civil courts. Thus ended a debate fateful not merely for the Union cause, but for the future history of the Free Church of Scotland. In later life. Principal Rain}^ used to say — say it sadly and almost self-reproachfull}' as if wondering if he had any part of the blame for it — that from that day Dr. Begg stood largely apart from those who were called the leaders (though they never gave themselves that title) in the Assembly, and became himself the leader of - a distinct ' opposition ' party in the Church. This immediately appeared in the Union movement. Hitherto, anti-unionism had been but a tendency : now it was an organisation. Dr. Begg was a born manager. He had his agents and his part}^ whips. He started and edited a periodical which contained articles of quite incredible bitterness. He secured a well-filled war chest, the subscribers to which were certainly not aU Free Churchmen. Meetings were organised all over the country. Congregations were invaded, without any knowledge on the part of the minister or session, with petitions against Union. In particular, the Highlands were set on fire. With 174 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY the eye of a strategist, Dr. Begg saw his most hopeful field was where the United Presbyterian was homo ignotus et novus,^ easily credited with dangerous doctrines. From this time, ' setting the heather on fire ' was a regular weapon of Dr. Begg's party warfare. The sad effects of this remain to this day and must be referred to in more detail in a later chapter on the Highlands. - Among the anti-unionists were, however, other men to be reckoned with and one of the best known of these, Dr. Horatius Bonar, the writer of some of our most familiar hymns, prepared a Statement, Explanatory and Defensive, in support of their position. Dr. Rainy was most strongly urged to answer this pamphlet. Among those who urged him was Dr. Duff, the illustrious Indian missionary, who wrote : — * The truth written in love is surely an intelligible Bible idea, and that is what is pre-eminently wanted. And it is because I am persuaded that, under God, yow would produce such a reply, that you will excuse me for expressing the hope that you will render this great service to a bleeding cause.' Dr. Rainy was most reluctant to do this. His old longing for the calm of an academic rather than the clamour of a controversial life appealed to him again and he felt himself at the parting of the ways. One of his colleagues in the New College, Professor Bannerman, warned him. ' Think well over it,' he said, ' because you will find if you write that pamphlet you are embarked — and you will not be able to with- * I believe Stornoway, Nigcj, and Tain were the only United Presbyterian congregations in Ross-shire, and there were none in Sutherland — the two counties where the anti-union feclinfj was strongest. ■■^ Vuft' Chap. XV., vi/m. THE THWARTED UNION 175 draw from it — you are embarked in a line of occu- pation and discussion and Church activity which will seriously interfere with your doing anything else.' It was a true warning, and no one felt its truth more than the man to whom it was spoken. Yet after all • is not the duty of the day the noblest form of destiny ? Dr. Rainy could hardly avoid the call and he sat down and wrote a pamphlet under the title of The Present Position of the Union Question in the Free Church. It is admirable controversial writing, except that, like nearly every utterance of the older days, it is too prolix. Again, I content myself with an extract that shows the spirit of the writer. The following passage is a fine revelation of a man destined to lead the Church in the days to be : — ' A set of expressions is found pervading the Statement which are very significant. " We are not innovators " — " we are simply desirous of remaining as we have done since 1843 " — " we revere the ancient landmarks and would preserve them " — " it is enough that we do not yet see our way to move or change " — " let us alone, we say." In so far as this means that their convictions should be respected, it is answered already. But it has another meaning, not without its pathos. Who does not understand it, who has not felt it ? Do our brethren think that they are the only men who would fain be let alone ? As if we also did not know what it is to cling to the precise tradition of our Church, to the established habits of its action and utterance, to the unbroken series of its acts and its decisions, to the well-compacted mechanism of its schemes ? We, as well as they, if it might be, could willingly enough continue to stand quiet and satisfied just where those contend- ings landed us which were illustrated and crowned — I that had no part in it may speak of it — by the glorious sacrifices of the Disruption. We as weU as they have shrunk from the an.xiety of Union questions. We too have desired to be let alone ; 176 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY so in like manner, I have no doubt, have brethren of the other Churches. But this is just what cannot be. We cannot be let alone. Questions rise for us whether we wiU or no. It will not do to put them by and say, " We will keep our place, as we have been accustomed, and will make no change." For as things change around us, immobility may become at once the most insidious and the most pernicious form of inconsistency. The questions that arise must be dealt with. If they bring trials, they bring benefits far more weighty. They force the Church from the mere traditionary impression of her principles and practice to sink afresh into the meaning of both and to apply that meaning under new conditions and amid new perplexities. She is compelled to submit afresh to the cross- questioning of the ever-changing, ever-moving. Providence of God. She is obliged to let drop the mere habits of her history, which suffice no longer, and to take up her responsibilities as standing on the ground and dealing with the work and the destiny of the Catholic Church of God. Just by questions that come when we would fain " be let alone," God teaches us how great and arduous a thing it is to he that Church and to follow out her calling and her work. For with those questions come perplexities, discussions, anxieties, possibilities and appre- hensions of division — things that are difficult to deal with well. But yet these are among the things that help to make our Church work become a work of faith and force us back on the sources of our strength. There is nothing in these things that should either quench brotherly confidence or should greatly discourage and alarm us. They always must come when Churches are obliged to recur to fundamental principles, when they have to take up afresh the work of translating these into fitting forms of action. And just because that is arduous work, the blessing, which is never nearer than when we feel our weak- ness and our danger, often descends in the midst of it to make pastoral work real and fruitful. It is seldom welcome to us, but often profitable, that we cannot be let alone.' I know no passage in all Dr. Rainy's utterances which more truly expresses the fundamental principles of liis ecclesiastical career. To call him an ecclesiastic THE THWARTED UNION 177 is an inadequate term. He was a believing Church- man : a Churchman — that is to say, one who honoured and valued and gave his Hfe's service to Christ's visible society of Christians ; and a believing Churchman — that is, one who in this, was dominated and guided by a real faith in God's living providence and living presence in the Church. As he put it elsewhere in the same pamphlet in words to be writ in gold : — ' The Church of Christ has no liberty to become the slave even of its own history. History is great, but Christ is greater. He is a present Lord with a present will ; and the Church abides in Him.' This pamphlet greatly enhanced Dr. Rainy's reputa- tion and confirmed the now general conviction that in him a new power had arisen to shape the destiny of the Scottish Church. Its spirit evoked praise not less than its reasoning ; one of his correspondents. Dr. Goold, the leading minister in the Reformed Presbyterian Church and a scholarly and high-toned man, wrote to its author — ' I cannot detect an ex- pression in the whole document which, djdng, you could wish to blot.' But Dr. Rainy soon found how true was his colleague Professor Bannerman's warning about being ' embarked ' and ' not being able to withdraw.' Upon his shoulders fell largely the burden of addressing meetings in various parts of the country to counteract Dr. Begg's anti-union campaign ; and, in addition, Dr. Candlish had written to him (in December of 1867), begging to be excused from public action and even private con- sultation as both his ' health and temper ' required his friends should ' leave him alone for a \\hile.' The VOL. I. im: 178 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY really staying thing at this trying time was the mag- nanimous spirit shown by the United Presbyterians, and, in particular, the noble brotherliness of Dr. Cairns, who went with Dr. Rainy to many a meeting and did all that man could to ease the situation. After the meeting of the United Presbyterian supreme court subsequent to the declaration of hostihty in the Free Church, Dr. Rainy wrote to Dr. Cairns : — * Will you allow me to express my grateful sense of your handling of the Union question and of the Synod's good feeling and elevation of tone in dealing with it ? I wish we may emulate it. I cannot at all events resist the feeling that our way is being smoothed for us and 'help given according to our need. With renewed thanks — especially for your own example of how to speak to the nobler man within the man. . . .' Upon Dr. Rainy's shoulders was laid, too, at this time another task.' A magazine called The Presby- terian was launched in the interests of the Church and he undertook its editorship — a task entailing much correspondence. For the next two or three years, the controversy was waged throughout the country, the Assembly pursuing, meanwhile, a waiting policy. A pacific motion was passed in 1868, and in 1869 nothing more was done than to leave the report on the table for the consideration of the Church. Dr. Buchanan acknowledged ' we must not rush the Union.' Dr. Rainy's concern for the religious welfare of the Church at this stage is indicated in the following letter to Dr. Buchanan of date 6th May 1869 : — ' It has been a good deal on my mind of late that if we are to have a sort of pause in this Union negotiation, and call on THE THWARTED UNION 179 men to think it over seriously, it will not be advantageous to leave them nothing to do but to think. It will be too much like the house swept and garnished. Besides, the kind of influence which is likely to sway men's minds to Christian and brotherly views comes commonly in connection with Christian activity. I hope there will be prayerfulness and seeking of guidance from above. But is it not a ([uestion whether it would not be in the line of our duty to get the Assembly to give a special impulse to home or foreign work or both, and take exceptional steps tliis year for really and seriously calling on the people to give themselves to the Lord's work — in money, men, prayers — and to come out from the world and seek renewing grace ? No particular line has occurred to me except perhaps deputations of an exceptional kind to preach, hold meetings, etc., in the interest of our Christian usefulness in such forms and aspects of it as might be selected. Duff would be grateful for this, I am sure ; indeed a talk with him partly put it in my head. Moreover this is a sort of work which would not suit mere wranglers, and it would let the latter fall into their place, while good men of all views would be the better of it.' This suggestion was acted upon by the Assembly of 1869, but it led to little diminution of the inter- necine war in the Church. The anti-unionists began openly to speak of a ' new disruption.' In these circumstances, it was natural that a third party should arise, composed of men who disowned Dr. Begg and all his ways and who yet were not ready to go on with union at the cost of a new division. Their position was strengthened by the fact that at the beginning oi the negotiations, when aU the prospect was fair, thin^ had been said by Dr. Buchanan and others — * not by me,' remarks Dr. Rainy in one letter — about the unanimity with which the union must be accomplished. Dr. Rainy's correspondence shows that many men pressed this view upon him. and 180 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY urged the suspension, at least for a time, of further proceedings towards union. A year earlier — ^in May 1868 — Dr. Rainy had written to Dr. Buchanan that he felt ' the movement may at some future stage have to be delayed.' But to yield now was made extremely difficult in view of the Begg agitation. It would certainly be represented as an acknowledg- ment of at least some truth in Dr. Begg's contention as to the principles of the Church. And so Dr. Rainy >vrote to Dr. Buchanan that he had difficulty seeing ' how the pulling up is to be accomplished consistently with public interests.' One thing was clear. If the ' how ' and ' when ' of union were to be left over, the Church must at least clearly decide the question of principle — the question whether the establish- ment theory is or is not to be a ground of separation. The upshot was that in the Assembly of 1870 a motion was proposed sending down the complete Union report to Presbj^teries and instructing them specially to consider and answer this question : — ' Whether, apart from other considerations bearing upon the present movement there is any objection in principle to the formation of an incorporating union among the negotiating Churches, on the footing or basis of the Westminster Confession of Faith as at present accepted by the said Churches ? ' The motion was carried by 379 to 144. On this occasion Dr. Begg's party made a solemn protest — tabled by Professor Gibson — before the debate even began. During the course of the ensuing year, the anti- union agitation reached its climax of fierceness. Meet- ings were lield in every centre. Every presbytery THE THWARTED UNION 181 was rent with dissension. Congregations were disturbed, and, especially in the Highlands, irre- parable mischief done. Of course the Union party had to reply to all this agitation. Dr. Rainy and Dr. Cairns again often appeared together, and the former again wrote on the question in the form of an open letter to the latter published as a preface to a speech delivered in the Presbytery of Edinburgh when it discussed the question sent down to Presbyteries. The following letter from Dr. Rainy to Dr. Buchanan on this discussion gives a single glimpse into the keen party atmosphere of the time : — ' We did our best. We picketed every doubtful man. Davidson ^ (among the Professors) voted right. Kelman ^ (who is very honest but has long acted on a declared aversion to press too hard on Disruption ministers in the minority) and others did not vote. That was as good as we expected. The only mistake so far as I know was the High Church elder. Amot ^ bungled the business and sent up a man to vote wrong on peace principles. Every man of the minority that spoke read his speech except Begg. On our side no one read. Begg's speech was advantageously delivered. We yielded him the reply in order to close the debate. He made the most of it — a most dishonest speech it was, and in the end took a tone almost unparalleled in a Church court, and admirably fitted to bring down shaky elders. But they stood fire very well and voted quite straight — all we had counted on. Duff eased his mind to me to-day about Begg's tone. He said he would not say what he thought of it, but ultimately classed it with the speeches of a certain assem- blage in Paradise Lost ! You literally never heard Candlish do better than last night. He was all himself. There was ^ A. B. Davidson, the pre-eminent Old Testament scholar. - The minister quoted on p. 159, supra. 2 Dr. Rainy's successor as minister of the High Church. 182 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY the usual difficulty — or not quite the usual — to get him up. At all events he required a little judicious " bottle-holding." He was tired of course — beginning to speak at twelve — and had caught cold. But, once up, all obstacles gave way — there was nothing but competency and power. Not the least hammering or reiteration. Luminous fulness on each point up to the measure that was really necessary and then going on to the next with an ease and vigour that were delightful. It quite cheered all who love him to hear him. He has not suffered from it. God grant it may be an omen for many happy and useful days.' From Dr. Rainy's own speech the following extract must suffice, emphasising what was now his main aim — that, whether or not union was to be immediately proceeded with, it must be made clear that the anti- union view of the Church's principles was not being conceded to the entanglement of true principle : — ' Moderator, though this is a question of union, it is not a question of union only. It is a question of the principles of our own Church and how they are to be understood and applied. Supposing union should be defeated to-morrow, we cannot go back to 1863. The main necessity, I believe, is for us to answer the question how we, as a Church, may best do justice to and preserve the great principle of national obligation ; and in regard to that I do feel that no more grievous blow could be inflicted and no greater wrong done to that great principle than by declaring that no Church really and duly holds it that does not make establishment and endowment a term of office.' When the Assembly of 1871 drew near, two things were plain. One was that a conclusive majority of Presbyteries accepted in principle (apart from any question of expediency as to the time of it) the union. The other was, that to press on the union immediately THE THWARTED UNION 183 meant a new division. In these circumstances many who represented the middle party at its best ap- proached Dr. Rainy, urging that the majority should be satisfied with the assertion of their principles and should not press to accomphsh union itself for the present. Their view was that, apart from extremists, many men attached to the minority felt that union must come, but they were now so committed by the exigencies of years of controversy against the present movement, that they could not accept it ; but if it were ended, they could in a few years recommence the movement with their support. Dr. Rainy's answer, written to Dr. Buchanan, and referring to a visit from Dr. Kelman, was : — ' I told him I was quite prepared to consider favourably any proposal for a course that would open a door for men like those he named, but that the first consideration with me was that the attitude of the Church should be consistent and defensible.' But while ' prepared to consider ' any question as to the expediency of pressing union. Dr. Rainy was stiff as iron about any suggestion of weakening the declaration of principle. It was suggested that he should see a certain well-known minister who was siding with the anti-unionists, with a view to some agreement about the Assembly's deliverance. Dr. Rainy wrote : — ' There would be no use in my seeing . I have done so formerly and made nothing of him. His ultimatum is just this — that the nation may possibly not have an Established Church, but is bound always, as a nation, to have a religion of a distinct confession and character and to say so distinctl}- and legislatively. The U.P.'s will never grant that. They will 184 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY grant what comes round to the same thing by another road. But will have them go by his road, and that is his ulti- matum. I have no doubt about this. I don't feel disposed to make any concession to men like in the way of flinching from an Assembly dehverance.' In another letter to Dr. Buchanan, Dr. Rainy gives an interesting view of the situation and its future : — * I retain my impression that the feeling and the passion have gone too deep on the Begg side to admit of union without disruption ; unless time is interposed. Of course Begg will do his best to prevent time exercising any softening influence. But he will find it diflicult. If that were all, I should expect wonders from three or four years' delay. At the same time we must not shut our eyes to other possibilities. Events will not wait for us. All the questions connected with worship, creeds, etc., are more and more coming up. My desire for speedy union was very much that we might deal with them as one Church. In the course of four or five years these questions may get into the front, in one form or another, and produce new complications a great deal more difficult to manage than this precious civil magistrate who has been dandled into such ridiculous importance. While therefore I see nothing for it but delay — because the starting of a new denomination in Scotland is an evil I should deprecate most strongly — I should delay with a very serious apprehension of the consequences. It is a very great comfort amid all this that we are responsible only for what we have immediately to deal with and that the Lord will care for His own cause. I feel our present position as a great trial. The irrational conservatism of our anti- union friends puts us necessarily to the work of exposing its absurdity. And yet that has the effect of exhibiting us as occupied mainly with opposing anti-unionism, while, of course, the real danger of the age is that infidel liberalism with which our friends are conspiring effectively though unconsciously. These extracts are but the merest fragments of an unceasing correspondence at this time. In these THE THWARTED UNION 185 letters it is impossible not to perceive that Dr. Rainy had become the commanding mind in the Church. The motion proposed in the Assembly of 1871 was practically his drafting, though it was moved by Sir Henry Moncreiff, who was coming more and more to be a trusted counsellor of the Church. It was a declara- tion of principle against the anti-unionists, but at the same time a hanging up of the actual prosecution of union. The Church declared its * great fundamental and characteristic principles ' to be these : — ' (i) The sole and supreme authority of the Lord Jesus Christ and His exclusive right to rule in and over His Church, and the consequent obligation of His Church to be regulated in all her proceedings by His Word alone. For which end she claims in all spiritual matters complete independence and immunity from all exercise and control from without. (2) The prerogative of the same Lord Jesus Christ, as Head over all things to His Church, and supreme over nations and their rulers, who are consequently bound collectively and officially, as well as individually and personally, to own and honour His authority, to. further the interests of His holy religion, and to accept the guidance of His Word as making know^n His mind and will.' These being declared to be the ' fundamental and characteristic principles ' of the Free Church, establish- ment and endowment were again (as in the formula) relegated to being something, not prescribed but open for discussion, in a lower category than * fundamental and characteristic principles.' But asserting this, the Assembly at the same time agreed to postpone union. Noting the * decided majority ' in Presbyteries, and the ' large measure of agreement among the nego- tiating Churches,' and therefore holding the 'confident 186 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY expectation that the Lord will in His own good time, bring the contemplated Union to pass,' still the Assembly out of * consideration to the difficulties of an important minority,' reappointed the committee, instructing it to develop meanwhile methods of co- operation. The anti-union amendment was moved by Dr. Nixon and was a mere ending of negotiations (without of course any declaration of principles) and a call to peace. Sir Henry's motion was carried by 435 to 165. Dr. Begg handed in his customary protest, which was signed by over a hundred names. He was anxious to know what was done with these protests, and desired they should be engrossed in the record. But Sir Henry Moncreiff, who was senior principal clerk, declared they were ' kept iii retentis ' : perhaps only a Presbyterian can appreciate this euphemism for the grave. It might well seem that now this desolating con- troversy which had gone on so long would subside. It was not so. It developed a new phase, and this last phase was its worst. The reader may already have wearied of an ignoble tale : yet, if he complains of the length of this story, he must remember that I am compressing into one chapter a controversy of ten years' duration. What has still to be told will be narrated as briefly as is consistent with clear statement. The committee carried out its instructions to ' direct attention for the present to those measures which may seem best fitted to draw the negotiating Churches into closer and more friendly relations to one another and encourage and facilitate their cordial co-operation ' THE THWARTED UNION 187 by bringing up suggestions regarding combination in the training of students for the ministry, federation in home and foreign missionary work, and mutual eligibility — that is, that ministers in any one of the Churches should be eligible for call from a congrega- tion in the others. The third proposal was the one the committee pressed as taking natural precedence. It was so moderate a proposal that it was difficult to imagine that the anti-unionists would not at least consider it. Indeed it was their own proposal ; for one in their inner circle — Dr. Thomas Smith, (Dr. Begg's biographer) — had himself proposed it in 1867 (in a pamphlet written in repty to Dr. Rainy's pamphlet of that year) , and did so ' be- lieving that all the brethren with whom I act will substantially agree,' while Dr. Begg's own organ had criticised the idea merely as going ' in our opinion rather too far.' Now, however. Dr. Begg and his whole party denounced it out and out. They even made their customary protest against its discussion in the Assembly of 1872 ; and when the motion approving of mutual eligibility was carried and the matter sent down to Presbyteries, they again protested and again inaugurated a bitter campaign all over the Church. During the year following the Assembly of 1872, things marched rapidly to a crisis. The majority had come to a point where they could no further yield. They had yielded the pressing of union to an immediate result. But if they were to yield the contention that a United Presb3^terian — though ready to sign the formula of the Free Church 188 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY — was not to be eligible for her ministry because he was a voluntary, that meant practically proscribing men already in the Free Church who no longer held establishment doctrine. There were many such, and Sir Henry Moncreiff repeatedly challenged Dr. Begg or any one else to frame a libel against them and con- vict them of departing from the standards. It meant declaring in practice what Dr. Begg and others were always declaring in speeches, but what, by the formula, the Assembly and the Presbyteries had repudiated — that establishment was a binding prin- ciple of the Church. The carrying out of union might as a matter of expediency be postponed, but this matter could not be conceded, for it involved the liberty of opinion in the Church. On the other hand. Dr. Begg and his party became intransigeant. They committed themselves to disruption if the scheme was carried out, and their leader took legal opinion with the view of appealing to the civil courts for the Church's property. Dr. Rainy called them in one letter ' the desperadoes.' As public reference has frequently been made to the legal opinions obtained by Dr. Begg at this time, it may be worth while to glance at them. He published the memorial and questions addressed to counsel and the replies in 1874. The memorial is a strange docu- ment, and it is difficult for a layman to see the value of an opinion based on it. For example, it quotes all the points of difference between the Churches, but not the remarkable statement of agreement. Still more strangely, it prints the Claim of Right and the Protest, putting in capitals the phrases in THE THWARTED UNION 189 them that recognise estabhshment, but it does not print the formula by which the Church determined her relation to these documents and in which, as I have already shown, she distinctly and deliberately bound her office-bearers only to general principles of spiritual liberty for the Church and religious obligation for the nation. Perhaps the sufficient proof that these observa- tions are just criticisms is that one of the counsel consulted and he perhaps the most eminent of them all — there were four and all gave opinions favourable to Dr. Begg's views — reversed his judgment years later when a fuller memorial was placed before him.^ But more Curious than this memorial was the form in which the crucial question about establishment was put to counsel. It was put thus : * Is the establish- ment principle — that is, the national recognition and encouragement of religion and the Church of Christ by the State as such — part of the constitution of the Free Church of Scotland ? ' If this be what is meant by the establishment principle, of course it is in the standards of the Free Church. It is also in the articles of agreement with the United Presbyterians. The whole question of the controversy was whether a particular way of recognition and encouragement, namely by State endowment, was in their standards, and this question is evaded or at best ambiguously stated here.'- I am not called on to discuss the ^ J. B. Balfour, afterwards Lord Kinross, Lord President of the Court of Session. Vide chap, xxv., infra. 2 It is noticeable that one, but only one. of the four counsel from whom Dr. Begg obtained opinions, corrects this ambiguity and goes on in his opinion explicitly to say his 'yes 'means that the Church is bound to, not merely the State 'recognition and encouragement of religion and the Church,' but the doctrine that the civil magistrate should maintain and support an 190 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY legal points further at present, but they are worth mentioning because they show how far from accurate is the impression that conclusive and explicit legal opinions had been given in Scotland against the position taken by the majority of the Church. To return again, however, to our narrative. The threat of legal complications tended further to separate the two parties, and during the winter of 1872-73 things became bad indeed. Dr. Rainy's view of the situation is indicated in a letter to George Brown who, by his time, had become minister of the Scots Church at Pau : — ' As regards Kirk affairs we are pretty well hardened here ; such peals are rung in our ears from time to time. Indignant virtue, if she does not move off in silent scorn, but persists in expostulation, is apt to be regarded as a scold at last. I am very sorry about and one or two more. But really they have got past reasoning wdth or sympathising with. One shrugs one's shoulders and lets the rain pour. Altogether it is a curious revelation of the immense variety, and, in propor- tion to its numbers, vitality, which our Church comprehends. As the New York man boasted that Five Points could Uck Seven Dials all to sticks for wickedness, so we may plausibly maintain that we have enough of stiff-necked perversity in our borders to shipwreck a dozen ordinary Churches. Well, we must give a little now and then. But remembering Whose the Church is and how we depend on the Holy Spirit for all true Church power, we may well be humbled on the one hand when we find ourselves in this kind of deadlock. I see establishment. That counsel was Mr. E. S. Gordon (afterwards Lord Advocate) who, it can surely be no offence to say, stood for the extreme Established Church interest in this question. Mr. Millar (afterwards Lord Craighill) carefully repeats Dr. Begg's vague definition and commits him- self to it only. The other two counsel, Mr. Clark (afterwards Lord Rutherfurd Clark) and Mr. J. B. Balfour answer 'this question' in the affu-mativc. -Vide Memorial and Opinions published in 1874, with an introduction by Dr. Begg. THE THWARTED UNION 191 in it very clearly the fruit of evil in the past for which we deserve chastisement, and the token of evil in the present which it is well we should be forced to feel. On the other hand, it is a great encouragement to think we have a merciful Lord, Who does and will overrule all this in ways we do not yet see. Not, however, if we may venture any conjecture, for the upholding of establishments.' As the Assembly approached, disruption seemed inevitable. Dr. Buchanan almost broke down under the strain and wished to be allowed to retire ; Dr. Candlish was in very feeble health ; on Dr. Rainy the heaviest strain lay. Attempts were made to bring about negotiations between the parties. Dr. Thomas Smith and the Rev. John M'Ewan — one of the staunchest and most straightforw^ard of the anti- unionists — sought this, representing the Beggite side, and it was urged on the other side by Dr. Thomas M'Lauchlan, the convener of the Assembly's Highland Committee — a noble-hearted Highlander (as well as one of the finest Celtic scholars of his time), who was heart-broken at the wreckage made by the anti-union agitation in the North. The difficulty was to deal in negotiations directly wdth Dr. Begg. He had previously declined to attend any meetings for conference, but at last he was persuaded. A con- ference took place on 15th May 1873, within a week of the General Assembly's meeting. Nothing came of it. An eminent layman of the Church, Mr. David Maclagan (a brother of the late Archbishop of York and a man of great justness and integrity of mind) wrote of it in his j ournal : — ' Dr. Begg had quite evidently attended to prevent his followers going further towards compromise and conciliation. 192 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Dr. Bonar and M'Ewan seemed decidedly anxious to come to terms, but none were arrived at. It is more than possible, however, that Bonar and one or two more may be separated from Begg, whose policy in this connection is not pleasant to think on.' ^ The Assembly was now all but reached. Dr. Begg engaged a hall to which the anti-unionists would withdraw ; their Moderator was fixed on : all the legal precautions were arranged. The enemies of the Free Church did not conceal their joy. In these circumstances, the other side was driven to consider eventualities. Laymen, headed by the Earl of Dalhousie, pledged themselves to raise, when necessary, a sum of £10,000 if the Church was assailed in the civil courts. Meanwhile legal opinion was taken. This was taken, it should be observed, not on the question whether the Assembly should go "on with Union or even with Mutual Eligibility, but in view of defence if disruption took place. The consultation was held in the chambers of Mr. John Clerk Brodie, W.S., on 20th May. Mr. Mounsey, of Mr. Brodie's firm, has supplied the following minute of the sederunt : — ' 20th May 1873. — Consultation with Solicitor-General (Rutherfurd Clark), Mr. Balfour and Mr. Taylor Innes. — Present : Sir Henry Moncreiff, Dr. Rainy, Lord Dalhousie, Mr. Cleghom,- Mr. Brown Douglas,' Mr. Maclagan, Mr. Balfour, W.S., Dr. Anderson Kirkwood.' But unfortunately no written record of the conver- sation exists and no opinions of counsel were written 1 David Mac/ af^n», F.R.S.E., by N. L. Walker, io6. 2 Sheriff of Argyll (son-in-law of Lord Cockburn), legal adviser of the Free Church. ' Formerly Lord Provost of Edinbuigh. THE THWAUTED UNION 193 either then or later. Mr. Mounsey says there is * no trace of any memorial nor of any written opinion — not in opinion book or charged for by counsel's clerk.' There is no account of the meeting in any of Dr. Rainy's letters. I regret to be thus unable to add anything to the note of it in Mr. Maclagan's journal which has been already published in his memoir, but which may be transcribed here and is trustworthy contemporary evidence : — ' Tuesday, May 20th, 1873. ... In the afternoon, attended a consultation with the Solicitor-General (Rutherfurd Clark) and John B. Balfour as to position of Church affairs. The Solicitor has no doubt that the doctrine of establishment was part of our constitution. It appeared to me from the way he spoke that this was a matter of general belief on his part but was not an opinion based upon the study of the authori- tative standards. It is quite true, as Clark said, that Chalmers and all the leaders at the Disruption, over and over again announced that it w^as not on " Voluntary " grounds they left the Establishment but on grounds of the civil court's interference in spiritual matters. But the constitution of the Free Church, if indeed it can be said to have any formal constitution, is not to be looked for or found in platform or even Assembly speeches. The question is whether the Establishment principle is in our Confession of Faith, Formula or Questions at the admission of ministers ; and it is certainl}^ in my judgment, not in any of these. The Solicitor, however, is equally clear that, even if the lawfulness of establishment formed part of the Church's constitution, this overture [on mutual eligibility] in no way touches that question inasmuch as it says to every U.P. or other minister called to any of our charges — " Here is the Free Church formula, and here are the questions which must be signed and answered by all our ministers who enter upon our charges ; and these 3'ou must also sign." The Solicitor expressed ver}^ plainly his opinion that the minority would find it most difficult — if indeed it were possible at all — to raise any question as to the property VOL. I. N 194 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY of the Church. He believed they could not do it at all if they remained within the Church.' '" This appears to be the only contemporary record of this consultation. It is disappointingly slight, but it is sufficient to dispose of one popular impression. In later years, it was persistently asserted that when Principal Rainy carried out the Union of 1900, it was in reckless disregard of opinions against union given to him and others in 1873. It is evident from Mr. Maclagan's journal that the subject of the consultation was not union but mutual eligibility, and it is proved by Mr. Mounsey's statement, already quoted, that no formal written opinions were given at all.' With these ominous and unhapp}^ preliminaries, the Assembly met. The critical question was taken up on Wednesda}^ 28th May. The House met at ten o'clock, but by seven the galleries had been crowded. Dr. Buchanan, aged and saddened, began the presentation of his report by sa3dng ' he had lived too long in having lived to see this day of fatally blighted hopes and blasted prospects.' Dr. Candlish moved a motion which, first, dissolved the Union Committee, and secondly, passed mutual eligibility (which had been approved by a great majority of Presbyteries) into a law of the Church. He had risen from a bed of weak- 1 David Maclagan, F.R.S.E., by N. L. Walker, 107-8. - As the impression above referred to is widespread, and as probably many persons look to the matter being brought out in this biography, perhaps I may say that, far from seeking to conceal anything about it, I have made every investigation I could, but with no more result than is stated in the text. Certainly no opinion exists in the archives of the Free Church (now the United Free Church) of Scotland. The fact is, the con- sultation was arranged not by the law agency of the Church, in which at the time there was a vacancy, but largely by .Sir Henry Moncreiff. If any one possessed papers on the subject, it would have been he. But his THE THWARTED UNION 195 ness to come and liis speech moved the Assembly, including many of the anti-unionists in it, with some- thing of that nobler softer feeling to which, as so many remembered, he had stirred the old unbroken Assembly of 1838 when he pled with the moderates to save tlie Church by uniting on the Duke of Argyll's bill.^ The amendment from the left of the chair showed that, now it was come to the hour of decision, the party of Dr. Begg were in straits where to make their final stand. It was not a frontal attack but little more than an adjustment. Dr. Candlish's motion was that when a call was proposed under the Act, the Presbytery should ' sustain ' it and send the minister in question the documents he must subscribe. The amendment, moved by Dr. Nixon, demanded that before modera- tion in the call the documents should be sent and an acknowledgment received assenting to their conditions. The divergence seems hardly enough to die for or even to ' disrupt ' over. Yet Dr. Begg in his speech declared he ' saw in this as clear a ground for separation as he saw in the old Disruption.' This was one of the few occasions when Dr. Rainy had the opportunity of speak- ing after Dr. Begg (who was generally careful to rise after his most dangerous opponent), and he referred to the threats of disruption over such a matter thus : — * After all we have heard, we cannot help feeling that we are speaking under the shadow of a still possible separation. It nephew, the Hon. J. W. Moncreiff, W.S., has, with great kindness, looked carefully through the late Sir Henry's papers and writes that there is no trace of anything bearing on the matter. The consultation seems to have been little more than a preliminary talk among counsel, agents and clients in view of an apparently impending case. ^ VWcie p. 58, supra. 196 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY ma}' be so, Moderator ; we may separate. Separate upon what issue ? The difference between Dr. Nixon's motion and Dr. CandUsh's ! In this dying world, in this nine»teenth century, we may prove to be dividing Churches on the question whether a United Presbyterian minister shall have certain documents sent him before a call is sustained or when it is sustained ! That may prove to be for the historian a matter he has to illustrate and explain." Then, after an ironical picture of how the torrents of anti-unionist eloquence would have descended on such an idea if the other side had proposed it, he gave Dr. Begg and his comparison of this issue to the issue of the Disruption this straight retort : — * I believe if there is one thing that evil principles might desire to see it is to see a fool's cap put on the Disruption of 1843.' Meanwhile, however, the centre of real interest was not in the House but behind the scenes. Negotiations were going on between men representing both sides and at length a compromise was suggested — by, I believe, Dr. Thomas Smith, and it is pleasant to be able to give credit for this act of peace to an anti-unionist — that Dr. Candlish's motion might read that the call be, not ' sustained,' but * found regular and sufficient so far as the congregation is concerned.' Dr. Buchanan and Dr. Rainy went down with this to Dr. CandHsh, whose weak health had compelled him to return home after his speech. Dr. Candlish had a spirit tliat abhorred pettiness and he was so disgusted — especially in his frail bodily condition — with this 'juibbling end to a great question that it was with a gesture of jinpatienco lie tlirew down the pen after THE THWARTED UNION 197 consenting to and drafting the amendment. Later in the day he brought it up to the House. Dr. Begg solemnly declared that it afforded * materials for a satisfactory settlement.' The debate was adjourned overnight to give the anti-unionist party an oppor- tunity to consider their position. People who came up late in the evening to witness the division and the disruption found the House had risen. In another hall in the city,, the lights were burning in expecta- tion of the arrival of the outgoing party who did not come. Next morning Dr. Begg made his statement. As soon as he had begun to speak, his brother-in-law, seated beside Mr. Maclagan, said, * I know by the tones of his voice he will give in.' He accepted the adjusted motion of Dr. Candlish. The crisis was over. There was no disruption. The Moderator — Dr. Duff — called on two brethren, one of either party, to offer thanks to God in prayer. It was a remarkable denoument — also a somewhat ridiculous one. The comments of the press on it were contemptuous. I find, for example, even the Tory Courant (which on political grounds had every reason to favour anti-unionism) saying ' the minority halted on the very verge of secession, and accepted with a meaningless abatement, the proposal they had been denouncing through all the moods and tenses of indignant rhetoric,' and it adds ' one cannot feel much respect for these men.' What made Dr. Begg ' give in,' it is not for me to say. There was, of course, immense relief that the scandal of separation had been averted, but there was not the jubilant gratulation that has been represented over the affair. Certainly 198 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Dr. Rain}^ was not carried away by the feelings of the hour or deceived by it as to the future. He did not easily consent to compromise the matter. It was really Dr. Buchanan who was clearest for this course, though, it may be added, no man could say. stronger things about Dr. Begg's anti-unionism than Dr. Buchanan could. But division would have meant separation from others besides Begg and would have been a serious scandal. Dr. Rainy's view is expressed in a letter to his friend, George Douglas (by this time a professor in Glasgow) : — ' I have no doubt about the propriety of our decision. At the same time, I feel very keenly the unsatisfactory state in which we are allowing things to stand for the future. I don't anticipate a quiet life for the rest of my time, be it long or short.' The last sentence is significant, it meant there must be many a battle if the Church of Thomas Chalmers was to be saved from becoming the Church of James Begg. Dr. Begg's name has teen and will be mentioned so often that the reader should have some picture in his mind of Dr. Rainy's great antagonist. Begg was a remarkable man — a much abler man than many people realise. From the fact that he was hopelessly narrow in his theology and opposed to every kind of progress, people are apt to think he was only ignorant. And he was ignorant in the literary sense. It must also be admitted that he was not a man built on refined ethical lines. But he was a man of great natural powers. He was a born leader. He had knowledge of the world, and THE TIIWAllTED UNION 199 he knew also how to manage men, doing it not always through their better nature. He was, above all, a great public speaker. He had the orator's physique — a stalwart frame, a leonine head, a powerful voice — and with it, the speaker's equipment of some informa- tion and much confidence. He spoke in straight clear Anglo-Saxon, and his audiences knew exactly what he wanted to say, while he could, when neces- sary, appeal ' to the gallery ' in a way that evoked great applause. He could argue strongly — when he had a case, could argue admirably ; but, if argument failed and he had no case, he could even more strongly assert and assume an air 'to threaten and command.' But, also, he had a fund of ' pawky ' Scottish humour, and could tell a good — though also at times a poor — story. He had an effective faculty for quoting Scripture : sometimes it was appropriate and some- times it was not, but it always sounded appropriate and even solemn, and he delivered it, perhaps to the extent of three or four verses of a psalm, with great power and unction. Then, it must be remembered that Dr. Begg was a notable public figure in other aspects of life than the ecclesiastical. In particular, he had popular social sympathies and was a Tory democrat long before Lord Randolph Churchill ex- emplified that line of political life. He was indeed a true social reformer. He combated with energy the evil of overcrowding in small insanitary houses. He formed societies to aid working men to buy their own houses. He did perhaps more than any other man to secure the boon of the Saturday half-holiday. All this should be cordially recognised in Dr. Begg. Alto- 200 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY gether he was certainly no ordinary man. He was a man of real power, and in determination as in debate/ he was a warrior. As to the religious influence of the man and of his ecclesiastical career the reader must judge. Dr. Rainy 's view I shall give in a later page. This chapter is already too long, but two things must be said, however briefly, before it closes. One is that nothing could exceed the forbearance and magnanimity with which the United Presbyterians behaved all through this trying time. The Free Church, and particularly Dr. Rainy, never forgot this. The other thing is that, while the project of union was given up for the time, it was with the expressly avowed purpose that, some happier day, it would be resumed. The Church from that time was committed in principle to union. For the sake, not certainly of Dr. Begg and his extremists (whom many, including, as I have indicated, Dr. Rainy, were inclined to bid go and do their worst), but of a middle peace party, the Church consented to postponement ; but this was only after the most formal assertion of the competency of the union. Two successive Assemblies, with consent of a majority of Presbyteries, had declared there was no bar in principle to union. The Church asserted the way was open, though she consented not yet to pass along it. More than a quarter of a century elapsed before the matter was again taken up, and when at length in 1900 the act which the Church of 1873 had declared legiti- mate and even morally obligatory, was achieved, the sole survivor of the earlier Union Committee of the * This applies only to Begg at his best, for latterly he degenerated in debate to a level which could not be called worthy. THE THWARTED UNION 201 Free Church was Dr. Rainy. The story of that achieve- ment and its extraordinary sequel remain to be told in the closing chapters of this life. No public man sought less than Dr. Rainy to plan his career and give it rounded form. Yet, as a matter of fact, it possessed a remarkable and even dramatic unity and completeness. It was the battle of the liberty of the Chi4rch that galled hmi to "Her service ; it was in the effort to"Bmd something of tlie broken unity of Scottish Presbyterianfem that he hrst came to the front as a powerful leader. It was in the battle for the same liberty the call of which had thrilled his young life and changed his career, and after, attaining that very union for which he had so striven, though unsuccessfully, with his manhood's first strength, that — an old man surviving all his compeers — he summoned his last energies and, indeed, died. CHAPTER VIII EARLY PROFESSORIATE THE controversy which is outlined in the preced- ing chapter lasted, as the reader is aware, no less than ten years, and during these years many things were happening besides debates about the Union. It is, indeed, good to recollect that all the time the sun was shining in the heavens and the heather bloomed annually on the Highland hills. Better and more relevant is it to realise that, de- spite this distressing war, the life and work of the Church (I mean, of course, the Free Church) de- veloped year by year. Even in those days, which I have admitted to contain an element of decline from the first fervour of Disruption times and which certainly were days of distraction and disturbance, there was an amazing vitality in the Free Church which could spend so much of her strength on a con- troversy such as has been described and yet find increasing energy and also money (for its income grew every year) to spend on purely religious work both at home and in the foreign mission field. Or shall one not rather say — as, certainly. Dr. Rainy would have put it — that there is an amazing richness in the grace which God shows to His Church even amid her frailties and failures ? 202 EAULV 1MI()FP:SS0RIATE 203 During these ten years, Dr. Rainy was pursuing his duties as professor of Church History in the New College to which, as has already been stated, he was appointed in 1862. We are now able more fully to appreciate how the hopes of a life devoted to the quiet of sacred learning which he had so long cherished and which on his professorial appointment seemed to have found their realisation, were frustrated. In one sense, it is impossible to regret this ; and yet, when one turns to look at Dr. Rainy's academic work, as we must now retrace our steps to do, it is also impossible not to feel that in him the Scottish Church gained a great ecclesiastical leader at the cost of sacrificing one who might have been a great theological historian for the Church catholic. His introductory lecture on his appointment as professor was delivered on 7th November, and was subsequently published. It is worth while to quote a few passages from this lecture (which was never reprinted and is now practically unobtainable by the public), for it shows something of the spirit, at once philosophic, scientific and Christian, with which he approached the study of ' the great subject which is to occupy us here — History and the History of the Church — a very vast and a very noble theme.' I can give but a few excerpts and these do no justice to the lecture as a whole. At the outset he relates history and religion thus : — ' That the study of the history of the Church should occupy an important place in the training of those who are to be the teachers of Christian religion flows in the most natural and direct manner from the nature of the case. This religion was 204 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY delivered and revealed to man as one adapted for man by Him who made him. But man himself was made for history. . . . He was made by Him, Who has no beginning of days or end of years, to be radically a creature of days and years and also of generations ; to take his place and serve his ends and make his attainments through days and years and generations ; and thus to fulfil his progress through a history that should throw its results far forward into ages to come. Now, as it was assigned to man to have history for the manner in which he should manifest himself, so also history or progress in time has been the method of God in His manifestation of Himself among men. The true religion, being the religion for man, could not but be historical — that is to say impUcated with history, entering into history and coming out of history. It is a religion indeed of principles, truths, laws ; but it is and always was a religion of facts, events, historical trans- actions. . . . Revealed religion and historical fact are indivisible.' The lecturer goes on to speak of the continuity of history and particularly of the mysterious identity of nations or of humanity through succeeding periods, describing it thus : — ' It is a very remarkable and interesting feature of the constitution of our race — a race of which the individuals are so severed by separate, incommunicable, immortal responsi- bilities, and yet which finds itself to be so mysteriously one. One generation hands over to another not merely its Uterature, its arts, what you may call its separable properties ; but it devises to its successor something more inward and subtle — as it were a (juintessence, a concentrated result of its experiences, its fortunes, its life. The forgotten discipline, toils, conflicts, the forgotten lessons and attainments of dead and buried generations, with their moulding influences, live into the life of their successors in results too subtle to be assigned and yet far too real and powerful to be overlooked. The fulness of the past is living at this hour in our own persons, in our manner of being, thinking, feeling ; and if we are the heirs of all the EARLY PROFESSORIATE 205 ages, our inheritance is far too inward to ourselves and far too manifold and subtle ever to be analysed and referred to the sources from which it has come down.' Then, after emphasising how particularly true this is of the history and life of the Church, Dr. Rain\' passes to speak of the dangers of ' premature systematising ' on this or any other principle : — ' Certainly he hardly deserves the name of a student of history, whether ecclesiastical or civil, who does not strive to apprehend history in its causes and in its principles. But he that will do so to purpose must sit at the feet of history, with a firm faith that history is deeper and wiser than he, and far more manifold than is his philosophy.' He illustrates this danger both in thought generalh^ and in theology in particular — the danger of ' making history speak in consent with our own opinions ' and * degrading her to be the servant of the private wits of men ' ; and from this he proceeds to speak of what he calls * speculatiyfi-historical fatalism.' B}^ this he means the view which, having ascertained or thought it has ascertained laws and principles in histor}-, goes on to regard all events, good or evil, as necessary stages in the evolution of these — steps in the march which had to be taken. Against this, he pleads for moral freedom as a great fact and factor : — ' It is very natural to say, Give me the laws of the process — give me the constant which is human nature — give me the variable which is the changing circumstance and inheritance of each age — and I will show you what each generation could not help being, thinking and doing. But here, gentlemen, we must affirm, in the field of history as in the field of morals, the great fact of responsibility. We must afiirm it, not den3'ing an3thing that can be shown as to the constant operation of 206 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY social forces, but still affirming this. We must assert that the true way of stating the problem is to say that at each stage the constant is the influence of circumstances as then existing and the inheritance of the past as then received, and the variable is man — man with a something, however overlaid and bound, that is never to be reached, at least is never to I be expiscated, by any calculus : not to speak now of that other variable — the inscrutable administration of grace. . . . History — and most of all Church history — renounces the proper charm and glory of her own marvellous story, when she fails to make room for the freedom and responsibility of man, when she fails to make room also for the freedom of God.' The lecturer closes on a religious key, setting forth as the preface to all histor}^ Him who says * Fear not, I am the first and last.' I have quoted from this lecture because so much of this biograph}^ must be occupied with ecclesiastical events and discussion, that it is important that the reader should see that Dr. Rainy had the philosopher's as well as the publicist's mind and was as much at home among ideas as he was amid affairs. If he had been left free to be a Church historian, he would have been one of unique character. He cared little for the mere pageant on the world's stage, which is what such a writer as Dean Stanley means by history ; and little even for the dramatic situations of circumstance, which such a writer as Macaulay perceives and ex- pounds ; he was, also, perhaps too indifferent to detail to be a historical writer of the. greatest kind, like Gibbon. He would have been a philosophical liistorian such as Guizot was or — in a different style — Finlay. To this, another remark must be added. Dr. Rainy EARLY PROFESSORIATE 207 had much of the philosopher's mind, but he was never a mere speculator. His mind never discussed truth, as it were, in vacuo ; he always thought in the real world of Christian and Church life and with the responsibilities of thought that this suggests. A very characteristic sentence in this inaugural lecture speaks of tendencies * the effect of which is to turn the study of theology into mere playing at theology — a kind of diversion in which no human being has any right to engage.' By * playing at theology ' he does not mean treating it with intellectual lightness. He means treating it as a purel}^ intellectual exercise, without a responsible relation to the life and being of the Christian and the Church. I think this was something deepty ingrained in Dr. Rainy's mind ; and it is of importance the reader should note it. In future pages we shall find him called on to deal with theological ' cases.' We shall find him dealing with these with intellectual penetration and even breadth ; but we shall find also an often-recurring dislike of the irresponsible raising of merely theological or critical ideas. Whether in the cases of such distinguished men as William Robertson Smith or Alexander Balmain Bruce or Henry Drummond or Marcus Dods or George Adam Smith, he applied this justly, remains for the reader to judge when we come to these 'cases.' It is a feature in Dr. Rainy's mind we are concerned with just now. He was not so much a Christian philosopher as a philosophical Christian. The speculation was alwaj^s related to the life^nd must be held responsible to it. Of course in a small or timid man, this would mean shutting the eyes against all in- convenient thought. But Dr. Rainy was intellectually 208 THE TJFE OF PRTNCIPAI. RAINY too true a student and religiously too much a man with faith in God for that. While himself, probably, preferring older ways of thinking, he was always ready to appreciate new thoughts ; but he was extra- ordinarily able to place them. New ideas — critical or other — come in with a rush and demand a monopoly. Dr. Rainy, relating them ever steadily to what is neither new nor old — to the centre of gravity in Christianity itself — gave them no monopoly, but gave them what seemed their due. This easily looked stationary and unsympathetic ; but it was the mental character not merely of a responsible Church leader — that is an inadequate thing to be in a question of truth — ^but of a man whose whole theological thinking bore continually a responsible relation to the life of Christianity in himself and in the Church. I make these remarks here because they are at least suggested by this inaugural address ; but it is in future stages of Dr. Rainy's career that we shall find them illus- trated. During the years of the Union controversy. Dr. Rainy says, in one letter, that ' he had to pull his professorial work through by the hair of the head.' Nevertheless, his best students seem to have found him in those days not less than an inspiration. A scholarly minister, Dr. Reith of Glasgow, who was a student in Dr. Rainy's first session, has given me his recollection of his professor in the following glowing terms : — ' It is not easy for me to give my impressions of the influence exert(!d by Dr. Rainy in his class forty-live years ago for the simple reason that that influence amounted to a mental EARLY PllOFESSORIiVTE 209 revolution in my life. If we students at New College at that time had any pre-judgment in coming to his class, it must have been somewhat against him, for there was an opinion that he was deficient in that warmth of manner and accessi- bility so necessary in a professor's relations with his students. Before a fortnight had elapsed the class was under an irresistible spell, and we went about proclaiming that Rainy was to be the maker of the future Free Church. Of manner in delivery, he had absolutely none, and never pretended or attempted to have any. There was, it must be confessed, a good deal of what appeared to be indifference or even nonchalance about it. His style was involved and cumbersome. I think I have heard him say he owed it to John Owen, of whose works he had been in youth a diligent student. The " popular " certainly was conspicuous by its absence. In spite of all this. Rainy gripped us. It was the power of intellect that showed a masterly comprehension of the truth or principle under dis- cussion. It was the power of an historic consciousness by which the past was made to clothe its dead with life, and the questions and controversies which agitated bygone centuries became luminous as we were made to recognise the same principles at stake, the same motives at work, and the same tendencies in operation in the Church in the present day. It was his power also of imaginative sympathy by which he could present both sides of an argument with equal impartiality, showing how the differences arose and developed, till his hearers were at a loss to which side the balance of their judgment should incUne, till he began to sum up and struck the line of cleavage and the solution took shape in our minds. But these things alone cannot explain Rainy's peculiar influ- ence over his class. His opening prayer was a spiritual exercise that revealed a man who had gone deep into the things of God. And in the lectures, we were constantly shown how, amid all the shortsightedness and follies and weak- nesses of the Church the living Lord had never left her ; how, amid discordant parties battling each for its creed, the Holy Spirit was still fulfilling His function of guiding God's people into the truth ; how controversy itself was used by God for the elucidation of His mind and will ; so that at times, as we listened — and the silence was phenomenal — and the voice VOL. I. o 210 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY of our professor assumed those lower, pathetic tones that betrayed his deeper emotion, the walls of the class-room fell apart and we saw " one like to the Son of man walking in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks which are the churches," and the only words appropriate of comment were /' We have seen Thy goings, O God, even the goings of my God, my King, in Thy sanctuary." ' To this warm appreciation, I add some sentences by an able student of later date — Professor Stalker of Aberdeen : — ■ He was a personality. That is what students desire above all things in a professor. It was almost as interesting to find out what new light any subject, as he discussed it, cast upon Rainy, as to discover what new light he could cast upon the subject. While he had not the extraordinary mental brilliance and literary skill of Professor A. B. Davidson, who was lecturing in the same college at the same time, he had more weight and more intricacy, and therefore was quite as much a subject of discussion and anecdotage. He created in his students the belief that he could do anything. For many years there lingered about the College an understanding that he was engaged in the composition of a work on St. Augustine ; and the merits of this production were as devout an article of faith as if it had been actually written and published. Perhaps the topic on which, in his time, the minds of students were most troubled was the Atonement ; and it was loyally believed, that, if he could only iind time to write a treatise on it, all the difficulties of the age would be cleared up. I have myself earnestly urged him to write this work, and he was good enough to keep his gravity under my rhapsodies. Into his ear there were poured more of the con- fessions and confidences of students than were entrusted to any of his colleagues. For such sacred work he was admirably qualified. He had been there himself ; he was patient and undogmatic ; and he could, in such circumstances, say things that reached far and gave real relief. I remember how he astonished me by saying that the definitions of the Trinity and the Person of Christ were not so much exact statements EARLY PUOFESSORIATE 211 of fact as the nearest approaches man could make to that which is inexpressible.' ^ Nothing would be easier than to multiply testi- monies of this kind from his students. To the above may be added two or three incidents characteristic of the man. His students began so to trumpet his praises that on days when it was known he would take up some great subject — Origen and Augustine were two of special celebrity — the class- room would be crowded to the back benches. On one such occasion, when there was a particularly large attendance (including, among the visitors, Professor John Stuart Blackie from the University), Dr. Rainy began to read his lecture with as much composure as usual, but he had not gone far when he threw himself back in his chair, closed his manuscript and simply chatted on the subject to the end of the hour. Of course, it was remarkably able chat, but it was dis- appointing to those in his audience who had come expecting a great effort. I imagine he quietly enjoyed their disappointment, for he always objected to per- forming for the benefit of the general public and had a constitutional dislike for * occasions.' Another incident brought to my notice is of a different and deeper kind. One day a student, interviewing him privately, was propounding to him some theological enigmas, perhaps a little self-consciously and perhaps half hoping to entangle the Professor in speculative toils. After listening to him for a while, Dr. Rain}' suddenly said, * Did you ever take this difhculty to God in prayer, Mr. ? ' Then he went on to discuss * The Expositor, February 1S97. 212 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY it, not with mere dialectic, but out of his own rehgious experience, and, after some talk, knelt down and gave utterance to the simplest and devoutest prayer. This incident is told me by the student himself, who has never forgotten that hour. One does not like to speak much about a man's prayers : they are not uttered for human comment. Yet the impression which Dr. Rainy's words of prayer in opening his class each day made on generations of students can hardly be unmentioned. Once a week he had a devotional meeting during part of his lecture hour, and many men have never forgotten those occasions. His prayers were of the simplest and were often quite brief, but they were those of a man whom a single step could take into God's very presence. Dr. Rainy continued in the New College the Chalmers tradition of impressing men with the gravity of the moral and spiritual obligation of their intended work. ' Be good men, gentlemen,' he would say, repeating it more than once. He warned his students with great solemnity that unless they were ' converted men ' (and he re- peated this word also) their whole ministry would be only ' a terrible mistake and a grievous wrong.' Dr. Rainy never overdid this ; on the contrary, his im- pressive reserve gave what he said the more weight. One result was that there came into the Church a young ministry which felt towards him not only a deep respect for his undoubted intellectual strength, but a profound spiritual reverence. Of his course of lectures, I can hardly give details here, and the substance of them (or the earlier part of them) was published, many years later, under the EARLY TROFESSORTATE 213 title of The Ancient Catholic Church} In a remark- able way, they combined historical fact, philosophical generalisation, and religious interpretation. The best things in them were often obiter dicta. The days he forgot his manuscript — and this happened period- ically — were his best days. He had an interesting way of characterising books which he had occa- sion to quote for mention. Milman — for example — is ' most interested in the social and political side of Church history : he edited Gibbon and perhaps caught his echo.' Mosheim is * scholarly but one misses sympathy with the high meaning of the Church.' The Magdeburg Centuriators ' represent everything as going well at the Reformation till the Devil shot in rubbish.' And so on. He encouraged men to read the great authorities on a subject for themselves and to form their own conclusions. 'You must judge of that for yourselves, gentlemen,' he would say of some disputed point. This of course stimulated his best students and left others untouched. As a professor, Dr. Rain}^ was a great master to a few rather than a great teacher of his whole class. In another room of the New College sat the man who was both — the incom- parable Andrew Bruce Davidson. But Dr. Davidson gave his whole life solely to his professorial work : Dr. Rainy' s life was claimed by other calls to a degree which makes it wonderful how he performed his academic duties at all. These two men were the glories of the New College for more than half a century : students worth}^ of the name followed their very figures across the quadrangle with love and pride. It counts for 1 T. and T. Clark, Edinburgh. 214 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY something, to the imagination of youth, when men not only fill great posts but look their parts ; and Manning did not more entirely look the Cardinal- Archbishop or Leighton the Academy President, than did Rainy the ecclesiastical statesman and Davidson the perfect scholar. Among the calls upon Dr. Rainy's energies during his early professoriate was one that had some academic claim upon him. The biography of his predecessor in his chair, Dr. Cunningham, had been undertaken and begun by the Rev. James Mackenzie, who, however, died before his task was more than a third completed, and Dr. Rainy was induced to finish the work. His Life of William Cunningham, D.D., contains much that is interesting in the way of a portrait of its subject, but its real value is in its discussions of all the questions of the early Free Church, which the author treats with remarkable fairness and comprehensiveness and foresight. Dr. Rainy (I find from his letters) ex- pressly stipulated that, if he undertook the book, he should have entire freedom in the writing of it ; and the result is a volume which indicates his own mind while always doing full justice to Dr. Cunningham. The book does not call for detailed notice here, but it is of essential interest to any one who would study the first quarter of a century of the history of the Free Church. It was, however, ecclesiastical business more than literary work, that trespassed so seriously on Dr. Rainy's professorial life. As Dr. Candlish's fiery spirit was gradually wearing out its puny tabernacle, more and more responsibility was laid on the shoulders EARLY PROFESSORIATE 215 of the younger man. Of course the chief load was the long labour and anxiety of the Union controversy which has already been described, but, in addition to that, Candlish handed over Assembly and other Church affairs almost too much to the obviously coming leader. In one instance, the result of this was not particularly happy, and I think I should not refrain from mentioning it if this is to be a frank biography. Dr. Rainy's old fellow-student, Walter Smith — who has alread}^ been named and who subsequently became famous as a poet as well as a preacher — was charged with unsound views about the authority of the Decalogue. Dr. Candlish made Dr. Rainy move the official motion (which, however, did not propose any process) in the case in the Assembl}^ It was a position into which Dr. Rainy should not have been put, and his speech was that of a man retained, as it were, by the government, and burdened with some quasi-official responsibility the effect of which was not wholly admirable. The speech was indeed not a little patronising and is almost the only one he deliv- ered of this character which even his warmest admirer could not wholly praise. Many years later. Dr. Rainy said of this speech, ' I spoke too arrogantly of Walter Smith then.' But in 1893, the accused in this case was Moderator of the Assembly and Dr. Rainy was the unquestioned leader of the House. It may be mere imagination, but to some it seemed as if when the latter, with unusual directness and emphasis, declared that that Assembly * would be memorable not only as the Jubilee of the Free Church but as the Assembly of \^^alter Chalmers 216 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Smith,' the words had a larger reference than merely to the hour and were a worth}^ amende. But into this or other minor discussions in the Assembty dur- ing this period in Dr. Rainy's life I need not enter. There were, however, two public and national questions in which he took a very special interest, and they deserve brief notice. One was that of National Education. Dr. Rainy had in him the historic instincts of the Scottish Churchman, and the true Scottish Churchman always had at heart the promotion of ' the godly upbringing of the young of the land.' The tie between the reformed Kirk and the school was as old as the days of Knox, and, in subsequent history, the Church of Scotland had supplemented the parish schools' by ' Assembly ' schools — just as we have seen, under the evangelical regime, she supplemented parish churches by quoad sacra chapels — and in many ways made provision for public education. Practically all primar}/ schools were in connection with the Church of Scotland. At the Disruption it was deemed right and necessary by those remaining in the Establishment, and there- fore retaining the authority over the schools, to eject all teachers belonging to the Free Church. In all, some 600 were thus dismissed. But the Church of the Disruption quailed before no part of the respon- sibility of her tremendous burden, and, in addition to all she had to do to raise churches and manses and sustain a ministry, she started an education fund and by 1845 had nearly three hundred schools — a number doubled in the next twenty years. The Privy Council came to recognise these schools EARLY PROFESSORIATE 217 and gave them grants on their satisfying certain edu- cational requirements. But all this obviously raised the question whether Scottish primary educa- tion could not be reorganised on a national basis. Dr. Rainy threw his strong influence clearly in the scale in favour of such a great result being attained. The Free Church, under his guidance and that of others — notably Sir Henr}^ Moncreiff, whose brother, subsequently Lord Moncreiff,' was Lord Advocate during an important period of the question — took in this matter an entirely patriotic, unselfish and unsectarian position. The Church believed firmly in the value and indispensableness of religious teach- ing in schools, but she agreed to trust the people of the country, speaking through the new school boards, as to this — a trust which has been amply justified. Further, she handed over her schools — or nearl}' all of them — in full working order to secure a national system and received not a penny of com- pensation. Without this public-spirited action on the part of the Free Church, the great Act of 1872, with which Lord Advocate Young's name will always be associated, could not have effected a really national settlement. In the life of Cunningham, Dr. Rainy justly says that ' we may claim credit in Scotland for this at least, loud as the charges against our bigotry ma}^ be, that no casuistical or sectarian difficulties have been allowed to interfere with the efficiency of our educational arrangements.' ^ This question Dr. Rain}^ saw practically settled ; the other public matter in which he took marked ' Life of WilUajH Cufviinghav!, D.D., p. 267. 218 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY interest arose about this time in his Ufe and was not settled during his Hfetime, though within the last year or so Parliament has legislated upon it. This was the question of the legalising of marriage with a deceased wife's sister. Dr. Rainy so clearly and consistently was opposed to this change that the matter should not be left unmentioned in his biography. He was convener of a committee of Assembly appointed in 1870 to oppose the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill. Dr. Rainy's opposition was, of course, not based on any alleged authority of canon law. Neither was it based on any dubious exegesis about a text in Leviticus. It was based on the palpable desirability and even necessity for having, in such a matter as the law of marriage, plain general principles. The two principles which can be founded on Scripture are : first, as to blood relationships, that no one shall marry a descendant of his or her own father or mother ; and secondly, as to affinity, that no one shall marry of his or her wife's or husband's kindred nearer in blood than of his or her own. These rules, he maintained, are not only good and reason- able and intelligible but are the only principles available, so that if you break them 570U have none at aU upon which to take any stand. Whether this line of argument is fitted to impress Parliament or not, it is certainly not obscurantist clericalism. Besides this, Dr. Rainy felt very strongly the in- felicity of invading a class of family relationships the innocence of which the law had sheltered, and he held that a change of feeling between those who had looked on each other practically as brothers EAKT.Y PKOFESSORTATE 219 and sisters raised far more difficulties than it relieved. It is of little purpose to discuss these views further ; but, as I have said, Dr. Rainy was so distinct on this matter that it is right to have said so. Meanwhile his own family life was growing in interest and responsibility. Dr. and Mrs. Rainy had — besides the infant son whose death has been already mentioned — three sons and three daughters. Their names were : Charlotte Ada, Barbara Harriet, Adam Rolland, Henry Craigie, Annie, and George. It is impossible in the narration of a public career continually to refer to the influence of home, which yet is one of the constant factors in life. Dr. Rainy had the purest and happiest of homes and he deserved it : his tenderness and unselfishness and wisdom as .a father and a husband no words could express. Yet he had many sorrows too ; and, in particular, the sorrow of the loss of their first son never seemed to leave Dr. and Mrs. Rainy's life. The memory of that seemed to make him peculiarly sympathetic towards others to whom the same trial was sent. I shall close this chapter with two letters which illustrate this. One is to Professor (afterwards Sir Alexander) Simpson of Edinburgh University : — ' . . . We feel much for Mrs. Simpson and you. We also lost a baby boy long ago and we remember very freshly the peculiar soreness. Others will all but forget him but you will remember quietly as long as you live. By and bye the Lord will turn it to a very soothing and peaceful remembrance, joined to a good hope. For him you will never more have any anxieties. Yet how gladly we would take the anxieties if it were the Lord's will. But it is good for us that He decides these questions Who loves us better than we love one another.' 220 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY The other is to the Rev, George Brown of Pau, to whom Dr. Rainy wrote as follows : — ' I could not imagine what was wrong when my wife came into my room this morning crying with the newspaper in her hand. I had heard indeed that your dear little fellow was ill, but it had taken no hold of my mind — as we always do put away the idea of bereavement, when it is not forced upon us. The Lord help Emmeline and you to take refuge- under the shadow of His own wings. I know you will not doubt His love or His wisdom ; but trials of this order must press us very sore. There is such an irresistible grasp laid upon us by the suffering and death of our little children. And yours was so very pleasant in his life. But there is no use multiplying words. By and bye you will go to him. In the meantime, there is only one voice that can rest the heart, and very many will pray for you both that you may hear it continually. Perhaps the Lord will make you feel nearer to Him than ever you did before and lift you above the pettiness of life into a more serene and heavenly air. There are times when one sees far forward and backwards. Any way, He will not leave you nor forsake you. He will be nigh unto you, walking with you all through the valley. ' I used to feel sometimes, and it is a terrible feeling, as if the discipline of life were lost and left no fruit, as if the endless sin within prevailed against it. But now I do not think so. I am persuaded that God's grace is so deep and wonderful that He does indeed do us good at the latter end. I make no doubt you know it better than I do and that your dear wife and you will have fresh experience of it now. ' How safe your little boy is — how very safe ! " Forbid them not to come unto Me." Afterwards, when life has run again into its ordinary course, this will bring a great sweetness into the remembrance. I cannot but wonder whether this is the funeral day. When the precious little form that one would die to shelter is committed to the ground, it makes a very sad day and a very sad night follows. But an eye that never sleeps watches it henceforward and a heart that is warmer than his mother's breathes infinite love over the little mound till the Resurrection comes. EARLY rilOFESSORIATE 221 * I have written not as I would, but as I could. The Lord bless you and keep you both. He can do no harm to His own children.' One of the fascinations about Dr. Rainy's character was its contrasts. Here are letters of consolation written with a woman's tenderness. Now we shall see this same man rushing forth in armour to the most notable tourney Scotland had witnessed for many a day and — by the practically unanimous verdict of the onlookers — unhorsing one of the most galkmt cavaliers of the time. CHAPTER IX THE TOURNEY WITH DEAN STANLEY DR. STANLEY, Dean of Westminster, paid a visit to Edinburgh in . January 1872, and the visit was a notable event in the hterary season of the Scottish capital during that winter. The Dean was then at the height of his public popularity, and his eminent position and still more the charm and distinction of his personality assured for him a great and interested audience. With characteristic liberality, he opened his visit by officiating in a Presby- terian pulpit — preaching on Sunday, 7th January, in the Old Greyfriars Church ^ on brotherly love as * the eleventh commandment.' But Dean Stanley had not come down from West- minster to Scotland merely to preach an amiable sermon. He had come on an ecclesiastical and theological mission. His engagement was to deliver four lectures before the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh. His subject was * The History of the Church of Scotland,' and it was one which afforded the distinguished Broad-church Dean a great oppor- tunity of giving the Scottish people his reading of their ' The minister of Greyfriars at this time was Dr. Robert Wallace, who afterwards was professor of Church History in the University, then editor of the Scotsman^ and, lastly, a member of Parliament. 22a TOURNEY WITH DEAN STANLEY 223 religious past and his view of what should be their rehgious future. The first lecture dealt with the Celtic, mediaeval and post-Reformation Episcopal Church in Scotland, and this story the lecturer treated with great interest and picturesqueness. It would have called for comparatively little criticism but for the inaccu- racies on matters of fact which occurred in various places ; ^ but this was habitual with Dean Stanley of whom, as a historian, it is no injustice to say that no other man, who by the charm of style had won such a hold of the English reading public, made so man}^ mistakes in history. So far as this lecture had an aim, it was — what was quite natural and legitimate for an Episcopalian — to make out that the hereditary antagon- ism in Scotland between Presbyterianism and Prelacy was not so deep after all and that the latter was not so black as it was painted. Indeed, the Dean assured Scotland that ' the real origin of " black Prelacy " and " true-blue Presbyterianism " ' was no more than that the one party wore black gowns when they preached while the other had blue. This statement struck the audience ; it evoked neither cheers nor dissent nor laughter, but there was a curious silence. It was, however, in his later lectures that the Dean came to his ' mission.' That mission may be stated briefly, but I think not unfairly, thus. He wished 1 One reason for this was that confessedly his impressions of many historical events and characters were based on the works of Sir Walter Scott. ' It was,' says Stanley's biographer, ' with Scott as his guide that he steered through the maze of Scottish religious character and history' (Lz/e, ii. 319). The transcendent merits of the author of Tales of a Grandfather a.nd the Waverley Novels are universally acknowledged ; but these merits are not by way of history. 224 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY to persuade the Scottish people, on the one hand, that their covenanters, seceders and disruptionists, while often brave and even heroic men, were yet extremist and mistaken, fighting for points often of infinitesimal importance and even absurdity ; while, on the other hand, the really sane, useful and best tradition of the Church lay in its ' moderate ' inherit- ance. Therefore he urged that the future of the Scottish Church should be a rallying round this moderate tradition, which was naturally represented and continued by the national Established Church. This National Church, moreover, should be tied to no ' particular dogmas ' but should be ' prepared to be whatever Scottish Christianity is prepared to become,' and should * profess in its most general aspect the form of Christianity most suitable to the age or country.' ^ To recommend a moral such as this, the Dean first surveyed the covenanting, secession and disruption histories, appreciating in many a fine and worthy sentence examples of character and conviction, but by the very appreciation the more subtly and gently ridiculing much of the story. ' All honour,' he ex- claimed, ' to Scottish Churchmen for the stubbornness of their fight, their devotion of themselves not only to death, but, at times, even to absurdity.' ^ As to Spiritual Independence, he professed to have difficulty in understanding it. And of the Disruption, after quoting Lord Jeffrey's well-known exclamation that ' there is not another country in the world in which such a spectacle could be seen,' he added, ' It is no less true that in no other country of the world would the ' Suuley's Chuich of Scotiiiid^ ad fin. ^ Ibid., p. 65. TOURNEY WITH DEAN STANLEY 225 consciences of so many able and excellent men have been so deeply wounded by the intricacies of a legal suit of which the point at issue can only be ascertained by a searching investigation of conflicting statements even among those who are most keen in the con- troversy.' ^ This way of putting it, I observe from the newspaper reports, evoked, even in the select audience of the Philosophical Institution, sounds of disapprobation upon which (I am told by one who was on the platform) the Dean remarked sotto voce to those sitting behind him, ' I shouldn't have said that.' Then he passed on to commend his moral by extolling the toleration and the literary graces of the moderates — claiming some in that school who would not have thanked him for doing so — and speaking of the ' truly Christian character of Hume ' " and the ' evangelical ' fragments in the poetry of Burns. The general theological and ecclesiastical conclusion was, as I have indicated, that the bright future of Scottish religion would be to rally round a National Church which would be ' moderate ' in manners and indeter- minate in dogma, and, of course, erastian in policy. This was Dean Stanley's theological and ecclesiastical gospel to Scotland. It was given not only with great grace of style but with transparent sincerity. Naturally, it created a sensation. But it is apparent that in no quarter was the sensation one of satis- faction. The secular press — usually only too glad to support such lines — refrained from comment. The Episcopalians could hardly be content with the Dean's 1 Stanley's CIiHrch of Scotland, p. 72. 2 This phrase was erased in the published lectures. VOL. I. r 226 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY constant treatment of the Presbyterian Establishment as the Church of Scotland or with the role he assigned to them to be ' a supplement ' to it and ' to keep alive in Scotland a sense of English art, of English toleration, and of English literature/ ^ As for the Established Church, which might be expected to be most satisfied, it simpty did not dare to base its appeal to the Scottish nation on its moderate and erastian traditions (which indeed, at that very time, some of its nobler men were struggling to escape from or at least forget), and to go forth to the future with, as its escutcheon, the Dean's ' blank shield,' marked only with the bar sinister of erastianism. But, of course, it was the seceding and disruption Churches that had most reason to resent this reading of history. And it was from the Disruption Church that there came a reply which, it is no exaggeration to say, rang through the land and altered the whole situation. While the lectures were being delivered. Dr. Buchanan wrote to Dr. Rainy that ' this dunning into us of Anglican Broad-churchism is really too much ' and wishing ' some vigorous Scotch Presbyterian would take Stanley by the throat and squeeze the conceit out of the lectures.' He suggested * Cairns could do it.' When the lectures were over, Dr. Candlish's new colleague in St, George's, the Rev. Alexander Whyte (now Dr. Whyte and the foremost minister in Scotland) met Dr. Rainy one day and said to him : ' Do you know what they 're saying. Dr. Rainy ? They 're saying that if Cunningham had been alive, Stanley woftld not wait long for his answer.* ' Stanley's Cliun/i of ScoUand., p. 53. TOURNEY WITH DEAN STANLEY 227 In a day or two Cunningham's successor intimated to his class that he meant to call their attention to the topics which Dean Stanley had discussed. This became known, and he was at once asked to say what he had to say more publicly. To this he consented. No time was lost. The Music Hall — the largest in the city at that time — was taken for the earliest available evenings. Dean Stanley's last lecture was deHvered on the 12th of January : Dr. Rainy's three lectures in reply were given on the 24th, 26th, and 31st of the same month. This prompt appearance of a champion in the lists to answer what every one felt to be not less than a national challenge, called out immediate interest. Mr. Maclagan wrote of it to Dr. Buchanan : — ' Our best advertisement is the general talk of the city. At dinner-tables, etc., everybody is full of it. I am not anxious the attendance should be larger ; but I find the prevailing opinion is that the hall might be filled twice over. There is a general admiration of the pluck which our champion has shown in being ready within ten days. I did not know till to-day that Stanley delivered these lectures in 1870 in Oxford of all places for such a subject ; and that some joker there described them as " Lectures ^n-the Church, -Of-Scoiland-illust^ated from the author of Waverley." ' As a matter of fact, the hall was, according to the newspapers, ' densely crowded ' at all the lectures ; at the third and last, though the weather was most inclement, it was packed long before the hour of commencement. I propose to quote from these lectures several passages, because this was, in man^- respects, one of the most characteristic performances in Dr. Rainy's career. The first one need not detain us. After some 228 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY preliminary references — courteous yet quizzical — to the Dean's visit and the object of it, he proceeded to correct several historical inaccuracies. Into these we need not enter. In particular, he went on to discuss the Dean's minimising of the differences between Presbytery and Prelacy in Scotland. As to Dean Stanley's quaint reason why the Scottish people called Episcopacy ' black ' Dr. Rainy observed : — ' Let the Dean be assured that no Presbyterian minister ever troubled his head as to whether the cloak he preached the Gospel in was black or blue. Disputes about the colour of vestments in which the Gospel is to be preached do not belong to our parish. We have never been civilised enough to understand them. And we had other reasons, tolerably strong, for calling Prelacy black.' He had little difficulty in showing that, however easy it may be in words to reduce old conflicts to a small point, still Prelacy had brought with it in Scotland a whole train of consequences — the prelatist cause and the Stuartist tyranny were in- extricably mixed up — and the people did well for civil freedom and justice as well as for Presby- terianism when they cast the episcopal polity from them. As for Presbyterianism, it stood in Scotland for far more than a mere theory of ecclesiastical polity. What more it stood for the lecturer expounded thus : — ' The earnestness with which Presbyterianism was main- tained was due to something else besides the confidence men had in their theoretical conclusions about Church government. Everything that is theoretically good and true has its practical witness in itself from which it receives daily confirmation. So was it with Presbyterianism. Presbyterianism meant organised life, regulated distribution of forces, graduated TOURNEY WITH DEAN STANT.EY 229 recognition of gifts, freedom to discuss, authority to control, agency to administer. Presbyterianism meant a system by which the convictions and conscience of the Church could constantly be applied, by appropriate organs, to her current affairs. Presbyterianism meant a system by which quicken- ing influence, experienced anywhere in the Church, could be turned into effective force and transmitted to fortify the whole society. Presbyterianism meant a system by which every one, first of all the common man, had his recognised place, his defined position, his ascertained and guarded privileges, liis responsibihties inculcated and enforced, felt himself a part of the great unity, wdth a right to care for its welfare and to guard its integrity. From the broad base of the beHeving people, the sap rose through Sessions, Presbyteries, Synods, to the Assembly, and thence descending diffused knowledge, influence, unanimity through the whole system. Yes, Presby- terianism is a system for a free people that love a regulated, a self-regulating freedom ; for a people independent, yet patient, considerate, trusting much to the processes of dis- cussion and consultation, and more to the promised aid of a much-forgiving and a watchful 'Lord. It is a system for strong Churches — Churches that are not afraid to let their matters see the hght of day — to let their weakest parts and their worst defects be canvassed before aU men that they may be mended. It is a system for beheving Churches that are not ashamed or afraid to cherish a high ideal and to speak of lofty aims and to work for long and far results, amid all the discouragements arising from sin and foll}^ in their own ranks and around them. It is a system for catholic Christians who wish not merely to cherish private idiosyncrasies, but to feel themselves identified with the common cause while they cleave directly to Him whose cause it is. Our fathers felt instinctively that the changes thrust upon them threatened to suppress great elements of good — not mere forms alone, but the life which those forms nourished and expressed. When Episcopacy shall have tr^iined the common people to care, as those of Scotland have cared, for the public interest of Christ's Church, and to connect that care with their own religious fife, as a part and a fruit of it, then it may afford to smile at the zealous self-defence of Scottish Presbyterianism.' 230 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY I quote this passage because it is so characteristic of Dr. Rainy ; but this lecture was prehminary. It was in the two succeeding lectures that he came to grips with his subject. The second lecture dealt with the Dean's view of the various covenanting, seceding and disruption principles and sacrifices, as noble no doubt, but rather ridiculous. Dr. Rainy first took up the view of spiritual independence as really little more than Scottish patriotic stubbornness — ' a development of the passion for national independence and of the passion of antagonism ' ^ Dr. Rainy tried to put as simply as words can the * principle ' that the Church is a distinct society form,ed by Jesus Christ and as such has its conscience to Him about its faith and work ; and then he went on with the following scornful irony of the Dean's idea that this is not any Christian principle but just Scottish patriotic self-assertion : — ' Hear that, Andrew Melville and George Gillespie, Ebenezer Erskine and Adam Gib ! Who will despair of progress or deny new light ? Here are Andrew Melville, who came from Geneva, formed in the school which Calvin had left to the presidency of Beza, and that circle of genial and able men who went with Beza into banishment. Here are Henderson and Gillespie and Dickson ; and Rutherford, as interminable in distinctions as he is rich in poetry and feeling ; and Durham, whose favourite field is not Church cjuestions, but who touches them often and always with a master's hand, and many more, contemporary and subsequent, whom I do not name. They thought they had a principle in their minds. Really they did. They were confirmed in that opinion by finding that they agreed with one another about it. They also thought or were under an impression that they loved that principle as ^ Stanley's Church of Scotland^ p. 67, TOURNEY AVITH DEAN STANLEY 231 scriptural. In their own apprehension, also, they felt bound to contend for it — they thought that was what they contended for. Great numbers of their countrymen also were under the imagination that an agreement with these men had come to pass within them. Some wrote books and some read them and some even answered them ; some went to banishment, some went to battle, some went to the hills and were shot, or captured and hanged, or starved, thinking in their own minds they had a belief which they could not deny as long as they had it. On the strength of the idea that they were contending for this principle, men have differed about them ever since ; some have blessed them for it, and some have banned them. Down comes the Dean of Westminster and he tells us, Pooh ! principle ! not a bit of it ; of course the honest men thought a principle was at the bottom of their minds and of their battle ; quite a mistake ; fought just because they were Scotsmen ; had to fight ; couldn't help it ; gallant fellows though ! And then he takes a survey of us from Andrew Melville's days down to the Disruption ; and as he marks each successive trial of strength and endurance he choruses, Magnifi- cent ! what independence ! what sturdiness ! what courage ! Magnificent ! Yes, I reply, very magnificent ; but if this be the true view, oh, what fools ! what utter, arrant fools ! what unchristian fools that cursed the history of their country with the miseries, the divisions, the arrested development, the interrupted Christian activities, not for a principle, not even for a false principle, but for a mere doggedness which only fell into the mistake of supposing that it served a principle ! What an array of lighting fools, from Andrew Melville down to the greater name of Thomas Chalmers ! And how great a man the Dean of Westminster who has seen through them all ! ' ' With Dr. Stanley's comments on the smallness of the matters over which this principle was sometimes brought to an issue, Dr. Rainy dealt by admitting an occasional danger of this — ' if you call men to have a conscience and to exercise it, you can- 1 Rainy's Church of Scotland iy\&\\ edit.), pp. 66-S. 232 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY not always avert scrupulosity' — but he went on thus : — ' When those who adhered to the Commons of England rose in arms, what was the quarrel ? Various causes mingled ; but, no doubt, with many of them, the decisive point was this, that taxes should not be raised in England without the con- sent of Parliament. All other powers and prerogatives hinged on that one. Would it be thought well in our historian to say of those who died in that quarrel, that they threw away their lives for a matter of half-a-crown, perhaps, or five shillings ? — for the question, whichever way decided, was never likely to concern them to more than that amount. Do we not honour the men who stood for a principle that concerned the destinies of England, all the more because their personal stake was small ? Did not these men do well to judge that, if the sum was small, the principle might be great ? But, I say fearlessly, which was the nobler cause, or, if you will, which was the nobler nation — the nation that fired at the thought of taxes raised by power without the consent of Parliament ; or the nation that fired at the thought of worship thrust in by force without the consent of the Church ? ' ^ And then, after further argument, he put the matter very straight to the Dean : — ' " Honour," says the Dean, "honour to those Scottish Churchmen for their devotion of themselves not only to death, but even at times to absurdity " ; and no one can doubt that, in his view, the absurdity is a very considerable element in the whole performance. Well now, I wdll take leave to ask a question. I am not goin^, 1 think, to say anything unfair. I hate the system of insinuating a calumny which one dare not openly express. The Dean has as full right to receive credit at our hands for perfect sincerity and integrity, as any of us at the hands of another. And therefore I say before- hand that whatever sacrifice the Dean's conscience might require of him in the maintenance of candour and honour, I am not to doubt he would make it freely, God's grace helping * Rainy's Church of Scotland (jncvi edit.), p. 76. TOURNEY WITH DEAN STANLEY 233 him, which is needed by us all. But what I cannot but ask is this — what is that thing, what is that doctrinal truth on behalf of which the Dean's conscience, according to his present hghts, would lead Mm to think that people ought to undergo martyrdom and might do so without absurdity ? Where would he draw the line and make a stand ? I declare most seiiously, I don't know. I don't see how any one can draw an inference or hazard a guess upon the subject. The Dean appears to me to be wonderfully able to hold both sides on most theological questions. Judging from the intense ardour of his demonstrations during the last three years, I have a kind of impression, but I am not sure, that in his judgment, on behalf of Erastianism a man might lay down his life joyfully at the scaffold or the stake. If not for that, then I am at an utter loss. ' Ah, but martyrdom in a good cause is the hfc-blood of the Church and of the world. It is that which stems the current of an unbelieving epicureanism and of a scoffing scepticism, and rings into the hearts of men the conviction that the faith cannot die, cannot be killed, cannot be conquered, lives on in the strength of an unseen Lord and has its coming victory sure. It is not the less impressive— all the more, I think — because the men who suffer and overcome have plainly enough their human infirmities and defects. Smooth insinuations about absurdity are not going to cheat us of the memories of our Scottish martyrs.' -^ The remainder of this lecture dealt with erastianism. One significant remark of Dr. Rainy's, which is not without bearing on the present day, was this. Speak- ing of Anglican High-churchism, he said : — ' We believe it to be a mischievous system in a varict}^ of ways. But as long as it is merely denounced from an erastian position, whether by Broad Churchmen or by Low Churchmen, it will retain, and it will righteously retain, an element of power that will carry it through the conflict.' ^ Rainy's Church of Scotland {x^^\s edit.), p. 95. - Ibid., p. 12S. 234 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY He went on to describe more carefully what Spiritual Independence is, and that it is not Hildebrandism (as the Dean persisted in calling it), for 'the State is to have its own conscience ' and is ' not only at liberty but under obligation to judge of its own duty for itself.' Still, there is — and the State ought to take notice that there is — a society ' set up by no human authority,' which has duties and privileges based on its recognition in conscience of its Lord. It was this which the Dean found unintelligible. Dr. Rainy had again straight words for this : — ' Does not Dr. Stanley himself understand it ? That he does. Is not Erastianism, State supremacy, the very apple of his eye ? Has he not contended for it these last three years as if on this subject alone he could become fanatical ? Does he not argue habitually that the principle which applies to property — namely, that the State decides through its courts, on its own view of equity, all contests about it — applies and ought to apply to the decision of everything else ? Does he not denounce the opposite view as Hildebrandism and suprem- acy over the State ? Does he not represent supremacy of the State over the Church as the very optimism of the Church's condition ? When in all these assertions, he himself says, Ay, has he not the least conception of what it means to say. No ? Yes, truly, he knows very well what it means.' ^ This second lecture was written (as appears from one of Dr. Rainy's letters) in two days. The ink was still wet on the page when the cab arrived to take him to the hall. But his last effort was his greatest. ' My last lecture,' he wrote to Dr. Buch- anan, * will include the noblest part of my theme : I pray I may be enabled to do it well.' This third lecture dealt with the religious issues raised by Dean * Rainy's Church of Scolia/id i^ncw edit.), p. 84. TOURNEY WITH DEAN STANLEY 235 Stanley's advocacy of moderatisni as the true tradi- tion and the destiny of the Scottish Church. Dr. Rainy complained that his real difficulty here was ' to get the vital issues into any connection at all with the Dean's line of discussion ' ; and indeed it is a just remark, for any earnest mind reading Dr. Stanley's lectures on Evangelicalism and Moderatism must be amazed how a man — not to say a minister of a great Church — professing to estimate a people's religion and to advise upon it, should take so little trouble to find the spiritual heart of the men and systems he so lightly discusses. The evangelicals are * negative ' or * judaic ' in theology and had some inconsistent characters. The moderates the Dean likes : they were * tolerant ' and ' literary.' Dr. Rainy asks, ' Did ever mortal trifle so with life questions ? ' Leaving, then, the Dean pretty much alone, Dr. Rainy went on to give his own account of the religious facts of Evangelicalism. It had been dismissed as negative. He elucidated with care and reverence its great positive contents — first its theology of sin and grace, and secondly its conception of conversion and the divine life within the soul. These were things Dean Stanley had never mentioned. Dr. Rainy said : — ' These things, believed among us, are not negations. But they do, I confess, imply one great negative which thoroughly pervades our whole conceptions. They do imply that nature is not grace and that grace is not nature. They do directly and peremptorily contradict a fashionable tendency of the times on that subject. How wonderfully grace may be adapted to nature — how wonderfully the one may, especially in some cases, be, as it were, hidden away in the other — we 236 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY are willing to learn. But the Scottish Churchman who has given up that distinction has to build up his beliefs again from a point not very far from the foundation. And the new structure will certainly not be the faith of the Scottish Churches.' ^ Then Dr. Rainy turned to his surve}' of the moderates, and the Dean's recommendation of them. After a most interesting passage about Chalmers and the Dean's ' sheer delusion ' that that great Christian somewhat returned in his old days to the views of his earl}^ life, Dr. Rainy demurred to the claiming of men such as Archbishop Leighton as an example of moderatism. It was here he made the beautiful reference to his own grandmother which I have already quoted, but which may be quoted here again and in full :— * Leighton's character and writings have been habitually cherished by those in Scotland who are most averse to modera- tism and who recognise in him the very spirit which moderatism lacked. Among my own very earliest recollections are those of an aged lady, very dear to me, whose life was one continual strain of overflowing piety — a long pilgrimage of faith, rising at last into an unbroken Beulah of praise and prayer. It was piety nursed under the purest Scottish Presbyterian influences. But my impressions of Leighton were first formed by the delight I used to see her take in perusing and reperusing " that blessed Exposition." What would she have said if she had been told that Leighton was a moderate ? ' ^ Then passing from men to measures, he took up the Dean's laudation of the moderate ' toleration ' and especially * the noble example of liberality ' they and their successors in the Established Church ^ Rainy's Church of Scotland {x\&\\' edit.), p. 113. ^ Ibid.^ p. loi. TOURNEY WITH DEAN STANLEY 237 had set in welcoming prelatists as well as seceders to the pulpits of the Church. Said Dr. Rainy : — ' Surely the Dean cannot be aware how drolly this sounds in Scottish ears. The Established Church has not set the example but followed the example. In 1799, in the days of moderate supremacy, an act was passed prohibiting all ministers to employ, in any service, any one not qualified, according to the laws of the Church, to accept a presentation to a pastoral charge. This act was rescinded in 1842, when the evangelical party was in the ascendency, and ministers were allowed as of old to employ the services of brethren of other Churches. After the Disruption, the Establishment restored the state of things which had existed from 1799 to 1842 ; and it is only recently that the law has been relaxed again so as to allow the Established Church minister the same right which United Presbyterian and Free Church ministers possessed by the common law of their Churches, while in the Free Church this right was guaranteed by an express statutory permission in addition. It is nothing strange in our Churches that men episcopally ordained, and having the confidence of the pastor, should occasionally minister in them. It seems, however, to be a very arduous operation to undertake it. All England cried out with amazement at the magnanimous effort recently made by two prelates in this direction.^ They seemed to suppose that the effort to receive them must, on the Scottish side, be equally overwhelming. There is a mistake here. We are always glad to receive ministers of other Churches who are good Gospel preachers ; provided they do their part in a straightforward way, and don't talk nonsense afterwards about " mission services." ' ^ Dr. Rainy passed from this to a singularly discrim- inating account of moderatism : how in the days 1 The Archbishop of York (Thomson) and the Bishop of Winchester (S. Wilberforce) had preached in the Presbyterian Church in Glengarry. 'The act produced a storm of indignation which caused both prelates to draw back and excuse themselves on the plea they had only preached on a mission' (Prothero's Life oj Dean Stanley^ ii. 273). 2 Rainy's Church of Scotland {\\^\s edit.), p. 135. 238 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY of persecution and commotion, culture and taste naturally were checked ; how, after the settlement of affairs, men therefore were influenced by the desire to recover the lost ground ; how this became, in part, a movement awa^^ from and separate from religion — tending to avoid whatever was in conflict with the spirit of the age and that age the rational- istic eighteenth century ; how with some men this meant what was cultured and refined, but with others what was indulgent and coarse ; but how with both classes it meant a setting of culture before Christianity, a disliking of theological truth and a lowering of all conviction about conversion and spiritual life. Thus it became ' the enemy of our Scottish religious life.' Dr. Rainy made the most ready acknowledgment that * there were moderates of whom, individually, no one would wish to say an unkind word.' But he went on : — ' The history of moderatism, what it began with and what it ended with, the pretensions of its rise and the undisguised baseness of its latter end, is a great historical commentary on the result in Christian Churches of setting the secondary interests in the primary place. It is, in one word, ruin. Let us face, let us understand, let us appropriate, let us sympathise with, let us advance the culture of our time so far as we have power to do it. That is a great Christian duty belonging to the right fulfilment of the task of the Church ; and it is fitted to prepare us, not only to do the Lord's work, but to learn for ourselves the Lord's providential lessons. But as Chris- tians, as Churches, let us never forget that first — uncondition- ally, always first — we have truth to speak whether men will hear or forbear, and we have a type of life to fulfil whether men will approve or condemn.' ^ * Rainy's Church of Scotland {x\&\\ edit.), p. 154. TOURNEY WITH DEAN STANLEY 239 This led on to the passage in tliese lectures which, perhaps, more than any other, struck the public mind — his reference to Robert Burns, of whom Dean Stanley had spoken as ' a wise religious teacher.' This is the passage : — ' But before I advert to anything the Dean said, I will ask — Can no one stop the din that profanes the grave of Robert Burns ? Has no one the heart to hear the " inhabitant below " or to understand his voice ? Of all perverse destinies with which earth could perplex his fame, did it ever visit his imagination that crowds of rhetorical men would go about in never-ending floods of eloquence to prove his life a great moral victory and triumph ? Did he ever foresee that every after-dinner orator who wished to show what a flexible thing advanced Christianity can be, would harp upon the passages that saddened his own thoughtful hours, as proofs of what may comport with high moral and Christian excellency ? Shame upon them that are so destitute of love for Burns, that have so little sympathy with the pathos of his own view of his own life, as not to understand the}^ are to let that alone ! Why cannot they let it alone ? Let them celebrate his genius, if it needs to be celebrated ; let them celebrate his honest manhood — a great deal too straightforward, I will be bold to say, to tolerate the despicable sophistry that is spent on his career — let them dwell on the undying glow he has shed into Scottish minds and hearts and homes and lives and history ; and, for the rest, let it alone. Nobody is going to meddle with it, if themselves will let it alone. But if they will not, on themselves be the shame. "A curse upon the clown and knave That will not let his ashes rest." ' ^ At the close of his lecture, Dr. Rainy spoke of the practical object of the Dean's visit. That was avowedly- to strengthen the Established Church on the ground 1 Rainy's Church of Scotland {yi74. PATRONAGE AND ESTABLISHMENT 275 need not enter. It was not an edifying struggle which had been brought into Scottish Church Hfe, and, certainl}^ of all ways of promoting union, it was the oddest. The well-known sympathies of Dr. Begg and some others made the effort possess possibilities of a measure of success, but as a matter of fact, the result was practically nil. There was absoluteh^ no movement either of ministers or people to the Established Church. I believe one or two Free Church ministers yielded to the advances which in several cases were undoubtedly made to invite them to vacant parishes, but they were men whom the Free Church was more glad to" part with than the other Church to receive. Indeed the whole matter, far from weak- ening the Free Church, indubitably strengthened it. The re-articulation of old Disruption principles about Spiritual Independence — or rather old Church of Scotland principles — did the Free Church a world of good after the distracting and dividing Union controversy, and helped to rescue it from the reaction which I have already indicated as appearing in some quarters. After all, a non-endowed and non- established Church is strong when its conscientious principles are strong, and anything that reasserts and revivifies these is really its succour rather than its danger. While, however, in this direction the Patronage Act produced little or no result, in another direction it had a result of the most important character not only on the ecclesiastical but also on the political life of Scotland. Any one who glances through the files of the Scottish 276 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY press for the year 1874 must be struck by one thing — ■ that whereas in the earherpart of the year the subject of Disestabhshment is hardly mentioned, in the latter part it appears again and again in political speeches, in Church courts, and in both the leading and the correspondence columns of the press. The Patronage Act was a readjustment of Church and State in Scotland both in what it confirmed and in what it altered and, indubitably, this had raised in the public mind a large question. The Act confirmed the recog- nition of one denomination, now representative of a minority of the people (and in the Highlands of a mere fraction of the population) as the ' Church of Scotland,' and did so on the old erastian basis that had been settled prior to the Disruption. On the other hand it transferred the disposal of its livings — the national teinds — from persons who were at least supposed to represent the land and the parish to ' the congregations and adherents ' — to, therefore, a denominational and not a national, trustee. The parish minister thus received public pay from the parish, but he was called to be minister merely by a congregation — namely his own * people ' — as much as the minister of any sect. This inevitably raised a large question, and the recent instance of the Irish Church at once suggested to people that there was another way of dealing with a Church whose claim to be national was no longer undisputed. Into the political aspects of the matter, however, we are not called to enter ; we may concern ourselves only with its relation to the Free Church. As I have said, the Free Church had let this question lie dormant since the Disruption. The State then PATRONAGE AND ESTARTJSHIMENT 277 refused to act on the principles of the Church of Scotland's claim. The evangelical party contented itself with protest and with severance from the State. But now the State, not only negatively would not look at that claim, but positively was making the Scottish nation re-endorse the refusal of that claim by re-settling an Establishment on terms still erastian and therefore still, from the Free Church view, wrong and even ' sinful.' Once that question was raised, the Free Church, if it seriously meant the Disruption at all, could give it but one answer. If the old refusal to give Scotland the spiritual libert}' the Church claimed was to be no longer quiescent but was to take shape in political action, then the protest against that refusal was called into action too. From the historic Free Church point of view, the question thus raised admitted really of no dispute. Whatever difference there might be about * the principle of establishment,' the Disruption certainly meant that the existing erastian Establishment was * sinful,' and an Act which made Scotland re-endorse that forced the Free Church to speak or else practically give up her position. Accordingly in the year after the passing of the Patronage Act, the Free Church Assembly declared not only (as had been done before) that the Act did nothing to alter the ' principle of law ' by which the State had claimed authority in spirihialia, but also ' that the existing connection between Church and State, being upheld on an unscriptural and in- equitable basis, ought to be brought to an end in the interests ahke of national rehgion and of Scottish Presbyterianism.' It is significant to note who moved 278 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL KAINY this. It was Sir Henry Moncreiff — the hereditary Whig and representative of the old Church of Scotland tradition more than any other man in the Church. Dr. Begg, of course, opposed; and young Professor Candlish — Dr. Candlish's son, just appointed to a chair in Glasgow, and not only a true theologian but a man of quite exceptional modesty and yet straightforwardness — told him across the floor of the House that his right place was in the other Church. The motion was carried by 397 to 84 ; and from that time the demand for Disestablishment became part of the expressed mind of the Free Church. I feel that to many a modern reader this statement of how this movement arose in the Assembly on strictly Free Church lines is only of antiquarian interest. But Dr. Rainy was so staunch a son of the Disruption that it seems right to show, in his biography, how the demand for Disestablishment was both legitimate and called for on Disruption principles. It was indeed the demand of Chalmers himself. Dr. Rainy used often to be reminded in this matter that Dr. Chalmers had been a supporter of establishments. There is not a more flagrant instance of the untruth of a half-truth than to say this. Dr. Chalmers sup- ported establishments, but when he did so, he very emphatically stated the only kind of establishment he supported. He refused to support establishment — or even the ' establishment principle ' — except on the condition of spiritual independence. ' I gave up,' he said in 1843, ' the attempt to secure the establish- ment principle till it should be freed from the principle PATRONAGE AND ESTABLISHMENT 279 of erastianism, for on any other footing than that of entire spiritual independence, I should hold a National Church to be a moral nuisance/ ^ He went further. If he could not secure that condition, he became a disestablishment man. Writing in a letter to the Bishop of Toronto of the. effort of the Free Church to secure spiritual independence with establishment, he said, ' If we do not succeed, national establishments of Christianity will and ought to be put down.' " That effort had not succeeded. The Free Church claim was denied in 1843 and now, in 1874, an erastian establish- ment had been confirmed. Principal Rainy was thus now saying exactly what Dr. Chalmers had said when he held that, in the event of such failure, establish- ments 'ought to be put down.' Dr. Begg's assertion that he stood for the true Disruption tradition was so reiterated that many people came to accept it, but, in truth, it was nothing better than a piece of historical 'bluff.' Dr. Rainy now took a further step in this matter. After the Assembly's declaration, he felt himself set free to follow what public action seemed to him needful on his part as an individual citizen. When this became known, inevitably he was at once sum- moned to take a leading part. His first speech from a public platform — as distinct from the General Assembly — in favour of Disestablishment was made to a crowded meeting in the Music Hall, Edinburgh, ' Letter of 3rd May 1843. Hanna's Co7-respondence of Dr. Chalmers., p. 415. - Letter of 3rd May 1843. Hanna's Corrcspojidence of Dr. Chalmers, p. 361. Dr. Chalmers added ' till the millennium.' The argument in the text therefore holds good for the years covered by this narrative. 280 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY on 8th December 1874. His motive and spirit, he declared in such sentences as the following : — ' I wish to say, first, that it is no pleasure to me to say anything that may be felt as hostile by members of another Church. I have no disposition to undervalue any elements of power or influence or goodness which that Church embraces. If I may say it without appearing presumptuous, I feel a sincere interest in the usefulness and prosperity of the large section of my fellow-countrymen who are conscientiously attached to the Established Church. I am not going to say one word against them as a Church, whatever I may advance against the continuation of the relation which they hold to the State. And I wish to say also that, as I don't grudge them any profit or prestige which their connection with the State gives them — that is not my motive — so I, for one, have felt no disposition to hurry the question to a premature solution. I would not be here on any other ground whatever but the advancing, according to my best belief, the Christian welfare of Scotland.' Only those who never knew Dr. Rainy will question the perfect sincerity of this last sentence. Into the argument of the speech one need not enter except to note a very distinct declaration on the subject of union. Already — within six months of the passing of the Patronage Act — the Established Church had (to use the phrase of one of its leading men) * raised the flag of Union.' On this subject, as Dr. Rainy said, the Free Church had ' some right ' to speak : she had spent years in an attempt ' not to gain members from other Churches, but to unite Churches.' The attempt, he added, * failed in the manner we know.' What, in fact, that last phrase covered was the deep conviction, which had entered into the minds of the great majority of those who had passed through the Union controversy, that what really thwarted the PATRONAGE AND ES TAETJSHISIENT 281 reuniting of Scottish Presbyterianism was the fact of the Estabhshment. Tlie so-called * principle of establishment ' would have been a futility but for an Established Church in existence behind. There- fore to Dr. Rainy, Disestablishment ' became a duty ' (to use his own expression) in the interest of both his dominant Church ideas — in the interest not only of the protest for spiritual freedom but also of the attainment of Presbyterian union. And in his first public speech on the subject he declared this explicitly in reply to the raising of the flag of Union on the part of the Established Church, saying that to any ' Christian, evangelical and edifying ' union in Scotland, ' Disestablishment is the preliminary.' Even the strongest opponents of Dr. Rainy's Dis- establishment views and efforts should recognise that it was not as what Burke calls ' an architect of ruin ' that he took up this matter. The mere act of Dis- establishment was not the end. It was as the archi- tect — the baffled architect — of union, as well as the claimant of freedom. Later chapters of this biography will show the bearing of the fact of establishment on these things more dramatically. The above speech was the opening of a long and important and tempestuous part of Dr. Rainy's public career. At this point, however, I shall break off our narrative on this subject. This chapter has indicated how Disestablishment arose and how Dr. Rainy was * called out ' (to use again his own phrase) to advocate it. A subsequent chapter will describe the progress the propaganda made under his power- ful leadership — for he soon became recognised as 282 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY its chief protagonist — till, within a single decade, it became the dominant issue in Scottish politics ; and will tell also how, when it seemed destined to a certain achievement, there arose on the political horizon a force majeure which changed the fortunes of men and parties and nations and, with these results, relegated this question to an indefinite future. Meanwhile, from a narrative too much occupied with public history, we must return to things more personal to Dr. Rainy's life, which had experienced a notable change, for by this time he was Principal Rainy. CHAPTER XI PRINCIPALSHIP AND LEADERSHIP THE years 1873 and 1874 mark the closing of one era and the opening of another both in the pubUc histor}^ of the Free Church and the personal career of Dr. Rainy. The former of these ^ years dates the end of the unhappy Union contro- versy, and the latter the formal beginning of the Church and State debate in Scotland. But 1873 was also the date of the death of Dr. Candlish, and in 1874 Dr. Rainy was appointed to succeed him in the Principal's seat in the New College and became the recognised leader of the Church. One cannot drop Dr. Candlish's name out of these pages without a word. He was a far more wonder- ful man than can be gathered from any mere record of his life. Next to Qhalmers he inspired, and even more than Chalmers he organised, the Disruption. There was something daimonic about Candlish. His fire, his activity, his dauntless and resistless energy were amazing. Dr. Rainy used to tell, with great appreciation, the story of some one at a meeting, when Candhsh was electrifying the audience, turning to his neighbour and exclaiming with admiration, ' Man, isn't yon a deil of a cratur ! ' Yet with all this enthusiasm — burning through and in the end 284 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY burning up a poor physical frame — Candlish had two quahties not often found with it. He was a marvellous organiser and he had really a meta- physical mind. Above all else, he had a noble soul. A more absolutely generous and unselfish heart never beat. Dr. John Brown — the author of Rab — said most truly that ' there is a great deal of St. Paul about Candlish ' ^ He loved Dr. Rainy as a very son, and had un- bounded confidence both in his capacities and his character. On his death-bed ' his voice trembled with emotion ' as he spoke of the love and admiration with which he regarded him.^ And on the very day of his death, he handed over to the younger man the reins his own hands had held so long. I am indebted to Dr. Whyte — Dr. Candlish's colleague in St. George's — for the following authentic record of a touching scene : — ' On the day of his death, Dr. Candlish sent round for me to come and see him. When I entered the bedroom, I found Dr. Rainy there. I had no sooner entered than the dying man raised himself up a little and said to me, calling me by my name, " I had hoped to be spared to assist you a little longer, but it is not to be — good-bye " ; and he shook my hand. Then beckoning to Dr. Rainy, who came forward and knelt down at the bedside. Dr. Candlish said, " Rainy, I leave the College and the Assembly to your care — good-bye " ; and then he put his withered hand round Dr. Rainy's neck and kissed him.' Dr. Rainy preached one of his tenderest and most spiritual sermons in St. George's after Dr. Candlish's ' Letters of Dr. Jolt n Brow/i, p. 225. ^ Memoir of Dr. Robert Buc/iatiati, p. 516. PRINCIPALSHIP AND LEADERSHIP 285 death. ^ He was asked (on Dr. Buchanan feehng unable to undertake the task) to write the biography ; and this he took in hand, but subsequently rehnquished, contributing only a closing chapter to the work, which was written by the Rev. Dr. William Wilson of Dundee. The Assembly of 1874 elected Dr. Rainy to the principalship of the New College unanimously. The appointment was moved by Sir Henry Moncreiff and seconded by the Earl of Dalhousie. The new Principal dehvered his inaugural address in October 1874. Its subject was * Evolution and Theology,' and the lecture attracted considerable attention. The religious mind of the day was dis- turbed about Darwinism and apprehensive lest it should affect the foundations of faith ; and that a man of Dr. Rainy's known piety and orthodoxy should, from the Principal's chair of the New College, frankly accept the legitimacy of the application of evolution even to man's descent and find it a point on which the theologian ' may be perfectly at ease ' reassured many minds. That theology can main- tain a theistic doctrine of the origin of the universe . and a spiritual doctrine of man along with a readiness / to let science prove what it can about evolution goes almost without saying in intelligent religious circles to-day ; it was well worth saying from the chief academic seat of the Free Church in 1874. But the lecture was critical of scientific methods in religion too. Dr. Rainy was philosophical in this among ^ This sermon is included in the volume entitled Sojourning with God (Hodder and Stoughton). 286 THE LIFE OF rUINCIPAL RAINY other things — that he always had a sense of the whole, and that the whole is a reality which must be recog- nised as a whole and not merely as an addition sum of the parts. The following is a criticism of which scientific analysts cannot too often be reminded : — * Often the man who hides from himself what Christianity and the Christian revelation are will persuade himself that it is giving way under his tests. He takes the parts of it to pieces, and he persuades himself that he can account for all the pieces. Here is something from the Jews and something from the Greeks. Here are miracles that may be partly odd natural events and partly nervous impressions and partly gradually growing legends. Here are doctrines that may have been nursed and dandled into maturity during several generations of men, whose minds were stirred by the appear- ance of Christ. And here are books of which one may say that this element could be contributed by this part and the other by that and the general colouring by people who held partly by both. . . . Now each of these operations may be successfully contested ; but, if all of them were uncontested, they would still be unsuccessful. When you have done, the living whole draws itself together, looks you in the face again, refuses to be conceived in that manner, reclaims its scattered members from the other centuries to its native seat in the first and reasserts itself to be a great burst of coherent life and light centering in Christ. Just so you might take to pieces a living tissue, and say here is, after all, only so much nitrogen and carbon and lime and so forth. And as to the combination in which I find them, every one knows that these atoms can get together in the most remarkable way. Here is nothing but inorganic matter. But the energetic peculiarities of life go on before your eyes and refute you by the palpable presence of a mystery unaccounted for. So is it with Christianity.' Towards the close, the lecturer speaks of how the ' pain and danger ' in such questions should * impress PRINCirALSHIP AND T.EADEKSHIP 287 us with the thought of how great a thing it is to beheve in God.' Of this he says : — * To rise up to the measure of a great conception like this — to be penetrated and possessed by it — does not befall thoughtless persons. And one way in which we are com- pelled to think is the way of being tested by doubt and denial.' These last sentences, and especially the last phrase, make one feel that, orthodox as Dr. Rainy certainly was, his orthodoxy was a very different thing from the old mail-clad dogmatism of the Free Church theological tradition. This is another note from that which Cunningham struck. The truth is, the too often and easily repeated view that Dr. Rainy theologically was a survival of the old school and little aware of or touched by modern difficulties is, if not wholly mistaken, at least very inadequate. His mental temper was the very reverse of the dogmatic. Certainly, his religious faith was extraordinarily sure and serene ; but that need not and did not mean that he did not know the imperfection and difficulties of articulated belief. Only, these never tempted him to unbelief or even rationalism. Whatever might be said about faith, he certainly was critical of the neologies and sceptical of the heresies. Rather was he, by any difficulties, the more driven back to the reality behind all inadequacies of expression. I venture to illustrate what thus I have imperfectly indicated. Gladstone, Newman and Rainy — perhaps the three most remarkable men of their day of those who really applied their minds to the matters of 288 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Christian faith — were all in agreement not only as to personal experience of religion but also — if we except certain matters about the Church (and these are not in the Creed) — as to the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. But the intellectual attitude of each of these minds to these doctrines was distinct. Gladstone's mind was essentially and constitutionally orthodox and he was never critical regarding ecclesiastical dogma. Newman's was essentially and constitutionally sceptical, and the Church's authori- tative system was to him less the native home of his mind than its only refuge. Rainy's mind was well content to lodge in Catholic forms of doctrine, but he neither denied the element of imperfection and difficulty in such forms nor was disturbed by it, for this only made him more deeply feel ' how great a thing it is to believe in God.' In the year of his elevation to the principalship, Dr. Rainy published his most important contribu- tion to theological literature — the volume entitled Delivery and Development of Christian Doctrine} This work contained the lectures he had delivered in the previous year on the Cunningham foundation — a lectureship established in memory of the great theo- logian who had been Dr. Rainy's and Dr. Candlish's predecessor in the Principal's chair of the New College. It is full of seed-thoughts and displays both wide and sympathetic knowledge and great independent powers of survey and of judgment. The general conclusion of the book as regards the subject indicated by the title can be stated in a few sentences. The idea of doctrinal ' T. and T. Clark, Ediubuiyh, PRINCIPALSHIP AND LEADERSHIP 289 development had been ventilated not merely in the interests of rationalism, which desired to leave many Bible truths behind, but in the interests also of Romanism which had added to them. The latter view had been notably expounded by Newman — a man in whose positions Dr. Rainy was more than once interested.^ The Cunningham lecturer sees a doctrinal development in the history of the Church, but it is not either a parting from Scripture or an addition to it. The development does not start from the complete apprehension of Scripture — ' that would be a lofty starting-point indeed ' ; it starts onh* from the measure of under- standing whicli was \-ouchsafed to or exercised by the sub- Apostolic Church. The development is the larger and truer understanding of what is in Scripture which at first was apprehended but imperfectly. It is a development up to, rather than away from, the Scripture — an increasing submission to it rather than a superseding of it. Dr. Rainy's definition of Christian doctrine is ' the obedience of my thoughts to the collective Scriptures,' ' and therefore the development of doctrine is further and ' more fruitful obedience.' But, besides its more formal thesis about development, this book deals most suggestiveh' with many aspects of theological interest : even the appended notes are a mine of thought. The last chapter deals with the question of creeds and is of particular significance, in view of events in ^ One of his earliest writings is an article on Xewaian contributed to the North British Review for October 1864. ^ Delivery and Development of Doctrine, p. 1 70, VOL. T. T 290 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY the history of the Free Church and of Dr. Rainy's career to be narrated later. He takes the clearest and most unhesitating attitude on the subject of the revision of creeds by the Church. Such an utterance as this may be quoted as an illustration : — 'The Church has no right to speak except out .oi_ .present and actual convictions. The authority of Revelation is binding, but not that of any past age of the Church's own history. Only those who assert the existence of an infallible earthly authority as interpreter of Scriptures and judge of controversies c^n deny this.' ^ Thus, while no one could appreciate more justly than he did the element of stability and durable identity in Catholic faith and therefore the permanent value of past expressions of it, he fearlessly claims that the confessions belong to the Church and not the Church to the confessions. The following passage recognises both this stability and this freedom : — ' There is a consent which echoes from age to age as well r as from man to man ; and the testimony of the Church is the consent not merely of the Church of one age but also of the Church in sundry ages. It is well to feel this and to make it felt — that believers, with whatever infirmities, drawing from one fountain of knowledge and sitting at the feet of one Teacher, have been learning the same lessons. It is well to make it felt that the truth is not a fashion of our minds, but durable and perennial, and receives the same testimony from men in different times. Therefore we are glad to recognise in the early creeds the hand of God leading the Church to modes of utterance which we can take up and affirm. We rejoice in the harmony of the Reformation Confessions, and we feel no cause to be ashamed of the strength and symmetry of that ' Delivery and DevclopDicnt of Doctrine^ p. 271. PRINCIPALSHIP AND LEADERSHIP 291 which we receive. But, with all this, it must be affirmed unequivocally, that all these exist subject to correction. This concession must not be a mere idle flourish : it must exist in the Church as a living, practical, powerful principle. Loyalty to God's supreme Word requires it. . . . We assert not the right only, but the duty, of the Church and every branch of it, to hold confession and subordinate standards] subject to correction. For as the inspired teaching is before the Church, so the Church is before the Confession. Therefore if a case arise which proves to be not sufficiently providec for in the Confession, we may add to it ; and if we find Scrip- ture so recjuiring, we may abridge or modify it ; or we may take another in its room if we find that likely to be more for edification.' ^ The real interest of Dr. Rainy's Church views is the unequalled courage with which he acted on them. Hundreds of men in Scotland have talked about, for example, church union : Dr. Rainy led his Church to achieve it and paid down an immense price for it. So, hundreds of men talk, with a facile ' breadth,' about creed-revision : Dr. Rainy led his Church to do the thing when occasion seemed to call for it, and to stand by it at any cost. It is this which gives to such a passage as the above something which is more than eloquence. As regards literary form, it may be added, Dr. Rainy's Cunningham Lecture is (except in the matter of creed-revision) very abstract. None of the older Free Churchmen — except Hugh Miller — were stylists, and Dr. Rainy inherited their bad literary tradition. There is a curious nonchalance about much of his writing — except, however, when he was roused. He describes the views in this book as what seem to him 1 Delivery and Development of Doctrine, pp. 274-5. 292 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY * reasonable and coherent ' from his theological stand- point, adding, ' if in addition, they are able to com- mend themselves to any of those who occupy other positions, so much the better.' Dr. Rainy had, in writing, little of the intellectual missionary. One may apply to him Pascal's remark that some men who speak well are indifferent writers, because the place and audience and other circumstances are necessary to kindle their minds and excite them to greater efforts than they could make without such stimulus. But this can be said of the book of Dr. Rainy's I have been quoting (and it is really higher praise than to say of a book that it carries the reader away with literary charm) — it repays a second more than it invites a first perusal. This, with the exception of a small volume on Biblical Criticism which will be mentioned in the next chapter, was Dr. Rainy's only literary production till, towards the very end of his life, he published some of his Class lectures and some sermons. From this time he became more than ever immersed in ecclesiastical business. A Presbyterian Church has no official primacy, but all the circumstances and still more the man himself meant that now Dr. Rainy held not only the most distinguished permanent office in the Church but was also its recognised leader. And Buchanan — the last of those Disruption leaders whom the Duke of Argyll described as ' the best and greatest men I have ever known ' — did not long survive Candlish, dying at Rome in 1875. Thus at the early age of forty-nine, Dr. Rainy had to be his own chief counsellor in a position of great trust and in PRINCIPALSHTP AND LEADERSHIP 293 face of many anxieties. Among those with whom he most frequently conferred may be named Sir Henry Moncreiff, a man of most honourable as well as in- dependent mind ; Dr. Adam, whose marked capabilities in matters of business brought him more and more into service ; and Dr. Wilson, who has been named as Candlish's biographer and was also Sir Henry's colleague in the principal clerkship of the Assembly. Around Dr. Rainy in the Assembly sat a mass of members who were prepared to trust him more than the Free Church had trusted an}^ leader, though, with a considerable section, that confidence was about to receive a shock in the process of the great case which arose over the problem of the Higher Criticism. On the front bench opposite, sat Dr. Begg with, behind him, a soHd party which he controlled as one man. It was numerically not large — for Dr. Begg had lost position except with his extreme supporters over the Patronage question — but, on that very account, it had less responsibility and therefore more danger. A responsible opposition — one that feels and hopes that to-morrow it may be called on to * carry on the government ' — cannot be altogether reckless of consequences in its words and actions; but, as Principal Rainy once remarked to myself when recalling old times, ' Begg knew he never would have to bear the responsibility of guiding the Free Church.' At this time, as has just been said, Dr. Rainy was under fifty. In appearance he had developed into an arresting figure. No one, seeing him, could mistake him for an ordinary man. He had a striking and 294 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY massive head, crowned with an aureole of fair hair. He had a courtly figure with something athletic about it which it retained even into old age. Withal, there was the note of distinction — a thing in a man as un- definable as charm in a woman but also as unmistake- able. Obviously he was born to lead. He never had a very effective voice and had nothing of the manner of the orator. He never used a gesture — unless indeed a raising of the eyebrows or a half-closing of the eyes as he spoke be called such. Yet his speaking came to have an extraordinary influence over the Assembly. This was not merely from its ability. It arose also from a deep moral respect for the man which even those most deeply differing from him could not throw off. Moreover, he gained immense authority in the House because, as its leader, he was invariably so studiously fair to opponents. He often stated their case far better than they themselves had done. He never took an unfair advantage and never lost sight of justice in argument. He was always courteous and always kept his temper. It has been my duty, for the purposes of this biography, to read through' practically all the Blue-books of the proceedings of the General Assembly of the Free Church. One cannot do that without perceiving about this time a distinct and much-to-be desired improvement in the tone and temper of debate. Unquestionably, this was largely due to the example set, even in keen controversial argument, by the leader of the House. The secret of this in Principal Rainy, one may add, was something more and other than natural temperament. Indeed, naturally, he had great gifts of sarcasm and a quick PRINCIPALSHIP AND LEADERSHIP 295 temper. The secret of it was, behind every word and act of his pubhc hfe, a hidden hfe disciphned by the unremitting practice of prayer and purified by the continuous sense of the presence of God. People often remarked about Dr. Rainy a certain restraint in debate. In part at least, it was a self-imposed moral restraint. After his great encounter with Dr. Begg in the Assembly of 1867, he made the resolve he would never permit himself in Church (or any) controversy to give rein to severity of speech ^ ; in all his subsequent public life of almost forty years, he kept that resolve." The world talks about the triumphs of a man's career. It sees only the secondary contests in a life. A man's most profound and significant success or failure is in these hidden issues of character, of which only the angels are spectators and where conscience is the only applause. There are two further remarks which should be made about Principal Rainy's work as leader of the General Assembty. In subsequent pages, I shall narrate, of course, only the more important matters of debate and such as have permanent interest. But these alone give no adequate idea of the immense work Dr. Rainy did in and for the Assembly. He bestowed unsparing pains on the countless cases and appeals and petitions that come before the supreme 1 My authority for this statement is his sister, Miss Christina Rainy. 2 Once, in a scene subsequently to be referred to (vol. ii., p. 246, ?V//>vr\ he really awed the Assembly by vNords of solemn severity ; but tven then the restraint was what added to the tiemendous tffect of it. As to sarcasm he never once indulged in it ; though he said of a vell-kn(wn man in another Church who made it a fine art, 'it is really so easy to be sarcastic' 296 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY court of the Church year by year and, even though not always intervening in the discussion, watched with a vigilant eye lest any mistake should be made. What- ever view ma}^ be taken of the large issues of Dr. Rainy's policy on public questions in the Assembly, about which, of course, men of differing opinions differ, there can be no question that he was the most careful and successful leader of the House in the daily routine of its business that the Church ever had, at least since Principal Robertson. Under him — apart, as I say, from questions of public policy about which opinions differ — the Assembly made practically no mistakes, and never had to retract any decision. The other matter that should be mentioned is that, while these pages must largely discuss matters of ecclesiastical business, nothing could be more untrue than to think of Principal Rainy as absorbed in these to the neglect of interest in the more directl}^ spiritual work either of the Assembly or the Church at large. Never was a less secularly- minded leader. And the Assembly knew this. Members listened to him with agreement and applause when he debated some burning question ; but they listened with deeper attention and a quite unique reverence when he touched, with that moving thrill of his voice, on some purely spiritual note, and, most of all, when it fell to him to give the brief address at the celebration of Communion during the session of the Assembly. These things — and particularly the latter — should be borne in mind by the reader through many a subsequent page. I have said that Dr. Rainy was one who not only PRINCIPALSHIP AND LEADERSHIP 297 spoke words about union but achieved it. The first important achievement of the Free Church after he became leader of the Assembly was an act of union. It will be remembered that in the prolonged Union controversy, negotiations had been entered into not only with the United Presbyterians but also with the Reformed Presbyterians. The latter were a small communion, but one with a peculiarly honourable history. They were the Church of martyrs and covenanters who had declined to enter the Church of Scotland at the Revolution Settlement, but even then appealed to the ' first free, faithful and rightly con- stituted Assembly in the Church.' What had thwarted the Union proposals in 1873 was, as we know, objections on the part of the Free Church minorit}' to the position of the United Presbyterians ; but there was no difficulty about the Reformed Presby- terian Church. After the passing of the Act of Mutual Eligibility (which applied to all the three denomina- tions concerned in the negotiations) it was obvious that the small Church must soon unite with one or other of the larger ones. Both of these larger Churches intimated their readiness to receive any communi- cation from it. The Reformed Presbyterian Synod of 1875 decided to enter into negotiations with the Free Church. The Free Church Assembly of 1875, on the motion of Principal Rainy, passed and sent down to Presbyteries an overture approving of union with the Reformed Presb3'terian Church. This practically settled the question, and at the following Assembly of 1876, the Union was consummated. The Blue Banner of the Covenant floated from the 298 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY towers of the New College (which is part of the Assembly buildings) as the Church of the Covenant — one minister alone dissenting — united with the Church of the Disruption. It is of some historical importance to notice that this was not a case merely of absorption. It was a hona-fide union — the larger Church united with the smaller as much as vice versa — though it was agreed to retain, for the United Church, the name of the Free Church of Scotland.^ Man}^ speeches were, of course, made on this auspicious occasion. I content myself with one extract from Principal Rainy's. Speaking of how various branches of the Scottish Church had undertaken their various responsibilities for the nation, he said : — ' May our Church inherit and apply the lesson. May we never shrivel into the dimensions of a sect that lives only for itself. Let us care for our Scottish people. Let us care for them — not as if we alone had to care for them : thank God, no ! There is noble Church life in Scotland to divide with us the work and the toil and the responsibility ; but as far eis our part can go, let us seek to face every danger and burden and complication that weighs upon the life and heart and hopes of our whole people. Let us care for our people, and in that same spirit let us have our hearts opened to care for the whole race, which lies open to us as it did not to our fathers. We miss sometimes, as we look back to our fathers, the modern missionary spirit. They lived — circumstances suggested to them that it was enough for them to live — for their people in those hard times ; but I have sometimes thought that the very genius and courage of the missionary spirit is in that old Church in its resolute determination to pervade the life of a hard, rugged, stubborn nation with Christ's truth in Christ's ' Thus the Churcli summoned to the bar of the House of Lords in 1904 was not really the Church of 1843, but ihe Church (bearing the same name but a new combination) of 1876. PRINCIPALSHIP AND LEADERSHIP 299 name. Moderator, in coming together in this way, I cannot but be reminded that we are in an age of Presbyterian re- unions ; we are now surrounded by them on every side ; every Assembly seems to bring us news of some. And, at last, in our owti Assembly we are completing this one. I am quite sure I have the unanimous feehng of the House with me when I say that we have all oftentimes expressed an earnest desire for the union of all genuine evangelical Scottish Presbyterianism. We need it and Scotland needs it. There are some efforts that have been made that have not succeeded. Well, then, when our efforts have not succeeded — I include in that term whatever any of us have done, without distinction, according to our several lights — I say, when all is done, there remains God's providence and God's grace. There is a feeling of desire in this matter wdth many of us that grows almost to pain ; but I, for one, felt to-day as if a voice were saying to me, " Be still and wait on the providence and on the grace of God." ' One who heard this speech tells me he still hears the thrill of Dr. Rainy 's tones in the words ' care for our Scottish people.' That note of affectionate pat- riotism is in all the greatest Scottish Churchmen — in Knox's 'Give me Scotland or I die,' in Chalmers's ' Who cares for the Free Church in comparison with the Christian good of Scotland ? ' In that yearn- ing alike to care for the nation and also to build the broken walls of the Church, spoke the real man in Dr. Rainy, who, at this very time, owing to his attitude on Disestablishment, was being assailed with every shaft of bitterness as a scheming sectarian and a fomenter of discord and disunion. Before we pass from this happy and harmonious union — the anti-unionists of former days entered into it as cordially as did the majority in the old con- troversy — one nmst add this. In a sense this union 300 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAI> RAINY bore hardly on the United Presbyterian Church. Yet nothing could exceed the magnanimity of her attitude towards the event. A deputation from the United Presbyterian Sjmod came with con- gratulations to the Assembly on the da}^ of the Union, and, along with other speakers, Dr. Cairns made one of his noble, large-hearted speeches. Re- ferring to the thwarted negotiations for union with his own Church, he quoted ' 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all,' and closed with a prophecy of union yet to come which stirred the vast gathering to extraordinary enthusiasm. This union was a notable public event. Yet, if one surveying the Free Church of Scotland at that time could have been gifted with the eyes of a seer, what would have most keenly arrested one's gaze would have been not the Assembly Hall with its crowded benches, but a small room in a street in Aberdeen where, surrounded by volumes of medi- aeval, oriental, and modern learning, a young pro- fessor, pale with too constant study, was steeping his mind in the latest criticism of the Old Testament Scriptures, and from which, within a year, he was to come forth and startle the whole Church into facing one of the greatest of modern questions. We are now within touch of the momentous struggle over the case of William Robertson Smith, but this of course demands full treatment in other chapters. PRTNCTPAT.SHIP AND LEADERSHIP 301 A matter of a different kind may be mentioned at this place, for it reveals the authoritatiYe position to which Principal Rainy had attained, not only in his own Church, but also in public national life. In October 1878, one of the greatest commercial disasters which ever befell this country took place by the failure of the City of Glasgow Bank. It was a calamity that could not stand alone, and in the days following, failure after failure was announced. The distress brought upon the unfortunate share- holders was so great that a relief fund was opened by the Lord Provost of Glasgow, and within a short period over £400,000 was subscribed. But another proposal was made to help the sufferers and met with considerable support. A gigantic lottery of some six millions sterling was mooted, of which half was to consist of prizes to attract subscribers, each one of whom would have the chance of winning ;f 100,000. No one seemed, in the distressing circumstances, to make a very public stand in the matter, and it was per- severingly pushed in various quarters. So brave a man as Dr. Walter Smith wrote of it that he feared ' nothing we can do can prevent this wretched business,' and that 'in Glasgow they seem to catch at it as the one resort.' Suddenty Principal Rainy raised his voice. On 13th December the following letter appeared over his name in the Scottish press : — ' Sir, — There is, I trust, little serious danger that the project of a lottery suggested in connection with the City of Glasgow Bank will ever be more than a project. If there were, I have no doubt that an energetic manifestation against it would be 302 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY made. But the fact that it is so far entertained as to be mentioned day after day with some degree of favour seems to me to call for plain speaking. ' Lotteries have been prohibited in this country because they operate by evoking the disposition to gamble. Taking part in them has been regarded — rightly regarded — as an immoral way of using money and aiming at gain. Hence it is that the habits which lotteries encourage are injurious to the mental health of societ}^ and to honest industry. ' Methods approaching to lotteries have, no doubt, been partially connived at in some cases. The reason for this tolerated exception (whether or not a sufficient reason is another question) no doubt is that in such cases there is no appreciable or serious appeal to the gambhng spirit. For example, the method commonly adopted by art unions is a manner of distributing pictures which it might be difficult to allot in any other way. * In the case now in question, on the contrary, success is to be achieved by holding out large money prizes — some, doubt- less, of thousands of pounds — and by awakening the gambhng spirit as widely as possible over the whole country so as to get, say, six millions of tickets taken up. Also the generous and sympathetic feehngs would be diligently appealed to at the same time and made to lend their sanction to back the lottery. ' If this succeeds, or in the measure in which it succeeds, a precedent would be set which would be irresistible. Every important " good object " would be entitled to follow suit. And once introduced by the " good object," the system would not be, and it ought not to be, confined to it. It ought in that case to be open to every object. ' The causes of the downfall of the City of Glasgow Bank are very plain. Does not a lottery appeal to the very same passions and follies which have produced the ruin ? Does not the success of such a lottery mean very considerable success in promoting those passions and follies in the com- munity ? I feel assured, therefore, that any practical attempt to carry out the project will at once call out a perfectly resolute opposition on the part of many who will feel bound in con- science to take every legitimate means of preventing the evil. PRINCIPALSHIP AND LEADERSHIP 303 ' I cannot close \^dthout saying that, sharing as I do in the general distress we all feel on account of the unmerited and over- whelming calamity which has descended on the shareholders, I feel the deepest sympathy with the anxiety which exists to devise some means of extrication. It will be an unspeakable blessing if any of the schemes prove practicable and efficacious. No doubt the scheme to which I have felt it incumbent to object springs from an intense desire to give help to the share- holders and to exhaust every possible device for that end. I honour the motive, but that constitutes the danger. And if there is any truth in the reports which connect some very honoured names with the proposal, it may become the more imperative to speak out on the subject.' It reveals the moral position which Principal Rain}- occupied in the country that this pronouncement — written by one not in the Established Church, and one whose public policy had gained for him hosts of bitter opponents — simply ended the proposal of the lottery. Of course it brought down on its writer's head a good deal of abuse ; in his correspondence I find a number of letters of violent and angry denun- ciation, which, however, it is not worth while to quote. But the scheme was dropped. Three things may be noted in connection with this letter. One is that Principal Rainy did not confine his action in this matter of the Bank crisis to what is negative ; among his correspondence are long letters to eminent laymen, not confined to Free Churchmen,^ discussing means of relief. The second is that he was strictly consistent on the sub- ject of lotteries and gave up patronising bazaars 1 Such as T. G. Murray, W.S. (an honoured elder of the Established Church), Duncan M'Laren, M.P., and Professor W. B. Hodgson of the University. The last named expresses great admiration of Dr. Rainy's action in this matter. 304 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY where raffles were permitted. The third is that the reference in the last clause of his letter to the reported countenance of the proposal by ' very hon- oured names ' includes Iviiowledge that some of the wealthiest and most liberal Free Churchmen of the West of Scotland supported the idea, and therefore Dr. Rainy' s letter shows his characteristic disregard of a worldly consideration about money in any matter where principle seemed to be at stake. The whole performance was alike a striking personal inter- vention which no one but a man with both moral and public authority could have made successfully, and also an interesting contribution to national ethics from one daily proclaimed by many defenders of establishment to be the arch-destroyer of national religion. Principal Rainy was now at the maturity of his powers — head of his College, leader of the Assembly, and, as we have just seen, a guide, when occasion called, of the nation's conscience. These powers were about to be taxed to the uttermost in the situation which arose in the Church in the year 1876 and which has already been foreshadowed. We come now to what — except for the great legal catastrophe towards the end of his life — was the most critical and trying phase of Principal Rainy 's career and what, without even that exception, is the phase which forms the most delicate and difficult section of this biography. In the very month in whicli the Robertson Smith case formally opened, a great change took place in Dr. Rainy's domestic life which may be recorded before we phmj^e into a long story. His aged father PRINCIPALSHIP AND LELADERSHIP 305 passed away. The venerable ' Dr. Harry ' — in his old age, a picturesque and familiar figure in the streets of Glasgow with his Highland plaid, his snow-white hair and his furrowed face — died loved and honoured. In his last years he had a beautiful gentleness of spirit, and, regarding this, Principal Rainy, in one of his delightful hours of reminiscence, told me an incident which, though it has a sacred privac}- about it, I shall venture to repeat. Old Professor Rainy had one night a strange dream. He dreamt that he was holding converse with some August Personage and gradually it became clear that This was none other than the Holy Spirit of God. The Divine Spirit seemed to be speaking of the means which would make His human auditor a holy man. God had used mercy and also discipline and yet it all had been insufficient. ' The only thing,' so the Transcendent Speaker seemed to say, ' is that you should be brought to realise more deeply how much God loves you.' And from that time — ' you may make of it what you will,' said the Principal — his father had a peace and joy he never had before. The old doctor was laid at rest beside his wife whose grave he had visited, till his strength began to fail, every week since her death twenty-five years earlier. So ' true and tender is the North.* VOL. T. U CHAPTER XII THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE THE brunt of both the Scottish ecclesiastical struggles of the nineteenth century which were also issues of vital interest for the Christian Church generally had to be borne by the Free Church. There were, of course, many other questions affecting the life and thought and organisation of the Scottish Church during that time, but even the more important of these — questions about liturgies or music, about the Confess'on of Faith, about Disestablishment or Union — were provincial and not catholic. The two matters of catholic concern were that of the spiritual freedom of the Church of Christ and that of the new or * higher ' criticism of the Bible. The Free Church of Scotland was the battle-ground of both of these questions, and in facing them, she was standing for interests far beyond her own borders. How she faced the former of these problems we have already seen in the story of the Disruption ; and, in the closing chapters of this biography, we shall find her called out again to the same struggle. In this and the next chapter, we have to trace how the Free Church was struck by the great tidal wave of criticism which, in the beginning of the fourth quarter of last century, broke upon her and how she came through -the flood, 306 THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 807 though not without a tragic loss. It was an honour which God conferred upon the Free Church of Scotland when He called on her to bear the brunt of these great issues for the Church at large. The raising of the critical question within so orthodox and evangelical a communion as the Free Church of Scotland produced a singularly interesting situation. In other countries where the higher criticism had as- serted itself — in Germany under Wellhausen and others, or in Holland under Kuenen — the Churches were largely permeated by what is vaguely called rationalism. The Free Church not onl}^ had practically nothing of this, but in certain sections was tempted to thank God that, she was not as other Churches in this respect. For a unanimously orthodox and pronouncedly evangelical Church to find the critical views commonly associated with rationalistic Churches in her very bosom was a startling experience producing, as I have said, an interesting situation. The answer of merely rationalistic learning might be assumed : so might the answer of merely orthodox ignorance. The answer of a Church rooted in evangelical faith and yet influ- enced by scientific scholarship — and the Free Church was certainly the most scholarly Church in Scotland — ^was of unique value. Not less interesting were the circumstances of the rise of the question and the man who raised it. William Robertson Smith represented this combination of evan- gelical faith and scientific scholarship almost ideally. He inherited it from his father. The father was a self-made man, who in boyhood had had to learn a trade to support himself ; but he used every spare 308 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY moment in reading, went up to Aberdeen and won a bursary, became a teacher, then the rector of an important higher school in Aberdeen, and developed into one of the truest and most accurate scholars Scotland has known. But that is only one side of his story. While he was rector, comfortably settled and with an almost certain prospect of a professorship, the great evangelical movement of the Disruption took place. Men of the right stamp were needed especially in the country districts of Aberdeenshire ; and the rector, with his like-minded wife, threw up his prospects and settled as minister of the Free Church of Keig, where they spent thirty-five years in faithful, unnoticed work. There he both preached the Gospel and fanned the inteUigence of the people. From all accounts, it was a remarkable parish, and stories are told of how men at the plough used to wrestle with problems of philosophy and mathematics. The man who introduced the higher criticism into the Free Church was a son of this manse of Keig. William Robertson Smith was a phenomenon. He was never sent to school : his father and his own insatiable love of study were his teachers. At fourteen he went to Aberdeen University and at once took the fore- most place in the bursary competition. During the following three sessions he carried off nearly all the medals. He was taken ill at the time of his degree examination, but the degree was given him honoris causa. After his graduation, the professor of Mathe- matics sent for him and suggested his going to Cambridge. Smith replied he was going into the niiiiistry : the professor said nothing, but Smith THE KOBERTSON SMITH CASE 309 reported that ' he looked at me as if I was a fool.' He went to the New College, Edinburgh, to study under A. B. Davidson, and also studied abroad under men such as Lotze in philosophy and Ritschl in theology. In Edinburgh, P. G. Tait, the eminent professor of Natural Philosoph}^ in the University, made him his assistant, and both Tait and Sir William Thomson (subsequently Lord Kelvin) put renewed pressure on him to go to Cambridge and devote his life to mathematical and scientific scholarship. But Smith's loyalty to the service of his Church never swerved. The Church recognised this and did an unprecedented thing. In 1870, the chair of Hebrew and Old Testament Criticism in the Free Church College of Aberdeen became vacant. Though Smith was only twenty-four, and had only completed his course as a theological student in the March of that year, in May the Assembly appointed him to the professor- ship. I have the best authority for stating that no one did more to advocate this appointment than Dr. Rainy. Some of the older leaders — notably Dr. Buchanan — preferred the election of a man with tried experience in Church work ; but Dr. Rainy, foreseeing that critical questions were soon to arise, made much of the importance of securing a man young enough to be in the current of their most modern phases and yet so pronouncedly of evangelical conviction as Smith was. That the end of a story thus begun should be that this son of such a manse, this brilHant scholar and believing man and loyal Churchman should, at the hands of this same Dr. Rainy, be driven from his chair is a tragedy which one can hardly force the pen to tell. 310 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY For seven years, Professor Smith pursued his collegiate work in Aberdeen quietly and happily. He was thoroughly at home in a post where he could at once serve the Church to which he had been so loj^al and also have full opportunity to gratify his insatiable love of learning. During these years he continued his studies abroad, mastering Arabic at Gottingen under Lagarde, who soon told him he had nothing more to teach him. At Gottingen he also met Well- hausen, recently appointed professor of Theolog}', and the acquaintance between the two rapidly ripened into friendship. It was with natural gratification that the Free Church heard that her brilliant young professor had been commissioned to write the Biblical articles in the new — the ninth — edition of the Encyclo- pcBdia Britannica. The gratification was unmixed with any kind of concern. His first article was entitled * Angel.' The frank attitude of the writer on the subject of the personahty (or rather the non-personality) of angels evoked com- ment ; but the issues raised were not very vital and little trouble would have arisen over this. But the next contribution was on the subject of the ' Bible ' itself. The article, it was at once apparent, not only was written entirely from the point of view of the higher criticism, but accepted some of its most advanced conclusions, notably — in part at least and within certain limits — the Graf-Wellhausen theory of the documents of the Pentateuch. By the point of view of the higher criticism is meant the regarding the scriptural narratives as a fusion of several accounts of various dates edited by some later hand. By the THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 311 Graf-Wellhausen theory of the Pentateuch is meant the view of the dates and origins of its various docu- ments, which maintains that the Mosaic legislation was first promulgated, if not actually composed, in the times near to or after the exile and put into Moses' mouth, not in any fraudulent way, but in accord with a recognised literary device. Into the critical argu- ments by which these and similar views were sup- ported, I am not called here to enter. The general result was of course an entire revolution in the con- ception of the historical development of the Old Testament. Along with this were views about the non-Davidic authorship of all but one or two of the Psalms, the elimination of the greater part of the predictive element in the prophets, and the ascription of the Synoptic Gospels not to the evangelists whose names they bear but to later non-apostolic tradition. Subsequent articles on * Canticles,' ' Chronicles ' and * David ' were written from the same critical point of view and contained similar conclusions. It is almost impossible for persons in the present day, which has become familiarised with this higher criticism and has so far adjusted it to faith, to realise the shock with which the mass of the Free Church read all this from one of her own accredited teachers. It was absolutely new. Traditional views as to the history, the authorship and even the verbal inerrancy of the Bible had remained unchallenged in the Scottish Church since the Reformation. The great ecclesi- astical struggles of Scotland had not raised these questions at all. So much was this the case that it may justly be said it would have been a bad sign in the 312 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HAINY Scottish Church if such articles as those indicated above had not raised anxiety. That would have meant that the Church held her views about the Bible lightly and without real conviction. These new views were not less than a revolution, and if a Church accepted them readily, that would mean a ver}^ easy letting go of what she had held. Moreover, it is not difficult to perceive how natural and in- evitable was the feeling that this criticism affected the very roots of religious life in a Protestant and evangelical Church. To a Romanist, the Bible is a repository of dogmas which are to be believed on the authority of the Church. But to the evan- gelical Protestant, the Bible is a great means of inter- course with the living Spirit of God. And what had characterised the attitude of Protestant piety towards this ' means of grace ' — and nowhere more deeply than in Scotland — was a profound and familiar con- fidence. Here was a known and assured and un- disturbed home of faith and devotion. Now what criticism seemed to do was to bring confusion and change into this. Questioning the histor}/ or disputing the authorships or dissecting the narratives, it brought an element of uncertainty into what had seemed the sure refuge of the believing soul. It was — if one may so put it — as if the piety of the Church had habitually been meeting with its Divine Friend in confidence and comfort within some familiar house ; but one day found the place invaded by architects and builders who were partly demolishing it, wholly rearranging it and making it seem new and strange in every room. Even though they asserted that THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 313 these changes were merely external and that the One formerly met with there was still there, still the whole genius loci seemed affected by the new condi- tions. It was somewhat in this way that the piety of much of the Scottish Church felt when this criticism burst upon her. Most naturalty, and I will add most properly, concern and anxiety and perturba- tion arose. The religious intelligence of to-day is able to see its way through the perplexities that troubled a past generation in this ; but that is largely because of the education on the subject which the prolonged discussion of this very Robert- son Smith case effected. It were utterly to fail both in historical imagination and in religious sympathy not to realise how, more than thirty years ago, when this criticism first broke on the Church, there could not but arise something of a panic of consternation and a storm of controversy. The only one who was surprised at this was the man who had occasioned it. If the Church was amxazed by the publication of Professor Smith's views, Professor Smith was amazed by the storm their pub- lication created. When a friend — Dr. Whyte of St. George's — remarked to him there would be trouble over the articles, he replied 'You don't say so.' This was not due merely to ir\,considerateness as to the susceptibilities of the ordinary Christian mind, although it must be said that Professor Smith had that too. But there was in his nature — ^it was the good side of what, on its bad side, became incon- siderateness — a remarkable intellectual simplicity. William Robertson Smith had the passion of the lover 314 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY for truth. You could see it in that pale face with its sensitive, indeed petulant, mouth, and its large, bright, eager eyes. And he assumed that his Church shared that love. He believed in his Church pro- foundly. We have seen how loyally he had chosen her service. He believed that the Free Church of Scotland was a true depository of God's evangel, and he honoured her for the courage with which she had followed God's leading into new ways of duty at the Disruption. He never doubted she would be equally ready to learn new ways of truth as these seemed to be discovered. This does not mean that Professor Smith assumed that the Church would at once agree with his views. But what surprised him was that they should provoke resent- ment, charges of heresy, proposals of proscription. If the Church was taken by surprise by. Professor Smith's views because they seemed to shake her faith in the Bible, not less was Professor Smith taken by surprise by the way they were received, because it seemed to shake his faith in the Church as a body ready to consider any new light on truth as much as so heroically she had done on duty. This feature of Professor Smith's mind has not been sufficiently appreciated beyond his own circle of friends. That undoubted inconsiderateness of temper to which I alluded, and of which I shall have to say more pre- sently, prevented many people from doing justice to it. It was one of the purest and most interesting qualities of his mental character. Unfortunately, the steps by which the discussion of these articles developed into a 'heresy hunt* THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 315 tended to confirm in Professor Smith's mind the idea that any agitation against him could be discounted and despised. A heresy case usually begins with violent and anonymous letters and articles rather than by judicial action, and it was so in this case.^ Then, the first to take ecclesiastical action was Dr. Begg. He meant to raise the question — so I find in a letter to Principal Rainy from the professor of Natural Science in the New College, Dr. Duns — ^in the Assembly of 1876, and as a matter of fact did so in the Commission of Assembly in the fol- lowing August. It became at once apparent that there was a far wider feeling in the matter than was represented by anonymous pamphleteers or followers of Dr. Begg. At the Commission of Assembly in November 1876, a motion was made to call a special Commission to discuss the case, which was not pressed only inasmuch as the College Committee intimated that they were preparing a careful report. The College Committee exercise a certain authority over professors and, in particular, can institute a process in cases of alleged heresy or immorality. This committee — of which Principal Rainy was a member — discussed the question at great length among themselves and also communi- cated with Professor Smith. Their report was given in March to the Commission. The report came to 1 The agitation began with an article in the Courant of 15th April 1876, entitled 'The New Encyclopcsdia Britattnica on Theology,' which specially animadverted on Professor Smith's contributions. The writer of the article was believed and repeatedly stated to be a leading minister of the Estab- lished Church. This was said publicly and not (to my knowledge) denied, so there is no injustice in recalling it ; but I have no proof on the subject. 316 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY the important conclusion that * the Committee have not found in the article ' — that is, the article ' Bible,' for the others were passed from — ' any ground sufficient to support a process for heresy against Professor Smith,' but it went on to discuss the article somewhat generally and declared it ' of a dangerous and unsettling tendency/ The Commission resolved to call the attention of the Presbytery of Aberdeen — Professor Smith's imme- diate ecclesiastical superior — to the subject. Mean- while there had been clearly revealed a very powerful party against the new views. Sir Henry Moncreiff was quite as strong, though naturally not so violent, as Dr. Begg ; eminent and honoured missionaries such as Dr. Duff and Dr. Murray Mitchell were almost fierce ; and another school was represented by Dr. Moody Stuart — a man held in great veneration in certain circles in the Church for spiritual authority — who was unqualified in his condemnations. At the Commission, Principal Rainy made a notable speech. He laid it down emphatically that they could not have a heresy libel ; ' to the very last he would refuse the idea of making such questions rank as confessionally settled.' He did not regard the Mosaic authorship of the Penta- teuch as matter of faith and he did not believe — this was in reply to Dr. Moody Stuart, who claimed our Lord's imprimatur to that view — that Jesus Christ and the Apostles * ever said anything on that subject.' He deprecated the impression that 'a great crisis had arisen ' and viewed the matter as THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 317 * providential,' one benefit of which would be ' to improve the education of their minds and the minds of their people in reference to this whole class of subjects.' All this was wise and liberal speaking. But Principal Rainy's speech had another note before he sat down. Not only did he recognise with great sympathy the ' bewilderment, anxiet}' and apprehension ' which these views caused, but he went on to lay down a position which, in view of the subsequent development of the case, should be recorded. Dr. Begg had said that, even though they did not deprive Professor Smith of his minis- terial status, they might come to the conclusion that he should not continue to be entrusted with the teaching of their students. The statement was received with mingled applause and dissent. Principal Rainy, amid a perfect silence, referred to it and homologated it. After saying there could not be a libel for heres}^ over questions of criticism, he went on : — ' If, however, they were of opinion that the views expressed were unsafe, erroneous and perilous, he was altogether with Dr. Begg with regard to the right possessed by the Church in questions of that kind. He held that the Church had capacity to look into the question whether a minister, against whom she was not prepared to lay a libel for heresy, was, as to the general character of his teaching, so teaching that the Church should be called on to continue her confiden:.^ in him in that position.' I No opinion need be expressed at this stage as to the justifiableness of this doctrine ; but it is remarkable that what, as a matter of fact — to anticipate the story — did happen in this very case of Professor 318 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Smith should be so clearly laid down by Principal Rainy in his first utterance on the subject. Some light, however, is cast on Dr. Rainy's hint re- garding this possibihty, from Professor Smith's attitude during this time. Aheady it was becoming apparent that, apart from any difficulties about his views, Professor Smith himself was likely to be something of a difficulty. His purity alike of intellectual motive, of moral character and of Christian faith was un- questioned. But along with these admirable individual qualities and along with, in addition, his real personal loyalty to his Church, Professor Smith evinced a curious inability to realise the question which had been raised by his articles as anything else than, on the one hand, a question of scholarship as to whether his views could be substantiated in argument, and, on the other, a question of law as to whether they contra- dicted the terms of the Confession of Faith. He had very little of the further sense of what is required, even in the statement of truth as well as the direction of conduct, to the Christian society, as at least St. Paul would conceive of it. When a Corinthian Christian said to St. Paul that he was going to take meats offered to idols because ' an idol is nothing,' the Apostle — so to speak — ^looked at him, as if wondering if the man thought a mere abstract principle like tlmt settled a question in the brotherhood of the Church. Professor Smith's whole mental temper was apt to think that the fact that his ' opponents ' could neither disprove his views nor show that the}^ were heresy ended the question. Now, in at least this respect, Principal Rainy was the Pauline Churchman out THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 819 and out. The clash between these two remarkably able, very tenacious and utterly different types of mind, was as interesting as it was, in the end, tragic. Some extracts from the correspondence at the beginning of the case will illustrate this. Even during the Assembly of 1876, Principal Rainy — knowing that Dr. Begg and others were preparing an agitation — had an interview with Professor Smith along with Professor Candlish. Professor Smith, in a letter to his father, dated 29th May, describes the meeting thus : — ' I had rather a difficult task yesterday. Rainy evidently thinks that I have been rash and therefore culpable, and after a great deal of beating about the bush suggested that I might write a letter to the College Committee affirming my sound- ness in the faith and my regret at having given so much un- easiness, etc. etc. He thought I might go so far as to say that under the circumstances I was ready to reconsider my position both as to matter and manner. I of course declined to do any such thing — both because I did not recognise any adequate ground for a reconsideration which should be more than a form of words, and because I thought it would be a very bad precedent to begin explaining and apologising before m}'' opponents had in any definite way brought forward their objections. Rainy was not pleased and appealed to Candlish who, much to his mortification, thought that it should simply be reported to the College Committee that there was no ground for suspicion or inquiry. This practically ended the matter. I closed by saying to Rainy that it seemed to me to be the duty of the College Committee to demand a definite accusa- tion from accusers and not at once to act on any vague com- plaint. To this he could say nothing.' Of course the above is Professor Smith's impression of an interview of which we have not Principal Rainy's report. It is certain, however, that Professor 320 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Candlish urged upon Professor Smith — whose staunch friend he was all though the case — to make some statement, and Principal Rainy, a week later, wrote still urging this, now apparently with Candlish' s concurrence : — * 'jth June 1876. ' My dear Smith, — Two days ago or three I came back from England, and in the meantime I have thought a good deal over our recent conversation. It seems to me that you ought to respond in writing to such a letter as CandUsh's, and that you ought to do so in the way of stating frankly, and rather as one who is glad to do so, what you were prepared to say to us as private friends. ' You are bound, I think, to assume that the College Com- mittee would not have acted at all unless they had been satis- fied that a kind and amount of feeling existed and existed in quarters which a professor of Theology ought not to disregard. On the other hand, they have taken care to avoid involving you needlessly. They have taken no formal steps and made no minutes. They have given you this opportunity of availing yourself of the information they could give you in any way you think fit. Ought you not to take the opportunity^ ? Whatever comes of it, can such a statement fail to improve your position ? ' Reading your article over again I must say that I do not wonder at its occasioning grave question. I know the regard you bear to the great ends for which the Bible exists. But I cannot wonder that men miss the recognition of these, not merely in the scheme of contents in the article but even as an element making itself felt, as influencing the formation and statement of opinion. I think you owe it to 3'ourself to remedy this construction of which the occasions are so palpable.' Professor Smith's response to these appeals from Principal Rainy and even Professor Candlish was a strange one. An anonymous pamphlet — virulent and TFIE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 321 ignorant — appeared about this time against him, and Professor Smith repUed to the Principal's letter thus : — ' My dear Principal, — I think your object will be attained by a letter which I have addressed to the Daily Review on the subject of the anonymous pamphlet against me. I prefer a public reply meeting a formulated charge to private state- ments anticipating an attack which has not yet been brought before me, or even before the College Committee.' This letter to the Daily Review not only was able, but contained valuable positive statements of Professor Smith's faith ; but it was also sharply polemical, trouncing his opponent's ' weakness in scholarship,' ' theological acrimony,' ' slanders ' and so on. It was shown to Dr. Rainy in proof by Dr. Whyte. The Principal greatly deprecated the way of doing the thing as neither ' dignified for a Professor ' nor suitable for the situation. He wrote of it to Dr. Whyte : — ' It is clever and effective to take hold of an unscrupulous and unfair critic, put him in the wrong and take up the atti- tude of one contending with ignorance and virulence. But there is the tacit implication in it that only ignorance and viru- lence have had anything to say against him and that therefore he has no call to address himself to anything but ignorance and virulence. I do not think that a wise or a becoming assumption.' He still hoped that something of a different tenor would be given to him and Professor Candlish to read to the College Committee. Dr. Whyte urged Professor Smith to give all consideration to the Principal's view ; adding, ' Do, m}^ dear Smith, all 3'ou can.' Professor Smith's reply to Dr. Whyte was that he had ' already VOL. L X 322 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY telegraphed that I wish my letter published and that at once,' adding : — ' If the Committee inquire into my teaching on any point, I will try to satisfy them, but I refused, with Candlish's con- sent, at the inter\dew you know of, to go further and make any general acknowledgment that I have perhaps gone too far and am ready to reconsider my position. I am much surprised that Rainy should now return to the charge. He does not, so far as I can see, allow any weight to a conscien- tious persuasion that certain views are true.' The letter to the Daily Review thus appeared, of course provoking controversy. And, started on this line. Professor Smith could not stop at anonymous opponents. He sent to the press an unsparing criticism of Dr. Moody Stuart, speaking of his * rash- ness,' telling him to ' consult a commentary,' writing of him as ' seeming to recognise as probable what those who read their Bible in Hebrew knew to be certain,' and so on. This, of course, was stirring the fire. It was precisely the kind of thing which, from Professor Smith's point of view, was irresistible and, from Principal Rainy's, deplorable. At length, Professor Smith did send a statement — in many respects an admirable statement — to the College Committee. This was all but withheld at the last moment, for I find Dr. Laughton — the Con- vener of the Committee, a scholarly and high-minded man — writing to Dr. Rainy in distress that he had received a telegram from Professor Smith about some meeting Dr. Begg and Dr. Moody Stuart had called and demanding a ' positive pledge that no member THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 323 of Committee will have to do with the meeting.' Professor Smith also wrote in some heat to Principal Rainy about ' these meddlers ' and even telegraphed to him to protect him from Dr. Thomas Smith — a member of Dr. Begg's party, but personally an amiable man, who had charged him with * unveracity.' Of Professor Smith's paper of explanation to the College Committee, Principal Rainy wrote thus to Professor Candlish on 7th November : — ' In many respects it will operate in a reassuring way. The temper is good and there are statements of positive belief that will be much welcomed. * Still, I think Smith's original article has created, naturally, such an impression of one-sided rashness that no mere indica- tion of its conclusions, however temperately done, will now meet the necessities of the case. I think he must show in some pretty distinct and emphatic way a disposition to be considerate, to weigh well the ground he is to occupy as an instructor, and to pay regard, though of course it cannot be an unlimited regard, to the impressions of his brethren as to the tendency of his views and the dangers that may attend them. ' For this reason, I still feel that he may and ought to intro- duce something further. He cannot retract his views. He cannot probably say with truth that he feels disposed to do so. But could he not say something to the effect — viz., that, on the grounds he states, he regards the theory he has advanced as compatible with the doctrine of our confession, and not so objectionable in point of tendency as the Committee seems to apprehend ; still, he feels the importance of the trust committed to a professor, and that, if it should appear to be the minds of fathers and brethren that, on such a topic as his theory of Deuteronomy, the views advanced by him were likely to unsettle the minds and endanger the faith of students, that certainly would be regarded by him as a reason for taking the subject fresh into consideration with reference to its bearing on the Christian faith about the Scripture, which is 324 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY as dear to him as it is to them. He might add that while he wilHngly goes that length, he can go no further. ' This would not pledge him to any change of view that he did not come to see sufficient ground for. What it might be held as pledging him to would be that, besides keeping his mind open to fresh light on the question, he would be more considerate as to the effect likely to be produced on other minds by the advancing of critical theories in a confident and peremptory manner. ' Think of this.' Unquestionably this proposal was seriously discussed among Professor Smith's friends. From this discus- sion sprang an interesting result. One of the circle of Professor Smith's friends already named, Dr. Whyte of St. George's — desirous, as we have already seen, to ease the situation — pointed out to Principal Rainy that a suitable letter might be difficult to write ; would not Dr. Rainy indicate what he thought its tenor ought to be ? The result was the following interesting and remarkable document in which the Principal actually writes out a letter such as Professor Smith might send. He prefaces it thus : — ' Dear Whyte, — The enclosed, written at speed, is what I could imagine myself writing to Candlish if I had been the author of the article, with the views I suppose Sinith to have. I must observe to you that, considering the various positions in which I may conceivably be in this matter, it will not do for this paper to be used as mine or forwarded in my hand- writing to any one. It is a suggestion to be used as you may think fit.' So curious and remarkable a production as a letter written by Principal Rainy as if he were Professor Smith must be given in full. It is as follows :— THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 325 ' My dear C.,^ — I have thought much on the subject of your letter. I have nothing to say which I was not ecjually prepared to say when we first talked on the subject, but I see more clearly the importance of saying it. ' The dates at which and the providential circumstances in which it has pleased God that the books of Scripture should originate are matters in regard to which there has always been room for diversity of judgment. The subject of my article in the Encyclopcedia called for a discussion of that class of topics and for a statement of the conclusions to which I have been led by the view I take of the evidence. I was aware that some of these conclusions might startle men who have not been under the necessity of closely examining this order of questions. Differences of that kind, more or less, are inevitable. But I am concerned to find that there should be doubt or suspicion with reference to my adherence to the doctrine of our Church — the doctrine which I have publicly and explicitly professed — with reference to Holy Scripture. I think it right to hasten to repudiate those suspicions, without reference to the question whether they have been reasonably entertained or suitably expressed. I believe ex animo that God was pleased to reveal Himself and to declare His will in that course of divine transactions which in the Scriptures are recorded for our learning. And I receive the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as given by inspiration of God to be the rule of faith and life. Holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Whatever impression may have been made by statements in my article regarding the circumstances in which some of these books originated, every- thing I have said was uttered in the belief, well-grounded or not, that what I stated was fully consistent with that great doctrine.. And whatever impression may be entertained in any quarter as though the Bible became less trustworthy when its literary history is viewed as I view it, I can say that I do not find it so. My mind becomes not less settled but more in the doctrinal verities of the Gospel which our Church professes, and which, as a minister and professor, I am pledged to proclaim and teach. * I.e. Candlish, to whom, it will be remembered, it had been suggested Smith should write. 326 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY ' No one, I believe, who knows what I habitually teach — I may add, what I habitually preach, when I have an oppor- tunity of preaching — will question what I now assert. I see that you indicate a feeling of surprise that no adequate ex- pression of these convictions appears in the articles. The view which I took of the duty which fell to me in an article on the Bible in a publication like the E. B., was that the literary history and character of the various books which have a place in the Canon should be stated apart from those doctrines about them which are articles of Christian faith. Perhaps I took for granted too securely ^ that a Professor of the Free Church of Scotland might assume that the known faith of his Church and of the Church of Christ was presupposed in connection with the statements he made. Perhaps this was an error. But if I had been more conscious of varying from the common faith, I might have been more circum- spect in stating my opinion on questions of date and authorship. ' However, I will go further. From what you say and from what reaches me from other quarters, I cannot doubt that statements in the article have awakened anxiety and given pain in various quarters in our Church and beyond it. I could not candidly profess to assume that I am alone to blame in the offence taken ; but what mainly concerns me is the duty for myself. A member of the Church of Christ, and much more a professor, is bound to have regard to the convictions and feelings of the brethren, not indeed as ruling his faith, but as conveying a weighty admonition. I cannot profess, and you would be the last to wish me to profess, in deference to the feelings or opinions of others, an alteration in my opinion not reached by a process of conviction in my own mind. But I am bound to recognise the possibility of error in the substance of some of my conclusions and, still more obviously, the possibility of imprudence and defective judgment in my manner of stating them and in the care I manifest of thos(> great doctrines which are more vital than any merely critical (juestions. I willingly take the anxiety and pain felt by brethren whom I love and respect as an admonition to recon- * The word seems to be ' securely,' but it is difficult to decipher. THE ROBRUTSON SMITH CASE 327 sider carefully the grounds on which, and the manner in which, opinions on this subject should be formed and stated. I suppose your letter was written under the idea that I ought to be impressed and influenced by the state of feeling you describe. I have no difficulty in saying that, in the sense described, I am impressed and influenced and I desire to be. * At the same time, candour being a primary duty, let me here repeat to you my conviction that, whatever may be the danger of wanton or unbridled criticism, safety is not to be found in unconditionally maintaining traditional opinions about dates and authorship. Whatever particular opinions of mine may prove in the end to have been insufficiently grounded or rashly expressed, this I am convinced remains true and will become increasingly evident — viz., that the divine inspiration of many books of Old Testament Scripture is in no way tied to the traditional or received opinions about their critical history, and that our true wisdom is to hold our minds open to fresh evidence and various alternatives about the latter just in order that we may the more securely and calmly abide by the former.' The psychological interest of the aDove document is even greater than its historical. There is something amusing in its writer's precaution that it should not be ' used as mine ' or forwarded ' in my hand- writing ' ; for though it were sent out anonymously or even though it had borne the signature of WilHam Robertson Smith, the apphcation of the methods of the higher criticism would soon determine its author- ship. There was one man in the Church who could have written the letter and that Principal Rainy : and there was one man who could not have written it and that Professor Smith. Of course, it must not be imagined that Principal Rainy ever meant Professor Smith simply to adopt this letter and sign it as his own. It was sent, as the covering note to 328 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Dr. Whyte sa^'s, ' as a suggestion.' Why, then, is it written out at length and in such a precise form ? This is singularly unlike Principal Rainy who — as I think every one who knew him well will agree — rather distinctly refrained from dictating to men how they should act. I think it indicates that Principal Rainy, after his experience of the man over the matter of the Daily Review letter, regarded Professor Smith, with all his great gifts, as almost entirely deficient in this sense of what was due to fellow-Christians' suscepti- bilities and fears, and that therefore the only thing that would influence him to it was, not a mere hint or even exhortation to do something of the kind, but to show him the thing done and thus let him see it was in itself a Christian and an honourable attitude and also one which involved no sacrifice of intellectual integrity. This of course is a mere surmise. If what is indicated above was Principal Rainy's motive, it was doomed to disappointment. Professor Smith's reception of this letter is not known to me, but his point of view is indicated sufficiently by the attitude he took on the appearance at this time of the College Committee's report. I find the following in a letter from Professor Candlish to Dr. Rainy : — ' I saw Smith and had a talk with him. He considers that the statement in the report that the Committee do not admit the force of the argument against the Mosaic authorship of some laws in Deuteronomy is a challenge to him to defend his opinion, and he has written to the editor of the Encyclopaedia to be allowed to contribute an article on Deuteronomy.' It is obvious that Professor Smith had not been much THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 329 impressed by the PrincipaFs letter. It is necessary to let the reader have some perception of all this, for it is impossible to tell the story of this case with any reality or truth without evaluating the personal equation of the chief actor in it. Principal Rainy's view of this side of Professor Smith's mental temper is more directly expressed in a letter he wrote to Dr. Laidlaw, a member of the Presbytery of Aberdeen and a man of moderating influence : — ' The stream which ran so strong at the Commission will at least show Smith and his friends what they have got to deal with. I have always been of opinion that it will not be pos- sible to get out of this case without expressing some distinct opinion as to what the Church feels it has a right to complain of in the article. I shall be very glad if things turn out so that there may be in the end no questic«i of an intention, but only of an inadvertent tendency, to mislead or to perplex. I am still more anxious to avoid unreasonable restrictions on liberty of inquiry and discussion. We are much in danger of it. ' The root of the whole mischief appears to me to be an absence of regard for the conditions under which believing men who have not great scholarship, including most ministers, maintain their faith in the Word of God, by which they live, and order their thoughts about it. The disregard of this appears to me (I lay emphasis on appears ; I do not think the case is so, but it looks so) amounts to contempt. Where this is so, scholarship itself wants a steadying influence. Personal faith is not enough as a steadying influence. At all events, the disregard of this side of things is sure to entail the most mischievous and the most needless misunderstandings. I feel as if there were no chance of Smith putting himself right, so far as that is possible, until, of himself as it were, he begins to look at this with more sympathy and with more respect.' But Professor Smith was not fashioned in this mould, 330 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY and he went on his own path, keen — naturally and justifiably — about his defence and, in his candid moments, which were many, calling the opposition to him Dummheit. I write thus from historical neces- sity. After all, it is men — human characters with their virtues and also their defects — who make history turn out as it does. When the case reached the Assembly of 1877 — which it did both on the College Committee's report and by appeals from the Presbytery of Aberdeen — Professor Smith at once took a decisive and (as I think) an unfortunate step. He intimated his intention to ' demand a libel ' — that is, a formal indictment upon which he would be tried. Under the ecclesiastical juris- prudence of the Scottish Church, this may be claimed by any minister against whom allegations are made. It is obviously just that a man should have the right to know definitely with what he is charged, and that it should be reduced to writing and either proved or dropped. When a charge affects moral character, it may be wise to exercise this right promptly ; but a case of doctrine is really one for, in the first instance, brotherly conference, and it is a great pity that Pro- fessor Smith so soon drove this matter into a question of law. Thereupon Dr. Wilson, in a most fair and judicial speech, moved that the Presbytery be in- structed to proceed with the case and that meantime Professor Smith discontinue teaching in the College. The latter part of this motion was strongly resented by Professor Smith's friends as an oblique censure before trial, and Professor Candlish moved against it. This course was, however, supported by Sir Henry THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 331 Moncreiff and also by Principal Rainy, the latter holding it ' not a judicial act which is unfair to Professor Smith's position/ but an act of 'administra- tion.' Dr. Wilson's motion was carried over Professor Candlish's by the large majority of 491 to 113. The debate, of course, should have been confined to the point of procedure, but feeling was already high. Dr. Moody Stuart plunged into the mare magnum of Old Testament criticism, and Dr. Begg made one of his popular speeches denouncing ' the higher criticism or rather the lower scepticism ' and ending with the place in Scotland of the 'big ha' Bible.' ^ Principal Rainy reiterated the view he had stated at the Com- mission in March, that questions of criticism must not be made matters for discipline, though it might be a question whether the Church would allow certain views to be her accredited teaching in her colleges. He was ' not afraid ' to come to this latter position in regard to the views under discussion, but he was not going to come to it hurriedly or prematurely. ' We want,' he declared, ' to be proud of Professor Smith and to trust him.' During the year following this Assembly, the Presbytery of Aberdeen was engaged in the serious task of the trial of Professor Smith under the libel he had demanded. It is necessary to explain here what an ecclesiastical libel is and how a case of libel is conducted in the Scottish Church. A libel consists of two propositions — a major and a minor — with a 1 It was, however, significant that the House obviously resented the clap- trap treatment of what all serious men realised was a grave and difficult problem to be dealt with in quite another spirit. 332 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY conclusion. The major proposition avers that certain doctrine or conduct is contrary to the standards or law of the Church. The minor avers that the accused person said or did this thing. The conclusion de- mands his punishment. The stages of process are two. The first is what is technically called ' relevancy ' — that is the finding on the part of the court that the thing averred in the major to be contrary to the law or standards of the Church really is so. The other is what is technically called * probation ' — that is the finding that the accused person really said or did what he is averred in the minor to have said or done. Now it is obvious, on a moment's reflection, that the relative importance of these two stages in the process differs in respect to the two classes of ecclesiastical offence. If the charge be one of improper conduct, the relevancy usually admits of no debate — for example, drunken- ness is clearly against the law of the Church — and the important and perhaps difficult part of the trial will be the probation or proof that the accused actually committed the offence. But, on the other hand, if the charge be one of heresy, then the proof is clear — what the man said or wrote is in black and white and he admits the authorship of it ; but the important and often very difficult stage is the finding of the relevancy or, in other words, the showing that til is really is heresy. I hope these technicalities are clear. If they are, they will enable the reader to understand how the case of Professor Smith became a great battle over ' the relevancy of the libel.' The framing of the libel proved a very difficult task. For, on the one hand, the Confession of Faith — THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 333 the subordinate standard of the Church — while it affirms the inspiration of Holy Scripture, says nothing about the dates and authorship and construction of the Biblical writings or of the relation of these matters to Inspiration. On the other hand, Professor Smith, while saying much about dates and authorship and construction, never touched on inspiration in his article and personally avowed his emphatic belief in it. The result was that the libel, when produced, proved lengthy and cumbrous, containing three general charges and eight particular counts. Originally it tried to get over the difficulty by charging Professor Smith, not with contradicting or being opposed to, but merely with ' subverting ' the Confession ; but the Procurator of the Church, who must attest all libels as correct in form, refused to pass this. The definite charges against Professor Smith referred to the following eight topics : the Aaronic priesthood, the historicity of Deuteronomy, the ' lowering of the character of the Divine writings,' the authenticity of certain books of Scripture, the interpretation of the Song of Solomon, the witness of our Lord to the Old Testament, the predictive element in prophecy, and the doctrine of Angels. The libel, as events showed, attempted far too much. The discussion of the relevancy of these counts — that is, practically, whether Professor Smith's views on these points really contravened the standards of the Church — occupied the Presbytery of Aberdeen man}^ da^'s during that winter. It is no exaggeration to say that the discussion, which was read with care all over the countr\-, was an epoch in the theological 334 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY education of Scotland. A presbytery is often left entirely to the more ecclesiastically-minded of Church- men, but on these occasions men attended — laymen as strongly as ministers — who had had to inquire their way to the Presbytery Hall. The prosecu- tion was led b}^ Dr. David Brown, the Principal of the College and one of the few Scottish scholars who were invited to join the company of the Revisers of the New Testament in the Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster. But Professor Smith found able advocates among the members of Presbytery, and he himself was a host. It may be questioned if any man in modern times has displayed a greater variety of brilliant gifts than did William Robertson Smith during the trial both before his Presbytery and in the subsequent appeal to the higher courts. In Old Testament criticism he was facile princeps, but his talents seemed unlimited. In pure theology, he taught his hearers the doctrine of inspiration from the great divines as few had taught it before. In law, he showed a knowledge and an acumen that over- whelmed professional authorities. In sheer dialectic he was irresistible, and many a time left his opponents lying pierced under the fifth rib. And with it all emerged the man's simple religious, Protestant, evangelical faith. The Church was trying him, but he was educating the Church. He led men's minds back to the great Reformation doctrine of Scripture which bases its inspiration not on any external things such as its authorship or literary construction, but on the testimonium Sancti Spiritus, which criticism can never touch, Scotland began to learn that high and THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 335 sure doctrine of the Bible, and its teacher was ' the young Professor ' fighting for his Hberty as a teacher at the bar of the Church. And inch by inch, he won. On count after count, the Presbytery decided against relevancy, and at last the prosecution had to appeal to the Assembly as a minority, for, at least in his own country, the new prophet was honoured with acquittal. The Assembly of 1878 met in Glasgow — the first Assembly which had met there since the year of the Disruption. Public interest in the case was now intense and, on the days when the Assembly took it up, the hall was crammed to overflowing. The first appeal — on the count about the Aaronic priesthood — was dismissed and the Presbytery's decision made final. But the great struggle was over the second matter — Professor Smith's views of the historicity of Deuteronomy — which all parties regarded as the test question in the case. After long pleadings at the bar — Professor Smith speak- ing for over an hour — Sir Henry Moncreiff moved that this appeal be sustained and the count on Deuteronomy declared relevant. He added to his motion a curious addendum stating that this was found relevant * to the effect that ' Professor Smith's statements are ' opposed in their legitimate results to the supposition of the book being a thoroughly inspired historical record.' Principal Rainy protested with unwonted vehemence against this declaration in a judicial deliverance on a specific question of relevancy. It was a new assertion, not in the libel, and Professor Smith had never had opportunity to defend himself against it. Sir Henry — generally 336 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY one of the soundest and fairest of jurists — stuck to it stiffly, and it was allowed to go to the vote. Dr. Rainy said, in private, that it was a case of a hunch- backed child of whose defects the father would not hear a word because it was his own darling. The Principal moved that the count on Deuteronomy be also declared irrelevant and made a bold straight speech. The fact of the case being now one of judicial libel had cleared the air for Principal Rainy. He had, as the reader knows, always held that criti- cism must not be judicially condemned as heresy, and once more he repeated this opinion. But he repeated also his distinction between what might be countenanced as the Church's accredited teach- ing and what might be and should be tolerated as opinion. * Whatever might be said of Professor Smith as a professor — whatever view the Church might take in regulating its teaching — as an office- bearer and member of the Church, he had his liberty.' Dr. Rainy's reiterations of this distinction are important to notice in view of his ultimate treat- ment of the case. A long debate revealed able and earnest opinion in support of the toleration of criti- cism both from scholars like Professor Candlish and also broad-minded laymen ; but it revealed also a deep and indeed fierce opposition to the new views from many quarters. The vote gave Sir Henry a majority of only 23 in a division in which 579 took part. Principal Rainy headed a largely signed dissent. It was a grave decision carrying logically in its train consequences fatal to Professor Smith's future in the Free Church. THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 337 But the day was not done. In the evening the Assembly went on with the appeal on the next count, and Professor Smith had another opportunity of speaking from the bar. He was strung to the highest pitch of tension and made a speech which, by not merely its dialectic but also and more its spiritual unction, carried the House by storm. He restated his high evangelical doctrine of inspira- tion in a way that at once convinced men and moved them. * When he heard the argument that morning by which the discussion of the relevancy of a par- ticular charge as to Deuteronomy was changed into a serious attack upon his whole attitude on the Word of God, he felt that he would like to ask the speakers if they had anything higher to say of Scripture than that which he said — that in every part of it God still spoke to us.' In his closing sentences he turned upon his extremer opponents with tremendous effect. Dr. Begg had declared * the hearts of the best people in Scotland were trembling for the ark of God.' No one who heard it has ever forgotten Professor Smith's repl}^ w^hich I give as an illustration of his deadly dialectic : — ' Dr. Begg had told them he was trembling for the ark of God. There was another expression more appropriate, and that was trembling at the Word of God. He trusted he trembled — he trusted he should never cease to tremble, though rejoicing with confidence and with love — at every word of God, which he took as the absolute rule of his faith and life. But he was not one of those who trembled for the ark of God. He knew but of one character in the Bible history, set up for our instruction, who trembled for the ark of God, and that was Eli— not the most admirable character in the Old Testament — VOL. I. Y 338 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY a worldly ecclesiastic. Eli trembled for the ark of God, and why did he tremble for the ark of God ? Because for him the ark had ceased to be a shrine of the living, revealing Word of God in the Commandments and had become a fetish, an idol, carried about as if by its power it could assist the Church in its war against the Philistines. He trembled for the ark of God, and as he trembled, he fell and perished. But there was no need to tremble for the ark, because the ark was safe, not in virtue of those outside things he had looked at, but because it was the ark of God's revelation. No man need tremble for that. God's revelation was safe.' The sensation this passage produced — the part of it from the words ' a worldly ecclesiastic ' onward — baffles description. At the bar, the small slim figure, quivering with life — his pallid face and bright eyes — the high, rapid, passionate tones — the riveted attention of every person in the heated, crowded hall — and then, when, with a kind of shriek, the words * a worldly ecclesiastic ' flashed out like light- ning, a moment's amazement, and, immediately after, an uproar of wild acclamation mingled with some protests, and altogether an uncontrollable commotion ; the whole scene was one without parallel in at least the modern annals of the General Assembly. The excitement was, of course, highly improper in the midst of a judicial process, but it was difficult to avoid being carried away by the combined religious unction and dialectic dash of this brilliant pleader who so feared God and so disregarded man — dead .or living. There was little S3^mpathy felt for Begg, whose ruddy countenance blanched for once, under what was perhaps the most overwhelming verdict ever passed by the Assembly on one of its members ; THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 339 but this dancing on the grave of EU — a weak man but hardly a worldly man — was, on calmer reflection, felt to be a little less than just and decent. Two things should be added about Professor Smith person- ally. One is that he had never thought of the Assembly applying his sharp-pointed words to any one present ; it was not Smith who fitted them mercilessly on Begg, but the House. The other is that his entire notes for this tour-de-force consisted of these words scribbled on a scrap of paper, * tremble at the word of God — need not tremble for the word of God — Eli.' This speech produced notable effects on the position of the case. The count to which Professor Smith was speaking was rejected and, several charges being withdrawn, a committee was appointed to amend the whole libel. All this was hailed as a great gain by the liberal party. As the outsider is said to see most of the game, I may quote the Times' view, which was that ' the only inference that can be draw^n from the discussions as well as the divisions, is that the Free Church has distinctly made a new departure in its treatment of so-called heretics and that in the future it will be much more tolerant.' This view seemed supported by the fact that, on Principal Rainy's motion, the Assembly passed from the charges brought up against another distinguished teacher in the Church, Dr. Marcus Dods, minister of Renfield Church, Glasgow, who had preached a sermon before the Uni- versity of that city disassociating inspiration from verbal inerrancy. Such a view as that taken b}' the Times correspondent was, however, the obvious rather than the intimate readingof the situation. The maxim 340 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY that the outsider sees most of the game must be quahfied by the reflection that what he sees is mostly the outside. The opposition to Professor Smith was not only deep and determined but undoubtedly preponderating. Not only was it the fact that the count on Deuteronomy had been found relevant, but there was a formidable combination resolute to push on from that to a final condemnation. Sir Henry Moncreiff, who had virtually in this matter become the leader of the Church, having out-voted Principal Rainy, was strong, as was Dr. Wilson, and they had with them — besides, of course. Dr. Begg's party — honoured names, such as (to mention but three or four representing different phases of the Church's life) Dr. M'Lauchlan, the Highland scholar ; Dr. Goold, the leading theologian of the Reformed Presby- terian Church, which had so lately united with the Free Church ; Dr. Andrew Bonar, brother of the well-known hymn-writer and one of Scotland's modern saints ; Dr. Hood Wilson, ' the prince of home mis- sionaries ' ; and very many others, including eminent laymen. The opposition to Professor Smith was by no means from merely an obscurantist element. Un- questionably a large section of the evangelical life of the Church of at least the older type was deter- minedly against him. And unquestionabty it had the majority. Principal Rainy 's words to Dr. Laidlaw in the letter I quoted some pages back, were seriously true — that the Church was ' much in danger ' of a judicial decision restricting liberty of critical dis- cussion. The one man, it seemed, who could prevent such a calamity was the Principal himself. THE KOBEKTSON SMITH CASE 341 There is a stor}^, which I do not beheve, that, asked early in this case how he proposed to deal with it, Principal Rainy replied : ' In the Assembly^ as a statesman ; in literature, as a scholar.' I do not believe that he ever spoke of himself in phrases such as these. But the story has its interest in view of tlie fact that, about this time, he did take up the question ' in literature.' In 1878 he delivered a course of lectures in London to the College of the Presbyterian Church there, and he boldly took for his theme ' The Bible and Criticism.' He wrote of this to his cousin, Mr. Brown of Pau, saying he had been told he was ' tempting providence in choosing such a subject just now,' but, he added, ' I thought I was bound to give any help I could to people's thoughts.' These lectures are thus so deliberate a contribution on the part of Principal Rainy to the problem- of the Robertson Smith case that — even though it arrests for a moment the progress of our narrative — some statement of them should not be omitted. Those who expected Principal Rainy to reveal in these lectures what course he meant to follow in the case of Professor Smith were obviously doomed to dis- appointment, but those who look in them for a clear definition of the lecturer's position get hardly more light. He seems indeed to appreciate other people's points of view better than he knows his own. The aim of the lectures is to help historical criticism and re- ligious faith which has rested in the Bible to recognise each other and respect each other. Meet they must, in this historical age, for revelation is historical and 342 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY ' history is the field in which the Bible and criticism meet.' What the lecturer aims at is to do justice to both points of view, and to help them to do justice to one another. Criticism he admits and even blesses with a frankness which must have been anything but acceptable to those who spoke of it as the work of infidelity and irreligion : — ' Criticism has performed and continues to perform the most essential service to the Christian cause. . . . There may be those who do not want to be troubled with it and who would wiUingly part with its aid if they could at the same time get rid of its embarrassments. These are not wise Christians. And there may be others who are very willing to take the aid of criticism, if only they maj'' be allowed to shut their eyes when its aspect becomes less helpful. Those are not honest Christians, Either way, there is no help for it. This is one of the things we must reckon with, and the more deliberately and calmly the better.' Even when criticism leads to unwelcome results, it is, he goes on, not to be banned. ' Are we to say that critical difficulties — positions which it is difficult to reconcile with the testimony of the Scriptures or with our faith about the Scriptures — are simply to be sent about their business as necessarily due to some mistaken or perverse use of critical methods ? I say, No. . . . Critical conclusions such as I have described may have good right, first, certainly, to be heard, and, second, possibly to be accepted.' Why there should be such difficulties has ' nothing strange about it.' The Bible deals with history, but it * does this only for its own great end.' ' In its pages men come before us as they stand related, for a lifetime perhaps, or for a moment perhaps, to the great THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 843 current of the history of Redemption. The story of them is thrown into any form that makes sincere history for the object in view ; not perhaps into forms that would be counted sincere or exact history for some totally different object.' Hence, difficulties naturally and necessarily arise when the further records about Biblical figures and facts are investigated, ' for the one thing the Bible has to say of a man, however true, may give a ver}- different impression about him and even about that event in his life from that which we should have if we had before us twenty other facts which might have been told.' The Bible, said the lecturer, whether or not actually free from minor inaccuracies, at least ' does not undertake to guarantee us against false impressions about them.' It * takes not the least concern in the matter.' All this and much else. Principal Rainj^ says in the frankest spirit about criticism. He says that unless he could ' cordially ' acknowledge and vindicate ' the right and dut}^ of criticism to produce every likelihood which its proper methods suggest and to insist that the worth of them shall be fairly estimated ' either as tracks to be pur- sued or conclusions to be accepted, ' I would not feel myself to be a believer.' Coming from him, words like these were invaluable in the struggle for the right of criticism to exist within the Free Church of Scotland. But then, continues the Principal, some- thing else has also the right to exist. Faith has the right to exist, and the recognition between it and criticism must be mutual. And there are things in faith which ' make their appearances as counter pre- sumptions to certain kinds of critical opinion.' An 344 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY illustration of this is the question of the Gospels, which he states thus : — * There is an indefinitely strong presumption against any literary theory of the Gospels that is inconsistent with their being, all four, authentic and authoritative narratives of the events and sayings of our Lord's life. Therefore, which is the next step, they must be relatively early.' He adds that a presumption ' less strong and cogent, but surely by no means trifling,' might be adduced for the Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch. All this, he says — speaking with extraordinary balance of statement — must not be pled ' too high,' but it must be guarded ' if we can guard it wisely.' He goes on : — ' Some think that we should concede to criticism the right to work out its own results, taking no responsibility about them, assured that in the end of the day all established facts will be found harmonising with all well-warranted faith. That is not a view in which I can acquiesce. I think criticism, even as carried on by believing men, needs an influence arising from the point of view of those who represent simply the interests of the common faith.' To recognise this is ' the point of honour of the believ- ing critic' Where it is not recognised, the lecturer summons it to protect itself : — ' The Christian believer will refuse to allow his conception of the Bible to be transformed or to let his use of it be paralysed and intercepted by what he hears of opinions which he cannot receive without that effect following. Let a man stand by what he knows, especially what he knows in his inward ex- perience. . . . Let us never undervalue the instinct of the believing mind which rises up against anything that threatens to rob it of its treasure.' All this seems to me (if I may say so) dee]')]y philo- THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 345 sophical — far more philosophical and far truer than to say, on the one hand, that criticism does not touch faith (it does touch it in a historical revelation) and that faith must not say anything to criticism (the believer has knowledge as well as the critic) ; but the Principal leaves the argument in a balance. The book as a whole is like a problem in dynamics. Two forces are estimated, each with extraordinary just- ness ; but what, in any given case of their operation in contrary directions, is the resultant, the lecturer nowhere very clearly says, though his bias is indicated b}^ the resoluteness with which he insists that the spiritual appeal of the Bible shall count as having importance for what is called ' purely ' historical criticism. Like all Dr. Rainy's writings, the lectures are full of seed-thoughts even in their side remarks. A single example must suffice. Speaking of inspira- tion or the persuasion that the Bible is ' no mere work of man,' he says this is not to be maintained as recog- nisable in ' ever}' separate fragment of the Scripture ' ; but, he adds : — ' It is Scripture taken together, and as it hangs together and is of a piece, of which this is said.' Inspiration, that is to say, is not of books- — still less of words. It is of the Bible as a whole. The Inspira- tion of Holy Scripture is not to be separated from the Unity of its contents — the gradual and finalh^ perfect revelation of God in it all. That is a needful thing to say even to-day, and it was a really striking thing for Principal Rainj^ to sa}^ in the times of the Robertson Smith case. In fact tliis whole volume. 346 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY while the modern student will read parts of it with a certain impatience over its guarded statements, was a remarkable book for the times and in the circum- stances. Meanwhile the case — to the story of which we must return — was proceeding on its somewhat weary way in the Presbytery of Aberdeen under the abbrevi- ated and amended libel. Difficulties were raised about the decision of the Assembly of 1878 when, it will be remembered, Sir Henry Moncreiff carried a motion of somewhat peculiar form. Professor Salmond, who was Professor Smith's leading defender in his Presbytery, had long correspondence with Principal Rainy over this point, but into the details of this I need not take the reader. No one had protested against Sir Henry's form of motion more than the Principal, but he had the Church leader's respect for Assembly decisions. He always held they were to be obediently accepted and honestly construed and disliked any attempt to evade or obstruct them by means of technicalities. The following sentences in a letter to Professor Salmond show with what rigid fairness Principal Rainy interpreted a decision which he had vehemently opposed : — ' At the first view of Sir Henry's motion at last Assembly, I was inclined to question whether it affirmed more than a qualified relevancy and to be doubtful as to the effect of the qualification. But, as I considered it further, I came to be of opinion that, however unusual the language may be, the Assembly found the relevancy (in the count applicable to Deuteronomy) simpliciter. I am of opinion that, on the whole, the Assembly's language may and ought to be inter- preted as setting fortli the view of the case under which or THE ROBERTSON SIMTTH CASE 347 along which it arrived at the relevancy, rather than as qualifying or restricting the relevancy itself. In this view, the Assembly says it holds the charge relevant, although the contradiction of the standard is, in its view, not a contradiction in terms but a contradiction demonstated by legitimate results. And it may be observed that there was this reason for the Assembly burdening its finding with this unusual explanation. Sir Henry might consider that such a fmding of the Assembly of 1878 — afterwards to be followed out by some other Assem- blies — ought, by the Assembly of 1878 itself, to be explained as in the motion. For the kind and degree of culpability in the commission of the offence is thus indicated to be less than it conceivably might have been, and the action of the Church in dealing with the accused party has to be regulated accordingly. This is a mere guess of mine as to the motive for framing the motion as it was framed ; and certainly whatever the motive was, the motion might have been clearer. Still, on the whole, the statement I have given expresses my view of the effect of the judgment. Of course, holding that view, I should deprecate the Presbytery declining to serve or proceeding to reshape the libel, as likely to create fresh bitterness on points of procedure. But of course, the Presby- tery as judges must proceed on their own view of the fair and reasonable meaning of the Assembly's finding. I am, like yourself, much annoyed that the Assembly should not have made their meaning perfectly clear at such a critical stage of a case like this.' This letter may seem to the reader to deal with a not very important matter, but I quote it because it illustrates a ver}^ distinct feature in Principal Rainy's view of Church duty. It must be remembered that this was a motion he had debated against with extra- ordinary vehemence, and he dissented from it as 'in- competent ' and ' illegitimate ' ; 3'et now that it was a decision of the Supreme Court, his whole attitude was to respect it, to interpret it fairly, and even to put the best construction on it. All through his life. 348 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Principal Rainy expected, inculcated and — as this example shows — exemplified the Presbyterian duty of a loyal acceptance (in, of course, things short of viola- tion of Christian conscience) of the decisions of the Assembly : to him it was in fact and not merely in title, ' the Venerable the General Assembly.' This is further shown in connection with the same matter of the decision of 1878. in a letter written to Dr. Whyte, after the Presbytery of Aberdeen, disregarding the Principal's counsel in his letter to Professor Salmond, declared the relevanc}^ on the count regarding Deuter- onomy still dubious. After saying that ' it is not easy to overrate the seriousness of the prospect connected with ' the case. Principal Rainy continues to Dr. Whyte : — ' M}^ object is to direct attention to last Assembly's decision. The Presbytery of Aberdeen have found themselves unable to discover whether this decision affirms the relevancy of the charge regarding Deuteronomy or not. In announcing this, they indicate a line in which, it seems to be thought, next Assembly might upset the decision of the last. I cannot be a party to this course. I have no doubt that Sir Henry's motion affirmed the relevancy. I argued against it in that character and construction. Whatever the objections which may be taken to the motion as the motion is, I think it fairly may and that it should be construed as affirming relevancy. Though I opposed that judgment with great earnestness, I must further say that I do not see my way to take part, in any form, in upsetting a judicial decision, which I had the opportunity of opposing in last Assembly, by a new effort in this one. I think in itself and as a precedent that course would be bad. Without laying down the duty of other men, I am quite clear as to my own. It is natural, I dare say, that many of those who are persuaded that Professor Smith ought to have standing-ground within the Church should draw the inference that they ought to exhaust every method, without regard to costs or consequences, to secure that result. That THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 349 is not my view of duty. I did what I could when I had the opportunity to influence the Assembly against Sir H.'s judg- ment. But I do not intend to drive matters to extremity and to multiply and intensify contention for the chance of gaining (irregularly as I think) an end desirable in itself.' We have here the beginning of divergence between Principal Rainy and the more immediate adherents of Professor Smith. But the question tar more serious than any point of procedure, was the grave danger referred to more than once in previous pages. The real peril was that, now the test count of the libel had been found relevant, the Assembly would go on to a judicial decision and sentence which would practically proscribe liberty of critical inquiry in the Church. There was indeed the more danger of this if the Presb3^tery of Aberdeen adopted dilatory tactics on technicalities, for this might very well induce the Assembly to take the matter into its own hands. Professor Candlish wrote to Principal Rainy that he was * very anxious about the issue,' but hoped ' your view ' would command a majority. Professor Salmond also trusted the Principal's leadership might yet save the situation. The reply, of date 26th April 1879, shows how seriously Dr. Rainy viewed it : — ' Thanks for your note : I quite appreciate the motives under which the communication is made. But you must observe that, in this business, most emphatically I am not the " leader of the Free Church." Sir Henry occupies that posi- tion, and I have mainly to govern my o\\"n conduct while a course is being carried out, of which, in important respects, I disapprove. ' I have long been satisfied in my own mind, from all the 350 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY manifestations in this case, that if you are to avert the Hbel being carried out to the end, it must be by being prepared to wdthdraw Smith from the chair. Whether that would do it, if wisely and considerately arranged, I cannot say. It might. But that the libel will be fought out to the end and opposition voted down, in the lace of all consequences, rather than continue Smith in the chair, seems to me certain,' However long Principal Rainy may have been satisfied in his own mind as to this grave necessity, this letter is — so far as the correspondence placed in my hands indicates — the first time he had publicly expressed it. He was the last man in the world to write such a letter as the above prematurely and on insufficient grounds. The suggestion in it had, however, already been before Professor Smith's mind. The date of the above letter is April, but at the beginning of the year. Professor Smith had stated to his friends his view of the pro- posal. His view was one entitled to every respect. It was that, for himself, he would resign if that would effect a peaceful solution ; but he felt he must consider others besides himself, and, if he resigned, it would be taken as a triumph for the opponents of liberty and would only make further prosecutions easier in the future. I understand Professor Smith never discussed this personally with Principal Rainy. Any comparative intimacy between them which had existed at the beginning of the case had rather diminished than increased. Professor Smith rather felt that the Principal clothed himself in the panoply of the Church leader, which may be quite true. Dr. Rainy did not often do that ; but assuredly, when he chose, he could do it. One always THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 351 feels, however, that when any one complains of a responsible public man taking up this attitude to- wards him, the story cuts both ways. Still, it is true that, at this moment, Principal Rainy was in a some- what isolated position. He was in opposition to the recognised leaders of the Assembly ; on the other hand, while he was leading the liberal party, he was hardly one of the circle round Professor Smith. It was just because he occupied this detached position, that he was the one man who might save the coming Assembly from further decisions against liberty of criticism in the Church. He came within an ace of doing it. The Assembly, when it took up the case, had first to deal with a complication of technical pleas. Into these I do not enter ; the result was still further to alter the libel and reduce it to the one charge on the subject of Deuteronomy. . Thereafter, a substantive motion was moved by Dr. Andrew Bonar, whom I have already described as a saint and who was also a creditable scholar. He moved the motion, but its father was Sir Henry Moncreiff, who later in the debate naively confessed it. The motion instructed the Presbytery to take ' immediate steps ' to proceed, and in the event of the libel being proved, to suspend Professor Smith and bring up the case to next Assembly for final judgment. Principal Rainy moved that, * in view of the novelty and perplexity of the case in certain of its aspects, the serious difference of opinion that prevails throughout the Church regard- ing it and the gravity of the consequences which the disposal of it may involve,' the Assembly, before 352 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY proceeding further, appoint a committee to consider all its bearings, with power to confer with Professor Smith. He spoke with great earnestness of argu- ment. He pled with the Assembly not to go on at once with a libel about which there had been so com- paratively close a division. ' Would you feel in a comfortable position in voting that certain things were to be henceforth held inconsistent with your Confession by a majority of twenty- three in a General Assembly of five or six hundred strong ? ' He told of men in the Church — mentioning of course no names ^ — who would feel the question of their own position seriously raised. He did this all the more impres- sively because he disassociated himself from sharing Professor Smith's ground ; but he pled for others. He said there was a tendency on both sides to look at extreme men on the other. But he spoke for ' many quiet and serious men ' who ' tremble lest this Church should involve herself in a position which is injudicious because indefensible.' He asked the Assembly if it had ' no resource but to deiy these considerations.' On a line such as this — the line of a high moral expediency — Principal Rainy was an unequalled pleader. He had against him a decision of the previous Assembly and its logical sequence, but as he went on he visibly influenced the House. But before he sat down he yet once more put in his view of the authority of the Church over the teaching in her Colleges. He reiterated this strongly : — ' The Church has held herself free to look into what is being done by any of her professors or ministers, and a man is not ' His correspondence ihows ihat I'l ofessor Candlish was one of them. THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 8.53 always to hold the Church at bay, saying you must bring a libel if you wish to speak to me. The Church will hold herself free to express dissatisfaction and to give admonition and to expect the admonition to be attended to and to see that it is. . . . And, for my part, I cannot regard it possible for a professor to give satisfaction unless it is established in the end that the Church is willing to accord him her confidence.' It was with this significant sentence that he sat down. I need not enter into the debate. Professor Smith took part in it and said he spoke as ' a member, perhaps for the last time, of the Free Church General Assembly.' Feeling ran keenly at times, and there were heated moments. But the interest was the division. Principal Rainy lost by one. There were 320 votes for his motion and 321 for that of Dr. Bonar. * O, the little more and how much it is ! ' It was an important result and also a grave one. It was obviously important in the development of the case ; but it was also grave because it indicated a Church split into two almost equally matched sides on an issue difficult to compromise. The question had been whether there was to be liberty of critical opinion within the Free Church : there was now the further question whether there would be a Free Church of Scotland — at least an undivided and undistracted Church — in which that liberty might be. The .story passes at this point into its second phase, and the rest of it — a painful development — may have a distinct chapter. The progress of the case evoked extraordinar\- interest not only throughout Scotland but also far beyond it. Abroad, scholars of varied schools — from VOL. I. z 354 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Wellhausen (who liked to speak of Robertson Smith as ' a British pupil of mine ') to Delitzsch — followed its fortunes. In England, it penetrated the Birmingham Oratory, and Newman wrote of it to Principal Brown of Aberdeen : — ' My dear Dr. Brown, — I thank you very much for your account of the painfully interesting proceedings in which you have been engaged and think it very kind in you to have taken the trouble to write it. I have ever entertained a great respect for the persons and the aims, so far as I know them, of the leaders of the Free Church in Scotland, and I shall rejoice to hear that you have succeeded in your efforts against the Liberahsm of the day.' Man}^ other indications might be quoted of how this struggle for the rights of criticism within an orthodox evangelical Scottish Church was keenly watched, and both sides had their partisans in many lands. All this makes the more noticeable the reticence of one who, before almost any one else, might have been expected to declare himself for and aid the liberal interest. Certainly, one of the strange things in the story is that in such a momentous struggle for critical liberty within the Free Church of Scotland, the illustrious critical scholar of that Church, to whom the Church had the right to look for guidance on such a question and to whom all the land would have listened as the master (and who had been Robertson Smith's master), took no lead and — except for one non-committal review of contemporary works on Old Testament literature — uttered, in public, no voice. He always, of course, gave his vote for Professor Smith, but it was always a silent vote. I shall not attempt THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 355 to account for this here except to say that the sug- gestion that A. B. Davidson was a coward is one I decline even to discuss. But whatever its cause — whether simply the sensitive scholar's shrinking from the din of the ecclesiastical arena, or a Hamlet-like irresolution, or an Ecclesiastes - like feeling (to use one of his own startling phrases) of ' the resultlessness of all struggle for knowledge,' or a temperamental self-distrust and diffidence, or whatever else — it could not but be observed by many spectators. One can see him still — there, on that back bench, sitting through the long debates, his fine head now sunk deep on his breast as though he were uncertain about duty or opinion, and now thrown up and poised a little to one side to hear, while the wistful smile — sharpening at times to the ironic — plays gently upon lips so firmly sealed. CHAPTER XITI THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE {Continued) A MAJORITY of one in the vote on so serious a question brought clearly into view a deep and indeed dangerous division through the very centre of the Church and made the prospect an anxious one. It seemed as if the Free Church of Scotland might almost be rent in twain over the critical move- ment, or at least ranged into practically equal hostile camps in a struggle the end of which no one could foretell. The reader must, of course, realise that in the Scottish Church questions, however grave, are carried on to authoritative judgment. In the Anglican Church, it is quite possible for parties fundamentally and even vitally opposed to continue alongside of one another indefinitely, and yet the Church is not forced to actual crisis because she has no effective organs of government and discipline by which the issues are ever finally decided. But a self-governing Church does not possess and does not even envy the dubious advantage of a peace whose basis is impotence. The Robertson Smith case was appointed to be returned to next Assembly for ' final judgment.' It may help some persons to realise the gravity and the responsi- bility of the situation if they imagine to themselves THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 357 what would happen if the Church of England, through her Episcopate or Convocation or any other body, had next year to pronounce ' final judgment ' on the question of alleged ' lawlessness/ and not only pro- nounce judgment but enforce it. Self-government in the Church — as in the State — calls for the exercise of brotherhood and tolerance, and about the time of the Assembly of 1879, some of those who were most conscientiously opposed to Professor Smith's views felt the need of something being done to prevent the impending danger of that ' hopeless division ' on which many enemies of the Free Church were now openly counting. Before the Assembly, Sir Henry Moncreiff wrote a letter to Principal Rainy — in reply to one from him which I have not seen — recognising very frankly that * two differing points of conscience exist to a large extent,' and suggesting both consultations and ' a great deal of united prayer ' that a via media might be found. During the Assembly, on a day after the division on the case, Mr. Maclagan — whose name the reader will remember as occurring frequently in the chapter on the attempted union with the United Presbyterian Church — made a statement inviting conciliation, and Dr. Wilson earnestly concurred in it. And on the very day after the close of the Assembly, a private conference was held. So far as I can discover, it was attended by Principal Rainy, Dr. Wilson, Dr. Adam, Professor Salmond, Mr. Maclagan and one or two other laymen. Sir Henr}/ did not attend, but sent, by Dr. Rainy, a memorandum of his views. This memorandum is among Dr. Rainy 's papers. It is long. 358 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY and as much of it deals with points of procedure it need not be quoted in full. The portion bearing more generally on the issue of the case was certainly stiff. The main parts of it are as follows : — ' The strongest opposition ought to be given to any course which would caU in question the thorough effectiveness of the decision of the Glasgow Assembly as a decision on relevancy. .... In what I have further to say, I by no means intend to intimate an opinion that, on any supposition, Professor Smith can now be retained in his chair. It is quite a mistake to suppose that I have ever indicated the view that his position as a professor cannot be dealt with except by Hbel. [Then follow suggestions that the Presbytery of Aberdeen might have ' friendly deahng ' with Professor Smith ' after proof and before sentence,' and that if ' very satisfactory ' con- cessions or acknowledgments were made by him, the Presby- tery should refer this result to the Assembly : then Sir Henry goes on.] I repeat that whatever might come out of the sug- gestions I have made, it appears to me scarcely possible to retain Professor Smith in his chair and at the same time to preserve the Free Church in her integrity for any con- siderable time. I beUeve also the condemnation of his theory on Deuteronomy is essential to the permanent preservation of that integrity.' Professor Smith in a letter to his father says — writing, no doubt, from Professor Salmond's report — that ' Rainy seemed much moved with the state of matters and the uncompromising hostility- of Wilson and Moncreiff.' In the beginning of July, Principal Rainy had a long talk with Professor Smith. ^ The following is the latter's characteristic account of the interview : — ' I had two hours' hard fight with Rainy, and practically broke his whole line of defence. Finally, after an attempt on his part to ride off with a statement that he wanted both * Dr. Whyte was also present. THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 359 to do justice to me and vindicate the authority of the Church, I pinned him by asking whether he thought it would be just or unjust to condemn me on the new hbel and whether he desired my condemnation or acquittal. He admitted (rather reluctantly and a httle testily) that he wished in justice to see me acquitted — a strong admission, in the presence of Whyte and one from which he can hardly go back. It is plain he is very unwilling that I should pass quite clear, and he admitted that he was sorry the minor charges had gone. But as soon as he was brought to the point, he got franker and friendUer, and now I think he '11 be forced to help us.' Two months later, however. Professor Smith seems to have taken a less favourable view of this conversation, for, on 3rd September, he wrote of it thus to his brother, Professor Michie Smith of Madras : — ' I think it is about time that I gave you a notion of my present prospects and plans. ... I am not hopeful. Rainy at Assembly time seemed ready to help us. But his usual instincts of cold and selfish ambition are too strong for him. I had a very instructive interview with him in July along with Whyte. We got him fixed down as to the injustice of the present charge. But he is sorry that the minor charges are withdrawn and I now see that he has never really been with us. He could not admit heresy to be in my writings as he had said the opposite in the College Committee. But beyond that he will not commit himself to help us, and I am quite sure that he will not willingly support any motion to restore me to my chair.' These letters give, of course, only Professor Smith's impressions and indeed reveal him more than they do Principal Rainy ; but I quote them because this was a crisis in the case. From this point. Professor Smith, to use his own phrase, ' broke off diplomatic 360 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY relations.' And I fear from this time Principal Rainy- began to feel that Professor Smith was, as he himself put it, 'impossible.' At any rate, in a letter about this date, the Principal wrote to Dr. Adam of Glasgow — by this time the foremost man in Church affairs in the West — as follows : — * I retain a strong impression that, while it is quite practi- cable to get the Church to part from Smith on respectful terms, to get him retained as professor is impossible without ruinous confusion ; and I am inclined to think that it would be well if all parties, including Smith, reaUsed that.' This letter indicates the line of policy which Principal Rainy henceforth pursued. On the one hand there was to be no judicial condemnation for heresy ; for I take it the curious phrase about parting ' on respectful terms ' implies this. On the other hand. Professor Smith was not to continue to be the Church's accredited teacher of her coming ministry. The one side was to concede the formal charge that Professor Smith's views are contrary to the Confession of Faith ; the other was to concede that he should continue to teach the students of the Church. Whatever may be said of this course on various grounds, it can hardly be called inconsistent with Principal Rainy's public utterances all through the case. The reader will remember that the Principal, in his first speech on the matter in August 1876, distinguished between these two aspects of the matter, maintaining, on the one hand, that he would refuse to have this question ' confessionally settled,' but, on the other, that the Church had the riglit, in the case of a teacher against THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 361 whom she was not prepared to enforce a libel, to con- sider ' if she would continue her confidence in him in that position.' And in practically every subsequent speech, he reiterated these two positions. Now, in the autumn of 1879, his mind, as regards the latter of them, had obviously hardened. Meanwhile the pro-Smith party would have nothing to do with compromise of this kind. Professor Smith wrote to his friend, Mr. J. F. Maclennan, the eminent anthropologist, that he was going ' to fight them for another year.' Professor Salmond wrote to Principal Rainy of a meeting of ' a number of those specialh- interested in the case,' and to let him ' know formalty ' that there was, ' first, a unanimous and determined resolution to withstand the issuing of the libel by every legitimate means, and, secondly, an equally strong wish to retain Smith in his chair.' The attack in Aberdeen on the hbel took two forms. In the first place. Professor Smith published an Answer to the Amended Libel. He published nothing better all through the case. The statement gave his emphatic adherence to the inspiration, and, in the sense in which this was received by its first audience, the historicity of Deuteronomy. It expounded afresh and with great clearness his critical view of the con- struction of the book and defended it in a wav that, undoubtedly, carried conviction to man}^ readers. Moreover, it was considerate and courteous, and accepted, on the writer's part, * my share of responsi- bility for misconception.' The educative effect of this pamphlet was very marked, and I believe it was a real factor in bringing about the result at the sue- 362 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY ceeding Assembly which the story is approaching. The other hne which he and his party took was not so happy. All through this matter, Professor Smith proved far too much of the lawyer. I think that cannot be said too distinctly, and his best friends must admit it. He brought the whole question, which should have been conferred over in a brotherly spirit, into the region of law by demanding a libel. This was the grand misfortune for all parties all through the story. He fought over legal points in the Presbytery and Assembly with a tenacity that really did his cause harm rather than good. His line, now that the As- sembly of 1879 had re-amended the libel and ordered it to go on to probation, was that this was a new libel, the process on which must begin de novo and the whole business of relevancy be discussed afresh. He carried this view with his party in Aberdeen, and the Presbytery, on this ground, did not go on to probation as enjoined but referred the whole matter to the next Assembly. AU this was more clever than really wise. Certainly something could be said for Professor Smith's plea — in the legal world something can be said for everything ; but it did no one any good, and indeed it only gave the Assembly an excuse for drop- ping the libel without any verdict of either proven or not pro\ on, which saved the situation for Sir Henry but was a real injustice to Professor Smith. Legal obstructiveness is apt to overreach itself. While this was going on. Principal Rain}' — in- evitably separated from the Smith party by these legal tactics — was pursuing his reluctantly but resol- utely chosen way, of which he now made little secret THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 363 even to Professor Smith's friends. On 13th February 1880 he wrote to Dr. Adam : — ' I have taken an opportunity of saying to Whyte how difficult I find it to represent to myself the maintenance of Smith in his chair. He did not remonstrate much — only mourned over the loss of a man who might serve us so well. But Whyte is much more sensitively ahve than most Smith- ites to the amount of injury to the Church under which we are suffering.' As the earher months of the year went on, it is apparent that Principal Rainy was succeeding in per- suading Sir Henry Moncreiff to come to terms, and the two were together drafting their proposals to deal with the case at next Assembly. In April, Dr. Rainy writes thus to Dr. Adam : — ' I enclose copy of a mem.^ Sir H. gave me at the end of the week. The more I think of it, the more I attach import- ance to our being circumspect as to the terms in which the second part of the motion runs. If it treats Smith as an ecclesi- astical criminal, what is gained and what motive have we to offer to men to support us ? That would be equivalent to saying that Smith was so obviously bad that he might be punished without being convicted. Moreover, while I am prepared for the Church terminating a man's professorship or ministry on its own responsibility, I can see a very de- moraUsing effect arising from the impression that a short- hand way has been discovered of getting rid of inconvenient men.' Again, in the same month, he writes in the same strain : — ' I beheve we must be exceedingly cautious in the matter * I do not find this memorandum among Dr. Rainy's papers. 364 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY before us. We propose to take a very unusual course and must consider all its bearings. If we sacrifice the man, they musL sacrifice the libel, though not the past findings.' The last sentence puts Principal Rainy's proposal in a nutshell ; and what was ' the very unusual course ' by which it was to be done is also indicated above. It was by the Assembly's terminating Professor Smith's tenure of his chair — leaving, of course, un- touched his ministerial status — by an authoritative administrative act, without any process of indictment but in virtue of a ' reserve of power ' residing in the General Assembly as a Supreme Court. To ask for a justification of such an act in terms of the laws of Presb^^terian polity is to ask what in the nature of the case is impossible. But it does not follow that therefore it must be merely an act of unright- eousness. There must be some kind of omnipotence in the supreme authority, either in Church or State, to be exercised, in case of necessity, in order that no evil happen to the republic. The only justification for such a step, however, is not in principles of the philosophy of law or even in parallels and precedents, but is simply that it was the only practical solution of an exceptional situa- tion. And the only way by which we can form an opinion as to this is to follow the story to the end. But certainly the course proposed was a strong and startling one, and there can be no question as to whose was the bold mind that conceived it and was prepared to act upon it and who must bear the chief responsibility for it. This proposal — at least in its precise form — seems THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 365 to have come to Professor Smith and his friends as a surprise. Indeed some of them, such as Pro- fessor CandUsh, who had been in communication with Principal Rainy in the earUer phases of the case, felt a little sore at what seemed to them a want of frank- ness on his part at this stage. One can understand that. On the other hand. Principal Rainy had a very difficult and delicate bit of work in hand in getting Sir Henry Moncreiff and Dr. Wilson to give up the libel. He could do it only by distinct alliance with them ; and it would have been neither practicable nor honourable at the same time to be in confidential relations with the other side. When a man chooses his policy, he must choose his party, and the more definitely he does both the better. AU this certainly does not mean that Principal Rainy was callous to those he had formerly led. In a brief note to Pro- fessor Salmond before the Assembly, he says that * the pain of the whole matter is great.' A single word like that meant a great deal from Principal Rainy, who, if he was reticent at times about policy, was reticent habitually about his feelings. When the news of the Rainy-Moncreiff policy reached the ears of Professor Smith, he wrote a long * open letter ' to the Principal in forcible protest against its unconstitutional injustice. Letters and pamphlets appeared, and feeling soon became keen. Dr. Rainy was assailed with unsparing bitterness. He w^as called a ' turn-coat ' : his coalition with Sir Henry was compared with the sudden friendship of Pilate and Herod : Browning's ' The Lost Leader ' was scornfully parodied to fit him. Of course the 366 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY worthier men in the Church who supported Professor Smith had nothing to do with these personal attacks, but the popular mind was in the mood to approve of them. In this heated atmosphere the Assembly drew on — the fateful Assembly which was to ' dispose finally ' of the case. The newspapers speak of meet- ings of this party and that nearly every day. The air was thick with rumours. The t\^pe of man who, himself not a leader, is always talking to leaders, had his mouth full of news. The whole country's interest was focussed on the coming Assembly. The pro- Smith party had little hope, and Professor Salmond wrote to Dr. Rainy that he had counselled Professor Smith to resign, to save a catastrophe which was ' in- evitable.' The Assembly had first to deal with appeals re- garding the procedure of the Presbytery of Aberdeen, which, as the reader is aware, had dechned to go on with the probation of the libel. These appeals led to a prolonged debate, into the merits of which we need not enter. Professor Smith introduced heat into it by an ill-advised attack on the position of Sir Henry Moncreiff as a judge in the case, but the motion thus necessitated, upholding Sir Henry's position, was supported not only by Principal Rainy and Dr. Begg, but also by Professor Lindsay of Glasgow, who had become the accredited spokesman of the pro- Smith party. I have already expressed the opinion that Professor Smith gained nothing by tactics like these. The dissents against the action (or rather inaction) of Aberdeen Presbytery were sustained by the Assembly by the crushing majority of 383 to THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 3G7 only 164, and the libel was found ripe for probation ; but, at the same time, it was resolved, ' in place of instructing the Presbytery to proceed to probation,' to consider * on Thursday next ' how best the case might ' be brought to a conclusion.' Immediately afterwards. Sir Henr}^ gave notice of his motion for Thursday. Its terms were what has already been indicated. First, it resolved not to take any further steps in the direction of the libel, while, however, previous judgments on the case were left undisturbed ; and then, secondly, it rehearsed these decisions, re- ferred to the Church's anxiety and alarm and so on, and declared the Assembly ' constrained to come to the conclusion that Professor Smith no longer retains that measure of confidence on the part of the Church which is necessary to the useful and edifying per- formance of his professorial work,' and therefore, ' with great regret at finding themselves placed in this position to a man of Professor Smith's gifts and promise,' yet 'find and declare that Professor Robert- son Smith must now cease to occupy any longer the chair of Hebrew and Old Testament Literature in Aberdeen, and, with this finding of the Assembly, declare that the case take end.' As Sir Henry read it in his magisterial tones, most people felt that Pro- fessor Smith was now as good as out of his chair. On the intervening Wednesday, meetings of various sections were held. It was ascertained that Dr. Begg would not support the Rainy-Moncreiff motion, but was going straight for proceeding constitutionally with the libel. The ' Smith party ' had their meeting, and were encouraged by its numbers and enthusiasm. 368 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY In the House a discussion on Disestablishment hap- pened to take place, and Principal Rainy made a lively speech in which he had occasion to quote the words, ' Still the same Whether we lose or win the game.' Even so far-seeing a man as he was did not anticipate how the next day's debate and division would call him to philosophise afresh about winning or losing the game. On Thursday the galleries were packed in the early morning. The keenness of feeling was obvious. Pro- fessor Smith on entering received an ovation. Dr. Begg was met with ironical ' Oh, oh's.' Principal Rainy had a hostile demonstration, even from the students' gallery. Professor Smith was offered the opportunity to speak, but declined and left the Assembly. Four motions were submitted to the House. Sir Henry Moncreiff moved the first, which has been outlined. He said frankly that * the idea of the conception of this motion did not originate with me.' He showed clearly enough that he still hankered after the libel. But on the crucial question as to whether the Assembly could act in this summary way he was unhesitating, and I may quote his view of this important and interesting point : — ' Some people say Professor Smith holds his office ad viiam aut culpam. There are different things to be said about that question. Generally speaking, the expression refers to an office of emolument, and means that he is not to be de- prived of the temporal benefit of that office without his being found guiUy of some fault, and when a man is deprived of his office, the civil court may possibly find that he is entitled to THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 369 damages at the hand of the party who had deprived him of it. That is a possible action. But observe that the question we have to do with is not the rights of Professor Smith to his emoluments or salary, but the question of his going on in the exercise of spiritual functions in the Church of Christ, for the right arrangement of which the Church is responsible to the great Head of the Church. ... If the Church comes to be persuaded that it is not for edification, not for the good of the Church, not for the good of the cause of the great Head of the Church that Professor Smith should exercise these functions, the Church is called to discharge her responsibility ; and it is on tliis ground I support the motion I have laid on the table.' The second motion was from the pro-Smith side and was moved by Dr. Laidlaw, who in an earnest and eloquent speech begged the Assembly to give the Professor ' another chance.' It disclaimed Professor Smith's views as representing those of the Free Church, but passed from the libel with an admonition. Dr. Begg moved a third motion which was short, clear, and unquestionably the logical next step, ' that the Assembly proceed with the probation of the libel.' The fourth motion was the one round which the party of Professor Smith had agreed to rally. It was moved in the name of a venerable minister, Dr. Beith (as he was too ill to appear, a statement from him was read b}' his son ^), and its main terms were to withdraw the libel but find Professor Smith blame- worthy for unguarded and incomplete statements, and so instruct the Moderator to ' admonish him with due solemnity as to the past, in the confident expecta- tion that the defects referred to will be guarded against and avoided in time to come.' This was seconded 1 Gilbert Beith, M.P. VOL. I. 2 A 370 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY by Dr. Benjamin Bell, an Edinburgh surgeon, whose professional eminence and noble personal character made him the natural leader of the many laymen who were staunch supporters of Professor Smith : one still hears him pleading with earnest dignity that the Assembly ' may be kept from doing anything inconsistent with justice, with constitutional usage, with the merciful character of our holy religion.' A long debate followed into which I cannot enter. Principal Rainy rose late in the evening. His opening words were these : — ' I rise with a very heavy heart — never with so heavy a heart in this Assembly — but with perfect decision in my own view to explain to the House the reasons why I am constrained to support Sir Henry Moncreiff' s motion ; and if there is any responsibiUty connected with the motion — and there is much — and if there is any odium connected with it, I claim my share of the responsibility and of the odium. I am going to explain my reasons why I accept the inevitable and why I prefer to accept it in this form.' He went on to speak of former judicial decisions which, * in loyalty to the judicial practice of our Church,' ^ made it ' morally impossible for me to take lines of action by which I should attempt, so to say, to get Professor Smith through this case.' This feature of Dr. Rainy's mind I referred to in the last chapter. For this reason he could not support Dr. Laidlaw's or Dr. Bcith's motion : ' What these two ' It must be remembered that the General Assembly is not merely a deliberative and legislative body but also the Supreme Judicial Court of the Church. No one is called on to show undue deference to every motion passed by an Assembly; but this was a 'case,' and the decisions of 1878 and 1879 were final judicial judgments comparable in their sphere to the decisions of the House of Lords sitting m its legal capacity THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 371 motions propose is this — that after the Church has proceeded in a Hbel to a finding of relevancy, and has refused to suspend the process even by appointing a committee, you propose in the face of that, short- hand, to repone a man to his office.' Therefore, in his view, he was shut up to Dr. Begg's motion or Sir Henry's. He dwelt on the concession, in the latter motion, of dropping the libel. ' I do regard it as a very valuable and substantial concession to some of us that this case should take end not under a libel.' As to the question of power to end it ' in another way,' he held ' it is indispensable to maintain and in some rare cases to exert that power of the Church.' Has a case occurred ? * Sore against my will,' the speaker held it had. Successive votes were ' morally and really ' but ' votes of want of confidence in Professor Smith.' And, said the Principal, speaking very deliberately : — ' Moderator, it appears to me that, in these circumstances; we deceive ourselves when we talk of a restoration of confidence such as a professor requires. I say a professor requires not to be in collision with declared successive majorities of the General Assembly of the Church. I cannot get over that, and I don't believe that those are the friends of Professor Smith, however they desire to be, and I don't believe that they are the friends of the Church, who persuade themselves, though I well understand why they try to persuade them- selves, that it is possible to make that position of things hold water. I, for my part, with great sorrow of heart, am driven to the conclusion that it will not hold water.' Dr. Rainy concluded by saying that the motion * did not settle the critical question.' It separated that question ' from the unhappy peculiarities of this 372 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY case,' and left it open for happier agreement. Dr. Rainy made no attempt to speak eloquently or even trenchantly : he spoke gravely, sorrowfully ; the words seemed almost wrung from him at places. When he sat down, he was followed by a young minister whose name will frequently recur in the later portion of this biography, the Rev. Walter Ross Taylor of Glasgow, who made a successful skirmishing attack on his speech. It was approaching midnight when the vote was taken. The first division was between Dr. Begg's motion and Dr. Beith's : 256 voted for the former and 287 for the latter. The libel was dead. The next vote was between the two pro-Smith motions — Dr. Laidlaw's and Dr. Beith's. It was a formality, as the party had agreed to make their last stand on the latter, which was carried by 244 to 51 votes. Then the bell rang again and the most exciting vote in the history of the Free Church Assembly began between Dr. Beith's motion and Sir Henry Moncreiff's. The House divided into two apparently equal streams, which slowly disappeared through the doors. Practi- cally the result depended on one man. If Dr. Begg made his party abstain — and he had said strong things about the character of Sir Henry's proposal — Professor Smith had a chance. As the vote went on, the redoubtable leader of the left stepped on to the platform beside the Moderator's chair and sur- veyed the ebbing streams with the shrewd scrutiny of an old Assembly hand. He motioned first once and then again and again, and one bench and then another and another of his party rose and went to the doors THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 373 for Sir Henry's motion. Then he seemed satisfied, and he himself and at least a score, perhaps con- siderably above that number, of his immediate associates did not vote. The division was soon over and the tellers came to the Clerks' table, where (as there were two doors for each motion) the little addi- tion necessary to ascertain the result was to be done. Members came pressing back into the House. Every one was waiting on the tiptoe of excitement. Suddenly Professor Lindsay, who was one of the tellers, turned round and gave a wave of his hat. Sir Henry Moncreiff bent on him a purple frown of righteous official rebuke. But the thing was out. The galleries understood it and burst into a vociferous shout of triumph. Hats were thrown in the air and handkerchiefs fluttered hke birds let loose for a festival. Half the members in the House were hurrahing or exchanging enthusi- astic congratulations. The other half sat silent, overwhelmed with surprise and with the jubilation around them. Meanwhile Sir Henry was demanding silence in stentorian tones in order to announce the figures ; and after a while he was able to declare them — for Dr. Beith's motion, 299 ; for Sir Henry Moncreiff's motion, 292 — a majority of 7. Then the cheering broke out afresh. Principal Rainy was sitting erect, very white, but too much the man of breeding to lose his self-control. The absolute collapse of some faces was a study. Then Professor Smith was summoned to receive the Moderator's admonition as the successful motion had prescribed. He made his way to the bar amid a storm of applause. He stood up, his face whiter. 374 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY his eyes brighter than even their wont. The Moderator performed with dignity and propriety his difficult task of admonishing a man who had just been received as a hero. Speaking amid perfect silence, Professor Smith replied : — ' Moderator, I hope I am not out of place when I say that while I thank God for the issue of this evening — an issue which I trust will be for His glory and for the maintenance of His truth — I have never been more sensible than on the present occasion of the blame that rests on me for statements which have proved so incomplete that, even at the end of three years, the opinion of this House is so divided upon them. I feel that in the providence of God, this is a very weighty lesson to one placed as I am in the position of a teacher, and I hope that by His grace I shall not fail to profit by it.' By these well-chosen words — spoken with obvious sincerity — Professor Smith set a noble seal on a great victory. They appealed even to men who had voted against him. As the Assembly broke up, there was a feeling in many previously divided circles that the result should be accepted as ending a distressing case and that a day of forbearance and peace was dawning. Men with the sense of justice were relieved that, if the majority was to be so small, at least Professor Smith was not deprived by only seven, and Sir Henry admitted he would never have proposed his motion unless he had confidently believed it would be carried by a far larger majority than that by which it was lost. Principal Rainy's attitude is expressed in the following letter which he wrote, the day after the result, to Professor Smith : — ' Dear Professor Smith. — I am very well aware, of course. THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 375 that ^'■ou, along with your friends, disapprove of the Hne which I have taken in the proceedings which ended yesterday, and I am aware of the grounds on which you do so. Never- theless I will ask leave to say, and I hope you will be able to believe, that to me personally it is an immense relief that the Assembly should have seen its way to restore you to your work in a manner w'hich enables you to pursue it in peace and honour. I earnestly desire that the results of the Assembly's finding may prove as happy — durably and com- pletely happy — as any of your friends can desire.' I do not find among Principal Rainy's papers any reply to this letter. If it was acknowledged at all, certainly it did not evoke the answer which the last words about a complete and durable happiness should have called forth, for reasons the reader will find immediately. The great triumph described above — upon which Professor 5mith was overwhelmed with congratu- lations from scholars such as Wellhausen, Kuenen, Lagarde, Noldeke, Cheyne, Driver and many others — was a hard fought and a richly deserved victory in every sense but one. This was, that it was also an accident. If Dr. Begg had polled his last man — as unquestionably he would have done if he had thought Professor Smith's side was winning — the result would have been the other way. He was deceived, as the audience also was, by the fact that the supporters of Sir Henry Moncreiff's motion took longer than their opponents to get through the division doors. Being for the most part the older members of the House, perhaps they were stouter in their build and slower in their movements : on such things does history at times depend. At any rate, the fact remains that not 376 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY even in this Assembly had Professor Smith a bona fide majority. It was a case when fortune had favoured — ^righteously and opportunel}^ favoured — the brave. Surety this fact might have made Professor Smith think a little, before it was too late, of the morrow and what it held. For it held — and he knew it held — something which, to put it at the lowest, might endanger the happiness that had befallen him. There is a sinister warning about Fortune in an ancient proverbial writer — that it ' is brittle, and just when it shines bright, it breaks.' ^ Not seldom has history, which loves irony, made that word her own. It was to prove its bitter truth in the story of William Robertson Smith and his Church. Within a few da3^s — a few days — of the close of the Assembly there appeared a new volume of the Ency- clopcedia Britannica, and in it was another, article by Professor Smith on the subject of ' Hebrew Language and Literature.' This article was, of course, written from the same critical standpoint as the famous article on the Bible. In many respects it was, it is just to say, moderately written, yet it was pronounced in its conclusions, and in particular Professor Smith now definitely accepted the Graf-Wellhausen theory as his own view, whereas he had formerly stated it more problematically, without fully committing himself to it. The effect on the Church of this new challenge, as it seemed, was of the most painful kind. The ' Robertson Smith case ' was revived. Immediately, twelve Presbyteries overtured the Commission of Assembly, which was appointed to meet in the begin- ^ Fortuna vilrea est; tuin cum splendei^ frangitur (Publius Syrus). THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 377 ning of August, to take up the matter afresh. The eirenical effect of Professor Smith's words from the bar of the Assembly after his admonition was almost wholly lost ; and indeed, in its place, came in many minds the feeling that he had been disingenuous. His extreme opponents raised their charges afresh : moderate-minded men, who had voted for him at the Assembly, began to be exasperated : even his friends had sinkings of heart as they saw their glorious victory thrown away and their advantageous position for- feited. After a while — a little tardily — Professor Smith gave some explanations. He stated that the article had been prepared nearly a year before, and that it had passed into the printer's hands long before the Assembly.^ He claimed the judgment of last Assembly as one which * enabled m3'Self and those who hold my views to remain at our posts with a clear conscience, and to return to our work in the Church with fresh vigour.' He added that he was now arranging his plans of Hterary work so as to give the Church ' respite from controversy.' It was almost universally felt that it was an irretrievable pit\' that, at the time of his admonition, Professor Smith did not give the Church some hint of this coming article. In reply to this, his friends explained that in the emotion of that utterly unexpected restoration, it never occurred to him. Every one accepts that ; but does not the morrow bring its calmer reflec- ' As a matter of fact it seems to have been completed by September 1879. On the iSth of that month Professor Smith wrote to Dr. J. Suther- land Black, assistant editor of the Eticyclopcedia *. ' 1 hope to arrive in Edinburgh on Monday forenoon and stay till 10.20 P.M. I shall bring " Hebrew Language and Literature " with me.' 378 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY tions ? Principal Rainy's letter to Professor Smith which I quoted a moment ago must have supplied the reminder, and might have suggested the way. I am persuaded that if Principal Rainy, the day after that memorable decision, which, as I have said, there was a real and widespread desire to accept as final, had been put in possession of the facts, he could have made a statement to the Assembly which would have immensely relieved and perhaps entirely saved the painful feeling which arose when the new article suddenly appeared like a fresh challenge. Or, if the feeling towards Dr. Rainy was too strong for this, some one else could and should have done it. For, to Professor Smith's credit, it could be said he had, for the Church's sake, rearranged his work ; he had actually declined to write for the Encydopcedia articles on subjects such as * Isaiah ' and ' Israel ' and proposed to devote himself to Semitic archaeology. The chance was missed — missed I cannot but think inexcusably on some one's part — and when the new volume of the Encyclopcedia appeared, there arose at once another and, in some senses, a still bitterer storm. By a large majority, the Commission that met in August appointed a committee to examine the article and to report to a special meeting in October. At the October special meeting — at which, it is im- portant to mention. Principal Rainy was absent, as he was in America — it was resolved to send the report, which was a hostile one, to the ensuing Assembly, and meanwhile * instruct ' Professor Smith not to teach his classes during the session. At the Commission Professor Smith made an extraordinarily brilliant THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 379 speech — perhaps the most remarkable of all his speeches — which rallied his friends to a new enthusi- asm. He also protested strongly against the legal competence of the action of the Commission in taking up the case as it did. At the August Commission, Principal Rainy used of the reopening of the case the word ' heart-break- ing.' However much he must have felt his defeat at the Assembly, he was far too noble-minded a man to seek reprisals, though the opportunity was ob- viously within his reach. It is clear he deeply desired it were possible to avoid a new case. He used in this connection a curious phrase which became notorious. He said he had tried to think that * a sufficient number could be got to agree ' that it was reasonable to regard this article as * covered by last Assembly.' The phrase * a sufficient number ' was seized on by his adversaries as showing that he was a leader with no fixed principles and — as the Scotsman put it in one of its numerous attacks— ' a hunter for majorities.' Of course the charge was unfair : he was speaking not of any issue of principle but of a simple matter of fact and of numbers, namely, whether the article would or would not create a new popular agitation ; but the temptation to an unscrupulous opponent who cared to take advantage of it was obvious, and the taunt stuck for many a day. Principal Rainy's position as to the new case was this. He deplored it and saw how unhappily it was developing into a new struggle. But if it did so develop, he was resolute about one thing. There must not be another four years' case of it. If it had to be taken up, it must be taken up 380 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY strongly and dealt with summarily. On this latter point he seemed to be clear from the first. It was a most unfortunate thing — unfortunate for himself and fatal for the prospects of any avoidance of a new case arising — that Principal Rainy left Scot- land soon after the August Commission and that he was absent from the October meeting. As will be seen from letters I shall quote immediately, he reluc- tantly — if apparently a little weakly, he explains why in one of these letters — supported the appointment of a Committee in August. But it was wholly out- side his mind that this Committee should, as it did, work up a case against Professor Smith and present what was little short of a new libel to the October Commission. This practically forced on a new contro- versy, and when Principal Rainy came back from America in November, he found a situation difficult to disentangle, and himself pressed by those he had been associated with at the last Assembly, and apparently particularly by Dr. Adam, to carry it out to what, once it was raised, he had admitted to be its only solution. The following extracts from letters to Dr. Adam will sufficiently illustrate what I have just said. They were aU written in November 1880 : — ' I want to say one thing in regard to the Committee's report to the Commission. I rather regret the lines on which it goes. It is a kind of detailed indictment on a number of points. My expectation was that in any report the point mainly made and kept in prominence would be simply this — that the article, to our great regret, reopened in an aggravated form all the questions that had seemed to be closed. ' I am not so sure things will quiet. For my part I am not surprised, though greatly grieved, at the state of things, the THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 381 expression of which is reaching me somewhat more freely than perhaps it does even you. My disinchnation to take renewed action on the new article was based on the impression that no useful action could be taken without proposing and doing a very strong thing, and that, in our divided state, it was impossible to tell what the effect of that might be.' Other letters, which it is unnecessary to quote, speak of the expressions of alarm that reached Principal Rainy's ears. Apparently, on his return from America, he was bombarded with them — he speaks in one letter of being ' assailed by alarmist representations ' — while, unfortunate^, his separation from the pro- Smith party kept him from being adequately in touch with feeling on the other side. In addition to this, Dr. Adam — if I may so put it — * kept at him.' Dr. Adam was not a man of theological insight or even of the highest type of Church leader ; but he was thor- oughly clear-headed and most persistent in pursuing what he aimed at. In the same month of November — the exact day is not marked — Principal Rainy wrote him : — ' You are quite entitled to ask any information as to my own position and intention, and I have the utmost desire that you should know everything on that subject. I originally doubted very seriously the propriety of making a new case out of Smith's last article. The Church, I thought, had good tangible ground for declining, if she chose, to take up Smith's fresh challenge, and I thought it would be wisest to decline. On the other hand, I acknowledged that the Church had a right to take up the case and deal with it, if she thought that better and saw her way to deal with it effectively. I thought, and think still, it was not worth while to take it up at all unless with the view of bringing it rapidly to an end by ter- minating somehow Smith's tenure of the professorship. Per- haps I should have made more of a stand for my own view 382 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY of the case in the early part of summer, but I felt a good deal disabled and disqualified for exerting much influence by the result of the Assembly. When the August Commission came, I went as far as I could in backing up the course resolved on, but I doubted then and doubt yet whether I was quite entitled by the state of my convictions to do so much. A silent vote would have been more accurately true to the position of my own mind. ' As things now stand, in spite of aU the excitement that is abrojid, I see nothing yet to convince me that the best way out is not the straight one, i.e. to carry the proceedings to their natural conclusion. But I am not able to take any leading part in that. ... I am inchned to agree with , over whose views my family have been chuckling all the morning, that my " leadership " is pretty well extinguished. . . . Any way, you will beheve that I have no disposition to be separated from you in Church action, far less to coun- tenance any line of things that could increase the perplexities and troubles that weigh on us all.' A few days later, evidently pressed by Dr. Adam to be more explicit as to what, as then advised, he will support, he writes thus : — ' You have every right to ask where I stand and how my face is set. In reply I have to say that I have not seen any reason to believe that there is a better way out of the existing troubles than that of carrying Smith's case through to the conclusion, and that means separating him in time from his chair. I intend to support that course ; but as I did not see my way to recommend the beginning of the proceedings which look to that issue, and as my grounds for supporting it are in some degree different from yours, I cannot undertake a leading part in carrying it on. And I must reserve to myself the right to judge whether the course of proceedings I now sup- port is fit tc be persevered with. I think it right to say so in a letter like this, but my saying so does not imply that I see any alternative course which it would be suitable for the Church to adopt or for mc to support.' THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 383 These letters reveal Principal Rainy in an unhappy situation in which, most unlike his usual self, he seems not quite master of his ' circumstances or of his own mind. The truth is, he found himself forced to act in a situation he had neither desired nor created. Unquestionably during his absence in America the temperature rose and party feeling had revived. Many in Dr. Begg's party had never accepted the settlement of the Assembly of 1880. Then the report to the Commission had, as has been said, really re- formed a case, and this was being keenly pressed by Dr. Adam. On the other hand, the pro-Smith party was embittered by this report, and still more by the doubtfully legal action of the October Commission in ' instructing ' Professor Smith not to teach during the session. Pamphlets reappeared and meetings began to be held. Another bitter conflict seemed inevitable. Whether at this time it would have been possible for Principal Rainy to appeal to the Church to take the magnanimous attitude to Professor Smith of saying that while this new article was not covered b}^ last x\ssembly, and while (apart from any explana- tion about its appearance when it did) the very preparation by him of a new challenge while his Church was being all but shipwrecked over his previous article was far from admirable, still, in the circumstances, it was not evidence that he would not duly implement what he had said to the Church at his acquittal, and that therefore the admonition and the settlement it accompanied should be left a fair chance to justify themselves — I say wlietlier Principal Rainy could have said that then and made it effective 384 THE LIFE OF PllINCIPAL RAINY is more than doubtful. Might he and should he have tried to do it ? I think an informed and just, not to say charitable, judgment wiU hesitate about con- demning him even in this, however one may deplore the inevitable results. It must be remembered how disabled he was by the result at last Assembly. He had already made one appeal to the Moncreiff majority to compromise and had persuaded them, and the result was — whether accidental or not — they were led to defeat. One cannot well, in such circumstances, make a second appeal. Then, if this course was impossible, one other was inevitable. A long case was not to be toterated. From this point, things moved straight and sure to their drastic conclusion at the forthcoming Assembly. Principal Rainy seems to have made one attempt to discover from the friends of Professor Smith whether they could suggest anything which could meet the situation. In February 1881 he had a meeting with some of them, and he writes this account of it to Dr. Adam : — ' Our meeting yesterday (I mean with Smith's friends) was pdvate, and they desired it should remain so. I do not want, therefore, to have talk going on about it, but at the same time you should know the substance of what passed. They said they spoke to me not merely as persons attached to Smith, but still more as concerned for the welfare of the Church, which they conceived to be endangered in various ways. What was made prominent at first was the action of the Commission, not that they wanted that censured, but they wished some security against its standing as a precedent. Still, what they pointed to was some line being taken that might end the case without permanent damage to the Church. They indicated, for example, that turning Smith aljout his business THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 385 would not end matters, for other professors would presently be attacked and the worry would go on. (I may here say, by way of anticipation, that I did not admit this : I pointed out that the success of the attack on Smith, suppose it to be successful, would depend on the support of a great number of men who would strenuously resist mere wanton or needless attacks on professors, even though the latter might hold views which they regretted in some degree.) When it came to my turn, I told them I really did not care much about the ques- tion of the Commission, regarding the action to be taken by the Assembly as almost the one thing worth caring for. I said that the action of the Commission had been very cleverly used to rehabilitate Smith's case and so had, in point of fact, done nothing to prejudice him at the Assembly, . . . But I went on to say that I thought it possible that the Commis- sion question might be arranged if there were a sufficient motive to induce men to try and arrange it ; but that that motive must depend on the prospect of some solution being in view for the more material and ultimate question. And J said it struck me this way. Last Assembly's decision ended the former case ; but it was a decision in peculiar circum- stances, carried really by a minority, and so, one might fear, would be regarded as having little moral claim on the deference of those who were opposed to it. Yet I said, in point of fact (and I had found it so personally on going to the Highlands) there was a remarkable disposition to accept it as providential and to wait in a measure of hope. In these circumstances the new article fell in. It was, I said, the most extraordinary exploit ever performed to have written such an article in the circumstances. This being so, the flame was re-lighted. It seemed to me then that it lay with Professor Smith and his friends (if the good and the peace of the Church were the object in view) to make an effective contribution towards that object. And, I said, supposing this Commission business out of the way, supposing it amicably arranged somehow, have 3'ou, on the part of Smith's friends, any contribution to make, any concession to offer, tending to a solution in the interests of the Church's peace ? Or is your view on the ultimate question simply to carry Professor Smith through again ? ' VOL. I. 2 B 386 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY The upshot of this is not recorded. Professor Smith's friends seem to have left to consider the question, but I have no record of any further communications. It is difficult to see what * contribution ' could be made. The question had come to be the simple one of whether Professor Smith was to be retained in his chair, and that could be answered only by ' yes ' or * no.' Certainly there was now no external reason why Professor Smith might not tender his resignation. I think he could not do that so long as the libel was in existence : the principle of the permissibility of criticism in the Church would have been, if not lost, at least compromised by a resignation then. Now, however, the libel was dead, and the principle of critical liberty was really won. But there is little use discussing the point whether he might not have resigned at this stage. Since the attempt at the last Assembl}^ to oust him from his chair without a process, his feelings had become very keen and — as is not unintelligible — he was simply not in the mood to resign or in any way to facilitate Principal Rainy's intentions. Meanwhile, Professor Smith was making an in- valuable * contribution,' if not to the ecclesiastical, at least to the more general problem. Barred from teaching his classes in Aberdeen, he delivered, in Edinburgh and Glasgow, ^ a course of expository lectures on criticism. These lectures were attended by hundreds and were a great success. They were published under the title of The Old Testament in the * 'J'he writer may be pardoned for mentioning, with a natural interest and gratification, that in Glasgow these lectures were delivered in Renfield Church, the minister of which then was Dr. Marcus Dods. THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 387 Jewish Church. That with the author of that enhghten- ing and thoroughly beHeving book, things had come to the pass that it was hardly possible after next Assembly for him to be a professor in his Church, is a fact which a study of the circumstances (and still more of individual personalities) may enable one to understand, but to which one can hardly ever be reconciled. The Assembly of 1881 took up the case in three separate sections and devoted to it three days. The first day was occupied with a long constitutional argument as to the action of the Commission of Assembly in the previous October. Into this — though some most interesting and important questions were involved — I need not enter. Sir Henry Moncreiff's motion finding that there was no occasion to interfere with the Commission's action was carried by the large majority of 439 to 218. Principal Rainy did not take part in the debate : on him had been laid the far more serious task of the morrow, when the Assembly took up the question of dealing with the main issue of Professor Smith's position and the case generalty. On Tuesday morning, 24th May, Principal Rainy rose — ^in a densely crowded House — and moved a long, reasoned resolution. It narrated the main facts regarding the appearance of the article on ' Hebrew Language and Literature,' declared it * is fitted to give at least as great offence and cause as serious anxiety as that for which Professor Smith was formerly dealt with,' and ' contains statements which are fitted to throw grave doubts on the historical truth and divine inspiration of several 388 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAT. RAINY books of Scripture,' and thereafter concluded as follows : — ' That both the tone of the article in itself, and the fact that such an article was prepared and published in the circum- stances and after all the previous proceedings in his case, evince on the part of Professor Smith a singular insensibility to his responsibilities as a theological professor and a singular and culpable lack of sympathy with the reasonable anxieties of the Church as to the bearing of critical speculations on the integrity and authority of Scripture : that all this has deepened the conviction already entertained by a large section of the Church that Professor Smith, whatever his gifts and attain- ments, which the Assembly have no disposition to undervalue, ought no longer to be intrusted with the training of students for the ministry ; therefore, the General Assembly, having the responsible duty to discharge of overseeing the teaching in the Divinity Halls, while they are sensible of the importance of guarding the due liberty of professors, and encouraging learned and candid research, feel themselves constrained to declare that they no longer consider it safe or advantageous for the Church that Professor Smith should continue to teach in one of her Colleges.' The motion, as will be observed, was merely declara- tory : it was left to another day — in order to ensure due deliberation and practically a double vote — to resume the matter ' with the view of giving effect to the judgment.' Principal Rainy made in support of this motion a weighty and, for him, a long speech, of which I can give here only a most imperfect account. He began by saying that, ' whatever elements of pain one has in connection with this matter, they cannot be expressed but must rather be suppressed.' He sketched the whole past history with studied moderation and scrupulous fairness. Then he described the appear- THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 389 ance of the new article, and, while disclaiming the right to be ' a judge or a censor,' spoke with keen feeling of the ' legitimate disappointment and vexation, the sheer sinking of heart ' with which that article was received. * Surely in the case of many of us, it was,' he said, ' one of those bitter disappoint- ments that are not soon forgotten.' Then he went on to speak of the article itself, and indicated why he could not make ' the desperate attempt ' he would fain have made ' to get the Church to look on that article as not written,' the reason being that it un- questionably started fresh questions, for (as has been said) in it Professor Smith definitely accepted views he had previously stated only problematically. ' This,' said Principal Rainy, ' is the state we find ourselves in at the end of five years.' It inevitably raised the question of Professor Smith's being retained as ' our representative in training our students.' Dr. Rainy very earnestly argued that the general questions of criticism must be left, at present, in this unsettled state ; but there was a real danger of the Church, through the course pursued in this case by one in the position of a professor, dealing in a trenchant fashion even with these. He desired to keep the question of critical liberty and the question of a professor's personal position apart. He said on tliis : — ' Circumstances arise at times in which it is desirable to hold them apart — (on the one hand) what is consistent with the position of office-bearers, and (on the other) what is ques- tionable, not merely in the opinions of a professor, but in his manner of deahng with opinions and dealing with minds about them, and that persisting through years and reiterated in the manner which has been touched upon — too questionable 390 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY to make it reasonable or right that he should continue to occupy that position in the Church.' In closing, he discussed the question of the power of the Assembly to deal with the matter in this way — that is, not by carrying through a process but by an act of administration such as his motion contemplated. Of this he said : — ' It is not a thing to be done hastily. It is not as if this was proposed at first, when we had the difficulties of Professor Smith's case brought up, or early in the case. It has not been done with needless violence. But I hold it is of importance to remember that there is a reserve power in the Assembly to care for the interests of the flock when ordinary means and arrangements cannot meet the case.' After some argument about its special applicability to professors of the Church comparable to the visitorial power of the Crown in the Universities, he went on to give an interesting historical illustration : — ' Out of a hundred instances, I will give you one, and I choose it because nobody will suspect it of having an invidious bearing on Professor Smith. There is nothing in Professor Smith's case to suggest that what I am now going to say is going to strike at him. The interpretation of texts is free in this Church. We are not tied to hold that this or that interpretation of particular texts is not a misinterpretation. A maa may be a professor and yet, in the interpretation of Scripture, interpret so that every single text that supports the catholic doctrine of the Atonement, and every single text — or every one but one or two — that supports the catholic doctrine of the Trinity — aU those texts on which, to the most of men's minds, those doctrines must be supported, are made no longer to support them ; and yet the professor, from the peculiarity of his mind, all the time professing that he holds those doctrines on some other grounds. How could you reach that man by libel ? because on every separate text THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 391 he could plead that he had a right to interpret as he had done. Is this an imaginary case ? It is the case of Grotius, who had written on the Gospel doctrine of the Atonement and professed to be a believer in the Trinity, but in the end of his life, as it appeared from his interpretations, seemed to inter- pret away wellnigh every text that went to support this doctrine. You could not have a more brilliant man than Grotius, and I should be very sorry to say that Grotius was not a believing man with all the errors that may be ascribed to him. Still, I ask you again, how are you to reach the case of that man by a libel ? ' Principal Rainy concluded with the following sentences spoken with great deliberation and seriousness : — ' I hold a general power of this kind rests with the Church, but the question returns. Do you think it fit to use this power in this case ? Yes, Moderator, fathers and brethren, think well about that. I do not wish to conceal the gravity of it. It is a very grave burden to my own mind. A man who, with his known scholarly accomplishments, and God forbid that I should suggest a doubt of what with my whole soul I beheve, who with his believing heart has a power to impress himself on the pubhc mind the most signal of the whole staff of our professors ; but, more than that, a man who tells you that he desires no other and no better thing than to serve you and to serve Christ in his professorship — and those who sit round this House do not know so well as many in this House all that is imphed in the thought and feehngs that go with that desire. Yes, fathers and brethren, think well what you do. It is a great sacrifice not to Professor Smith merely. It is a great sacrifice to us. If you doubt your power, do not use it. If you doubt whether there is a case for the exercise of your power, do not use it. But, if you beheve that the case has arisen, has become such a case — a complication threaten- ing grave and serious issues — that it is no longer fit that even this professor should be maintained in the ofhce which he occupies, and if you believe that this is the right way to care for souls and to place the Church in the best position, thus dehberately and calmly facing with strength and patience 392 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY all those questions so plainly in the air and so inevitably questions that remain to be considered, then, if you think that, you must act, and you must take the responsibihty and the unpopularity of your action.' The counter-motion was moved by Dr. Whyte, the minister of St. George's, Edinburgh. It suggested a Committee, hinting — perhaps unhappily — that the Committee might, if it saw fit, institute a libel. Dr. Whyte — a great preacher who rarely came forward in ecclesiastical debate — made a large-hearted speech. He witnessed how Professor Smith's writings had ' not been unsettling, but the opposite, to me.' He would not cast a stone at him, ' no — nor will I keep the clothes of them who do.' He pled with the Church not to be ' a hard-hearted, short-sighted, panic-stricken mother to her loyal if adventurous son.' This motion was seconded by Dr. M'Kendrick, the eminent professor of Physiology in the University of Glasgow. The debate that followed was of great ability — in particular Professor Candlish and Professor Salmond, loyal to the end, speaking nobly for their brilliant but difh- cult friend. Professor Smith spoke just before the reply. His references to Dr. Rainy were not untinged with bitterness, and these need not be quoted ; but his last reply to the Principal's doctrine of the * reserve of power ' was characteristic of his best self : — ' There was not one scriptural argument in Dr. Rainy 's speech, not one that did not come from the region of the commonest expediency, no argument but the argument by which despotism had always been supported, that there must be a power to prevent the State from suffering any ill. There was a Power to preserve the Church from any ill. Three was a Power watching over it now in this crisis, and which he THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 393 and all of them hoped and prayed would not desert the Church, even if on this occasion she might be led wrong. But the Power which watched over the Church was not a power arbitrarily asserted by some body of men without constitution and on grounds of mere expediency, on grounds of temporary opinion. The Power that was watching over the Church was that Power which enabled them to be patient, temperate and trustful, to exercise charity and faith towards one another — it was the power of the Lord Jesus Christ and the power of His Spirit ruling in their hearts.' Principal Rainy replied briefly, closing suddenly with the words : — ' Moderator, it is useless to prolong the matter, and I will abruptly break off. I leave the whole question to the House with a very deep sense of responsibility. I shall only say — if you will allow me — that I wish, with all my heart, that it was Professor Smith putting me out of my chair rather than that I should be putting him out of his.' The bell rang. The motions were put. The House divided. The wa}^ the majority was going was obvious to the silent spectators. The tellers reported. Principal Rainy's motion was carried by no less than 423 votes to 245 for Dr. Whyte's. It was a much larger majority than had been expected,^ but there was little applause. On Thursday, the drama was completed. Dr. Adam moved that ' the Assembly appoint and declare that Professor Smith's tenure of his chair shall cease.' The motion expressly conserved Professor Smith's salary, and of course it left unaffected his ordination as a presbyter of the Church. After Tuesday's decision, Dr. Adam had an easy task to say that the Assembly ' At least, the Scotsman^ a day or two before, said the anti-Smith party were counting on a majority of one hundred, but that the other side took this cum £_rano salts. 394 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY would ' stultify ' itself if it did not go on to this judg- ment. The amendment was moved by the distin- guished scholar, Professor A. B. Bruce. It was little more than a form to provide the right to dissent — proposing nothing positive, but merely declining to accept Dr. Adam's motion.^ The feature of the debate was the speech of Dr. Marcus Dods — an even greater stranger to ecclesiastical courts than Dr. Whyte — who made a speech of exceptional strength. He wondered ' how some Greek-speaking Dr. Rainy would have been received at the Council of Nice, let us say, if he had proposed to deal with the heretic but not with the heresy,' and he closed with a brilliant illustration from Euripides of the mother who, in religious excitement, destroyed her child. Principal Rainy remarked in private that the speech was ' the finest thing I ever heard in my life ' — a remark which at least shows that he cherished no resentment against his most powerful antagonists. The Principal in his speech said he was quite aware of the 1 I cannot help thinking it a pity that the last despairing position of the party was taken upon so inept a motion. Of course no counter-motion, however well drafted, would have been carried. Still, apart from the personal question of Professor Smith's fate, a great constitutional interest was concerned in this establishment of a precedent in the use of the Assembly's ' reserve power.' I think it would have been of use if that precedent had been accompanied by a protest (even though the motion endorsing it had been defeated) that, if this power were to be exercised, it is not a thing to be carried through within the space of a Tuesday to a Thursday but should have the concurrence of two Assemblies. It may be replied that a motion therefore to delay judgment till next year would be out of order after Tuesday's decision, which was to meet on Thursday ' with the view of giving effect to this judgment,' etc. That could be disputed ; and, on the other hand, I think Professor Bruce's amendment was hardly competent. This was not a debate but a case ; in a case I think you must move not a mere negative but some positive decision. But it is little use discussing all this now. THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 395 penalties he would have to pa}^ for the course he was taking, but he pointed out very emphatically that any other course certainly meant a libel, and that meant less likelihood than ever of a right solution of the great question involved. Professor Smith rose after Dr. Rainy and spoke of ' a personal bar betwixt himself and members of the House ' : he repudiated his salary under such conditions, for ' he would never consent to eat the bread of a Church that did not permit him to serve her ' : he deprecated any secession consequent on the impending result, but ' the case was now only beginning.' The vote was 394 for Dr. Adam's motion and 231 for Professor Bruce's. The Robertson Smith case had reached its ' final solution.' On the evening of the previous Tuesday, after Principal Rainy's motion had been carried. Professor Lindsa}^ — who had been one of his students — wrote him the following letter : — ' My dear Dr. Rainy, — I should like, while the feeling is warm, to say that I sincerely sympathise with the sorrow you must have felt ere you resolved to do what you did to- day. I know the sorrow was real and hard to bear, and, while of course I think the policy was wrong every way, I have no doubt whatever but that you were convinced it was both just and for the good of the Church.' Principal Rainy replied to this letter two days later, when the hnal judgment actually separating Professor Smith from his chair had been given. He wrote : — ' ' Dear Lindsay, — I put off replying to yours till to-day should be over. I value your note very much and thank you cordially for it. Knowing the strength of feeling, I have been touched by tlie manifest effort in various instances to 396 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY put a good construction on my motives, though my conduct was disapproved. But I am very confident that I am in the right.' Principal Rainy was certainly not the man to write such a sentence as the last from any kind of bravado. It is clear that, in this the most painful action of his career, he had satisfied himself both in mind and conscience. The night before he moved his motion, he never retired to rest. He was left alone in his study, late in the evening, and next morning when a servant entered the room to prepare it for the day, she found her master still sitting in his chair absorbed in thought. It was well if his own mind and conscience were, satisfied, for he had to face a great unpopularity as the result of his action. The cynical press said this satisfaction arose from the fact that ' Principal Rainy had found his sufficient number.' This is not merely ungenerous : it is absurd. Principal Rainy had sacri- ficed — and he knew well that he was sacrificing — something far dearer and more valuable to a man and a leader than any single vote. He was sacrificing position and influence with a great section of the public and the Church. His leadership of the younger ministry and of the more advanced laity seemed quite lost. In many circles he was held up to unsparing condemnation. Organs in the press attacked him mercilessly. Even many good men declared they could never forgive him.^ But Seneca says, ' The ' The person most intimately concerned never forgave Principal Rainy. Some ten years after the fatal close of his case, I met Dr. Robertson Smith — an unforgettable personality — on a friend's yacht. He knew I was about to enter the ministry of the Free Church. Almost his last words to me were: 'You're a young man — you're going into the Free Church — don't trust Rainy — he's a Jesuit.' 1 can still see him and hear him saying it. THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 397 man who fears odium too much does not know how to rule.' ^ More than a quarter of a century has passed since this famous case, and now history can pronounce upon it and upon the chief actors in it more calmly and more justly than in the excitement of the time. So far as Principal Rainy is concerned, two questions stand for judgment. One is the constitutional ques- tion of the ' reserve power ' of the General Assembly : the other the personal question of his dismissing Professor Smith from his chair. On the former question, it is not necessary to say here more than a word. Both sides appealed to history to judge of it — Principal Rainy looking to its verdict with obvious confidence — while more than one of the other party were equally confident that before long the Church would repudiate an unconstitutional act of ' mob-law.' There can be no question about the result here. The doctrine of the ' reserve power ' has been quietly accepted by the Church and is actually formally recognised to-day in the authorised volume of procedure of the United Free Church of Scotland.- ^ Odiaqui nimiiim timet, regttare nescit {CEdipus, iii. 703). 2 'The General Assembly, being the supreme judicial, legislative and administrative Court of the Church, has a nobile officium. In virtue of this it may deal with and dispose of any matter which may arise and which is not provided for in the Rules of the Church or its Forms of Procedure. It may also in virtue of its nobile officium deal with and dispose of matters and cases provided for by these Rules and Forms in a way other than as therein directed as shall seem to the General Assembly right and needful for doing justice in the particular case ; but this should not be done save in circumstances exceptional in their character and which appear in the particular case to render such a course necessary.' — {Practice and Procedure in the United Free Church of Scotland, published by authority of the Assembly, p. 76.) There is no legislation in the Free Church on which this paragraph is based. It is a fruit of the precedent of iSSi. 398 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY The other and personal question is certainly a more difficult one. Yet there can be no doubt that in the Free Church — ^now the United Free Church — of Scot- land, judgment once bitterly adverse to Principal Rainy's treatment of William Robertson Smith has become remarkably modified. I have been surprised indeed (having gathered opinions from many quarters in the preparation of this chapter) to find how much this is the case among those representative to-day of learning and even advanced criticism in the Church. This may be accounted for partly by the veneration which, in his later years, gathered round Principal Rainy and disarmed much of the condemnation to which he was earlier exposed. But it is due also to a more relevant and historically valid reason. With the years one broad fact about this complicated case has become more and more clear. That fact is that it was Principal Rainy, and Principal Rainy chiefly and indispensably, who saved the great and vital interest which was at stake — namely, the securing of critical liberty within the evangelical and orthodox Free Church of Scotland. That he worked for this in the early phase of the case is obvious from the narrative. But a little reflection makes it equally clear even of his drastic action later. You can never judge an action justly till you know what are the alternatives. This must be kept steadily in mind if we are to judge justly the action of Principal Rainy in putting Professor Smith out of his chair in Aberdeen. We are inclined superficially to assume that the alternative to that drastic step was the carrying through in triumph both of tlie man and the cause. THE ROBERTSON SIMTTIT CASE 399 Is that historically true ? The unexpected and accidental and indeed fictitious victory of 1880 is, in my humble judgment, no real or reliable evidence that it is. At any rate — and this is sufficient for our present argument — it is quite clear that Principal Rainy had the gravest apprehension that, unless there was a substantial compromise, the result would be a decision not only against an individual but against liberty itself. Few persons adequately realise the all but irresistible vantage ground Sir Henry Moncreiff and Dr. Begg had after the libel had been found relevant and was sent on to what, in a case of heresy, is little more than the formality of probation : Professor Smith himself said that ' he had no defence on the matter of proof.' And certainly they had a majority. "* It was in circumstances such as these that Principal Rainy had to weigh alternatives and see how that was to be saved which must be saved. There are times when affairs become so critical and complicated that, as a modern statesman puts it who is also a philosopher, the choice is 'between two blunders. '- The loss to one of the Church's Colleges of the prince of believing critics was a blunder : but a far greater blunder — an irretrievable disaster with effects injurious not only to but also far beyond the Free Church of Scotland — would have been the loss of the man and of the principle of toleration of criticism in an evangelical communion. The pro-Smith party fought splendidly ^ It may be said they had in 1S79 a majority only of one. But it must be remembered this was as against Principal Rainy's temporising motion for a Committee, .^gainst a direct negative, the majority would certainly have been distinct. ^ Studies in Literature^ by John Morley, p. 190^ 400 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY in the open, encouraged by the cheers of many spectators, for the man and the principle ; and natur- ally they identified the two interests as much as possible. Principal Rainy, unable (for reasons which have appeared in the narrative) entirely to join in the frontal attack and, further, believing it could not finally succeed, delijDerately and distinctly separated the two interests, and, standing alone, exposed to suspicion and even censure and calumny, won from the conservative majority the preservation of the permanent and vital principle at the cost, the unavoid- able cost, of the individual's position as a professor. It is a mistake to say that Principal Rainy sacrificed the Professor merely for ' the peace of the Church.' So long as the libel was being persevered with he said nothing about ' the peace of the Church ' : on the contrary, he declared that a ' confessional settlement ' of critical questions was to be * resisted to the last.' He sacrificed the Professor because — as he once said to myself with quite exceptional finality of utterance — ' Robertson Smith was an impossibility.' An im- possibility for what ? Not impossible to answer, as the more militant of Professor Smith's friends sometimes put it, for Principal Rainy's contention was that the merits must not be answered but left for patient discussion. But impossible be- cause, if the principle of liberty was to be bound up with the professorial position of one who year after year was * morally and really ' declared not to have the confidence of the Church, the principle was in peril from its own protagonist. Professor Smith first could not and then would not resign — could not THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE 401 so long as the libel lay on the table, and would not even after it was withdrawn. Therefore Principal Rainy saved the situation by sheer force, accepting the odium inevitably associated with such an act. No doubt to all this was added — particularly in the third phase of the case, when Professor Smith's new article appeared — the consideration of the ' peace of the Church.' Principal Rainy, who would 'resist to the last ' — that is to say, light — for the principle of liberty, would not do so to the same extent for any individual interest. And in both instances, rightly. For what justifies the carrjdng on of a war in church — or, for that matter, even also in civil — hfe ? The thing that justifies war is that it is necessary to the securing of an end which is greater than peace. The principle of liberty of criticism is an end greater than peace : it is a m.atter of vital loyalty to God Who is truth. But if that end is no longer imperilled — and it was, in this case, no longer imperilled when the libel was withdrawn — is the right of any individual in anv particular post an end greater than peace, with all that, in a Church, peace means for the interests of the work of the Gospel ? Certainly, Dr. Rainy did not think so, least of all in the case of a professor, who, it must be remembered, in such a Church as the Free Church of Scotland, is appointed not merely to pursue scholar- ship but to be the representative trainer of the rising ministry. As to this, I shall only say that I am sure there is not a single professor in the Church to-day who would claim that he ought to be maintained in his chair if half the Church declared they could not trust him in that position and if strife over his occupancy VOL. I. 2 c 402 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY of it was disturbing her peace to its foundations. But I regard these questions as to personal interest and even as to the peace of the Church as distinctly subordinate in this case. The crucial and dominant question in the case was the public and vital Church interest of the preservation of intellectual liberty, and the crucial and dominant fact in Principal Rainy 's policy throughout is that he saved that liberty. Nothing is easier — nothing would be easier for the writer at this moment — than, from the position of large toleration now enjoyed in the Church, to survey with an air of superiority the course which, in those very different days. Principal Rainy followed. The very ease with which this could be done betrays its injustice. By whom and in what circumstances was that tolera- tion won for us ? Let at least those who are within the Church which is heir to the Free Church of Scotland of those days (I mean, of course, heir to her mind and hfe) be fair-minded enough to remember this — that but for Principal Rainy there would not, in all likeli- hood, have been room left in the Church for the liberty they now enjoy and in the very enjoyment of which they may be tempted to condemn the action of the man to whom indispensably it was due. Wilham Robertson Smith was unquestionably not only the protagonist but also the martyr of criticism in an orthodox and evangelical Church. Principal Rainy, acting in a position of peculiar responsibility which he could not decline, and accepting for himself a far sliarper penalty than any he imposed, was able, in a situation of unequalled complexity, to preserve for criticism a liberty which was nearly lost. The one THE ROBEKTSON SMITH CASE 403 is entitled to admiration for his brilliant gifts and services and, because he suffered, to sympathy ; yet it is not unqualified sympathy, for he suffered, in part at least, through his own defects of mental char- acter. The other is entitled to the respect due to a man acting (as all but unworthy critics nuw admit he did act) from pure motives and at personal sacrifice, and also, because the battle of liberty was won, to real gratitude ; yet this gratitude cannot take the form of unmeasured praise, because — I do not say through his fault — the result was less than the highest kind of victory, which is a victory won without blood, and was indeed too tragic a success to be ever called a triumph. CHAPTER XIV AN ERA OF TRANSITION THIS was the transition period of Scottish theology in the nineteenth century. We must not turn aside too far from our biographical duty to discuss at length the general intellectual and religious currents of the time, but a brief indication of some of these and of Principal Rainy's mind towards them is not irrelevant after the story of the last two chapters ; moreover, we shall find later that out of this transition arose some of the peculiar problems which beset his leadership of the Free Church of Scotland. The great case which has been narrated in the two preceding chapters was not the only, but it was the immediate and most potent factor in what was the greatest change in its religious ways of thinking which had come upon Scotland since the days of the Reformation. It is important for the reader to realise how this controversy over the case of Robertson Smith affected, not merely a few scholars or those engaged in Assembly debates, but the Church as a whole. This is one of the results of the possession and exercise of the institutions of self- government either in Church or State. They educate the people as nothing else can do. A judge sitting in 404 AN ERA OF TRANSITION 405 the Court of Arches decided the question of hberty of criticism for the Church of England ; but that decision contributed nothing to the instruction of the clergy and laity in that Church about the great matters involved for religious thought and life. The General Assembly's discussions and decisions — even when wrong — ^were' interesting and educating the whole Scottish Church. The result is that, while in England all that happened was that a judge decided a case (the very name of which the average Anglican does not know^), what happened in Scotland was that a new era dawned. Both in the ministry and among the intelligent people of the Scottish Church there were hundreds to whom the Bible became a new book. Inspiration meant no longer an untenable plenary inerrancy, but the realisation that — to quote the noble words of William Robertson Smith himself — ' In the Bible alone I find God drawing near to man , in Christ Jesus and declaring to us in Him His wilV for our salvation, and this record I know to be true by the witness of His Spirit in my heart w^hereby I am assured that none other than God Himself is able ' The judgment which essentially declared the legality of criticism in the Church of England was that given in the Court of Arches in the case of Dr. Rowland Williams, one of the contributors to Essays and Reviews. The more celebrated case of Bishop Colenso dealt rather with jurisdiction than doctrine. A distinguished Anglican dean once said to me that he was thankful that his Church had not final authority in her own courts to determine doctrine, for 'this saved Colenso, while you lost Robertson Smith.' The facts about the Colenso case are that his views were con- demned by the Convocation of Canterbury, and he himself was deposed and subsequently actually excommunicated by his metropolitan ; but the Privy Council declared the judgment 'null and void,' and the Rolls Court ruled that this canonically deposed man was still Bishop of Natal. Any P2nglish Churchman who can derive satisfaction from these proceedings is best left to its enjoyment. 406 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY to speak such words to my soul.' Prophecy was estabhshed not by quite fruitless stories about the uninhabitableness of Babylon and so on, but by the perception of the vital fulfilment in Christ of all that the Old Testament prophets taught of God, though they looked for its fulfilment in some different manner. Even the difficulties of history about the Bible were met no longer with evasions as to their disappearance when we attain perfect knowledge, but quite frankly and with no other interest but to recognise the facts. All this meant new light and a strong standing ground for the faith of many a per- plexed mind. Of course it had its perils ; to another class of mind it seemed wholly pernicious and the very destruction of faith. But, on either view, it was a profound change in the Protestant, orthodox, evangelical Church of Scotland. Criticism was not the only influence which was changing the religious thought of Scotland at that time. The seventies and eighties of last century were the period when a somewhat scornful materialism was asserting itself — it was the time of Tyndall's famous British Association speech about ' the promise and potency of matter ' and other utterances of the kind — but I do not think this greatly affected Scottish thought. What exercised a real influence over many of the best minds in Scotland — and not least among students preparing for the ministry — was rather the idealistic philosophy. Hume, a century before, had roused the German Kant from his ' dogmatic slumbers ' but, curiously enough, failed to rouse his own countrymen from their theological orthodoxy AN ERA OF TRANSITION 407 or their philosophical ' common sense.' But now Hegelianism stirred currents of thought in Scotland which were sapping both the philosophy of ' common sense ' and the theology of Calvinism. Professor Edward Caird (the late Master of Balliol) was at the height of his influence in the University of Glasgow. Caird was not a great constructive philosopher, but he was a great expositor, and, above all, he taught men to think, though indeed he took many inquiring minds out into new and deep seas — not, in all cases, piloting them to port. And Thomas Hill Green of Oxford — a noble and earnest thinker — was not less influential. This philosophical in- terest was a particularly strong one in the student life of the Free Church. It was a notable feature of those days how many men with philosophical honours turned to her colleges. The colleges of the Free Church were keen in their intellectual life at this time — A. B. Davidson was a permanent attraction in Edinburgh, and Bruce had become only a httle less influential in Glasgow ; but it was no longer Hodge or Cunningham the men chiefly read, nor perhaps even Augustine or Calvin. Here again was something not without its risks. The old Calvinism, if it had the vice, had also the virtue of its iron logic. It was strong : it forced upon the mind great thoughts : it shirked no issues and went through to the end with tremendous questions of God and man and sin and redemption. It would have been a loss rather than a gain if the loosening of this great fabric in the mind of the Scottish Church had not been accompanied by a revivifjdng of other aspects of religious faith and life. 408 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY It will be received by some readers with surprise — perhaps even with contempt — when I go on to name as the influence which, in God's providence, did quicken the religious faith and life of these times, the revival movement associated with the name of Mr. D. L. Moody, the American evangelist. But it would be simply an historical deficienc}^ if one failed to recognise the importance, even theologically, of this element in the varied forces which were contributing to change the religious atmosphere of Scotland at the time of which we are speaking. From the day of Pentecost downwards, revivals of religion have, as a matter of history, had far more influence on the theology of the Church than historians of dogma have jrecognised. Certainly it was so in the limited area of Scotland after Moody's mission in 1874 — a mission which only a prejudiced person can fail to see really and deeply moved the land. I cannot state this more briefly and yet distinctly than by saying that Moody's preaching of a ' free Gospel ' to all sinners did more to relieve Scotland generally — that is to say, apart from a limited number of select minds — of the old hyper-Calvinistic doctrine of election and of what theologians call * a limited atonement ' and to bring home the sense of the love and grace of God towards all men, than did even the teaching of John Macleod Campbell. Moody was in no sense a pro- found theologian, but he was a great human and a great Christian. He refreshed in Scotland the religious essentials of the Gospel — the love of God, the freeness of forgiveness, the power for holiness and, it should be added, the Christian call to righteousness and even AN ERA OF TRANSITION 409 philanthropy. It was an invaluable thing in this transition period of Scottish religion that, when it was unlearning much of its Calvinism, it should be learning these things afresh. Roberts^mSmjih^ade^^m^ men look at the- Bible in a new way : Moody made many men realise the Gospel in a new way : Caird made man}' men tliink about^'the-^world in a new way. It is an interesting trio, and perhaps the philosopher among them would not have appreciated being 'in solchem Bunde, der dritte.' Of course there were those who were influenced by some one of the three and not by the others. Many philosophical circles w^ere, though priding them- selves on their intellectual breadth, too narrow to appre- ciate the revival ; man}^ associated with Moody were certainly not distinguished for philosophical culture. But I am speaking here particularly of the Free Church of Scotland, and still more particularly^ of the ministry rising up in the beginning of the last quarter of the nineteenth century ; . and, unquestionably, all three influences represented by these three names were real factors in that sphere. In no place was this more manifest than in the New College, of which Dr. Rainy was the Principal. Among its students at that period were many exceptional^ brilliant men,^ and criticism, philosophy and evangelism were precisely the three interests the}^ most conspicuoush^ repre- sented. These general remarks must not be prolonged. ^ Vide The Life of He?try Driimviond, by George Adam Smith, pp. 104 sqq. Chapter iv. of this Life gives a discriminating but appreciative account of Mr. Moody's mission, with which Henry Drummond was closely associated. 410 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY But the apology for them in this biography is that it is clear that no one watched this period of transition with more interest — an interest at once sympathetic and anxious — than did Dr. Rainy. This appears in several of his Assembly speeches, but still more in addresses on public and academic occasions about this time. I shall give a few extracts from some of these addresses, because it was on subjects of this character far more than in mere ecclesiastical debate that Principal Rainy revealed where his deepest interests lay. The most general discussion of the theological char- acter of this period which I have found is a paper he read at the meeting of the Second General Council of the Presbyterian Churches — commonly called the Pan-Presbyterian Council — held in Philadelphia in 1880, which Principal Rainy attended us a delegate from the Free Church of Scotland.^ The paper is on * Modern Theological Thought,' and is a notably calm, impartial and just survey of the tendencies of the time. He spoke of the age as * a period of very great, if one should not say unexampled, unsettlement of opinion.' He noted the result of this to make theology more and more apologetic, and with this came 'a consenting to discuss Christian doctrine upon large concessions.' Preachers and writers, ' dealing with minds environed * This was the visit to America which, as mentioned in the last chapter caused his unfortunate absence from Scotland at a critical phase of the Robertson Smith case. There is a story about the delivery of this paper. In the middle he found he had left the latter part of his MS. behind him. He asked for a few moments in which to concentrate his mind, and then gave the rest of the argument without hesitating for a word or repeating a sentence. AN ERA OF TRANSITION 411 by a haze of doubt, regulate their argument by the estimate they make of what can still be made visible through the haze.' The result was a ' retrenched theology,' though here he full}^ admitted — a point he often emphasised — that theology has proved 'very apt to overrate its powers, overdo its work, overpass its limits.' Still, this retrenched theology became too easily ' a mopjiligM^^th^ol^^ ' — explaining away the peculiarity of Christianity, ' disenchanting it of its glory,' and dealing unfairl}^ with those elements in it which * prove refractory to methods of thinking pre- vailing for the time.' Thus, modern methods of thinking about theology started from below. This being so, they might, at certain points in Christian doctrine, stop and say they can go no further with their resources ; ' but, in point of fact, speculation is seldom so bashful.' Therefore arises ' a solicitous attention to the natural ' in religion and a correspon- ding depreciation of the supernatural. ' The natural, which used perhaps to be rather a step-child in ortho- dox homes, is now become the spoilt child of the f amity.' The right way to deal with all this, said Principal Rainy in closing, is ' very vigilantty to mark and clearly to enunciate ' to the age the very mind of Christ — the thoughts of the Lord. ' It will not im- prove our influence if we bring Christ's word mixed copiously with the wisdom of our own mind or our fathers'.' And what he desiderated in theolog}-, with this \dew, was that with believing fervour should be combined * a critical reflection of theology on itself ' to estimjate more clearly what is ' im- mutable certainty ' and what is ' moving into regions 412 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY. and along lines where the consciousness of human liberty to err should be acknowledged and even emphasised.' The above is the baldest outline of a paper the interest of which is not so much in its fairness of survey as in its foresight. In the theological develop- ments which arose out of the period of transition I have referred to, the two most characteristic features were, first, what came to be spoken of as ' Back to Christ,' and, secondly, the growing sense of distinc- tion between essentials and secondaries in Church doctrine. It fell to others — to men like A. B. Bruce and Marcus Dods — to popularise these views, but they were present to the foresight of Principal Rainy as early as 1878, and when the future was all undefined. It was, however, in his addresses to his own students that Dr. Rainy revealed most deeply his thoughts over the circumstances of this time. I have already said that the new influences of the day were not without their peril. The peril was one that can very simply be stated. New ideas always tend to claim a mono- poly in the mind. Therefore the peril — especially for students — ^was just that the new critical and philo- sophical interest should crowd out the interest of the evangel of Jesus Christ. It was here that, obviously. Principal Rainy felt real concern. There were many men in the Church who could do justice to the more specifically intellectual aspects of the times : though no one would suggest that he was either indifferent to these or incapable of dealing with them, he dealt chiefly with this more purely religious aspect. This AN ET^A OF TRANSITION 413 appears again and again in his relations with his students at this period. He appears at times to have called men into his retiring room to talk with them over the central things. He exhorted them to preach evangelically : ' that,' he told his students on one occasion, ' will satisfy the people, bring satisfaction to yourselves, and, above all, glorify your Master.' Further, he made this his theme in his addresses to the College as its Principal. Two of these addresses — delivered in 1882 and 1883 — lie before me. A few extracts from them show very plainly what were the things that lay nearest the heart of a Church leader whom many persons regarded as wholly ' ecclesiasti- cally-minded.' In his address in 1882 — the year after the termination of the Robertson Smith case — he spoke with unusual gravity of the great inducements and the great ends of a really Christian ministry. He urged men, among the many calls of the hour, ' to spend time in another Presence, to listen to. another Voice, and to seek to be clear as to the views in which and the motives under which you dedicate yourselves to the ministry.' He warned them against the attraction, intellectual or other, which clerical life had for some men ' who have no inward decision in regard to Christ crucified.' He spoke of the engrossment of public religious ques- tions and did not by any means desire indifference about them ; but ' these are not the main matter — not by far.' It was with an interested reverence that students heard the great Church leader, whose name was associated daily with ecclesiastical politics, speak to them, with that moving earnestness of tone which 414 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY gave a thrill to his voice when on such themes, words like these : — ' The only prosperity for our Church which we ought to desire is prosperity in reference to the interests of Christ's cause and kingdom. No Church has a right either to be or to flourish on any other terms. And no service you can render your Church is anything hke so important as the service that will be rendered if you are made the means of raising the spiritual and moral temperature of the Christian people of your congregation ; if you possess them with a more vivid persuasion and lead them to a more thorough experience of the power of Christ's redemption ; if your voice, testifying of sin and of Christ, begins at last to reach and to trouble the dull cold ears of worldliness and unbelief. . . . For men talk, idly enough sometimes, of leadership in Church courts. But what we most need and surely would most value is leader- ship in the enterprise of reconquering souls and communities and sections and aspects of modem society for Jesus Christ.' Then the Principal went on to speak of the complex interests of the age, and of the need, therefore, of a ministry which bears the stamp of spiritual assertion that will ' utter no needless anathemas on that in the times which is or may be innocent,' but will never- theless * master it by the unseen which is eternal.' And he closed by impressing on his students the spiritual concentration needed for this : — ' You, gentlemen, are called to acijuaint yourselves with the world in which your hearers Uve, with its manifold ele- ments, its legitimate interests, even its temptations and seductions. But not simply that you too may be occupied with the pleasant sights and sounds and the perpetual move- ment, and so may devote yourselves to weave a decorous fringe of the serious and the pensive for the many-coloured web. Not for this. It is yours to understand how the message of a prophet speaking for God, of an evangelist publishing re- AN ERA OF TRANSITION 415 demption, is to be brought home to men so situated ; and how the manifold Hfe, the manifold occupancy of mind is to fall under the sway of great master principles which the Spirit of God teaches. What concentration you need, what teaching of God's Spirit in your own heart, what power from on high : how it behoves you to hold the truth in Jesus and be held by it, not in reliance on even the most venerable forms of it, but with vivid perception of its spirit and life. We would need preachers to come upon this age with that sympathy with the people and that perception of their whole case which nearness and a close inspection give ; and yet with that mood which sometimes grew of old out of long meditation in deserts far remote, a sense of the supreme and sole worth of the eternal realities, a temper bred of long meditative reckoning with conscience and with God. . . . Men of power will do it ; but men of spiritual power. It is not genuine spiritual power which moves only in certain accredited grooves, which keeps carefully to ancestral phrases, however associated with the piety of the past. It is not genuine power which fails to speak home to the business and the bosoms of men. Spiritual power will recognise the decisi"^/e points, the turning-points for men in relation to the actual thoughts they think, the actual work they do, and will deal with them and with men through these. But then, it must be spiritual — the power of men supremely alive to the main things, resolute to make these vivid in the hearts they deal with. One great Example decides the point. Our Lord was fuU of the Spirit : He was absolutely faithful to His Father's commission. And, there- fore, every form of natural existence and every incident and turn of human life and character became for Him a mirror in which the eternal verities could be reflected — an avenue by which the call of God could pass to human beings and become the seed of life eternal.' This address, I find, was subsequent^ printed by request of the students. The other address, delivered in the subsequent year, dealt with the specific topic of Preaching. One of the less happy but perhaps inevitable results 416 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY of such a period of transition as this was that a good many people of the older tradition charged 570unger men with no longer ' preaching the Gospel.' Principal Rainy thought it worth while to deal with this, though he indicated plainly enough that in at least some quarters it ' is mainly prejudice which speaks ' and the desire of people for ' the repeti- tion of certain formulas which are approved and tra- ditional and comfort their ears.' He spoke with entire sympathy of the desire of young preachers to be fresh, and quaintly pictured how they had ' too often heard us who are older ' delivering sermons to which the congregation listened ' with respectful resignation, foreseeing clearly how it was all to be, and conscious that mental consuetude had superseded mental life,' and how they had instinctively resolved ' to avoid that.' Going on to discuss how all this was compatible with being ' loyally evangelical,' he dealt particularly with the subject of ethical preach- ing. At that time there was in Scotland — as indeed there always has been — a school of preachers who not only prided themselves that they were the preachers of the moralities, but somewhat markedly, not to say ostentatiously, contrasted this with * evangelical ' preaching ; and this inevitably, on the other hand, made a section of the Christian public, with less or more justice in different cases, condemn them as mere moralists. Principal Rainy's treatment of this subject — which is really an historic subject, for, as he said, * the whole history of our Church, and not of ours only, has been dominated by the contrast between "legal" and "gospel" preaching' — is remarkably AN ERA OF TRANSITION 417 discriminating and sound. I quote his view of it at greater length in the following passages : — ' When sermons are preached, which are objected to as mere moral essays, or as not evangelical, the reply is often made in vindication that they are devoted to some point of Scripture teaching or example, which is well entitled to atten- tion in its turn — some phase of character, some relation in morals, some point of practice. Yes ; but perhaps it is preached as a quite isolated topic, as if for the present there were nothing else to think of, as if the subject were a kind of island cut off' by blue depths of sea from all neighbouring land that can be traversed or even looked at. Or, if a back- ground is allowed to appear at all, it is the background of mere ordinary human nature. How a Saviour would con- ceive the subject and would propound it, with what associa- tions He would invest it, what it would form a part of, and would link on to in His mind, that does not appear at all. How it takes light and shade in the shadow of the fall, in the glory of the Cross, that is not perceived nor represented. Very well, you may have made a study of it, which, as a study, is capable of entering usefully into the material of your own thinking and is not without truth and merit. But certainly you will find those among your hearers who will resent it that you went through your, part and set forth your study as if the revealed relations of the kingdom of God concerned neither you nor it, as if the inspiration of faith had no influence upon it, nor the revelation of Him in whom all things are made new. They will resent it, and I think they have a right to resent it. ' It is but stating the same things in another way to say that practical points are often preached as if all men were equally related to them, and were equally in case to avail themselves of the admonition in precisely the same way. That is to say, the difference between being in Christ and not being in Christ is treated as inconsiderable, or is waived as non-existent. Very readily I admit that there is a hard mechanical way of adverting to that distinction which is not admirable. Very readily I admit that the difficulty of apply- ing the distinction to individual cases should never be forgotten. voi,, I 2 D 418 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY If any one will plead that the apostles addressed the members of their Churches as true believers, and therefore we should do so too, I will not argue against it. Yet always the apostles preserve the most vivid sense of how great a thing it is to be " in Christ," to be participant of the privileges and resources of the kingdom of heaven. Their thoughts and words are as of men moving amid the majestic and wonderful scenery of the world of redemption — conscious how great a difference it makes to be alive to all this or to be dead and blind to it. It is the consciousness of this great distinction preserved and present, as a common understanding to preachers and hearers, giving its tinge to the language and its impulse to the move- ment of the thought, which often makes all the difference between a mode of treatment rightfully recognised as evan- gelical, and a mode of treatment which, with equal right, is recognised as not such. ' I will venture to extend these remarks to the treatment of another subject, in regard to which I confess I ought to speak with great caution and reverence. It is one of the good features of the modern time, that the central place in Chris- tianity of our Lord's person. His wondrous self, has become more generally recognised. Hence preaching revolves more constantly on this centre ; and studies in the life of Christ form a more predominant and characteristic feature of our preaching, surely with advantage. And yet here, also, one is struck sometimes by a mere parsimonious insistence on the immediate incident or feature in hand, illustrated and presented only as a phase of human goodness worthy of attention and admiration. On this point I will not be peremptory in my censure. For I suppose this may be so done that the sense of who and what He is, whose goodness is in hand, may arise in the mind all the more inevitably because little is said of it. At any rate the inevitable remembrance in the preacher's mind and the hearers' may supply all that is needed. But yet I must say that, as a rule, to preach on a portion of the life of Christ precisely as a modern Socinian might, is not like to perform the office which the history was meant to serve. ' In a word, there is a kingdom of heaven, an economy of salvation, existing and revealed. It is not to be the matter of every sermon to enumerate its elements, and detail the relations AN ERA OF TRANSITION 419 of them. It may well be the matter of many sermons to make a minute study and application of matters that are in the nature of details, single principles, or aspects of things. In doing that, the topic is to be dealt with as it is, according to its own nature and conditions, not denaturahsed and twisted to accommodate it to more remote interest. Yet it ought to be treated so that preacher and hearers feel themselves on the ground of the kingdom of heaven, and have it as part of their business to see how the topic in hand takes its place in that great system. If so, then not only will the practical preaching become more rich and vital, but the more variously practical it is, the truer and the grander will become the con- ception of the everlasting Gospel itself.' I have quoted this at some length because it not only expresses something which was deep in Dr. Rainy, but formulates the essential character of the historic evangelical as distinguishable from the historic moderate preaching of the Scottish Church. Any one who reads the ethical sermons of, on the one hand. Dr. Chalmers, who was the great evangelical moralist of the Scottish pulpit, and, on the other, Dr. Blair,' whose elegant eloquence won him such praise in his day and who was the typical moderate moralist, will appreciate the meaning of Principal Rainy's delineation in the passages I have quoted. It may seem to the reader that too much has been made of what, after all, were but a couple of College addresses. But for the attention given them, there are reasons which are most relevant to this biography. One reason is that it is in his treatment of subjects like those referred to in these addresses that one really ^ This is the Blair for whose sermons Dr. Johnson had such a high admiration. They are now, to use a metaphor of Lord Rosebery's, ' flat as decanted champagne.' 420 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY touches Principal Rainy's main interest in life. He was a man of comprehensive and complex mind. He could discuss politics, ecclesiastics, theologies, human- ities with a breadth and a zest that few men could equal. Nevertheless, he had one supreme interest. That was not the Free Church, nor was it Dis- establishment ; it was not anything of that kind. The leading fact in any true account of the life of Principal Rainy must be that his great interest was simply the evangel. It was that to which his mind warmed. No one really knew Dr. Rainy who has not seen how, after discussing with wise and even worldly ability some policy of Church or State or some phase of human life and character, he would turn, when opportunity offered, with a kind of gladness of interest to speak of some of the simplest and deepest things in evangelical Christianity. It was this for which he was jealous and ambitious. When, for example, he lushed into the lists against Dean Stanley, it was because he regarded the Dean as having disparaged something of Scotland's evangelical tradition and witness ; and when he strove for Union and also — it is natural that some men should find this hard to accept, but it is true — ^when he aimed at Disestablish- ment, it was in order to make a stronger instrument of the Scottish Church for the service of what he liked to speak of as ' the good cause.' This is the ruling biographical fact about Principal Rain}^ Another reason why I have referred to these addresses — these two are of course but examples — is that this strain in Dr. Rainy's influence towards his students and the younger ministry generally was of AN ERA OF TRANSITION 421 importance both for them and for him. As regards them, this was one of the factors which produced in the ministry of the Free Church of Scotland an interest- ing and notable type combining, on the one hand, a frank liberalism in critical and philosophic outlook, and, on the other, an unswerving loyalty to evangelical religion. I am far from suggesting that this type was characteristic only of that one Church ; but it arose in that Church markedly and also earlier than in some others. As regards Principal Rainy personally, the result of the influence indicated by such addresses as have been quoted was signal. It was thus that he gained or regained his unique authority in his Church. It has been indicated how, by his action in the Robertson Smith case, Dr. Rainy forfeited a large measure of the adherence of particularly the younger ministry. He never said a word to win back that confidence by self-justification. Yet, year by year, there accrued to him an almost unequalled devotion. The reason of this was not merely and was not chiefly his intellectual superiority. Certainly he was, longo intervallo, the ablest man in the Church. Neverthe- less the secret of his regained authority — especially among the younger ministr}^ who had passed through the New College — was something deeper than that. It was that, more and more, men saw in him a great spiritual master. Here is the explanation of what we shall find aU through Dr Rainy's public career — namely, that outsiders regarded him with suspicion as a mere ecclesiastic, while in his own Church he was not less than reverenced as well as followed. Principal Rainy, with all his power and ability, could 422 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY never have been the so trusted leader of policy of the Free Church of Scotland unless he had been, as he was, a great doctor of her deepest religion. He did not parade this spiritual influence. On the contrary, there was that about his nature — and I do not name this as a virtue — that rather disguised it at times. Therefore outsiders, as I have said, misjudged it, and even his own Church came to appreciate it only gradu- ally. But, more and more, this became the real reason of Dr. Rainy's quite unique authority. It is no exaggeration to say that the Scottish Church has never had an ecclesiastical leader of greater spiritual authority than Principal Rainy came to have. In the foregoing paragraphs I have spoken of how the evangel was Dr. Rainy's deepest interest. It is, however, one thing to discuss the evangel, even fervently, in public : it is another to bring it to a seeking soul. The following letter, written to one in spiritual darkness, shows how tenderly Principal Rainy could himself speak about the Gospel ; and it is the more interesting because its date — February 1 88 1 — shows it was written in the most harassing time of the final stages of the Robertson Smith con- troversy. I need not give the name of the corre- spondent to whom Dr. Rainy writes, and I omit a few opening sentences of personal reference. The letter goes on as follows : — ' You do not go into particulars, but I understand your note to mean that you are still under darkness and perplexity about the highest matters and also that of late you have felt more of a longing for deliverance out of it. However, if I do not well understand how your case is, there is One AN ERA OF TRANSITION 423 who does. And He is full of goodwill and ready to help and save. Probably your feeling is that it does not seem so ; there is no great sign of it according to your experience. But the answer is that it does not matter whether it seems so. It is a great truth to be believed, a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. ' I do not know what it is in your case particularly which seems to make it specially hard for you to exercise faith. But whatever it is, I am sure that it is just one variety of the common difficulty, of the darkness and confusion of our fallen state, our separation from God, our estrangement from our proper destiny and inheritance. Either it is that un- changed ; or it is that still affecting you so that if there has been any change you cannot feel it, realise it, have any present comfort by it. Take it at the worst — emphatically the worst at which you can put it. Then I know that God in Christ is able to reach you, and is as fit to be yours as if He existed for you alone. And I know that what you have to do is to own your infinite need of Him and cast yourself on His mercy, and realise that only a boundless indebtedness to Him — to a goodness which begins and goes on and go^ through just because it is goodness — can bring you to real well-being. Probably there are a hundred difficulties that obstruct your taking that attitude — taking it heartily, successfully. Be it so. Tell Him of them. Ask — ask for eternal life, for nothing less. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead ? He is doing it every day. I also have done many things against the name of Jesus of Nazareth. But grace is introduced into the whole constitution of things by Him, and grace triumphs, it makes all things new. Grace is goodness that triumphs over all reasons to the contrary. Otherwise it would not be grace — the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a difficulty often that, although concerned, one feels so impenitent and hard There is a felt incapacity in salva- tion being our portion. Well, let us tell all this to Him, only teUing it as to One that pities and saves. Christ is exalted to give repentance. Only He does not give it in our way but in His way. It is when we begin, unworthy as we are, 424 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY to give place in our hearts to God's word of life and to believe the love that God hath towards us, that our hearts break at last with shame and grief and thankfulness. ' It may be you have intellectual difficulties. You may be haunted with doubts of God's being and of His revelation. If so, still tell Him. It may be your sin, but it is certainly also your need. He delivers out of this also. And go on in life according to the best light you have, still seeking and believing that in doing so you may look for Hght and help coming. ' Well, my dear friend, I have spoken to you rather as speaking in the dark. But, at all events, I will by God's help remember you in prayer. Remember Whose lips said, " I say unto you, Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you ; for every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." That astounding promise could not be believed on any other authority but His ; as, indeed. He alone had a right to speak it. It cost Him dear to be able to open His lips and say that to us ; and we must not make light of it nor cast doubt upon it after all that. ' Let me know if I can help you in any way. — Yours ever truly, Robert Rainy.' As this chapter has dealt with some of the central elements in Dr. Rainy's statement of the Gospel, a few words may be added here as to his view and statement of the evangelical doctrine of the Atone- ment. No doctrine, during this era of theological transition, was more canvassed, and the tendency was strong to minimise if not reject the 'judicial' element in it in favour of an entirely * ethical ' view. ' On this,' Dr. Rainy used to say, ' I remain orthodox.' But the way he stated his orthodoxy was notably free from the hard forensic presentations of this subject which have repelled so many minds. He stated it along lines such as the following. Salvation — or AN ERA OF TRANSITION 425 Christianity in general — means essentially that Christ brings us into a fellowship with God. This means what he repeatedly spoke of as ' an agreeing with God.' Especially — though not on this subject exclu- sively — we must agree with God on the subject of sin. To repent is ' JJASI totake Godls..,yi ew of sin .' Now, this agreement should and must include a consent to it that sin should be condemned and punished and that God righteously so deals with it. There cannot be a complete or thorough agreement with God about sin which does not embrace the recognition of God's condemning of sin as a great fact in the Divine character. This element must — to use another of his phrases — have ' right done by it ' in any dealing with the fact of sin on the part of the Redeemer. We should and must gratefully and humbly own this in the benefit that is given us in Christ — that He, ' the Righteous,' did right by this as by every other aspect of the relation of God to sin. Christ ' brought our deliverance to pass by doing right to the principle which connects sin with doom.' This, Dr. Rainy said, ' does not enable us to clear up the jurisprudence of the transaction.' But there is here both * a principle upheld ' and * a special tie between the Lord and men\ established.' To continue in his own great and weighty ' words : — ' There may be in the Atonement — I deepl}' believe there is — what outgoes all our analogies and all our thought. But surely, if we take our conception of the benefit we have by Christ from inspired teaching, we must own this element in it — that, whereas it becomes God in dealing with those that have sinned, to manifest His dread displeasure with all sin, and yet He in His great love would deliver us and set 426 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY us among the children, therefore, Christ, coming to bless us, bore the strain of that great problem which we had created, bore it \\ith unspeakable love and sorrow and ended it for us in His sacrifice. I have never been able to see why that apparent teaching of the Scripture should not be thankfully accepted. I am sure that the sense of it is one of the strong cords that bind believers to their Lord. And I have never been able to see how, on other theories, three Biblical elements of a beUever's experience can reach their Biblical fulness and assuredness. These are : ' I. The behever's sense of obligation to Christ, who has saved us by bearing our burden and dying for our sins. ' 2. The beUever's attitude towards God as set upon the key of an immortal repentance, and carrying with it the acceptance of the punishment of our iniquities. * 3. The believer's conflict with sin as animated by the consciousness that his Lord has redeemed him from it.' Reference has been made in these pages to a treatise on Augustine which Dr. Rainy should have written but never accomplished. Some will even more regret that he never wrote a treatise on the Atonement, about which he so largely and spiritually, and yet so evangelically, believed. I shall close this chapter with an example of his teaching on another central theme much canvassed at this period — the position to be given to our Lord Himself. In a lecture, given in St. George's, Edin- burgh, is this comparison between Jesus and Paul : — ' We can easily mark the tie between the two ; we also easily feel the difference. In both, there is goodwill to men below ; in both, a constant reference to One above. But in the true manhood of our Lord, we own something serener, more self-contained and sovereign. The love to His Father moves in great tides of even, perpetual flow. The love to men is a pure compassion, whose perfect goodness delights in bringing its sympathy and its help to the neediest and the AN ERA OF TRANSITION 427 worst, does so with a perfect understanding and an unreserved self-communication. When He speaks, He speaks in the language of His time and land and circumstances, but He speaks like one who addresses human nature itself, finding the way to the common mind and common heart of every land and every age and every condition. When He reasons, it is not like one who is clearing His own thoughts, but hke one who turns away from the perversity of the caviller, or who, for the perplexed inquirer, brings into view the elements of the spiritual world he was overlooking or forgetting. And with what resource — none the less His that He rejoiced to think of it as His Father's — does He confront whatever comes to Him in life ! As we watch Him, there grows upon us the strongest sense of a perfect inner harmony with Himself and with His Father that lives through all changes. Finally, standing in this world, He declares the order of another and a higher world. He does it as one who knew it, who speaks what He had seen. * We turn to Paul, and we perceive him also to be great ; great thoughts, great affections, great efforts, great fruits are his. But he is not great in the manner of his Master. He goes through the world full of a noble self-censure that bows him wilhngly to the earth, and of a passionate gratitude that cannot speak its thanks but offers up its life. Like his Master, while he reverences the order of this world and of society as God has framed it, he is at the same time full of the relations of a world unseen. To that world unseen he already belongs ; it determines for him and for all who will hsten to him the whole manner of thought and hfe and feeling in this world ; it holds him, it inspires him. But it is in the manner of faith rather than of knowledge, of earnest rather than of possession. Especially, the influence that has mastered him and is the secret of his power and nobleness, has not brought him to the final harmony of all his powers. It has, on the contrary, committed him to an inu^ard conflict, a fight of faith, which he will never cease to wage till the final "/ictory crowns him. This man knows the inward weakness and the inward disgrace of Sin. He knows forgiveness and repentance, and good hope through grace. The Lord received sinners and sat and ate with them ; but this man was himself a sinner who was 428 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY torgiven much and loved much. That was the Saviour : this, a pattern of them that should believe on Him to life ever- lasting.' There are many books of great learning that examine Jesus and Paul with the microscope and yet never give the grand contours of the figures they are dis- cussing as these sentences do. In times of change and progress such as those which this chapter has briefly described, it was good to have men full of the new aspects of truth ; but a mind such as Dr. Rainy's was none the less needed, with his historical largeness and sanity and with his spiritual discrimination and depth, to go back to the essentials. This was his great function in an age of transition. In addition, however, Principal Rainy's career had, from this time forward, a permanent problem which it is necessary carefully to describe in order to understand his whole subsequent life. This requires discussion in a separate chapten CHAPTER XV THE CHURCH AND THE HIGHLANDS rHIS chapter will be hardly at all biographical, and indeed may seem, to some readers, out of place in a biography. But the problem in Dr. Rainy's career referred to at the end of the preceding chapter is one that can be justly estimated only with a some- what wide survey , and this — however difficult the task — must be attempted in these pages. The problem is that of the Highlands. In one sense there is no such special problem as the Highlands. The people there are, as Dr. Rainy once said in a speech, * " children of wrath " just as we are,' and the question to be faced there is just part of the general question — ecclesiastical, intellectual, religious — which faces the Church, or at least a progressive and active Church, everywhere. But in the Highlands this developed in a peculiarly difficult way, and how this was may be stated at the outset in a few words. Between the Celtic or, rather, Gaelic ^ and the more strictly Scottish sections of the Church is a difference of race, and how much that means the man of affairs — whether ecclesiastical or civil — learns better even than the anthropologist. In itself this is an enrichment ^ It is well to distincruish these terms. The Gaels are the Celts of the Scottish Highlands, of Ireland, and of the Gaelic-speaking population of the Isle of Man. All Gaels are Celts, but all Celts are not Gaels. But 1 shall use the more general term in these pages. 4S9 430 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY of the life-blood of the Free Church, which should be and is proud to contain within her, as no other Church in Scotland does, the Celtic strain and its genius for religion. But such a natural racial divergence is, from its very nature, exposed to the poison of a spirit of suspicion and hostihty ; and when this is intro- duced, a painful alienation follows. This is what happened in the Highlands of the Free Church during a certain period of her history, as we shall see ; more- over, inevitable circumstances, as we shall also see, arose subsequently which made the situation graver and harder to heal. Thus was it that the Highlands became the problem of a leader of the Free Church ; and, in Church life, such a problem is far more difficult than in politics, where Government can always in the end fall back on the ultima ratio of force. The con- flict within the Free Church — which was the only Church in Scotland national enough really to embrace both elements — of two races, two worlds, of what many forces were tending to make almost two religions, was a unique one ; and that the theatre of its presenta- tion was small made an added element in its intensity. This problem, at the beginning of its most critical period, was laid upon Principal Rainy's already burdened shoulders. The administration of a Presby- terian Church is carried on by various departmental committees appointed by and responsible to the General Assembly, and one of the most important of these in the Free Church was that intrusted with the care of the Highlands. In 1881, the Convener of the Highland Committee — the learned and devoted Dr. Thomas M'Lauchlan — had to resign through ill- h(!allli. More than one name was suggested for THE CHURCH AND THE HIGHLANDS 431 this most difficult vacant post. Dr. Rainy was a man over whom different sections could usually find it easy to agree, and, in the end, he was made the new Convener. He held this arduous office till the day of his death in 1906. It was characteristic of his chivalrous nature that where the need and the labour and the risks were greatest, there his services should neither shrink nor tire. Principal Rainy in the position of Highland Con- vener is — if one may so put it without disrespect — an interesting psychological subject. He could not him- self be called a genuine Celt, though, as the reader knows, he had a long strain of Highland blood. He seemed in many ways to be watchful of the Celtic elements in his nature and repressed them rather than gave them play. Yet it may truly be said of him that ' the heart was Highland.' He loved the Highlanders — loved them as perhaps he loved none others outside of the family circle. If he would never flatter them, how warmly he would defend them ! And how he worked for them ! Through all the years of his convenership, he grudged no labour, even when he was receiving some of his sharpest blows from those for whom he had done so much. If there was any work in his life to which more than to another, Dr, Rainy gave un- selfish devotion, it was his Highland work. This love of the Highlands was in his heart by inheritance, but the circumstance may be rec3,lled which first awakened it into active consciousness. It was — so his sister, Miss Christina Rainy, told me — a tour through the Hebrides in 1880. This remoter part of the Highlands was at that time entirely new to him ; and during that tour his mind and 432 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY heart at once went out to what was genuinely High- land. He became intensely interested in the very land, with its traces of prehistoric times (the Long Island is, I believe, geologically older than the Alps) and its standing stones and lake dwellings and the strange tales and legends of its mystic and romantic past. He was, from that year, an interested if inter- mittent student of Gaelic lore, and at times astonished men of specialised knowledge of the subject with the extent and accuracy of his information. He was sensitive, also, to the strange, fitful scenery of the outer Hebrides, where the melancholy often hangs heavy over the low lands, but where are also the up- lifting greatnesses of moor and sea and sky — scenery which, strictly speaking, has neither sublimity nor beauty, but has a spell to chain the heart more closely than much that merely charms the sense. But above all, Dr. Rainy's love went out to the people — shut off, as they are, from so much of this world's interests, and yet very open to impressions, often strange and mystical impressions, of another world, ignorant perhaps, and misled about many things in religion, and j^et a people by nature far more receptive to religion than the Lowlanders. This visit to the Hebrides in 1880 was what first stirred the Principal's heart to the remoter Highlands, and Miss Rainy said to me that it had not a little to do with his accepting the convenership. I mention it to illustrate how personal Dr. Rainy's interest and sympathy were in the Highlands. And yet all that was said as to his own personal nature being in many ways very different from the Celtic remains true. He knew the Highlands and loved the THE CHURCH AND THE HIGHLANDS 483 Highlands ; but — whether because he could not be or because he did not let himself be — he never alto- gether was the Highlander. We must now turn from the man to the problem ; and to understand the latter we must briefly survey its history from the days of the Disruption. The situation ecclesiastically in the north was unique. The claim of the Church of the Disruption was not only to original and inherent rights of the Church of Christ, but also that she was the true national Church of Scotland. In the south this latter claim was of course disputed and was at least not manifest outwardly. In the Highlands it was so plainly the fact that the adherents of the State Church were called the ' estab- lished dissenters.' The Free Church was national there de facto as well as de jure. The Disruption in the north (except in the interesting belt of native Roman Catholicism which stretches from Aberdeen- shire to the Western Isles) was a tidal wave which, in especially the north and north-west districts, carried the population en masse. Only one half of the Highland ministers ' came out ' — loi out of 206 — but over great areas the people came practically solid, and the Estab- lishment was, in wide districts, left the merest skeleton.^ No intelligent and candid Free Churchman will claim that this mass movement was wholly religious, but it is not unjust or pharisaical to say that in it was included * Out of a population of 25,000 in the county of Sutherland only 219 persons remained in the State Church. Out of the 23,000 inhabitants of the Lewis, all but some 460 souls joined the Free Church. There were, it should be added, certain districts where the personal influence and char- acter of the parish minister retained the people. Morven — where Dr. John Macleod was 'high-priest' — was a notable example of this. VOL. L 2 E 434 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY the most vital religious life of the Highlands, and that the worst ' moderatism ' of the north was left outside. The Disruption was a great and indeed epoch- making event for the Highlands not merely ecclesi- astically, but also — though I can but glance at this — in a wider social sense. It brought an immense impetus and inspiration to a people whose national life had been crushed for a century — ever since the penal acts of 1747 — and who now were depressed almost to apathy. The Celtic race in Scotland had no great interests or prospects, and was becoming bitter and morbid. The old happy clan proprietorship of the land was ended, and the relation between the landlords and the people was one of growing alienation. Sheep farms and deer forests were depopulating the glens. Emigration was breaking up families. Sordid poverty hung dark over many homes, and, in particular, the year 1841 had been one of terrible want. The whole life of the Highland people was at an ebb in its fortunes. The Disruption struck upon this as a great wave of interest, enterprise, heroism. Its call to conviction and energy and sacrihce, its stirring events, and of course also its hard-hitting, lifted the people to new movement. Apart from the deeper re- ligious influences which lay behind, and regarded merely as a stirring of the Highlands — a stirring to controversy, to put it at the very lowest — the Disruption was a new awakening. This had its danger and the seed of degeneracy, of which I shall add something later. In yet another respect, a great gain came to the north through the Disruption. I have said the Highlands were isolated. But in the Free Church, north and THE CHURCH AND THE HIGHLANDS 435 south united in a noble brotherhood. The adherence to that Church of practically the whole Protestant Celtic population in the extreme north and north- west laid a very heavy though a most honourable burden on a Church already laden with a herculean task. She was undertaking by means of the freewill offerings of her people to reconstruct the entire machinery of a national Church — supporting a ministry, building places of worship, manses, schools, colleges, and also carrying on the entire foreign missionary enterprise of the old Church of Scotland, every single missionary of which but one (I stated it in an earlier chapter, but so eloquent a fact is worth repeating) joined the Free Church. In no part of this almost incredible enterprise, was there shown a nobler un- selfishness and truer brotherhood than towards the Highlands. The people there, though numerous, were not rich in this world's, goods. But the strong in the Church took up the burden of the weak in a way that may justly be said to have glorified their Presbyterianism as it also illustrated their Christian love of the brethren. And the amazing thing is that the disestablished and disendowed Free Church was not content to meet the spiritual needs of the Highlands on the scale which had sufficed in the State-aided Establishment. There was an Established church in each parish. But what was a Highland parish ? It might be many miles in extent — Ardnamurchan, for example, is said to be seventy miles long — and broken up often by deep and dangerous waters. The population was far scattered and communication was difficult and infrequent. The result was that many 436 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY hamlets were almost entirely out of reach of the ordinances of religion. Therefore the Free Church did not content herself with building churches only where there were parish churches — now standing all but deserted and scarcely used. She planted churches and settled ministers in many an additional spot which, under the advantages of State endowment, had been entirely neglected ; and to many of these was attached, by a further effort of generosity, some fund for their support. This remarkable work — when one recalls all the other claims on the Free Church, one feels it was indeed remarkable unselfishness — brought the regular ordinances of religion for really the first time within the reach of practically the whole Highland population. It was not a State-endowed Church which performed this national duty : it was a disendowed and a disestablished Church which thus made good a title to be national such as no mere Act of Parliament could either give or take away. But this is only part of the story. The Church proved herself a true mother to her Highland people in more ways than by caring for their purely spiritual needs. In the winter of 1846, following on the failure of the potato crop of that year, a terrible famine ravaged the remote north. The Free Church went to the rescue before any other agency, raised £15,000 and saved hundreds of lives which the more slow-moving macliinc of official relief would have reached too late. I mention this less for its own sake than because of what came out from it. Those who had penetrated into remote Highland districts, carrying the succour of the Church in the year of famine, brouglit back THE CHURCH AND THE HIGHLANDS 437 distressing accounts of the intellectual and social condition of the people in many isolated places. The single parish school was as inadequate as the single parish church.' It was utterly inaccessible for many of the children, and numbers were growing up unable to read and with no knowledge of the English language, without which the girls and boys were shut off from the hope of progress or any opportunity really to better their condition. Their case entered into the loving hearts of Christian women in the Free Church, and there was formed, in 1850, a * Ladies' Association ' which has • brought untold benefits — ^intellectual, social, spiritual — to the remote districts of the Highlands. It set up schools, often very humbly housed, in isolated places, and provided teachers for them who not only taught the children, but by classes and meetings encouraged the intellec- tual life of the district. Books were sent that stimu- lated as they fed an awakened mental hunger. Social and domestic progress in the people's homes was not less cultivated under the wise and watchful direction of the notable and devoted churchwomen who guided this society in its patriotic, philanthropic and Christian work. The name of Miss Barbara Abercrombie will long be remembered as its first pre- siding genius. But another must be specially named here both for her own sake and because she was the sister of the subject of this work. Miss Christina Rainy (who, it may be mentioned here, survived her ^ There were, however, in some parishes additional schools connected with the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, and also Gaelic schools. 438 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY brother, dying in 1908) was, to those who knew her, almost as notable a churchwoman as the Principal was a churchman. Her intellectual capacity and her grasp alike of the details of business and the larger lines of policy were the admiration and the envy of many able men — Dr. Rainy used always to maintain that, in his family, * the brains had gone to the women ' — and these qualities were the more remark- able because, as has been finely said, ' behind them, there lay a fountain of tenderness such as is only found in such enclosed gardens as that of her shy and reticent, nature.- ^ Within her slight physical frame was the spirit of a very heroine ; the story of her annual pilgrimage into the remote Highlands to visit her loved schools would be a romance could it be told ; but she did it all so unobtrusively that the Church hardly realised the devotion and even daring that were in it. ' When she was little fit for the exposure and the strain, she held to her task ; battered by rough winds, beaten by the remorseless rain, she never thought of turning aside, and she established for some of us a new standard of heroic thoroughness in a self-chosen duty.' " Then her real nobility of character, her truthfulness and fearlessness of mind, her sympathy and yet her shrewd discernment of human nature, her intense enjoyment of the natural world, and, withal, her soul's life so deeply hid with God — all this made her to be truly reverenced by those who saw her and, to her own circle, unspeakably dear. ' Rev. Dr. John Kelman (junr.) in The Record of the United Free Church of Scotland, J u n e 1 908. - Rev. Dr. W. M. Macgregor in the Assembly of 1908. THE CHURCH AND THE HIGHLANDS 439 Her work for the Highlands, with which we are specially concerned here, was unique, and it was both significant and fit that in many a remote hamlet the schools were known by no other name than ' Miss Rainy's schools.' The foregoing paragraphs may serve to indicate, in some degree, how great a fact the Disruption was for the Highlands, and how truly the Free Church proved her- self the mother of the people there. But this practic- ally unchallenged dominance of the Church of the Disruption in the Highlands — at least in the north and north-west — was not without grave perils, religious and intellectual, both to the people and the ministry there. The people became, in some places, inclined to limit the number of the ' godly ' to those within their own ecclesiastical pale : the ministers, in some cases, tended to become stagnant when they knew that, however badly they preached, their congregations would never leave them for the Establishment. To counteract these and other dangers, what the Highlands needed was to share heartily and happily in the full life of the Church as a whole, with its intellectual interests, its national duties, and its missionary outlook. Up to a certain point of this history there was no reason why this result should not have been more and more realised. But that setting of things awry which pursues Celtic story — it is in Irish politics as well as Scottish ecclesi- astical history — interposed a malignant hand at this critical juncture, and, by alienating the north from the south at the very moment when they should have been more than ever united, developed 440 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY the worst possibilities of the situation and made the Highlands a problem and a peril for the Church. This brings us to the second and sad phase of the story. The date of this alienation discovers its source. The year was 1866. This was the year in which Dr. Begg broke off from the majority of the Church on the subject of union with the United Presbyterians, and organised a bitter opposition to the proposal. It was into the Highlands that he immediately carried his war. Dr. Begg did not create the division between the High- lands and the Church of the south. That division, I repeat, is racial. But Dr. Begg fomented faction within it. He inflamed it with the party strife of anti- unionism. It cannot be too clearly stated that anti- unionism was not native to the Highlands. The agitation against the proposal to unite with the sister Church was an importation. Controversial literature was sent all over the north. Congregations were visited — often behind the ministers' backs — if the ministers were known to be favourable to union ; while a regular boycott was established against such ministers, who were isolated even at communion seasons.^ When a vacancy occurred, means were ^ In the Daily Review of August ii, 1872, is a long and interesting letter — never meant for publication^ — by one of the noblest and most venerated Highland ministers the Church ever had, the Rev. John S. Marphail, formerly of Kilmuir, Skye, later of Benbecula ('Father John of Benbecula, as he is sometimes affectionately called), which describes a visit of this kind, arranged in his absence, from fei low-presbyters who had declined to come to assist him at a communion, but who summoned his people together to stir up among them opposition to the union. The letter, which was addressed to his brother, the Rev. Dr. James Calder Macphail— a great educationist who deserves a place among the benefactors of his Celtic fellow-countrymen concludes thus: 'Put yourself in my position. It is the end of tlie week and I have to prepare for Sabbath duties and to face THE CHURCH AND THE HIGHLANDS 441 taken, if possible, to secure that only a man whose vote could be depended on for the ' constitutionalist ' party should have a chance of being called. All this and much more was done systematically. It is not difficult to imagine what dispeace and dis- trust and open partisan division it made among a people impressionable, not always informed, and already, by racial differences of temper and habit, inclined to look strangely and even suspiciously across the Grampians. It was this process which Principal Rainy in private — I think he employed the phrase in public too — used to describe as ' fanaticising the Highlands.' It went on for years, financed and organised from Edinburgh. There is no need here to recall any question of the merits of the Union controversy ; however sincere or even right may have been the opposition to union, to inflame it by setting race against race and by poisoning the brotherhood of the Church was unholy work. As I have said, all this was organised from Edin- burgh. But the reader will naturally wonder how Dr. Begg or any one else could do it from the south. It could never have succeeded even to the extent which it did — and at the most its success was only partial — without the aid of leading men among the Highlanders themselves. The Celtic people in Scotland a people before whom three of my brethren of the Presbytery exhibited me as a betrayer of the principles of my Church, and ; s one who, had I got my way, would drive the Bible out of all the schools of Scotland, etc. Would you find it easy to meet a people prejudiced against you and your message in such a manner? I at least do not find it easy. Is our Presbyterianism so defective that there is no protection for a minister in his work against such an intrusion ? ' This setting of congregations, or sections of them, against their ministers was one of the worst features of this ' constitutionalist ' propaganda. 442 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY are influenced in Church things, less by ecclesiastics than by their great preachers. Immediately after the critical Assembly of 1867, Dr. Begg went north and stayed a week in Ross-shire, and there he won the adherence of the most influential Highland preacher of the time — Dr. John Kennedy of Dingwall. Dr. Kennedy was a really eminent and, in many ways, a noble man. He was a man of quite remarkable per- sonal charm in private conversation. He had literary culture, and read through Shakespeare every year and knew the poets as intimately as the puritans. He had travelled, and had knowledge of a larger world than a Highland parish or even the Scottish Kirk.^ As a preacher, he was a king to whom his pulpit was a throne. He had an impressive and attractive appearance — and perhaps, in later years, was not above cultivating a little of the look and air of the prophet ; and he delivered his message with superb authority to a people who received it with profound veneration. His sermons were massive structures, intellectually and almost mathematically reasoned, but they Hterally glowed with Celtic fervour, and, as he poured them forth, he strained and soared heavenward, till at times he broke out at last into impassioned adoration. Un- doubtedly Dr. Kennedy was an extraordinary preacher, and even a reader of his Days of the Fathers in Ross- shire can feel something of his literary and religious power. But, by general testimony, he seems to have been impressionable and impulsive, and a man who could be led by natures more commonplace than his ' He was even an authoiily on English cricket — a fact which, it may be confessed, has appealed to the writer's pen in dealing with him. THE CHURCH AND THE HIGHLANDS 443 own. Dr. Begg, a far less spiritual and less noble but a far more forceful man, could lead him and use him. The combination of these two men meant an immense advantage for the anti-union party in the north. It did not mean that the High- lands were completely brought under it ; for many ministers and congregations in the north — includ- ing some of the very best — stood staunch against anti-union tactics and refused to follow Begg or even Kennedy. A truer Highland churchmanship was there all the time and was gradually extricating itself. But Begg and Kennedy — their policy financed by some successful men of business of hyper-orthodox views, who imagined that a new development in a Church's thought and life maj^ be vetoed just as they would veto some proposed new departure in their commercial enterprises — were able to carry conflagra- tion through the Highlands and make the problem for the whole Church a very serious one. An element which aided all this and must be briefly recalled was the influence of those who were called ' the men ' — so called to distinguish them not from women but from the ministers. They were elders and others who took a lead in religious things and were prominent in religious profession, and they graduall}' became almost a kind of caste. In the older days — the days of the revivals before and at the Disruption — they were often a really religious influence, and their meetings a spring of life in many districts.^ No ^ I find among Dr. Rainy's papers an interesting account of a meeting of this kind, and, as one has to go on to emphasise the degenerate stage of ' the men's ' influence, it is both justice and a pleasure to quote the following, which is from the pen of the late Dr. (irant of Chinchew, a missionary of 444 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY class, however, suffered so much from the dangers I have just spoken of as tending to make the Free Church narrow, and even censorious and intolerant. These ' men ' had great power ' over not only the people but also over the ministers, and the latter in many cases came to stand in fear of them and be in bondage to them. The ' meetings ' became, in some places, centres of theological obscurantism and engines of spiritual tyranny. These ' men,' it need not be doubted, were often sincere ; but they were worked upon by interested parties who used them for their own ends. Unquestionably the anti-unionist leaders remarkable ability, who died only a year or two ago : ' I well remember j^oing with my father one Saturday morning to the meeting. He went fishing that morning, and it was the fishing that attracted me. He was showing me how to cast the line, and was explaining to me that, in casting, I made too much of a ripple and frightened the fish away. He had a habit of talking aloud to himself, and remarked " fishers of men often do the same." I was afraid to stay alone fishing, and so went with my grandfather to the meeting. It was conducted at the house of Gustavus Munro, better known as '"Avie," named after Gustavus Adolphus.' [I interrupt Dr. Grant's narration for a moment because the reader will wonder, as I did, why a Sutherland fisherman should have been named after this Swedish monarch. The reason is that in 1626 some of the Sutherland and Ross- shire chiefs took over a number of men to fight for the Protestant cause under Gustavus. These were not soldiers of fortune — like Dugald Dalgetty, who so often had the name of the Lion of the North on his lips — but clansmen volunteering to follow their chief. To return to Dr. Grant's narrative.] ' The house was full, probably about thirty being present. Four elders, two laymen, and two women took part in the meeting, each of them making some remarks after the reading of the Scripture. Then an old pensioner who was present asked if there was any news from the mission fields, and '"Avie's" wife read a letter from Dr. Duff, India, and notes of work in China, making mention of William Burns. After this several engaged in prayer, and, to this day, I have never heard more earnest or more intelligent prayer for the spread of the Gospel. If ever there was a right thought in my mind about missions, it began that day. Then, after the close of the meeting, most of the people sat together for a short time, when one after another told something of the work of the Lord in days past or some memorable saying of a good man. As they rose to go home, you could see how tenderly these people loved one another.' THE CHURCH AND THE HIGHLANDS 445 made great use of them, and it is not difficult to under- stand how ignorance, which always ' puffs up,' was inflated to an exceptional degree in these persons when they found themselves looked on in important communications from Edinburgh as the faithful vigil- ants of their congregations, and even appointed to report on their ministers' defections. A painful re- lationship was thus deliberately fostered in many places, and the influence of ' the men ' — or many of them — was an added factor in the complexity of the whole situation. This is the second phase of our stor}^ — the phase of a deplorable crusade which set itself not merely to oppose union (which would have been entirely legiti- mate), but, at the cost of all Church ties of brother- hood, to sow distrust and dispeace and to poison the people with suspicion against the Church to which they belonged. With a people intensely concerned in their Church, accessible to alarm about divine truth, accustomed to. follow their religious leaders, and often ill-informed because dependent largely on oral statements, this could be done easily ; and just because it was easy, it was the more shameful. We come thus to the third phase. For a time the situation was eased when, as has been described in an earlier chapter, the Union proposals were temporarily withdrawn. Moreover, a new issue arose which not a little brought the north into line. It may surprise the reader when I say that this was the demand for Disestablishment in Scotland. It is usually taken to be the fact that the Highlands were as strong and solid against Disestablishment as they were against Union 446 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY with the United Presbyterian Church. This is not the fact. The very first votes on Disestabhsh- ment made it clear that Dr. Begg had but a rump of a following from the Highlands on this subject in comparison with his party on the other. The reason is plain. The Highlands knew nothing of a United Presbyterian. They knew only the anti-unionist report of him, and easily believed he was a semi- atheist whose great aim in life was to banish God from the State and who, in addition, was probably consumed with the desire to marry his deceased wife's sister.^ But on the question of Disestablishment, they had their own sources of information. They had their own views on the moderates, and about empty churches going to decay before their eyes, and as to which was and which was not the national Church of Scotland. And while Dr. Begg — many of whose most intimate lay counsellors were keen political partisans — was strong against Dis- establishment and took some parts of the Highlands with him, being skilful enough to mix up the Union cause and the Disestablishment cause together, still the general effect was a reaction, even in the Highlands, against him and towards the leaders of the majority. It was not long — despite all the talk about the Highlands being against Disestablishment — before a majority of the members of Assembly from Highland Presbyteries were voting on this question with Principal Rainy, and that majority grew steadily year by year. Disestablishment thus was not a • This sentence sounds exaj^^jerated and even farcical, but is really a mild impression of the incredible siatenionis made im the Highlands about the doctrines and even the murals of a ' U.l-*.' THE CHURCH AND THE HIGHLANDS 447 factor further alienating north and south, though, of course, it was the interest of opponents of that poUcy to claim the Highlands of the Free Church as with them. It was other issues that made the schism, wilfully fomented by anti-union tactics, something grave and even tragic because something religious. There arose within the Church a succession of matters which deeply and really wounded the religious convic- tions of the Highlands. In the last chapter I have de- scribed the era of transition through which Scotland — that is, lowland Scotland — passed at this time. Every- thing in that transition surprised and shocked and wounded the religious principles and prejudices of the north. There was the critical discussion of the Bible, when, even within the Church, the book was dissected as other books are and views were aired regarding it such as had never been heard from be- lieving men before. Then there came the evangehstic movement associated with Moody and Sankey. It might have been thought that this, at least, would not further alienate the Highlands. But it did. Dr. Kennedy refused to countenance Mr. Moody, and published a pamphlet condemning his presentation of the free declaration of the Gospel as ' hyper- evangelical.' ' No one will doubt Dr. Kennedy's sincerity in this. But it was a very calamity for religion in the Highlands, and it tended to make the difference with the south become, not merely a diver- gence about ecclesiastical polity, but something far deeper. There occurred also at this time changes in the ' Dr. Kennedy also wrote vehemently against temperance woik, but on this subject his mind underwent a change before he died. 448 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY south in modes of worship, and the introduction of hymns and organs into church service excited intense feehng — which Dr. Begg used to the utmost — in the north. All these things, with the hundred little changes of religious custom and atmosphere which came with them, made a great gulf and a deep one because, as has been said, they wounded something in the religious consciousness of the Highlands. This is a thing to be spoken of carefully and even gently- Let us — if an outsider may presume to say so — understand it. Behind the ramparts of the Grampians and in the distant Hebrides a people of different race and different tongue heard of all these changes from afar. They were constitutionally prejudiced against all changes, for their lives, physically and intel- lectually, knew little variety and, in many things, traditional usage had to them become sacred. Besides, they had been poisoned in their minds with suspicion and hostility against all changes promoted by the Church in the south. Moreover, these movements were extraordinarily rapid ; and the whole environ- ment of these people made their thoughts move slowly, because their character was moulded, not by the novelties of the outer world and amid the excite- ment of the hour, but by undisturbed introspections on an eternal world within, and under the solemn influences of the slow-moving round of nature and the unaltering hills and the overarching sky and the great sea. Their whole mental being became thus something that was set. And being set, how easily was it found set against such changes as these that THE CHURCH AND THE HIGHLANDS 449 touched things so near and sacred. They fastened — naturally, inevitably — on the familiar things these movements were taking away or losing. And with wounded hearts, as men who were being robbed of the very treasure of their homes, they stood on the de- fensive. Of course, the result was that they confounded essentials and non-essentials : in a time of transi- tion, only education delivers from that. Of course, too, the defence rapidly ran to extremes. A man, not to say a Celt, with his back to the wall, fighting for his dearest against a host, and with his heart sore because he knows the enemy is too strong, is driven to extremes. Did this neo-rationalism ' in the south ' cast away the old belief in the plenary inspiration of every word of Scripture ? The faithful Highlands would hold by that all the more inflexibly as of the very faith. * In the south ' did this free offer of forgiveness to any man ' this very minute ' make Hght of the awful mystery of the Sovereignty of God and let the sinner imagine he could pick up salvation — * pick it up,' one Highland preacher put it, ' as you would a penny ' — any day ? The Celtic soul drew back the deeper into the dark shadow of the inscrutable Divine decrees and on men's trembling minds there lay more heavily than ever the paralysing fear that they might not bear the signs of being of the elect ? Did those comfortable hymns that ' your Sankeys ' sang * in the south,' with the organ, about ' Safe in the arms of Jesus,' ' I am so glad that Jesus loves me,' ' Gather up the sunbeams,' and so on, make reUgion a smiling and an easy thing ? The ' dark north ' not only banned these ' human hymns ' and the ' kist of whistles,' but VOL. I. 2 F 450 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY averted its face from the message of the humanity of God and let the gloom of a stern and exacting religion settle deeper, like the mist on their mountains. In all this there is a call for a sympathy deeper than criticism. I do not now refer to the ministers/ They might have saved their people from these extremes and shown the good in these movements. Some of the ministers, often amid great difficulty, did this with a bravery which it is not possible for a distant spectator duly to appreciate : others who would like to have done so, pursued rather a line of silence, faihng to speak frankly to their congregations as they should. But there were also those who hardened the people in an irre- concilable hostility and fanaticised them against the south doctrinally as well as ecclesiastically. I am now, however, speaking rather of the people, and, of many of them, a just judgment must be a gentle one and that even when their attitude became bitter and dour. Bitter and dour it often became ; but if with some, who should have known better, this was simply sheer lack of Christianity, with others — ignorant, no doubt, but misled — it was the bad side of a sore and even anguished resistance against what seemed to them the threatened imposition from an alien world of an irreligious liberalism. It is here that the problem of the Highlands within a progressive Church passing ' As to the Highland ministry of the Free Church, it must be noted, in this connection, that one of the unfortunate consequences of the unhappy state of tilings introduced into the Highlands by the anti-union war was that, from 1870, the better and more enlightened theological students from the north were too often inclined to prefer to find charges elsewhere. Many notably able Highland students — and men who spoke Gaelic— settled in the lowlands or England or America or the Colonies, and their liberalis- ing influence was thus lost where it could have been of unique value. THE CHUKCH AND THE HIGHLANDS 451 through the transitions of the nineteenth century takes on the shades of pathos. During the Union war, there was that in it which was criminal : here it is rather tragic. And it had the elements of all true tragedy in that the thing was inevitable and yet was all wrong. It was inevitable in the sense that the breach must come some day between a section of the Church that lived its life in the progressive movement of the thought of the nineteenth century and a section that took an attitude to this wholly of isolation and opposition. But yet it was all wrong. The more one thinks of the real genius of the Highland character, the more one sees how unjust to its true self it was made in all this sad ecclesiastical story. I have said that Dr. Begg's anti-unionism was never native to the High- lands but was imported from without. So was much else that came, as we have seen, with it and after it. The whole religious type which under this influence has been largely developed in parts of the Highlands is essentially opposed to the Celtic religious genius. The genuine Highland nature is not akin to a hard and narrow hyper-Calvinism ; it found its truer ex- pression in the warm evangelicalism of men like Dr. Macdonald, * the Apostle of the North,' and others, before this blight arose. Its theology is not, in its true character, a dogmatism ; rather is it mystical, and indeed the Celtic nature is less Protestant than its creed. It may even be said that the abhorrence of the use of instrumental music in praise is something not native to the Celtic nature. A great deal of what so generally is characterised as * Highland religion ' 452 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY is not genuinely Highland at all. The genius of true Highland religion — devout towai:ds.,^God, tender towards Christ, sensitive towards sin, wistful towards the unseen — is something very different, and some- thing with hardly a parallel in modern Christendom, except perhaps in the finest strain of simple Lutheran piety. It is the blighting of so much of this that forms the really tragic element in this High- land story. In the foregoing paragraphs — which the writer must be allowed to say he offers with very great diffidence, recalling how Principal Rainy once remarked to him with a smile, ' You must remember you are not a Highlander ' — one has allowed oneself to speak gen- erally, and as if the attitude delineated was that of the Highlands as a whole. One did this in order to cut the lines clearly and to avoid blurring them by continual qualifications. But it must now be said equally clearly that the above analysis is not to be applied indiscriminately to the whole Church in the Highlands, or even to the greater part of it. Even during the anti-union war there was an undercurrent of Highland churchmanship at once loyal and reason- able, which was gradually finding itself and gathering strength despite other forces which claimed to speak in the name of the whole Highlands. This element was always there, though it was not always very articulate. The truth is, — and this cannot be too clearly understood by the reader, — the problem of the Free Churcli in the north was not with the Highlands but with a section of the Highlands, and that, a section which, under Principal Rainy 's patient convenership, THE CHURCH AND THE HIGHLANDS 4.53 became a yearly decreasing minority. In the High- lands were many of the Church's staunchest people — people who, whether or not they agreed with union or criticism or disestablishment, were Christian in spirit and loyal in their love of the Church. It was the minority not merely in the Church but in the Highlands that made a problem. Let it be remem- bered that the whole population of the Highland counties is less than half a million. A comparatively small minority numerically can be a real anxiety to the Church community of such a district. It is neces- sary to make this emphatic because too many people accept at their own value the declarations of those who have professed to speak for the Church of the Highlands. The Church of the Highlands, for the most part, was in thorough loyalty to the Church as a whole : but there was a minority sufficiently strong to be a perpetual problem. With this essential explanation and qualification, it is hoped that what has been said may give at least an impression of the situation which was inherited by the new Convener of the Highland Committee when in 1881 he entered upon office. It was a situa- tion of great interest ecclesiastically and religiously ; also, indeed, personally, for I have already indicated how Dr. Rainy's own type of character heightens the interest of his position in dealing with the Highland problem. I greatly regret that I have nothing to present to the reader which states Dr. Rainy's view of the problem. I do not find, either in his correspon- dence or his speeches, an}- general remarks which it would be illuminating to quote. His letters relating to 454 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY the Highlands are almost entirely inquiries ad- dressed to trusted ministers, or discussions of practical business with the Secretary of the Committee/ His speeches in presenting his reports to the Assembly are chiefly statements about the regular operations of the Committee. Principal Rainy never went back on the sad story of the past," and he said very little about the Highlanders whom he had to deal with except such non-committal observations as that ' he was not disposed to go in for indiscriminate praise any more than indiscriminate censure.' All this, of course, is disappointing biographically. Yet it reveals the character — and what, from one point of view, was the deficiency — of Principal Rainy's long and laborious Highland Convenership. Humanty speaking (though a student of A. B. Davidson's cannot use that expression without remem- bering his dry confession that for his part he found he could never speak otherwise than humanly), many would sa}^ that what would have saved even the more perplexing parts of the situation, was the pre- sence of one — either a Highlander or, if not, at least one who knew Gaelic — among the Highlanders them- selves whom they would trust and follow. The Celtic nature is led by personal attachments. The Highlands wanted not only a Committee or even the Con- ' The Rev. Alexander]- Lee, one of the ablest and most indefatigable of administrators. 2 In an introduction he contributed to the memoir of his predecessor in the convenership, Dr. Thomas M'Lauchlan, all his reference to this is the following : ' It is not necessary to say more here than that a school of men arose who saw it to be their duty —a melancholy duly surely — to inspire those they could influence with suspicion and hostility towards the Church to which they belonged.' THE CHURCH AND THE HIGHLANDS 455 vener of a Committee, but a chief. Now Principal Rainy, with all his wisdom of counsel and all his labours of love, could hardly gain this place in the Highland imagination. The mere fact that he could not speak Gaelic made it difficult that he should ; for, as he himself, somewhat pathetically in the cir- cumstances, says in his first report, ' to reach the minds and hearts of the people, it is necessary to speak to them in the tongue they best understand.' Thus Dr. Rainy's convenership was not a magnificent re- capturing of the Highlands to * follow him, follow him,' as Highland hearts only can. It was a slow, patient, wise and vigilant retrieving of the situation. As such, it succeeded. It did not succeed completely. But it succeeded as far as it could succeed. Even at the end — to anticipate the closing chapters of this biography — when a tremendous calamity feU, and Dr. Rainy and the United Free Church of Scotland were declared disinherited from the Free Church of the Disruption, the far greater part of the Highlands sustained even that shock, and stood loyal under that unprecedented strain. It was so shrewd and withal so tender an observer of the Principal as his own sister, who has been already spoken of in this chapter, who said to me it was an irretrievable pity he had not learned Gaelic, and he often, in late life, regretted it himself. One cannot help feehng that if Dr. Rainy could have become more closely known throughout the remoter High- lands, he would have succeeded not only to the great degree he did, but practically ever^^where. In par- ticular, if he could liave become known to the people 456 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY religiously — and that includes, in their own tongue — he would have been irresistible. Highland piety reverences one whom it feels to be * a man of God ' as deeply as Romanist piety reverences the saint whose life is weaned from the secular world. It is neither adulation nor cant to say that Dr. Rainy was, deeply and really, the * man of God ' as Highland piety — and I hope not Highland only — understands that phrase. And it is touching to find how he thus won the reverence of the Highland people who really came to know him, not as the great ecclesiastic or even as the benevolent Convener, but as the preacher of the evangel and the devout, prayerful, Christian man. When he visited the Highlands, he went to a people among whom he had been continually assailed as a leader in all manner of ecclesiastical apostasy. Many had been prejudiced against the very name of * black Rainy.' And certainly in the Highlands, as elsewhere, there are people who call their prejudices principles, and adhere to them with a devotion which not even the first principles of Christianity can always command from them — men like Sir Walter's Angus M'Aulay, who ' was a man of that calibre of under- standing who is incapable of being convinced when once he has adopted a prejudice.' ^ Persons of this ' calibre ' in the Highlands — the genus is of course by no means confined to the Highlands — would leave the room if they saw Dr. Rainy rise to pray." They were irreconcilable, and remained so to the end. But where Dr. Rainy went and was seen, he conquered. ' Lcij^end of Montrose, xxiii. - Tliis sentence is based on fact. THE CHURCH AND THE HIGHLANDS 4.57 Many little incidents might be mentioned as examples of this, but such things seem more trivial in print than they really are, and I shall content myself with one written testimony. It is a letter written to Miss Rainy by a minister who unbendingly opposed all the Principal's polic}^ and who indeed, at the end, was one of those who refused to enter the United Free Church. It is somewhat long, but I quote it as a sample of many, and because it illustrates the Highlander's appreciation of the evangel even beneath much that he disapproves : — ' I feel compelled as an honest man to tell you, his sister, in the hope that you may speak of it in his own ears, that the Principal of the New College does serious injustice, I had almost said positive mischief, to himself and to us High- landers, in not giving us proper and more frequent oppor- tunities of knowing him, not as he appears in the professor's chair, or the public platform, or in the press, but as he appears at our firesides, and more especially and above all, as he appears in our pulpits preaching Christ Jesus and Him crucified — the one absorbing theme which tenderly and closely unites us all in heart and affection, be our differences in feeling and senti- ment what they may on all else beside. For my part, I make no secret of it that I feel truly thankful that I have ever met and heard Dr. Rainy. I am free to confess that his conduct in private, but, more particularly, his sermon on " There is a river the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God," has wrought a complete revolution in my mind as to the sort of man he is. . . . I have no language at aU to express my admiration of the indescribable simplicity and naturalness, the total absence of all show and affectation on the part of the preacher — his blending littleness and greatness, if I may so express it. I trust you will spare no effort to get Dr. Rainy to take a tour through some part of the Highlands every summer and preach as often as he can. I am sure he requires only to be known in order to be loved and admired. If you 458 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY only knew, or rather if he only knew, how many he has made his friends by his recent tour through the Long Island who before had quite a decided dislike to him owing to differences of opinion on public questions, he would be satisfied, I am sure, that more frequent visits to the Highlands might do great good to himself and to all concerned. The most remarkable instance of the kind of conversion now referred to is that of a lady of my acquaintance in Stomoway, whom I may describe, without exaggeration, as the most intelligent and best critic of a sermon and the best-read woman I met in all the Lewis. She knows the Puritan and Reformation theology better than many a one with a D.D. appended to his name ; and withal, she is a decidedly good pious woman and exercised unbounded influence over " the men " and all the others in general. I believe she might say with Paul in another con- nection that all who knew her could testify " that after the most straitest sect of our religion I lived " — a Free Church woman. She was bitterly opposed to Union, to the views of Professor Smith, etc., etc., and, I may add, to Dr. Rainy for the position he took up on those questions. But, however, she was present yon Sabbath afternoon, hearing Dr. Rainy on Hebrews vii. 25 — the priesthood of our Redeemer ; and she declared to me that before he was half through his sermon her prejudices against him were so completely scattered to the four winds of heaven that she could freely forgive him aU the past. And, consequently, none of " the men " or of any other class dare., in her presence and hearing, speak an unfavourable word of Dr. Rainy now,* Dr. Rainy carried out the counsel in this letter to some extent, though not so much as was to be desired. When he did visit the Highlands he won the hearts not only of men but also of children, whom he always loved and who always loved him, and not least of ministers' wives whose hospitality he received and who found him the most delightful and easily entertained of guests — ' a treat in the house ' as one of them declared, 'and witli no airs like some probationers.' A brief THE CHURCH AND TFIE HIGHLANDS 459 descriptive note of one of Dr. Rainy's earlier Highland journeys is given me by a minister — the Rev. John Mackav, formerly of Cromarty, from which I select the following. The visit was in 1881 to the Ross of Mull and the sacred Isle of lona. ' I never had a more delightful experience than I had on meeting the Principal. I was distressed to find him tempo- rarily lame ; he had sprained his ankle and was slowly recover- ing, but had still to wear a soft cloth boot and use a walking- stick. A suitable pony was got, on which he rode to and from places of meeting. He made himself at home with every- body, and quickly drew the fine, healthy children to him. I made my Gaelic sermon short, and it pleased me to see the Gaelic folk, without exception, waiting to hear the famous divine. At first, I dare say, they stayed from curiosity, but when they found that he used such simple words, ^ and that they could, on that account, understand and profit b}^ his sermons, they simply hung upon his words and followed him whenever he was to address a meeting. He was in the best of spirits, ready for any amount of work and constantly on the move to one church or another, or to some crofting town- ship, or to the colony of lighthouse-keepers at the great rock- lights of Skerryvore and Dhuheartach. The Communion services were held in our church on the famous isle on the Sabbath. The people crossed from the Mull side in open boats. It was a pretty sight, and one's mind went back twelve centuries in imagination and could see the skin-covered coracles of the Columban age putting out from creek and bay and being paddled across towards the same landing-place for the worship of the same God. Dr. Rainy preached to a full church. He took pains to speak simply and clearly as well as earnestly to the dear Highland people. Only a saintly man could have spoken with the tenderness, earnestness and ' Not all appreciated this. There is a story of a Highlander who, when asked how he liked Dr. Rainy's preaching, replied ' Oh, no doubt he is a good man, but the creature has no mind.' Dr. Rainy greatly enjoyed this anecdote. 460 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAE RAINY unction with which he spoke. Meanwhile a strong gale from the south-west had sprung up and was increasing. Those who had been worshipping in the church, which stands just on the shore, wisely lost no time in taking to the boats, the Principal among them. We watched them — I was a prisoner for the night on lona — with no little anxiety, for the Sound of lona can be very angry. But the boatmen knew their work, and in a few minutes, we saw boat after boat, not without a tossing and some drenching, got into the shelter of the pier at the other side. On Monday morning I rejoined my friends and learned that in the somewhat thrilling ex- perience of the previous day Principal Rainy maintained his usual calmness as if he had been all his life in Hebridean seas.' This is but a single glimpse of Dr. Rainy in the Highlands on visits vv^hich, alas, were all too few. But Dr Rainy did everything for the Highlands which mortal man could do, born in Glasgow, working in Edinburgh, and unacquainted with Gaelic. I do not think it can be said that he wished to work out any special ' policy ' in his High- land administration, beyond the constant aim of every true Church administrator to encourage the Kingdom of God. Certainly he never let his eccle- siastical policies interfere one whit in his attitude to ministers or congregations : indeed some of his most generous efforts were for those who were pro- nouncedly opposed to many of his views. He had an extraordinarily intimate and exact knowledge of each district under the Committee's care. Of this, Mr. Lee, the Secretary of the Committee, says : — ' Dr. Rainy greatly envied his predecessors' intimate personal knowledge not only of every parish, but of every minister and of all the leading office-bearers and men in the Highland THE CHURCH AND THE HIGHLANDS 461 field. So deeply impressed was he with the importance of accurate local knowledge of the field he was to supervise, that he set himself, immediately on his appointment, to visit every district which was hitherto unknown to him, and never rested till he learned all about the ministers, missionaries and cate- chists who were at work in the Highlands and Islands. Thus it happened that, while he might fail to recognise a minister or Church agent from the Highlands who saluted him on the street or in the Assembly corridor, he at once indicated intimate acquaintance with his congregational surroundings and work, and referred to his special difficulties or successes on learning the name of the parish or district to which he belonged.' Of the details of his administration as Convener, one need not report much in a biography. He nurtured ' the good cause ' year by year. He raised money for the erection of places of worship and, where necessary for them, special endowment. For these purposes, he gathered during the first ten or eleven years of his convenership over twenty thousand pounds. By the year of the Jubilee of the Disruption — 1893 — every district in the Highlands and Islands was fully equipped with ecclesiastical buildings, and in every district where the people required the services of an ordained ministry, provision had been made for securing this. He also organised lay agencies, and when the activities of the Ladies' Association had become less needed because of the establishment of a national system of education, he did much to secure the sending into remote districts of student missionaries, Bible - women, evangelists and other workers. The expenses of all this were met by funds which he gathered in addition to the ordinary revenue of the Committee. The material and financial interests of his office he advanced as no other man could 462 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY have done. But no one who worked with him could fail to see how, to Dr. Rainy, all this was but a means to an end. In his Highland convenership, as in every other part of his life-work, there dominated that interest in the prosperity of the evangel which I have already declared to be the chief biographical fact about Principal Rainy. One day, in the ofhce of the Committee, he was perusing letters giving a cheering account of religious awakening in certain Highland parishes. Turning round in his chair, he said to the Secretary, * Thank God, this is the work for which the Church exists.' Any Convener of the Highland Committee during the eighties of last century could not, however strong his spiritual interests, fail to be also concerned over the social condition of the people. I find an interest- ing illustration of this in a letter to Principal Rainy of the year 1885 from remote St Kilda announcing that the barley and potatoes on the island had been destroyed by a sudden storm and appealing for aid. The letter was sent adrift in a little boat made of a plank, and its last sentence is a fear ' this will not reach you.' The plank reached quite safely — it even had the sense to cast itself ashore a stone's-throw from the post-office in the Long Island — and Dr. Rainy immediately organised and despatched relief. But there was a far larger problem of a social kind which commanded his sympathies and anxieties. The * Crofters' agitation ' was then approaching its height, and the Church of the Highlands could not be indifferent to it. Principal Rainy did not take a leading part in this, but it is so essential a feature THE CHURCH AND THE HIGHLANDS 463 of the Highland story and also had so deep a place in his sympathies that it should not be passed over, and I shall, in the briefest way, recall its outline. The causes which produced this land trouble may be said to date as far back as the Union of the Par- liaments in 1707, after which many of the Scottish proprietors began to live in England, leaving their estates to the management of ' factors ' who were often foreigners — that is, lowlanders or Enghshmen ; and thus the people were ' trodden down by strangers — a fate,' as an ancient writer says with genuine Celtic feeling, ' which pierces the heart with sighs of grief.' ^ But what in the Highlands operated more disastrously was the destruction of the clan land system after the brilliant blunder of the 'Forty-five.' In old days the chief was, by Celtic law and usage, head of the clan by his own right, but he was not proprietor of the clan lands in the same absolute way. The system of land tenure in the Highlands previous to 1745 was patriarchal rather than feudal. The land was held by and for the clan. Though the chief, as clan representative, could allot portions and indeed could, in some cases, evict, very practical considera- tions — such as his retaining a following in time of attack — restrained him from exercising his powers to the utmost against customary rights. The Union of 1707 led to absenteeism, and the abolition in 1748 of the clan system led to absolutism. Many of the absentee chiefs were poor, and others were pleasure- seeking, and in either case, the paid and alien factor • 'Inproclivo sunt abextraneis, quod suspiria doloris pectori incutit.' — Vihi Sancti Columbae^ Auctore Adamnano, lib. in. cap. v., ed. J. T. Fowler, 1804. 464 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY was almost compelled to squeeze as much money out of the estates as possible. It was soon found that this result could be most speedily and effectively attained by turning large stretches of land into sheep- runs and (though this was later) deer-forests. This meant evicting the tenants whose ancestors, in many cases, had occupied their holdings from time im- memorial. The first eviction on a large and sweeping scale was in 1784, and thereafter the process went on continuously. The notorious ' Sutherland clearances ' evicted a population of 15,000 persons from their homes, which were burned over their heads — a spectacle which Sismondi saw and bewailed even from Paris, and which Hugh Miller denounced with a patriot's sorrow and anger. In the Assembly of 188.8, Principal Rainy told how, in his father's house in Glasgow, a Sutherland man had been asked to describe that time. ' What did you see ? Don't tell us what you heard, but what did you see ? ' And the man answered : ' I saw the strath burning from end to end.' Evictions in other districts were quite as cruelly and recklessly carried out as the Sutherland evictions, which indeed were claimed to be done in the interests of the people. The ruthlessness of some of these clear- ances was incredible. In Uist many of the people fled to the hills to escape being taken away, and they were pursued and brought down to the emigrant ship, hand- cuffed like felons. It was deeds like these which burned the word * eviction ' into the Highland mind as a word of hate and to be hated ; and it is this story, more than anything else, which has set so much of the music of the Gael to a mournful key. A remarkable fact was THE CHURCH ANT> THE HIGHLANDS 465 that very few indeed of the proprietary class recognised wrong-doing in eviction — not even Highland chiefs, and an added element in the bitterness was that the people were thus treated by those who should have been their first protectors — -and some even unquestion- ably good men among them were implicated in it. A similar remark may be made of good Americans at the time of the abolition of the slave-trade. Indeed, it may often be observed that those holding position over their fellows will sincerely surrender their individual lives to Christ's law and yet not their rights over the lives of others ; the reason of this is, I conceive, that as regards his personal soul and character, a man may come to feel his need of a Saviour and a Master, but in his relations, as a superior, towards his own property or his labourers or servants, he has not this precise sense of need and so will be Christian there only when his conscience is further awakened. But to return to our story. Most of the people, thus driven from their homes, were forced to emigrate, the majority settling in Canada and Australia, where, by a curious irony, sheep-farming was developed to an extent which cut out the sheep-farms at home for the sake of which these Highlanders had been evicted. Those who remained in Scotland — often the feebler members of the family — were settled in small and often barren holdings, usually near the coast. A liveli- hood was hardly possible even when eked out with fishing and other pursuits such as the kelp industry.^ ^ Kelp is an alkaline matter made by the combustion of seaweed and used for the production of soda and similar substances. The industry for a while was flourishing, but it was always uncertain and gradually declined, leaving the people really worse off than before, for, in pursuing the kelp industry, they had both driven away the fish and neglected their crops and pastures. It has of recent years somewhat revived. VOL. I. 2 G 466 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Real hardship and depressing poverty settled down on the crofter population, and when the terrible potato famines of 1837, 1841 and 1846 came, things were brought to a crisis. Some lairds — to their credit be it said — started relief works of various kinds, and the Churches and the Government gave assist- ance. This, while it did good in relieving distress, did moral harm by sapping something of the old independence of the Highland character. A Com- mission was appointed in 185 1 to inquire into the distress, but though its report anticipated that ' some fearful calamity ' would probably occur, nothing was done and the problem remained unfaced. It was not taken up again till it threatened to grow into a violent and dangerous popular agitation. In some districts, soldiers had to accompany the factor when he collected the rents. At length, in 1883, Mr, Glad- stone's Government appointed a Commission — the fruit, largely, of the pressure of Charles Fraser- Mackintosh, * the Crofters' Member.' By this date, Principal Rainy had become Highland Convener in his Church, and he drew up — along with Dr. James Calder Macphail — a weighty memorandum (too long and detailed to be quoted here) for the Commission. Dr. Rainy, however, did not personally take part in the meetings of the land agitation, which at this time was very active, and, in places, in conflict with the law. Other prominent men in the Church, notably Professor Lindsay, threw themselves into this with effect, but the reasons for the abstention of the Principal, both as official Convener of the Com- mittee and as leader of the Church, are obvious THE CHURCH AND THE HIGHLANDS 467 enough/ Of his sympathies there could be no doubt, and he found expression for them in a constitutional way. When the first Crofters Bill — brought in as a result of the report of the Crofters Commission — was before Parliament in 1885, he moved that the Assembly press for a more liberal measure ; and when, in the following year, a more liberal measure was brought in, he moved the Assembly to petition in its favour. This latter bill, which was passed into an Act, took away the power of eviction or removal except for non-pay- ment of rent or breach of certain specified conditions, provided an independent means of fixing fair rent, and recognised the right of the tenant to compensation for improvement. Under these and similar provisions the Crofters Commission still acts. I cannot sta}^ here to discuss them, but one may note that their moral value was greater even than their material. For, to some remarks in the foregoing paragraph it may be replied that, on the other hand, the crofter was lazy and did not make the most of. his croft. That is probably true, but what was at least one reason for it ? At least one reason for it was that, if a man did put hard work into his croft and so made it produce a better return, he found he was simply putting money, not into his own pocket, but into his landlord's, for the rent of the improved holding was soon ra,ised and, if the tenant who had improved it did not agree to the higher figure, he had simply to go, and thus all his labour was lost. It is not enough to say that people should be thrifty ^ That Principal Rainy, when he saw cause, had courage enough to phinge into a social dispute, even espousing a side that had violated law, will be seen when we come to mention the Railway Strike of iSgo. 468 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY and industrious : you must give them a reasonable motive for being so. The above is but the baldest outline of a story which, were it written at length, might well, in many parts, wring the heart with its pathos. It did not form a large part of Dr. Rainy's career, for, as I have said, he refrained from entering into the agitation and he would not invite the Church courts to undertake to draw up a legislative panacea. Dr. Rainy was always careful to insist that the Church's commission was spiritual; but in a great speech on this subject at the Assembly of 1888 (which happened to be held at Inverness) he recalled how the greatest of Scottish Churchmen — John Knox — ^had appealed on behalf of the people when they were bound : — ' A voice then began to speak for the people, a voice sorely needed by the oppressed people, conjuring those who had the power, in God's name, to take heed that they should not be oppressed and that their conditions of life should be consistent with justice and a measure of comfort and hope. This Church of ours has been identified all through with the common people who laboured the land. And when a voice should be raised on their behalf, it will be raised.' This question, if it had not a large place in Dr. Rainy's career, had a very deep place in his heart both as a churchman and as a Celt. The topic of this chapter has the pathos which Celtic scene and story always have. And the impres- sion which the study of it leaves on the mind is that what ' the problem of the Highlands,' both in its re- ligious and in its economic aspect, needs is what every problem primarily and essentially needs — namely justice. Highland religion and Highland life have THE CHURCH AND THE HIGHLANDS 469 been oppressed — the one by false ecclesiastical domina- tions imposed by leaders who did not represent the real piety of the people, the other by harassing outward conditions upheld by not all, but many, of a ruling class who no longer shared in the people's life. There are due to the Highlands, both spiritually and socially, great reparations. May the day soon dawn when, alike in Church and in State, the Celt, freed from his un- happy bondages, will be himself again — his religion genuine to the Celtic genius, and his social conditions such that the Highland character may find richer and happier expression. And yet, not even so great a word as justice is that in which the true self of the Scottish Celt will rest. He has not less than a passion — while a Saxon may have the instinct — for justice; but, ^deeper than that, 'his souIha±h_-a.-desire.' And through even the story of sad ecclesiastical strife and shameful social wrong, there still echoes in his ears the pledge of his inalienable portion which the dying Columba recorded in the last words he wrote before the pen fell from his hand : Inquirentes autem Dominum non deficient omni bono — ' They that seek the Lord shall not want any thing that is good.' END OF VOL. I. VOLUME II \ CHAPTER XVI A CRISIS IN DISESTABLISHMENT IT was, I think, Sir Robert Peel who said, * What- ever you do for an estabhshment, don't legislate.' In the seventies of last century in Scotland, it certainly looked as if the authors of the Patronage Act would have been well advised to remember this counsel. That Act, whatever elements of benefit it may have had, was clearly — as has been pointed out in a former chapter — a reindorsement in the name of the nation of the union between Church and State and that still on the erastian terms laid down before 1843. Against such union the Free Church was the embodied protest, and. henceforth that protest, so long passive, woke into action. The effect of this on the country and on political parties w^as unmistakable. It was in 1874 that the Patronage Act w^as passed. For two or three years the Free Church let opinion ripen, and in 1877 definitely pronounced for Dis- establishment. In the autumn of that same year, the Marquis of Hartington — then the leader of the Liberal party in the retirement of Mr. Gladstone — came down to Scotland to address a meeting on the reorganisation of the party and found the question of Disestablishment so important that he had to treat of it first. He did not regard it as ' ripe for VOL. II. A 2 ' THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY solution,' but he formally invited the Scottish Liberal party to make up its mind on it, and he pledged the party as a whole thereupon to deal with the question. The words of Lord Hartington's statement are important in view of the subsequent history and should be given verbatim : — ' AU I can say is that, when, if ever, Scotch opinion, or even Scotch Liberal opinion, is fully formed on this subject, I think that I may venture to say on behalf of the party as a whole that it will be prepared to deal with the question on its merits, and without reference to any other consideration.' ^ He further described the Patronage Act as ' a step in the direction of Disestablishment.' Certainly the anticipation that that Act would lead to union had proved the sheerest delusion. Union indeed was being spoken of by honoured men in the Established Church such as Lord Polwarth and Professor Charteris, but the communications on the subject between the two Churches (which will be referred to in the next chapter) came to nothing. It is quite clear that — — apart from any question about the political justice of Disestablishment — the Free Church was coming more and more plainly to see that what had broken the Scottish Church and what hindered its restoration to unity was simply a political factor. Establishment had become the wedge in Scottish Presbyterianism. Such at least was Principal Rainy's view. As he said : — ' People talked of the duty of the State to religion. One duty of the State to religion is not to keep the Churches divided. The unity of the Church is one of the things for which, Speech at Edinburgli, Nov- 6, 1877. A CRISIS IN DISESTABLISHMENT 3 according to the Confession of Faith, the magistrate " cares." Have the goodness not to drive wedges into the Church was a natural and reasonable thing to say to the State.' On the other hand, one may quote the view of the leading man in the Established Church — that Establishment, far from being a ' wedge,' was rather the one bond of ecclesiastical and national order. Here is a terrible picture, from his pen, of what would follow Disestablishment : — ' The larger class, both of clergy and people, especially in the west of Scotland, will sink into the common slough of Presbyterian dissenters ; and all the anti-social feelings which already largely prevail among classes of those dissenters — feelings of vulgar dislike and jealousy of those above them — will largely and rapidly increase.' ^ A feeling such as this was unquestionably part of the atmosphere of the times. Doubtless many of the smaller minds of the Free Church were stirred by it to unworthy feeling in return. It did not so affect Principal Rainy. In the Assembly he said these words : ' Of course, Moderator, I don't assume that the disestabUshed Church would count us fit people to unite with. Yet I should be sorr}^ to think there is no way by wliich the Presbj'terianism of Scotland can be made one. Let us not think of the ministers only, but look at the people of our various Churches, look at the masses of available Presbyterianism, if it was brought together and men made to know each other and brought under the influence of what is best in all the Churches, to join together and try what we can make of the Scottish people yet — it is something to make the heart leap to think what that might be!' 1 Blackwood's Miiiiazine, September 1878. The authorship is avowed in Memoir of Principal Tulloch, 338. I shall not fail to quote the worthier Tulloch further on. 4 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY The last phrase is a revelation of Principal Rainy such as he rarely allowed himself. The sense of the importance of the question soon reached Parliament, and in 1878 no fewer than three Scottish members ^ proposed committees of inquiry to examine into the effect of the Patronage Act on the relation between the Churches and to discover what Scotland desired as to the connection between Church and State. The debate included the usual compli- mentary references to the Disruption with, now added, the frank admission that the loud anticipations made at the passing of the Patronage Act that that measure would lead to union had come to nothing. The Government opposed the appointment of any committee of inquiry, and Mr. Gladstone agreed that this was not the way to elicit the people's mind : * the organs which the Constitution provides them are sufficient to enable them to convey in an inteUigent form to this House what their desires are.' The debate was adjourned and the motions were never heard of again. Like many other things in the relations of Parliament to the Scottish Church, the proposal of a committee was too late. Just as a Patronage bill passed (as the Duke of Argyll and the evangelical party in the Assembly wanted) in the earlier stage of the Ten Years' Conflict would have averted the Disruption, so a committee to inquire into the relations of the Scottish Churches appointed (as Mr. Gladstone and the Free Church asked) before ' One of them was Principal Rainy's cousin, Mr. C. S. Parker, member for Perth — now the Right Hon. C. S. Parker, and biographer of Peel and Graham. Mr. Parker said a true word of the Patronage Act in the debate: I It was a right thing done in the wrong way.' A CRISIS IN DISESTABLISHMENT 5 the passing of the Patronage Act might have averted the demand for DisestabUshment. One difference between first and second class statesmanship is just that the former has the foresight whicli does things in time. I have neither space here nor inchnation to enter into a general account of the rise of the Disestablish- ment movement in Scotland, and we may pass at once to Principal Rainy's direct relations with it at this critical phase of its fortunes. There can be no doubt that, soon after the question became prominent, an effort was made by influential Liberal politicians — including the party whip, W. P. Adam — to mini- mise the effect of Lord Hartington's declaration on the strength of which disestablishers were taking action and to prevent the subject from being looked on in Scotland as one that might be dealt with by the next Parliament. It was at this point that the two most powerful men who were to influence the issue came into contact. , Principal Rain3, wrote to Mr. Gladstone on this tendency of party managers, and he received in return an important reply which defined the status of the question afresh. The main paragraphs of Dr. Rainy's letter — dated 8th May 1879 — are as follows : — ' On returning to Edinburgh after being absent for some time in Italy, I find among friends with whom I usually act a good deal of anxiety and disturbance of mind in connection with recent utterances of Mr. Adam, and especially in connec- tion with the construction placed on them by members of the Established Church and by newspapers which are in favour of maintaining the Establishment. These utterances are understood to mean that for the present and during next 6 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Parliament the question of Disestablishment is to be treated as outside the sphere of practical politics. It is represented that this attitude is due to pressure brought to bear on the Liberal leaders by members of the Established Church who belong to the Liberal party. This section of the party is con- sidered to have received from the leaders a virtual pledge that they will not meddle with the question during next Parliament. . . . ' Ever since the Marquis of Hartington's well-known speech we have understood that the leaders of the Liberal party held themselves free and ready to take up the question of the Church in Scotland at any time and in any way that might be suggested as reasonable by the political situation and the state of public opinion. We understood that they regarded the question as already a subject for inquiry and discussion, and probably, ere long, a subject for action. We understood, indeed, that they gave no positive pledge to take up the ques- tion. But we were far from expecting anything indicating a pledge not to take it up. . . . ' The want of active agitation, so far as it has been wanting, is due mainly to the representations of Mr. Adam and others to the effect that, in consideration of the friendly tone of the Liberal leaders, we ought to refrain from dividing needlessly and prematurely the party to which we naturally look for a candid examination of these Scottish questions and an efficient disposal of them. I have hitherto been in the way of deferring to these representations. ... If the Liberal leaders have taken any step or given any pledge which disables them from applying themselves to the question, whether by inquiry or by direct action, in next Parliament, we must come to the conclusion that the line we have been persuaded to take is for us weak indeed.' The following is Mr. Gladstone's reply : — '73 Harley Street, W., May 24/-^, 1879. ' My dear Sir, — I have received the letter in which you express apprehension lest the leaders of the Liberal party should give a virtual pledge that they will not touch the question of Disestablishment during the next Parliament. A CRISIS IN DISESTABLISHMENT 7 ' I do not fall within the description of a leader of the party, but, for one, I have never at any time given such a- pledge, to my knowledge, in regard to any question before the pubUc of any kind. ' It is remarkable that nearly at the same time there should have reached me an opposite intimation from some decided opponents of Disestablishment in Scotland. Their fear is that the organisation of the Liberal party may be employed to procure or favour the return to Parliament of persons friendly to that measure ; and their desire is that the question should not be raised by the party until the Scottish people shall have had it presented to them as a substantive or main issue, and not merely as a side issue or one mixed up with other issues of a more pressing character. ' I agree in the opinion that the organisation of the party at large should not be employed for or against persons of any of its particular sections, but should be used impartially as between them all ; and I certainly desire that this question, which has been recognised as pre-eminently one for the Scottish people to consider, should not be raised by the party until the Scottish people shall have pronounced upon it in a manner which is intelligible and distinct. But I do not find the phrases " main issue " and " side issue " to be sufficiently free from ambiguity to lead me to choose them for the conveyance of my own sentiments ; while I think a distinct and intelligible expression must be all for which such gentlemen as I have described would wish to stipulate. * In my personal sentiments on the subject there is nothing to conceal. They have been matured, I think, as far as the present stage of the discussion admits, and they have been expressed so far as they have been matured. I refer to our discussions in Parliament ; and I adhere also to the declara- tion of Lord Hartington. Those who have done most to advance the agitation of the question were, in my judgment, the authors of the Patronage Act of 1874. It is no part, how- ever, of my duty, either to urge the question forward or to keep it backward. On this principle, and in a spirit of cordial respect and goodwill to all concerned, I have acted and I mean to act. ' As I conceive that misapprehension and jealousy are apt 8 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY to arise from separate correspondences carried on in what are, on a subject like this, opposing quarters, I have thought it best to embody in my reply to you all that I have to say in the present state of things on the question of Establishment or no-Establishment in Scotland — a question which I feel satisfied will receive careful and dispassionate consideration, and with respect to which I cannot profess that, in the present condition of imperial affairs, it occupies the first, or nearly the first, place in my mind.' This letter is somewhat Gladstonian in style and is neutral and even remote in tone. But as a statement of the public position of the question it was satis- factory to the supporters of Disestablishment. It endorsed Lord Hartington's declaration and, de- clining to enter into questions as to what is a main issue and what a side issue (about which people rarely are got to agree), asked only that the indication of the country's will be ' distinct and intelligible.' As to the subordinate position the question occupied in Mr. Gladstone's own mind ' in the present condition of imperial affairs ' — that was easily intelligible. The volcano of the ' Eastern Question ' had burst out again ; and the aged statesman, leaving the congenial study of whether Homer's theology is not that of the Old Testament, was plunging again into politics — aflame with indignation over the atrocities in Bulgaria and resolved to deliver Britain from Lord Beacons- field's pro-Turkish regime. A general election took place in 1880. Mr Gladstone came down like a whirl- wind on Midlothian and won that entrenchment of Toryism amid unparalleled excitement. Scotland, gave him a more enthusiastic devotion than any statesman liad ever received in that country, and sent A CRISIS IN DISESTABLISHMENT 9 up to Westminster only sufficient Tory members to fill a first-class railway compartment. Lord Beacons- field fell — accepting his fall with great dignity — and Mr. Gladstone came into power. No fair-minded person would claim that the result of this election, so far as Scotland was concerned, was to be taken as the * distinct and intelligible ' declaration of the country on the question of Disestab- lishment. Certainly, Principal Rainy — who, his strongest opponents must admit, was never a man to attempt to snatch an advantage in controversy — did not so claim it. Nothing could be fairer than his statement of the position of matters after this general election in these words in an article he contributed in 1882 to the Contemporary Review on ' Disestablishment in Scotland ' : — ' Mr. Gladstone has not tied his hands or those of his party on the Scottish Church question. It is certain, indeed, that he will not commit his party in this Parliament, nor in any Parliament, to Disestablishment in Scotland without the distinct expression of Scottish opinion first occurring. It is certain, also, that the last general election did not and could not afford the distinct expression desiderated. But I\Ir. Gladstone has not shut out the possibility of the voice of Scotland be- coming audible and clear even during the duration of this Parliament.' ^ Nothing could be more fairly stated than that. Up to this point there had been little or nothing that could be called a ' Disestablishment agitation ' in Scotland. So far as Principal Rainy himself was concerned, he had certainly led the Free Church to express her mind, and had taken his stand at more ^ Co7itemporary Review, March 18S2. 10 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAIN^ than one public meeting ; but he had carried on no crusade. The movement was progressing by its own momentum. What led to a Disestablishment campaign being undertaken was a renewed and unmistakable effort on the part of a number of ofi&cials of the Liberal party to damp down the discussion of the question and so prevent that ' distinct expression ' of the will of the Scottish people' which had been so plainly invited. This may have been desired not only from quite honourable motives but also from good party reasons, for, of course, many Liberals were Established Churchmen. But, obviously, it meant that there would be no Disestablishment, and the existing ecclesiastical situation — with its plain unreasonableness politically as the Establishment of a minority and its palpable injuriousness ecclesiasti- cally as a source of division in the national Presby- terianism — would go on indefinitely. It was in these circumstances that Principal Rainy found it necessary again to communicate with Mr. Gladstone. In October 1881 he wrote apprising him of the movement definitely in favour of Disestablishment which had taken shape in the Free Church and also in the country. This was little more than a brief note, but in November he wrote again, at greater length, of the fresh official attempt made to damp down this movement. From this letter, the following may be quoted : — ' It appears to us that a ver}^ strong disposition exists and has been manifested in influential ciuarters among the Liberal party in Scotland to suppress the question or indefinitely postpone it. For this purpose they appear to us to make use A CRISIS IN DISESTABLISHMENT 11 of the feelings of loyalty and goodwill existing in the party. The question is waved aside as dangerous and uncomfortable. ' It is right to explain that this impression is not the result on our part of extravagant expectations. We agree that decisive legislative action on the subject is not to be looked for in this Parliament. We also agree that at this stage we cannot expect from statesmen in the position which you occupy, or which Lord Hartington occupies, statements on the merits of the question more specific than those which we have received. ' But having concurred in the policy of forbearing to push the question at last general election and of postponing the legislative decision of it to a future Parliament, we consider the question to be one which falls now to be advanced by frank discussion and expression of opinion, especially on the part of men who claim to be intrusted wdth the representation of Scottish opinion. We think ourselves entitled to expect that at next general election the question will be raised — i.e. no effort will be made to hinder its being raised for parliamentary decision. If so, men's minds must be turned to it and that decision prepared, now. ' We find, on the contrary, a disposition to wave the ques- tion aside on various pretexts as not at present to be men- tioned, as if some understanding existed to that effect which good Liberals should not violate. In this way, some im- pression has been produced upon the minds of men — an im- pression which we feel ourselves bound to undo. If the policy now referred to were allowed to prevail, the necessary conse- quence would be that next general election, when it comes, will find the country unprepared, and, on that ground, we should be anew subjected to pressure with a view to persuade us not to press the question. ' I may remark that this seems to us very dangerous policy for the party. It tends directly to produce, when the day of battle comes, resentments and dangerous splits within the party. The imity of the Liberal party in Scotland depends on the Established Church members of it being timeonsly prepared to face the inevitable — which many of them would do manfully — instead of their being encouraged to make a stand within the party, which, though useless in the end, ma}' 12 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY be injurious and dangerous meanwhile. However, it is not our business to discuss the interests of the party. We feel, at all events, that it is our duty to make the success of the policy of which we complain an impossibility ; and the symptoms I have referred to have impressed us very strongly with the obligation lying upon us to take every possible security that the question shall not be set aside, but shall be fully and clearly in view for next general election.' Mr. Gladstone replied to this, thanking Principal Rainy for the information he had conveyed, and further recognising the ' considerateness ' of his state- ment. This correspondence between Mr. Gladstone and Principal Rainy entered on a new phase when the latter had occasion to write an official letter in name of the Church and State Committee of the Free Church, asking the Prime IMinister to agree to receive a deputa- tion to state the position the Church had taken on the subject : the repl}^ refers also to the previous letters (one of which has been quoted above), and begins as follows : — ' Dear Dr. Rainy, — I have reflected and taken counsel upon your letter of the 22nd. I had gathered from your ■previous communication that there was no desire in your Communion to stir at the present juncture the question of Disestablishment in Scotland. And I still presume that I am not to consider this request as modifying the effect of that former communication.' Mr. Gladstone goes on to describe how full his hands were with the question of Parliamentary procedure, so that other things are thrown into the background, and concludes by sajdng that to receive a deputation would ' give rise to the charge of a conspiracy between A CRISIS IN DISESTABLISHMENT 13 the Government and you without, so far as I can see, any compensating benefit,' and that ' perhaps there- fore you would allow me on some ground not dis- courteous to suggest that the meeting may for the present be waived.' The opening sentences of this letter suggest the wish which is father to the thought. Certainly the impression that * there was no desire to stir the question ' called for a reply from Dr. Rainy, and he wrote as follows on 8th December : — ' . . . The object of my earlier letters was precisely to prepare you for a public movement which I felt to be near and which would require to be publicly dealt with. I refrained from discussing plans, because I assumed you would not choose to be made responsible in any shape for the form our proceed- ings might take. But I must have expressed myself un- fortunately if I did not convey my anticipation that at the present juncture the question of Disestablishment would be stirred more emphatically than ever before. I think this could be made evident if at some time you had leisure to refer again to these letters. * At the same time ttiis is now a very subordinate question, for the movement I expected has taken pubhc shape and my letter of the 22nd, resulting from it, was official, and may be read apart from my previous and purely personal communica- tions. What has happened is, in one word, that the Free Church has publicly committed itself to press the question to a solution, and to do so with whatever weight and whatever right belong to her historically or practically in connection with ecclesiastical affairs in Scotland. . '. . In these circum- stances, our request that a deputation may be received arises from no idea on our part that you have specially a personal relation to the question. It is very far from our desire to attempt to mix you up with our movement as promoting or approving it. The step we have taken requires us to approach the Government, whatever Government may be in power and whatever minister may be at the head of it. I must therefore submit that the request that a deputation may be received is 14 THE LIFE OF PRINCTPAE RAINY one which we cannot regard ourselves as having a discretion even to postpone. It follows from the position we have now taken up and the responsibilities we have now accepted. But looking solely to our request and to my letter of the 22nd as conveying it, there are two respects in which your letter suggests the existence of difficulties which it may be our duty to remove. First, my letter of 22nd contained some explana- tions which were not indispensable to the immediate purpose. The introduction of these might perhaps lead you to regard that letter as more or less a prolongation of previous correspond- ence. I have therefore re-written and transmit herewith the request for an audience, confining it strictly to that one point. Secondly, your letter suggests that you may feel entitled to have it made quite plain that you stand clear of all responsi- bility for any movement of ours ; and, it may be, you do not consider us yet to have made this duly apparent. We cordially acknowledge your right to have this point guarded, and I do not think we shall hesitate to make it plain and to consent to its being made plain in any way that may be required, ' I am very sorry indeed to have had occasion to trouble you with this long letter. Still more do I regret to be in the position of not complying and inducing my friends to comply with any suggestion of yours, especially with one so courteously made. But I am absolutely disabled from doing so. The step we have taken as a Church and are beginning to follow out is one which, for good or for evil, we cannot recall. And we must take every means that is legitimately open to us to make its significance apparent and to secure that it shall have its full effect. One such means, the most obvious and the most im- portant, seems to us to be that we should approach the Queen's Government. We do not inquire what reply is likely to be made to us : we do not calculate when legislation in the matter will prove practicable. But we consider it is not too much and not too soon to ask for the Free Church a hearing from the responsible Government of the country.* I have' quoted this letter at length because it gives an impression of the resoluteness that was in A CRISIS IN DISESTABLISHMENT 15 Dr. Rainv's mind — even, in dealing with a Prime Minister — when things came to a point which seemed to him important. I do not know if Mr. Gladstone received many letters exactly like this. The result of it was that he appeared to yield and agreed, in a letter sent through his secretary a week later, to receive the deputation before the question should come up in Parliament, where it had been raised by a resolution in favour of Disestablishment of which notice had been given by a Scottish member. But this was long in gaining a place, and the deputa- tion was more than once put off. Several notes passed between Principal Rainy and Mr. Gladstone's secretar}^ on the subject. The Premier pleaded many engrossments, and it was not till a year later that the deputation was at last received. Of this interview I have no record. But I find among Principal Rainy's papers a memorandum — which was submitted by him to Mr. Gladstone for approval as accurate — of a subsequent interview which may be quoted so far as it concerned the Prime Minister : — ' With reference to the matter brought up by the deputation, Mr. Gladstone stated that he abode by all the declarations he had made upon the subject, especially those made during the discussion of the Patronage Bill, adding that he preferred resting on declarations made formerly to framing new ones. He said that the Government has done and would do nothing to discourage the expression of Scottish opinion, of what- ever kind, on this subject ; and still thought that the opinion expressed through the representatives of the people in Parliament ought to inform and guide the Govern- ment and the legislature in the ultimate disposal of the question.' 16 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY The struggle indicated above to induce Mr. Glad- stone to receive the deputation of the Free Church on this subject is not without significance. It shows the real discouragement put in the way of the stirring of this question and how clear it was that if Dis- establishment was ever to be achieved it must be by forcing it on by a strong public demand. It was in these circumstances that Dr. Rainy made up his mind to take upon himself the burden of a' regular agitation throughout the country. I have intimate authority for saying that it was with the most real reluctance he took this step. This remark is not to be misunderstood. It does not mean that he had any hesitation as to the rightness of it. I can testify to his asserting that he took it up and felt called on even to force it forward because he sincerely beheved that the demand for Disestablishment was that most in the interests of the religion of the country and the union of the Church. His words on one occasion were that he * would not have lifted a little finger in it for any other reasons.' And he once declared in the General Assembly : — ' To be prominent in this question is just one of the last things that I planned for myself or ever I would have desired. It is a thing which I dislike, but I am in it by the clear force of conscience and of duty to the principles of my o\NTi Church and to the general welfare of this dear Scotland.' But it is not difficult to understand why it was with reluctance he took this step. Necessarily it exposed him to various kinds of hostility and brought him into conflict with brethren — some of them most A CRISIS IN DISESTABLISHMENT 17 honoured men — of the sister Church/ And beneath all his strength and apparent coldness, Principal Rainy was the most sensitive of men : if he had the redoubt- able chin of a man of will, he had also the mobile mouth of a man of feehng. Still, when a task seemed the duty laid to his hands, he simply did it, and any unpleasantness about it was, as he used to say, ' just part of the day's work.' He had certainly need at this time of all that a good conscience and a philosophic^ not to say a Christian, temper can give ; for during this controversy Principal Rainy became the object of the most unspar- ing and, one must add, most unscrupulous personal attacks which any public man has had to bear in modern times. Mr. Gladstone during the Home Rule debates or Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman during the Boer War was fiercely assailed ; yet the sincerity of their motives and the worthiness of their characters were seldom impugned by even the bitterest of their opponents. It was otherwise in the treat- ment meted out to Principal Rainy during this Disestablishment controversy. In this connection it is impossible to refrain from mentioning the attacks on Principal Rainy which throughout these years, and at times daily, appeared in the columns of the Scotsman. At that period the great Edinburgh journal was a Liberal organ and, on the subject of Church and State, declared itself on the side of the principle of religious equality. But its sympathy ' I find, during the debates at this time, that the Established Churcli objected to be called the 'sister Church' and thought she should be called 'mother.' Principal Rainy suggested that the difficulty might possibly be got over by using the term 'mother-in-law.' VOT.. II. »' 18 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY with religious equality proved a small thing compared to its antipathy to Principal Rainy. The Scotsman tradition — handed down from the days of its zenith under the editorship of Russel — was an unsleeping antagonism to the evangelical interest in the Scottish Church and to an^^thing or any one representative of that interest powerful enough to merit its opposition. The Free Church and Principal Rainy were powerful enough. And, on the plea that he did not base the Disestabhshment movement on the ground of religious equality and secularism, it set itself not merely to criticise his views and oppose the cause, but to belittle the man and to impute to him continuously nothing but the shabbiest motives. It was done with ability and at times with a cleverness which is momentarily amusing to read ; yet, on glancing through the files, one cannot but feel regret that a great national organ should — whether through unconscious prejudice or deliberately — never have had the justice, not to say magnanimity, to recognise anything worth}^ in the aims and spirit of one whom to-day no fair-minded man would deny to have been among not only the greatest but also the noblest sons of Scotland of his age. The thing went on for years : at times, as I have said, almost daily ; for it was part of the proof of the greatness of this man's place in the public life of Scotland that his enemies could never let him alone. I refer to this because if a portrait of Principal Rainy is to have background or atmosphere, the reader must realise — especially when he may be inclined to think that here is indeed a worthy and even a saintly A CRISIS IN DISESTABLISHMENT 19 character — that, day by day, the leader of the Free Church was being held up to the people of Scotland as the meanest-motived of men and the worldliest of ecclesiastics. Principal Rainy never uttered a word of protest ; while in private he never referred with anything but good humour to what he called * our friend the Scotsman.' Once when the Times, mentioning him by name, imputed the Disestablishment movement to ' an evil eye,' he wrote in reply : — ' You have been good enough to arraign our motives. The first question, I submit, is whether what we ask is just. When people claim what is just, discussion of motives is irrelevant. . . , For the rest, it is absurd for any one who knows Scotland to pretend that a Free Churchman, who is also a Christian and a patriot, can find no worthy reason to advocate Disestablish- ment.' ^ This was almost the only time he gave his assailants the satisfaction of knowing he had read their attacks. He just lived down such imputations. But it was not till the very end of his life that they were lived down, and many persons formed a distorted image of Principal Rainy through their miasma At the time of his death there were universal eulogies to his purity of character ; yes — but the maxim that nothing but good must be said of the dead is of far less importance than the law that nothing but truth must be said of the living.^ ^ Times, 24th January 1882. The Scotsman's comment on this (on the following day) was that opposition to Principal Rainy and the Disestablish- ment movement was based, in part, on the belief that ' the motives by which he is actuated are bad,' and that indeed ' envy, malice, hatred and all uncharitableness are the sole motives of the course now adopted.' This was the text for countless leaders and letters. * I may add here, and be done with the matter, that these constant 20 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HAINY It need hardly be said that in his conduct of the DisestabHshment controversy, Principal Rainy never stooped to personalities. Indeed the tone of his speeches impresses one even more than their logic. This ought to be said very emphatically. Because, with many of Dr. Rain3^'s opponents, his 'bitterness' and ' uncharitableness ' became stock-expressions. I wish therefore to record my testimony — a testimony such as can be given to few ecclesiastical controversial- ists — that in the scores of Dr. Rainy 's speeches I have read, I have found not a sentence which one would not like to set down here in his biograph}^ because of anything unworthy in its spirit. It is impossible to find space in these pages for lengthy extracts from the numerous speeches he made on this subject during these years. But the position taken should be carefully stated. He was somewhat scrupulously careful — especially in the Assembly — to argue for Disestablishment within the lines of the historic positions of the Scottish imputations on Principal Rainy have their reflex in his correspondence, in which are letters (probably a small number of those actually received) full sometimes of abuse and sometimes of impertinence. A single example of the latter may be mentioned, not because it is the worst, but because Dr. Rainy's reply is jotted on the back of it and is characteristic. A gentleman whose name I spare (but it is a not unknown one, and his notepaper bears the stamp of a leading Edinburgh club) thought fit to write that he had 'heard it stated' that the Principal was in receipt of money from the Liberation Society, and offering 'to contradict the statement when I hear if it is not true.' The reply is : ' Dear Sir, — I am somewhat surprised at your note. I receive no money directly or indirectly from the Liberation Society. I doubt, however, whether I am doing right in taking any notice of a question conveying an offensive imputation which does not profess to be grounded on anything but gossip. I must add that it is indifferent to me whether you contradict the statement or not. Those who are capable of believing such things, when deprived of this one, will go on to believe something equally groundless. — Yours very truly. RuiiERT Rainy,' A CRISIS IN DISESTABLISHMENT 21 Church and, in particular, of the Church in 1843. The contention of the party associated with the views of Dr. Begg was that to ask the Disestabhshment of the existing State Church and still more not to ask any other establishment was the very denial of the claim of 1843. The former part of this contention, Principal Rainy characterised as ' auda- cious.' The Free Church claim — ^if you come to that — was that the true Church of Scotland was self- disestablished in 1843 and that the ' residuary Establishment ' was in that erastian position against which it was the very meaning of the Disruption to protest. If the Free Church asserted, even at the cost of self-disestablishment, certain principles in 1843 and the Establishment was and remained the embodied denial of these principles, the demand for the ending of the latter, far from being a con- tradiction, is the very corollary of the Disruption. But it was then argued — and on this further point there was some show of reason — that in 1843 they at least * claimed of right ' a purified re-establishment, and that was not done now. It was here that Principal Rainy (as I have said) scrupulously respected the historic position. The Church in 1843 made a claim the legitimacy of which he would not renounce. He would not take the voluntary position that establishment is in itself wrong and that there- fore all claims to it — in 1843 or any other time — are necessarily indefensible. But it is one thing to claim a right and another to exercise it. Ctijus petere est, ejus est non petere. He held that the Church was free at any stage of her history — as free to-da}- as 22 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY she was in 1567 when estabhshment was first pro- pounded to the already existing reformed Church of Scotland — ' to look around and judge what on the whole was best for the Church and nation.' Thus his ground was that of a Disestablishment man on the ground of high, general expediency ; not an anti-establishment man on the ground of the voluntary principle. Men like Professor Lindsay openly took the latter ground, but Principal Rainy rather stiffly refused to alter his motions into voluntary phraseology. In one important respect, he was wise. He saved himself from being committed to the logical deductions of abstract voluntaryism, especially the secular solution in public education ; and I am inclined to think that this advantage weighed much with him, for he was a very stout supporter of the Bible in schools. But it is not difficult to see that he thus exposed himself to a cross-fire. He wanted Disestablishment : therefore the Church-and- State party attacked him. He would not demand it on grounds of mere voluntar3dsm : therefore the Scotsman could at once declare its adherence to secularism and yet criticise Dr. Rainy, and here — personalities apart — it made an effective criticism. Now it is worth while pausing for a moment to say it was characteristic of Principal Rainy's mind that, exposed to this cross-fire, he was driven neither to the right hand nor the left. I can recall not a few occasions on which I have heard him condemn in men what he called * the weakness of recoil.' On this question, for example, he saw some men driven by Establishment into extreme positions of volun- A CRISIS IN DISESTABLISHMENT 28 taryism, and others frightened by voluntaries into extreme statements about EstabHshment. Principal Rainy made up his own mind as to the just merits of a question and as to the line to be taken upon it, and was particularly careful not to let extremists on one side of it drive him too far on the other. I find a letter of his of this period — it is dated February 1882 — which illustrates this notable feature of his mind, and which is worth quoting for its admirable mental counsel as well as for its clear definition of his position as a Free Churchman in aiming at Disestablishment even along with voluntaries. It is addressed to a layman who had been alarmed by the extreme voluntary statements of men like Dr. Hutton of Paisley, the leading champion of Disestab- hshment in the United Presbyterian Church. It is as follows : — ' I am interested in your letter, but cannot say that I admire the manner in which you guide your thinking. You are in contact in Paisley, by your own account, with some very extreme voluntaries, and on that account you allow your mind to work by recoil. It is the weakest of aU states of mind, though it seems strong because it is vehement. Work out your own principles, but do not imagine that the way to do it is to recoil as far as possible from some other people's. There are voluntaries and voluntaries. Among those who oppose State Churches are some of the most trustworthy men I know in upholding the genuine recognition of God's authority in the guidance of national affairs — as in preserving room for religion in schools, the Sabbath, etc. As for maintaining, as a tribute of honour to Christ, what has the nature of injustice, want of principle and make-believe, I don't break my heart because they are opposed to that. Nor do I regard it as of first-rate importance that they differ from me as to the propriety of State Churches, when I agree with them that there is not a 24 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY State Church in the world that can be defended. You speak of Free Churchism. Free Church principle was that Establish- ment grounded on Erastianism was indefensible. The Dis- ruption meant that. ' I want Disestablishment to come, not on the principle of the extreme voluntaries, which might endanger other interests ; but on principles that will unite hearty Christian people in giving a right turn to national laws and affairs. You link the principle of national obligation to an indefensible Establish- ment, and so you do your best to make the whole position indefensible. That is very zealous : but it is in the last degree unwise. ' If Disestablishment is long delayed it may come on very unwelcome principles. And nothing is more certain than that if Disestablishment could ultimately be avoided, it would be by the recognition and endowment of all kinds of religion.' This is a characteristic letter : one can hear him saying some of its sentences. Of course, however, on the public platform, Dr. Rainy did not enter into points like these. He took the ground that it was ' not just nor reasonable in the broad palpable sense ' for one denomination, not embracing the majority of the population and not more representative of or useful to the religious character of the nation than the others, to be upheld by the State as the embodiment of the national religion. Dr. Rainy continually protested against the confusion of the principle of national religion with the point of the single application of it — an establishment. ' Don't,' he would say, ' mix up points and principles.' And certainly he held that ' the religious vitality of the national life ' would be * not worse but better, so far as Scotland is concerned, when the religious responsibility of the nation is no A CRISIS IN DISESTABLISHMENT 2.5 longer supposed to be embodied in a form of con- spicuous injustice.' It is one's duty in this biography to write chiefly and ahiiost exclusively of Principal Rainy's posi- tion in this movement ; but it is right to name at least one other who stood beside him on nearly all his platforms and was throughout only a little less prominent than himself. I mean Principal Cairns. Dr. Cairns has been already mentioned several times in connection with the story of the frustrated union with the United Presbyterian Church, but there was no particular occasion then to speak of him personally. Than John Cairns there was not a nobler Christian man in the Scottish ministry of his time ; certainly there was not one more beloved. His charity, his humility, his transparent goodness — besides his eminent abilities — were seen by every one but himself. Prin- cipal Rainy once made of him the fine remark that * even to see him on the street was a lesson in true and evangelical religion.' That this man, representa- tive of much that was best in the Christianity of Scotland, stood shoulder to shoulder with Dr. Rainy all through the Disestablishment controversy, was in itself a guarantee that the movement was not ignoble. And of the two, Cairns was really the more uncompromising. On this point Principal Rainy, many years later, wrote to Professor MacEwen, who was Cairns's biographer, the following impression : — ' Perhaps you have said all that can be said as to the determined character (in spite of catholicity and mildness) of Dr. Cairns's purpose in reference to State Churches. The Churches he loved : the State-system he fairly hated. 26 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Once or twice, he quite startled me in private taJk by his energy on the subject. " There is nothing to be said but Delenda est, DeJenda est," he once exclaimed with great force.' The two Principals had striven together, ten years before, in the effort for union : and they now stood together again in the effort not merely to secure an act of justice but to remove what it was clear to them was the real obstacle to union. They addressed numerous meetings, and undoubtedly awakened a great movement of public opinion. Naturally — one may quite sincerely say, even properly — this was met by a counter-movement on the part of the Established Church. An attempt was first made to form a non-party association to defend the union between Church and State, but this, it appears from Principal Tulloch's biography,^ failed. But ' Church Defence ' was organised with great zeal under the direction of a Committee of General Assembly. Certainly its zeal at times was not always with knowledge or discretion, and a reading of the contemporary press reveals amazing statements from, not lesser brethren merely, but the leading clergy- men of the Church . about the relapsing of the country to ' heathenism,' the * destruction ' of the Church, and even ' treason.' There was so much of this wild talk that one mentions it. But on the other hand it would be most unjust not to recognise that a great body of intelligent support of the existing Established Church was called out and found often worthy exjnxssion. Influential and honoured lay- » Pages 339, 389-90, 413. A CRISIS IN DISESTABLISHMENT 27 men — among whom I think one might especially name James Alexander Campbell of Stracathro' — did earnest service in defence of their Church's position. A good part of all this counter-movement was political rather than religious — though, of course, this can be said of both sides — and much of it was associated with persons who never darkened a door of the Established Church. But there was, with large numbers, an indubitable conviction of religious prin- ciple in their defence of the Establishment. No one gave stronger or sincerer expression to this than one to whom I have already referred — Principal Tulloch. He stated the position on which he and his Church must * stand ' thus : — ' The Church of Scotland is an establishment. Because it is so, it is a witness to the great principle of a Christian State and of the maintenance of national religion, and it cannot for- go that principle. It would forgo its very existence if it did. It would forgo all for which man}^ hold it dear — nay, for which aU who intelligently belong to it must hold it dear. We must stand somewhere. We stand here.' These sentences were delivered in the General Assembly, and at the last words, ' the walls,' says Principal Tulloch's biographer, ' rang with the shout of response.'" It may be useful to place beside them Principal Rainy's statement, not delivered in reply to the above but on the position the}^ uphold. Said the Free Church Principal at a public meeting : — ' He held as a Free Churchman and as a man the importance ' Brother of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. The latter was, of course, a convinced disestablisher. - Memoir of Princi'pal Tulloch, p. 451. 28 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY of maintaining the principle that states and nations should have conscience, but he could not conceive a more dangerous way of setting people against that principle than to say there was only one denomination which was the embodiment of it. . . . The relation of the public life of a country to Christ's religion and His Church was valuable so far as it was vital. It might vary according to circumstances ; but when in a country like theirs, the State selected one denomination and said, This shall be for us the Church and the cause of Christ and the religious organ of the community — then he said that could not be the right way of expressing the relation of the public Ufe of a country to religion, because it was both an injustice and an untruth. It was not just to give that position to one denomination, and it was not true that this one denomina- tion represented the cause of Christ or was the religious organ of the community. It never was a service to religion to con- nect it with injustice and untruth.' I intentionally bring the names of Tulloch and Rainy together by these quotations. They represented two opposing points of view, and did so ably and sincerely. To Tulloch, Establishment was a very essential to national religion — not to be surrendered even for union. To Rainy it was but an application of that principle, expedient and right it might be, in one age or country, but not in another, and certainly in the Scotland of the nineteenth century inexpedient and even injurious. Both men had conviction, nobility of nature and distinction of mind as well as of mien. Principal Rainy — one of whose finest qualities in controversy was his real pleasure in seeing what was sincere and worthy in an opponent — used to name Principal Tulloch, even long years after, with real respect. A Disestablishment movement, however, is not a matter of the position of two Very Reverend Principals. A CRISIS IN DISESTABLISHMENT 29 It must also, in the nature of the case, be pohtical ; and poHtics means party. Principal Rainy had declared how happy he would be to accept Disestabhshment from either party and ' if only he had Lord Beacons- field's ear, who, however, would listen only to Dr. Begg, he could give him a grand hint how to dish the Whigs again.' This of course was banter : practi- cally, political action was bound to become associated with the Liberal part}^ It should be stated that Dr. Rainy never himself took to do with the adoption of Disestablishment in the party's organisations. But it is a great tribute to the extraordinary force of the public movement he had headed — and a complete answer to the contention that it was merely a clerical agitation — that, when in 1885 another general election was imminent, the official Liberal caucus in Scotland made Disestablishment ' a plank of the platform of Scottish Liberalism ' by a vote of some four hundred delegates, only seven dissenting. This is the more remarkable when we remember the official discouragement which had been shown to the cause and the powerful opposition in the press. Perhaps the clearest way to state the political position, so far as the Liberal party was concerned, in view of the election, is to say that of 87 Liberal candidates for Scottish constituencies, only 9 were against Dis- establishment, 48 were committed to vote for it, and 30 would vote for it if it were a Government measure.^ Everything now depended on Mr. Glad- ^ I take this sumniaiy from the Glasgow Mail. The thirty included men who had stood with Principal Kainy on the Disestablishment platform, and whose preference for a Government Bill did not mean any dubiety of conviction on tlie question. 30 THE LIFE OF PHINCIPAL RAINY stone, and what he would say in the name of the Government. As the autumn of 1885 went on, the controversy was at its height. Mr. Chamberlain fanned it by a speech in Glasgow, in which he declared that ' religious equality is a cardinal principle of our Liberalism.' On the other hand, Lord Rosebery wrote to the press a letter deprecating the making of the Church of Scotland question a test issue at the approaching election. A notable manifesto appeared in the form of an address to the Prime Minister in favour of Disestablishment, signed by no fewer than 1475 ministers of religion in Scotland — ^more than one-third of the entire clergy of all denominations in the country. Among the signatories were men whom no one could possibly associate with sectarian jealousies — men such as (to name but half a dozen at random) Alexander Whyte, A. B. Davidson, John Cairns, John Ker, James Candlish, Marcus Dods, George Adam Smith. In forwarding it Principal Cairns declared they desired Disestablishment, in the first place, for the sake of * the religious welfare of Scotland.' As the day approached when Mr. Gladstone was again to come down to Midlothian, the feeling became keener than ever. Strong things were said, of which this single example may suffice, that when Lord Aberdeen — Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly and an elder of the Kirk — presided at a party meeting which approved of Disestablishment as a plank in the Liberal platform, Dr. Story, after- wards Principal of Glasgow University, denounced him as ' disloyal to the Sovereign.' It is necessary to A CRISIS IN DISESTABLISHMENT 81 refer to such things that the reader may understand the atmosphere of the time. Meanwhile, Principal Rainy had written once more to Mr. Gladstone. His letter is as follows : — ' 23 Douglas Crescent, Edinburgh, 21th October 1885. ' Dear Mr. Gladstone, — I hear from Dr. Caims that he is sending you the memorial from Scottish ministers. I venture to take the occasion for saying a word on the present position of the question. ' You have observed, no doubt, the manifestations in all parts of Scotland of the hold the question has taken and the determination to bring it to the front. The proceedings of the late meeting of the Scottish Liberal Association at Perth formulated that determination and gave a measure of its strength. ... I wish to point out that this expression of feeling has taken place in spite of the strenuous efforts of Scottish party managers to suppress or postpone it, and of other influences adapted to bewilder and baffle it. ' It is not for me to make assumptions as to the course which you may think fit to take. We certainly are of opinion that Lord Hartington's statements and your own point to a recog- nition now of the stage which the question has reached. I see, at the same time, that if you think fit, you can demand some- thing more complete, more obviousl}^ conclusive, before ad- mitting that Scottish Liberalism appeals to you on this subject in a manner which you will regard as audible. It is very much in your own option to fix the amount of preponderance on the Disestablishment side which v/ill conclusively call upon you to speak. And I feel I could not pretend to discuss a question of that kind without presumption, at least in writing to you. ' But I have thought that there are considerations bearing on the practical effect of what you may do or not do which I ought to place before you at this crisis. ' If the battle is to continue to be fought out in Scotland (perhaps for some more years) with the Liberal leaders looking on silently, prepared to crown the victors, then there are some effects in the party in Scotland for which the}' must be pre- 32 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY pared. It is clear that lines of separation will harden and feel- ings will become more and more bitter. The whole party will get into two camps, each strongly pledged to its own position. The decision, after all this, will be to the one or to the other a deep mortification. ' All this will be on Church lines. You know better than most men how deep Church feelings go in Scotland and how powerfully they work. * Look at the position of Liberal Churchmen. I hold it essential to a wholesome Disestablishment success, to have the aid, at least the acquiescence, of many of them. If Disestab- lishment were recognised as one inevitable result of Liberal principles (to be carried out when it reasonably can be) an enormous number of Liberal Churchmen would accept it without difficulty, not as something forced upon them by competing sects, but as coming from another quarter. Their Liberalism has prepared them for that. But when they are told that it is to be a fight and that, as far as the Liberal leaders are concerned, those who fight best will win, it is very difficult for men loyal to their own Church to help taking rank on her side and warming to the battle. And after they are committed and heated, after they have accustomed themselves to election- eering and voting along with Conservatives for Church candi- dates of whatever colour, they will be in a quite different posi- tion from that which they are conscious of occupying now. Many Liberal Churchmen are resisting these influences ; but many are veering. ... To me it seems that an intestine strife in the party on a question most of all adapted to awaken keen feeling ought to be averted, not nursed. I think also that the unity of the party should be sought in the direction of the position it must ultimately occupy, and not in any other direc- tion. It is certain that at present and as yet, an enormous number of Established Church Liberals are prepared by their own impression and their own knowledge to accept the in- evitable from your hand. They will not accept it from me and my friends, and who could expect they should ? ' My own mind, I confess, is much more occupied \\ ith the injury to the Churches from a struggle needlessly prolonged than with the injury to the party. But solicitude on the former subject is common to us all. A CTirSTS IN DISESTABLISHMENT 33 ' I need hardl}^ add that the position we would wish to occupy is that of prosecuting the question under your sanction, prepared in that case to leave much to your discretion. — I have the honour to be, dear Mr, Gladstone, most faithfully yours, Robert Rainy.' Mr. Gladstone sent in reply the following important letter which he marked ' Private ' : — ' Hawarden Castle, Chester, November 3, 1885. ' My dear Dr. Rainy,' — I have read your letter with deep interest and with the attention it so well deserves. ' But I must observe upon it that, while it most naturally and perhaps necessarily takes a Scottish view of the question of Disestablishment and deals only with influences operating on that side of the Border, yet the question of parliamentary action is open to many other influences which might gravely affect and indeed reverse the result. ' Every day I am pressed, from quarters quite unsuspected, with alarms lest for want of strong declarations from me on, that is to say jor, the English Church, many Liberal seats should be lost. ' I have always thought that in Scotland the course which equity dictates is also the one most favourable to the dis- established Churches : that is, to treat the question as Scottish, and effectually to sever it from the case of England. ' On this principle of severance I have acted, and shall continue so to act ' But the only practicable mode of severance is leaving Scottish Disestablishment to the Scottish people. ' Now, were I or others in like position to press Disestablish- ment on the electoral bodies, might it not be said that this is not leaving it to the Scottish people ? ^ The 'Dear Mr. Gladstone' of Principal Rainy's letter and the 'My dear Dr. Rainy' of Mr. Gladstone indicate the personal acquaintance which had now sprung up between the churchman and the statesman. I am sorry I have no record of any of their meetings, beyond the remark made to me by a hostess in whose drawing-room they once met, that it was a fine sight to see two such grand-looking men together. VOL II. C 34 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY ' And most certainly the effect in England, where the Church is much stronger, would be disastrous. ' The trouble is that the one case is the inverse of the other. In Scotland, Disestablishment is pressed, I believe, largely as a test by the Liberals. In England, Establishment is keenly pressed as a test by the Tories ; and the request is coolly made that no Liberal shall vote for a candidate favourable to Dis- establishment. ' This we entirely resist, but the resistance appears to be incompatible with a forward movement in Scotland. ' This note will serve, as I hope, to explain in some degree my present position : we may perhaps have an opportunity of conversation presently. ' Do not forget the possibility that a question of Irish govern- ment may come up with such force and magnitude as to assert its precedence over everything else. — I remain, most faithfully yours, W. E. Gladstone.' It is not surprising if this letter seemed unsatisfactory to Principal Rainy, and on the day of its receipt, he replied to Mr. Gladstone by a further statement which runs as follows : — ' Dear Mr. Gladstone, — Thanking you for yours of yester- day and adverting to the immense demands upon you, still I allow myself these observations. ' I. I recognise the absolute consistency with which you have maintained the position you took up in 1879. ' 2. To sever the Scottish question from the English is a course I consent to ex animo. I am glad to see that the emphatic marking of that severance is what you propose. ' 3. Basing myself on that severance, as heretofore announced by you, one object of my letter to you was to claim that effect be given to the voice of Scottish Liberalism as already audible and distinct. This I do not wish to discuss further. But ' 4. The decision of Scotland may become quite clear and audible through the elections, i.e. before Christmas : a possi- bility to be prepared for. ' 5. In thnt case, might not the effectual and safe way of A CRISIS IN DISESTABLISHMENT 35 marking the severance be to own that the Scottish question is a principle decided, while the English one is wholly future ? And is it not the safe course to announce this, not at a general election [e.g. the next), but during the subsistence of Parliament so as to let the distinction become familiar ? ' 6. If Disestabhshment in Scotland were so recognised, immediate legislation need not follow. It would be in the hands of Government, and Government must choose its own time. Possibly it might best be brought forward at the end of a Par- liament and in view of dissolution. ' 7. Otherwise, we are obliged to keep on working the ques- tion as we can that we may not lose ground. It will be managed in Parliament by irresponsible members, and we shall hardly fail to make common cause with the English Liberationists. ' I cannot sufficiently express my sense of your great kindness in writing so frankly as you ha\-e done. As to my own bold- ness in writing to you so freely, I do not know how to excuse it, and can only ask you to forgive it. ' Once or twice I have spoken interrogatively, not to extort a reply, but merely as a way of putting my thought. — Ever yours most faithfully, Robert Rainy. ' PS. — We are fully prepared to respond to whatever can fairly be said as to Ireland. \Miile we push the question of Disestablishment, yet practically I do not know that one seat is endangered by us, or that more than one runs any serious eventual risk.' Comment on this correspondence had better be reserved till after some account of Mr. Gladstone's speech on the subject. Mr. Gladstone arrived in Midlothian in November 1885. His keenly awaited declaration on the Church question was delivered on the nth of that month in the Free Church Assembly Hall, which — contrary to the usual rule — had been specially granted for a political meeting as an act of courtesy to the aged statesman because his throat was troubUng him and 36 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY the hall's acoustics were the best in Edinburgh. There was a touch of irony in the result, for Mr. Gladstone thus refused Scotland Disestablishment from the very spot where Principal Rainy had so often demanded it. The Premier had before him a task of ex- ceptional delicacy. He was not going to take up Scottish Disestablishment, and he had to announce this to an audience the large majority of which wanted Disestablishment and expected it. No wonder the speech gave him, as a line from his diary quoted in his biography says, * much rumination ' that morning. But if ever there was an artful and experienced rhetorician it was this 'Grand Old Man,' whose very nobility of mien and diction, as well as character, deceived his hearers into forgetting what a master he was of even the tricks of his craft. He made an extraordinarily clever speech — not clever in the minor sense of containing smart things, but in the greater sense of its whole conception and manner and effect. It is well worth recalling both as a specimen of the work of an oratorical artist and because it was the critical word in this chapter of Disestablishment history. He began by spending a good deal of time over not very important introductory matters of various kinds, though his voice was not clear and it was obvious he could not be expected to make a very long speech. At length he came to 'a graver subject — the Establishment or Disestablishment of the Churcli.' He then went on for one column and a half of a newspaper to speak of the Church question in England, Discstablishnient had been made, or was A CRISIS IN DISESTABLISHMENT 37 sought to be made, a test question there by the Tories. He repudiated tliis being done, and declared that Enghsh DisestabHshment ' would be a gigantic operation and the man does not breathe the air of Parliament that will carry into effect that operation.' Such a declaration was of importance for the party in England, but it was simple enough. The delicate matter of Scotland could now be no longer postponed. ' Now we will come a little nearer home,' he said, and the audience welcomed the words with cheers and then with the significant * hush ' with which a great meeting awaits the declaration it has come to hear. ' But,' he continued, ' my discourse has not been irrelevant, for these great governing considerations apply both north and south of the Tweed.' There were cries of ' no ' at this, but the speaker went on that ' if the Church question is not to be a test question in England, it ought not to be in Scotland.' This sounded fair and some called ' hear ' in an intelli- gent manner, but the. great majority of the meeting was silent, feeling there was a trap somewhere. ' If,' Mr. Gladstone proceeded, ' I urge that this should be made a test question in Scotland, then all the good advice that I have given in England would be thrown to the winds.' The drift of the Prime Minister's reasoning was dawning on the meeting now. Then Mr. Gladstone, knowing the time for the critical appeal had come, called up his histrionic powers. He described how, as he was journeying north, at some railway-station a man called out ' Never mind Disestablishment/ and another ' Three cheers for Disestablishment,' but a third voice shouted * Three 38 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY cheers for the Liberal party.' These last words, Mr. Gladstone — careless of his throat — himself shouted out with the utmost enthusiasm, at the same time waving his hand over his head. Of course the great meeting — Midlothian Liberals — responded and rose and cheered. There was enthusiastic applause. This gave the speaker his chance. ' I am labouring with all my might,' he cried, ' for the unity of the Liberal party,' and again was great cheering. He then enforced the peril of taking up subjects * out of their due order.' He dealt with a question that had been sent in to him asking if he would vote in the House of Commons for a resolution in favour of Scottish Disestablishment, and explained it was not his wont to vote for such abstract resolutions. * Were the question of Disestablishment,' he said, ' at the door, instead of being as it is now ' (and he put up his hand as if shading his eyes to scan the far horizon) ' at the end of a long vista .' He got no further. A volley of indignant * Noes ' burst upon him, prolonged and increasing in loudness till they drowned the counter cries of ' Yes.' Mr. Gladstone was staggered. He was as a man who had been struck on the face. It is in the recollection of numerous most reliable witnesses that he visibly blenched and that he actually took a step back on the platform. But the old man was clever. In a moment he had his wits about him. ' Bear in mind,' he explained as soon as quiet was restored, ' I am not speaking of Scottish Disestablishment only. I am speaking to a great degree of English.' It was a quick re-shuffling of the cards and somewhat mystifying ; and then, in his A CRISIS IN DISESTABLISHMENT yi) gracious manner, Mr. Gladstone apologised that ' perhaps England holds too large a place in my speech/ at which were many cries of assent. In this haze he passed on and out of the subject to a peroration on the safe topic of unity. He cried again, ' I am labouring for unity ' ; adding — and the words were the only ones that evoked real cheering towards the close of his speech — ' though I hope the Liberal party will split rather than sacrihce convic- tion.' He sat down amidst far less than his wonted applause. This speech was a blow to the Disestablishment cause which might have ended it altogether if it had had a leader less tenacious and indomitable than Principal Rainy. Political friends — members of Parliament and candidates — began, of course, to trim. Many wrote to Dr. Rainy to get him to accept the situation. His reply to one may be given and is as follows : — ' I have not the least doubt that there are the strongest political reasons for Mr. Gladstone taking the line he has done. But none the less, I am satisfied that we must take our own line if we are not to lose much we have gained, and take the heart out of the work. He has his non-possumus : we have ours.' Principal Rainy, in conjunction with Principal Cairns and others, issued a manifesto from the Disestablish- ment Association,^ expressing respect and veneration for Mr. Gladstone, but calling on the friends of the movement to show continued resolution and to ^ I say 'Principal Rainy issued' it, because I find the draft of it, almost verbally identical with what was issued, in his handwriting. 40 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY ' support onl}^ Disestablishment candidates.' This found a remarkable echo in the Liberal party. Apart from any question as to the expediency or Tightness of the refusal of Mr. Gladstone to take up the question — a matter on which I shall say some- thing presently — it is indubitable that he had been misled by those advising him as to the state of feeling on the subject among Scottish Liberals. So clear was the dissatisfaction with his speech — a speech intended to bring unity — that a special meeting of the National Liberal Federation of Scotland had to be called. It met on 17th November. A motion declaring religious equality to be ' a Liberal principle ' and demanding Scottish Disestablishment, ' having due respect to times and circumstances,' was carried by what the newspapers called ' an overwhelming majority ' over an amendment to the effect that it was ' inexpedient to make this a party question at the general election ' ; and — still more notable — a motion ' that the meeting recognises political reasons for Mr. Gladstone's statement ' and ' on grounds of expediency ' urges unity, was defeated by * a large majority,' and an amendment carried which ' recom- mended Liberals to support Disestablishment candidates,' and thereafter urged unity. The same day, Mr. Gladstone in a speech referred to the ' painful and disappointing announcement he had had to make,' and again pledged himself to the ' com- plete severance of the two questions of Dis- establishment in Scotland and Disestablishment in England.' Principal Rainy seems, as appears from the following A CRISIS IN DISESTABLISHMENT 41 letter, to have met Mr. Gladstone the same evening. The letter indicates it was the meeting of two strong men, neither of whom was disposed to yield his view of what the other had ' the right ' to maintain. It runs thus :• — * Private. 1 2,th November. ' Dear Mr. Gladstone, — One remark you were good enough to make Tit the close of the evening last night would have led me to say something, but that it seemed unsuitable to engage you in discussion when you were retiring for the night, I had not then read your West Calder speech. ' I would have said that one cannot see how the Scottish question can be, or can continue, severed from the English unless they are resolutely held apart. During this week the natural progress of the Scottish question has been powerfully arrested and thrown back on account of English feeling. In our view, the right of the Scottish party to press on with reasonable regard to the party here should have been explicitly acknowledged as something already settled ; and the right of the party leaders to wave back the Scottish question on account of the English should not have been asserted but should have been disclaimed. A great part of the undoubted and singularly widespread irritation which exists gathers round that point. ' Since last night I have read, but as yet too hastily, your West Calder speech. It has been a great pleasure to me, so far as my power reaches, to avert anything that would be unpleasant and would seem disrespectful to you. The remark- able statement of yesterday afternoon will exert much influence in that direction. But you will forgive me for saying that I do not think it will alter the view we take of the substance of the case as I have just now stated it.' The same day Principal Rainy made in a speech his first public statement on the situation. \\\i\\ characteristic fairness he represented Mr. Gladstone's position thus : — 42 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY ' I cannot reproduce Mr. Gladstone's eloquent words. But I think I do not wrong their sense in stating it thus. Is it not expedient, in order to the unity of the Liberal party, that the state of feeling in England be first considered ; and does not the state of feeling there make it necessary that, for this Parliament at least, all questions of Disestablishment be postponed ? ' He then indicated what this meant. It was ' equiva- lent to dropping the question as a practical question for years.' They 'were tied to the chariot-wheels of England for an indefinite period to come.' He referred to a remark which Lord Rosebery had made to the effect that this question might be postponed till ' other important matters had been dealt with,' and, with what proved to be a true political anticipation, he asked * who could tell how long Ireland would be on our hands ? ' In a speech the day after, he made the following comment on Mr. Gladstone's repeated declaration that the Scottish question should be separated from the English : — ' I cannot understand how this is to be reconciled with the course that he has taken. I cannot understand how the Scottish question is to be continued to be severed from the English one in consistency with the Scottish question being thrown back in deference to the movement from the English side.' I think it will be admitted that in all these remarks there is a moderation which is notable in view of the keen disappointment which, after the effort of the previous years. Principal Rainy must have felt over Mr. Gladstone's attitude. It was an experience which would have made a smaller man bitter. Let the reader A CRISIS IN DISESTABLISHMENT 43 recall its main facts. Ten years earlier, Principal Rainy voiced the demand of the Free Church for Disestablish- ment. In three years, the demand was so clear that Lord Hartington invited the Scottish people and even the Scottish Liberal party to declare its mind on it, and further most explicitly promised it should be treated as a Scottish question. Mr. Gladstone homologated this position. The general election of 1880 passed, but thereafter — under the forceful influence of Dr. Rainy — Scotland had unmistakably taken up the question and discussed it as it did no other. The Liberal party there had adopted it. On the eve of the critical election, the Prime Minister declared it must not be a test question because of the effect that would have in England. Any one who reads political biographies knows that things far less than that have soured many a public man's career. I do not find in any of Principal Rainy's letters a word of resentment. Dr. Rainy was not the man to show his wounds. And it was not for himself he had been fighting, but for a great cause. I am not called on in this biography to follow further the political story beyond saying that Mr. Gladstone failed to secure the clear majority over both the Con- servative and Irish parties which he had so earnestly sought — a result which Mr. Chamberlain promptly attributed to the restraint which had been put upon sections of Liberals especially in connection with Disestablishment. But I shall venture a few words of comment on Mr. Gladstone's action in Scotland in the matter on this occasion and its bearings on the future of the Scottish Church. The reasons which made Mr. Gladstone adopt the 44 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY course which he did are clear enough to any political student. It was certainly not any kind of conversion to the views of those who maintained the Establish- ment in Scotland : on the contrary, he wrote in his diary at the time, that ' the present agitation does not strengthen in my mind the principle of establish- ment.' ^ The idea, which was widely circulated (having currency given to it by Vanity Fair), that he had come north pledged to Principal Rainy for Disestablishment, but changed his mind and tactics at the last moment on representations personally made to him — the Principal being ' smoothed over with the assistance of a little hospitality at Dalmeny — he himself caused to be characterised as ' pure and sheer untruth.' '' A number of persons have entertained the view that it was their impressive conversations with him at Dalmeny which saved the situation for the Establishment, and it would be only a pity to interfere with such gratifying imaginations. The reason of Mr. Gladstone's attitude is, I repeat, sufficiently clear. His dominating thought — and I think it is not unjust to say of Mr. Gladstone that he could throw himself into only one great political issue at a time — was the imminence of the Irish question. His supreme aim was to be returned to power with a majority which would enable him to deal with this independent of the Irish vote — a most honourable aim. But he would not get this unless he made clear to the English electorate the ' L(/e of Gladstone, iii. 248. Of a petition against Disestablishment, he remarked laughing that ' the real reason of many of these names is they want a cheap religion.' ^ In a letter sent to the press by W. H. Ciladstone, December 7, 1885. A CRISIS m DISESTABLISHMENT 45 baselessness of the Tory cry that the election was ' critical for the Church.' And he could not do this quite effectively without disassociating himself from even Scottish Disestablishment, for in the state of feel- ing at the time, a word in favour of religious equality in the north would at once be applied by the Tories as bearing also in the south. All this is perfectly clear reasoning and, from the political point of view, justifiable. From the view of party success, it was also the best thing to do. It might cost two or three seats in Scotland, but would save twenty in England.' Mr. Gladstone, from the standpoint of the party interests throughout the country at large, did no doubt what was expedient. This does not alter the fact that he did not keep good faith with Scotland and with Principal Rainy in particular. If there was one thing he had promised, it was that the question of Scottish Disestablishment should be * treated as Scottish ' and ' effectually severed from the case of England.' In his letter of 3rd November, he explicitly reiterates that ' on this principle of severance I have acted and shall continue to act.' He allows Principal Rainy to express satis- faction * that the emphatic marking of that severance is what you propose.' In his speech a week later, far from severing them, he deliberately throws back Scottish Disestablishment, not from a single reason native to Scotland but out of consideration to the situation in England. I find evidence that Mr. Gladstone virtually admitted that England had been the determining element in his treatment of the 1 This was the Spectator s estimate. 46 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY matter. Dr. Webster, M.P. — a staunch Disestablish- ment Liberal — wrote to Dr. Rainy that Mr. Gladstone had written him these words : — ' Were we to legislate in a Scotch Parliament the case would be less difficult, but we have England to look to, and those especially who are working the Church cry will take good care not to recognise the separation of the two cases.' The last sentence may be perfectly true ; but, then, Mr. Gladstone should not have pledged himself to the separation of the two cases. To give that pledge to separate them, and then to combine them as he did and sacrifice the one for the other, was — one says it with all respect, but there is no other term for it — not keeping faith. Mr. Gladstone would clearly have been within his rights if he had said that he could not take up Scottish Disestablishment either because the voice of Scotland w^as not yet, in his judgment, convincing enough or because of the approaching pressure of the Irish question. Even those whom this would have disappointed could not have said it was unfair. Mr. Gladstone had never promised to take up the question. But he had promised it should be * effectually severed from the case of England,' and no one can possibly pretend that in his speech in November 1885 he kept that promise. Yet, having said that, I add — paradoxical as it sounds — that no one need doubt that Mr. Gladstone did what seemed to him even morally as well as politically right. Mr. Gladstone's opportunism was always part of Mr. Gladstone's morality. The Irish question had now become his supreme summons. To go forth to that heroic battle seemed his dominating duty. And to A CRISIS IN DISESTABLISHMENT 47 respond to and equip himself for that great call, the noble old warrior counted nothing — not his years, not his popularity, not his well-earned leisure, and not even a promise he had made again and again to Scotland. Writing now more than twenty years after the event, and looking to-day upon the question of Scottish Presbyterianism and particularly^ of its reunion in so far as that has been effected and in so far as it has not been effected, one cannot help thinking what might have been if Mr. Gladstone had not made in 1885 the double mistake of thinking that Scottish Disestablishment must be placed at the end of a long vista and that Home Rule was ripe. It is perhaps not for the mere historian to indulge in thinking what might have been ; but I may be permitted it for once. In 1900 there was consummated under Principal Rainy's guidance a union (to be narrated at length before our task is finished) between two of the three largest branches of Scottish Presbyterianism with, however, an accompanying separation which brought in its trail extraordinary and disastrous con- sequences. The sole objective reason why the union could be between only two of these branches and not among all three w^as the fact of establishment ; and the chief professed reason of the accompanying separation and also the one reason of its extraordinary legal sequel was ' the principle of establishment,' which would have been but a ghost but for the fact behind it. If Mr. Gladstone had taken that hindrance away when the occasion offered, certainly there would have been a soreness that would not have healed in a day. But I speak of what I know when I say that, for 48 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY one, Principal Rainy would have never let that be any sectarian victory, but would at once have put forth his great powers of conciliation and construction. And there is absolutely no historical reason which can be named why, in these circumstances, the year 1900 should not have witnessed, instead of a partial and a disturbed union of Scottish Presbyterianism, that comprehensive union which is the true national ecclesiastical ideal. What hinders that wider union is the political fact of establishment. If Mr. Gladstone had removed that, the Churches might be one to-day. The reader will remember how Principal Rainy said that ' it is something to make the heart leap to think what that might be.' Within his lifetime, it might have been. Of course there is a large body in Scot- land, whose opinions are entitled to every respect, which rejoices that Mr. Gladstone thus disappointed Principal Rainy. But when to-day, a quarter of a century after, one begins to count up the totals of what is and what might have been, and realises that, as I have said, at this moment we might have had in very existence a restored reunited Scottish Church that in reality would be the national Church of Scotland, one understands how it is that many feel it was not an individual's ambition that was then disappointed — that were a small thing — but a patriotic and a Christian ideal. CHAPTER XVII THE ALTERNATIVE TO DISESTABLISHMENT THE arrest thus put by Mr. Gladstone upon the movement for Disestablishment in Scotland was the opportunity for pressing some other solution of the Church and State question in the country, and it was only natural that this should be taken advantage of — the expression is used, of course, in no offensive sense — by those who desired a settlement on a basis of establishment. This appeared in 1886 by the bringing forward of proposals in this direction both in the Assembly of the Established Church and in Parliament. Some account of these proposals is necessary to our history, and some indication of Principal Rainy's attitude to them is the comple- ment to the story of the preceding chapter. Before we enter on this, however, it should be recorded that during the Disestablishment agitation which has been described, two leading figures in the Free Church passed away. In 1883 both Sir Henry Moncreiff and Dr. Begg died. Sir Henry was greatly missed on account of his prominent official position as Senior Principal Clerk of the General Assembly, and also because of his universally respected personal character. He was less the leader than the coun- sellor, but in the latter capacity he was invaluable He had much knowledge, a trained judgment, and VOL. II. D 50 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY was the soul of integrity and purity of motive in all he did. He was a fine type of the old Scottish gentleman — with a rubicund countenance, a portly presence, a stentorian voice, and an honest heart. Of Dr. Begg a good deal has been said in foregoing pages. It has been said inadequately if it has not made clear that he was a man of real power. If Begg had been a nobler man, he would have been something of a great man. But I have not felt myself at historical liberty to disguise, in these pages, the view that his powerful influence in the Church was a disastrous one, and that, not merely to certain policies (about which men might rightly differ), but to the Church's true well-being, especially in the Highlands. And I do not feel at biographical liberty to conceal the fact that this was Principal Rainy's view. More than twenty years later, I had occasion to write to Dr. Rainy some impressions of Begg gleaned from the reading of old Blue-books, and his reply was as follows : — ' I am very glad you are reading up the old debates. Begg was the evil genius of the Free Church. He introduced a policy of conspiracy and of attempting to carry points by threatening us with law. No man did more to lower the tone of the Church and to secularise it.' After having read through all Dr. Rainy's correspon- dence (so far as it has been placed in my hands) I can say tliat this is the one letter I have found which speaks severely of the personal influence of any one among his many opponents. All tliis is said because it is impossible to understand the history of the Free Church of Scotland without quite frankly perceiving that its two most powerful leaders (subsequent, ALTERNATIVE TO DISESTABLISHMENT 51 that is, to the great band of Disruption leaders), were men between whom was, not — this is not suggested — any unchristian personal bitterness, but certainly a real antipathy, not merely of views about policy but of mental and moral texture. This fact is the key to much of the history, and it would not have been writing history to hide it. To turn, however, *to the subject of this chapter. It has been already mentioned that in 1878 the Established Church sent to the sister Presbyterian Churches a communication on the subject of union. Its purport was to inquire ' in frank and friendly conference as to the causes which at present prevent the other Churches from sharing the trust now reposed in this Church alone ' ; and it declared willingness to take towards co-operation and reunion any steps * consistent with the maintenance and support of an establishment of religion ' and * the sacredness of the ancient endowments.' This movement was associated with the names of Lord Polwarth and Professor Charteris. With the former, Principal Rainy had some correspondence, only one letter of which — to be quoted presently — I have found; but Lord Polwarth writes to me that he well remembers * the Christian courtesy and kindness which I ever received from Dr. Rainy.' The communication from the Established Church reached the Free Church Assembly only on the last day of its session. Principal Rainy received it with every consideration and spoke of the spirit that animated it only with respect ; in particular, saying ' he would be ashamed of himself if he imputed any motive but the highest to such a 52 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY man as Lord Polwarth, for instance, in the speech which he deUvered in the Estabhshed General Assembly the other day.' The commmiication, owing to the Assembly being on the eve of closing, was remitted to a committee to acknowledge. The reply, wTitten by Sir Henry Moncreiff, was a most courteous one, and, in respect to the specific request as to what kept the Free Church from sharing the trust held by the Established Church, naturally referred to the Claim of Right. Then some accident seems to have hap- pened. Sir Henry's letter received no answer. It came out years after that an answer had been drawn up on behalf of the Established Church, but either the Clerk neglected to send it or it never arrived. At any rate, the correspondence abruptly ended. Of course one does not for a moment suggest any discourtesy ; but the incident closed in the way stated. As a matter of fact, httle could have come of it at the time, for the Free Church, as we know, was immediately plunged into the throes of the Robertson Smith case. It was, however, unfortunate that it should end in what the Clerk of the Established Assemblv called 'an inexplicable mistake.' The letter above referred to, which Principal Rainy wrote to Lord Polwarth, is an interesting and frank statement of his mind and I quote it (though it is long), omitting only an opening paragraph : — ' The communication to our Assembly came to us a little suddenly, but I hope our disposal of it did not seem ungracious. I gather from your letter that you hoped we might have ap- pointed a Committee to confer. But I do not think any party in our Church would have supported such a proposal. 1 do AI/rERNATIVE TO DISESTABLISHMENT 53 not apply the same remark to such speeches as yours in your Assembly, which, supported by your known sincerity and large-heartedness, can only do good. ' I am afraid you are hardly aware how thoroughly we of the Free Church are disinclined to embarrass ourselves with any negotiations for new relations with the State. This is no new result of Disestablishment. Nothing went deeper in Disruption days than the almost boundless feeling of relief at being done with what had proved so anxious, perilous and harassing. Even those who are against my views — many of them — and who are for keeping up an Establishment, really mean by that to keep it up as a theoretical comfort, without any intention of joining it. Of course there are people in the Free Church who might have no difficulty in joining, in various contingencies. But no leader could persuade the pith and marrow of our Church to look benignly on a prospect of re- establishment. It would be instantaneously recognised as a case of misleading. We have an undiminished sense of the importance of powerful independent Churches (better — a united independent Church) in the State to Christianise it : we shall be very cautious indeed how we again admit the State's action in the condition and the independence of the Church. You will look on this as a prejudice. I only wish to assure you that it is a very strong one. ' Now this goes far to. determine what is reasonable or con- sistent with sincerity in the way of meeting in conference with a Committee like yours. I have no right to dispute your impressions as to the width of change which the majority of your Church would contemplate. But, at all events, what they profess to desire — what they can hardly fail to aim at — is a reconstructed National Establishment, on the basis of the existing one, with a generous recognition, perhaps, of the feelings and convictions of the present non-established Churches. I impute nothing unworthy in connection with such a project — far from it. But, in any shape in which it seems practicable, or even conceivable, we will take no responsi- bility in connection with it. We do not exclude the possi- bihty nor the hope of something valuable and useful in the nature of establishment — i.e. regulated relations of Church and State — arising for Scotland some day, though hardly, as 54 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY we think, such close relations as formerl}'. But we will not risk our Church in any combinations that are now in view, especi- ally when we consider what the State is and what the forces working in it and likely to work with incalculable intensity. ' As to Disestablishment, that became a practical movement when the party which shipwrecked Union negotiations in our Church began to put forward the Establishment, under some amendments which they pointed out (and which demonstrably implied that Free Church principles were to be sacrificed), as the hope and home of Scottish Presbyterianism ; and when a party in the Established Church began to move on the same lines. I gave the fullest and most express warning at the outset that the only possible practical answer to all that must be, from the Free Church position. Disestablishment. I did so with a feeling of great dislike to be involved in any such agitation, but with a determination not to flinch from it if necessary. On the whole, I have been regarded as a very languid leader by many of my followers. ' It is no pleasure to me to place myself in the attitude towards another Church which this movement implies. Not that I feel it unfriendly ; for I am absolutely sure that the change would do you nothing but good and that you yourselves would confess it within five years. But I cannot suppose that you will believe that now, or that it would be of any use for me to profess it very copiously. All I can say is that Disestab- lishment is the honest and complete practical application of our principles, as the alternative of those available which ought to be selected. I do not know whether I shall live to see it. But I think 1 know the way in which our face ought to be set. I do not the least expect your approval in all this, but I have thought it was due to you to let you see where I stand. ' Will you allow me to say how glad I am that the number of the Eldership in the Established Church includes your Lordship and men like you ? ' This is a much longer letter than was Dr. Rainy 's wont to write, but it reveals both his Church's position and his own spirit so clearly that it would have been a pity to curtail it. AI/IERNATIVE TO DISESTAHLISHMENT 55 It was not till 1886 — the year after the arrest of the movement for Disestablishment — that com- munications between the Churches were resumed. In that year, the Established Church sent another and more important message. Its terms were as follows : — ' The General Assembly, appreciating the significance of the recent manifestations of national attachment to the Church of Scotland, as shown in many forms, particularly in the peti- tions of more than 688,000 persons to Parliament against Disestablishment, and in the unanimous resolutions of many enthusiastic public meetings in favour of the reunion ot vScottish Presbyterians on the basis of a National Establishment of religion ; and realising the obligation laid upon the General Assembly to do all in its power to carry into effect the desire for unity so widely felt in Scotland — Resolves to renew and hereby does renew the expression of the sense of the evils of division and the assurance of its readiness to promote union on the basis of Establishment. Particularly, the General Assembly desires, as in 1878, to approach other Churches with an assurance that, while the General Assembly maintains inviolate the principle of the national recognition of the Chris- tian religion as contained in the Confession of Faith, and the sacredness of the ancient religious endowments, and stead- fastly adheres to the doctrine of the Confession of Faith and the Presbyterian system of Church government and worship — the Church of Scotland is heartily willing and desirous to take all possible steps, consistent with the maintenance and support of an Establishment of religion, to promote the co- operation in all good works and the reunion of Churches having a common origin, adhering to the same Confession of Faith and the same system of government and worship ; and is ready to do all that is possible to remove doubts or difficulties from the minds of Presbyterian brethren at present dissociated from the Church.' This was doubtless an earnest and sincere proposal, but like the former, it was frankly an * establishment ' 56 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY one. It suggested union only on the basis of the * sacredness ' of the endowments and the ' mainten- ance and support of an Establishment.' To this, obviously, the Free Church, which had steadily set its face in another direction, could in frankness give only one answer. Principal Rainy moved the answer in a speech of studied moderation, from which a single extract may be given : — ' He thought they should express regret that there should be any difficulty about conference, if it was wished, between Churches that stood so near one another as they did, and that they should point out where the difficulty lay. The difficulty lay in the basis on which alone, on the part of the Established Church, it was proposed that any conference should take place — the laying down of this as fixed to begin with, that it was to be on the basis of establishment, including the sacredness of endowments. He proposed to make them aware of the position in which, in that Assembly, rightly or wrongly, the great majority had placed themselves on that subject. But he proposed also that they should say also that if the Estab- lished Church could see their way to regard the differences between their position and the Free Church position as open for discussion, then they would accede to any invitation which the sister Church might address to them to go into conference on a matter which was so important.' Here we have the first proposal ever made publicly and officially for that ' unrestricted conference ' between the separated Churches of which a good deal has been said in recent years ; and it is interesting to note that the suggester of it was Principal Rainy. A deliverance to the effect above indicated was practically unanimously agreed to and transmitted to the Estabhshed Church. It officially acquainted the sister Church with the position taken by the Free AT.TERNATIVE TO DISESTABTJSHMENT 57 Church as to the maintenance of estabhshment and concluded thus : — ' But while candour requires them to make the statement, they hasten to add that if the Established Church should see their way to treat the points of difference between their com- munication and the resolution [upon Disestablishment] now cited as open for discussion, the Assembly of the Free Church will readily accede to enter into conference with a sister Church on a matter which so intimately concerns the Christian inter- ests of the whole community.' A proposal for ' unrestricted conference ' could not be more heartily made. But it was not accepted. The reply to the proposal came in the course of the year from the Church Interests Committee of the Established Church, of which the Convener was Lord Balfour of Burleigh. Lord Balfour declared that ' they could not accept such an invitation as that ' because ' it would seem to imply that under any conceivable circumstances, they would be willing to submit to Disestablishment and Disendowment.' ^ His committee's reply, after expressing regret at the * indirect negative ' of the answer of the Free Church and declaring the Estabhshed Church proposal * still open,' went on : — * With regard to the proposal of the Free Church that the two Churches should meet in conference to treat Establish- ment and Endowment as questions for discussion, the Com- mittee on Church Interests do not think it necessary to enter into argument. Such a discussion would have no common ground on which to proceed. If the Free Church would con- sider the present state of Scotland in the light of the standards common to both Churches, of the Claim of Right and of the recent abolition of Patronage, a conference might be profitable ' Established General Assembly, 1887. 58 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY and union the possible result ; but no good could come of what the Free Church actually suggests. The Church of Scotland has never proposed and would be false to her trust if she accepted a proposal which would even seem to imperil the religious advantages secured to the people of Scotland by the Revolution Settlement and the Treaty of Union, and she cannot do anything which might be construed into willingness to throw away the heritage of the Scottish people ; though her desire has been and is that brethren now separated may be reunited in the enjoyment and improvement of that heritage.' The comment on this of the Free Church — adopted by the Assembly of 1887 — was as follows : — ' The Assembly of the Free Church have asked no more than that the conference, if it takes place, shall be upon the whole case ; and that it shall have scope for stating and weigh- ing the known views of both sides as to the true interests of the Scottish people, the right disposal of the ancient endow- ments, and the reunion of Presbyterian Churches. They wholly decline to admit that on such subjects the Churches have no common ground for discussion. It is with deep regret that the Committee finds itself under the necessity of reporting to the Assembly that so necessary and equitable a basis of conference has been declined.' Into the discussion of this report in the Free Church Assembly of 1887 we need not enter, as Principal Rainy, being that year in the seat of the Moderator, took no part in it. Thus ended the second proposal to bring the Churches into conference. Cotemporaneously with these communications in the eighties between the Churches, a somewhat curious independent movement concerning reunion was being made in Parliament. Immediately after the general election of 1885 — after, that is, Mr. Gladstone's post- ALTERNATIVE TO DISESTABLISHMENT 50 ponement of the desires of the Disestabhshment party in Scotland — a ' Church of Scotland Bill ' was intro- duced into the House of Commons by Mr. (afterwards Sir Robert) Finlay, one of the few Scottish Liberal members who were opposed to Disestablishment. At the election, Mr. Finlay promised to introduce a bill which should do justice to the claim of the Free Church and repair the wrong done by the legislature in 1843. On the strength of this, he received considerable Free Church support— his constituency was Inverness Burghs, where the ' constitutionalist ' element in the Free Church was strong — and, being supported also by the Conservatives, won the seat against a Liberal who stood on the Disestablishment platform. He kept his word and introduced his bill. The preamble declared that ' it is desirable to remove obstacles to the reunion of the Presbyterians of Scotland ' ; and its first and essential clause ' declared ' — for it was a declaratory bill — that ' by the constitution of the Church of Scotland as b}^ law established/ her courts ' have the sole and exclusive right to regulate, deter- mine and decide all matters spiritual within the said Church ' ; further it was * declared ' that their pro- cedure and decisions therein are ' not subject to interdict, reduction, suspension or any manner of review by any court of civil jurisdiction.' The next clause defined ' matters spiritual ' as embracing all matters ' relating to ' — a vague and controversy- inviting phrase which lawyers could fatten on — worship, discipline and government, and 'particularly matters relating to preaching, the pastoral office and Church censures.' These last-named particulars were, 60 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY as the reader knows, the matters on which conflict arose during the Disruption struggle, and their enumeration shows Mr. Finlay's intentional — and, one does not for a moment doubt, sincere — aim in his biU. The bill was an interesting phenomenon in several respects. It was gratifying to find suggested in Parliament a very different attitude from that taken in the days of Peel and Graham, who declared shortl}^ before the Disruption that no legislation was to be recommended. The Times, too, now made the rather belated observation that * the Disruption of the Church of Scotland is due directly and entirely to the action of the House of Commons,' and this was echoed subse- quently by a staunchly Conservative member — Sir James Fergusson — who said * it was through a grave mistake on the part of Sir Robert Peel and Sir James Graham that the Disruption of the Church of Scotland took place in 1843.' All this hardly merits the title of wisdom, considering that it was nearly half a century after the event, but it was, coming from such quarters, interesting truth. It would seem as if the Free Church were to be recognised as in the right not only, as was admitted in 1874, about Patronage, but on the larger question of Independence too. This was an aspect of the Scottish Church situation which seems always to have struck Mr. Gladstone's sense of historic justice, and I find him referring to it in these terms in 1887 :— ' There has never been a harder case than that of these great Presbyterian bodies — the Free Church and the United Presbyterian — who always have, I believe, constituted nearly ALTERNATIVE TO DISESTABLISHMENT 61 one half of the population of Scotland, and who were practically put out of the Established Church because they maintained principles which, when they had been put out, the Established Church and the legislature have adopted for the present Established Church.' ^ But even more curious than these parliamentary signs of repentant grace, was the ecclesiastical situa- tion regarding the bill. It was a bill meant to promote Presbyterian union ; and yet not a single Presbyterian Church would agree to accept it for herself. Of course the United Presbyterians could not look at it. But the Established Church, somewhat carefully, declined to sponsor it, maintaining she had liberty enough and that the bill would make no difference to her. The Free Church — for reasons I shall explain immediately — opposed it. Here was a curious enterprise for a private member of Parliament — proposing on his own account to unite Presbyterianism by a measure for which no one of the great Presbyterian bodies would take any responsibility. For all this, the bill — receiving the support of the Conservative whips — was in some danger of passing and, as I have said, the Free Church felt obliged to oppose it, which was, in the end, successfully done. The right — indeed, the pre-eminent right — of the Free Church to examine and pronounce on the bill was indisputable. It was called a ' Church of Scotland ^ Speech at Nottingham, October 19. Principal Rainy, in a note to Mr. Gladstone a few days later, thanks him for this reference, but adds, ' I'i'e must work now not so much on the ground of the wrongs or griefs of the Free Church or U.P., but simply as claiming a settlement intrinsically just and therefore complete and final of a question which cannot rest unsettled.' 62 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Bill,' but it made not the slightest profession to effect any reform in that Church, and, as I have said, that Church declined to ask for it. The bill was a declara- tion, and obviously the one body meant to be affected by the declaration was the Free Church. Now, if any one really desires to reconstruct the Scottish ecclesiastical situation so as to do justice to those who made the great sacrifice of 1843, the straight way by which, on the part of the legislature, that should be done is to ascertain fully and unambiguously what provisions are regarded by the Churches separated from the Establishment as necessary to give effect to their claims, and. further, consider what is just towards the interests of those Churches who have had to develop their own operations for so many years because of the long denial of their claims. Mr. Finlay's bill ignored the latter point and on the former was — though, I repeat, I do not question that its author meant it sincerely — a delusion. Did this bill give spiritual independence as the Free Church understood that ? It ' declared ' the * right ' of the Church in certain spheres. But all the judgments that led up to the Disruption admitted that. It was never denied that the Church had a sphere wherein she could exercise spiritual functions. It was even maintained that her exercise there was of the nature of a * jurisdiction.' It was in the face of this that the famous judgments were given. Because the law held that, having given that * jurisdiction,' it could define it, and, where necessary, discuss the competency of any exercise of it, and, where incompetency appeared, could even invade it by way either of positive command or negative in- AT/rERNATn E TO DISESTAELISHMENT 63 hibition. All this was now established principle of law and it remained unrepealed and absolutely unaffected by the Finlay Bill/ In addition, there was the same unhappy aspect of this matter that arose over the Patronage Bill. This bill was not a bill to unite the Churches. It was again a bill to satisfy indi- vidual members of the Free Church so that they might pass over to the other Church. Of this, all that need be said is that it is not the way to promote union. A union must be an honourable treaty between bodies which mutually give and mutually gain on equal terms. It was, then, on grounds such as I have, thus briefly indicated, that the Free Church not only did not trust but actively opposed the Finlay Bill. The way for this was open and without objection on the ground that it might seem grudging towards a sister Church. It will be remembered that the Free Church did not oppose the Patronage Bill. She did not petition against a bill which removed a grievance from a sister Church. But here there was no pretence of removing any grievance from the Established Church, which indeed declared studiously it was not for her sake the bill was to be passed. Therefore the Free Church felt at full liberty actively to oppose this bill ; and, in par- ticular. Principal Rainy went to London and did so with success. A Church is, in political things, always stronger in defence than in attack. And though the bill was espoused by men such as the • The words in the bill about spiritual decisions not being subject to 'any manner of review' seem to be a protection; but this too was a delusion, for the civil courts held that their interference was not review but merely a setting aside as incompetent. 64 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Duke of Argyll and supported by the Scotsman, it was defeated. The second reading debate took place in the House of Commons on the 17th March 1886. Mr. Finlay, in moving his bill, made a quite admirably clear and cogent speech — one of the ablest speeches on the Scottish Church question that Hansard records. It was loud in praise of the Disruption, speaking of ' what took place on that May morning ' as ' an event of which every Scotsman is proud.' That event was due 'to two causes,' of which the Patronage Act had removed one and ' the other he proposed to remove by this bill.' Mr. Trevelyan — afterwards Sir George Trevelyan — opposed the bill as Secretary for Scotland, and spoke in terms which recalled Mr. Gladstone's opposition to the Patronage Bill : — ' What are we doing by this bill ? We acknowledge that in the great debate between the Established and the Free Church, the Free Church was right in every point ; and, acknowledging that, we bring in a bill which declares that and then punishes the successors of these men by withdrawing from them every member who can be induced to think that the difference between the one Church and the other consists in a declaratory Act of Parliament.' ^ Mr. Trevelyan was followed, it may be added, by the late Mr. J. P. B. Robertson (subsequently Lord Robertson), whose speech was notable for the extreme animus it displayed against the Free Church, ' a greater sign of the degeneracy of which,' he thought,' could not possibly be found than in the altered attitude they had ' 3 Hansard, ccciii. II22. ALTERNATIVE TO DISESTABUSHMENT 65 taken up.' The division threw out the bill by 202 votes to 177. It was not a large majority. The Scottish members were against it to the extent of more than two to one — 35 votes to 15 — but the English Con- servatives voted for it in large numbers and the aid of Irish Nationalists had to be called in to overbalance them. A bill for Scotland — which the Scottish representatives by two to one rejected : a bill to declare the Constitution of the Church of Scotland — which that Church affirmed she did not need : a bill to meet the scruples of non-established Presbyterians and so promote union — which they repudiated and opposed : a bill professing to secure spiritual independence — almost carried by English erastians and defeated only with the aid of Irish Romanists ! Truly an unedifying performance altogether. A debate on Scottish Disestablishment took place in the House of Commons a few weeks later. One of its notable features was the renewed regret expressed that the Disruption had not been prevented. No one seemed to have a word of defence for the Government that, in Graham's characteristic word, showed such * firmness ' in 1843. A member reminded Mr. Gladstone he had been a member of it, but the right honourable gentleman disclaimed responsibility. Mr. Gladstone spoke in the debate and thus referred to the bearing of this belated acknowledgment of Free Church positions upon Disestablishment : — ' You will not find a case on the face of the earth where there is a particular body established and endowed, and where, by its side, are two other bodies, not established and not endowed, maintaining the very same doctrine, the very same VOL. II. E 66 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL EAINY government, and the very same discipline as the EstabHshed Church, and having either quitted the Church of Scotland or, as in the case of the Free Church, having been driven out of the Church of Scotland because of their most faithful and strict and uncompromising adherence to principles which they were then told were totally incompatible with the principle of an establishment at all by the Government of Sir Robert Peel (but told, I am bound to say, with the general concurrence of both political parties in Scotland), and these are now the very principles which we are now told are compatible with and loudly professed by the Church of Scotland.' ^ The motion in favour of Scottish Disestablishment was defeated by 125 to 237 ; but it was, as usual, a case of the Scottish vote being overruled from England. The discussion of course was a purely academic one. Mr. Gladstone did not vote. This political story may seem to be a digression. It shows, however, one thing which is essential to our history. It shows that it had come to be recognised on all hands — in the Established Church herself — that some adjustment of the Scottish ecclesiastical situation was necessary. No one proposed merely to hold on to the status quo. Against the policy of Disestablishment now stood, not the mere negative of that, but a readiness and even an attempt for re- construction on an Establishment basis. It was largely on this development of the question that a great debate on Church and State took place in the Assembly of the Free Church in 1886. Mr. Finlay's bill had by that time been defeated in Parliament, and the debate was over the approval of the efforts of the Assembly's Committee against it. Practically, how- ^ 3 Hansard, ccciv. 344. ALTERNATIVE TO DISESTABLISHMENT 67 ever, it was a discussion as to whether the Church should aim at Disestabhshment or at a reconstructed Estabhshment as the basis of the future of Scottish Presbyterianism. Principal Rainy moved the motion on the former line, and the amendment — the one on which the division on the Finlay Bill was taken — was moved by a popular and persuasive legal member of the House, Sheriff Jameson, now Lord Ardwall. The vote was 476 for Dr. Rainy's motion and 98 for the other. Principal Rainy said there were two alternatives arising as to the future of Presbyterianism, and he held by the one he did, despite any pain or strain in it, because any other could be only ' a prolonged postponement of the main interests of evangelical religion in Scotland.' As to the idea that thereby he was taking a position which was a departure from the platform and principles of the Free Church, he de- clared he had ' habituall}^ treated that more mildly than it deserved.' I ma}^ quote a few sentences here, for the point was destined to become of historic significance : — ' The idea that in advocating or working out \dews, the right of which in the Free Church had been asserted and acknow- ledged by men like Mr. Murray Dunlop and Principal Cunning- ham, that in doing this he should be told by what man — by what man left alive ? — that he was failing to take the position proper to a Free Churchman, he only said he repudiated it and declared they were the true Free Churchmen. All through the history of the Free Church, from the beginning of it, there began to be a series of decisions on this point — whether the Free Church should be regarded as committed by its Disruption position and documents to seek always carefully to build up on the Free Church lines exactly what had been cast down by the Disruption ; or whether the position really was that in 68 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY those documents they washed their hands of all responsibility for the destruction of that which they had defended to the last, and had maintained as defensible and consistent with the constitution of the Church as handed down to them, but that now they were entitled, and had it for their duty, to pursue the same great end by the means that now in the changed circumstances were proper and natural to be adopted. On question after question, all along the line, the final decision of the Free Church had always been for the second alternative. It was simply the question of the larger or the narrower construction of the principles and duties of the Free Church.' This is not the emergence of the question, but it is one of the earliest formulated statements of the question at issue in the great law-suit of 1904, when — after the Scottish bench had been tried in vain to produce a single judge to say it — five were found ' alive ' in the House of Lords to tell not merely Principal Rainy but also ' Mr. Murray Dunlop and Principal Cunningham ' and all these decisions of the Free Church ' from the beginning of it ' that they were quite wrong as to what the principles of their Church were. We are still some way from this astounding decision, but its mention in such a connection as the present will help to prepare the reader to understand when it comes with what a shock it fell upon the minds of educated Free Churchmen. « There was in Scotland at this time a good deal that seemed to point to another and more conclusive test of strength over the issue of Disestablishment. Projects on the line of the Finlay Bill inevitably produce that effect. But an event occurred in the region of the greater politics which overwhelmed all such local interests, Mr. Gladstone, who thought Scottish ALTERNATIVE TO DISESTABLISHMENT 69 Disestablishment not ripe, thought Irish Home Rule ripe — surely (and this may be said without expressing any opinion on the political merits of Home Rule) one of the most amazing miscalculations ever made by an old parliamentary hand. He had brought in his Home Rule Bill, and it had been rejected in the Commons. The Government went to the country and a new general election was imminent. As regards Scottish Disestablishment, Mr. Gladstone's aim was now — and now it was perhaps inevitable — to subordin- ate everything to the one absorbing question. I find Principal Rainy addressing to him the following letter with the view of keeping at least the door open. It is dated 19th January 1886, and runs as follows : — ' Dear Mr. Gladstone, — In your admirable speech last night you alluded to Mr. Finlay's Bill, and I wish to express gratitude to you for the disapprobation of it which you indi- cated. At the same time you referred to " an understanding established at last election that the question of the Church in Scotland was to be maintained in a description of neutraUty." May I remind you that many of your warmest supporters in Scotland protested instantly against such an understanding as soon as it was proposed ? It was only because we felt we could make that protest effective and could hold our repre- sentatives to the other view that we were able to take part in the election as your supporters. We did make our protest effective, though of course, after jmur declaration, with great difficulty and some loss. But it will be a serious complication for us, and surely a needless one, if again at this election we are driven into a position of not merely equal difficulty but increased difficulty. Why not leave the election and Parlia- ment free on that ([uestion ? Plainly, the result of the line of utterance which your allusion of last night points at, espe- cially when taken up and echoed by candidates up and down the country, is to produce the impression that on that subject 70 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY the ensuing Parliament is morally disabled from taking action. Very sorrowfully we have learned that it is not likely we shall have your help in that great act of justice. Leave us at least free 'to help ourselves, trusting we shall not use the discretion recklessly. Leave open — may I add ? — the possibility that God's providence may open to yourself a path which at present seems to you closed. Do not administer to those all over Scotland, who would value your sympathy beyond price, what they feel to be repression and postponement. Be assured the men whom you must mainly trust in Scotland are those whom this style of treatment renders sore and sad when another temper is wanted for your own cause.' The note of warning in this about ' the men you must mainly trust ' was fully justified by events. When Mr. Gladstone appealed to Scotland to aid him in his Home Rule battle, he found, in the main,^ those who had been strongest in urging him to wave back Disestab- lishment and had done so successfully, were now his bitterest opponents. The Scotsman met him with an antagonism which made him write about ' the detest- able state of the press ' ; ^ while anti-Disestablishment Liberals, such as Mr. Finlay, were almost to a man Unionists. On the other hand, while certainly much of the old enthusiasm remained and indeed could hardly fail to be stirred at the heroic crusade of the octo- genarian warrior, still Mr. Gladstone was not the object of the unquestioning trust that once he was. The result of the general election on Home Rule, which placed Lord Salisbury in power with an overwhelming majority, is matter of history. ' There were, of course, exceptions. Thus Lord Rosebery, who had been cold about Disestablishment, supported Home Rule in those days. On the other hand. Professor Calderwood, a staunch disestablibher, was a strong Unionist. '^ Morley's /J/f of Gladstone^ iii. 343. AI/IERNATIVE TO DISESTABLISHMENT 71 We are not called on to pursue further the political story, but it should be noted that the emergence of the Home Rule controversy had an influence on the Disestablishment question beyond the obvious one that it put out of power the party from which this solution of the Scottish Church question alone could come. The existence of Liberal Unionism gave rise to a new element in the situation. There were a certain number of men — not perhaps very numerous, but some of them influential and respected — who had been disestablishers but now found themselves associated with a party to which, of course, DisestabHshment could never be proposed. Naturally, men in this position gravitated to some other solution of the Church question ; and in this way impulse was given to at least the consideration of the alternative of the reconstruction of the Established Church. A * Layman's League ' was started with considerable expectations. With some in the Free Church the cry was raised — and of course diligently repeated in the anti-Disestablishment press — that the laity of the Church were opposed to Principal Rainy' s policy in this question. It is of some importance to note that the circumstances which gave any truth to the cry were not religious or even ecclesiastical, but political. The laity of whom this was true were almost entirely of one political colour. This does not mean that there was in their position anything illegitimate. Those associated with a party in which Disestablishment could not be named had surely as much right to be in the Free Church of Scotland as those associated with the party that might adopt it. All I mean in what has been said 72 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY is to show the bearing of the great pohtical upheaval over Home Rule upon the ecclesiastical question. Not only was Scottish Disestablishment crowded out and indefinitely postponed through Home Rule, but a new phase of sympathy with something less than Dis- establishment was inevitably developed in men who found themselves with new political associates. One way in which all this found expression was in informal conferences about union attended by members of the various Churches. Principal Rainy was more than once asked to attend these, but he never felt it right to accept the invitation. This was certainly from no unwillingness to talk frankly especially with the Established Church, but he had the responsible public man's dislike for irresponsible action. I find among his papers a letter addressed to Dr. Laidlaw in response to a request to join such a conference, and it may be quoted as showing his attitude both towards it and the whole question generally : ^ — ' 1 have considered very carefully the invitation which reached me through you to join a Committee embracing representatives of the three larger Presbyterian Churches for the purpose of considering the possibility of union, and the methods by which it might be sought. I need hardly say I recognise emphatically the importance of the object. The reunion of Scottish Presbyterianism is an object which can scarcely be placed too high. ' At the same time, it is an object which la3's grave responsi- bilities on those who undertake it. It should not be played with. It should not be undertaken but upon clear grounds ' There arc two drafts of this letter, substantially the same bm varying in phraseology. As I do not know which was sent off, I have taken the liberty of choosing what seem the clearer phrases, from sometimes one and some- times the other. AI/rKRNATIVE TO DISESTAliLISIIMEXT 7^ and with deliberate forethought. If it is taken in hand at the wrong time or in the wrong way, it is quite possible that not only failure but increased misunderstanding and alienation might be the result. ' I feel some difficulty, I confess, as to entering a Committee where I am to have a representative character and where my action will create expectations as to the course likely to be taken by my Church. I have no authority to take that posi- tion, and nothing has occurred to suggest that such authority should be asked or given. I should welcome an opportunity of exchanging views on the whole situation with the thoughtful members of the Established Church. But I doubt whether the setting up of a Committee like the one proposed is likely to lead to the frank exchange of opinions and impressions which ought to precede formal and public action. ' I must add, however, that I have another difficulty. I have the strongest conviction that reunion is simply impos- sible while the Established Church is in its present position ; and therefore I have long held that Disestablishment is in- dispensable with a view to reunion of Presbyterianism in Scotland. I am aware of the objection that Disestablishment would awaken feelings which might long delay union. That is not impossible : still, I can only reply that there is no other way to it. Whatever else may be desirable with a view to the consummation. Disestablishment is indispensable. I cannot consent to take any step which might be held to indicate doubt in my mind upon the point. But it is a view which is no doubt unwelcome, possibly offensive, to one section of the proposed Committee. These members might have reason to complain if they found that a conference aiming at union was turned into a discussion on Disestabhshment. I think it right, therefore, to say explicitly that a preliminary under- standing on this point is with me indispensable to all further discussion. ' I am far from thinking that Disestablishment is not a proper question for Established Churchmen. For the happiest way of carrying the question in Scotland is that it should be carried with the support — the disinterested support — of at least a large section of the Established Church, acting in view of the general good. I hope to see it carried in that way ; 74 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAI. RAINY and therefore I am very far from being indifferent to the views entertained upon the question among Established Churchmen. But I do not think it suitable that the subject should be attempted to be forced on them in a conference without their consent.' These conferences, it may be said, invariably broke up over the fact of establishment,^ and they were no part of Principal Rainy' s life. It is important, how- ever, to recall that, while he declined to take part in these irresponsible meetings, he had — as the reader knows — held out to the Established Church Assembly an invitation to confer if the basis embraced the whole question. While Principal Rainy would not attend these conferences, one or two extracts from his letters practi- cally state what he would have said at them if he had been present. I find, for instance, Mr. Murray Garden, a distinguished Free Church layman in Aberdeen, writing to the Principal an account of a conference which had been held in that city, and attended by both Established and Free Churchmen. Its scheme seems to have been an incorporating union between the Churches on the basis of the relation to the State to be ' that claimed in the Free Church Claim of Right ' and the Church thus united and freed to be * recognised by the State,' while the teinds (life-interests of course respected) were to be surrendered probably to national education. On this paper reunion. Principal Rainy wrote to Mr. Murray Garden : — ' I am extremely interested in these discussions, which will • This will appear in some account of a later conference held in 1893. Vide pp. is8-'j infra. ALTERNATIVE TO DISESTABLISHMENT 75 certainly advance the right sohition, whatever it is to be ; and the ideas you report prove strongly that things are moving in the most unlikely quarters. I confess I could not help smiling a little on the State Church which is to receive from the State strong assurances that it will never touch her — (and, I suppose, a Lord High Commissioner) ! The proposal illustrates how various aspects of the question hold Scottish minds. But do you not think it would be nearly as easy to carry Disestablishment itself ? ' You ask me to say in a line how this would suit the Free Church. I cannot answer for the Free Church. In one view there is nothing in what you propose which our declared prin- ciples forbid us to accept. There may be a good many Free Churchmen who would feel some difficulty. But the practical question for the Free Church would be whether it is a wise and sound line on which to launch the future history of Presby- terianism. This would be the question if such a scheme ever assumed consistency enough and came enough within the region of practical business to make it reasonable for the Free Church to speak its mind about it. ... So far as reconstruction goes, my conviction is — and I am disposed to press it as far and as deep as I can — that it must be complete, it must be permanent, and it must be on sound principles, not merely theoretically but in this sense — that we do not entangle our- selves with forces which we can see to be plainl}' w'orking in a way fitted to corrupt, to place us in wrong relations and to exhibit us in a wrong light. I see no combination into which the State enters that is consistent with these desiderata, and that is why I keep steady to the point of Disestablishment — an object which, merely for its own sake, is unattractive enough. We must consider how the evangelical life which exists in the country is to be safeguarded amid the combina- tions we plan. And there are very grave reasons connected with that supreme interest which rise to my mind in connec- tion with many of these schemes. ... I do not hold myself infalHble, and any one who is open to light must welcome the ardent occupation of many vigorous minds with the question. But it does seem to me that as yet a good many of them are rather trying to find embodiment for interesting sentiments associated with the past — a most worth}^ past — than resolute 76 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY to prepare a strong and durable basis for the future, as well as to reckon ^^^th the actual forces which must decide the question.' On the other hand, there were schemes of the opposite line — namely, schemes which would let establishment go, but made a stand over retaining the endowments. With these Principal Rainy had less sympathy. He wanted a national, not merely a Presbyterian settle- ment of the Church question, and he altogether deprecated entangling a great and religious issue such as the union of evangelical Churches with a haggling over money. I find him thus writing to another Aberdeen correspondent : — ' As to schemes of dividing the teinds among Presbyterians, I am satisfied it would be a calamity if the Free Church could ever be led after such an ignis fatuus. Politically the only alternatives worth looking at are simple Disestablishment (and Disendowment) or concurrent endowment of all sects. Most of us took our ground on that question when Gladstone disestabHshed the Irish Church, and we are not going to change now. It wiU occasionally happen that among those in the Free Church who support Disestablishment, some will be caught for a time by projects that look toward some way of utilising the money for religious purposes, in whole or part. They will be brought right again, not by insisting that they must become pure theoretical voluntaries — which they will not be — but by making it clear to them that each separate project of that kind is a delusion and a snare. , . . For there is no solution in the end of the day, politically possible, simple and honest, but Disestablishment, and the application of the funds to purposes apart from religious bodies.' To these lines. Principal Rainy resolutely adhered. It was not obstinacy that made him so firm. He was anything but an obstinate man in the sense of a man ALTERNATIVE TO DISESTABLISHMENT 77 not open to the give-and-take which is inevitable in practical affairs as distinguished from mere theoretic debate. But his eye never lost sight of the future, and therefore he would never dally with an arrange- ment -which was not a final settlement but simply handed on difficulties to the morrow. It would, indeed, be hard to name any other public man, either in Church or State, of whom more truly it can be said that he worked for the future. I suppose if the cheapened word ' statesmanlike ' has any meaning left in it, this is what it must mean. But if Principal Rainy worked for the future, he also worked — as he once said of Mr. Gladstone — in facie ceternitatis. The following may suffice to reveal and illustrate this, which is not a matter to be more than touched on. At a particularly trying phase of the Disestablishment controversy. Principal Rainy one day met with two friends for consultation in a lawyer's office — the office, I may mention, of the late Dr. John Garment, a greatly respected and still remembered citizen of Edinburgh. When they had talked over their business, suddenly the Principal seized the two men by the shoulders and pulled them dow^n, with himself, upon their knees and then poured out his soul in prayer, not for the success of their policies, but for Scotland, with a directness and a devoutness which the survivor (who tells me the story) can never forget. That kneeling figure in the lawyer's office is a glimpse, all the more valuable because the world could never be meant to see it, of Rainy the Disestablisher, who was being almost daily represented to the people of Scotland as a worldly ecclesiastic and a mean-motived sectarian. 78 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY This matter of Disestablishment will emerge once more at a later stage in our narrative — for which, let not the controversy-wearied reader lay blame on the biographer, whose course is fixed for him by fate and whose duty is only to follow as the history leads — and we may leave to that later stage any general reflections on this phase of Principal Rainy' s career. Meanwhile the reader of the tj^pe just mentioned may have a complete respite from controversy (which assuredly to the writer will be not less welcome), for now we follow Principal Rainy into an exalted situation — aloof from all party strife — to which, as has already incidentally been mentioned, he had been called. CHAPTER XVIII MODERATORSHIP OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY ! PERSONALIA : TRAVEL : RAILWAY STRIKE ^T^O be elected Moderator of the General Assembly X is the highest honour that a Presbyterian Church can confer on any of her ministers. The occu- pant of this chair presides over the sessions of the Assembly, but has, in addition, a quasi-pnma.tia.\ precedence and dignity throughout his year of office. In the democratic Free Church, the Moderator's position was indeed one of even more outward ceremonial respect than in the Established Church of Scotland, for in the latter the Lord High Com- missioner naturally takes the first honours. In the Free Church, the entrance of the person occup3dng the chair is heralded b}^ a stentorian shout of ' The Moderator ' from the chief officer of Assembly, where- upon all rise and wait in respectful silence while he passes to his seat, from which he makes three statel}' bows — one to the right, one to the left, and one to the centre of the House, each section (or at least the properly bred among them) bowing in return. When the thing is well done — there are, of course, some Moderators who are, as a critical Highland member once said, * maist perfunctory in their boos ' — it has an impressive effect which thrills the ladies' gallery and has solemnised strangers even from America. 79 80 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Moreover, the Moderator of the General Assembly is the one minister in the Church to whom the puritan simplicity of Scots Presbyterianism permits some indulgence in the outward vanities of life. As no young man is ever made Moderator, it is presumed that this can be done with little risk. He rides his carriage at the Church's expense. He is presented almost daily with magnificent bouquets. He wears an elaborately frogged gown over court dress with lace ruffles and silk stockings and silver - buckled shoes and what not. The ' constitutionalist ' Free Churchmen liked to think that the significance of the court dress was that the Free Church of Scotland was still and always ready to receive the Royal Commissioner if and when he should come with the answer to the Claim of Right and to restore to the true Church of Scotland the ' benefits ' which she should not have been compelled to surrender in 1843. There was not much likelihood of his Grace coming on any such errand even in days when, as we have seen, the principles of 1843 were being largely acknowledged as the true principles of the Church, and when men in Parliament were laying the blame of the Disruption on the Government of the day. If, however, he had come, the Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland would doubtless have met him with every courtesy and considered the visit both an honour and a pleasure ; but if his Grace should thereupon begin to pull out documents and his purse and propose to talk about re - establishment, then I imagine the Moderator would suavely assure his visitor that the Church had now found a more excellent way. How admirably Principal Rainy could have MODERATORSHIP 81 said this, if only the Royal Commissioner had come during his year of moderatorship ! It was in 1887 that Dr. Rainy was called to the chair. His elevation had this notable feature about it, that he was the first Moderator of the General Assembly in the Free Church of Scotland who was a post-Disruption minister — that is to say, who had been ordained later than 1843. He refers to this in his letter accepting nomination,^ addressed to Dr. A. N. Somerville — the well-known and world-wide missioner — who was his predecessor in office : — ' I am deeply sensible of the kindness of my brethren in proposing to call me, in existing circumstances, to the chair of next General Assembly. It is my duty to obey that call. And, if elected, I will strive by God's blessing to perform aright the duties of a position made illustrious by the services and sacrifices of those who up to this time have been chosen to fill it.' At the Assembly, his election was proposed by Dr. Somerville and seconded by the Earl of Moray. He was welcomed with exceptional enthusiasm. He looked the part to perfection, and his ' boos ' were all that could be desired. The Moderator of the General Assembly delivers an opening address — a practice inaugurated in 1705 by the eminent Carstares. Dr. Rainy's address was a discussion of the changes that had come upon the intellectual world since Disruption da3's — •' those ^ The 'nomination' takes place at an informal meeting held months before the Assembly, that the Moderator-Designate may have time to pre- pare for his duties. It is becoming customary to speak of the Moderator- Designate as the ' Moderator-Elect ' : but this is inaccurate, for the election, ad initio., is with the General Assembly. VOL. H. F 82 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY anxious yet stirring and high-hearted da^^s ' as he called them — and the bearing of these changes on religious belief. After enumerating some of them — educational, political, scientific — he spoke of the ' varied denial, doubt or debate ' thus arising for many minds, which, however, he would not wholly condemn. On the contrary he said : — ' May we not ask this question first, whether the general stirring of doubt and debate, on even the most fundamental questions, is of itself a thing of such purely evil omen ; and whether general acquiescence and reverential deference to the form of sound words is so certainly to be preferred ? Is it always preferable ? No doubt it is a sad thing for any man to be held and mastered by religious negations. No doubt a time of outspoken debate on questions which concern the foundations of faith must throw up many things that grieve believing hearts and must be accompanied by some special dangers for those whose opinions and impressions are in course of being formed. But may not such a time prove to be exactly what the cause of God needs ? Is it not a great thing, a very great thing, for any one truly to believe in God — truly to believe that Jesus Christ is indeed the Son of God ? We profess to hold it to be a great thing : our theology represents it as a great thing. And, if such a time as I speak of, amid all the levity and shallowness and wantonness of utterance that may characterise it (not on one side of the debate alone), still has this for part of its meaning, that a number of persons are awakening to the consciousness of being without this great faith in God, in Christ — are finding that they know not how to justify to their own minds such a faith nor how to reach it — are resolving that in these circumstances they will not pretend to have it ; may not this, bad as it seems, be better and more hopeful than the mood which cares too little for the subject to stir the (piestion ? ' Then, more boldly, he went on to say that all this might be beneficial even to the Church's mind. I MODERATORSHIP 83 ' If now the question is suggested, what attitude the Church of Christ, or any of the Churches, ought to take with reference to these processes of discussion and research and revision which lay hold on all the aspects of Christianity, it shall be said for one thing that we must be prepared to profit by them. ... As no man, so no Church is entitled to act on the assump- tion that it has nothing to learn and nothing to unlearn. As long as we are in the world we are at school ! ' That the Church may have, not only to learn, but to unlearn — that is a notable word from a churchman. And yet this certainly did not mean in Principal Rainy any uncertainty about what Christianity is and always must be. He went on : — ' Really, by this time, the Christian religion is an historical fact, and its main characteristics are known and are unchange- able. In spite of differences and debates among Christians on matters of some importance, the main features of Chris tianity — the great beliefs in which it has approved itself to men to be what it claims to be — are known and are unchange- able. It is vain to think of transmogrifying this religion in any of its main points and still calling it Christianity. One does not take eighteen hundred years to find out what the faith is that was delivered to the saints and what the faith is by which the saints have endured and overcome. . . . Chris- tianity is what Christ delivered to the Apostles and what the Apostles delivered to the Churches. You can never get past that : you can never alter it : and you can never find it any- where but in the Scriptures.' He denied that these two points of view — on the one hand, a readiness to learn and even unlearn, and, on the other, an assured confidence in the substance of the Church's message — were contradictory. ' These two things are apt to be set against one another. To oppose them to one another is the constant effort of skiHul 84 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY foes and unwise friends. " If you are sure, you can admit no inquiry and no amendment ; if you admit inquiry, you cannot be sure." But the two belong together. They are the stand- ing conditions of Protestant Christianity. ... On the one hand, we are quite sure that we are not infalUble — our thoughts may be purified and widened. But, on the other hand, we are quite sure we have found an infalhble Lord, who is not silent but has spoken. There is room for a superb confidence in Him as our Prophet, and Priest, and King, and for a great humility on account of our shortsightedness, one-sidedness, and unspirituality of mind.' The above are but the main positions in an address which was a remarkable one to come from the chair of the General Assembly. At the close of his address, Principal Rainy made reference to an event which had moved the whole Church. In the previous year, the Hon. Ian Keith- Falconer, third son of the eighth Earl of Kintore (who was an elder in the Free Church of Scotland), offered himself to the Church to go out, at his own charge, as a missionary to Arabia. The offer was a remarkable one, for Keith-Falconer was a brilliant scholar and was Lord Almoner's Professor of Arabic in the University of Cambridge. The Church accepted the offer, and Keith-Falconer, accompanied by his wife, whom he had married only a year before, went out to Aden in 1886. His consecrated life was cut off by fever within a year. Principal Rainy made the follow- ing reference to this falling in the Lord's battle of this gallant volunteer : — ' Very visibly, he gave to the cause and kingdom of our Lord Jesus aU he had. His university distinction, his oriental learning, his position in society, his means, the bright morning MODERATORSHIP 85 of his married life, and, I may add, his physical vigour — for he had trained body as well as mind — he brought them all to the service. He did so the more impressivel}^ because he did it with no fuss about it. We need not doubt that his free and complete gift was accepted. It was well that it was in his heart. Suddenly, to our thinking, the Lord has been pleased to take him up higher. We might think that had he been spared, his life might have been fruitful, not only as a force abroad, but as an example at home. For he was the first in our Church's experience who was at once able and willing to inaugurate this special type of dedication to mission work, and his life might have been a standing appeal to others. But shall his death have no appeal ? Who comes next, now Keith- Falconer is down ? ' The Dowager Countess of Kintore kindly permits me to give the letter Principal Rainy wrote to her on her son's death. It is as follows : — ' Dear Lady Kintore, — It was only this forenoon on arriving from the country that I learned the sad news — sad from our point of view when we think of all we have lost and all we had hoped, not sad if we could view it from the upper side. I do not write as if I could minister any comfort, but only to assure you that you will be lovingly remembered at this time of sorrow by many whom you do not know. It is a very great bereavement. And yet I cannot but think how proud and thankful you must be to be the mother of a man who so simply and completely gave all he had to the Master's service. It is not lost. It has been accepted. My heart is sore for the poor young wife. But she will have strength given to her.' The name of Ian Keith-Falconer will long be remem- bered in the Church, and is commemorated in the mission buildings near Aden. Ante diem periit, sed miles. The Moderator's call for volunteers was not in vain. 86 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAE RAINY Out of the fort}' men completing their course that j^ear at New College, eleven offered themselves ; as did also others in earlier stages of their curriculum. It is in things like these, not in policies and controversies, that the true history of a Church is to be found. In his closing address to the Assembly, Principal Rainy intimated he had meant to speak on the ' eventual reunion of Presb^^terians in Scotland,' but ' almost at the last moment I have changed my mind,' thinking that on the whole a discussion of it might prejudice rather than help. He said, however, some things. He said very emphatically that a union between the Free Church and the United Presbyterians ' comes first in order and ought to be completed as soon as it can be done with comfort and edification.' Then he went on in a passage which deserves to be quoted in full : — ' While we have very strong and abundant reasons for thankfulness on account of God's goodness to the Scottish Churches, in some directions the effects of our dissensions are little less than heartbreaking. But just because the interests connected with the subject are so weighty I am against playing with union or making a merely tactical use of the question. I have once and again declined to bring it into play as a controversial weapon. As a general rule, I think we ought not to say much about it till we are prepared to translate our words into acts. But, at least, there ought to be no doubt that the object claims the thoughts and prayers of every Scottish Christian and patriot. I recognise the obligations it imposes on us as a great national and Christian object. I do not only think of it as desirable, but as practicable. I will not say, in the face of our past Scottish experiences, that a movement for reunion will embrace all, even of those whom we might desire to include. There seem to be always MODERATOHSHIP 87 some outstanding elements. But I believe that there is a grand mass of genuine and honest Presbyterianism in Scotland which might be reunited, which ought to be reunited, and which desires to be reunited. And I have no love for indefinite delays, which may increase the difficulties rather than diminish them. In turning, however, from the subject, for reasons which I have just indicated, may I remind myself and you that, as labouring for Christ, there are some things that ought to be present to our minds, profitable for us whether the union comes or not, essential to be cherished if it ever is to arrive ? One of these is the conviction how much it concerns each of the Churches that the others should be spiritually prosperous and spiritually efficient. If ever we are tempted to suppose it an advantage to a Church that the others should fall off in these respects, we are making a very foolish and a very shallow mistake. Ever}^ gain in spiritual purity and power and fruitfulness outside our own borders is gain to us. We may desire to share it, but we must, at the same time, rejoice in it. And any loss of spiritual tone around us is loss and weakness to our own congregations. Again, let us cherish the conviction that in the separate path which each Church is providentially pursuing some lessons are learned, some acquisitions made, some gifts ripened, which are the proper result of that special disciphne, and which have a value of their own. This is not the less to be o^^^led, supposing it to be true, that in our opinion some valid objections could be made good to the position and to the course which a given Church has taken. We may think so ; we may be right in thinking so. But we have ver}^ shallow thoughts of God's providence and grace if we do not make room in our minds for the faith that in their case and in ours God can overrule our history, so as to carry on a training, out of which He brings results bearing the stamp of His own good- ness. If a day shall arrive when at some worthy and legitimate meeting-place the Presbyterians of Scotland shall flow together, we may be sure that each company will have peculiar gifts and lessons of its own to contribute to the common welfare and the common strength. Lastly we have been most im- pressively and instructively admonished by my venerated predecessor to cherish a spirit of thankfulness. Well we ma3\ Let us be warned at the same time that while the proper 88 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY breath of thankfulness is humiUty, there is a strange readiness on our part to wed it rather to arrogance. God's goodness is made the occasion of our pride. At the Disruption, and in the days that followed, we had ground for the most copious and emphatic thanksgiving. We were as men that dreamed ; the Lord had done great things for us. Did we escape the temptation to turn this goodness into an occasion for arro- gance and scorn ? Looking back, I say no. We did not escape it. Therein we sinned, and I suppose we have also been chastened for it, " for our profit, that we might be par- takers of His holiness." ' A passage such as this only makes one again regret that the standing obstacle to the realisation of Scottish Presbyterian reunion had not been removed when the occasion offered, so that a churchman with a spirit like this might have been free to construct and achieve — as no one could have done so well as Principal Rainy — this object of ' the thoughts and prayers of every Scottish Christian and patriot.' Turning from this topic, the Moderator gave his address a purely religious character. He pleaded for * lives to be laid down ' and urged Christ's claim to an entire devotion.' The following is a characteristic passage : — ' There is a well-known Highland storj^ — Scott tells it some- where — of a chief and his clan overmatched in battle and hard pressed in their retreat. Again and again the chief was almost reached and killed, but always one or other of his seven foster brothers saved him, each in succession throwing himself between at the right moment, with the cry, " Another for Hector ! " till they were all slain. It is a story which in one respect I confess I do not greatly like. I admire the clans- men ; I am not so sure about the chief. One thinks it would have set him better to die for the children of his race, or with MODEKATORSHIP 89 them, and not to come off with a whole skin from such a battle as that. But the Chief whom we serve cannot be impeached in that way ; and the expenditure of life for Him is not to be always in one brilliant act of sacrifice, but far oftener in the glad surrender of life's hours successively until all the years are full. I have thought a hundred times of trying to preach on that standing text — once, I believe, I did try, and was ashamed of myself afterwards — " Hereby perceive we the love, because He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." We ought — we ought to lay it down — that is the principle for every Christian. I confess I have been again and again fairly paralysed when thinking of preaching on that text. But many Christian lives have in their degree been honest sermons upon it ; and I trust there are young men and young women in the Free Church to-day whose lives are to be fresh sermons on it to the glory of God and to the good of man's estate.' He went on to characterise the distinctive features of great epochs of the Church's history. In the early ages the ruling thought, theologically, was the Incarna- tion, and ethically the question w^as ' the flesh ' and how that might be overcome. Both were carried over to the Middle Ages, but with modifications. These ages were full of the thought of the Church, and along with that arose the impression — ' by many realised with passionate earnestness ' — that all must be sub- sidiary to an inward and outward imitatio Christi. Dr. Rainy — a Scottish Protestant if ever there was one — always had an interesting appreciation of the spiritually sincere element in mediaeval monasticism, and on this occasion he spoke of it thus : — ' In that dark time there were many before whose minds there rose continually the image of One who was perfecth' unworldly — untouched with the world's excitement and eager- 90 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY ness and greed — patient, content to be poor and suffering, gentle, helpful — who had the best right to all the worid's possessions and never used it. I think many of them could not tell very well wherein the great treasure of Christ's soul, His vast possession of good, should be thought to consist ; but the sense of it as something divinely great, something wonderful and unspeakable, was renewed for them continually as that meek and loving face, sublimely free from this world's passions, utterly indifferent to the world's possessions, rose before their minds. To come nearer to the vision they saw, nearer in the temper of their mind and the fashion of their life, seemed to be the best thing. It inspired some with a longing which determined their whole life. It came down on others with strange power in hours of recollection and remorse. Very commonly it involved men in an inextricable difficulty as to the view to be taken about the energies, pursuits, and achieve- ments of earthly life. Hence violent contradictions and oscillations are presented side by side \vith lives of sustained superiority to all the common elements of earthly well-being.' Then came the Reformation with its new apprehension of forgiveness and along with that, as a complete and sure basis of friendship with God, ' the recognition and consecration of every legitimate walk of human life.' In our own day, Christ Himself is most prominent in Christian thought and the historical verification of what He was and said ; while practically, Christianity is tested chiefly by its being able to produce a life that is pure and unselfish and victorious. From these reflections, he turned to appeal, especially to * younger men to whom eminently the future belongs/ and closed with these words : — ' Brethren, aim at doing worthily and achieving much. Ask much and watch for it. Break through the narrow bonds of routine and circumstance and the limits which dwarf our lives and dwarf our work. Let it be the great discovery of MODERATORSHIP 91 your lives to find out in-your own case how those Hmits can be effective!}^ and victoriously broken, and how your services can expand into something worthy and memorable. We celebrate the past, but be assured there is no spell in the past to hinder your surpassing the past. There are attainments to be made in getting nearer to God, and discoveries as to how to get nearer to individual men and classes of men. There is no virtue in a feverish and spasmodic restlessness that hankers after peculiarit}^ and notoriety ; but there is a sacred indepen- dence in conceiving and executing your life work as servants under Christ which is to be cherished and exemplified. Much depends on your not flinching when the moments come which may be the outlets to new and glorious labours, or which may offer to you new clues to be followed out. Find out how to lay Christian hands on the men and the classes that seem to have drawn away from us. Find out how the Churches are to be stirred to more exemplary and fruitful life. ]\Iore love and more pra3'er and more expectant application of mind will find doors opening that at present seem closed. The difficulties in some directions are great, and discouragements depressing ; but " Faith still works her miracles, Though now she works by love." Learn to serve Christ on the great scale, and even, if the scene of your work be narrow or obscure, serve Him on the grand principles which make life strong, noble, and spacious. Never look at any period of the past with a timid or a cringing heart. From the greatest and most impressive of past serxdces and departed servants turn to your own work with the thought — I also, I too, am a servant of Christ Jesus.' Many still remember the ring in Dr. Rainy's voice in these closing words. There were, to the writer's knowledge, in the Assembly Hall that evening strangers who had come merely to see Principal Rainy and hear his address and who were astonished to find that a man whom the}' had thought of merel}' as a political 92 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY ecclesiastic could thrill the audience with the power of his spiritual appeal. Dr. Rain}^ made a great Moderator and, also, he greatly enjoyed his moderatorship — even the honours and pleasures of it. Never was there a man who less sought either honour or pleasure, but it was rather a feature of his healthy nature that when these properly came in his way, he never affected to be above entering into them and enjoying them. His was a nature absolutely free from any kind of morbidness in face of the good of life and yet as unworldly a spirit as ever dwelt under the rule of an ascetic. The moderatorship of the General Assembly is, with many Scottish ecclesiastics, the climax of their career. It was certainly not so with Dr. Rainy. He was now but little over sixty, and the greatest events of his life were still before him ; moreover, his was to be the very exceptional experience of being twice again called to the moderatorial dignity. We may, however, pause for a little at this stage of his career to refer to various more personal and general features of his character and life for which some place must be found in our picture. A few words may first be said of him in his own family. A little incident will indicate the spirit of the home and the Principal's relationship with his wife and children. On one occasion when he was being assailed in the public press with more than usual malignity, a friend said to him that he wondered how he could go on under it so quietly. * Oh, man,' replied the Principal, * I 'm happy at home.' Of course this answer does not give the whole secret of his almost PERSONALIA 93 unequalled serenity of spirit, but it is an interesting part of it. As to what he himself was in his home as a husband and father — that is something it is quite impossible to delineate here. He was so unfailingly strong and so unspeakably tender. It was not so much the particular thing he said or did that his family could tell of, as just himself — his presence in their home and their life ; and that (as one of his daughters put it to me) ' is — is it not ? — what we feel about the Heavenly Father.' Another of his daughters writes : — ' I feel it difficult to write of these things, for I have no words to tell you of them. To us he was just " Father." I suppose most children begin by thinking their father the most wise and strong and tender of beings, and with us that went on to the very end, with an always increasing sense of how unusual such wisdom and strength and tenderness were. For myself, it is to him I owe all my earliest ideas of what the Fatherhood of God might mean. They all came translated to me so inevitably, so securely, through that dear and familiar medium that never once failed me all my life — never once came short of my hopes or my needs. And it was so with us all. I remember how a sister once wrote to me, ' I know you read the thirteenth verse of the 103rd Psalm as I do — ' Like as my Father pitieth his children ' — and that means just ever}'- thing." ' ' One feature of his home life was the extraordinary interest he took in his children's affairs. When they ^ The reader will remember how, in a letter quoted in an earlier chapter (vol. i. p. 24, supra), Miss Christina Rainy tells how her (and the Principal's) mother interpreted for them St. Paul's verse about Charity never failing. I wish to add that both that letter and the one quoted here, were private notes to myself, not written for publication ; but for that very reason I have taken the liberty of using them, feeling that they have a value which a tribute, carefully prepared for the public, could never have. 94 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY were little, he delighted to go with them to buy their toys. As his sons grew older they took in the Boy's Own Paper, and nearly every week they found it, on its arrival, carried off to the study where their father was reading its stories with great relish to debate them later with keen interest. Similarly he would read the fashions in a ladies' journal and discuss these with his wife and daughters. He was fond of reading poetry with and to his family. He joined in young people's games and took the lead in carrying them through with spirit. His letters to his children show the same characteristic. He writes as one interested in what interests them — describes incidents with minute detail, draws plans of the houses he is staying in (adding such comments as * a splendid house for hide-and-seek,') tells stories and so on. He was the very antipodes of a great divine too solemn and too busy to enter into his children's minds. Many of his letters are illustrated with comic sketches — too slight and hasty for repro- duction here, but proof of a charmingly playful spirit. As his children grew up, this comradeship took the form of talking with singular reasonableness about the deeper interests and questions of life. He never preached at them. Even his rebuke, when it was called for, was probably the simple word, said as almost he alone could say it, ' Is it possible you would be unworthy ? '' But he led them to think of life and of religion just by simple and straightforward discussion of it when occasion arose. Here is a sentence deprecat- ing an artificial religion : — ' Sometimes we try, in an artificial way, to put on what we PERSONALIA 95 consider the right moods. But it comes to nothing. We cannot manufacture true religion. It grows and will grow as Christ becomes clear and precious to us — and even a little of it is a very real and living thing.' Here is a word to one of his daughters on card- playing :— ' Card-playing, on the whole, is one of those things about which I think it is as good to be able to say that one does not know how to do it and does not care to learn. It saves trouble and drawing of lines that are sometimes hard to draw. It is a prudential rule, only. For example, if I was staying in a house with an invalid who had few relaxations — could not enjoy reading, for instance — and whose time hung heavily on his hands, I would learn to play that I might help him to an occasional hour's recreation of the kind he could enjoy.' It is not the mere opinion here which is interesting, but the manner of expressing it. With no attempt to dogmatise or tyrannise (as the parents of the day just then passing away so severely did), he leads his daughter's mind to a reasonable and Christian view for itself. Another example of this appeal to the better reason, is in the following passage from a letter written to his daughters at a school abroad, the mistress of which had died and the work of which was being carried on, in these sad circumstances, by her family : — ' In thinking over this, it is strongly impressed on my mind that you both will naturally have a new demand made on your good sense and good feeling. It is one we would have spared you, and yet it may be only good if you are helped to take it naturally and cheerfully. For example, it can hardly be, on any arrangement, but that the Miss C s, or one of them, must take some management and assume some authority. Hitherto, I suppose, you have all associated very much as 96 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY girls on an equal footing. In the future you may have to watch your own spirits more. There may be cases in which things may be said and done which are perfectly necessary and right and yet at the moment they may not seem so to you or the other girls ; or they may seem to give you needless pain and to carry more of an air of authority than you feel it easy to accord to one who is so near your own age. Or, again, there may happen cases in which there really is a sharpness or a touch of imperiousness or a failure of judgment that would be better avoided and which therefore you may be tempted to make an occasion for being independent or troublesome on your side. These things beset us all. Now I am sure you are anxious to promote in every way the comfort of the family after this sore trial. And I am equally sure that, remember- ing how trying it would be for yourselves, to have cares and responsibilities thrown on you by a mother's death and to have to go on with them under all states of body and mind and temper, you must desire to make these duties as easy for the poor girls as you can. Remember, then, it was loving thoughtfulness that made things go on so well under Madame. Now that so much of that has vanished away with her, you must make a large contribution of it from your side. It is not mainly to appear in demonstrativeness. It must be in this way — that your conduct and your influence in the school shall be on the side of making the path smoother for the C s. Pray think much of this, my dear girls. Believe me when I say that efforts of forbearance and self-suppression, which are often difficult at the time, are never regretted after- wards.' Again, in this letter, it is not the mere exhortation which is important, though that shows a remarkable sympathy with a sad situation ; nor is it even the psychology which is interesting, though there is delicate insight into the mind of a girl. But, with these, is the way of putting it which must have affected, not only the following of certain actions, but a real growth in thoughtfulness and magnanimity and PERSONALIA 97 Christian feeling in those to whom he was writing. This is characteristic of many of his letters to his family. Passing from the circle of the family to more general social life, the biographer finds something of a blank. The reason of this is that Principal Rainy's time was so absorbed with his Church work and his family that he had no leisure for society. He was essentially the public man and also essentially the family man ; but he never was, nor tried to be, nor (I imagine) cared to be, the society man. This biography therefore does not contain the small talk and social gossip which occupy — often interestingly if also trivially — the lives of some distinguished figures in Church or State. At the same time, it may be remarked that, when he chose, Principal Rainy could be first-rate company. He could talk with rare ability, point, and humour. He had not so much what is called wit — which, after all, is, as Aristotle says, on the surface — but he had that sense of humour which is often found in the most profoundly thoughtful men. No one more enjoyed a story with salt in it or that revealed human character. And he could tell a good story, though he was never the professional raconteur ; as La Bruyere — a shrewd critic of character — says, and justly, the habit of always telling stories is one of the signs of mediocrity of mind. I shall give only one of Dr. Rainy's, which I think has never been pub- lished. It concerned two saintly fathers of the Dis- ruption — the dignified Dr. Gordon of tlie High Church and the quaint Dr. Bruce of St. Andrew's Church. The two were conducting or had just conducted a joint VOL. II. G 98 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY service, which had been pecuHarly inspiring and upUft- ing. Dr. Gordon, who had a manner almost majestic- ally grave, in hushed solemn tones whispered to the other, * Is not this a foretaste of Paradise ? ' To which Dr. Bruce replied : ' 'Deed, I was jist nippin' mysel' tae mak' sure I wasna oot o' the body/ In the good old days, an Assembly dinner at the Principal's was sometimes a perfect flow of stories such as this. They were dogmatists in those times, but the best of them were thorough humanists too. I have said that Dr. Rainy simply had not time, even if he had had inclination, for general society. The work he did was phenomenal. Besides his professorial work, he had an endless correspondence ; and it must be remembered he had not the professional secretaries which a man in business or politics would have had, burdened as he was. When they grew up, his daughters gave him invaluable loving aid in this. But — a man of magnificent physical constitution — ^he was a tre- mendous worker, often not leaving his desk till four in the morning.^ Yet the curious thing is that he always maintained that his besetting sin was indolence. No doubt he could have been splendidly indolent. One of his sons says that Dr. Rainy most obviously would have found it an easy thing, any morning after break- fast, to linger over the newspaper or take up some light reading, and that it was often with a visible effort of resolution he went off to the study. But then, he always went. ' One may add here that he was always an excellent sleeper. This may seem a trivial thing- ; but I doubt if any man who is not a good sleeper can go through the strain of a long public career with prosperity. PERSONALIA 99 The remark that he did not cultivate much general society must not suggest that his interests were ex- clusively ecclesiastical. Nothing could be further from the fact. It was an astonishing thing to hear him talk of, say, farmers or fishermen or miners, as people whose occupations he thoroughly understood. I do not think it could be said he had particularly developed artistic — or at least musical — sympathies (though he was naturally interested in and proud of his eldest daughter's brilliant musical accomplishments) ; but, with that possible exception, his knowledge was a constant surprise. He read all kinds of books, and, like Dante, 'his eyes saw everything.' Wherever conversation went, even with experts, one felt he had been there. A special secular interest was military strategy. He once told how that had been born in his mind by watching the construction of a fort near where he was spending the holidays, one summer when a boy, and how he had read the subject ever since. An incident which took place during a visit to France illustrates his real knowledge of military subjects. After the battle of Sedan, almost as soon as the field was reopened to the public, he went off to visit it accompanied by Mrs. Rainy. As he was going over the battlefield, dressed (it must be mentioned) in a tweed suit, which doubtless set off to advantage his noticeably athletic figure, he feU in with three young Prussian officers to whom, to their surprise and pleasure, he detailed the whole battle, explaining the positions of the troops and their movements with the manner of one who was familiar with the theme. Next day the three officers, having been invited to 100 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY call on Mrs. Rainy at the hotel, came and found her alone — Dr. Rainy having gone out for a walk ; where- upon they said they were glad to find her alone, as they could more easily ask her a question which they had not ventured to ask her husband, namely, what military position did he hold in the British army ? It gave Mrs. Rainy, who had a delightful humour, infinite pleasure to tell them he was a Professor of Theology in the Scottish Church. They replied with astonishment that they could not have thought it possible that any- one without professional acquaintance with military affairs could have described the battle as he had done.^ The visit to the Continent mentioned in this incident was one of many which Dr. and Mrs. Rainy paid — some of them merely for pleasure, and others on account of her health, which was often far from good. Both had a great love of travel and a great enjoy- ment in nature. Of these journeys, I do not give details here. Perhaps the one which most interested himself was a visit to Rome. He was full of its sights and memories and declared once he should choose to live in Rome. He always cared for great and central things : here was the great theatre of the world's secular history, where had lived great Caesars and great Popes — those men who, with all their faults, had borne not inadequately the tremendous task of governing a world. He went about Rome with unflagging energy, and was, at the same time, the delightful guide of a party chiefly of young people. One of them * This story has Ijeen told in various forms, but the above is an authentic version of it as told by Mrs. Rainy in the Principal's presence. TRAVEL 101 — then a schoolgirl- — still remembers how she was at first oppressed with ' the Scottish respect for all who mount pulpits ' and with the thought of Dr. Rainy's wisdom and learning, but soon found * it was chiefly from that part of the room where Dr. Rainy was sitting that a good story was most surely to be expected or a humorous sally, besides all the many things said of history and art.' I much regret that no letter from Dr. Rainy from Rome seems to be extant. These personalia are few and inadequate ; but the material at the biographer's disposal is scanty. Un- fortunately no one ever boswellised Dr. Rainy. It may be convenient to go on to say here that in the year after his moderatorship, Principal Rainy accepted an invitation to visit Australia. The occasion was the celebration of the Jubilee of the Presbyterian Church in Victoria, to which the home Churches were asked to send delegates. The Established Church of Scotland sent one of her most prominent Edinburgh preachers, the Rev. Dr. James MacGregor of St. Cuthbert's Church, while Principal Rainy was the delegate from the Free Church. The voyage, on which Mrs. Rainy accompanied her husband, was a most happy and successful one. Perhaps the following from one of his letters home is worth quoting as an illustra- tion of Dr. Rainy's ecclesiastical courtesy : — ' There is a Colonial bishop aboard with whom I have got on very well. In fact, he was quite willing to have next Sunday's service non-liturgical, but I would not have that, as I thought the Church of England people should have their regular service on Easter Sunday. However, he has made me preach each service we have had, including Good Friday. There is a non-liturgical service on Sunday evenings at the 102 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY other end of the ship, conducted chiefly by a Baptist minister who is very clear and evangelical.' In another letter he remarks : — ' The usual amusements go on, at which my wife and I are mainly onlookers. There is a good deal of scepticism aboard, but it does not, as yet at least, reach me at first hand. There are some good men, who are more in the smoking-room, from whom I hear. I see very clearly how useful it is to have some decided men who at the same time take an active part in the amusements. But there is generally good feeling and a friendly tone.' On their arrival in Australia — after a record passage — the Principal and Mrs. Rainj^ were received by his cousin, the Hon. James Balfour, one of the members of the Legislative Council of Victoria. There was before him a busy time, but he thoroughly enjoyed it, and declared it was all well worth coming so many thousand miles to be present on so happy and great an occasion. The numerous meetings and receptions, the sessions of the General Assembly of the Church, which he addressed, as well as the sermons he preached, cannot be recounted here. I shall refer to only one of his appearances — ^his speech at the Central Jubilee Festival. The following passage is so characteristic both of the man and of much of his career — much still to be told as well as much that has already been traced — that room may be found for it : — ' This occasion suggests too strongly for me to aUow myself to pass over it, this— what a blessing it is to the Churches when they are visited by large conceptions of what can be attempted and what can be done for the cause and kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is a poor " comer-sneaking " kind of feeling that sometimes visits us as if it was a kind of TRAVEL 103 deliverance to be able to escape the burden of having to meet great conceptions of duty and effort in the Church of Christ. But those are the things that send us through this short pilgrim- age of ours to our graves with a happier, higher sense of what it is to live and follow Christ. What is it that makes the great- ness and happiness of those who, in various times, were called to suffer persecution or endure great trials for the Lord and Master ? It is this — that a great strength came upon them when a great question was asked, and perhaps, in much weak- ness and fear, yet by God's grace, they were enabled to render a faithful answer to it. Why — then the spirit of glory and of God rested upon them, and they became tenfold the men and women they would have been if those trials had not come. And how are we to attain anything worth attaining to in the Christian life and experience unless we try to learn to have our thoughts of what Christ deserves at our hands, and our thoughts of what a man or woman might do and bear for such a Master as Christ. " O Lord, I am Thy servant ; truly I am Thy servant. Thou hast loosened my bonds." Now I wiU sit down b}^ reminding you of what I could not remind you if we were thinking of our Presbyterianism in any desire to magnify ourselves. But we are thinking of ourselves as one of the sisters of the Evangelical Church, and we all desire to regard the other Churches as not behind us, but, if possible, before us. The great blessedness of the Church is this, that Christ lives. People talk of difficulties, infidelity, tempta- tions, and vice, and all the rest of it. The name of Dr. Mackay was mentioned.^ He was sometimes liable to be depressed in spirits, and to groan under the burdens of the public cause. I remember crossing a loch in a boat. Dr. Mackay had come over to us, and we were crossing back, and I remember my dear old father saying to Dr. Macka}', who seemed much depressed in spirits, " Christ liveth." Well, Christ lives, and because He Uves we wiU be thankful for the past, and we wiU not consent that our Christianity and our services shall be confined to the past. We Presbyterians are traditional people. We look a great deal to the past. We are very much ' This is the Rev. Dr. Mackintosh Mackay, a distinguished Free Church minister of the time of the Disruption (and Convener of the Highland Com- mittee), who had also laboured in Victoria. 104 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY accustomed to call strong names out of the storied past to inspire the present, and that 's all very well, but why should we not think that better and greater times for Christ's Church are coming yet than any times she has yet seen ? Why should not we be the men and women whose prayers and devotedness, whose thoughts and desires, should have something to do with bringing that about ? Why not ? For Christ hves and all things are possible to him that believes.' This is but a single sample from one of Principal Rainy's many speeches in Australia. He was, of course, much feted, and his visit was quite a public event. But Dr. Rainy never desired to play the role of the celebrity. After he came home, he told with evident satisfaction how a reporter had come to inter- view him and afterwards had remarked, * Not much in that man.' This was Principal Rainy's first visit to Australia, with which, however, he had close family ties, and these were deepened when, in 1891, his second daughter, Barbara, was married to the Rev. Professor Andrew Harper, D.D., of Ormonde College, Melbourne. Previous to this, it should be mentioned here, his eldest son, Adam Rolland, was in 1887 married to Annabella, second daughter of H. M. Matheson, of 3 Lombard Street, E.G., and Deputy-Lieutenant of Ross-shire. I shall close this chapter, which has necessarily been of a somewhat disjointed character, by referring to a special matter which arose in the year after Dr. Rainy returned from his Australian tour. In 1890 a very serious railway strike broke out in Scotland. For long there had been unrest among the employees of the Scottish companies, whose hours of labour compared RAILWAY STRIKE 105 very unfavourably with those worked on the EngHsh systems. On especially the North British Railway, says a competent and impartial authority, * some of the men were kept on duty for periods altogether be^^ond human endurance.' ^ Meetings of the workers held frequently during the summer culminated in a demand to the directors for a ten-hours' day, payment of overtime at the rate of time and a-quarter, and other concessions. The men asked that these proposals should be submitted to arbitration. The directors declined to deal with them otherwise than in what the managers called * the usual way ' — that is, b}'' each grade of workers sending its representative to meet the Board. The men, whose fear of dismissal was (as any reader of the newspaper reports of their meetings can see) very deep and widespread, still asked arbitration and the directors refused. The Executive of the Scottish Railway Servants' Association recommended a strike and instructed the men to send in their notices for trans- mission to the companies' managers. The Edinburgh and Glasgow men were eager, but the country men responded more slowly. By 7th December, 4173 men had handed in their notices out of some 9000 on the Society's roll. The Executive declared this was not enough. The town men's patience was exhausted, and at a meeting in Glasgow on 21st December, ' a man in the gallery ' moved an immediate strike and this was carried by 660 votes to 81. The decision was telegraphed all over the country, and next day 3000 men were out, the day after 4000, and by Christmas ^ The Scottish Railway Strike ^t/iSqi, by James Mavor, M.A., piofeasor of Political Economy in St. Mungo's College, Glasgow. 106 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY day nearly 9000. The result was chaos. The railway systems of Scotland were paralysed. As days went on, engines rusted, depots remained blocked with goods; some lines were wholly closed. Trade was seriously affected, and workmen depending on getting to their work by train were thrown out of employment in thousands. The public mind was divided : it was widely admitted that the men's grievances were real and had been neglected by the directors too long ; still the sudden act of the strike was a clear breach of con- tract and that alienated the sympathy of a certain class. The fight became keen. The men picketed, and were accused of tr5dng to wreck trains : the companies evicted the strikers' families — it required both police and hussars to do this near Glasgow, for a crowd of 30,000 people gathered — and sued the Railway Servants' Societ}^ for £20,000 for breach of contract. It has been necessary to state these facts, to under- stand Principal Rainy's appearance in the matter. A representative of the men called on the Principal and asked him to preside at a public meeting in Edinburgh. After some inquiry he consented to do so. He made a bold speech. He said he did not undertake to defend every action of the men or the stoppage of work without notice ; still ' it was not the right way to deal with a complex question to fasten on one point.' ' A wise man would look into the heart of this question.' And he held the main question was whether the men had grievances. Then he discussed their hours of labour and denounced twelve or fifteen hours as indefensible. He appealed to shareholders to think ' not only of cheapness, and speed and returns/ RAILWAY STRIKE 107 but ' of the men who worked.' It was, as I say, a bold speech, and — as one who took part m the struggle says — ' focussed the situation and lifted the movement to a position it would never have otherwise attained.' Meanwhile the struggle was being carried on into weeks with great determination on both sides. Mr. John Burns — now a Right Honourable, but in those days described as ' socialist, engineer, agitator and county councillor ' — came down and worked night and day. The Times and other London papers realised the strike was not collapsing, and efforts for mediation were attempted. Mr. Haldane made such an attempt — with a degree of success — and so did the Lord Provost of Edinburgh. Various town councils and public bodies appealed to the directors to agree to arbitration, but the companies — the master mind in whose councils was Mr. John Walker, the manager of the North British Railway, and one of the ablest railway ad- ministrators of his time — refused. Another great citizens' meeting was held in Edinburgh on 17th January, at which Principal Rainy again spoke to an audience of nearly ten thousand persons. He moved a motion approving of a ten-hours' day, and advising that all other questions should be submitted to arbitra- tion. He made a strong speech about hours of labour — ^remarking at one point that working men must have time at home ' to tell their wives thej^ were still their sweethearts ' — and emphatically la3dng ' the first blame ' on the directors who had let things go so far. This meeting requested the Earl of Aberdeen, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, and Principal Rainy to confer with both sides. The Lord Provost declined 108 THE LIFE OF rUlNCIPAL RAINY M to act. After a while the men placed themselves in Lord Aberdeen's hands in the matter, and eventually i a reconciliation was proposed — the men returning to work and the directors withdrawing the action for breach of contract and definitely promising to consider the alleged grievances within a specified time. Lord Aberdeen and Principal Rainy counselled the accept- ance of this proposal, and the men, not without reluct- , ance on the part of some, agreed. The conflict thus ended, having lasted five weeks. Principal Rainy's part in it raised considerable discussion. It will be blamed by those who are unable to get past the point of a minister of religion standing by men who had broken their contracts. Others will agree that it was im- perative to get to the facts of the grievances and wrongs inflicted on the workers. In either view, Dr. Rainy's action shows his boldness and also his real sympathy with labour — a sympathy which was far deeper in his heart than the opportunities of his too crowded ecclesiastical career gave opportunity of expression. It was convenient to refer to this somewhat ex- ceptional incident in Dr. Rainy's life in this chapter rather than in the next, which will deal with a very different class of topics, but we have gone a little too far ahead chronologically and must now return to the narrative of events within the Church from the time of the Principal's Australian visit. CHAPTER XIX THEOLOGIES AND CREEDS THE Assembly of 1889, from which Principal Rainy was absent (being in Australia), did two somewhat important things from which flowed grave consequences with which he had to deal on his return. One was a professorial election. Dr. George Smeaton, professor of New Testament Criticism in the New College, had died. On the vacancy being announced, Henry Drummond, whose name needs surely no introduction to the reader, remarked in his most oracular manner to his friend and minister, Dr. Marcus Dods, of Renfield Church in Glasgow, * Your pre- decessor is dead.' This was not remarkable, but it is remarkable that Principal Rainy at least would have liked to see it come true, though he doubted its possi- bility. Dr. Adam — an able man but not the man for an emergency, being far too much inclined to think that wisdom consists in playing for safety — telegraphed to the Principal about the vacancy, and Dr. Rainy replied : — ' Perhaps I had better refrain from suggestion. The man in our Church who would give an impulse to Biblical studies and who would come among the students with unequalled authority would be Dods. And though he has uttered things that are disturbing, I doubt whether an\^ man could with more powTr protect in the minds of students the essential 110 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY positions against a tendency to indefinite relaxation. But, for many reasons, that might well turn out an impossible proposal ; nor could I myself contemplate it without some sense of risk. If that is out of the question, I do not see any man whose claims equal Salmond's.' The suggested ' impossibility ' of Dr. Dods lay simply in the fact that he was one of the most outspoken representatives of critical liberalism who had frankly disavowed the idea of the inerrancy of Scripture and advocated the broader view of inspiration. His name was pressed by his friends. The election evoked great public attention. To the delight of many and the surprise of aU, the result was the triumphant appoint- ment of Dr. Dods, who at the first vote had an absolute majority of more than a hundred over both the other nominees combined. He was proposed in a speech of exceptional effectiveness by Dr. Walter Ross Taylor — a Glasgow minister whose name has been already mentioned and who was now coming to a prominent place among the leaders of the Church. Unquestion- ably it was a very significant election. For, in appoint- ing Dr. Dods the Church knew what she was doing. He had never made any secret about his views or stated them with any ambiguity. The election did not mean that the Church had adopted these views, but it did mean that she tolerated them and that even in a teacher of her students. This was a notable advance in a Church the majority of which, less than a decade before, had declared that William Robertson Smith must no longer be a professor. A reading of the contemporary press on the election shows that the appointment was clearly viewed in this light. Dr. THEOLOGIES AND CREEDS 111 Dods's first appearance as a professor attracted so great an audience that an adjournment had to be made from the College to the Assembly Hall, and he thus read his lecture from the very Moderator's desk from which Robertson Smith had been admonished. Thus does time bring in its revenges. But time, even when it can revenge, cannot restore ; and the pro- tagonist of critical liberty was now settled in Cambridge and lost for ever to the Church of his birth and his first devotion. When Principal Rainy returned from Austraha, he found that another heresy case was fomenting. A considerable section in the Church never really acquiesced in Dr. Dods's appointment to a chair and on the first opportunity an agitation against him arose. Public meetings to protest against his views were held in Inverness and elsewhere, and Highland Presbyteries overtured the Assembly on the subject. Another professor of not less eminence — Dr. A. B. Bruce of Glasgow College — was attacked at the same time. The heather was set on fire afresh, and by the time that the Assembly of 1890 approached, the ' Highland host ' was in full cry and the alarm of unsound teaching in the Colleges was spread throughout the Church. Professor Dods's first session was spent in an atmo- sphere of such suspicion and amid so much misrepre- sentation and attack that (as I well remember, having been one of his students that 3^ear) he told his class one day that, but for their sympathetic co-operation, he could hardly have gone on. The * Dods-Bruce Case ' does not need to be described in these pages with the care and detail ^^'hich were 112 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY necessary in the case of Robertson Smith. The Assembly by distinct majorities refused to initiate any process against these professors or even to appoint a committee to inquire further into the matter ; but, after declaring the Church's adherence to various cardinal articles of faith, exhorted Dr. Dods and all others concerned to avoid lines of argument and modes of expression which ' wound those that tremble at the Divine Word.' I hardly think that many persons would now describe this deliverance as altogether just. If Dr. Dods or Dr. Bruce needed exhortation, not less did many of their accusers who spread the wildest misrepresentations of their views throughout the Church and did their utmost to stir up, in places peculiarly open to exaggerated and erroneous im- pressions, distrust of the Church's accredited and best professors. But the essential thing was that a process against either Dr. Dods or Dr. Bruce was refused, and thus the Church affirmed the permissibility of a view which did not claim for the Bible that verbal inerrancy which had hitherto been almost universally bound up with the doctrine of Inspiration. Principal Rainy supported the motion above indicated — it was moved by Dr. Adam — ^but it cannot be said that his speeches either in Dr. Dods's case or Dr. Bruce's were among his greater efforts. He was clear as to the line to be taken, and said * that the first clause of the motion, which declared that they found no ground for process, was most important and fundamental,' adding he * would vote for no motion from wliich this was absent.' But the general question of tlie existence in the Biblical record of discrepancies THEOLOGIES AND CREEDS 113 in non-essential details seemed to evoke little interest in his mind. Around him men of the older orthodox school were thundering that the admission of this destroyed a very basis of faith. Dr. Rainy said ' he regarded all these questions about minor difficulties as in a large degree despicable questions, and he refused to concern himself very much as to how they were to be solved.' Personally he held, or was inclined ' to hold,' though he did it ' under difficulties,' and ' he did not feel the difficulties in holding it decreasing,' that they might find, after all, that God had preserved the Scriptures, even in minor matters, from real error. But he refused out and out to identify that view with inspiration itself, and to cast out any man who took another view. He put this thus : — ' Suppose a student were to say to him : "I take the Word of God as my rule of faith and life. I hear the voice of God everywhere in it. I find it assuring me on this point and on that what my Father will have me to be and to do. But, on the whole, looking to what the Scripture seems to me to claim for itself and looking to all the facts, I think it is fairer and truer to say that these human incidents of inaccurac}' in smaller things that are characteristic just of human history have not in all cases been averted more than other human incidents or conditions of human writings " — if they asked him to say to that student, " You are not in a condition to sign the Confession of Faith as a minister of the Free Church," he would not do it. . . . He thought God was calling them to go into council on this matter, and was not calling them to turn one another out of doors in connection with it.' The one question in this matter which did seem to him worthy of serious answer was when men asked where we are to stop if inerrancies are ojice admitted ? On VOL. II. H 114 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY this question — the question where the hne is to be drawn — Principal Rainy said this : — ' God's wa}^ was not ahvaj^s to give them mathematical lines. God had not given them clear mathematical lines about the canon, and yet they found they had surmounted that, and there was no real difficulty about the canon. God had not given them mathematical lines about the text, and that was a great matter of difficulty once, but they had surmounted it and there was no real difficulty about the text. God had not given them a mathematical line about interpretation, and yet honest students of Scripture were, agreed about interpretation — he meant in the main and essential matters.' And in the same way, Dr. Rainy indicated, it might and would be that, even if God had not given mathe- matical lines in the details of the narrative, still * the Bible would prove itself a sufficient guide to honest inquirers.' This was large and wise speaking. Its largeness and wisdom especially from an orthodox leader are the more notable when we remember how at this time Mr. Spurgeon was bewailing the * down-grade ' of theology and Canon Liddon was ' miserable ' ^ over Dr. Gore's critical essay in Lux Mundi. In her decision in this case the orthodox and evan- gelical Free Church of Scotland was taking a notable step in theological progress. She was not so much changing as sifting the doctrine of inspiration. It is true that the standards of the Free Church did not impose a doctrine of verbal inerrancy. The Confession of Faith, indeed, carefully avoids committing itself to any theory of the mode or degree of inspiration. But, unquestionably, the prevalent and, till the days of Robertson Smith, one might almost say the universal * Li/e and Letters of II. P. IJddo7i, p. 367. THEOLOGIES AND CEEEDS 115 view of that subject in the Scottish Church — and indeed in all Churches except those openly rationalistic — was that called plenary inspiration. Now this was ceasing to be even the prevailing view in the Free Church of Scotland. A prominent doctor and professor expressly disclaimed it, and not only was he not prose- cuted but he was retained as a teacher of the Church's ministry. A scholar of the younger generation frankly declared in the Assembly itself that ' for verbal in- errancy he cared not one straw, for it would be worth nothing if it were there and it was not,' ^ and the Assembly only applauded. All this meant a marked change not, I repeat, in the confessional doctrine, but in the actual mind of the Church on the subject. As A. B. Davidson put it in his wicked way, ' Criticism has now percolated down to the lower strata^_of thinking__niindsJ — even tlie- bishops have lieard of it.' " Now the most interesting thing about this change, so far at least as the Free Church was con- cerned, was that it was associated with some of the most powerfully religious men in the Church and was a positive far more than a negative movement. It was not a mere denial of an old view. It was that the old view dropped off in the assertion that Scripture is infallible in its revelation of the salvation of God in Christ. Inspiration is the characteristic not of the text but of the message of the Bible ; and it was men in ^ The Rev. James Uenney, now Professor Denney of Glasgow. - One quotes this with an apology, to a bench which now includes such a critical student as Dr. Gore of Birmingham, who, however, was not a bishop at this date ; but it is an example of the naughty enjoyment which the pure scholar so often has in tilting at dignities when they appear within the territory of learning. 116 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY the Church who were second to none in earnestness about that message who found they * cared not one straw for verbal inerrancy.' ^ It was under influences such as these that the Free Church, gradually and yet with astonishing rapidity, recognised a new view of what the inspiration of the Bible means. The change was not a rationalistic change. It was the reverse of that. And to many, instead of de- throning the Bible, it stamped it more and more with the seal of God as the authority for its saving message. At the same time, a change of view such as I have indicated had many elements of anxiety and difficulty, and no one felt this more than did Principal Rainy. An interesting glimpse of his mind about it is supphed me by Professor D. S. Cairns of Aberdeen (a nephew of Principal Cairns), who in 1892 shared in a conversation when Dr. Rainy was present at Principal Cairns' s house. The subject of criticism came up, and Dr. Rainy declared he was holding his mind open. It was urged that to hold one's mind open on the subject was to hold it open on the infallibility of Scripture as that had been understood, and the question w^as put as to whether the general system of doctrine which had been built upon that theor}/ of Scripture as a basis could be maintained on another. Dr. Rainy said undoubtedly the effect of the removing of the old basis would produce a species of * land-slide ' in many minds regarding characteristic evangelical doctrines, but he believed they would re-emerge. Professor Cairns's further note may be quoted verhaiini : — • It is light to add that a not less earnest 'evanj^elistic' section in the Church were the blrongest in resisting this new view. THEOLOGIES AND CREEDS 117 * In the earlier part of our talk, I remember Dr. Ramy sat speaking easily, in an ample, relaxed (forgive the adjective, but I suppose you remember the kind of thing I mean) fashion like a genial Olympian ; but as the conversation went on, the features seemed to knit together. As he rose to go he turned to me and said, " Perhaps the real meaning of all this unrest, is that the Lord wanted to drive us back upon Himself. That has happened before. And, you know, God never meant it to be an easy thing to believe." ' There was another aspect of the anxiety of this matter regarding the Bible to which Dr. Rainy was peculiarly sensitive. He had the keenest sense of the shock which the new view occasioned in many simple believing minds to whom the plenary inspiration of every word of Scripture had been an unquestioned assumption. And he had further an even stern feeling that those were blameworthy who by any regardlessness of utterance unnecessarily wounded the faith of such. It may be admitted that both Professor Dods and Pro- fessor Bruce were men who made what the ecclesiastical mind calls ' unguarded statements.' Dr. Dods — one of the most absolutely truthful men who ever breathed, and a man incapable of choosing a word for any other reason than that it seemed the true one — spoke about the ' errors ' and ' immoralities ' in the Scripture narrative. Dr. Bruce, who had a Carlylean strain in his rugged nature/ showed at times a brusquerie in dealing even with the most sacred themes wliich was not, but which was easily taken to be, irreverence and which jarred even on those who did not misunderstand ' Bruce, as a young man, was greatly influenced by Carlyle, from whom he learned, as he once said, 'to read the Gospels as a polemic against Pharisaism.' The value and also the inadequacy of this appear in parts of Bruce's writings. 118 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY it. Principal Rainy, along with all his tolerance on the general question, was extraordinarily sensitive to the hurting of tender consciences. I remember his once saying to me of some utterances of one of the professors just named, * He does not realise the sheer pain words like these cause to many of our most believing people ' ; and, as he said it, there crossed his own face a look of ' sheer pain ' such as assuredly he would never have shown for any suffering inflicted on himself. Here surely is real breadth. So many men who pride themselves on their theological hberahty are but one-sided in their sympathy. Here was a man who, on the one hand, resolutely supported the scholar's liberty to criticise with the frankest freedom the structure of the sacred narrative, but who, on the other, really saw and shared the pain such criticism caused in the mind of some simple and perhaps ignorant pious woman who, like Cowper's lace-worker, * just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true.' The decision of the General Assembly not to take action against Professor Dods and Professor Bruce by no means ended the unhappy unrest in the Church. On the contrary, the agitation against unsound doctrine in the Colleges was carried on with great determination and in some quarters with the most reckless inaccurac}^ One or two who posed as leaders of the Highlands busied themselves unremittingly in this crusade, and some most unedifying and painful scenes took place in the Assembly over their methods and misrepresenta- tions. Dr. Begg's death had deprived the party to the left of the Moderator's chair of their one leader ; thereaftiT, half-a-dozen were leaders, and naturally THEOLOGIES AND CREEDS 119 the most pugnacious became the most prominent. The result was that men quite inadequate to the role took it upon themselves to speak for the Highlands. They did not truly represent either its best religion or its more intelligent mind, but they could do no little mischief, and their agitation inoculated deeper than before the poison of suspicion in the north. The Highland problem indeed was, though more limited, acuter than ever. Moreover, it now became aug- mented by a movement in the south on the subject of Creed revision — a movement which was destined to have much significance for the future history of the Free Church of Scotland. To this we now turn. It will have been abundantly apparent from many things that have been narrated in the foregoing pages that a great change had been passing over the theo- logical atmosphere of Scotland. This had not meant — certainly, within the Free Church, it had not meant — a departure from the verities of Catholic faith or even from the main positions of the Calvinistic system of doctrine. But, unquestionably, it did mean a state of mind largely out of touch with that system as formu- lated in the Westminster Confession of Faith — a document which presents Calvinism in what may not unfairly be called a somewhat unevangelical form. The Confession of Faith is dominated — as, it is often forgotten, Calvin's writings are not dominated — by a hard doctrine of predestination stated in a w^ay which does not deny but assuredly does not magnify the love of God to all men and the loving offer of His gospel to the world.^ It was inevitable that this — not to speak * Calvin, in his Insti/ulio, does not introduce Predestination till the close 120 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY of specific statements in the Confession which are hard to accept — should be growingly felt foreign, and even alien, by, not the rationalistic but, on the contrary, the evangelical and missionary sentiment of the Church. The credit of being the first to deal with this question in Scotland rests with the United Presby- terian Church, which as early as 1879 adopted a Declaratory Act asserting with more clearness than the Confession does great evangelical positions. In the Estabhshed Assembly, the matter was frequently discussed and Broad Churchmen like Principal Cunningham of St. Andrews and Professor (later Principal) Story of Glasgow made strong speeches ; but the fetter of State connection unhappily did not give that Church room to do anything in the way of change, and there was no relief except to persuade the mind into the comfortable but (in view of the terms of subscription) the quite indefensible view that it is accepted merely as an ' historical document.' The Free Church was slow to move in the matter, and was indeed taunted for her caution in not taking a step which no outsider questioned she might take. I find the Scotsman assuring her that ' it is one of the advantages of a Free Church that it has absolute power over its own creed,' and that ' while the Established Church must confess they are bound by of his third book, where it comes as a corollary from the discussion of the experience of the work of God in regeneration and sanctification, and there has profound religious truth. In this, his method is superior to, for example, that of Aquinas. It also leaves him able to assert the freest evangel, as he does in his comment on St. John iii. i6, where he says 'The Heavenly Father loves the human race and wishes that they should not perish.' It was the later Calvinistic schoolmen — such as Beza — who distorted this THEOLOGIES AND CREEDS 121 the fetters of the law, the Free Church is not so bound.' ^ The chief restraining influence, discouraging the Free Church from entering on this matter, was — as a letter I am about to quote will show — Principal Rainy himself. The man who formally raised it was Professor Candlish — ^by this time unquestionably the best syste- matic theologian in Scotland, though his modesty con- cealed his great acquirements — who in 1887 brought it up in the Presbytery of Glasgow. On this a Highland Presbytery took fright and sent up an overture to the Assembly calling attention to Professor Candlish's action and utterances as * truly alarming.' This gave an influential and Uberal-minded Edinburgh preacher — Dr. Walter Smith — the chance of making a bold speech in the Assembly, claiming that ' they could not change the Word of God which was from above, but the Confession was from beneath and what the Church had created it could alter too.' This was greeted with applause and with cries of * No ' and * Shocking ! ' It was the year of Principal Rainy's moderatorship, and as he listened he must have felt that here was an issue round which a keen fight would arise. It is perhaps not to be wondered at that, as leader of the Free Church, he was not disposed to expedite the raising of this question. That he was not is apparent from the following letter written to Dr. Adam, of date November 1888 : — ' I presume you are likely to have the question of the Con- fession stirred again in your Presbytery. I should like to know what you are disposed to do at this stage — whether to ^ Scotsman^ 2nd June 1888. These statements are interesting in view of the subsequent great law case and the House of Lords decision thereon. 122 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY think of acceding to a Committee or still to stave it off. If it is brought up in our Presbytery it will be, I imagine, neces- sary for me to say my say with some frankness on the general question. And I should have some difficulty in actively resist- ing a motion for consideration, though I could conceive myself declining to support the movement unless I saw it to be strongly called for in the Church. The difficulties which may beset the handling of the question, if we agree to take it up, are of course most formidable. A committee, no doubt, might go on for a long time without coming to a final report, which would be one way of gaining time. But I have the impression that a very long delay might entail a more extensive change in the end, and that people might be contented with a com- paratively moderate modification if it came soon.' A letter such as this, with its want of conviction and its cautious waiting on events, will easily compare unfavourably in the reader's mind with the frank action taken years before by the United Presbyterian Church or the strong speeches made by Dr. Story and others in the Established Church. Yet, I repeat, Principal Rainy's obvious inclination to postpone rather than press on this matter is most intelligible. His position was entirely different from that of leaders in either of the other Churches. The United Presby- terian Church had no irreconcilable section, and could act with a hope of unanimity which was impossible in the Free Church. The Established Church could take no action, and it is not difficult to speak boldly when only speaking is involved. If Principal Rainy took up the question it meant action, and, in the Free Church, action on this subject meant division. And the Free Church was divided enough. She sorely needed rest. This is not an answer to a demand which, to many minds and consciences, had THEOLOGIES AND CREEDS 123 become a real moral duty for the Church to face ; but it suffices to show why in this matter Principal Rainy had to be pushed rather than took the lead. The question, however, was formally undertaken by the Assembly of 1889, and a committee appointed of which Principal Rainy and Dr. Adam were joint- conveners. The latter died little more than a year after, and on Dr. Rainy fell the task of piloting the matter to an issue, which he did with quite exceptional ability. Three courses were open. The Church might discard the Confession and take or make a new one. Or she might alter the formula — that is, the terms of subscrip- tion to it. Or, thirdly, she might (as the Scottish Church had done in 1647 when the Westminster Confession was first adopted) pass a Declaratory Act regarding any particular parts of it or regarding her view of it as a whole. The first of these methods is obviously the thorough one, but the Church was not prepared to take so great a step, nor were the times favourable for the framing of a new Confession. More- over, I think Dr. Rainy had always the feeling that this should be done not by an individual Church but with a consensus of Evangelical Churches. The second method is the least satisfactory of all : the devising of a new formula has no really religious or educative value and easily becomes httle more than a plan by which men may subscribe something and yet not believe it. It also was put aside. The third course was the one adopted, as it had been in the United Presbyterian Church and also — in 1846 — in the Free Church herself. 124 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY The preparation of the Declaratory Act was under- taken with great care. Office-bearers throughout the Church were invited to indicate topics with which it might deal. Learned investigation was made into the confessional statements of other Churches — ^non- Presbyterian as well as Presbyterian. The proceed- ings of the Committee were remarkably harmonious and, at the Assembly of 1891, Principal Rainy was able to bring up the following as the Act proposed to be adopted. Both on account of its real excellence of statement and because it was destined to play an important part in the subsequent historical issues, it should be quoted at length. It runs as follows : — ' Whereas it is expedient to remove difficulties and scruples which have been felt by some in reference to the declaration of belief required from persons who receive licence or are ad- mitted to office in this Church, the General Assembly, with consent of Presbyteries, declare as follows : — ' That, in holding and teaching, according to the Confession, the divine purpose of grace towards those who are saved, and the execution of that purpose in time, this Church most earn- estly proclaims, as standing in the forefront of the revelation of Grace, the love of God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — to sinners of mankind, manifested especially in the Father's gift of the Son to be the Saviour of the world, in the coming of the Son to offer Himself a propitiation for sin, and in the striving of the Holy Spirit with men to bring them to repentance. ' That this Church also holds that all who hear the Gospel are warranted and required to believe to the saving of their souls ; and that in the case of such as do not believe, but perish in their sins, the issue is due to their own rejection of the Gospel call. That this Church does not teach, and does not regard the Confession as teaching, the fore-ordination of men to death irrespective of their own sin. ' That it is the duty of those who believe, and one end of their calling by God, to make known the Gospel to all men THEOLOGIES AND CREEDS 125 everywhere for the obedience of faith. And that while the Gospel is the ordinary means of salvation for those to whom it is made known, yet it does not follow, nor is the Confession to be held as teaching, that any who die in infancy are lost, or that God may not extend His mercy, for Christ's sake, and by His Holy Spirit, to those who are beyond the reach of these means, as it may seem good to Him, according to the riches of His grace. ' That, in holding and teaching, according to the Confession of Faith, the corruption of man's whole nature as fallen, this Church also maintains that there remain tokens of his great- ness as created in the image of God ; that he possesses a knowledge of God and of duty ; that he is responsible for compliance with the moral law and with the Gospel ; and that, although unable without the aid of the Holy Spirit to return to God, he is yet capable of affections and actions which in themselves are virtuous and praiseworthy. ' That this Church disclaims intolerant or persecuting prin- ciples, and does not consider her office-bearers, in subscribing the Confession, committed to any principles inconsistent with liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment. ' That while diversity of opinion is recognised in this Church on such points in the Confession as do not enter into the substance of the Reformed Faith therein set forth, the Church retains full authority to determine, in any case which may arise, what points fall within this description, and thus to guard against any abuse of this liberty to the detriment of sound doctrine, or to the injury of her unity and peace.' In moving that this Act be adopted and sent down to Presbyteries for consent — a form of procedure to be explained presently, Principal Rainy made a long and a great theological speech. I have already said that the question raised in the Dods case about inerrancies in Scripture did not seem deeply to interest him. But the question of a Church adjusting herself to her historic theology in the light of the intellectual and religious developmicnts of the day did interest him. 126 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY He had not welcomed the raising of it, but when it was raised, it engaged his mind with genuine attention. His speech I can only glance at here. He began by briefly saying, as to the right and duty of Creed revision, that they must not allow Confessions * to become bonds of slavery ' or * to occupy the place that belonged to the Word of God alone.' Then, after explaining why the method of a Declaratory Act was the one adopted, he commented on the various theo- logical matters in the proposed Act. Speaking, for example, of the mystery of predestination and freedom, he confessed he could not explain it and ' did not know if it would be good for him if he could,' and he added this : — ' It seemed to him that one of the great mistakes of some of their German friends in their theology was that they seemed to imagine they could construe God. They could not construe God. They could only look up to Him and receive His revela- tion.' Passing to the paragraph which refers to human de- pravity — a doctrine very strongly stated in the Con- fession of Faith — he said ' their theology would be very greatly damaged if it were not associated with a full re- cognition of facts,' and that in the circumstances of the seventeenth century, when the Westminster Confession was framed, there was, for various historical reasons, a ' sparingness and timidity ' in recognising ' elements in human nature which reminded them of its original L greatness.' He went on to give two of the historical examples with which he so often illustrated a dis- cussion : — ' He did not know any thought that went through the THEOLOGIES AND CREEDS 127 Pensees of Pascal ^ more than this — you understand Chris- tianity only if you realise together the greatness and the mean- ness of man, that it is his grandeur and his fall together that bring out to you what Christianity really means and what it proceeds upon. He would mention to them another name — that of Thomas Chalmers. It was the great element in Chalmers's preaching that, in contrast with a certain sparing- ness and theological timidity on that subject, he filled many of his sermons with a singularly full recognition of what might be regarded as honourable and virtuous and praiseworthy about " men of the world," as he said, and made that the basis upon which he carried with the extraordinary rush of his elo- quence an irresistible indictment against those same men with reference to their Saviour, with reference to what they owed to God and what they owed to the higher interests of their own souls and the interest of the souls of others — pointing out that a man might be the very soul of honour as a man among men ' in reference to the ordinary interests of time, and yet wonder- fully mean and base in his behaviour towards God and in his attitude towards the higher interests of his own soul and the interests of the souls of others.' These are but passages of a speech of great interest and weight. The discussior. was largely occupied with the op- position of the extreme left in the Assembty. They began, as in the old anti-union debates Dr. Begg had done, by reading a protest. Violent speeches were made against the Act in the name of the High- lands. Principal Rainy, in his reply, declined to take these self-constituted leaders as representative of the Highlands. Of one — who had been particularly con- spicuous in agitating against the Church's professors — the Principal quietly said : — ^ I may mention here that Pascal was a favourite author of Dr. Rainy's. His lecture on him in the Church History class was one of the most interest- ing in all his course. 128 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY ' Mr. spoke as the representative of the north of the •Grampians. He (Dr. Rainy) did not take him in that char- acter at all. When he thought of the Highlands he thought of something vague, grand, mysterious, multitudinous ; when he thought of Mr. ■ , he thought merely of a very worthy brother minister with an active mind and who, as he (Dr. Rainy) thought, indulged an unreasonably suspicious temper.' The motion to adopt the Act and send it down to Presbyteries was carried by the large majority of 428 to 66. A number in the minority strongly dissented. The Act, however, was not yet passed into law. One of the wisest provisions of the Presbyterian government of the Church of Scotland is what is called the Barrier Act. This Act — which dates from the seventeenth century — provides that any measure affecting the constitution or creed of the Church must, before becoming law, first be approved by one Assembly, then be sent down to Synods and Presby- teries and concurred in by a majority of these, and, when this concurrence has been obtained, approved finally by another Assembly.^ This valuable con- stitutional safeguard practically takes away the peril which might accrue from the single-chambered government of the Assembly. Under this operation the Declaratory Act was * sent down ' and was approved by a large majority of the subordinate courts. At the Assembly of 1892 it was finally adopted. Principal Rainy made another massive speech, and there was again vehement opposition from the minority. ' Politicians may find it profitable to reflect that, if our parliamentary con- stitution were modelled on a Presbyterian system of government, the two outstanding problems of devolution and a revising chamber would be safely solved. THEOLOGIES AND CREEDS 129 In consequence of the adoption of this measure, two ministers seceded from the Free Church, taking with them a few office-bearers and a considerable body of people.^ They expected a far larger ministerial following, and had a right to do so. One has more respect for these two ministers and their associates than for those who had used the most violent language, and had led their people to the brink of secession and then, at the last moment, themselves drew back. It is incredible to what lengths of denunciation of the Church and of the Declaratory Act some of these agitators had gone. In pamphlets and leaflets and in speeches innumerable, the Church was represented as having given up both the Confession and the Bible and as countenancing the wildest and even the vilest heresies. In particular. Principal Rainy — ' Black Rainy ' — was denounced as a traitor to the truth, and as the man most responsible for the * apostasy ' of the Church. I forbear from quoting examples of the violent and virulent denunciatory language used by men — sometimes even amid the sacredness of a communion season — because it is too pitiable to merit anything but oblivion. But certainly it was language which incited an impressionable and uninformed people to shake the dust of the Free Church off their feet if this ' vile Act ' were passed. Those who did thus cast off her dust are entitled to more consideration than those who pointed out the way but did not themselves take it. The seceders were by no means the worst disposed of the alienated section of the Church. 1 The total loss to the Free Church (members and adherents) was stated to be four thousand. VOL. II. - '' • ' I 130 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Those who really shared their views but remained in the Free Church continued hardly of it. They were treated by Principal Rainy and the Assembly with entire fairness, but it was not easy to show conciliation towards some of them. When it came to men inti- mating that they would not ordain those who availed themselves of the Declaratory Act — that is, who viewed the Confession as the Church had constitutionally resolved to view it — then Principal Rainy justly said that ' our sole anxiety on this side is to see that our friends do not oppress other people.' And when it was denied that the Church could pass any such Act at all, he cast compromise away, for this, he said, is ' raising a life question in the Church ' and ' a funda- mental right of Christian Churches.' He meant, of course, the right of a living Church to articulate her living faith in obedience only to the living Spirit of her Head as He might instruct her. ' Our right to do it,' said the Principal, * is denied : we are asked at the bidding of our friends to forgo that right.' He paused a moment and then said, in significant tones, ' I hope we shall remember the admonition, " Ye are bought with a price, be ye not the servants of men." ' A word like that alwa^^s stirred the Assembly : it was the old plea of the historic Church of Scotland. How Dr. Rainy and the Church did remember it, not merely on that occasion, but at the far more testing time when they were asked to surrender it at the bidding of the highest court of law and with the loss of all their property threatening them, is part of the story tjiat still hes before us. The Dods-Bruce case and the Declaratory Act THEOLOGIES AND CREEDS 131 clearly indicate Principal Rainy's relation to the movements of liberal religious thought of the time within the Church in so far as he considered that to be legitimate and consistent with Apostolic faith. A year or two later he made a notable appearance in defence of the faith against what seemed to him rationalistic liberalism. There exists in each of the four Universities of Scotland an endowment called the Gifford f9undation, the deed of which establishes a lectureship to discuss Theism on grounds of Natural Religion, excluding arguments from Supernatural Revelation. The lectureship can hardly be described as having proved a brilliant success and, while it has been held by several distinguished men, the number of volumes — the lectures are subsequently published — of any permanent interest is notably few. The prospect to the end of time of four men perambulating round this limited area is somewhat fatiguing. At least one lecturer, however, created a lively and indeed sensational interest in his course. In the winter session of 1893-4, the appointment in the University of Edinburgh was held by the late Dr. Otto Pfleiderer of Berlin. Pfleiderer's theological and philosophical standpoint is well known to all students, and it was perhaps not unnatural that, finding himself in the position he did, he should give full expression to his views in his lectures. These lectures consisted largely of an attack on the supernatural element of the Chris- tianity of the New Testament. They were character- ised, it is not necessary to say, by the hterary sparkle and also the religious appreciativeness which are to be found in all Pfleiderer's work. 132 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY This raised, in the opinion of Principal Rainy and many others, a somewhat grave question — whether, namel}^ a conspicuous and highly paid lectureship at all the Scottish Universities, which cannot be used to argue for the Christian faith as that is believed among the Churches, is to be used to argue systematically against it. Dr. Rainy very justly doubted if that was Lord Gifford's intention- in bestowing the foundation. At any rate, if Dr. Pfleiderer was within his rights in making such an attack on supernatural Christianity, the Churches were not only within their rights in meeting it but were bound to do so. And within a week of the German philosopher's closing prelection, a course of three lectures was begun in reply. These were delivered by Principal Rainy, Professor Orr (of the United Presbyterian Church), and Professor Marcus Dods.^ All three were able lectures, but it is only with the first that we are concerned here. It is deserving of some record. Principal Rainy always excelled when he felt, so to speak, ' called out.' His lecture on this occasion was one of the most characteristic and effective appearances in his life. The opening portion of his lecture — which, it need not be said, always refers to Dr. Pfleiderer with the utmost fairness and even appreciation — is a remarkably just summary of his opponent's position ; and in speaking of the justness with which this is done, I may mention that I know that, before writing it, Dr. Rainy was at pains to read every book Dr. Pfleiderer had ' Professor Chartcris of the Established Church was prevented, by ill health, from taking part in the course. He presided at Principal Kainy's lecture. The lectures are published under the title ot The Siipefnatiiral in Christianity (T. and T. Clark^. THEOLOGIES AND CREEDS 133 written. That position is a * revised Hegelianism ' which brings Christianity, as everything else, under certain general principles of development — principles that exclude the supernatural. Yet, in it all, the critic is most anxious to make the most of Christianity and particularly of Christ. The result is what has been seen before, and Principal Rainy stated it thus : — ' Men start with theories that lead to negative conclusions. But if they are at the same time at all desirous to do justice to Christianity and to Christ, the object that rises before them begins to overpower them. Schleiermacher refused to admit the supernatural. And yet the Christ of his system is really supernatural to all intents and purposes, and brings an ele- ment of the supernatural w^ith Him whenever He comes. And Pfleiderer (who will not think I do him injustice when I say that nobody would put him in the same rank with Schleiermacher), after laying down his thesis that Christ is not and could not be more than a remarkable religious genius, marking a most memorable stage in the history of human thought and action — from which one must conclude that not the man but the principles which He illustrated and signalised make the essential and permanent worth of Christianity — when he goes on to his theology, is found calmly laying down careful statements of the offices of Christ — Prophet, Priest and King — and of His redemption, satisfaction, substitution, and so on. Of course, all these are carefully explained and qualified so as to retain only a certain vague impressiveness. But why, on his principles, are they there at all ? Because Christ is so strong. He must be allowed to fill the religion which He founded.' Then the Principal, after discussing at some length and with appreciation the viewing of the world and all in its history under general principles of development, came to the alleged incongruity with this of any super- natural. He stated the question thus : — 134 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY ' A system of the world which is to proceed mainly by develop- ment and growth ought not to be interfered with by an Incarna- tion and by a revealing process leading up to an Incarnation : that, Dr. Pfleiderer says, is to undo the scheme of thought from the bottom. We are here, then, in presence of the ques- tion whether a worthy conception of the world can embrace the Biblical conception of the Incarnation.' The answer, Principal Rainy said, depends on the ends which God — whose personal character was not questioned by Pfleiderer — may provide for in His relation to men. And here came the following striking passage : — ' Is it beyond belief that it might be in the design of God to make a worthy manifestation of Himself which should be personal — that is to say, should vividly bring out God in the unity and concentration which belongs to personality with intellectual and moral features, with personal mind and will ? That might not be well, unless it were accompanied and prepared by the great impression of the order of the world. And yet this last also might surely be defective if it stood alone. For in it God is manifested, as it were, on im- personal lines ; and even if reason and conscience augur a personality behind the veil, it is vaguely and with an unsatis- fied sense of distance and dimness and doubt. Certainly, also, this is what the human heart has craved for, when mythic fancies gave way before the advance of thought or imder the strain of suffering, and when man felt himself face to face with the inexorable movement of the mighty world. " O that I could find Thee ! " If God is in some high and intense sense personal — in possession of His own thought and character and will — is there no need that somehow at some stage His revelation should take personal character ? And if so, let us not deceive ourselves. Personality expresses itself not by eternal processes but by individual words and deeds. If there be personality in God at all, it means that He who is behind me and beneath me and above me, who besets me everywhere, who is in all nature — the source of forces, the THEOLOGIES AND CREEDS 135 measure of law, the orderer of events — can also, can, as Person with person, stand face to face with me on the platform of His own world to speak and to be answered. But can He do it worthily ? Can He do it so as to complete, without fatally perplexing, the manifestation of Himself ? I point for answer to Jesus Christ. Through Jewish religion, which developed in singular combination the consciousness of God's majesty \ with that of His watchfulness over men, we reach Jesus Christ. \Whatever view you take of the theology of His Person, no doubt His own religion gave Him out as the singular manifesta- tion and expression of God. And, no doubt of it, it is this that has decisively carried home to human minds the impres- sion of the Divine personality, associated with worthy impres- sions of His mind and will. Has it done wrong to the mani- festation of God given through the great universe in which He is immanent, working evermore ? Do we not rather feel that this form of lowly and gracious manhood enables us to harmonise both sides of the manifestation, each enriching each ? True, many a Christian has halted in one-sided thoughts of God : all our thoughts of God come short. Nevertheless, the manifestation itself is worthy in its completeness. It would be incomplete without the presence which confronts each of us in the pages of the Gospel. For in some world — here or hereafter — I, the personal man, rightly desire to find the personal God. In some world : but why not in this world ? ' This is not less than a classical statement of the place of the Supernatural in Divine Revelation. It led the lecturer to refer to the Christian miracles. And here he admitted that ' modern prejudice is strong, I will grant not unnaturally strong,' for ' men had been notoriously prone to assert rashly and believe greedily in this department.' Whole categories of the marvel- lous, some of it non-Christian and much of it Christian, ' bear on their face,' he said (in an admirable phrase), * the stamp of outlaws of reason.' Yet he maintained the supernatural view of Christ and His works to be 136 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY a congruous and needed element. He agreed with Pfleiderer, as with Martineau, that the inward spiritual witness is the true revelation. Still this is by no means always clear and conclusive. How do I know I am not misled by my own feelings and confusing God's revelation with my own way of thinking ? It is here, said Principal Rainy, ' that the concurrence of the outward and the inward has a peculiar effect of assur- ance.' * The divine within me and the non-divine are inextricably mixed, perhaps ; but the finger of God without is wholly independent of me.' This is not a substitute for inward spiritual perception ; but it is a fit corroboration of it to witness that a man is not deceiving himself with some fond subjective im- pressions. The general thought of the lecture — of which the above is but a most fragmentary indication — is to assert that Christianity is not merely a system of ideas, but a wonderful history. The power of Christianity lay in what God had done — done on the plane of the world's history — to reveal Himself and to save man. Principal Rainy did not understand how some men easily consented to forgo all that for a Christianity of merely philosophical ideas. As he says in his lecture on Pfleiderer in summing up the matter : — ' On that view, there is no interruption of the silence of God. He is present — on reflection He may be presumed to be present — but there is no movement save the even thrill of His great existence for ever on the spiritual natures in contact with it ; no incarnation, no atonement, no great promises, no covenant ordered in all things and sure. Not on these terms did Chris- tianity conceive its message. Not under these conditions did the great sayings lill with their immortal meaning : " Hereby THEOLOGIES AND CREEDS 137 perceive we the love of God." " We have beheved the love that God hath towards us. God is love." ' Or, as I remember him once putting it to myself in conversation more simply : ' Ideas and ideals do not manifest the love of God to men — only what God has done shows that.' Here is something Dr. Rainy held and taught with great insistence. To him Christianity was an historical as well as a spiritual faith, and these two aspects of it, far from making ' a cleft ' — as T. H. Green said of it' — embrace and interlock. So long as criticism was a matter of the mere details of a narrative, he cared little about it, as we have seen ; but when it came to a discarding of the need of history at all, he felt the issue was vital. His strong adherence to historical Christianit}- was one of the most character- istic features of his religious position, and that is why I have referred to this lecture in reply to Pfleiderer's assault on it at such considerable length. It is not inappropriate to close this chapter by recording that in the very month in which the lecture was delivered, one whose name can never be forgotten — least of all in the Scottish Church — in connection with the liberal movement in criticism and theology during the latter part of last centur}^ passed away. William Robertson Smith died on 31st March 1894, in his forty-eighth year. Wellhausen called him ' the cleverest man in Britain ' ; and probably he was. Nearly thirteen years had passed since the tragic issue of his great struggle in the courts of the Church, and he ' Vide Address on Faith {IVor^s, iii. 259 scjg.). Principal Rainy once described Green's version of Christianity as 'Christianity under an air- pump.' 138 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY had become editor of the EncydopcBdia Britannica, and Lord Almoner's Professor of Arabic and also University Librarian in Cambridge. But the excitement of that prolonged controversy had told heavily upon him, and he was never quite the same man after it. Now his too soon exhausted body was at rest, and — to quote the finely conceived words of Mark Pattison on the death of Scaliger (which, if not literally justified of this wonderful nineteenth-century scholar, are surely in spirit appropriate to him) — * the most richly stored intellect which ever spent itself in acquiring knowledge was in the presence of the Omniscient.' ^ ' Essays of Mcwk Pattison^ edited by H. Nettleship, i. 195 CHAPTER XX THE SITUATION FIFTY YEARS AFTER ' T~^ RTY-THREE was the year of the Disruption — X it has become superfluous in Scotland to specify the century, so deep is the deed engraven in the national history- — and in the Assembly of 1893 the Free Church celebrated the jubilee of an event the heroism of which had shone all through the years, but the profound and far-reaching effect of which was now realised as it could not be at the time. The founding of the Church of Scotland Free had proved to be at once one of the most conspicuous and one of the most influential acts of faith in modern history. The celebration of the jubilee was attended, by delegates from a world-wide area of evangelical Christendom, and, in this aspect, was the most notable exhibition of the unity of the one Lord, one faith and one baptism which Scotland had witnessed for long. And, while the gatherings were happily preserved from being a mere glorification of the past, it was a new revelation of what the Dis- ruption had meant to hear how its spiritual witness and impulse had reached far beyond the small land of its happening, and how in England and the Continent and the Colonies and America and the mission field, it had inspired faith and quickened conscience and aided liberty. There are aspects of the Disruption, as there 140 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY are of all human deeds, which it is easy to criticise. But you never truly judge a great act by merely fastening on its debatable points. You never fully judge a great act till you realise what would be the case if, whatever its imperfections, it had not been done. If the men of ' Forty-three ' had not done their great deed, then, not only would the Church of Scotland have finally consented to surrender her historic claim of freedom of conscience in spiritual matters, and not only would the many reforms, other than ecclesiastical, which, directly or indirectly, have flowed from their great sacrifice for liberty, have been lost or at least postponed, but — it is no exaggeration to say it, for it was the meaning of the world-wide tribute which was paid to the Free Church on the occasion of this jubilee — the religious life of evangelical Christendom would have been the poorer. The event, like all events done by men, had its human frailties ; but the years abund- antly manifested how it had ' fallen out to the further- ance of the Gospel.' The numerous testimonies thus borne to the his- torical and spiritual interest of the Disruption can- not be quoted here. But I shall find space for one of peculiar interest. The following letter was sent to the Moderator of the Assembly — who was Dr. Walter Smith — by the Prime Minister ^ : — ' lo Downing Street, Whitehall, May i8///, 1893. ' Very Rev. and Dear Sir, — I had just been reading in a paper of this morning a friendly notice of your approaching 1 This letter is published here in full for the fust time. Absurd rumours got abroad at the time as to the contents of the first and last paragraphs which the Moderator, in reading the letter to the Assembly, omitted. TTTE STTUATFON FIFTY YEAES AFTET^ 141 Assembly and was preparing almost at once to quit London, when I learned that a direct notice of the occasion from myself, on which I could not have ventured without encouragement, would not be regarded as presumptuous and would even be acceptable. The original Disruption (for this and not Seces- sion is, I think, the just appellation) in 1843, with the circum- stances of the preceding decade, are still fresh in my recollec- tion, and have at all times been regarded by me with Uvely and sympathising interest. ' I am not personally associated with the Presbyterian Churches, but I conceive it to be historically true that the distinguished leaders of the Free Church movement, some of whom I have had the honour to call friends, were, in the course they followed half a century ago, the genuine representatives of the spirit of the Scottish Reformation. ' It is yet more important, and is, I think, wholly beyond dispute, that the procession of May i8th, when it set out from the Assembly Hall, and when its members gave up their temporal goods and expectations for the sake of conscience, exhibited a noble and heart-stirring spectacle, of which the glory belongs, in the first instance, to themselves and forms a precious inheritance for the Free Church, but which was entitled to excite and which did excite the cordial and even enthusiastic admiration of Christendom. It was indeed justly felt that mankind, and especially Christian mankind, were the better for such an example. ' There were other remarkable features of the movement which weU deserve commemoration, but which are almost wholly eclipsed by its moral brightness. Truly notable was the statesmanship with which the whole controversy was con- ducted. And then came the extraordinary financial skill which presided over the new arrangements. I have always understood that this was mainly the skill of Dr. Chalmers. If this be so, it is to me a matter of special inter4?st, for, about the years 1833-6, I had the honour of some personal intercourse with that admirable man, which afforded me some particular opportunities of appreciating his absolute indifference, and I think almost contempt, for matters of pecimiary interest in which he was immediately concerned. ' I trust it may please God that the high qualities which 142 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY marked the inception of the Free Church may perpetually abound within its borders. ' It is highly agreeable to me to address these remarks to one of its most distinguished representatives. — And I remain. Very Reverend and Dear Sir, truly and faithfully yours, ' W. E. Gladstone.' So keen and sometimes suspicious is political and ecclesiastical party feeling that this letter provoked sneers from some of Mr. Gladstone's opponents — even the late Duke of Argyll sending a column of criticism to the press commenting on it as a mere ' buttering ' of the Premier's Free Church supporters in the hope of further support to come. To this the Moderator sufficiently replied when he said that ' a Prime Minister, whether Liberal or Conservative, writing in the spirit of that letter, may always reckon on our responding with the charity that thinketh no evil.' It is not within our biographical purpose to give an account of the Jubilee Assembly, which was carried through with undisguised enthusiasm. Whatever lessons the Free Church may have had to learn and whatever discipline she may have had to receive — and her history, as the reader knows, had not been an easy path — she was certainly under no temptation either to be ashamed of the deed of her fathers or to turn back from the way into which they had led her. Dr. Walter Smith, whose recognised culture and catho- licity made him one who could never be the mouth- piece of mere sectarian stubbornness, expressed the mind of the Church of 1893 truly in these words in one of his addresses as Moderator : — ' Time has not brought us repentance : it has only increased our resolution. We still believe that our contention was right, THE SITUATION FIFTY YEARS AFTER 143 and that the judgments against it were wrong, having neither statute nor precedent to justify them, but only the logic of a mistaken metaphysic borrowed from the armoury of Hobbes, who fashioned weapons expressly for the service of tyrannical power. We still hold, also, that the State committed a grievous mistake in declining to redress our grievances and refusing our Claim of Right — a mistake which of late years she has practi- cally acknowledged by granting largely to others what she refused to us. We have not drawn back one hairsbreadth from the position we maintained at the Disruption. But we cheerfully recognise the Divine wisdom in ordering events as they were then ordered, and we frankly accept the position of Disestablishment then imposed upon us by the High Court of Parliament and now known by us to be in every way the best. Statesmen and publicists have no right to complain because we have accepted the position they compelled us to take, and which our experience heartily approves both for ourselves and for others. It has enlarged the heart of the Church ; it has discovered and developed her strength ; it has delivered her from the long quarrel of centuries ; and, finally, it has drawn closer to her the other Evangelical Churches of Christendom on whom the spiritual life of the world so largely depends, and who have done so much also, in their several countries, for the cause of freedom and of righteous- ness.' These words expressed the almost universal sentiment in the generation of the Free Church which had grown up since the Disruption. 'A generation had arisen which knew not Joseph,' and perhaps it was not intense- ly engrossed over every phase of the old controversy ; certainly it had laid aside the old bitterness. But the new generation was absolutely confident that it was a good thing rehgiously for the Church to have been delivered from her State connection and to remain so. This did not mean any adoption of abstract voluntary ism, but it did mean practicalh^ that, after fift\^ years' 144 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY experience — and fifty years with many troubles — the Free Church had not a thought of returning either to the existing Estabhshment or (leaving out of account a small minority) any establishment at all. Of the relation of this to the logic of the Disruption position, the Moderator again admirably expressed the Church's mind in such words as the following : — ' Experience, which is the great corrective of mere logic, has been teaching us as it taught those who took the same step before us. When Moses first appeared before Pharaoh, aU he asked was that the people might be allowed to go a three days' journey into the desert that they might offer to the Lord those sacrifices which it was not lawful to offer in £gypt, where bulls and goats were not sacrifices but deities. There was no sort of deception in that request. Moses, you may be very certain, honestly meant to return as soon as the religious rites had been performed. But when Israel had left Goshen, the very first word that God said to His servant was, " Speak to the children of Israel that the}^ go forward." Nulla vestigia retrorsiim. Their way lay onward if they were to realise the great history and the noble destiny to which they had been appointed. So was it with the old Hebrews, and so it has been with all the various secessions from the Scottish Church. One and all of them forsook the national Establishment, fully persuaded that such an institution was scriptural and right, honestly meaning, also, to return to it as soon as it came back to the better ways of our forefathers. But with the exception of a small body, which again left with us at the Disruption, not one of them has taken the step which they all hoped one day to take. For, to them also the word came, " Speak to the people that they go forward." Practically, they all discovered that it was best for the spiritual health of the Church to rely simply on the forces of spiritual life within itself to provide what is necessary for doing its proper spiritual work. None of them formulated a doctrine on the subject. They just learned from experience that this was best for the Church, and that they could not go back to a system which led them THE SITUATION FIFTY YEARS AFTER 145 to rely on something else than the conscience of Christian duty. That lesson has been impressed on us by our experience too.' These extracts from another speaker may seem out of place in the biography of Principal Rainy, but I give them because it was universally felt that the Moderator of the Jubilee Assembl}^ in his addresses, gave ex- pression to the mind of the Church with exceptional accuracy and felicity — a fact which Principal Rainy emphatically recognised when (as has been mentioned in an early chapter) he said the Assembly would long be remembered not only as the Jubilee Assembly, but ' not less affectionately as the Assembly of Dr. Walter Chalmers Smith.' Principal Rainy himself rather kept in the back- ground during the jubilee celebrations, but he received a great ovation — the vast audience upstanding and cheering enthusiastically — when, as leader of the House, he rose to move a vote of thanks to the dele- gates from other Churches, which he did in a short and purely religious speech, containing not a word of laudation of the past, but only thankfulness to God * Who had been answering many prayers.' Subse- quently he had a similar but yet distinct and more delicate task to perform. The onty important Presbyterian Church in the world which did not send delegates to this Jubilee Assembly was the Established Church of Scotland. This is not said by way of reproach ; on the contrary, the relation of the Church that * stayed in ' at 1843 to the commemoration, amid so much laudation, of the act of those who ' came out ' was obviously a delicate one. It was openly VOL. II. K 146 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY stated that a section of the Estabhshed Church desired that she should take no notice of the commemoration, but other counsels prevailed, and at length a motion recognising the heroism of the actors in the Disruption and expressing Christian goodwill for the spiritual welfare of the Free Church was unanimously adopted by the Established Church Assembly. The speaking in support of the motion was in some cases not with- out restraint, but Principal Rainy, referring to that, said he respected it as meaning ' a desire to be perfectly frank and true.' The motion passed in the Established Church Assembly was not transmitted to the Free Church, but this omission did not keep Dr. Rainy from taking hold of it and acknowledging it. The reply was felicitous. It was interesting to see how, into a situation in which other men had spoken with an obvious touch of effort and embarrassment, he entered easily and effectively. In a friendly, though brief, speech he spoke of the * warm Christian friend- ship often shown towards himself by Christian men and women of the Established Church,' and of the ' Christian feeling which had dictated this resolution ' in connection with the Jubilee, and he moved a motion reciprocating this, ' gladly recognising the gifts and graces bestowed by God on the Established Church during the last fifty years ' and ending thus : — ' Whatever matters of difference or debate may have existed or may still exist, the Assembly earnestly desire foi the fathers and brethren of the Established Church the abundant out- pouring of the Spirit of God and great happiness and success in the wide field of work which God in His providence has committed to them ; and they cannot but beheve that two THE SITUATION FIFTY YEARS AFTER 147 Churches, which have so much in common, will yet, under the guidance and blessing of God, be led into much happier and nearer relations to one another.' This last sentence evoked immediate and prolonged applause, and the motion was at once adopted. I shall add some comment on it later. Now — to revert to something that was emphasised in an earlier chapter — if only in 1885 Mr. Gladstone had removed the palpable obstacle between the two Churches, such words as these just quoted might have borne real fruit. But, as the reader knows, this had not been removed. The fact of Establishment was still there, and over it the Churches — though their mutual spirit was in many ways friendly — were no more in agreement than ever. Here there seemed nothing possible but the continuance of an unhappy controversy between two opposing views. From his Moderator's chair, Dr. Walter Smith — a man of abundant charity and a persona grata to all denomina- tions — dared to dream, of a happier way of it. He pictured the Established Church * rising up and shaking herself and asking what was the real value of the privilege for which she stood aloof from other Churches born in the same house,' asking if it really helped the spiritual life of the people and whether ' the fresh spiritual blessings which would follow reunion ' were not worth the sacrifice. In the same strain Principal Rainy said nothing would delight him more than some magnanimous resolution on the part of the Established Church ' which would greatly overshadow any dis- tinction that attaches to us.' Such appeals had — perhaps could have — no result. The Moderator of 148 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY the Assembly of the EstabUshed Church — Dr. Marshall Lang — referred to them in his closing address to that court by reiterating the words of Principal Tulloch (quoted in a former chapter) that they must ' stand ' on Establishment. Thus the question remained to be settled in the unhappy arena of political controversy. Into that region we are compelled once more — for the last time in our narrative — to follow it for, at least, a short space. Events had been happening in the political world to revive the question there. In 1892 a general election returned the Liberal party to power, though the majority of the venerable Liberal leader was the almost tragic one of forty — tragic because it meant an unremitting battle too heavy for his weight of years. Mr. Gladstone took up his burden indomitably. The new Parliament was engrossed over Home Rule, but the Government programme — so distinct was the progress Mr. Gladstone had made since 1885 — included ' Suspensory Bills ' relating to the Church both in Scotland and Wales. A suspensory bill on this subject was not needed in Scotland — where forty-seven members were pledged to Disestablishment and only nineteen were returned to oppose it, the remaining six being described as ' uncertain ' — and early in 1894 Sir Charles Cameron, one of the members for Glasgow, brought in a bill for the Disestablishment of the Church of Scotland,^ It was ' backed ' by influential Scottish members, including Mr. Haldane. It was 1 Aljout the same time another Hill 'to remove obstacles to the reimion of the Presbyterians of Scotland' by 'declaring' the Constitution of the Church of Scotland — a revised Finlay Bill — was introduced by Mr. J. A. Campbell, but it proved al^ortive. THE SITUATION FIFTY YEARS AFTER 149 a well-considered and well-drafted bill, proposing immediate Disestablishment but gradual disendow- ment as vacancies occurred in parishes (thus avoiding the grossly extravagant method of a huge lump sum of compensation which was the method in the Irish Disestablishment Act), and, moreover, granting permanent use of all church fabrics and manses to the disestablished Church. The aim of Principal Rainy now was to persuade Mr. Gladstone to make the bill a Government measure. He was anxious for this for the sake of Mr. Gladstone as well as for the sake of Disestablishment. In a speech at this time, he anticipated ' the serener time to come when ecclesi- astical privilege in Scotland shall have passed away ' and there might be ' a United Scottish Church,' and when ' the eager debates that now rage round a great man's reputation have given place to the recollection of a great character, and of great services, and of a life as noble as it was prolonged,' and he went on : — ' I know that there are some honest disestablishers who do not at present support the general policy of the remarkable man who is at the head of Her Majesty's Government, and I do not wish to express myself so as to imply either that they have no right to a place in our ranks or that the peculiarity of their position is disregarded. But I will say this of Mr. Gladstone : the master passion of his life — whether he has been right or wrong — has been a passion for justice. We want this great act of justice to be associated expressly with his name.' So far as the Prime Minister's persuasions went, the appeal might well have proved successful. Mr. Gladstone had now taken up a very different attitude 150 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY to Scottish Disestablishment from that of the day of his memorable rebuff to it in 1885. He had voted for it, and he had directly urged Sir Charles Cameron to press it.^ But Mr. Gladstone's work was now done. The great Liberal chief retired in 1894, weighed down with his years, and his successor as head of the Govern- ment was Lord Rosebery. Attention was therefore now turned to the new Prime Minister, whose point of view on the subject generally may be gathered from an observation he made in his speech in Edinburgh after taking office, to the effect that the State has as much right to establish a Church as to establish a standing army. Principal Rainy — I remember noticing the look of quiet scrutiny which, from his seat on the platform, he turned on the utterer of this surely crude remark — ^made very soon a vigorous and what proved to be a successful effort to advance the Scottish Disestablishment Bill with the new administration. In January 1895 he wrote to Lord Rosebery (as well as to other members of the Cabinet who were concerned with Scotland), making this definite request : — ' Would the Government see their way to promise that, before a dissolution takes place, they will publicly adopt, as their own. Sir Charles Cameron's bill — of course, subject to minor amendments ? ' In a further letter a few days later, also to the Prime Minister, he tried to keep the question in the Queen's * This I find in a letter from Sir Charles to the Principal in which he tells how Mr. (Gladstone had been advising him to persevere to a solution of 'this most important question.' THE SITUATION FIFTY YEARS AFTER 151 Speech even though the Welsh case should be the one immediately proceeded with. The phrasing he suggested is rather ingenious. He wrote to Lord Rosebery : — ' I am not going to bombard you any more at present. But suppose the Queen's Speech was to run : " In a former letter I directed your attention to the necessity of dealing with the cases of the Church Establishment in Wales and of the Church of Scotland. In the present session, a BUI for dealing with the case of Wales will be submitted for your considereation." Would that do any harm ? ' The former of these suggestions — which was the most important forward step Dr. Rainy had attempted for the political advancement of the cause — was accepted almost in the terms in which it was made. At the end of the month, Lord Rosebery made a pronounce- ment at Cardiff on Disestablishment. It was a thoroughly enlightened speech, separating firmly ' the Church ' and the mere establishment (and so disposing of the foolish wailing, so frequent in Scotland from even intelligent Church defenders, that Disestablishment was ' destroying the Church '),^ refusing to admit that Disendowment was ' sacrilege,' and repudiating the idea that Disestablishment means ' unchristianising the nation.' The speech dealt, of course, chiefl}^ with ' It is really astonishing to find, on glancing through the newspapers of this time, how many men kept repeating this absurd statement, and these, not minor controversialists but leading ministers, whose names, however, and utterances I need not quote. It sounded peculiarly absurd in the ears of the self-disestablished and yet, assuredly, not destroyed f>ee Church. Principal Rainy said of this style of speaking : ' The tones are more tragical than the case will bear.' 152 THE LIFE OF FRINCIPAL RAINY Wales, but the speaker made the following notable statement as regards Scotland : — ' The Government would prefer, because I take it that would be a more proper and a more dignified course, to introduce a bill of their own ; but if, as 1 think they will be, the Govern- ment will be unable to do that, and if no better method of giving effect to their wishes arises, they will be prepared to accept Sir Charles Cameron's bill as their own, and so to lay before the Scottish people, before a dissolution occurs, a practical measure of Disestablishment in its broad scope, reserving the right of freedom as to detail, which they in due course, if life and health are given them, will be prepared to lay before Parliament.' This pledge to give Government stamp to a Scottish Disestablishment measure was a satisfactory answer to Principal Rainy 's letter of 15th January quoted above. The suggestion of his other letter — that the matter be mentioned in the Queen's speech — was not followed, because as Sir George Trevelyan, the Secretary for Scotland, explained later, there was not time to pass such a measure that session. It may be added — the matter is not of great im- portance, but it illustrates Dr. Rainy's vigilance in the cause and also the constant obstacles it had to deal with — that even with Lord Rosebery's Cardiff pledge, the matter was not ended. A most S5^stematic minimis- ing of the Premier's words appeared in various quarters within Liberalism but hostile to Disestablishment, and at last, when a Scottish member, to settle the point, asked in the House of Commons if the Government ' would adopt Sir Charles Cameron's bill,' Sir George Trevelyan replied that ' the Government approve of the bill and regard it as just and equitable and as THE SITUATION FIFTY YEARS AFTE1{ 153 framed on lines npon which legislation might be expected to proceed.' On the irrelevance of this reply to the question being pointed out (by voices on botli sides of the House), Sir George's only answer was, ' No, sir, but ' ' The answer,' says Hansard, ' was not finished.' ^ Principal Rainy wrote to several Cabinet ministers protesting against the Secretary being ' instructed to puzzle people.' In the end — it is not worth while to go into the details of the matter — Lord Rosebery wrote the Principal a letter which I need not quote beyond saying that it reaffirmed the Cardiff statement as ' authoritative ' and suggested that if some one were put up in the House to ask if the Government adhered to it, an affirmative reply to the question might meet the case. Thus the prospect of a Government Disestablishment Bill for Scotland was again made clear. But ' death pays all debts,' and the somewhat luck- less Rosebery Government came to an end within a year. A Unionist administration under Lord Salisbury came into power, and the regime of a party which, of course, gave no countenance to Disestablishment continued till the end of Principal Rainy's career. The question therefore need not re-emerge in these pages. Sir George Trevelyan's unfinished reply aptly sums up the position in which it had been left. Disestablish- ment, that is to say, had in the first place been ^ 4 Hansard^ xxix. 149. It is right to add that whatever was the mean- ing of this curious incident, Scottish Disestabhshment had no stauncher friend than Sir George Trcvelyan — as his letters to Principal Rainy emphatically show. 154 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY negatived. A bill had not been carried. This was a source of obvious and legitimate congratulation to those who were opposed to Principal Rainy on this question. No doubt, the natural man within some of them — if it was at all ' good stuff ' — when political ill-fortune again attended the Disestablishment cause after it had been for a second time brought within sight of realisation, was able to sa}^ with Browning's monk who soliloquised in the Spanish cloister : — ' He-he ! There his lily snaps ! ' This was only natural. Politics is above all else a practical business of getting bills turned into acts, and men who touch it must submit to be judged by this standard of success. By this standard. Principal Rainy had not succeeded. This remained the fact, even though it might be true — as it was true — that this result was not what was demanded by the clear and steady majority of the Scottish representatives, or even if it were true that it was one more example of how politicians rise to power on the votes of those who believe in and have suffered for such causes as the freedom or unity or spirituality of the Church of Christ and thereafter lose interest in these causes. These explanations do not alter the political fact that, as I have said, Scottish Disestablishment had been negatived. Still the negative had as little finality about it as Sir George Trevelyan's ' No, sir, but ' No thoughtful person in Scotland could believe this question could rest here as settled. A great question of justice remained, and also a great question of Presby- terian union. The former I sliall not refer to here : THE SITUATION FIFTY YEAKS AFTEK 1,55 it is obvious and explains itself. But it was significant of the times that the latter should growingly appeal, and it deserves some few words. One of the most notable changes that had passed over the relationship between the Established and the Free Churches was that, with w^hatever motives and on whatever principles the claim for Disestablishment had been made, the chief argument for it now with many people was that it and it only could remove the obstacle to reunion. This is worth noting, for it was significant of much. Fifty years before, in the heat of the Disruption controversy and immediately there- after, neither side had any such thought of the future. On the contrary, it then seemed to each of the two sections, that it and it only would and should triumph as the National Church and that the other would be borne down. This to us seems — and, indeed, no doubt it reall}^ was — less than either Christian or reason- able ; but if one puts oneself into the atmosphere of the times, it is at least not unintelligible on both sides. The Free Church was in the first flood of her irresistible enthusiasm, capable of anything, having carried with her unquestionably the main current of the intellectual and spiritual life of the Church of Scotland ; as she looked at, for example, that ' residuary Assembly ' whose proceedings have been narrated in an early chapter, and at the condition of the Establish- ment in many districts of the country, it is no wonder she thought no future was to be looked for there. On the other hand, one can quite understand hQW_ cool-headed men of the world (I use the phrase in no offensive sense) in the Established Church, unable to 156 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY dispute the energy, the enthusiasm, the elan for the time of the ' seceders,' calculated that the pace could not last and that the movement would exhaust itself/ The fifty years that had passed since 1843 had rebuked both these expectations. The Established Church had revived and the Free Church had remained. The providence of God was teaching the Churches clearly that both were necessary to the realisation of the National Church of Scotland, and that neither without the other could be complete. It was this which made the closing sentence of the motion of Principal Rainy about the Established Church at the Jubilee Assembly so significant. And yet, as I have said, with the sincerest and even friendliest recognition of this — and one must not exaggerate it as if it was recognised ever^^where — there remained the practical question of how these Churches, once separated but now, to at least some degree, admitting they needed one another in order to restore the national Scottish Church to her power and unity, were to be brought together. But even as to this, these fifty years had much to say, though what they said was naturally to many unwelcome. So ' This feeling was widespread, especially among prominent laymen ; and I believe, in part, accounts for some of the site-refusing which went on. In many cases, of course, this site-refusing arose from sheer bitter hatred of the Free Church. But it would be unjust to impute this spirit in every case. Such a man, for example, as the Duke of Buccleuch of the period — a man whose public life was animated with a high sense of the noblesse oblige — refused sites, at least partly, because he believed the Free Church would die out and therefore should not be encouraged. I have good authority for stating that, in his last illness, the Duke said to one of his nurses, on discovering that she was a Free Churchwoman, that there was no action of his public life he more regretted than his having refused sites to the Free Church. THE SITUATION FIFTY YEx\RS AFTER 157 long before as the time of passing of the Patronage Act — when, the reader will remember, many foolish expectations about union were stirred — the most eminent member of the Established Church, the Duke of Argyll, declared that ' there is no hope whatever of the union of the Free and Established Churches except on the ground of Disestablishment.' ^ The years had put the truth of this statement to probation. What thwarted union was now no longer matter of theoretic dispute. All over the Enghsh-speaking world, Presbyterian union had been or was being effected where there was no establishment and the results, both materially and spiritually, were of the happiest : in Scotland alone, where alone was an establishment, was this immense boon and this Christian duty, impossible. Moreover, as if to reduce the matter to final proof, an interesting conference on union was held, in the very year of the Jubilee Assembly of the Free Church, between unofficial representatives of the three Presbyterian Churches. I have explained, in a previous chapter, that Principal Rainy did not see his way personally to take part in these self- constituted meetings. But this conference in 1893, while, of course, it had no ecclesiastical authority, was of significance because it was attended by really representative men."^ Its conclusions are not materi- ally different from those which the Churcli courts themselves might have reached, and its proceedings ' 3 Hansard, ccix. 829. This was, of course, the late (eighth) Duke. - Such as : from the Established Church — Professor Charteris, Dr. Scott, Dr. Marshall Lang, Lord Polwarth ; from the Free Church — Dr. Ross Taylor, Professor Candlish, Mr. Taylor Innes ; from the United Presbyterian Church — Professor Calderwood and Dr. MacEwen. 158 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY and conclusions are worthy of a brief record as an indication of ' the situation fifty years after.' The three chief subjects of discussion were ' Spiritual Independence/ ' National Religion,' and ' the Estab- lishment of the Church.' On all there was divergence of view ; but, on the first, a conclusion was unani- mously arrived at which seemed to afford ' a basis of union,' and as to the second, while the differences were more serious, there was * a fairly sufficient basis for union.' On the matter of Establishment there was a dead-lock. United Presbyterian members of the Conference declared they ' cannot concur in a proposal for union of the Presbyterian Churches of Scotland on the basis of Establishment by the State.' The Free Church members (or the majority of them) regarded Establishment as ' perilous,' * unjust ' and ' unneces- sary ' in Scotland, and added that it * has been proved by the discussions in this Conference to be the great, if not the sole, obstacle to Presbyterian Union.' The Established Church representatives declared they could not consent to Disestablishment. The only suggestion they could in conscience offer was that * there should be the fullest difference of opinion regarding Establishment within a National Church.' The reply given by the Free Church members was the obvious one that this only the more clearly showed that * the real obstacle to Presbyterian Union lies not in difference of opinion, which might confessedly be tolerated, but in the actual existence of a State con- nection,' and that a union, so long as that exists ' as a fact,' would * imply far more than the toleration in others of certain opinions,' and would * involve the THE SITUATION FIFTY YEARS AFTER 159 practical acceptance of Establishment.' The Con- ference finally came to a conclusion by recording its ' warm gratification at the spirit which has all along characterised its discussions/ but also * its deep regret at finding itself unable to agree to a basis for incorporat- ing union.' Yet this conference had not sat in vain. It had patiently and palpably proved what is certainly the main, and probably the only, thing preventing the reunion of the chief branches of the Scottish Church. There is no fact in the present situation in Scotland which more surely is making its way into the public mind and the Christian conscience than this.^ This situation, thus, still remains open and unsolved and is to-day afresh exercising the mind of the Church. We must not, in these pages, discuss its present phases and prospects. But I may conclude the discussion of the matter here — necessarily somewhat prolonged and controversial — by saying that to the end of his life, Principal Rainy never lost hope that the solution might yet be attained with at least a measure of agree- ment on the part of men attached to the Established Church, but who, as he once put it, ' love the Church of Christ in Scotland so well that they will consent to love Establishment a little less.' Whether Principal Rainy was right in his Disestablishment policy or not, this at least can be said most positively — that he never sought Disestablishment as a triumph for himself or his Church. He sought it as, in his view, the one basis on which a broader Scottish Church ^ The minutes and leading documents of this instructive conference were subsequently published, and the quotations indicated above are taken from the official report (Neill and Co., Edinburgh). 160 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY could ever be happity, legitimately, and finally built ; and it was almost touching to observe how he desired that, when it should come, the Established Church, far from being ' destroyed ' by it or even discredited, should rather have the credit of it by a contribution of magnanimous consent. And, after all — with every gentleness be it said — is it not really the turn of the Established Church to pay her part of the price for the unity and the liberty of the Scottish Church ? This subject necessarily has occupied a good deal of space in these pages, but it would be a great mistake to imagine for a moment either that it held the chief place in Principal Rainy 's mind — ' I think,' he once said, ' of other subjects a great deal more than of Dis- estabhshment ' — or even that it was allowed by him to occupy an undue place in the life of the Church. A great deal of exaggeration was talked about Dr. Rainy ' agitating ' Disestablishment in the Church : the fact being that he steadily confined any action in the matter to the Assembly and its Committee and set his face against its being brought up in presbyteries and congregations, even though, on the other side — and quite intelligibly from one point of view — every Established manse was a centre of * Church defence.' As to the condition of the general life of the Free Church, one is not called on in this biography to enter into facts and figures, but it may be useful to refer in the briefest way to two aspects of her pro- gress during these fifty years. It indicates something of her steady material advance that, while the sum raised for all purposes by the Free Church in the ten years after the Disruption was three milhons, the THE SITUATION FIFTY YEARS AFTER 161 sum raised from 1883 to the Jubilee was nearly seven millions. This, however, is merely financial, and financial progress is in a Church no very deep test of its real well-being. Perhaps the most Christian test of a Church is its missionary interest ; selfish and worldly motives enter into this less than into any other department of liberality or service. I find that the missionary income of the unbroken Church of Scotland before the Disruption never rose above £8000. In 1844, the Free Church alone made this £13,000, and, in 1893, her missionary income was £108,000. But service is more than money. The staff of thirteen Indian missionaries who, at the Dis- ruption, had all thrown in their lot with the Free Church, had developed by 1893 to a missionary staff, in India and elsewhere, of 198 (including missionaries' wives), while the whole number of agents, European and native, was almost a thousand. These things are mentioned because it is important that in a biography such as this, occupied necessarily largely with ecclesi- astical affairs and even controversy, the reader should understand how strong and how earnest was the current of religious life behind it all. In the Established Church, let it be added, had been also manifold pro- gress. The two Churches, as Churches, were growing in religious activity and also in understanding of one another ; and it was only the purely political feature attaching to one of them which prevented all this from bearing its legitimate fruit in a movement for union. One other remark may be made about the Free Church, bearing even more closely on Principal Rain3''s leadership. It was — comparatively — a small Church, VOL. II. L 162 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL EAINY and yet within her hmited area were extraordinarily diversified elements, which made the problem of her leadership one of almost unique difficulty. This is perhaps best illustrated by saying that within the Free Church were to be found at once the finest and most fearless scholarship in Scotland and also the narrowest traditional orthodoxy. No other Church in Scotland equalled her in either of these respects. This double fact helps us to realise what a strangely trying and testing task was laid upon Principal Rainy ; and, be it remembered, the Church he had to guide was a self- governing Church in which (as I remarked in connection with the Robertson Smith case) questions are carried to an issue, and a leader must therefore lead and not simply keep the peace. No Premier — even though his party contained Home Rulers and Unionists or Tariff Reformers and Free Traders — and certainly no Primate had a task more delicate than that of leading the Free Church, with the Highland host at the one end and the higher critics at the other. I shall close this chapter with a characterisation of the man whose task this was. It shows the position to which Principal Rainy had attained, not indeed in the view of the controversialists of the press or the plat- form and (one must add) the pulpit, but in the estima- tion of one whose judgment is of interest and weight. In 1895, Mr. Gladstone was one of a company of friends whom the hospitality of Sir Donald Currie took for a cruise on board the steamship Tantallon Castle. The following incident is vouched for by a relative of Sir Donald's, and also by another member of the party. The conversation one day turned, in Mr. Gladstone's THE SITUATION FIFTY YEARS AFTER 163 presence, to the subject of the most eminent Uving Scotsman. Lord Rosebery and Mr. Balfour were mentioned, and also others. Then one of the company said, ' But, Mr. Gladstone, what of Principal Rainy ? ' The immediate reply was, * He is unquestionably the greatest of living Scotsmen/ CHAPTER XXI PRE-UNION AFFAIRS I GENERAL CHURCH VIEWS 7^ HE Jubilee of the Free Church of Scotland in 1893 brought, to the minds of many, recollec- tions of another ' ten years' conflict ' than that which culminated in the Disruption. No delegates came with a warmer message or received a warmer reception than those from the United Presbyterian Church,^ between which and the Free Church negotiations for union had been so hopefully begun some thirty years before and then, a decade later, so sadly thwarted. There is no doubt that at the Jubilee Assembly the idea of this union was revived with new strength, and from that time it went steadily on to its great consum- mation in 1900. The guiding of this movement became the main concern of Principal Rainy and of the Church generally during these years ; and this must be carefully narrated. But of course there were also, in this period, other matters of interest, and it will be more convenient to refer to these briefly in this chapter, and then, in the next, take up the story of the negotiations for and achievement of the union as a consecutive narrative. This chapter will thus be of a somewhat disjointed character ; throughout it, the ' The. venerated Principal Cairns was missed among them : he had died in tlie previous year. ltS4 PKE-TTNTON AFFAIRS 165 reader must bear in mind that a great movement was making progress and the future was taking new shape for the Free Church more and more clearly. One may mention, to begin with, an interesting and pleasing episode in the year after the Jubilee Assembly — nameh^ the presentation of Principal Rainy's portrait to the New College and of a replica of it to Mrs. Rainy. The former was the gift of old students and the latter of other friends. The presentation on behalf of the students was made by Dr. Iverach — now Principal of the United Free Church College in Aberdeen — and accepted for the Senate by the senior professor. Dr. A. B. Davidson. The other picture was presented by the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, Sir James Russell — an elder of the Free Church — and the Principal, accept- ing it for his wife, made a simple and happy speech about his home and about himself. As to the form their gift had taken, while he felt bashful to speak of it, still ' he was free to say that his wife after the lapse of all these years was not tired of looking at his face, and he was very sure he was not the least tired of looking at hers.' He recalled how ' in those wise days that preceded their marriage ' they had ' a kind of compact that they were never to get tired of looking at one another and they had not broken it through yet.' He spoke of the strength and comfort his home — ^his wife and their children — ^had been to him, and declared * he was the least ecclesiastical person in the family.' Then he passed on to refer to his more public work with the same frankness, and, though his words were simple, one may quote them because they are char- 166 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY acteristic of the man's unaffected humbleness and gratefulness : — * He could only say that he really did not know what to say about it because he did not know what to think about it. He had sometimes thought to himself whether he had had a plan, or laid lines, or intended to come to any of the positions he had occupied. He could not say that he ever did. Some- how it had come to pass so ; and had come to pass so, he rather suspected, not through any positive claims or altitudes of mind, but rather because he seemed to be to some minds an unobjec- tionable person — a person who could be put in a position without very tangible objections being made to him. That was the only way he could account for the kindness. He had a most humble sense of undeserved kindness. He did not know why God had been so good to him ; he did not under- stand it. He could not beheve that anything could be more valuable in life than the kindly affection of good men. He knew that many good men gravely disapproved of the hnes he had taken. He did not despise them. He hoped that in the years that might remain to him — they could not be very many now — he might be able to make a better use than ever he had done of any kindly feeling or disposition to take kindly at his hand what he said or did. He would like to do far otherwise for the Church of Christ than he had ever done. He could sincerely say he was bowed to the ground with wonder and humiliation at aU the kindly goodwill that had been repeatedly shown to him by the fathers and brethren. He would pray to God that he might render to them again accord- ing to the benefit that had been done to him. He was boimd to the service of Christ by many, many vows, and woe to him if after all that he had not served Christ and Christ's Church. He thanked them from the bottom of his heart/ The portrait is by Sir George Reid, then President of the Royal Scottish Academy, but, unfortunately, it cannot be ranked among that distinguished artist's most successful work. Dr. Rainy was a difficult subject. He had an extraordinarily mobile counten- PRE-UNION AFFAIRS 167 ance, and is said to have come to the studio with a different expression each day. The mention of his family in the speech just quoted makes this a place where it may be recorded that at this time Dr. Rainy had both sorrows and new interests in his home life. His second son, Henry, died in 1890, after a trying illness. Mrs. Rainy's health also gave frequent cause for anxiety. Nothing could surpass Dr. Rainy's tenderness on occasions such as these. On the other hand, the years brought new family interests. He was now a grandfather, and a very proud one. His youngest son, George, passed dux out of the Edinburgh Academy and was about to go to Oxford. About this, his father wrote him a letter which may be quoted both as illustrating the way he talked with his children about their life and also as expressing his view of Oxford training : — ' We are glad you are having some respite from work. Also that you have gone off with a feather in your cap. Your winning the steeplechase ^ impresses us ^^ith the belief that there is something furious and reckless in your character. It is always good to have fresh light on the character of one's children. ' I have been thinking a good deal about the Oxford busi- ness. I imagine your own judgment is decidedly in favour of going, and even if I did not pay that element as much respect as I certainly do, I must admit that things have tended towards the Oxford decision without any forcing on our part or yours. Therefore I am quite willing to let it be so. But I will frankly explain to you what has struck me on the other side. This is not intended to disturb or worry you, but rather to point out things which perhaps, by being in view, may be diminished or averted. ^ His son had taken athletic as well as other prizes. 168 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY ; ' I am not vety anxious on the score of your being swayed ) in the Episcopal direction, and yet it is a possibihty I deprecate. And I should hke you to understand that this is not, on my part, mere prejudice against another form of Christianity. There are in the Church of England many far better Christians than I am. But I am old enough to have seen that a change of this kind draws after it, perhaps insensibly but inevitably, a separation of sympathies and a practical estrangement, all the more pathetic because it is reluctant on both sides. But as I say, my anxiety on a point of this kind is not very great. ' With regard, however, to Oxford as a place of education — acknowledging the very fine and high finish imparted to a select class of men and in which I would expect you to share, I cannot but feel that it moves on somewhat narrow lines, and omits, or inadequately develops, some great elements. The Tutot of Merton who wrote to you spoke of the line of studies he hoped you would follow as a school of philosophy and ancient history studied mainly in classical texts. But quite clearly, this not only impHes a very special point of view, but it imposes a method which de facto necessitates a very great expenditure indeed of time and strength on the mere attainment of minute finish and accuracy in the mastery of Greek and Latin. Strongly persuaded as I am that a measure of classical training is good, I cannot regard the proportionate share given to this at Oxford as perfectly rational, or as the best training for a mind that is open to the leading interests recognised by cultivated men.' As this letter may give some readers a false impression of Dr. Rainy's own classical attainments, I may add that he often read Greek and Latin writers to us from the original in his class lectures, translating, as he read, with perfect fluency. To turn, however, to more public matters. In 1895 there was some revival in the Free Church of the * heresy hunting ' which had disturbed it three or four years before. This time the fox was Professor Henry Drummond, whose volume entitled The Ascent of Man PRE-UNION AFFAIRS 169 seemed to some to contain views of the origin of the world and of man inconsistent with Bibhcal truth. Drummond was at the time professor of Natural Science in the Church's College in Glasgow. He held a quite unique place in the affections of an immense circle of friends both within and without the Free Church. As to the semi-theological theories which first made his name famous in his Nahtral Law in the Spiritual World, it cannot be said that they met with general acceptance in the critical mind of the Church, or indeed ^ere taken very seriously. But that matters little, for Henry Drummond himself was infinitely better than his theories. The Ascent of Man was an attempt — poetical, perhaps, more than scientific — to read ethical motives and processes into the Darwinian account of the evolution of species, which, of course, it frankly accepted as (to use Drummond's phrase) * the method God chose of creation.' When the book was brought before the Assembly, Principal Rainy at once moved that no action be taken upon it. Personally he hardly thought that the author had left himself room for essential theistic and moral interests, but he recognised the theistic and ethical aim of the book and held the Church should leave it to the dis- cussion it would receive. The Assembly agreed to this by a large majority. Any one who knew both Principal Rainy and Professor Drummond can hardly name them together without adding that they were the two most interesting men in the Scottish religious world of their time, and they were absolutely different men in everything — except the one deepest thing of all. Dr. Rainy hardly knew Drummond, but he was 170 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY 'j much interested in him — ^in the man, not so much in his books — and hked to hear about him. I recall happening to remark in the Rainys' house on one occasion that Drummond — it was immediately after his death — had passed through the two severest ordeals that any man could pass through, namely, | immense popularity and intense pain, and that neither had changed him one whit from the natural and un- selfish and pure soul he had always been. The ; Principal heard the remark and turned and said, * That is a fine thing to be able to say of a man.' . It was no more than the truth. There is in some characters a perfection to which we see they attain : there was about Henry Drummond a perfection he seemed not to have lost. He made one believe that if there be such a thing as original sin, there is also such a thing as original righteousness. But it is hopeless to convey to those who did not know him any just impression of his unstained and yet so perfectly natural and human purity and goodness. When he died, a Hght went out in the hves of his friends. I have said that Principal Rainy and Professor Drummond were utterly different except in the one deepest thing of all, and this, of course, means their love of their common Master and devotion to His Kingdom. In the Assembly of 1896, a notable incident took place in connection with which Dr. Rainy, more j perhaps than on any other public occasion in his life, 1 revealed this deepest thing of all in his heart. The Moderator of that Assembly was the Hon. and Rev. Principal Miller, CLE., the distinguished head of the Christian College of Madras and the most eminent PRE-UNION AFFAIRS 171 educationist in all Southern India. The respect in which Dr. Miller is held and the influence which, through the College, he has exerted over non-Christians as well as Christians in the Madras Presidency can hardly be overestimated. A most remarkable testi- mony to his work was sent to the Assembly in the form of an address to the Supreme Court of the Free Church from native former students or friends of Dr. Miller's College. It thanked the Church for sending him and men such as he was, and it went on to tell of the moral and intellectual awakening such work as his had stirred in India showing itself in a ' restless sense of deficiencies ' and * an eagerness to appropriate new forms of thought and to assimilate new forms of goodness.' There were two things of exceptional interest about this remarkable and unique address. One was the character of the signatories. They were over fifteen hundred in number, and included a Rajah, a member of the Imperial Legislative Council, a High Court Judge, several Dewans (that is Prime Ministers) of Native States, and many professors, leading merchants, and other representative men. Such a letter had never been sent from the East to any Church in the West. The other noticeable thing was, that it did not profess to come from persons who had all accepted Christianity. It was a voice from India — non-Christian as well as Christian — and this was what made it so significant. Principal Rainy, as leader of the House, moved the Assembly's reply. I think many would like to read this speech in its entirety, so I reproduce it. Its conception and diction all through are noble and, as it went on, it thrilled the 172 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY House with its revelation of the intensity of the master passion in the speaker's heart. Dr. Rainy said : — ' Moderator, I have been asked to move the reply to this remarkable address. The significance of it may perhaps be differently interpreted from different points of view ; but all of us must feel that it constitutes a memorable step in our relations with our Indian brethren. What it means to you, sir, how weU you can understand what it means and could express it, we know. But it does not come to you. It comes to us. And it comes to us with a far more stimulating and rousing effect than if it had come to you. We rejoice in this fresh testimony to the work and the influence of our mission- aries in Southern India, with yourself at their head ; and we rejoice to think that it has been the honour and distinction of this Church to earn these feelings and the expression of these feelings from our brethren in Southern India. Moderator, I think one feeling of which we are conscious is this — that we hardly appreciated before, how, as it were, electric wires have been laid, along which comes thrilling to us the sense of an unexpected fulness of fellowship, first of all, no doubt, with those of the College who have received and confessed Christ, but also with many — and how gladly we feel it — with many who have not taken that great step and yet are drawing towards us and are glad that we have drawn towards them. Some of those who sign the address are Christians, but very many, a much larger number, though they have studied at a Christian college, are not Christians. Plainly the address has been planned — and when one thinks of it, one sees it only could be planned — to express the feelings and views of the non- Christians. Nothing peculiarly Christian could be introduced into it ; only, the Christians concur in it as far as it goes. ' Now it strikes me, Moderator, that a man of any liveliness of imagination, interested in Indian Missions, but looldng at them from this country, must often have reflected within him- self how great his ignorance is of the real state of mind of men like these, who have passed through our colleges and have gone forth into hfe in India, and who are now in their various spheres of work carrying with them the training and the impressions which they have received. The Christians we can more fufly PRE-UNION AFFAIRS 173 understand : like us, they are Christians, though their Chris- tianity has its own oriental character. But how dim, mostly, is our impression of the life and thought and feeling of the great number of men, young men once, now growing old, who have passed through our colleges. One hears things of them now and again that convey the impression of something distinctive. One hears that men from the Christian colleges evince a kindlier sentiment to the British race and to the British Government than the men do who have passed through the Government Colleges. One hears that if you travel on any Christian errand in India, and fall in with men of this class, you meet with welcome and help from them although they are not Christians. Such traits are something, but they do not come to much. * Here, in this address, we seem to get a glimpse. They tell us how in our colleges they have been awakening to the great world of Western intellectual and moral hfe, intellectual and moral questioning, intellectual and moral debates ; and how the great realms of knowledge, which, as they widen daily, are well-nigh bewildering ourselves, have been laid open also to them and are fascinating them with the attainments and possibihties of science. Their ears and their hearts have been reached by the " many kinds of voices there are in the world." Their souls have caught the distant but ever-swelling murmur of those voices, and they have gone forth into life under the influences thus set to work within them. So they tell us how — of course in varying degrees, for they are not all remarkable or highly-susceptible men — they have become conscious of new ideas, have felt the pressure of new conceptions of duty and destiny, have become conscious of wants, conscious of aspirations, apprehensive of truth that might be theirs, and goodness that might be theirs, and moral progress that might be theirs. With all this to stir them, they have gone forth into the life of India, and there in their various spheres they are at work. So much they tell us. ' But, Moderator, we know something more about them which they do not tell us. We know that in the college this world of thought and impression has been saturated for them with the name and the memory and the teaching of Christ. That is irrevocably done for these men. It can never be taken 174 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY out of them. Henceforth, do what they will, go where they may, that follows them. They speak of ideals. But they camiot separate man's ideals from the Man Christ Jesus. They speak of truth. Questions about truth involve the question. What about Christ ? They speak to us of goodness. And — more faintly or more vividly, more hghtly or more seriously — does there not rise on their memory a Face, marred more than any man's, that carries an image and message of goodness, leaving all else of goodness behind it and below it ? They speak of necessit57 and want. Surely the thought must come, in all that has been pressed on them, of one supreme want and one supreme supply for it. Yes, more or less distinctly. One has knocked at the door of every one of these men and is knocking still. Amid the many voices that have thrilled and stirred and intoxicated them, there is a still small voice. It has claimed them. And it does not cease to speak, for there is no patience like the patience of Christ. The presence of Christ follows them through their Hves. What shall come of it in the individual cases, I do not know. I suppose that in many, many cases nothing will come of it that you or I or an}^ one can see. But surely the existence of such men is a leaven in India. And as men multiply whose mind and outlook are of this type, surely a day will come, in the providence of God, when that leaven will begin to ferment and to set in great processes of change. What forms those changes will take I do not prescribe. He knows and He will make it plain, through whatever processes, that His word will not return imto Him void. Meanwhile, fathers and brethren, O how greatly one desires that these interesting lives with which we have been brought into touch in the way this address suggests, might be purified and gladdened by the love of Christ I ' Principal Rainy then moved the terms of the As- sembly's reply, the first paragraph of which contained suitable words of acknowledgment of the address, and the second paragraph — practically a continuation of his speech and obviously direct from his pen — ^went on : — * You remind us that many of you are not sharers with us PRE-UNION AFFAIRS 175 in the religious belief which has inspired our work in India and elsewhere. We respect the exercise of your own judg- ment, and through all the differences that may divide us we would maintain the same cordial goodwill. It is most true that we desire, as you express it, to see East and West linked in a common brotherhood. We rejoice in all good gifts which are peculiarly your own ; and we would be serviceable to you in communicating, so far as you will receive them, whatever good gifts have been bestowed upon us by Him who has made of one blood all nations of men to dwell upon the face of the earth. But, in that spirit, we desire, affectionately and above all things, once more to commend to you, as our missionaries have often done, the Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, Who for us men and for our sake took flesh and died. We men in the West have no better claim to Him than you have. We possess nothing so precious — we value nothing so much — we have no source of good so full, fruitful and enduring — we have nothing to compare with the Lord Jesus Christ. To Him we must bear witness. And we should gladly consent that you should cease to Usten to us, if you would be led to give your ear and your heart to Him.' No utterance of Principal Rainy throughout his whole life produced a deeper impression in the Assembly than his delivery of the speech and reading of this motion.^ Never was he himself more deeply stirred. The House saw its superbly self-repressed and self-controlled leader moved as it had never seen him before, and heard his voice thrill with a note it had never heard in the keenest hour of controversy. And it reahsed that the passion of that man was that Christ might be magnified. This mention of India makes this a place where it may be inserted that Principal Rainy took an earnest ^ He was asked by a friend for his notes of this speech, and replied he had none. It was in every sense the outcome of the deep feeling of the occasion. 176 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY interest in the discussion which was being carried on in Parliament and elsewhere on the subject of the operation of the Contagious Diseases Act in the miUtary cantonments of India and other parts of the Empire. The subject is not one that need be entered into here, but the Principal's distinct attitude — contrary to the opinion of influential persons even within the Church — against these notorious Acts should be recorded. I do not think that any other questions or speeches in the Assembly during these years call for special attention — the reader is, of course, remembering that the great business of the time was the renewed proposals for union with the United Presbyterian Church which are to be narrated in the next chapter. It was, on the whole, a time of more peace and unity within the borders of the Free Church than she had enjoyed for long. The secession over the Declaratory Act had drafted away some of the malcontent element in the north, and had also had the result of making some of those who remained in the Free Church draw to her more closely as they found schism at their doors. The secession, in short, as Principal Rainy once rather dryly put it, 'had its compensations.' Also the agita- tion about unsound doctrine died down, and the missionary and other rehgious activities of the Church were being earnestly and successfully prosecuted. Except in connection with the momentous movement for the union. Principal Rainy had probably less cause for anxiety as leader of the Free Church than he had had since he came into that responsible position. His authority in the Assembly was now supreme. GENERAL CHURCH VIEWS 177 He led the House in most matters with undisputed authority ; and let no one imagine that a great demo- cratic assembly of educated Scotsmen of all types and professions and stations of life is easily led. But the Church in a quite unique way trusted its leader as not merely the ablest but the most deeply spiritual guide any Church in the land possessed. Not even the Disruption leaders had more fully the confidence of the Church than Dr. Rainy now had. Yet there was about him never a trace of presumption or arrogance. He was the servant of the Church even more than the ruler. Shortly after the Jubilee Assembly, Principal Rainy delivered in St. Columba's Church, Cambridge — the minister of which was the Rev. A. Halliday Douglas, formerly one of the Principal's successors in Huntly and a brilliant scholar whose career was ended by a much lamented early death — a lecture on ' Presby- terianism.' It touches on many merely ecclesiastical points in Presbyterian procedure which need not be referred to here ; but some of its more general reflec- tions are interestingty illustrated by such a story as that of this biography. Thus the Principal speaks of how Presbyterianism ' acquires for the Church in its corporate action popular support and impulse ' and * prepares a people ready to be appealed to,' as neither Anglican Episcopacy, which ' fails greatly in providing for the representative element,' or Congregationalism, * which does not furnish means by which the greater Church, as such, may feel itself to be effectively and responsibly thinking and acting,' succeeds in doing. No other system so * welds and wields a widespread community,' but on this he added : — VOL. II. M 178 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY ' I make this statement on the supposition that the com- munity is a community of independent and self-respecting Christian people. The Church of Rome, it must be owned, displays an immense power of penetrating her people with her influence ; but that takes place under the condition of a thoroughly passive and submissive temper on the part of the flock.' As to this last point, he admitted that the way the Presbyterian system invites the body of the Christian people into participation in the wider affairs and interests of the Church carries difihculties in its train in times of debate or unsettlement. The strain thus arising is ' sometimes considerable/ but it is ' honour- able.' And he continued : — ' Indeed I am disposed to press the question whether, on a New Testament view of the Church, any system of organisation can be vindicated which has not this as one of its features — namely, a plain aptitude to carry on the education of the whole membership by making them participant, each in his own degree, in the questions which Divine Providence is raising for the Church and in the grounds on which these questions must be disposed of.' So, perhaps, the prolonged debates recorded in this book about spiritual freedom or union or criticism had, after all, despite their obvious human frailties, more of the New Testament Church about them than a dignified conclave of bishops or an ecclesiastical judge sitting in the indisputable decorum of his court. At the close of this lecture. Dr. Rainy spoke of proposals for union between Presbytery and Episcopacy. He remarked that if this meant merely that they should not reckon externals of Church government as sufficient ground for disunion, that would be intclhgible. GENERAL CHURCH VIEWS 179 Applied all round, he observed, it would mean * we should all be Episcopalians in England and, by a much larger majority, all Presbyterians in Scotland.' Then he went on : — ' But that is not the proposal. We must accept " the historic Episcopate." . . . Observe the meaning of this. Why should not the Anglican concede his peculiarity ? The answer is : " No7i possumus. Our conscience is concerned. We cannot find the Church of Christ in any non-episcopal society." That is to say, every branch of Christ's Church, at present non-episcopal, which comes into the proposed arrangement, is silently to acquiesce in the repudiation of its own character as an authentic branch of the Church. And when it does so « (if any do so) , where wiU it be ? Cut off by its own act from fellowship with all the Protestant Churches which refuse to follow it — merged in a system which refuses to hold ecclesi- astical fellowship with the great mass of Protestant Christian- ity. Is that possible ? No, verily. That would be treason to the principle of unity itself — a principle which is violated by no other Protestants in the world as it is by the Protestants of the Church of England.' * The first step,' he went on, * to approximation, not to speak of reunion, is recognition.' And he added this gentle comment on Anglicanism : — ' Meanwhile, it is not worth the consideration of Anglicans that they occupy this singular position — they will not recognise the Church standing of those who recognise them ; and they only recognise the Church standing of those, Greeks and Latins, who do not recognise them. Is not that an odd kind of Catholicity ? ' I have quoted from this lecture at some length because it gives, in convenient form, some of Dr. Rainy's more general Church views. As regards the references in it to Anglicanism, one may add that 180 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY towards the great Church of England he always had a curious mixture of real appreciation and what might be called good-natured superiority. He saw — as Newman saw even in his Romanist days — how much of the rehgious life of England was committed to that Church. But for Anglicanism as a system (and as distinct from a home of piety and sacred learning) he had an undisguised disrespect.^ He called it * the worst-governed Church in the world.' An Episcopalian dignitary once said, meaning it as a compliment, that if they had had Dr. Rain}^ they ' would have made him Archbishop.' One can picture the Principal many things, but it is difficult to imagine that powerful man content to be swathed in the impressive impotence of an Anglican prelate, reduced to moving admirable abstract propositions in convocations and congresses and to inditing endlessly futile episcopal admonitions to some priestling who wants to be a law to himself about his clothes or candles during Divine Service, and who, in the end, can and probably will treat the directions of his father in God with deferential defiance. On the whole, I think Dr. Rainy was more interested in Romanism than in Anglicanism. It need hardly be said that he had a detestation — nothing less — of the Papal system as the enemy of the evangelical faith and of human freedom. But his mental interest — though no man was less either of an extremist or a * The Anj^licans who interested him were not the bishops of the English Church (whom he hardly regarded seriously as rulers), but her thinkers. One may mention that he had a special appreciation of F. J. A. Hort — and Hort's was the really intellectual and philosophical mind of the Cambridge triumvirate with which his name is associated — yfi\\oi,t. Life and Letters he read with great interest. GENERAL CHURCH VIEWS 181 despot — was in what was thorough in doctrine and effective in operation. As cognate to this subject, I may quote here from a letter giving his view — or rather, one part of his view — of the ministry. It is addressed to Dr. Salmond of Aberdeen, and was (I think) written in connection with the latter's contribution to the Conference on ' Priesthood and Sacrifice ' held at Oxford in 1899 under the presidency of Dr. Sanday. The letter goes over various familiar points, but the following state- ment of the ministry as the proper organ of * Church acts ' has interest : — ' We hold the institution of the ministry. And those who hold office are, no doubt, so far distinguished from ordinary members. But not as priests (yet some of their functions may be such as priests also have discharged in their general character as ministers of religion) : the New Testament ministers are to be pastors, examples, exhorters, teachers — also, in a ministerial way, rulers, to see Christ's order maintained. For these ends they have a certain amount of authority. * It may be asked whether any functions are peculiarly and exclusively theirs, and on what ground are our practice of con- ferring ordination and the administration of sacraments. Some things must be ascribed to them by the nature of their office. They have a right to be heard, to be regarded with respect so long as they keep within their Master's rules, to preside and guide. For the rest, I am inclined to think that our ground must be that certain acts are acts of the collective Church as such. The consent, the desire and the presence of the Church ought to be in them. When then any church or congregation meets as such for any of these purposes, the pastor and office- bearers ought to have the place, whatever that is, which is suitable, and regard be had to the institution of a standing ministry. It is not that the minister, for his part, communi- cates a validity to the ordinance which otherwise would be lacking ; but when the complete Church acts, it is seemly 182 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY she should act through her proper authorities. In the patri- archal times, if the head of the family sacrificed, it was not that a sacrifice could not be valid without him, but that his action was the seemly arrangement. The family felt it so : so also do congregations in the corresponding case. All prelatists own that baptism might be by a layman in case of need, yet the practice of administering by an ordained man is not interfered with. I am convinced that historically the functions which came to be appropriated to the bishop as com- petent to him alone were those in regard to which it was felt that the complete Church should take part in them, and in which also it was possible to have the presence and action of the chief pastor. He therefore took the action, and it came to be assumed that no one else could.' Further on in this letter, Principal Rainy made the following reference to Apostolical Succession and the Anglican's staking of Church life upon it : — ' According to the Anglican theory, there is a Christian sacri- fice for the offering of which validly, Christians are dependent on an order of priests. But more than that, they must be priests instituted to their function by a set of peculiarly quali- fied men.^ One asks where the fitness lies of such an arrange- ment ? It may be said, " To secure the efficacy of the sacra- ^ This letter refers only to points upon which Dr. Salmond had written Principal Rainy, and thus it does not mention the popular argument of the Anglican theory — namely, that grace and authority for the ministry must come ' from above, not from below.' As this most fallacious use of a true principle is sure to occur to many readers, it may be referred to in this note. That all grace and authority must come ' from above ' is scriptural and Christian Church doctrine, held by good Presbyterians as strongly as by any one else But it does not go one inch to prove that, therefore, they must come viA an episcopal order. 'From above' surely means from Christ, the Head and Life of the Church. But Christ is certainly among the company of His believing people. His presence is promised there and is often manifest there. Why, then, may grace and authority from Him not arise out of this company of the believing people in which He abides? So coming, they may be quite as much 'from above' as they would be coming through the instrument of an episcopate. The question thus resolves itself into an inquiry as to which is the instrument actually designated and used for the purpose by Christ. As to this, we can appeal confidently both to New Testament scholarship and evangelical history. GENERAL CHURCH VIEWS 183 ment as a channel of grace." But why should grace be con- fined to channels which are not necessarily gracious ? It may be said, then, " To secure the unity of the Church, that the Society may always be identified." But, apart from all other arguments, this end of the arrangement has failed. There are competing societies. And, as Newman said long ago, to suspend the (divinely intended) unity in the Apostolic succession is an Anglican extravagance. The Romanist rehes on all the notes of the Churches and assumes that the Succes- sion has been taken care of along with the rest.' And at the end, he adds this about the recognition of Churches : — ' I recognise the Visible Church wherever visible believers are recognising one another in that character, owming the Christian ties and obligations, and giving themselves up with one another to observe Christ's rules and ordinances. I recognise therefore a Quaker meeting. But such a Church may be very imperfect. As a Church it has a right to more and a duty to have more than a Quaker meeting has. And it ought, in its formation and progress, to have regard not only to itself, but to its connection with the larger society of the Catholic Church and to the importance of maintaining its peace and unity.' This last position about recognising a Church which was really of the Church of Christ and yet was very imperfect, Dr. Rainy both held and acted upon. To make some defect or imperfection — say in method of government or the ministry — ground for cutting a living Christian company thus imperfect off from the body of Christ altogether was, in his view, to break a unity otherwise, at worst, incomplete and was there- fore, though often done in the name of Catholicity, the very act of schism. It would, of course, be obviously unjust to take these brief extracts from a single address and letter as 184 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY giving Dr. Rainy 's complete statement of his view of the Church and of the ministry. He was called on to act on these subjects rather than discuss them. But what has been quoted shows he had not neglected to think of them and had clear positions about the doctrine of the Church as well as a strong will in her practical government. It is not out of connection with the subjects just referred to, and it leads to the subject of the next chapter, to mention here Dr. Rainy's attitude towards a movement for ' Christian Unity ' started in Scotland in .1899 chiefly by the late Bishop Wilkinson of St. Andrews, the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Dr. Wilkinson — whose name is held in deep respect by many in England for his influence on St. Peter's, Eaton Square — gathered round him a number of representa- tives of different Churches and they issued an appeal on the subject of the divisions of Christendom. Principal Rainy, naturally, was invited to join in this movement, and he explains why he did not in the following letter addressed to the first of the signatories — Dr. Bannerman of Perth : — ' My dear Bannerman, — I ought sooner to have replied to your note with enclosure. I need hardly say that I should be very glad to meet with the excellent persons who sign along with you and listen to any views they might wish to put before me. But at present I am in this case. I have a rather prominent position and considerable responsibility in connec- tion with another union proposal — a practical one — which is on the verge of being carried through. It does not seem to me advisable to seem to dangle (forgive the word) more wide and more indefinite union ideas before men at present. For I should have to explain what I meant and how much I meant, and so on. I do not wish to have this to do.' GENERAL CHURCH VIEWS 185 This is quite intelligible in the circumstances. But in addition to this, Principal Rainy's deliberate attitude on the matter of union was against far-off ideas and for immediate duties. Bishop Wilkinson called, to urge him afresh to join the Christian Unity Society. Dr. Rainy mentioned to me that they had had prayer together and conversation, but he added, * I did not see my way.' The following letter to some extent indicates his mind. It is a scribbled and unfinished draft and written at the back of it are the words ' not sent ' ; but I shall take the liberty of quoting it as it states Dr. Rainy's view of schemes of union, and of his line of duty in connection with them. It is as follows : — ' Dear Bishop Wilkinson, — Since you kindly called, I have thought a good deal over the paper you left with me. The result is that, as things stand, I do not see my way to sign it. I say this with regret, for I entirely believe in the Christian sincerity of the utterance which the paper embodies and [have] the greatest respect for those whose names are appended to it. ' It seems to me, however, that the object of the paper is to fix the mind of the various Christian communities on a general reunion of Christendom into one visible Church. Nothing indeed is proposed except earnest and believing prayer for this object. But I think that in proposing united prayer on a given day for the purpose throughout all the Churches, ycu hold up this object, in all its width, as claiming a primary place in the desires and efforts of all Christian people. ' I feel this rather tends to mislead. The better way seems to me for those who are nearest one another to see how their differences can best be dealt with. For, at present, not only the duty of union but also the duty of separation, with a view to truer union, must be kept in mind.' This draft abruptly stops here, and it must not 186 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY be taken as a full and finally approved statement. But it indicates Dr. Rainy's mind about union in more than one respect. The last sentence, for ex- ample, is characteristic. Dr. Rainy was never in the least carried away by the idea merely of a big Church, either for Scotland or the Empire or Christendom. The interest of the purity and safety of the evangel was to him more than that of any ecclesiastical uniformity. Further, his somewhat curt ' I think this tends to mislead ' is characteristic — though I repeat this is a draft and was meant doubtless to be more fully expressed. But Principal Rainy never seemed to trouble to do himself justice in saying much of the postulate of the rightness of Christian Unity. He never made orations about his catholicity of view. He never was loud in professions of universal charity. Constantly, one saw men far his inferiors both intel- lectually and spiritually, gain a certain credit with the public by speeches — often, doubtless, most earnest speeches — of this kind, which he seemed almost to wish to avoid. Dr. Rainy's whole temperament had that dignity, aloofness — if you will, pride — which, as the Greek tragedian phrases it, * cared not to seem but to be the best.' In the matter of Christian unity, he carried this almost too far and let people think he was not so earnest about it as many who spoke much on the subject. Whereas, what is the fact ? The fact is that he is the man in Scotland who accomplished it. To Dr. Rainy, in short, union was nothing more or less than that simple thing — duty. Therefore it is not a thing to be too much talked of, still less be made a manoeuvre, and he had a really stern scorn for men GENERAL CHURCH VIEWS 187 who used union as a stalking-horse to cover other ends. It is a thing regarding which all he cared for was the one point an earnest man asks about duty — how to do the next thing. Now the next thing, he always held, was ' for those who are nearest each other to see how their differences can be dealt with.' The result is that in this biography we have not a man holding up visions of unity nor even making speeches full of catholic sentiments. I would not be thought to refer slight- ingly to those whose relation to union has been of this character. I am merely pointing out that in Principal Rainy we have not that, because we have more than that. We have the one man in Scotland who has achieved union. The more one studies history, the more one perceives the class distinction — of course I am speaking of the world of affairs, not of thought — between those who speak of a thing, even most sincerely, and those who accomplish it. The historian hears many voices which in their day seemed very potent, and views many movements which once seemed likely to be worthy of the name of history ; but he gradually becomes hlase, and he takes each figure up and says to it, in Montaigne's motto. Fay ton faict et te cognoy — ' Do your deed and know yourself.' The one man in modern Scottish Church history who did the deed of Church Union was Principal Rainy. It is to the most notable achievement of this which not only recent but all Scottish history affords that we now turn. ^ CHAPTER XXII THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR UNION THE proposal that negotiations with the view to union should be renewed between the Free Church of Scotland and the United Presbyterian Church did not come from Principal Rainy. That the project had never faded from his thoughts and prayers since the time when it was temporarily thwarted, is certain. But that painful experience of twenty years before made Dr. Rainy extremely careful as to how and when union should be re-attempted. For he felt in the strongest possible way, and said it repeatedly, that when it was attempted a second time, the attempt must at all costs be carried through. To lead the sister Church on the ice again and then again draw back was simply not to be thought of. It was for this reason that, knowing there still remained difficulties and risks in the matter, he would not stir it till he felt he had reason to believe that the Church was really ready to go through with it. This was, obviously, at once wise and honourable. Principal Rainy's caution about this was unmistakable. At times he disap- pointed warm aspirants after union with his declinature to speak on the subject. A greatly esteemed minister of the United Presbyterian Church, Dr. Andrew Thomson of Edinburgh, expressed in 1889 some hope THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR UNION 189 that early steps would be taken to promote the union, and referred to utterances of Free Church speakers as encouraging this hope. The Principal wrote him in the following kind but strictly non-committal terms : — ' Dear Dr. Thomson, — I feel I can hardly let your touching reference to the Union question, reported in to-day's news- paper, pass without a word. I wish to thank you for your kind tone towards our Church and your cordial attitude towards union in the future. I have always felt and often said that your Church had something to complain of and something to forgive in connection with those past proceedings ; and I welcome exceedingly every proof that no estrangement of feeling on your part has been allowed to take place. ' You have expressed your hope that early steps are to be taken in" the direction of incorporating union, and you have referred to recent utterances as warranting those hopes. As I, most likely, am one of those you refer to, I think it due to you to state the position I conceive myself to occupy. ' The suspension of action on the part of our Church in 1873 left us looking forward to union with your Church as the event hoped for in the future, though for the present set aside. I think it my duty — and a more pressing duty as years pass — to take opportunity for making it plain that we maintain that attitude, that we realise the evils of indefinite delay, and especially that we feel an obligation resting on the Free Church in the matter which concerns her public character. * On the other hand (as I explained, I think, in my address to the Assembly of 1887), the interests involved in the ([uestion, and not least the interests and the dignit}^ of your Church, require that the question should not be raised again as a ques- tion debated with a view to ecclesiastical decision until there is a strong prospect of the result being quickly and cordially attained. To give effect to this condition, one would desiderate a very full pre\aous understanding among the friends of union as to time and circumstances ; and one would greatly value, I need hardly say, any prospect of removing or modifying the difficulties of tlujsc who lormerly were hostiie or indifterent. 190 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY I am convinced that the feehng in favour of union has grown greatly in strength in the Free Church. It advances under the influences of Christian principle and common sense. But beyond one or two public utterances, such as those you have referred to, I have done nothing to stir the question ; and I am at this moment free from all obhgations or understandings about it beyond those which have long been patent to the world. I do not say this from any unwillingness to bear or claim responsibility in the cause. But it would be wrong for me to take steps to commit my Church or any party in it to a definite movement regarding which there has not been adequate consultation and agreement. ' I shall rejoice if the years before us carry us all forward as rapidly as you anticipate. And I feel assured we may hope that God will graciously guide us so that we may deal worthily and well with interests so important to both the Churches.' I quote this letter at length as an example of several which show how Principal Rainy, on this matter, was inclined to wait and to pray rather than to press and speak, feeling the responsibility of raising again a project which, once raised, could not again be allowed to fail. What actually did revive the project and bring it again before the mind of the Church as something to be faced, cannot be stated in any too precise terms. No one man or thing did it. A true union is never promoted by a man or body of men declaring, * Go to, let us effect a union of Churches.' The movement simply grows by an impalpable influence of feelings and forces that draw together. Two external things, '| however, deserve to be mentioned as contributing to this in the union movement now before us. One has been already mentioned — the marked cordiality shown by the delegates of the United Presbyterian Church THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR UNION .191- at the Jubilee Assembly of the Free Church in 1893. Dr. Kennedy, the United Presbyterian Moderator, declared, amid loud cheers, that he and his fellow delegates might have brought their whole Sjmod with them ; Dr. Black, an esteemed Glasgow minister, explicitly said that ' should the Free Church at any time judge it expedient to resume the negotiations, no very serious hindrance would be found on the side of the United Presbyterian Church ' ; while, for the laity. Professor Crum Brown of Edinbiu'gh University spoke of the ' personal affection ' existing between the two Churches and looked forward to union with confidence. All this not only met with the most cordial response, but set men thinking and asking why the union should not be. The second external influence which forwarded the movement was the preparation of a joint Hymnal. This practical piece of co-operation, in which not only the Free and United Presbyterian but, after some hesitation, the Established Church also joined, was a distinct factor in helping union. The relation of the Established Church to this enter- prise of a common Hymnal had a sequel which it will be necessary to refer to later, for it had its most distinct part in the accomplishment of the consolidation of the two other Churches. Under the influences of circumstances such as these — as well as what Principal Rainy, in the letter quoted above, calls ' the influences of Christian principle and common sense ' — it is not surprising that an overture on the subject appeared on the table of the Assembly of the Free Church in 1894. Principal Rainy moved (very much in the line of his letter to Dr. Andrew 192 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Thomson) that the Assembly ' welcome ' the idea, ' recognise the obhgation lying on the Church ' in the matter, and 'commend the subject to the interest and prayers of their people,' being * persuaded that an extensive expression of sentiment from office-bearers and people is the best and most hopeful preparation for the subject being dealt with by the Church in a worthy and successful manner.' He made an interest- ing retrospective speech, recalling the old failure, which he said, very gravely, ' was a very serious blow to Christian union and Christian interests in Scotland, and they in this Church solely and only were responsible for it.' He added the remark that ' it was for himself, young as he was in those days, a very serious question whether they were taking a right step at all in suspend- ing these negotiations even in spite of the amount of difference,' and he was convinced that all the struggles the Free Church had passed through since would have been ' greatly assuaged and altered if they had passed through them as a Church previously united with the United Presbyterian Church.' As to future possible action, Principal Rainy spoke with ripe practical wisdom. The thing must not be hurried : ' they were not going to make a rush to score a move as a part of calculated policy.' If it came, it must come from the heart of the Church. On the other hand, if and when negotiations did begin, * they must come to an end speedily.' They would have no more ten years' disputing over thrashed-out topics of controversy. * His own conviction was that when they did unite, they would unite at once upon their existing standards.' The whole speech was that of a man careful about THE NEGOTIATIONS FOE UNION 193 beginning this enterprise but quite clear about both the end and the means. The counter-motion took a form which was plausible in words but deceived no one. It proposed a committee to open negotiations for a more comprehensive union. ' This threefold union,' as it was generally called — that is a plan to unite the Established as well as the other two large Presbyterian Churches — was an idea promoted, as against a union between the Free and the United Presbyterian Churches, by the body called the Layman's League, of which men- tion has been made in a previous chapter and whicli was specially articulate in the Free Church because the secretary was a Free Church elder. Principal Rainy referred to the mover of this motion with courtes}'- and to the Estabhshed Church and her place in the Presbyterianism of the country with every friendliness. But the motion was ' not a practical proposal.' It was * not business ' to talk at present of negotiating for union with a Church ' continuing established and continuing to maintain the necessity of the Establish- ment.' And, not being business, the proposal neces- sarily operated ' as a diversion ' from what is. Principal Rainy 's motion was carried by the great majority of 423 votes to only 65 for the other. The idea of the union was now fairly raised once more. The enemies of the Free Church in the secular press (one of the functions of which, as Dr. Rain^^ said, 'apparently is to show us the inwardness of things'), at once took the line that union is a great and noble thing, but this union was not to be supported because its motives were political and its aim merely to strengthen dissent against the Established Church. VOL. II. N 194 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY This insinuation was studiously kept alive in some quarters all through the subsequent years of negotia- tion, and part of its working I shall have occasion to refer to presently. Meanwhile, the Christian mind of the Church, especially among the laity, began to press the matter forward. 1 believe the laymen of Dundee took the initiative ; and they were followed by an influential meeting of elders in Glasgow, presided over by Lord Overtoun, the most prominent layman of the Church in the West of Scotland. The terms of the resolution adopted by this meeting may be quoted as expressing what really were the aims and motives of the movement :-- ' As regards a union of the Free Church with, in the first instance, the United Presbyterian Church, the meeting is satis- fied that, as the two Churches are essentially one in doctrine, worship and discipline, there is no barrier in principle to their being united on the basis of the standards common to both ; and that such a union is not only desirable in itself, but would greatly facilitate the effecting of the further and more compre- hensive union expected and desired, so soon as God in His providence may open the way for it.' Overtures, too, began to be passed in Presbyteries and speeches made on various occasions, and by the time of the next Assembly the subject was fairly in the air. Dr. Ross Taylor of Glasgow — who from this time became one of the most ardent advocates of the cause — introduced and carried in his Presbytery an overture to the Assembly in favour of union, and took occasion warmly to repudiate the charge of political motive, which he could do effectively, for he was not a Gladstonian Liberal. He declared their ultimate aim THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR UNION 195 was ' the reconstruction of the Scottish Church,' and he only wished that the EstabHshed Church could and would join by ' one act of sacrifice which would do more for the real interests which a Church had to consult than a century of royal patronage.' Principal Rainy was still very cautious. His motion in the Assembly of 1895 recognised the Church's obligation in the matter but proposed, in the mean- time, co-operation — this suggestion to be sent to the United Presbyterian Church. He made a long and notably high-toned speech, and was seconded by Lord Overtoun. There were several amendments, of which it is enough to mention one by Mr. Archibald M'Neilage — an elder who was the effective speaker in what was left of the old constitutionalist party and a man with ability — who moved that the Assembly ' is constrained by adherence to the distinctive principles of the Free Church, and in view of the state of feeling in the country, to regard an incorporating union with the United Presbyterian Church as impossible without the sacrifice of these principles.' This — the first definite ' anti- union ' motion — was seconded by Mr. Murdo Macaskill, a minister at Dingwall who had become very prominent as a leader of the Highland party in connection with the agitation against Professors Dods and Bruce over the Declaratory Act. Mr. M'Neilage's motion, put against one of the other amendments, received 42 votes ; and in the end Principal Rainy's motion was carried, without recourse to the division lobbies, by what the newspapers describe as ' an overwhelming majority.' The next step lay with the United Presbyterian 196 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Church, and it was ver}^ distinctly taken. As has been said, Dr. Raima's motion transmitted to that Church the proposal of the Free Church Assembly for co-operation. The United Presbyterian Synod — which met before the ensuing Assembly — took up the matter with purpose and courage. It ' declared anew, in terms of the Synod's unanimous resolution of 1873, its " readiness to enter into union with the Free Church," ' and its * " unabated desire for such union," ' and, while cordiahy agreeing to closer co-operation, still recorded * its strong conviction that the rehgious necessities of the country and the situation of the two Churches point to the larger solution of an incorporating union as alone adequate,' and asked that any com- mittee or conference should deal with this as well as the other. I am inclined to regard this motion in the United Presbyterian Synod of 1896 as the critical step in the whole movement. The circumstances con- nected with its being brought forward are worthy of mention. Many in the United Presbyterian Church were strongly of opinion that to stay longer merely at the stage of co-operation might really injure rather than advance union. It had its disadvantages in elaborating machinery, in causing often delay while one body consulted another, and even, arising out of this, occasional friction. The United Presbyterian Church was ready and waiting to pass from this stage. Some members of the Synod — among them Dr. Kennedy (the Clerk, and a man of greatly respected judgment). Professor Orr, Dr. John Young, and Dr. A. R. MacEwen — anxious to avoid any danger of a too carefully guarded official deliverance, drafted the THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR UNION 197 motion above indicated. Their action was justifted, for, though amendments were suggested, on the one hand, by Principal Plutton (whose extreme voluntary- ism made him apprehensive lest that point of view should be swamped in the united Church), and, on the other, by Professor Calderwood (whose political Union- ism had gravitated him to the opposite direction), the motion was carried, as has been stated, unani- mously. It was a notable step, all the more as the democratic traditions and methods of the United Presbyterian Synod, which never recognised official leaders as the Free Church Assembly was wont to do, freed it from any suggestion of having been officially manoeuvred. Principal Rainy was in Oxford when this took place. The news completely took him by surprise. He wrote to Dr. MacEwen that he was * quite unprepared for it.' The Free Church had sent to the United Presbyterian Church a proposal for co-operation : the latter Church had replied explicitly inviting to union as, in its opinion, ' alone adequate.' This forced Dr. Rainy 's hand, and that at a moment when there is good reason to believe he had graver anxiety than ever as to whether the Free Church should commit herself to this proposal which, once taken up again, must, at any risk, be honourably completed. This anxiety did not arise merely from such general difficulties as the elements in the Church of self-satisfied apathy or latent antipathy or complacent indolence or unheroic timidity which are always to be reckoned with when a question like this is presented to people. Disturbed slumberers will always make their moan. But there 198 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY were very special reasons for Dr. Rainy's anxieties at this time, and of these I shall mention two. One was poUtical : the other religious. There is no doubt that the unfriendly organs in the secular press and other influences had been not unsuccessful in fomenting party feeling over the question of the union. A single illustration of this will suffice. Early in the year with which we are now dealing, Principal Rainy called a meeting of Edinburgh laymen connected with the Free Church to confer on the subject. After some interchange of views, a motion approving of the union was moved. An amendment — for which a printed hip ' was issued by the Layman's League — was mhved, declaring for ' a comprehensive union ' em- bracing the Established Church. Sir Thomas Clark — an influential elder and Liberal Unionist — moved the desirability of no step being at present taken, as a union with United Presb3^terians might retard this ' threefold union.' The Layman's League amend- ment received small support, but Sir Thomas Clark's amendment received io8 votes, and the original motion 158. The significant and serious thing was that, with not more than one or two notable exceptions, all the supporters of this amendment belonged to one political party. This marked division of opinion — not so much the division as the character of it — caused Principal Rainy great disappointment and appre- hension. This incident has, however, a sequel which I shall tell presently. The other cause for special anxiety as to whether the question of union should be again formally raised was of a very different kind but, for that reason, an even graver consideration. Never THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR UNION 191) since the sad days when their peace had been broken by the old anti-union war, had the Highlands been in a better condition than they were in 1896. The secession in 1892 over the DeclaratoryAct had relieved the Church, in part, of an element whose continuance within her made progress and improvement in any direction im- possible in certain districts.^ Moreover, the secession had now spent itself so far as numerical loss to tlie Free Church was concerned, and a movement of con- solidation was following it. But better than that, a movement of marked spiritual quickening was being manifested in several quarters, and the religious state of the Highlands was more hopeful than it had ever been since, in 188 1, Principal Rainy became Convener. It is not difficult to see how to a mind such as his — to the mind of any man who remembers the things for which the Church first exists — it was indeed a grave question to consider whether it was right to stir again a question which at least ran a great risk of reviving feelings that might blight this prospect of religious fruit. With these anxieties Principal Rainy came to the Assembly of 1896. His speech at that Assembly revealed the weight that was on his mind. He confessed it at the outset in these touching words : — ' Sometimes, in presence of a situation like that, one felt a kind of longing, if it might be, that their gracious Lord would take the business out of their hands and dispose of it for them. But that was not His way. He put His powers into their hands. He called on them to deal with it on their * In using this expression one is not, of course, insensible to the fact that among the secessionists were also conscientious persons to be regarded with respect. 200 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY own responsibility and on the lines of His presence and prin- ciples. They therefore must go forward, according to the light they received, and, let them hope, with fidelity, sincerity and humility.' He went on to say that ' the days that had passed since the decision of the United Presbyterian Synod had been made known to him had been days of almost as anxious and earnest occupation of his mind with the consideration of this question as any days that he had ever spent in his life in connection with public questions.' Then he dwelt on the way this marked invitation to face the question of union had come. It was not a matter of devising on the part of those who might be supposed to lead the business of the Church. ' It came from the convictions of a great sister Church — a Church that had the best right to speak.' He made much of this, and at last said that ' the position they now found themselves in showed that forces of Providence were stronger than their own plans and intentions.' They were * in the hands of Providence,' and the}^ ' must deal with the subject.' Let them ' try so to deal with it as not to prejudice the beneficent education of them all which God was carrying on here in Scotland.' This was, I think, one of the most significant and interesting moments in all Dr. Rainy's career. Here was a man — a most powerful man — called as he really believed by Providence to give up his own idea of what might most safely and wisel}^ be done, and to go forth to a further enterprise where certainly were great risks and where (as he frankly said in this speech) was 'the possibility' tliat tlic result would be reached THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR UNION 201 ' amid disaster.' He verily believed that an Authority higher than his own wisdom had, in all the circum- stances, summoned him to this. And so he obeyed what Mr. Gladstone once spoke of as the ' great and high call to work by faith and not by sight.' ' Certainly what had happened was, in one aspect of it, no more than that a body of men had passed an unexpected resolution, and — since they were fallible men — it was arguable that this resolution was premature, unwise, inconsiderate. The leadings of Providence have always one aspect that can be described in human terms like these. But they have another side. Whatever be their outward aspects, in the heart of them is God. A man who believes in God and prays to God discovers this and is sure of it. This was why Principal Rainy went on. It was an act not of policy but of obedience. One often felt about Dr. Rainy the note of the soldier. I remember a fine phrase of his about hfe : ' We must succeed as soldiers succeed.' Soldiers succeed, not by gaining honours and applause, nor, it may be, by gain- ing even victory. Their success is obedience to the call of duty. Their profession is ' the service.' Principal Rainy, even as the Church leader, was always the soldier in ' the service ' of ' the good cause.' It is possible that some who read this will cavil at its insertion here. But in writing the biography of a be- lieving man, I am not going to apologise for dealing with him as a believer, and that not merely in the secrecy of his soul but also in the conduct of liis career. It is, however, not only consistent witli this faith, but really part of it, to use ail human judgment; and ^ Letter to Lord Acton. Morley's Life oj Glads tone, iii. 457 202 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Principal Rain^^'s motion was a very careful one, not immediately accepting the invitation from the United Presbyterian Synod, but remitting it to the Committee to be fully considered and brought maturely before next Assembly, the whole Church being asked, mean- time, ' to consider earnestly and prayerfully the serious stage which this question has now reached and the grave interests involved in it.' He said that trusted counsellors had pressed him not thus to delay another year. Dr. Ross Taylor (whose temperament was always optimistic) was disappointed, and Dr. Hender- son, mentioned in an early chapter as the son-in-law of Dr. Candlish and now one of the Clerks of Assembly (whose swift mind was always some distance ahead of the ordinary man's), thought the delay of doubtful wisdom, because there was the danger of old prejudices being revived in the matter, and the sooner these were forestalled by the presentation of the definite duty of union and an appeal to higher motives the better. Dr. Rainy, however, while not denying this, was set on moving slowly. With characteristic fairness, he gave great consideration to ' the right to have notice given and time to think on the part of those who did not agree with him in regard to this question.' His motion was a signal success. It was seconded, amid great cheering, by Dr. William Ferguson of Kinmundy — a staunch Conservative in politics and, in old days, a prominent anti-unionist. Dr. Ferguson was one of the finest laymen in the Church, and his speech was worthy of his high and spiritual character. There was no amendment — a minister of the constitutionalist party making only a general statement as to their principles THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR UNION 208 — and Dr. Rainy's motion was agreed to amid much gratification. Meanwhile — in the same week — something happened in the Estabhshed Assembly which must be mentioned, for, as I shall show, it had a direct effect on the whole question. In writing of the joint Hymnal, I said the story had a sequel. The sequel is this. The joint Hymnal (the Committee which drew it up contained representatives of the three Churches) was approved by the Free and the United Presby- terian Churches. But when it came up for approval to the Established Church Assembly, a somewhat remarkable debate occurred. Dr. John Macleod of Govan — who was the leader of what is popularly called the ' High Church party ' in his Church ^ — moved its rejection. It is right to say clearly that he did this on the ground that he did not acknowledge the book satisfactory ; in particular, he did not consider its sacramental hymns adequate or orthodox. This should be stated and . of course accepted. At the same time. Dr. Story, who seconded Dr. Macleod and who was by this time distinctly the ablest man in his Church and Clerk of Assembly, took the ground that ' this finessing with dissenters ' had more than any- thing else ' lowered Churchly feehng ' ; and it must be added that Dr. Macleod, on another occasion at this Assembly, made a speech in which, after referring ' Both in the English and the Scottish Established Church there are those who claim to be or are called ' High Churchmen,' but there can be no genuine High Churchmanship where there is submission to terms of erastianism. The Free Church was the genuine representative of High Churchism — of course a quite different thing from either mere ritualism or sacerdotalism — in the Scottish Church 204 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY to Dr. Rainy as * this unprincipled Principal,' and appealing to ' the younger men of the other Churches to free themselves from the sickly despotism of a single individual,' he, as regards the question of union, turned from ' a merely ecclesiastical conglomeration of dissent ' to ' a National Church not so much Presby- terian as Reformed.' Dr. Macleod's motion to reject the Hymnal was carried by a considerable majority. This act of the Established Church and these speeches must be mentioned because it was these things that ended the danger of political cleavage in the Free Church by ending the idea of the threefold union which was the programme of the Layman's League. This is best illustrated by telling the sequel to the meeting of Edinburgh laymen which, as I have said, Principal Rainy called and which was almost equally divided over union and divided on political lines. That meeting adjourned. When it met again the above incident had taken place. The result was that every one but a mere handful felt that union, and even co-operation, with the Established Church could not again be brought forward. Sir Thomas Clark now went frankly in support of the union with the United Presbyterian Church, as did all who had previously voted with him. An amend- ment received only seven votes. That unfortunate blunder of the Established Church Assembly cleared the air for men of all parties as to what was at present practical in proposals of union. One must hasten to add the remarkable fact — which is justifica- tion for my calling the incident a * blunder ' — that the next year the Established Church reversed this decision and agreed to co-operate in the Hymnal. THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR UNION 20.5 Still the practical effect which its action in 1896 had on the situation in the Free Church was what has been indicated, and it is, as I have said, historically necessary to our narrative to tell it.^ The danger of political cleavage on the issue of a threefold union being thus much reduced, Principal Rainy's chief concern was the other cause of anxiety I mentioned — the Highlands. During this year he had a great deal of correspondence with leading ' con- stitutionalists ' in the north, and more than one conference was arranged. It is evident from this correspondence, which is too much concerned with details to be quoted here, that there was a real desire on the part of the more reasonable and responsible ministers of that section in the north to avoid a new secession. The position of these men was undoubtedly not an easy one. There was an intransigeant section resolved to go any length and already beginning a repetition of the old campaign. The more moderate men to whom I have referred now began to reap the consequences of their own immoderate agitation against the Church of the south over the Declarator}^ Act and other matters. It was easy for the extremer party to point to men who had taken this line in the ' Having recalled all this, for the reason stated, I append the following words concerning Dr. John Macleod from a lecture on his work and teaching by the Rev. A. Wallace Williamson, D.D., of St. Cuthbert's, Edinburgh : ' No one questioned the greatness of his personality, the deep sincerity of his convictions, his intense spirituality, and his consuming desire to strengthen and develop the Church of which he was a Presbyter. . . . Mistakes in policy or action he may have shown : but they were the accidents of a career ever marked by noble and high aims.' On Dr. Macleod's death, Principal Rainy went rather out of his way to pay a tribute to his memory, but I have not been able to find any report of his words. 206 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY past, and who now were half inclined to fall in with the south over union, as backsliders. Moreover, in view of the old anti-union controversy, it was not to be expected that even those in the north who desired to find a way of accepting the union, could themselves be, or get their people to be, very enthusiastic over it. These things explain the very earnest desire of those constitutionalists who were turning to union that there should not be much public agitation of the question. Dr. Ross Taylor was inclined to encourage overtures from Presbyteries in favour of union ; men such as Mr. Macaskill of Dingwall, who has been mentioned, and Mr. Murdo Mackenzie of Inverness, who was an esteemed and influential preacher — the two best known leaders in the north, and leaders of different sections not without a touch of rivalry between them — de- precated this. They knew it would stir up a counter- agitation which, whether it was successful or not, would put them in a tight place. They therefore counselled private conferences rather than public debate in Presbyteries and elsewhere. Mr. Lee, the Secretary of the Highland Committee, who made a tour of the north and interviewed many ministers, represented this strongly to Dr. Rainy. He writes in November 1896 : — ' It is clear that if the friends of union keep quiet and avoid overtures and discussions in our Presbyteries, we will not have a single overture against union before next Assembly, and you may be able to appoint your Committee for union negotiations without a division. I question if they can carry many Presby- teries against union should overturing become general, but the discussion in Presbyteries, etc., would unsettle our people and make it impossible for our old anti-union friends to be THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR UNION 207 satisfied in the Assembly without a discussion and a division. Our constitutionalist friends will not raise any question as to the mind of the Church not being expressed in any way during the year. I put that distinctly to Mackenzie. He greatly approves of trying in private conferences to arrive at such an understanding as to the basis of union as would make public controversy and discussion as far as possible un- necessary.' This desire on the part of those Highland ministers to avoid public discussion is intelligible and can to a certain extent be sympathised with ; but it may be questioned if 3/ielding to it was altogether wise. For one thing, this damped interest in the south and gave not only plausibility but substance to the taunt of the hostile press that there was not enthusiasm about the union. But, more seriously, it meant that no attempt was made to take the Highland people into confidence and carry their minds to understand and approve of the union. Discussion might, as the letter just quoted says, * unsettle ' ; but it would also educate. In the end this policy undoubtedly proved a costty one, and it is therefore right to record that it was out of deference to the earnest representations of Highland ministers that it was followed. Men who in the past had recklessly inflamed their people against the Church in the south, were simply (in many cases) afraid now to urge on these people the union policy of that Church. Principal Rainy 's view of all this is expressed, somewhat undecidedly, in the following letter to Mr. Macaskill : — ' I understand and appreciate the motives which lead 3'ou to deprecate controversial agitation. It is quite true that 208 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY stirring of waters in public renders it difficult to refrain from some measure of discussion and perhaps of collision. At the same time it is so extremely natural, after last Assembly's action, to have overtures, that I confess as yet I hardly see a feasible way of avoiding it. But I have a great desire to respect all reasonable susceptibilities. Perhaps we may see a way through the difficulty. But, meanwhile, I wish to say that I think you, as well as we, should be considering how to make the best of what is certainly coming. We must in some shape compare ideas while there is yet time, if we are to avoid treading on one another's toes. It will not do to wait till currents form which will carry us away. We must be strong enough to grasp the situation firmly and reasonably.' The policy of conference was as a matter of fact largely, if not exclusively, followed. Men from all districts came to consultation with the Committees, and the results were almost uniformly good. But the objections I mentioned a moment ago remain true : the Church as a whole was not awakened to any great enthusiasm, and the Highlands were not being pre- pared for ' what is certainly coming.' The former was not a serious matter — and indeed it is perhaps better to carry through a union under the strength of a con- viction of Christian duty than under an emotional impulse which will soon exhaust itself. But the latter was serious, and I venture to think it is a just criticism to say that its seriousness was inade- quately appreciated at the time even by Principal Rainy. One event occurred during the year which helped to fan the sentiment of union. Sentiment requires to breathe a larger air than that of a committee room or private conference. The feeling of brotherhood THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR UNION 209 between the two Churches found expression on the occasion of the celebration, in 1897, of the Jubilee of the United Presbyterian Church, the two sections of which — the ' Secession ' and the ' Relief ' — had united in 1847. The delegates from the Free Church to this celebration (which was a most successful one, and 1 regret I cannot stay to describe it), included Principal Rainy and Dr. John M'Ewan. The presence of the latter was interesting and significant, for he was the same Rev. John M'Ewan who — the reader may have forgotten it — was named in our chapter on the thwarted union as a henchman of Dr. Begg's in that old contro- versy. He made an admirable and cordial speech in which he said that ' although he was now getting an old man he was beginning to cherish tlie expectation that he might live to see the day when he should be privileged to stand among them as a constituent member,' and concluded with the hope that the two Churches ' may still be more closely united, yea, rather, be made one.' Principal Rainy, who had been specially invited to speak on the subject of ' the relation and duty of the Presbyterian Free Churches to one another,' gave an address dealing directly with union. He spoke of the spiritual ties between the Free and the United Presbyterian Churches. They are kindred branches of one stem and that, not merely Presbyterian government, but ' the character- istic Christianity of Scotland.' He described the old times * when there was little said about toleration, but when men were strong for finding out their duty and doing it at all costs.' The audience heard again the speaker who had, years before, championed the VOL. ri. o 210 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY character of Scottish conviction against Dean Stanley, as he went on : — ' They had their errors. They were guihy of extravagances that cost them dear. But I think one may reflect with tears almost in one's eyes upon that wonderful battle of the Scottish Church. I know of nothing like it — the courage of it, the sheer idealism of it, the wonderful trust in principle. The way in which generation after generation of men spent theii bodies and their goods for those ideals was wonderful. We of the free Presbyterian Churches put in our claim to have a share in this inheritance of heroism, courage and self-sacrifice which belonged to Scottish Presbyterianism. Let us make good that claim.' He went on to speak of the duty of Churches thus akin ' not to keep apart from one another.' He dealt with difficulties of various kinds, but ' the difficulties are growing less.' He declared that they had come to a position ' when it concerns us in the most serious manner that these union proposals should succeed.' He could not ' consent to contemplate anything else.' He referred to those who imputed to them ignoble motives of tactical ecclesiastical gain, and simply stated that he ' did not feel the temptation.' * They were doing, according to their best light, a -service which is called for to the Christianity of Scotland.' He did * not care for the union unless Christ led them into it ' : he did * not want it unless they could go forward in the spirit of pra3'er and referring the steps they took to their Master.' It was a noble and a frank union speech, and showed that Principal Rainy was committed to go on. The celebration of the United Presbyterian Jubilee in 1897 gave the cause of union a great impetus, THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR UNION 211 just as the celebration of the Free Church Jubilee in 1893 had inaugurated it. The Assembly of 1897, meeting a month after, took the step. Principal Rainy moved that the Assembly respond to the representation of the United Presby- terian Synod of the previous year that only union was * adequate ' — a representation which the Free Church had claimed a year to weigh — by authorising its com- mittee to negotiate on the practical questions that bear on incorporating union. He supported this in another of his serious and lofty speeches which I cannot, too frequently, find space to quote. An amendment by Mr. Macaskill to instruct the Committee to secure liberty for the members of the Church to strive as they may see occasion for the claim of the ' last clause of the Protest of 1843 ' — that is, to a restoration of the * benefits ' of establishment — was subsequently added with consent of all parties. A definite anti-union amendment received on a division 27 votes. There was no doubt as to the meaning of this result. The Scotsman said that * the decision of the Assembly means there is going to be union,' and even scoffed a little unkindly at the opposition as ' reduced to 27, of whom history is likely to be silent.' But this re- cognition of an outward fact did not mean that the Scotsman was to be hoodwinked by Principal Rainy's talk about his innocence of motive of ' tactical ad- vantage.' ' It is difficult to believe,' it added, ' that Disestablishment is not really at the bottom of this movement for union.' ^ It is right that the reader should be acquainted with this view, for, of course, 1 Scotsman, 28th May 1897. 212 THE IJFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY if it is true it sheds a light on those of whom it was asserted. On the other hand, if it is not true, it sheds a hght on those by whom it was said so pubhcly and so persistently. The reader must judge. Meanwhile I shall — from many letters of congratulation to Dr. Rainy — quote one, the writer of which bears a name of peculiar honour in this matter. The Rev. David Cairns of Stitchel, the venerable brother of the loved Principal Cairns, wrote : — ' I would like to congratulate you on the happy issue of your labours, and more especially with most, I believe I may say all, of my United Presbyterian brethren, to thank you for your noble services in connection with the l^nion negotiations, which now seem so hopeful, and which will I trust, with God's helping, soon reach a happy termination. The debate and vote of this Assembly have settled the fad of union, and the practical details, though they will require much wisdom and mutual forbearance and brotherly co-operation, will settle themselves or be settled by the wise heads and warm hearts which are to be found in both the Churches. How much some of those who were dear to us and laboured much in this cause would have rejoiced had they been permitted to see this happy issue. They did not see it when on earth, but we can believe that they see it and rejoice in heaven.' The thought contained in this last sentence must have awakened a tender response in Dr. Rainy's mind as he recalled how all the leading figures with whom he had worked and prayed in the former Committee on Union were now away. Now that the two Churches h^d set their faces towards union, the two committees had frecpient joint meetings which were of a most harmonious character. But there was one question which had special anxiety for the Free Church, and which had emerged just before THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR UNION 213 this stage. That was the legal question as to the property of the Church if an anti-union minority appealed against the union to the civil courts. The first to raise the question formally was Mr. Taylor Innes (the autlior of the standard work on The Law of Creeds in Scotland), who wrote a letter, which unfortun- ately is not discoverable, to Principal Rainy as early as March 1897. Principal Rainy, in communicating this letter to Dr. Ross Taylor, wrote : — ' I have always felt that at the present stage any legal con- sultations would inevitably be hypothetical and unsatisfactory, and I have rather deprecated them. But the matter will certainly weigh with many. And I feel that if our legal advisers see ground for thinking that in any case, in any probable form of union, serious legal risks are before us, I think they ought of themselves to give us their opinion and the grounds of it, and the range of matters to which they apprehend the risk to apply. I think of communicating with Guthrie.' The * Guthrie ' referred to was Mr. C. J. Guthrie (now Lord Guthrie), who had been for fifteen years Procurator and legal adviser of the Church. Mr; Guthrie, who from the first had difficulties about the legal questions involved and indeed at no stage took the confident view which others did, had an informal consultation with Mr. J. B. Balfour, Q.C. (subsequently Lord Kinross, Lord President of the Court of Session), who, however, was not asked at this stage for a written or final opinion. I understand Mr. Balfour's view at that time remained very much what it was as ex- pressed in the opinion he had many years before given to Dr. Begg — that is to say, he took a grave view of the risk to the Church's property attending a union — and it 214 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY must be noted that it was in face of this that Principal Rainy continued to move towards his object in com- mittee and Church court. But the reader must sus- pend judgment upon this till he learns, on a later page, Mr. Balfour's subsequent and final opinion as well as that of other eminent counsel. Meanwhile let us understand clearly Dr. Rainy's general attitude to this whole legal question. He simply would not consent that in any question of their duty, Churches should be deterred from obeying their conscientious convictions or be unduly influenced by a legal opinion. The Church * must act on her own view of her rights and duties ' if she is to be worthy to be called the free servant of her Master. Legal experts could and should advise on what, in the event of the Church deeming this union her duty, were the legal risks, if any, and how these could be averted or minimised. But 'it was not theirs to lay down either the first or the final word in the determination of that duty. On this point, Dr. Rain}/ simply would not tolerate any other dictation than that of what the Church's conscience deemed to be right. On a future page we shall be able to judge of this more adequately so far as the present case is concerned, and meanwhile judgment on it should be suspended. The committees of the two Churches began to discuss a scheme of union. Profiting from the experi- ence of the previous negotiations, they constructed no elaborate programme of points of agreement or difference. The guiding principle now was that, wherever possible, each Church should receive the other as it found it and therefore neither give up anything. THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR UNION 215 Was this possible ? ' The crux,' said Principal Rainy at almost the outset of the negotiations, * will be the formula.' The formula, as the reader knows, is the term of subscription of the Church to its doctrinal standards. There was, of course, no kind of divergence as to the acceptance of the Bible as the ' supreme standard.' Both Churches, further, accepted the Confession of Faith ; so there was no difficulty there. The United Presbyterian Church associated the Larger and Shorter Catechisms with the Confession, which the Free Church did net ; but the former Church agreed that the Confession alone was sufficient, and the Cate- chisms were not given the position of standards in the United Church. The only possible point of difficulty was in what are sometimes, but rather objectionably, called the * distinctive principles ' of the Churches, particularly on the old vexed question of relation to the State. The adjustment of this — especially in view of the great legal conflict which arose after the Union — is worthy of the reader's attention. It has been explained in a previous chapter ^ that, immediately after the Disruption, the Free Church drew up, with exceptional care, a question to be put to candidates for orders or office on this subject. This question committed its signatories to, and to no more than, the general principles of the Claim and Protest of 1842 and 1843 regarding the spirituality and freedom of the Church. That was all the Free Church ever demanded of her ofhce-bearers on the subject. The United Presbyterian^ found they could accept that unreservedly. They on their part had never com- 1 Vol. i. pp. 1 57-161. 216 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY mitted their office-bearers to ' voluntar5''ism ' or to anj^thing else incompatible with these general principles. In the basis of the union in 1847 between the * Rehef ' and * Secession ' Churches, which together formed the United Presbyterian Church, is not a word going beyond them. Therefore what was done was simpty this : — the Free Church question was adopted in its entirety with, first, a slightly shortened form of description of the documents referred to (this is only for convenience when the question is orally put to candidates, and the documents are cited in full in the preamble) ; and, secondly, the inclusion of the United Presbyterian basis of union of 1847, i^^ which, as I have said, there is nothing a Free Churchman, even though he believed in Establishment, could not sign. I shall place in parallel columns the old Free Church question and the new United Free Church question, and the reader will be able to judge how far the former Clmrch was departing from her principles in the matter : — Free Church Question. Do you believe that the Lord Jesus Christ as King and Head of the Church, has therein appointed a Government in the hands of Church officers, distinct from and not subordinate in its own province to, civil government, and that the civil magistrate does not possess jurisdiction or authoritative con- trol over the regulation of the affairs of Christ's Church? And do you approve of the general principles embraced in the Claim, Declaration and Protest adojjted United Free Church Question. Do you believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, as King and Head of the Church, has therein appointed a Government in the hands of Church officers, distinct from and not subordinate in its own province to, civil government, and that the civil magistrate does not possess jurisdiction and authoritative con- trol over the regulation of the affairs of Christ's Church ; and do you approve of the general princi- ples with respect to the spirituality and freedom of the Church of THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR UNION 217 by the General Assembly of the Christ, and her subjection to Him Church of Scotland in 1842, and in as her only Head, and to His the Protest of ministers and elders. Word as her only standard, em- commissioners from presbyteries to bodied in the Claim of Right of the General Assembly, read in 1842, the Protest of 1843, and presence of the Royal Commis- the Basis of Union of 1847 as sioner on the 18th May 1843, as principles which are sanctioned by declaring the views which are the Word of Godand the subordin- sanctioned by the Word of God ate standards of this Church? and the standards of the Church, with respect to the spirituality and freedom of the Church of Christ and her subjection to Him as her only Head and Plis Word as her only standard? This exhibits the precise amount of change upon the terms imposed by the Church of the Disruption made when she became the Church of the Union regarding the matter about which the uniting Churches were supposed most seriously to differ. The ' crux ' of the problem of Union proved simplicity itself. The result may surprise the reader whose mind is habituated to the idea that the United Presbyterians were * voluntaries,' while the old Free Church at least admitted the theory of establishment. This surprise can arise only in one who is not familiar with the actual facts of the case and who, in particular, has not appre- ciated the difference between the subscribed formula of a Scottish Church and what was called the * testi- mony.' The non-established Scottish Churches were fond — a little too fond — of testifying. That is to say, they emitted declarations of various kinds as to the views they thought it well to emphasise in their cir- cumstances. But the important and remarkable thing is, that they were very careful not to make these 218 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY testimonies binding principles to which they required their office-bearers to adhere. At the Disruption, Dr. Chalmers and others, and even the outgoing party as a whole, testified that they had a rightful claim to the privileges of the Established Church of Scotland ; but when they came to fix the terms by which they and their successors were to be bound, they deliberately put in not a word of that. Similarly, the United Presbyterian often testified against all establishments and asserted voluntaryism in their Synod ; but not a word of this is in their Basis of 1847. A Church is not bound by such testimonies ; a minority in the Church may be all the time arguing against them. A Presbyterian Church is bound by its signed formulae. And here, as shown above, the Free and the United Presbyterian Churches found themselves unreservedly at one. This simple settlement of the question gave great relief to many minds. The homologation without any change whatever of the specially characteristic feature of the old Free Church formula of 1846 — the clause expressing the distinctively Free Church position with regard to spiritual independence — seemed to make impossible any allegation that Free Church principle was being abandoned. From this point all but a handful of irreconcilable anti-unionists, involving with them a few men not so to be described but somewhat weakly led by such, were to be found in the majority. In the Assembly of 1898, Principal Rainy brought up the committee's report dealing with this matter of the formula, and also sketching plans of union on other practical points of administration. A month earlier, the Synod of the United Presbyterian Church had met THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR UNION 210 and, on the motion of Professor Orr, seconded by Dr. Kennedy, had unanimously accepted a similar report from its committee. Principal Rainy was present when this was done, and at the request of the Moderator said a few words. He expressed his gratification and * a sense of solemnity,' and spoke of the blessing to be looked for in the united Church, adding he by no means forgot ' the Church now established, to which they had many ties,' though he did not see the way to union there yet opened up. In the Free Church Assembly, Principal Rainy moved the adoption of the report and the remitting of it to Presbyteries for approval or otherwise and for suggestions. He said ' the time had come for taking definite responsibilities.' * They could not make history without decision and without courage.' He went carefully over the sketch of union in the report, very specially emphasising the agreement on the matter of the formula above referred to. * If they were to have a union at all, one did not see on what better terms it ever could be expected to come to pass.' In conclusion, he appealed to those who, for one reason or another, were inclined to hesitate about it, first ' not to call points principles,' and, secondly, to make the best of the union. His own attitude, however, was not such a tepid one ; he was looking forward * with great hope, great expectation and great longing.' He added : — ' I do not know if there is now another left of the old Union Committee. Anxiety on this subject has filled my whole public life. And, though I cannot expect to live long enough to see much, I hope to see enough in connection with the union to enable me to depart, when God shall call, blessing His name.' 220 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Dr. Rainy never studied perorations, and after this personal appeal, he continued somewhat informally to speak of those who in face of a grave and great question concerning the religious welfare of Scotland in the future did not seem able to rise above the sort of feehng which said, ' Well, you know, I don't exactly like the United Presbyterians ' or * the Free Church people.' He said he ' felt his heart sinking with a sense of shame ' at men being influenced by feelings like these in such a question as this — petty, parochial feelings. ' How,' he suddenly asked, ' would they look if the}^' were produced in that character in a novel ? ' It was an effective way of dealing with one of the greatest, because one of the smallest, impediments to the union. Principal Rainy 's motion was seconded by Professor Wood, of the University — a brilliant lawyer and faithful churchman. The anti-unionists began with a protest, as Dr. Begg had been wont to do. Their amendment asked the Assembly to ' decline to travel further in the matter of an incorporating union between the two Churches.' The mover's reason of opposition was that * what was distinc- tive in the testimony of the Free Church against volun- taryism ' was left ' an open question.' This was to say that the anti-unionists claimed that * the establishment principle ' must be made part, not merely of a * testi- mony ' of the Free Church, which it certainly had been in one clause of the Claim of Right, but of its subscribed doctrine, which it never had been and which, in the formula of 1846, the Church had distinctly declined to make it. Principal Rainy, in his reply, referred very explicitly to this, and the point — in view of subsequent THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR UNION 221 developments — is so important that I may make it clear once more by quoting his words : — ' He quite acknowledged that in the Claim of Right, they claimed for the Church the benefits of Establishment along with freedom, and, if wrongously put out, asserted the right to reclaim them. Nobody ever disputed it. That being so, the Claim of Right remained one of their hereditary docu- ments. But they were not bound to every word of their hereditary documents. That was a superstition. . . . The Claim of Right was never bound upon them. What was bound upon them was not even the general principles of the Claim of Right. Not at all. It was general principles upon a special subject. It was general principles upon spiritual independence and subjection to Christ alone and to His Word and will.' Thus, as was contended in a most cogent speech by Dr. Henderson, it was not the unionists who were making a change ; it was the anti-unionists who wished to tie the Church down now to views which undoubtedly at the Disruption the majority held, but to which, as the black and white of the formula demonstrates, they did not bind the Church even then. The unionists stood by the standard adopted by the Church immediately after the Disruption : the anti- unionists would alter that by tightening its bonds. There was a long debate, and, on a division, Principal Rainy's motion received 486 votes and the amend- ment 41. A dissent was signed by some eight persons. The writer must not be blamed that the record of these Assemblies and of the movement generally is a tame one, with no very striking or interesting features. The minority had not only no Begg, but — if one may say it without discourtesy — not a single man of 222 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY distinction in the Church who could lead their party. What the eye of an historian searches for is the figures of notable men— it is 7nen that make history worth writ- ing—and where these are lacking the story cannot but be dull. Certainly the discussions over this union are, except for the Principal's and a very few other speeches, poor reading in comparison with the old debates. All this, however, brings out the more clearly one feature of Dr. Rainy, and that was his scrupulous consideration and even generosity towards opponents whom he could overwhelm on a vote. Several in the minority bore testimony again and again to this, and declared that they could not have been treated with more fairness. It was a marked characteristic of Principal Rainy's leadership at all times and never more clearly than when, with a majority behind him of more than ten to one, he had to contend with a handful of anti- unionists. I shall have opportunity to quote from this testimony as the story goes on. During the year following the Assembly of 1898, the plan of union — that is the method of the practical amalgamation of the funds and schemes and colleges and missions and all other operations of the two Churches — was successfully and harmoniously com- pleted. Nothing could be more brotherly than the spirit shown in the committee, and there was no kind of disagreement in the report. The details of these arrangements need not be entered into here. The other matter which engrossed attention during this year was not completed. This was the terms of the formal Act of Union to be adopted by the Churches, and this, of course, involved the legal question of the due THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR UNION 223 protection of the property in the event of a lawsuit raised by the minority. These legal questions proved complicated and, involving as they did, on the part of the Free Church, consultations with eminent counsel, were not finished in time to report finally to the Assembly of 1899. That Assembly therefore was siiTiply asked to pass the plan of union and to send it down to Presbyteries, the matter of the Uniting Act being held over for another year. In connection with the possibility of legal action, an interesting point was meanwhile raised in the public press by a member of the minority, and it drew an important letter from Principal Rainy. In the Scotsman of March 27, 1899, the Rev. J. C. Robertson of Rayne, writing from the point of view of those who * cannot with a good conscience go into the proposed United Church,' and yet * cannot bring themselves to take legal steps to prevent the majority who wish this union from carrying it through,' asked ' what is to be the position of those men if union is carried through ? ' * Are they to be deprived of their income and turned out of house and home ? ' It is, he said, ' a fair question,' whether provision will be made ' for the life interests of every Free Church minister who may refuse, on grounds of conscience, to enter the Church of the majority.' Principal Rainy did not reply publicly to this letter, but he wrote the following to Mr. Robertson next day : — ' I read your letter in the Scotsman yesterday, and ever since I have felt a strong impulse to write to you. In doing so I wish to reciprocate the spirit of your own letter. 224 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY ' As to property, that and all connected with it was deliber- ately postponed until the mind of the Church should appear. Hence nothing has been said in that connection about those who in the end may not see their way to unite. And such separations are not willingly contemplated. You refer to a possible action at law with grave consequences in case there should be unwillingness on our part to meet you fairly. My views of the probable result of such an action are, I suppose, different from yours, but we agree in disliking it. ' I have always considered that in the case of ministers who in the end feel constrained to separate, but are willing to arrange amicably what can be so arranged, we should meet as brethren to effect an equitable adjustment of the claims to which your letter refers. I have not the right at this moment to speak for others, but I know no reason to doubt that this will be the general disposition. ' Will you allow me to say, however, that another matter is nearer my heart ? I would rather the Church lost ten times the money than that we should lose the presence of men like yourself. I still persuade myself that some way can be found of making it possible for you to remain and to pursue the work you love among your brethren. Ought we not to try to find it ? ' I have perhaps said enough. You will forgive me if I have said too much.' Mr. Robertson replied to this in a letter in whicli (after remarking, ' The fact is, I lost my heart while attending your class, and have never been able to get it back again, and one result is that I have never been able to change my feelings about you, which is matter of surprise to some of my friends'), he goes on to say he would like to avoid the legal issue, but ' others are pressing it forward,' and to suggest that ' a public statement ' as to what would be done towards those who do not enter the union would help to produce a better state of feeling. Such a ' public statement ' THE NEGOTIATIONS FOK UNION 225 was made shortly after by Dr. Ross Taylor in a speech at Crieff on 4th April, when he said : — ' Another question raised was — How does the Free Church propose to act towards a minority who may be conscientiously oppose^ to this union ? As to the Free Church generally, he could confidently predict that, if the supposed contingency should unhappily arise, every consideration of equity, and even of generosity, would have full play. As yet, it was true, the (question had not been considered, for they were extremely reluctant to believe that any would hold back when the real character of the Union was clearly seen. When their constitu- tionalist friends saw that the Free Church w^ent into the Union without abating a jot of what they accounted precious, they might expect them to welcome the opportunity of maintaining their principles within a wider sphere. But if this hope should not be realised, it would obviously be the plain duty of a Christian Church to respect conscientious convictions, and to meet as far as possible every interest involved.' In the legal struggle which arose after the Union it was so often said that the majority had taken the attitude of simply casting out the minority without any consideration of what was due to them, that it is right the reader should see how unfounded any such imputation is. If that unhappy legal struggle had not at once been entered on by the minority, no impartial person will doubt that the promises of the letter and speech above quoted would have been fully made good — unless indeed both Dr. Rainy and Dr. Ross Taylor are to be regarded as false men. At this stage we may turn to the consideration of another aspect of the question which has been already referred to, but the more careful discussion of which does not emerge till the year we have now reached, VOL. II. p 226 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY This is the question of the legal risks to the property of the Church attendant on the proposed union and the legal opinions as to this which the Church obtained from the counsel who were consulted on it. The discussion of this question in these pages is matter of some delicacy and also difficulty. It must be explained that the opinions obtained on any subject from counsel are, of course, the property of the clients to whom they were given. The law agency of the Church has thus not considered itself at liberty to publish them or make them available to the writer. On the other hand, I cannot but deem it to be part of the duty of Principal Rainy's biographer to dispel the erroneous idea — to which the strict respect to the practice of treating opinions as confidential has, in this case, given rise — that he carried through the Union in the teeth of adverse preponderating legal advice. What follows is given on my own responsibility — both as to its source and its substance — and it is right to say that the legal authorities of the Church have no responsibility in connection with it. If there be any impropriety in its publication here, the writer accepts full responsibihty. Three leading opinions were given — from Mr. Asher, Q.C., M.P. (at the time Solicitor-General for Scotland), Mr. Haldane, Q.C., M.P. (then the leading counsel at the Bar of the House of Lords), and Mr. J. B. Balfour, Q.C., M.P. (subsequently, as has been already mentioned. Lord President of the Court of Session under the title of Lord Kinross). Mr. Asher's opinion, given on 14th March, was not favourable. I am not in a position to say precisely to what degree, for the simple reason tliat this opinion was not a written one. But, THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR UNION 227 certainly, he warned the Church there were grave risks. This, of course — there need be no hesitation in sa3n[ng it — was Mr. Asher's way. The most resolute of pleaders in open court, he was always inchned in consultation to give his clients a dark view of their case. This makes the more interesting Mr. Asher's final words to those he was advising in this matter. His final words — as to the authenticity of which there is no question — were, * What I say to you, gentlemen, is this : if you think that valuable results will be achieved by the Union for your Church and for religion, go on.' This, of course, was no part of his opinion as to the legal risk if an action were brought, but it is of interest in itself. Mr. Haldane's opinion, taken on 5th May 1899 — a month or so after Mr. Asher's — ^was clearly and even emphatically in favour of the legality of the Union. On the question as a legal question, he had no kind of hesitation, and he held that any other view would be a failure on the part of the court to appreciate the facts it was called on to investigate. The only qualification accompanying this opinion was that, of course, so very large a question, involving as it did both historical and doctrinal predilections, could not be regarded as entirely one of judicial logic; and that, therefore, the issue, as distinct from the merits, was not a thing upon which it was possible to speak with absolutely confident prediction, for, after all, tribunals are human. Even as to this, however, Mr. Haldane was fully assured in his mind, that if anything went wrong in a subordinate court, the House of Lords would put that right. The third opinion — that of Mr. Balfour — was not given till the 2nd of August. 228 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY It was of peculiar interest, because, as the reader is aware, this was the Mr. Balfour whom Dr. Begg had consulted on the same subject more than twenty years before, and who also had given Mr. Guthrie a rather unfavourable view of the Union in 1897. Mr. Balfour now — ^it is one of the most interesting facts in the legal story — ^in a formal written opinion, reversed his view, explaining that fuither information had made him doubtful whether the issue regarding the establishment principle ' was quite correctly stated ' in Dr. Begg's memorial to him. He gave a care- fully reasoned fresh opinion, and its conclusion was as clear as Mr. Haldane's, though reached by a different and lower road. He advised explicitly that the facts of the case would not justify the civil courts' interference with the Union as a breach of trust in respect either to the general or the congregational property of the Free Church. The opinion is un- hesitating, and as I have said, in view of his previous opinion, was of peculiar value. The above opinions — Mr. Asher's, Mr. Haldane's, and Mr. Balfour's — were the leading opinions given. In view of this, I think the fair-minded reader will not contend that, in consummating the Union, Principal Rainy rashly disregarded legal caution as offered him by his legal advisers. At the same time, it is biographically important to repeat — it has already been said — that Dr. Rainy's whole attitude on this question was a refusal to permit it to determine the Church's duty. During these years. Dr. Rainy was in a difficult and responsible position, but one, at the same time, which raised an interesting problem. THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR UNION 229 He was resolved to keep before a Church which claimed to be free to do what seemed its Master's will, a clear unembarrassed question of Christian duty : on the other hand he — as a leader — ^had care- fully to weigh the possible penalties. In short, the question of the Union was, in one aspect of it, what any real Free Churchman must regard as a question of principle : in another aspect, it involved a risk of serious pecuniary loss to the Church if a narrow view of the legal issue prevailed. The clashing of the call of spiritual duty and the consideration of temporal danger is the most interesting problem in the world, especially when seen in a nature at once so uncompromising about principle and also so sagacious about procedure, as Principal Rainy's.^ Even if the opinions of the counsel consulted had been largely unfavourable to the Union, Dr. Rainy — as several of his utterances show — would not therefore have abandoned it. But as they were so preponderatingly favourable, he had, of course, an easier mind in entering upon it in the Assembl}^ of 1899. This Assembly was ^ One matter connected with these legal questions may be mentioned, as it was naturally revived in the minds of many when the great legal disaster fell on the Union in 1904. It has been said that a private bill should have been got from Parliament to secure the property. It is clear that this would have been a very practical admission on the part of the Church that she had not the power to effect the Union, and thus not the right to act and live as a free self-governing organ — which would be, as Dr. Rainy said, ' contrary to our first principles.' But, apart from that, such a bill was not practicable. It could be carried through only with consent of parties, and such consent was not obtainable from the minority. And il would not have been right for Parliament to override their objection. Parliament will not, and (I will add) should not, legislate in a way which forecloses a legal claim. Alike then on grounds of ecclesiastical principle and on grounds of political practice, the proposal of a private bill was impossible. 230 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY asked (as has been said) to agree to the plan of union and send it down to Presbyteries under the Barrier Act, the instrument of the Uniting Act being reserved for a year. I need not quote at length from Dr. Rainy 's speech. He declared this plan of union dis- claimed not one of their Church's doctrines. His ordination vow bound him to the Confession, with certain known quahfications, and to general principles in the Claim of Right and Protest. Nothing of- that was disclaimed. In particular, the principle of the religious duties of nations and rulers * remained where it always had been — in the Confession.' As to estab- lishment, * it was an inference from that, but men might deny the propriety of the inference who did not question the general principle of the obligation.' After dealing with many points of detail, he referred to the possi- bility of separation. * If it came to that, they must part as Christians,* but he evidently clung to the hope it might not be. In closing, he mentioned the legal risk, and his words should be quoted : — * He had no disposition to create any false impression about it. There was division of opinion upon the likelihood in case of any legal proceedings. . . . He did not know that his opinion was worth much — and yet he did not know that lay- men in law were disentitled to express their opinion — but for his part there did not seem to him to be a risk that would seriously affect him. They were all, however, entitled to keep their mind open on that subject. Presbyteries had the matter in their own hands, and they would have every opportunity of deciding on the matter. But what he must say now was that, supposing the risk were a great deal more than he supposed it to be or believed it to be, he would be just in the same position as that which he announced a little ago. If a Church was willing to be frightened, it would be frightened, and it THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR UNION 231 would deserve to be frightened. Being in fetters was always a disadvantage, a serious disadvantage, to a Church. But for a Church whose glory and claim were to be free, to accept fetters was suicidal. If there were any risk, the risk would be that they should be held in bondage by a dead hand and by expositions of their own principles contrary to their own minds. He said this frankly because he did not wish to be misunderstood on this question ; but, for his part, he had no fear of losing their property, and he had no intention of throwing the property away so long as he could conserve it.' The anti-union amendment — it should have been said that there was the customary anti-union protest at the beginning of the debate — proposed to decline to adopt or send down the plan of union as the * pro- posals do not conserve the distinctive principles of the Church.' The notable feature of the debate was the frank adherence to the Union* of Sheriff Jameson, who had been a pillar of the Layman's League — a body by this time discredited. Sheriff Jameson, who soon after became a judge in the Court of Session under the title of Lord Ardwall, referred thus to the legal question : — ' He was not going to give a legal opinion without a fee, but he would just sound this note of warning, that he thought it was very doubtful if a court of law would hold that a Church had forfeited its right to any part of its property by joining another Church with identical terms of behef and communion, and whose only important difference was on a point that was an open question in both Churches, and which, even although it had been treated in a very different way in their historical documents, yet was not anywhere in the documents of either Church made matter of legal obligation, either upon members or office-bearers.' This statement (the last phrase of which should be 232 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY specially noted), coming from one not only of legal position, but of strong establishment tendencies, naturally created interest and satisfaction. Another notable speech came from Mr. Murdo Macaskill, the Highland leader whose name has been mentioned, who now also declared his acquiescence in the Union, and begged his brethren to avoid ' the disaster, spiritually and socially, that must result from another secession in the Highlands.' The vote was 565 to 38. There was the usual dissent, signed by fifteen persons. On a later da}^ a suggestion was made by one of these dissentients that a specific declaration of the Church principles on the matters of spiritual freedom and national obliga- tion would ' go a long way towards meeting difficulties and scruples felt in certain quarters.' Principal Rainy, as well as Dr. Ross Taylor and others, received this idea with great sympathy and, while it could not be dealt with at the moment, invited those to whom it applied to formulate their statement of the principles they wished to emphasise and let the Church say whether they admitted them coming into the Union claiming the right to hold these principles and to maintain them in the united Church. This matter will re-emerge. After this Assembly, matters went on rapidly. The Uniting Act was prepared, and with it were subse- quently associated certain declarations with which the two Churches entered into incorporating union. The Presbyteries meanwhile were, with not more than four exceptions, passing the plan of Union which liad been sent down by the previous Assembly. The Assembly of 1900 opened with every prospect of, if not complete, at least nearly complete harmony. This THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR UNION 233 feeling was deepened by a letter which appeared in the press from Dr. Thomas Smith, whose name the reader may remember as a pamphleteer and debater on Dr. Begg's side in the old controversy, and who now — though admittedly reluctantly — acquiesced in the union. The opposition was reduced very low, and it was hoped even yet that might be partially overcome. Principal Rainy moved in the Assembly the adoption of the Uniting Act, which was to be sent down to Presbyteries and to be finally passed at a special Assembly to consummate the Union in October. His speech was full of thankfulness and of hope. He had a number of matters of detail to expound, among them the name of the united Church. He recalled how in his father's drawing-room, his mother once said to Dr. Chalmers, ' Dr. Chalmers, who was it that fixed on that excellent name for our Church — the Free Church of Scotland ? ' and Dr. Chalmers replied, ' Well, madam, I rather think I had something to do with it.' Certainly, Dr. Chalmers had a great deal to do with it, though I believe Hugh Miller had the same happy inspiration. Dr. Rainy also recalled how Dr. Robert Buchanan had, during the old Union negotia- tions, suggested ' The United Free Church ' as the best name for the combination of the Free and the United Presbyterian Churches, and, said the Principal, ' I was accustomed to follow him in those days and haven't got over that feeling yet.' Thus easily and skilfully, what might have been a delicate question was settled almost in a word.^ On the legal question, ' It may be mentioned that Mr. Asher was desirous, for legal reasons, that the name 'Free Church of Scotland' be retained sinipliciia: Of this 234 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Principal Rainy made some remarks which may be quoted, for they were at once characteristic of the man and crucial on the whole question of the Church's duty. He said he was not disposed to regulate his proceedings or recommend the Church to regulate her proceedings too strictly with regard to legal views, and went on : — ' The Church must not allow itself to be fettered in con- scientiously seeking to carry out the will of its Master by too scrupulous and previous a regard to these questions — always doubtful questions — of risks to property. He did not under- value the property which the goodness of God had given them ; yet he believed that their being a Free Church, not merely being called a Free Church but being a Free Church, depended upon their always realising that they were first of all a spiritual society with spiritual laws, spiritual aims, and spiritual obliga- tions ; and while there was a prudential regard to property (which was natural to Scotsmen), he held that the Church should be always ready when any important privilege or duty came into view, to go forward under the conviction that God would take care of their property as well as other interests and could give them much more than they had. He for one refused to be fettered in connection with Christ's Church by what the lawyers might do about their property. The judges had a perfect right to decide as to whom property belonged. They did not doubt that. But they were not a mercantile company holding property for mercantile purposes. They were Christ's Church, in one branch of it.' He then went on to say that on these grounds he was prepared, if it had been necessary, to call on the Assembly to be ' a little heroic ' in this matter ; but ' there was no occasion for heroism,' for after the Dr. Rainy wrote : 'This is no use practically ; we must do what is reason- able as between two Churches, not what seems convenient for us. I sometimes wish lawyers were abolished. But the remedy might be worse than the disease.' THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR UNION 235 opinions they had got, he was only asking the Assembly to act according to the best advice obtainable which was no more than any man did in the conduct of his business. Principal Rainy closed with an earnest expression of his belief in the blessing of union and a hope that even yet some who were inclined to stay out would come in and share it. During the debate, and in part in response to this appeal, a declaration was submitted on behalf of a number of those who had scruples about the Union, and the Assembly, on Dr. Rainy's motion, received this to the gratification of its signatories. There was, however, an irreconcilable anti-union amendment as usual, in supporting which it may be noted that Mr. M'Neilage made the remark that, * although on technical and legal grounds, those who were dissatisfied with the proposal could take the property with them, in his judgment it would not be right for them to do so and they would not be justified in the only Court where Christian men ought to take their case.' The subsequent action of the anti-unionists, including the speaker, was, as we shall see, a strange comment on these words. The vote was 586 for the Union and 29 against — a majority of no less than 557/ The Union was now practically complete, for the passing of the Uniting Act by a vast majority of Presbyteries and its final adoption by the special Assembly^o be held in October was, of course, a fore- gone conclusion. Preparations already began to be made for the consummation of the event. Its approach was officially intimated to Presbyterian Churches throughout the world, and they were invited to send ■ In the previous year the numbers were 565 for and 38 against. 236 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY delegates, which with great cordiahty they did. The communication to the Estabhshed Church of Scotland contained the sentence that ' on historical and national as well as on religious grounds, it will greatly gratify us if we can reckon on the fraternal interest on the part of the Established Church of Scotland/ and went on to say that ' it will be an additional satisfaction if ministers and elders commissioned to represent kindred Churches could favour us with their presence at the Union Assembly of October 31st.' Dr. Norman Macleod of Inverness, the Moderator of the Established Church Assembly, sent a courteous letter of goodwill in reply, but it was a disappointment that no one came officially to represent the Established Church at the Union. ^ In these circumstances. Dr. Cameron Lees of St. Giles' Cathedral was asked by Dr. Rainy, and with characteristic warmth and catholicity he replied that he was * proud of the invitation ' and would ' accept it with the greatest pleasure.' Also, the Earl of Aberdeen, an elder of the Established Church, was * It was afterwards explained by Dr. Norman Macleod, Dr. Scott and others that the communication received had not been supposed to mean an invitation to the Moderator or other official representative. Dr. Rainy therefore sent the terms of the letter to the press. As, on the other hand, Dr. Norman Macleod apparently expected that his letter would have been read at the Union celebrations and was disappointed that it was not, I gladly append its essential paragraph: 'Though I have no commission to represent the Church of Scotland, I feel certain that I express the sentiments of my brethren as well as my own, when I assure you of the interest and sympathy with which we regard this important step now in view, and our heartfelt prayer that it may conduce to the glory of God arid to the true weal of the one Church of Christ in Scotland and throughout the world. We are thankful for the prospect it affords pf an increased measure of Presbyterian unity, and it is our earnest hope that the blessing of Almighty God may rest upon it with fuller life and more extended usefulness in all that relates to the advancement of the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour at home and abroad.' THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR UNION 237 asked and cordially accepted the invitation. Pro- minent men of other Reformed communions — such as Dr. Maclaren of Manchester (who, it will be remembered, had been a schoolfellow of Dr. Rainy's), Dr. Joseph Parker, and Principal Fairbaim — agreed to come. The occasion promised to be the happiest ecclesiastical event Scotland had witnessed for long, and as it drew near the tide of interest and enthusiasm visibly rose. Meanwhile both parties — for it was sadly obvious that to the end there would be two parties — were making their last appeal to waverers in the Church. I find letters to Dr. Rainy telling of visits of anti- union deputations to various Highland districts, where they met with little success. The truth is the people were waiting upon the action of practically a few ministers, the most important of whom was one who has already been named — Mr. Murdo Mackenzie of Inverness. If he and those immediately associated with him had come into the Union, the anti-unionists even in the Highlands would have been a negligible quantity. Round the position of this group the last negotiations gathered. A whole budget in Principal Rainy's correspondence deals with it, but I cannot find space to enter into it here. The upshot was that Mr. Mackenzie brought up in his Presbytery of Inverness a declaration as to the Free Church, in entering the Union, adhering to her principles on the Headship of Christ over both the Church and nations as set forth in the Confession, the Claim and Protest, the Formula and certain specified Acts of Assembly. He asked that this be transmitted * for the consideration of the October Commission,' and his Presbytery consented. 238 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY A good deal seemed to hang on it. Mr. Mackenzie wrote to a friend that ' it would satisfy the most of our party if granted, but the separation is inevitable if it is not granted.' ^ The business was a somewhat delicate one for Principal Rainy. He was truly desirous to meet Mr. Mackenzie — for his own sake, for he was a good man if not a strong man, as well as for the influence he would have over others. But to begin at the eleventh hour to underline some Acts of Assembly and leave out others could easily give reason for demanding a counter-declaration, and as a matter of fact Dr. Hutton, the stalwart United Presbyterian voluntary, became restive. On i8th September, Principal Rainy wrote to Mr. Mackenzie thus : — * I have had it in my mind for some time to write to you, not that I would entangle you in any discussion, but that I should be sorry you should think me indifferent to your posi- tion and your anxieties. At all events, it is well to express friendly feeling, as that has happily existed so long between us, and to keep the door open for mutual understanding. * I saw the terms of the declaration submitted by you to your Presbytery. I perfectly understand it as expressing what occurs as desirable and fitting to your own mind. At the same time, I take for granted you admit that in making a declaration, in the very special circumstances in which we now stand, various considerations must be kept in view which would not necessarily occur to you in considering your own view of things. I suppose, therefore, that I may take the terms used as bringing out what you desire in the fullest and plainest way, but not as excluding readjustment from other points of view. For the Commission, if it makes any declara- tion, must have regard to the whcjle Church and the Church's whole action in the terms it uses, ' Amid all the discomfort of contending views or terms, ' Quoted by the Rev. K. Moody .Stuart of Moffat in a letter to Principal Rainy, i6th August 1900, THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR UNION 239 I feel well assured that we have been guided, and I humbly hope we shall still be. And I cannot but rejoice in thinking that the whole matter is to be practically closed so soon.' Mr. Mackenzie's reply was : — ' Please accept my best thanks for your kind and considerate letter. I have taken no action either in pubhc or private since I indicated to the Presbytery the line of action that commended itself to me. And I mean to continue the same attitude until I see how the declaration is disposed of. I must be altogether free in the exercise of my judgment, and at the same time seeking guidance and direction from the Lord.' In these circumstances. Principal Rainy went as far to meet Mr. Mackenzie as any fair-minded judge will say he could. He proposed that the Commission should accept Mr. Mackenzie's declaration as it stands, merely prefacing to it the statement that the specifica- tion in it of certain Acts was ' without prejudice to Acts of Assembly not specified.' The draft of this was shown to Mr. M'Neilage by Dr. Ross Taylor, who reported the interview with him to Principal Rainy : — ' I had a long talk with M'Neilage to-day — perfectly frank and friendly on his part. He has placed himself in Mackenzie's hands. Our draft seemed to please him entirely. He con- sidered it superior to Mackenzie's, but could say nothing for Mackenzie, and was in perplexity about the word verbatim? However, he was in hope that the word was not to be taken literally, and I let him have a copy of our draft — which of course will go north to-night for inspection. ' I also showed it to John Young, the United Presbyterian Secretary, and he readily acquiesced, seeing nothing to stumble at on their side. Considering the terms on which you and Hutton are, it may be well to take him into confidence.' It was thus, with very reasonable hopes of fruit, that ^ Mr. Mackenzie was very insistent that his declaration should be accepted verbatim. 240 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY in the Commission Principal Rainy moved as has been above indicated. He remarked that, of course, the Commission could not change the basis of union (which was to be consummated within a week), and Mr. M'Neilage agreed that that was ' a self-evident proposi- tion.' Mr. Mackenzie was not present and gave no sign till the Assembly, a week later, was actually passing the Act of Union. This sequel will be told in the next chapter. The reader may wonder that I have given so much space to this matter, but, though small in itself, it really was the hinge upon which the better element in what remained of the anti-unionist party finally turned. How that element went eventually we shall see, as I have said, in the next chapter ; but already the reader with knowledge of human nature might almost discern it. Behind these waverers — who even yet had not made up their minds on a great broad issue of public duty which had been before them for years — were men, intellectually perhaps, and certainly morally, their inferiors, who yet were stronger than they, because men who knew their own minds and knew what, in any case, they were going to do. There was certainly going to be a separation, and there was certainly going to be an appeal to the civil courts. With, on the one hand, men who were determined upon this and had neither scruple of conscience nor hesitation of opinion about it, and, on the other, men who were irresolute and, in face of a great practical decision to be made within a few days, still groped after salvation in the phrases of a declaration, it does not take a prophet to tell which in the end will prove the stronger. CHAPTER XXIII THE UNION : SECOND MODERATORSHIP IT is interesting to observe the effect produced on the popular mind by the fait accompli. Men who are uninterested in ideas and sceptical of ideals and do nothing to lead them to realisation, can at least see things, and then they begin a little to appreciate the forces that brought these into actual existence. So long as the Union between the two Churches was merely being debated and negotiated, it was, in many quarters, belittled and even contemned as a small sectarian business. As the time approached when it was to become fact, such criticism largely ceased and even the secular mind of Scotland began to see that this was a real and also a great historical event which had wide issues both for the Church and the nation. It even began to see, through the miasma of years of misrepresentation and abuse, the stature of the man whose achievement pre-eminently it was. The Union took place on Wednesday, 31st October 19 00. On the previous day the Supreme Courts of the two Churches met, each in its own hall, to adopt the Uniting Act which had been approved by the Presby- teries of the two Churches. In the Synod of the United Presbyterian Church there was perfect unan- imity. The report of the Union Committee was VOL. II. Q 242 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY accepted without a dissenting voice, and the whole Synod and audience rose and sang the Doxology. The Uniting Act was also adopted unanimously, and Principal Hutton led in a prayer of thanksgiving. The day's proceedings were worthy of the whole course of conduct which had been taken by the United Presbyterian Church since the question of union had been first formally raised in 1863 — a course the harmony and dignity of which had never been marred, and the brotherly forbearance of which towards the sister Church nothing could surpass. In the Assembly of the Free Church this entire harmony — this ' enviable unanimity ' as Principal Rainy called it — could not be expected. It had long been apparent that a division and even a secession were inevitable, and a few days before the Assembly met, a statement was issued by the Free Church Defence Association, saying they had taken ' eminent legal opinion,' and would preserve the claim of those ' legally entitled to the Church's name, privileges and property.' When the business of the Union was called, the usual protest was made by the minority against the com- petency of the Assembly entertaining this Uniting Act ' in so far as the same may innovate upon or derogate from the constitution and the distinctive views of truth or matters of faith and doctrine adopted by this Church at its separation from the Estabhshment in 1843.' Thereafter a petition was presented at the bar complaining that the question had not been referred to the sessions and congregations of the Church and praying that this be still done. The petition was signed by five hundred elders — there were in all over THE UNION: SECOND MODERATORSHIP 243 ten thousand elders in the Free Church — and professed to be supported by others than anti-unionists. A motion was moved, in view of this representation, * to delay further proceedings.' Principal Rainy moved to the contrary. He pointed out how deliberately the Church had proceeded all through this matter, just to be assured that her people were with the move- ment. He detailed the steps that had been taken to inform sessions and congregations — all the steps which Presbyterianism could take. So far as the formal reference of questions to congregations was concerned, he was willing to consider any weU-weighed and fitly introduced scheme for making that, if it was thought well to do so, part of their constitutional machinery. But to spring this proposal — which had never once been mooted in connection with any great Scottish Church question since the Reformation — at the last stage of this Union question was, on the part of the signatories who were not against union, ' delivering themselves into the hands of those whose real object and conscientious object was to wreck the Union.' On a (vote Dr. Rainy's amendment was carried by an overwhelming majority. The road was now clear, and the Principal rose to move the formal adoption by the Assembh^ of the Act of Union. He received an ovation, but it was char- acteristic of the man that he moved the accomplishment of almost the crowning act of his career in the simplest way — making no great oration over it, but contenting himself with a few almost entirely religious sentences. He hoped that a good many of those who had not seen their way to support the Union would /nake the best 244 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY of it and ' endeavour to disappoint their own fears.' He spoke of what he called their ' leading consideration/ which was ' what will be good for the religious life of Scotland.' He referred to the great and wide expression of sympathy and interest this step had awakened, not only in Scotland, but in many parts of the world, and, somewhat suddenly, he ended by saying : — ' We humbly think that we can trace the footsteps of a Divine Providence smoothing our way and leading us through various difficulties, in a manner we never shall forget and for which we daily thank and praise God. Some of us in that school have learned new lessons of faith and hope and patience. I believe with all my heart that God is with us.' The unaffected humility and piety of the brief speech in this hour of achievement were felt by the whole Assembly. To his credit be it said, the mover of the anti-union amendment, which was very lengthy but, in the end, was a direct rejection of the Act of Union, refrained from entering into controversy and indeed uttered only two sentences. He was seconded by Mr. M'Neilage, from whose speech I should, in this page, quote these words : — ' He wished to express unqualified gratitude to Principal Rainy for his uniform kindness and consideration as leader of a majority which might very weU have crushed them out and given them no consideration whatever, so far as numbers were concerned. They had also to express gratitude for his efforts to understand their position, and, so far as was consis- tent with what he conceived to be his own duty to the Church he has led so long and so honourably, to secure for them also a place in the Church which comes into being on the morrow.' Almost the only speaker was Mr. Murdo Mackenzie of Inverness. It will be recollected how, after endless THE UNION: SECOND MODERATORSHIP 245 correspondence and trouble, a declaration had been forwarded by him and others ' for the consideration of the October Commission,' and how Dr. Rainy had induced that court to accept it with the view of facili- tating the honourable adherence of these brethren to the Union. No indication had been given by Mr. Mackenzie that this was considered unsatisfactory, and when he rose, many hoped that the minister of most respected influence inclined to the anti-unionist minority would yet come into the Union. But Mr. Mackenzie declared that the acceptance of the declara- tion was ' nothing to them,' because of the preamble about other Acts than those it specified not being prejudiced, and also Dr. Rainy' s speech meant * it does not affect the basis of union.' Now, the basis of union, as the reader knows, had been sent down by last Assembly to all the Presbyteries and had passed through them : how could any man, how could at least any Pres^byterian, possibly imagine that its adoption by a Commission, even though there had been no preamble and no speech by Dr. Rainy, could change that basis ? Mr. Mackenzie's statement produced a painful effect. Principal Rainy rose the moment the other sat do^^^l. He spoke exactly three minutes, but it was the most overwhelming utterance the Assembly had ever heard from his lips. He spoke as a man who felt not only disappointed, but more than disappointed. I would suggest nothing unworthy on the part of Mr. Mackenzie and those more intimately associated with him ; but they had drifted or had been, by stronger men, driven into a position which, not in intention on their part but still in fact and in effect, was nothing else than 246 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY a misleading of the Church. Mr. Mackenzie had himself brought up the declaration, and he had written with his own hand that ' it would satisfy the most of our party, if granted ' ; to say now it had not been granted, because it did not alter the basis of union — a thing impossible and inconceivable and which an associate in his own party declared it was 'self-evident' could not be done — ^was something difficult to characterise. Speaking without a trace of irritation — s. noble man is not irritated, but he can be grieved — Principal Rainy in slow, pained tones which made every word fall, not like a blow, for they had nothing of angry violence, but Hke a judgment, recounted the facts. * Could any one,' he then asked, * persuade himself that such an extraordinary conception can have been the original conception ? ' He asked again, ' Can any one beUeve that ? ' and not a word broke the strained silence. ' I do regret,' he concluded, ' beyond what I can de- scribe, and will regret to my dying day, that a man who could have been so helpful has appeared in the light in which he has placed himself.' The bare words of this speech give no impression of its overawing effect. Not a sound was heard either of applause or protest. Neither Mr. Mackenzie nor any one else rose to reply. No one even continued the debate on the Union. The incident is one which, for obvious reasons, I should gladly have omitted, but it could not be omitted, for it was a revelation of a new element in Dr. Rainy. At last the Clerk broke the silence by asking if the House was prepared to vote. The division showed that 643 had voted for the Union and 27 against. A protest was read by the minority. Dr. THE UNION: SECOND MODERATOKSHIP 247 Murray Mitchell — the senior minister of the Church — offered prayer. Various formal motions were moved, and against each of them the small minority made their protest. Just before the close, one of them read a final declaration — signed by five ministers and three elders — asserting their right, notwithstanding all forms of dissolution or adjournment, to continue the session of the Free Church General Assembly. After the Benediction had been pronounced, they proceeded to hold a meeting in an adjoining room where, amid considerable interruption, they elected a Moderator and declared themselves the Assembly of the Free Church. All these things could not but be distracting and painful, but they could not obscure, in the minds of the mass of the Assembly, the greatness of the step that had been taken or cloud the expectancy with which the consummation on the morrow was awaited. Next day- — 31st October 1900 — was the day of Union. The members of the Supreme Courts of the two Churches, assembling in their respective halls, proceeded in processional order, each headed by its Moderator — Dr. Ross Taylor being Moderator of the one and Dr. Alexander Mair of the other — till the two streams met near the foot of the Mound. The Moderators saluted each other. The processions com- bined, two of one Church walking with two of the other, and thus continued along Princes Street to the Waverley Market where, as no hall in Edinburgh was capable of containing the assemblage, the first Assembly of the United Free Church of Scotland was to meet. It was a damp, drizzling morning, but crowds lined the streets, and cheers and the waving of handkerchiefs 248 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL UAINY greeted the procession ; while those who mark or make omens declared that the rain ceased just as the Moderators met. Principal Rainy, it may be mentioned, was late, and only managed to join the procession near the end by pressing through the crowd with the aid of a policeman and getting under- neath the barricade. Within the Waverley Market, which is a vast bare enclosure, a temporary hall had been erected with remarkable skill and success. In the galleries — round the walls of which hung Covenanting flags and other symbols of the history of the Scottish Church — ^was a crowded audience, some of whom had come hours before the time of the arrival of the procession. The area was empty, but, shortly after eleven, the great stream of members began to flow in, and soon every part of the vast hall was occupied — the whole assem- blage numbering nearly seven thousand persons. On the platform were representatives of evangelical Churches from many lands. Shortly after the pro- ceedings opened. Lord Rosebery, who can always appreciate the historically significant in public events, came in. It was a gathering such as ecclesiastical Scotland had never seen before. Dr. Rainy was not visible. He was in the side room, waiting the call to be the first Moderator of the united Church. The vast assemblage sang the 133rd Psalm : — ' Behold, how good a thing it is. And how becoming well. Together such as brethren are In unity to dwell ! ' The Courts of the two Churches were thereafter THE UNION: SECOND JNIODERATORSHIP 249 formally constituted. The Uniting Act was moved by the oldest minister of the Free Church — Dr. Murray Mitchell — and seconded by the first minister ordained since the union of 1847 in the United Presbyterian Church — Dr. Henderson of Paisley. The whole As- sembly and Synod agreed to it by a standing vote. Then Dr. Ross Tajdor, in the solemn silence which ensued, said : ' In the presence of our Divine King and Head, the King and Head of the Church, and with the concurrence of my brother Moderator, I declare the Act of Union finally adopted — that the Free Church of Scotland and the United Presbyterian Church are now one in Christ Jesus, under the designation of the United Free Church of Scotland.' Again a great voice of praise arose in the words of the 72nd Psalm : — '.Now blessed be the Lord our God, /^ The God of Israel, f For He alone doth wondrous works. In gl^ry that excel. And blessed be His glorious name To all eternity : The whole earth let His glory fiU. Amen, so let it be.' The Moderators — the assemblage still standing and silent — turned to one another and greeted one another as follows : — Dr. Ross Taylor. — It is now my high privilege, in the name of the Free Church of Scotland, to offer you, honoured brother, as Moderator of the United Presbyterian Synod, the right hand of fellowship in token of the happy Union now formed between the two Churches. Dr. Mair. — And I have the equally high privilege, in the name of the United Presbyterian Church, of offering you. 250 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY honoured brother and Moderator of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, the right hand of fellowship in token of th'e Union now happily consummated between our Churches. Dr. Ross Taylor. — May the Three-one God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, richly bless the United Free Church of Scotland. Dr. Mair. — And make her a blessing to Scotland and to the world and a glory to her Lord and King. Dr. Ross Taylor. — Amen, Dr. Mair. — And Amen. The Moderators and Clerks then signed the Uniting Act, and the feelings of the vast audience found relief in prolonged cheering. Only one man had ever been thought of as the Moderator. His name — proposed by Dr. Mair and seconded, in the absence of the Earl of Moray, by Lord Overtoun — was received with acclamation. Dr. Ross Taylor welcomed him to the Chair, ' one who,' he said, ' had so wisely thought and so earnestly laboured and so devoutly prayed to bring about the result we to-day witness.' The new Moderator had an over- whelming reception. One has often heard the fuU- throated roar with which a political assemblage greets a party leader ; but there was a far deeper note here. It was, without exception, the most impressive recep- tion the present writer ever witnessed a man receive — even including Gladstone in the old Midlothian days. Principal Rainy's address was worthy of the occasion. He began with simple words of thankfulness : — Fathers and brethren, I thank you with all my heart for the honour you have conferred upon me in calling me to the chair of this Union Assembly. It is no small privilege to be so associated with the proceedings of this auspicious day. To- THE UNION: SECOND MODERATORSHIP 251 day we see many hopes crowned, many prayers answered ; and we stand at the portal of a future which we humbly beseech our King and Head to render great and good. Our hearts are full of praise and prayer ; and we humbly offer ourselves to be consecrated of new to the glory of Him whose we are and Whom we serve. We join together for His service. The Lord accept it and bless it ! ' Then he spoke of the occasion of the day in these words : — ' I reckon this to be a great day for Scotland and for Presby- terianism ; and I trust it may prove helpful in its influence even beyond Scotland and beyond Presbyterianism. It is interesting to feel, as I do, that I have seen the last of the great rendings which were necessary in order to assert supremacy of conscience and achieve the liberty of the Church, and that now participate in so great a movement towards a reconstruc- tion of our Presb3rterianism. Into two Churches now united there flowed together various streams of Scottish Church life, each, with v^hatever failings, exhibiting a history of notable fidelity, patience, and sacrifice ; each reproducing in its own way the features of our Reformation Christianity, and each maintaining substantially the same ideal of the divine hfe in human souls. All of them originated in some notable exercise of heart and mind over truths of God's Word and events in God's providence. And all had found, sooner or later, that the truths they cherished and the ends they sought could be better served by enlarged fellowship than by solicitous separation. So they came together. Now the two greater streams have joined.' After speaking of the two Churches thus united and of their share in the common inheritance of the reformed historic Scottish Church, he turned to speak of the Established Church and of their feelings towards her. He said : — ' But when this is said, it is impossible to be silent ns to the great Church which is recognised by law as the Church of 252 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Scotland, and which de facto fills so great a place among us by its numbers and by its activities. There is the less need to be afraid to speak, because the temptations to antipathies and exasperations have so largely passed away, or, if in any respect they exist, are such as may be easily surmounted by Christian minds. Ascribing to our friends the same conscien- tiousness in holding their present position which we claim for ourselves in holding ours, we must still say that, as is well known, the legal position which they hold does not appeal to our minds. But in respect of their share in the doctrinal and constitutional features of Scottish Presbyterianism, in respect of the mass of our fellow-countrymen who find their rehgious home under their roof, in respect of their practical articulation with Scottish hfe in its various strata, in respect of their evangelistic activity at home and in the mission field, and in respect of the social ties everj^^'here existing between their members and ours, we do emphatically own the great share they have in the inheritance which we also prize so much, and we own that without them we cannot be made perfect. Out of this union will come, I trust, in the end, though I do not know how it is to come, yet come I trust it will, a larger Presby- terianism for Scotland, devoted to the advancement of our Lord's kingdom, very friendly I hope to the civil authority, very serviceable to the welfare of the nation, but free from the temptations and the risks of a statutory connection with the State. I do not hide from myself how strong the sentiments are which oppose themselves to this solution. I remember Principal TuUoch ^ sa3^ng to me once emphatically, " Do not mistake me ; it is not with me a question of teinds ; I am a Church and State man." Well, we are all of us in higher hands. Meanwhile I have stated what is both my steadfast expectation and my ardent desire.' He went on — after a reference to other and smaller Churches in Scotland — to speak of why this Union was * On this mention of Tulloch, Dr. Rainy added emphatically, 'and I name him with the greatest respect.' The words do not appear in the published address, doubtless because they were not in the speaker's MS. But that they were a spontaneous insertion at the moment testifies all the more to their sincerity. THE UNION: SECOND MODERATORSHIP 253 brought about, elaborating the substantial agreement of the two uniting Churches, even with regard to the principle of the Headship of Christ over nations as well as Churches. He claimed that they entered the Union ' preserving everything which our predecessors of the Free Church reckoned proper to be binding.' But, even if it had not been so, he repelled the idea as * monstrous ' that then they would have been bound so that they could not do the duty Providence laid on them. The following passage roused the great assem- blage to a thunderous wave of cheering : — ' The Church, either in adopting or in modifying the state- ments of its principles, ought to proceed carefully, temper- ately, slowly. But some of us never will consent to hold office in a Church that allows itself to be deprived of the right to interpret the mind of our Head on spiritual subjects, so as to meet the wants of our own day and generation. The only authentic Free Church tradition on the subject is the right of the Church to determine its own constitution, its own prin- ciples, its own doctrines. That may be a weighty responsi- bility ; but the power to deal with it is inherent in the Church, and it belongs to the Church alone. It is mere erastianism to deny it. We take our stand on the hberty and the responsi- bilities of the Church as the Church of Christ.' The remaining portion of the address does not call for quotation here. It was taken up with wise exhorta- tion on the work before the Church — her own support, her influence without, her care of the young, her sympathy for the poor, and her mission all over the world to the heathen. As regards social conditions, he said that the Church as such is not to make her- self 'liable for political theories of redress,' but he added : — ' But at least the Church ought to be the nursery of justice 254 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY and love, it ought to be the fertile mother of patriotic, thought- ful, and earnest men, who will work with the knowledge and the foresight without which good intentions often prove disastrous.' He closed by reverting again to what was of simple religion, with these words : — ' Surely we ought to take this step with the hveliest expect- ancy. If we have been aiming at private and worldly ends, let us hope that we shall be disappointed. I pray that we may be. But if we have been aiming at the furtherance of the kingdom of God, why should we not have the hveliest expecta- tions ? One great reason why we do not expect much is that we do not desire very much. If we did intensely desire we should not be so easily contented without receiving. Let us hope continually. We have been brought to this pomt re- markably ; why should the Church of Christ stint her expecta- tions ? Without this gracious disposition we cannot thrive. Not earnestness, not diligence, nor sacrifices wiU supply the place of it. The whole New Testament is full of hope, as a disposition without which prosperity and progress are not to be expected. The very God of Hope fill us with all joy and peace in believing that we may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost ! ' The whole Assembly — ^it lasted only two days — sustained a notable elevation. The various speakers included men such as Dr. Cameron Lees, Dr. Parker, Dr. John Watson ('Ian Maclaren '), Principal Fairbairn, and Dr. Maclaren, as well as Lord Aberdeen, Lord Kinnaird, and other laymen, with, of course, leading ministers and elders belonging to the United Free Church. No sentiment was received with louder applause than the remark of Dr. John Watson that * many will pray that, as one division has been taken down, so another will be removed by hands working on both sides of the wall ' ; and no one met a greater THE UNION : SECOND MODERATORSHIP 255 welcome than Dr. Cameron Lees, who said he * wished most earnestly that the Church to which he belonged had seen its way to send a deputation to this Assembly,' but who himself spoke with a liberality and a sincerity that perhaps did more than a more formal official utterance could have done. The days were, of course, days of honour for Principal Rainy, both as Moderator of the Assembly and as the maker of the Union, and nearly every speaker paid him his tribute. He was indeed the subject of laudation and congratulation from opponents as well as friends, and even the Scotsman now spoke of the Union as an event that ' was to be desired and ought to be welcomed,' and of the admira- tion compelled by ' the extraordinary skill and ability of Principal Rainy. '^ But I am very sure the following letter from his sister. Miss Christina Rainy, touched a deeper place in the Principal's heart than any public praise : — ' My dear Robert, — You may be sure it was with a full heart that I witnessed your reception yesterday and Ustened to your address. Let mc wish you joy on the accomplishment of the great object of so many labours and prayers handed down to you by those great men who desired to see it and were not permitted, and which you have had so great a share in bringing about. Also on the spirit that prevailed on every side, and which seems to augur future success in dealing with the various adjustments that have still to be made. ' I had a strange feeling of being the sole representative of the past generation of our family, and that I should in some way convey to you the congratulations of our father and mother, of George and Jane, of Aunt Brown and Aunt Balfour and others, who, if they do not know of this event now, will know of it hereafter. 1 Scotsman. October 31, 1900. 256 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY ' We had in regular course at prayers to-day, the 54th of Isaiah, containing Care^^'s famous text, " Enlarge the place of thy tent," etc., and ending with, " No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment, thou shalt condemn ; this is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord." — Yours most affectionately, 'C. Rainy.' Principal Rainy, it need not be said, made an ideal president for the various ceremonial duties of the historic Assembly, but his only further occasion for formal speech was his closing address. This was very brief. After some fitting acknowledgment of the Church's indebtedness to the delegates and to others, he made this reference to himself ; — ' Allow me so far to trespass, as to express my grateful sense of much kindly feeling shown to myself. I suppose I fall heir to much goodwill that would have greeted the company who laboured for union thirty years ago, had their barque then reached the shore. It concentrates now round the solitary survivor. I know better than to agree with those generous opinions that have been expressed. Nevertheless, I am glad if in any measure I approach to the state of Mordecai the Jew, who in his old age was accepted of the multitude of his brethren.' The remainder of the address was purely religious. It dwelt on ' the wonder ' of the revelation in Christ. ' Too often we preach and believe every word even of it, and are pleased with what we say — too well, perhaps — but we are not astonished at it in our own minds.' * That amazing coming down of Heaven to earth — its reality, for it is true — ^its worth, for it is good — can fill us with wonder and gladness beyond what we have, attained.' This was a note which those who knew him THE UNION: SECOND MODERATORSHIP 257 were observing to be a growingly prominent thought in Dr. Rainy's spiritual experience. The Moderator's hour of pubhc congratulation did not end with the close of the Assembly. On the follow- ing day, the New College celebrated its jubilee, and the occasion had been made one of special honour for the Principal by a considerable extension of the buildings and, in particular, the opening of a fine dining-hall for the College which, it was agreed, should bear his name, and also by a public dinner at which he was the guest. The College festival was begun b}^ divine service in the High Church, which is part of the New College buildings and of which, it will be remembered, Dr. Rainy had been minister nearly fifty years before. The service was attended by the Lord Provost and Magistrates of the city, by many of the distinguished delegates to the Union Assembly, and by representa- tives of the University of Edinburgh and other colleges. The Rev. Dr. Oswald Dykes, Principal of Westminster College, Cambridge — and ' to the core a New College man,' as he described himself later — preached. Then an adjournment was made to the new ' Rainy Hall ' — a spacious and splendidly decorated apartment with a new portrait of the Principal as its central feature. There another large and distinguished company assembled. There were several excellent speeches, but the speech of the occasion was made b\' Professor Masson — the venerated teacher of English Literature in the University — who in his youth had been caught in the enthusiasm of the Disruption, though, as he said, since then ' his own wanderings had been in a wilderness largely non-theological.' Masson was a VOL. II. R 258 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY true and generous soul/ and he had a great recep- tion. He paid this striking tribute to Principal Rain}^ : — ' One man recently, pre-eminently had distinguished him- self among the makers of recent Scottish history. No man could be pointed to now over Scotland, who, by the unanimous vote and apprehension and pride, he might say, of Scotland, had constituted himself so distinctly the national functionary as Dr. Rainy.' The banquet was held in the evening, and a brilliant gathering met to do Principal Rainy honour. His health was proposed by Dr. Walter Ross Taylor in a speech of characteristic felicity. The following is part of his reply : — ' I am almost overwhelmed by the kindness and the generous esteem of myself and my services that are being showered upon me. I dare say you will imderstand that, as I receive them, many of them came to me with a rebuke. I see what you would gladly, in your kindness, think me to be, and I make many applications of the lesson. It gives me a kind of new reading of the text, " Let the righteous smite me ; it shall be a kindness." It certainly does not break the head. But when I compare myself with what my friends are sajdng — and since they are saying it, no doubt they think it — well, I need not go further, I have my own thoughts about all that. But I should be the most ungrateful man alive if I did not feel bowed down with thankfulness to my brethren in the Free Church, and I may say also to many outside, for their consideration and kindness, for their constant help and sup- port, for the generous esteem of my motives, the generous appreciation of any services I have tried to render ; the willing- ' Perhaps I may most conveniently insert here what Principal Rainy once said to me, in conversation, of Professor Masson. ' Masson,' he said and said it warmly, ' is a noble fellow and is always looking for what is noble. I often think of liiin as like the merchantman seeking goodly pearls and,' he added, ' I make no doubt he finds the pearl of price.' THE [JNION: SECOND MODERATORSHIP 259 ness to put a good construction upon the man who has had to take the position of a pubHc man among you. I feel it all far more than I can say, I feel as if I was about the best-used man in the whole world. And the only thing I would say about it is, that it is only in the Church of Christ that men meet with such usage as this. There is no other society in which it could be. In the world, what we call the world, there is much generosity and much justice, and much kindness ; but the world's servants are allowed to drop, as the Church's servants are not allowed to do. That is true, I believe, of all the Churches, but there is no Church more than this United Free Church of ours in which that holds true. It is a Church in which we are always sure that there is appreciation for honest endeavour and honest attempts to serve. We have been accustomed to Church memories, and if I were to pass away this very night, I feel quite sure that kindly memories, much beyond my deserts, would be cherished in regard to my humble self. Well, I can only say that, when I look round on this remarkable meeting, so numerous, so representative, com- posed of men whom I am accustomed to honour, to trust, and admire, I thank you with my whole heart. I pray God to render it back unto your own bosoms ; and I cannot but admit, gladly admit, that it cheers me, it strengthens me, and it sends me on any part of my pilgrimage that remains, with a singular comfort and rest of heart.' When he sat down, some youthful voices — desiring, no doubt, that no customary honour should be lacking to the distinguished guest of the evening — raised the familiar 'He's a jolly good fellow.' But there was something unfitting in this ; and almost im- mediately it was changed, and as if by a kind of instinct, the company sang instead the Aaronic benediction, ' The Lord bless thee and keep thee : the Lord make His face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee : the Lord lift up the light of His countenance upon thee and give thee peace.' It 260 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY was, I imagine, a unique episode at a public banquet. The chorus of congratulation over the accom- plishment of the Union and to Principal Rainy in particular was now almost universal. All Churches joined in it — Established Church ministers and Episcopalian bishops as heartily as any. It became a kind of fashion for public speakers to make kindly and complimentary reference to it, and to hope the example thus set would lead to still further union. Leaders of both great political parties agreed in com- mending it. A meeting to celebrate the achieved Union was held in Haddington on i6th January 1901, and was addressed by Mr. A. J. Balfour and Mr. R. B. Haldane. The former spoke of the Union with un- qualified cordiality as ' a great step, as regards Scotland, and, as regards Christendom, an important step ' towards the termination of ecclesiastical division. He particularly approved of the method of the Union — that there were to be open questions within the Church. Not that he pleaded for a colourless creed ; but ' the reason of Church division had been that there were to be no open questions,' and so ' he congratulated the Union as based on a sound principle, the only principle by which the divisions of Christendom can be healed.' Mr. Balfour con- cluded : — ' If that lesson be learned, then, I think the leaders of this movement may congratulate themselves, not only on having done a great work within the borders of their own communion, but in having done a work the benefit of which will spread far and wide beyond those borders, and will reach indeed every shore, touch every Christian community, and affect the life THE UNION: SECOND MODERATOKSHIP 201 of every Christian denomination ; and if that be so, the 31st October 1900 will be a day famous in this part of our Island and among Presbyterians.' How little did he think, as he spoke these words, that a distinguished colleague in his cabinet was, with the other judges of the House of supreme legal appeal, destined to make another date even more famous in connection with the Union ! Mr. Balfour's speech is sufficient evidence at once of the general congratu- lation now showered upon the event and the total absence of any apprehension that, after all, it might be overturned by the law. Certainly it is an interesting indication of the degree of seriousness with which in Scotland, and b}^ even the most responsible public men, the legal appeal of the small minority was regarded, to find so leading a statesman thus speaking of an event which by this time was, as a matter of fact, in the solemn condition known as suh judice. This leads us to tell what the dissentients had been doing during all this time of achievement and con- gratulation. Whatever we may think of them personally or of their views and their course of action, they are certainly entitled to whatever credit is due to a small body of men, with no notable leader, holding on their way doggedly amid much discouragement and even ridicule. With care of every due legal form, the little company of about a score of ministers and elders carried on what they claimed to be the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland. At this stage they had practically no public countenance. So long as it seemed possible that the minority might injure and perhaps hinder the 262 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Union, they were encouraged in many quarters ; but now that the Union had been accomphshed by so overwhelming a majority, even the Scotsman told them that ' the country does not want them as a separate sect,' and would not ' recognise the moral claim of so small a minority/ and, further, spoke of * the absurd step of reconstituting the Assembly.' ^ They were not altogether forgotten or despised in the great Union gatherings. Before the close of the Assembly a motion was passed, proposed by Dr. Ross Taylor, regretting the separation and expressing the gratifi- cation it would be if there could still be a continuance together in the work of Christ in the land. But the extremer party who dominated the counsels of the dissentients had already resolved on a course of action which put an end to the possibility of reconciliation or compromise about either work or material interests. The appeal was at once to be made to Caesar. Steps towards this were taken immediately, and in six weeks from the date of the Union, a Court of Session summons was served upon all the General Trustees of the former Free Church and all the members of the Union Assembly. The chief contentions of the pursuers were that * it ought to be found and declared by decree of the Lords of our Council and Session ' that they and those adhering to them * represent the said Free Church of Scotland,' and that they are entitled to have the whole lands, property and funds belonging to the Free Church ; that the United Free Church should have ' no right, title or interest ' in these, inasmuch ' Scoismun, October 31, 1900. THE UNION: SECOND AIODERATOllSHIP 203 as her constitution ' does not embody, adopt and provide for maintaining intact the whole principles which are fundamental to the constitution of the said Free Church of Scotland ' ; and that the * pretended Acts ' effecting the Union should be ' reduced ' and declared null and void, * but that only in so far as the same may have, or may pretend to have, any effect upon the civil rights of the pursuers and defendants.' This sweeping claim was made by exactly twenty persons — the list of the pursuers consists of nine ministers and eleven elders — ^while the names of those against whom the summons was issued occupies forty- five pages of print with nearly fifty names on each page. Thus began what in the end became one of the most extraordinary stories of modern legal annals. That story we shall tell in subsequent chapters. Meanwhile this claim in law for the whole property of the Church put an end to all other and more Christian possibilities of settlement. It will be remembered that Principal Rainy had written that ' in the case of ministers who in the end feel constrained to separate but are willing to arrange amicably what can be so arranged, we should meet as brethren to effect an equitable adjustment.' Dr. Ross Taylor had spoken of this even more clearly in public. All such meeting ' as brethren ' and any such * equitable adjustment ' were now out of the question. We must presume that those who led the dissentients into this step justified it to themselves ; though one cannot but recall that, only six months earlier, their most prominent spokesman, in words that have been already quoted, declared that to take the property, even though they could, would 264 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY * not be justified in the only Court where Christian men ought to take their case.' However this may be, it was, from the point of view of Christian feehng, a deplorable act. It necessitated, on the part of the United Free Church, a legal reply, and the whole question passed from the region of brotherly considera- tion to that of formal claim and counter-claim. One element in the legal counter-claim on the part of the United Free Church requires a word, for it has often been misrepresented. The United Free Church raised a counter-action claiming the few Church buildings — ultimately one, as a test case — which remained in the possession of the minority where a minister and the bulk of the congregation did not enter the Union. It was easy to represent this as oppressive against a pitiably small minority. But a few words explain it. The actions raised by the minority did not bring before the courts what the United Free Church considered one of her strongest legal pleas, namely, the Model Trust Deed. This was a trust deed by which congre- gational property was to be held, not locally, but by a congregation of the Free Church of Scotland or of any body of which it might, by union, become part. Naturally and indeed most rightly, the lawyers of the United Free Church desired that this should be one of the documents to be considered by the courts of law, if a case in law there was to be, and the only way to do this was to raise such a test case against the minority as was done. The idea that it was done through oppressive desires or that, when it was won, the few ministers of the minority would have been cruelly evicted, has not an atom of foundation. I think I THE UNION: SECOND MODERATOUSIIIP 205 may venture to hope that the reader by this time knows Principal Rainy well enough to judge of that. It has been right and necessary to refer to these some- what trifling matters in connection with the raising of this case, because — to anticipate our story — the amaz- ing final decision of the House of Lords in favour of the little band of dissentients gives it importance. Historically, however, the reader should understand that, at the time, the matter excited hardly any interest in Scotland. I find little or no sign in the press or elsewhere that the possibility of a decision which would throw Scotland into confusion was seriously present even to the imagination of the public ; while such a speech as that of Mr. A. J. Balfour's which I quoted shows that even public men did not give it a thought. The Union was accomplished, and the country accepted it and approved of it. The claim of the minority to all the property was regarded in Scotland as little more than a curiosity till the House of Lords manu- factured it into a crisis. It is therefore historically necessary that this chapter should not be too much interrupted with the thought of what is coming. As a matter of fact, it seemed as if Principal Rainy had now triumphantly reached a climax to his long career and might, as he himself had touchingly said, ' depart blessing God's name.' The congratulations which gathered round him found occasion for further expression in the year following the Union, because in it he celebrated the jubilee of his ordination. He also in this year resigned his chair of Church History in the New College, which he had held for the long period of thirty-nine years — retaining, of 266 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY course, the principalship. It occurred to the generous mind of Dr. Ross Taylor — one of the kindest and most unselfish of men — that one who had done the pre- eminent service of Principal Rainy should not be allowed to suffer any diminution of income such as would be the consequence of his transference from the position of an acting to that of a retired professor. So Dr. Ross Taylor set about privately to collect from among a few friends a jubilee gift. He told me he never in all his life got money so easily. In a com- paratively short time, he had over five thousand pounds. The jubilee presentation was made at the close of the proceedings of the first day of the Assembly of 1901. But before the proceedings of the Assembly closed on that day, the court paid to the Principal an unpre- cedented compliment. There is not — so far as I am aware — any example of a General Assembly of the Scottish Church presenting an address to one of its members. The honour therefore was unique which was done to Dr. Rainy, when the Assembly of 1901 adopted an address to him on his jubilee, and authorised it to be presented at the jubilee gathering on the same afternoon. It is not necessary to quote at length the laudatory congratulation, which says ' it is not usual for a General Assembly to present any of its members with an address, but, as your jubilee was reached while you held office as Moderator, we welcome the opportunity this circumstance affords for taking the exceptional course of giving united expression to the reverence and affection we cherish towards you.' At the presentation, the chair was taken by Lord THE UNION: SECOND MODERATORSIIIP 207 Overtoun. The address from the Assembly was presented by the Moderator and the Procurator. Another address from Dr. Rainy's presbytery was presented by the venerable Dr. Thomas Smith (whose name has occurred more than once in this history), and yet another from the Principal's old congregation of the High Church by its minister, the Rev. R. S. Simpson. Then Dr. Ross Taylor produced a most beautiful silver casket — embossed with reliefs of the New College, the symbols of the united Churches, and the figures of St. Andrew, St. Columba, John Knox, and Thomas Chalmers, and containing a cheque for five thousand guineas. Not content with this, he handed over also some jewels in sapphires and diamonds for Mrs. Rainy. The Principal rose to reply and, when the repeated rounds of applause with which he was greeted had subsided, he said ' he did not know what all this meant.' He saw the kindness and proceeded to thank them for it ; but, he added, ' he had difficulty in avoiding the impression it was somehow a wonderful exaggeration and mistake.' Then he went on : — ' Yet all this made him very happy. What better could any man have in the world than the confidence and kindly regard of good men and women ? To be assured of this, left him nothing to do but bow his head, thank them, and worship God. He hoped they would give him their prayers for what remained of this life for him — and how he wished that he had filled his lamp with deeds of light far more than he had done.' Then he detailed his thanks, especially to the Assembly, for the * unexampled honour ' it had done him. He prayed God to provide as good and kind friends for his brethren — ' far more deserving, many of them, than 268 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY he was — as God had given him.' Then, in closing, he referred to the gift to his wife, and said he would ask their son to speak for his mother, but he added : — ' It was through her that it had come to pass that their children were staunch and true in sympathy with them in every religious and ecclesiastical and social principle — that they stood by them and supported them in every possible way, every one of them.' It is impossible to exaggerate the note of simple and happy thankfulness to God and man that expressed itself in the tones as in the words of Dr. Rainy's speech on this occasion, and the picture which his figure presented of a noble old age surrounded by ' that which should accompany old age, As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends.' Does any reader grudge it, that in this chapter there has been so much record of the laudation of this man ? He need not grudge it. Upon the happy calm of that serene eventide was yet to burst the wildest storm of Dr. Rainy's career, and that venerable figure, waiting to sing its Nunc DimiUis, was soon to be summoned once more to the very thick of battle. CHAPTER XXIV THE UNITED CHURCH AND THE OLD LEADER THE law-case proceeded on its way in tlie Scottish courts during the opening years of the new century ; but we may defer any account of it till our narrative reaches the year when, on a final appeal being taken to the House of Lords, a judgment was given which deserves to be called — besides, doubtless, other things — historical. In this chapter I shall refer to other matters during these years which are of interest regarding the United Free Church and Principal Rainy's position and character in particular. Almost immediately after the Union, the Church was called on to pass through what for a time threatened to be a troublous sea. A new heresy case seemed likely to arise against another brilliant professor of the Church. Dr. George Adam Smith, professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Criticism in the United Free Cliurch College in Glasgow, and widely known as the learned historical geographer of Jerusalem and the Holy Land, had published a volume of lectures entitled Modern Criticism and the Preaching of the Old Testament. Dr. Smith was one of those scholars whose combination of advanced critical views with unswerving allegiance to the evangelical faith had done nmch to avert tliat * landslide ' legarding vital Christian doctrine which 269 270 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Dr. Rainy (in the conversation with Professor D. S. Cairns mentioned in an earlier chapter) had appre- hended would take place when criticism entered into the general mind. These lectures, their writer said, were written ' in defence, upon critical ground, of the Christian's faith in the Old Testament as the Word of God.' It was the statement and ready acceptance of this ' critical ground ' that alarmed many. The author, for example, regarded the early chapters of Genesis as formed largel}^ ' from the raw material of Babylonian myth and legend ' ; he held * the god of early Israel was a tribal god,' and the people of Israel ' did not deny the reality of other gods ' ; he discussed freely the personal reality of such a figure as that of Abraham, and at least left in haze its actual historicity. He himself described these views as ' revolutionary in respect of methods of interpreting Scripture and the origin of Scripture hitherto accepted among us,' but declared that, criticism having ' won its war ' against the traditional theories, * it only remains ' — the phrase is a strangely infelicitous one for so brilliant a writer — ' to fix the amount of the indemnity.' With all this, the Christian and even evangelical motive of all Dr. Smith's book was un- mistakable. The revelation thus arising is led up to the supernatural revelation of the Incarnation and Redemption of Christ. And Professor Smith earnestly and even enthusiasticalty held that the fact of this Divine Revelation was, for the modern mind, more surely established when tlie manner of its origin and evolution, thus stated by criticism, is fully admitted and even welcomed. A memorial was in 1901 sent to the College Com- THE CHURCH AND THE OLD LEADER 271 mittee calling their attention to the book. The Committee invited Professor Smith to a conference, and he met them and also furnished them with a long and valuable statement which did much towards an understanding. The Committee's report was studiously fair. It defended Professor Smith from unjust misrepresentations and appreciated fully his standpoint and aim. It thought that some of his statements were unguarded, and in no way accepted his views, but declared that if the criticism of the Old Testament had erred or gone to excess, ' it must be dealt with not by authority but by the process of discussion.' Its concluding recommendation therefore was that, while the Church might disclaim any responsi- bility for such opinions as those complained of, and might indeed make a fresh declaration of her own adherence to the doctrine of Scripture she has main- tained, ' it is not the duty of the College Committee or of the Church to institute a process against Dr. Smith in connection with these lectures.' The tolerance and the absence of panic in this report show how much the Church had learned since the days of another ' Smith case ' with which the reader is acquainted. As the Assembly of 1902 drew near, there was, however, considerable prospect of trouble. Dr. Smith's great gifts of popular exposition made his lectures reach many circles which did not usually read books on criticism. A real difficult}^ with many persons was the confidence with which he accepted not merely the critical method — the right of that had already been won in the Church — but many critical conclusions as now finally and un- assailabl}'' established, and it was clear that an}' 272 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY deliverance likely to be carried must avoid even implicitly committing the Church to Professor Smith's opinions on various critical issues. At the Assembly, Principal Rainy moved a motion declining to institute any process against Professor Smith for the book, but at the same time declaring * that they are not to be held as accepting or authorising the critical theories therein set forth,' and concluding with a general ex- hortation about Scripture that their faithful people should not be ' shaken in mind ' by discussions about it ' which will, in due time, be weighed, adjusted and put in their proper place.' He made on this occasion his best speech on this oft-recurring critical question. After disposing in a more than usually masterl}' way of the ecclesiastical aspects of the case and deprecating the policy proposed by an amendment — the appointment of a committee on the subject — he talked of the merits of the whole question with a frankness and ease he had rarely shown in such cases. He recalled the old ' geological ' diffi- culties that, when he was a youth, were raised about the story of the Creation in Genesis. They had passed through the stage of denouncing these as ' infidel science.' It became simply * a question about the respect due to facts ' : * as soon as men became satisfied that the facts were so, then they acknowledged that the facts were part of what they had to take with them in considering what was intended to be the Divine instruction for them.' Similarly with criticism, * a certain amount of established fact had been recognised.' Not that they should take too much as settled — he * differed from Professor Smith tlicre ' — but the question THE CHURCH AND THE OLD LEADER 273 was what was the evidence, and that cannot be * settled ecclesiastically.' * Discussion alone could settle that, and discussion did settle it/ Of course there were anxieties here when they had to deal with questions of fact * about the very tissues of the Bible itself.' Still, he went on, * if the facts were facts, the discovery of them might very likely involve pain, but the ascer- tainment of them was pure gain.' Here, he said, ' he did not like Professor Smith's words about indemnity.' In words worthy of a true Protestant and a great believer, he declared : — ' I know nothing of indemnity. When I see evidence for facts, they are God's facts, and they will be only my help in the end if I can duly make use of them.' * Don't,' he went on, ' let them be afraid of possible facts : the peculiarity of the Bible was that it lived through all revelations of unexpected facts.' In this strong strain he closed a great speech, delivered with extraordinary simplicity and ease of manner, and with a last word that ' the Bible would live triumphantly through all facts,' went back to his seat amid immense cheering. His motion was seconded by Professor Orr — a colleague of Professor Smith's, who entirely differed from many of his critical conclusions — and a keen debate followed, including a fine and feeling utterance from Professor Smith himself. On a vote Dr. Rain3/s motion was carried by 534 votes to 263, This was the last of the succession of ' heresy hunts ' with which Principal Rainy had to deal. They had been one of the most trying and difficult aspects of his career and his treatment of them sometimes had evoked criticism even among his admirers. This last VOL. II. s 274 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY case had not the same importance in principle for the Church as earher cases had — the Robertson Smith case decided that criticism was permissible within the standards of the Church, and the Dods-Bruce case practically settled that it was to be countenanced even in the official professoriate — ^but it attracted much interest largely through the personal popularity of Professor George Adam Smith himself. Never in all his life did Dr. Rainy speak so guidingly on the critical question as in this case. He revealed his own mind more frankly than he had ever done before. There is no doubt his own mind did not welcome the critical conclusions. In a letter dated June 1902, he writes : — ' I give in to criticism reluctantly. The critics overrate the certainty of their conclusions. But it will not do to say that there is nothing in it. Criticism is always at our door in Church history, and it has done very remarkable things for us. But nothing demands a saner judgment than apprecia- tion of inferences grounded on probable evidence.' This being his personal predilection in the matter, all the more admirable is the unreserved claim for frank and unfettered discussion he made in his speech in this case. Whatever may be said of his attitude in previous cases, when, indeed, he always conserved liberty, but where it often seemed — though the inference was less than just — that he was caring for peace more than truth, certainly in this case his attitude won the approval of every lover of liberty and of truth. Here Principal Rainy really led the Church into great and fundamental positions. That authority cannot stop a movement of mind, and that faith should not only not distrust but even welcome facts as ' God's facts ' — THE CHURCH AND TPIE OLD LEADER 275 these are great positions, and, coming from one of Dr. Rainy's unequalled position and also advanced years, were invaluable for the Church. It is safe to say that Church will now never depart from them. A word may be added on the revelation which this debate — in many respects a trying debate just a year after the Union — made of the temper and tone of the United Free Church. It was obvious from the minor- ity that there was a large body strongly and even zeal- ously orthodox in the more traditional sense. But the notable thing was the entire disappearance of that old spirit of suspicion, of separation, of threatening which so often had characterised debates on such subjects in the Free Church. The United Free Church of Scotland was a far more completely united and harmonious communion than the Free Church had ever been since the days of Begg. There could be no doubt of the fact that by the Union and what followed, the Church had been purged of these elements of suspiciousness and threatening to which I have referred. It was an immense relief. Perhaps this was one reason why Dr. Rainy's speech at this Assembly showed a libera- tion of mind such as he had never before shown in any of his speeches in cases of this nature. This liberation of mind on the part of Dr. Rainy appears in other matters besides this case and characterises particularly his speeches on the High- lands. In a previous chapter, I had occasion to regret that his speeches as Highland Convener were little more than statements of the work of the Committee, and that he said so little on the gen- eral situation. In the United Free Church he spoke 276 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY more freely than ever in the old Free Church. Thus in 1903, he spoke as follows of the old feeling in the Highlands towards the Free Church — ' a sort of idolatrous feeling ' — and how that had been poisoned, but how now a happier and healthier future seemed to have been opened : — ' He doubted whether men really apprehended the peculiar strength of the feeling about the Free Church which character- ised and prevailed in the Highlands. They might say it did not appear on the face of it from symptoms that they had seen, and yet when he thought of some circumstances on which he did not now dwell but which would never be effaced from his memory — how for years there was assiduously instilled into the minds of these people the impression that the Church which they loved was turning away from the principles for the sake of which they loved it or which were associated in their minds with the objects of their love — how for years and years distrust and animosity and all sorts of unquiet impres- sions and tendencies were instilled into the minds of a trustful and affectionate people, he could not wonder at it. He laid the blame somewhere else than on some natural proclivity to faction and strife in the minds of the people. In many of the hearts of those who had left them, or were in danger of leaving them or thinking of leaving them, what really existed was a sort of anguish, a perplexity, very intelligible, and very much calling both for their patience and for their sympathy. Now they had reached practically the solution of that state of things with which they had to deal as patiently as they could. While those who had left them included a number of persons whom they would cordially see back again, they had been separated in that way ^ from some elements that had been so prepared, so prepossessed, so poisoned he might say, that they offered no prospects if they continued with them but a prospect of perpetual obstruction and difficulty. If the Church patiently vindicated its fidelity to the interests of religion in the Highlands, its desire to work for the Highest ' That is, by the secession over the Union. The speech is somewhat involved in phraseology, and I have simplified one or two expressions. THE CHURCH AND THE OLD LEADER 277 interest, especially in the young people who were growing up to constitute the Highland population of the future, the Church would in the end have no reason to regret the pains and the cost which it had expended on the promotion of religion in the Highlands and Islands.' He went on to speak of ' how interesting it was to see that the dew of heaven was coming down, that warmth and life were beginning to be manifest, and that the old formulas were giving place to the Spirit of power and life and Christ,' and how * when they saw that, the effect should be not to content them but to awaken a great hungering for more.' Principal Rainy could never have spoken in the old Free Church as in the passage quoted above — neither so frankly nor so hope- fully. The union of the Churches had brought a new union within the Church, and in the Highlands particu- larly. The cruelty, unconscious, of course, on the part of its authors, of the blow that was about to fall upon the Church — the reader knows what is coming and there can be no harm in anticipating it — was not chiefly in any loss of property, but was in the religious devastation once more spread over a region which the spirit of dispeace and disunion had so long harried, but on which, it seemed, at last had dawned a happier and more hopeful day. There is not, I think, any other Assembly matter during these years that need be specially mentioned. But it should be said that Dr. Rainy still continued the vigilant leader of the House in the hundred minor affairs that come before the Assembly'- for judgment. I wrote in an early chapter of his probably unequalled leadership in these things, and how under him the 278 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Assembly made really no mistakes which it had to retrace. It is impossible to exaggerate the value of his services in matters of this kind all through the forty years he led the Assembly ; but obviously these secondary affairs cannot be entered into here. His authority in the United Free Church Assembly was, if possible, even greater than it had been in that of the Free Church. He ' had seen two generations of mortal men perish and was king among the third.' ^ One important question, outside the Assembly, which Dr. Rainy took part in at this time was the Temperance movement associated with the name of Lord Peel. He moved the principal resolution at a conference held in Edinburgh in 1901, on what are known as the ' minority report ' proposals, and he took the chair — supplying the place of Lord Rosebery — at a meeting addressed by Lord Peel and Lady Henry Somerset in 1903. There is no doubt that his was a powerful influence in inducing Scotland, in which temperance opinion is far in advance of the ' minority report' and in some quarters suspicious of certain of its proposals, to be united over the Peel programme. He insisted that temperance reformers ' must remember they must carry with them, if they were to do legis- lative work, a very large body of men who were not abstainers.' As to compensation, ' there was a great difference between compensation that came out of his pocket and compensation that came out of a spirit- seller's pocket.' He thought it an important thing to give publicans a certain number of years 'during which they could turn round and see what they could do,' * Homer's Iliad, i. 250. THE CHURCH AND THE OLD LEADER 279 and that thereafter the State should be free from this consideration of compensation. Personally he declared himself a Local Veto man, but people differ as to that, and he ' would not break his heart if popular control is applied in different ways in different districts,' for they ' would not be the worse for trying some experi- ments.' These — stated very briefly — were the main features of his temperance position. Some people thought he was too moderate on this subject, and did not help it enough ; on the other hand, he had the more influence just because he was in no sense a faddist or fanatic about it. He became a total abstainer about 1877 (so I gather from a letter to a brother minister who was in danger of falling into intemperance — a remarkably earnest and faithful letter), and continued to be one up to at least old age. He never attempted to impose this in any way upon others, and had indeed an emphatic sense that it was not warrantable to do so. A public event of some interest in which Dr. Rain}- took a prominent part was the celebration in Cromarty in 1902 of Hugh Miller's centenary. Principal Rain}^ and Sir Archibald Geikie were the chief speakers, and the former gave a careful and remarkablj^ character- istic appreciation of Miller. He spoke of him as a man of science — * thrilled with the impressions connected with the discovery of decisive facts ' — but also a man of culture, open to ' the singularl}' refining quality of an esteem for and interest in and love for literature.' * Not all educated men,' added the Principal, * come to be men of culture, come to be men who have taste and responsiveness, who offer their minds as musical 280 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY instruments that are attuned to melody by the literature of their land and race.' Then he went on to speak of Miller as a working man — * a self-respecting working man.' He * doubted whether Miller would ever have cared to be anything else than a working man unless, like all good men, he had fallen in love.' He spoke of * his sense of the honour due to working men,' and yet ' his shrewd and sane view of them.' Then he eulogised Miller's moral character. * He held by the best he knew ' ; and therefore ' we have not to mourn in connection with him those lapses which sometimes sadden us in those we love.' Miller was, too, ' a fighting man,' and ' no man enjoyed a battle more.' In short he was, said the Principal, * a great mass of Scottish manhood.' In closing, Dr. Rainy took occasion to refer to the impression, which undoubtedly did exist, that the Free Church had failed to appreci- ate Hugh Miller's great services at the time of the Disruption. Of this. Dr. Rainy said : — ' If there was such an impression, it arose from some of those cruel fatalities of human life which are unaccountable. There never was in the mind of the Church anything but reverence and gratitude for Hugh Miller.' During this visit to Cromarty, it may be mentioned. Dr. Rainy was the guest of Mr. Andrew Carnegie at Skibo Castle, and an incident occurred one day there in conversation which I may mention, and I do it with Mr. Carnegie's sanction. The conversation turned on the utility of Foreign Missions. A lady present was upholding them, but was being somewhat overargued by the forcible contentions of her host, and she appealed to Dr. Rainy for assistance. The Principal's remark THE CHURCH AND THE OLD LEADER 281 was : ' Well, there 's a great deal in what Mr. Carnegie says, but, after all, we have our marching orders.' At this stage, I ma}^ insert a few extracts of a general character from various letters. They will explain themselves and require little or no comment. He was deeply concerned about the Boer War. In a letter dated March igoo, he writes : — ' 1 was against the war as not clearly justifiable, but once it was decided and entered on I regarded further discussion as vain. The thing had to go through ; and it must be settled if possible in such a way as to avert the risk of the thing break- ing out on us again,' Dr. Rainy took an active interest in the negotiations with the War Office for sending out chaplains by the United Free Church. He also had his views even on the military operations. He writes : — ' Abandoning Spion Kop is, in my view, another blunder. No officer so placed had a right to abandon the position without being authorised by the general ofhcer commanding the opera- tions. Some of our officers seem to me to think ; but I will not say it. It is not my business. But I get quite restless over it.' Later, in 1902, he says : — ' We may have South Africa settled with less trouble either there or here than we had any right to expect. But it is a big job. It is most fortunate for us that the Boers are a manly race and don't go in for hysterics. But if we make mistakes under any sinister imputation, we shall find them dour.' When, in 1904, Kruger died, Dr. Rainy writes : — ' What a career that man had ! He was not exactly a hero, but at least he did not flinch. He " put it to the touch to win ()r lose it all." Well, may be the sad 3^ears, after all was lost, 282 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY were the means of teaching him deeper wisdom, and making him ready to go up higher. I like to think how Christ may find His own among the beaten men and women, including those who deserved to be beaten.' Here is a note on Mr. Chamberlain's fiscal campaign : — ' Chamberlain is on the warpath. He is speaking effectively but not convincingly, and all the real authorities are against him. Still, he works the Empire idea for all it is worth. It is remarkable how he reveals always the same character — a mind readily captivated by ideas which can be impressively propounded, but indisposed to reckon strictly with itself as to the means by which they can be safely and successfully carried out. Hence he turns lightly from one practical plan to another. It reminds me of ministers I have known who, if they were shown that their interpretation of a passage of Scripture was objectionable, did not mind but gave you another, and in fact could provide any number, and did not care which was taken. All this is very different from Gladstone.' Of the Life of Gladstone, he says : — ' It is a great book. It cannot be read very fast,^ but it is remarkable for literary and moral qualities. It reveals Gladstone's intellectual and moral character — above all, his conscientiousness, his self-control and his self- judgment — most strikingly. It is a great advantage that it is written by a politician as well as by a thinker and writer. Having been in the game, Morley is able to seize and show the elements of each situation that needed to be reckoned with and under- stood.' Here is a note on an exhibition of the paintings of G. F. Watts :— ' On the whole I think I was a little disappointed. I honour Watts as a man of fine mind and powers who aimed at the ideal ' Dr. Rainy was an extraordinarily fast reader. And yet he did not skim a book ; he ratlicr lore through it, like a torpedo destroyer through the water. THE CHURCH AND THE OLD LEADER 283 with great sincerity. But the pictures which are most char- acteristic of him are allegories, and to me it always seems that successful pictures of that kind are most rare. It seems to me that our ideals do not submit to be embodied in per- manent painted forms of men, women, and children. The one of these that really impressed me was Death (he always represents Death as a woman) entering the house of life vainly resisted by Love. It is beautiful, and tells its story winningly. Another very impressive picture was of Paolo and Francesca. But the one I perhaps liked best was a little baby boy, red and plump, landing from the ocean of eterrfity on the shore of time. He is coming from the edge of the ocean, where it breaks on the shore, up the beach straight towards you, with both his hands stretched out and his eyes eager and a little frightened — all alone by himself. It made one think how good it is that most babies are so ordered as to their lot by God, that loving hands are stretched out to them and receive them.' Many of his letters of the period touch on Indian affairs, in which he was interested because his son George, after graduating at Oxford with a first in ' greats,' came out first in the Indian Civil Service Examination and went out to India, where he was not long in being appointed to an under-secretaryship. Principal Rainy discusses Indian affairs with his son often at length, but I can give only one extract : — ' I was greatly interested in your letter on the future of India, I have not been in a position to form definite opinions of my own, but I certainly have felt that I did not know how things were likely to work out. I could not suppose that the educated Baboo could be the governing class in India, and could control its future fortunes. On the other hand it might, on other accounts, be good tactics to recognise them and give them positions, looking to the mischief they are likely to do if unrecognised. But then how far can you go in that line ? You can't swamp the service with natives, if Britain is to continue responsible for India. These are the difficulties of 284 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL KAINY Imperialism, and they are very great. . . . The Romans managed their Empire pretty well, availing themselves of local methods and men, and letting things go pretty much in local grooves. But the differences are great. I have always felt that we must keep in view the alternatives— either we must govern India, or we must leave it to itself. But if we are to do it. we must be supreme and must wield the sword. We ought to be as gentle and conciliatory as possible, but it must never be doubtful that we rule. Obviously that is not the ideal way of organising a country in the interests of its native population ; but it may be the best and even far the best in existing circumstances. I am much interested in your suggestion of beginning from below. If ruling persons in Russia had really wished to bring in a reign of liberty, I have often thought I would ask them — Why do you not begin with the villages ? You have got there the one thing in Russian social life that gives you a hope and a line of operations. Now they must begin with a Duma, which is all but a desperate business. It will move so slow, and if it fails it will be a dire failure. You see how cleverly I write about things of which I have the slenderest know- ledge,' Here is an ironical reference to the high importance attached in the Civil Service in some quarters to qualifications other than intellectual : — ' Why is there not an exam, in dancing along with the others — two or three papers and a demonstration ? It seems comforting to reflect that while other posts may be swamped by natives, under-secretaryships will continue to be a British preserve, for what self-respecting native — Mohammedan especially — would dance ? ' In his letters to his son George, amid these political and often humorous reflections, are occasional words of the purest and simplest Christian counsel. I hardly feel at liberty to quote much of this, but may give one single example : — THE CHURCH AND THE OLD LEADER 285 ' So much alone as you are and pressed with work, it is perhaps difficult to keep sight of the main things. If you had only three minutes for Bible reading, I would give one to reading and two to thinking about it in God's presence. It is the same with prayer : shorter prayers, if it must be so, but let us think a little before we begin.' One could quote many such remarks, but counsels such as these from a father to a son have their sacredness. I shall close these extracts with an example of the letters he found time to write to his grandchildren, whose young minds he could interest in all kinds of subjects. The following shows how he could tell a boy about even so dry a matter as Scottish mineral antiquities : — ' The other day I went to preach the first sermon in a new church. That is called " opening the church." The name of the place was Newtyle. Well, I went to see a house not far off w'here they have gathered together a number of old stone monuments that were lying about before. But they were very much battered, some of them, before people began to take care of them. One or two were in the form of a great stone cross and there are figures roughly cut upon them — evidently they did not know how^ to do them better — men riding, and horses, and dogs, and birds, and one figure is very like an elephant, though I don't think there were any elephants in Scotland. The monuments must have been made hundreds and hundreds of 3'ears ago. I suppose the people wanted to be remembered and what they did ; so they put up these monuments and they thought, " When I am dead, people will say, Oh, that is the monument of so-and-so, and he used to go out that way with his horses and his dogs and chase deer and birds, and they will tell their children, and the children will tell their children, and so on, and in this way I shall always be remembered." But, alas, it is all for- gotten, and nobody knows what it all means. We see that there were people who wanted to be remembered, but no one now can tell who they were and when they lived — only that 286 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY it must have been very long ago. But I like to think that perhaps they asked God to remember them with loving kind- ness and tender mercy. And He will not forget. . . . ' Sometimes, when I stand on a hill here in Scotland and look over a wide plain and think of all the various people that are forgotten now, who have had their homes there and have worked and loved and died one after another, my heart gets very full of thoughts. But then I think I must try to do some good to the people who are still here round me, for the others are gone, quite gone. But they, like us, lived under the good Providence of God. ' Now see what a long story I have written. You will sa}^, "Why should a boy like me care about all these old people ? " ' During these years, especially now that he was freed from the daily routine of teaching in the College, Principal Rainy seems to have entered somewhat more fully into various social duties. His letters give chatty and often amusing accounts of visits of and to di'Stinguished people. He was the natural represen- tative of the Church on many official occasions, and no more dignified representative could it have had. He was greatly interested in the celebration of the four hundred and fiftieth anniversary of his Alma Mater, the University of Glasgow, which took place in 1901, and of which he writes to his son George : — ' The University function went off very well, only the " orations " wanted orators. Talk goes on both in Glasgow and here about my not having been recognised by an LL.D,, but don't you think, when so many degrees are flying (above one hundred LL.D.'s alone), it is more distinguished not to be graduated ? ' He also travelled abroad to Norway and elsewhere, and was a good deal at times in London. He writes of a dinner at Lambeth Palace and says ' nothing could be more friendly than our reception.' I mention THE CHURCH AND THE OT.D LEADER 287 these things to indicate that in his old age Dr. Rainy by no means lost interest and ceased activity in life. Some one once said to him that he seemed to have the secret of perennial youth, whereupon he replied, with a quiz- zical look, * Oh, a man that keeps his perennial youth is apt to become a bore.' But with all these interests of his old age, his letters express pathetically the often repeated sense that the world is passing away. ' I am constantly now,' he says in one letter, ' hearing of people ill or dying who were among my students.' In another, which mentions the death of no fewer than four old friends, he says, ' This is rather a doleful catalogue, but I do not feel it so : " All these died in faith." ' In another, speaking of the sale of an old family house, he quotes : — ' Omnia terrena per vices sunt aliena, Nunc mea, nunc hujus, post mortem nescio cujus ' ; ' and adds, ' But it is all right. This is not the abiding city.' Freed now, as has been said, from his professorsliip — to which Dr. A. R. MacEwen, a scholarly minister of the former United Presbyterian Church, was ap- pointed — Principal Rainy found time, during these years, for at least a little of the literary work from which his too busy ecclesiastical life had almost entirely excluded him. It was now too late to look for the long-hoped-for life of Augustine. If that subject was mentioned to Dr. Rainy in his old age, he smiled a little pensively. Once — though this was earlier — a young minister asked him if the work could not still ^ 'All earthly things pass through changes and become strange: now mine, now his, after death I know not whose.' 288 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY be hoped for, and Dr. Rainy replied that he had once begun it, but had conceived of it on too large a scale, and that since then public work had so engrossed his life that, he added, ' I fear I shall never be able to accomplish the fulfilment of my plan.' The young minister — a particularly able student and one keenly interested in theology — ventured to say, meaning it as a compliment, that he would almost be willing to sacrifice that work ' for the sake of such a book on Augustine as you could give the world.' The Principal looked out of the window towards the sea with a wistful, far-away look, but said nothing ; and his companion felt he had lifted a veil over an aspect of Dr. Rainy 's life which had its disappointment. But it is needless and useless to dwell on this : it did not call for repentance, and life is not for mere regrets. More- over, life is not a mistake because our earlier resolves for it have not been carried out. But in these years after his resignation of his professorship. Dr. Rainy, as has just been said, gave the world at least some literary fruit. He put together an historical survey of the Christian life and thought of the early centuries, and published it under the title of the Ancient Catholic Church as one of the volumes of the International Theological Library, edited by Principal Salmond of Aberdeen and Professor Briggs of New York. It is far from being a complete history, and for many things the student must go elsewhere. But for sympathetic insight into the mind of the early Christian Church he will often return to it. Dr. Rainy had an almost unique power of getting inside movements and explaining them as they would THE CHURCH AND THE OLD LEADER 280 explain themselves. This applies even to the heresies : his account in this book of Gnosticism, for example, makes the reader see how that system of thought, so easily dismissed from a distance as merely fantastic, is, while certainly not true, yet natural and intelligible. The book, too, has many character touches done with that sureness of hand which suggests the writer is speaking from personal knowledge of the man he is characterising : for example — to give but a single specimen — TertuUian ' combined in himself the Puri- tan and High Churchman, with even a touch of the Fifth Monarchy man thrown in ; he was a married man, and one supposes might not be quite " easy to live with," yet he might well be greatly esteemed and greatly loved.' ^ It is a book with greatness in it, how- ever imperfect alike in its conception and even its manner of execution. The other volumes which Prin- cipal Rainy published at this time were of a religious character — an expository commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians and some selected sermons. These are not books which need be discussed or quoted here. But of the volume of sermons — the title of which is Sojourn- ing with God — a word should be said. There are many volumes of more eloquent and, in the literar}^ sense, even more interesting sermons ; but there are few indeed of more real, rich and profoundly experienced religion. These are not sermons which will be quoted as examples of that dubiously inspired gift called ' pulpit eloquence ' ; but often will Dr. Rainy's treat- ment of — to name but one example — such a theme as that of ' Receiving Forgiveness ' be read and also 1 Ancioit Catholic Church (T. and T- Clark), p. 185. VOL. II. T 290 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY pondered over by some soul who is in earnest to know the sureness and meaning, the gravity and the wonder- fuhiess of God's relation to him and his to God and to hfe and to the world unseen. Most of these sermons, it should be added, were old sermons. At this period of his life Dr. Rainy was a preacher of a different kind — the most interesting of preachers, to any one who had ears to hear. He leant over the pulpit, often hugging the Bible in his arms, and quietly talked the purest, simplest, deepest religion. These spiritual talks of a great and experienced saint can never be forgotten by those who heard them and never reproduced for those who did not hear them. Principal Rainy was now, as has been said, an old man. He was approaching fourscore. His natural force was little abated. His step had still its characteristic alertness, and his figure was not only erect but still retained the suggestion of the athletic which had always distinguished it. His face, in his old age, became not less than wonderfully impressive. Time did nothing to enfeeble it, did everything to enrich it. There was the same unmistakable outward strength — ^he had not merely strong features (which sometimes very ordinary men have), but also, round the redoubt- able chin, that firm steel binding which Napoleon had — but there was now too the impressiveness which nothing can give except a long life nobly spent in thought and work and prayer. He had always had — if one may descend to such a particular — a remarkably fine skin, and this was etched by the years as deeply almost as was Goethe's. It should be repeated that his expression was extraordinarily mobile — now full of THE CHURCH AND THE OLD LEADER 291 gentleness and now grave and even severe, at times purely spiritual and at other times curiously enig- matical ; but, at its best, Dr. Rainy's was one of the wonderful faces of the public men of his time. All this the outward world could see — could not but see. Those, however, who knew Dr. Rainy were impressed with something about him in his old age far deeper than anything of outward appearance. It is very difficult to put in words — and yet it would be false to the picture to omit it — the reverence which the sheer saintliness of his spiritual character had now begotten in the minds of those who really knew him. His was not a saintliness that in any way ostracised the right concerns of this world. He was, and remained in his old age, full of interest in life — in ' this great and interesting world ' as he repeatedly called it. With him it never was that these things were decried or deprecated ; it was that, at the same time, God and the unseen world were, not only as real, but infinitely more. One cannot enter into analysis of the extraordinarily spiritual reality which Dr. Rainy carried with him, and one would not even if one could ; I shall but mention two features of it. Though it was a very secret of his soul, no one could fail to see what a place his prayers had in his hfe. Once he almost let it out, when in a sermon he said, in a kind of aside, ' I could give up many things, but, oh, I could not give up my prayers.' The other thing — for, though one could say much more, I will not dwell on these sacred topics — was his consciousness and ex- pectation of the life to come. He spoke of it as naturally as he spoke of this life. He did not speak 292 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY much of death, but he spoke of what is beyond death ; just as Bunyan's pilgrims, when they stood on the Delectable Mountains, and looked through the shepherd's glass, did not look at the river which has no bridge and which they knew was to be crossed, but looked at the towers of the Celestial City. And the impressive thing about Dr. Rainy was that what attracted his thoughts there was simply that his Heavenly Father was there. I remember one day discussing with the Principal the philosophical argu- ment for immortality. He discussed it all with more than ordinary intellectual interest. Suddenly he threw back his head and looked up and said, * But, after all, immortality is a dreary prospect if our Father is not in it.' It was a mere word, but the very spontaneous- ness of it revealed a child of God to whom fellowship with his Heavenly Father was not merely a reality but the indispensable reality. I do not know if I should have said these things about these sacred intimacies of Dr. Rainy's spiritual character. Every one who knew him will feel how inadequately they have been said, and yet, also, how impossible not to attempt to say them. There is, however, one feature of Dr. Rainy's character in these years of which it is more easy to speak. That is the tenderness which more and more revealed itself in his words and acts as, indeed, on his very countenance. In his old age, he was a veritable father of consolation. Many persons have spoken to me of tliis and declared they can never forget his sympathy in times of sorrow, nor could they even tell of its sacredness. This was no new feature of Dr. THE CHURCH AND THE OLD LEADER 293 Rainy's life, as the reader knows, but in these later years, with a ripened Christian and human experience, and with the chastened sense that age must bring of the pathos of life, it seems more than ever to have been a deliberate part of his work to try to comfort and heal and sympathise. In these years his own family life was visited with a very sore sorrow. His third daughter, Annie, who was in many things his right hand, became ill and was sent with a friend to Algiers where, soon after landing, she died on 9th March 1903. She accepted with promptness and sweetness, when she realised it, the call to give up her young life, and her father in his sorrow wrote, ' We have very great consolations — indeed every consolation we could have.' He added, * Some of the young people get before us, but we may follow.' The tenderness which I have spoken of in Dr. Rainy's character found expression — as has been illustrated more than once in earlier chapters — in the letters of sympathy which he wrote to persons in illness or in bereavement. I append a few further examples of these here, but the}^ are only a few out of many. The first I shall quote is of a slightly earlier date — 1899. It is written in connection with the serious and, as it eventually proved, fatal illness of Professor Bruce of Glasgow. Dr. Rainy and Dr. Bruce were, in many respects, men of not onty different but even anti- pathetic religious temperament : all the more touching is their meeting on the common ground indicated at the close of this letter. It is addressed to Mrs. Bruce : — ' We have been thinking a great deal about you as well as about Dr. Bruce himself since we heard of the serious 294 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY nature of his illness. From what the newspapers have said, we are glad to think things have gone well so far, but I suppose anxiety must continue in some degree for some time. Things go on in their slow, relentless way, and that is one of the trials of faith. You cannot doubt that many Christian people are remembering you daily. But the great comfort is that we know our Lord and Master is thinking both of Dr. Bruce and you with those wise, loving, watchful thoughts of His, and that the forces of nature and of disease and of remedies are after all in His hands who causes all things to work together for our good. Even if we believe this, it is not always easy to feel it. But it remains true, and it is an infinite consolation. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ? I often think that to a man of your husband's vigour and energy and extra- ordinary power of work, the insidious progress of weakening disease must be most trying and depressing. It is of little use for those who are not feeling the strain to try to talk this away. Indeed, what can one say except that we must trust the great Surgeon ? I remember my father saying to me late in his life that he could look back on passages of it so painful that at the time it seemed to him intolerable ; and yet, looking back, he distinctly saw that those were the passages of his life that were indispensable — he could not have done without them. ' But, dear Mrs. Bruce, why should I be running on in topics which he and you know better than I do ? For no reason but this — that when Christian was in the Valley, he heard a voice of one rehearsing God's goodness, and it helped him. So when we can do nothing else for one another we can echo to and fro the precious commonplaces of our most wonderful religion. And we can pray.' Willi this may be placed a letter also to one in his last illness — Gilbert Beith, M.P. — to whom Dr. Rainy wrote : — ' I hear with great regret that you are ill. But we have received good at the hand of the Lord and shall we not receive evil also ? — for, indeed, it is not evil since it comes from Him. He does no harm to His children. THE CHURCH AND THE OLD LEADER 295 ' Many friends will pray for you that the trial of your faith may work all peaceable fruits of righteousness, and that you may have the comfort of rest in God. ' In the end, all will work together for good, and if it does not please God to restore you, the mercy that has done so much for us all our days will accomplish its work. Goodness and mercy shall follow us, and we shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. God's goodness will turn out to be — like Himself — unsearchable. ' You and I have had fathers of our flesh who saw the good- ness of the Lord and served their generations. Their faith let us folloM', remembering the end of their conversation ; and when the end comes, our hope is to pass out of this world into the Holy Land of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will perfect that which concemeth us. He only could begin the work and He will complete it. ' I think with great pleasure of your unfailing loyalty to the good cause and your many services to good works and to good men. I know you will not think much of these yourself ; yet it is a great blessing to have been employed by the great and good Master, and as for our shortcomings, which are so many and so great, He forgiveth all our trespasses and healeth all our diseases,' Both these letters were of peculiar comfort to those to whom they were addressed, and the same is told me of the following, written to a lady whose sister had been stricken with total blindness : — * I am so sorry to hear of your sister's great trial, and I don't wonder she finds it hard to bear and perplexing to deal with. But all these things — it is so easy to say and yet it is so true and good — are the things which we are to overcome because Christ has overcome them all for us. "In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." This is our calling — to carry our steadfast faith of God's love in Christ through all providences. Very likely your sister may be unable to feel it so : it seems mere loss and impoverishment. However, a day will come 296 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY when we shall look back and see that the very trials which seemed most cruel and intolerable are the very elements in our lives we could not do without. But God will teach your sister all this in a very different way from what the stumbling words of mine can represent. She will see the end of the Lord.' Passing with these three examples from letters to persons in illness to letters to those in bereavement, I shall give the following, written to a fellow elder in Roseburn Church — the congregation in which Dr. Rainy was a member and office-bearer — whose son, a successful University student, had died in the promise of his youth. The letter runs : — ' When I came back from London two days ago, I heard that your son was dead. ' All we can offer to you — Mrs. Rainy and I — is our most sincere sympathy. But that can do little indeed to replace the presence and the promise that are gone and to fill the empty place. ' I also have had my share of this experience, and I think I can say this. The remembrance of this sorrow will never leave you. But as time passes on, the memory will become sweet and gracious. It will be an element in your life you could not afford to want. The memory of the unfinished life that never will be finished here will become soothing and strengthening. For our trust is that he is M^th Christ : he is gone into the world of things that cannot be shaken. You may have anxieties about others, but never more about him. The remembrance will become one of the things that comfort you concerning the work and toil of your hands. ' Pardon my speaking so much. I know it is vain. But at my age the memories of the beloved dead who are in the keeping of Christ are among the real resources of one's life.' To a lady who had similarly been bereaved of a daughter, also in the promise of life. Dr. Rainy wrote : — ' . . . No one can do much to comfort another in sorrow. But we can pray God to administer the true comfort and to THE CHURCH AND THE OLD LEADER 297 help us and our friends to reap from sorrow some abiding good. . . . More and more it seems to me that Christianity is the rehgion in which men learn to pray. And God takes means to make prayer be for us real and serious. . . . Will you offer our very kind remembrance and sympathy to your husband ? It is hard for a father to lose a dear and loving daughter.' The reader has been told the personal experience behmd the last sentence ; and he may also remember the now long past but still remembered experience — the death of his own infant son — that made Dr. Rainy write to a fellow-minister whose little child had been taken awa}^ : — ' I am grieved to hear of your great sorrow. This will be a long sad memory for Mrs. and you. Yet a sweetness will come and enriching of life through new fellowship with God. Nothing brings us to God like sorrow and need. Mean- while, how safe the little one is — how very safe in the hands of the Good Shepherd.' The following is a note on the death of an officer who was killed in the South African War : — ' I fear the Captain , of whose death wc heard through the papers, must be a near relative of yours, perhaps a brother. If so, be assured of our great sjaTipath}^ This war has made breaches in many families. But our Lord is as able to be present with us on a field of battle as in a peaceful home. ' Soldiers in active service may sometimes be worse men than they were in ordinary times, but I am sure that very often the}^ are better — accessible to thoughts and impressions, and responsive to them (juietl}^ but very really.' Sometimes the letters are quite impersonal — merely a few general sentences of * the precious common- places of our most wonderful religion.' Of these a single example will suffice : — ' I ought to have written to you sooner of j^our great loss. 298 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY The world passeth away and the large happy families we remember disperse as time goes on. The process is sad for the survivors. But we have good hopes before us. And the mercy of God is wonderful — quite wonderful — past finding out. He never forgets us. He always cares for us. We may humbly believe He keeps us for the inheritance. There- fore let us look upwards and forwards.' I close these extracts oy quoting the following letter, the latter part of which will enable the reader to perceive that spirituality of Principal Rainy' s mind of which I wrote a few pages back : — * . . . Bereavements come with strange force, and they leave us crushed and lonely. And yet we are sure that our Heavenly Father turns all these sorrows, which seem to come upon us like fate, into means of grace, and is near us to be sought and found. He does it for our profit that we may be partakers of His holiness. Only this does not come to pass as a matter of course, and we have to ask for help and to find our way to the Father's mind and to trust. " Though He cause grief, yet will He have compassion according to the multitude of His mercies." ' I think, as we advance in life, we may do well to think more of the great hope of the Gospel. The fashion of this world passes away, but we have great hopes before us. Yet surely, they are not so welcome, not so dear, do not come home to us with soothing and cheering power, as they ought to do. Do we not find ourselves in moods in which these hopes are strange, not entering harmoniously into the life of our souls ? I believe it is because we need to have revealed to us more fully the love of God. In that. great revelation, everything takes on a new light and warmth, and the hopes I speak of become dear and real. Well, we must ask for it. What can poor people do that have nothing, but just ask ? And we must ask for great things, for the greatest ; our Father is a great God.' Here is a glimpse of the most sacredly impressive thing in Dr. Rainy's old age. It was not even his great THE CHURCH AND THE OLD LEADER 299 experience, though his very face was a history : it was the humble, wistful sense of these * great hopes.' There was never in Dr. Rainy's religion a trace of the morbid in its thoughts of life or death, of heaven or earth. It was out of sheer love of holiness and simple longing to be nearer his Lord, that (in one of his sermons) speaking on ' the prospect of Dying,' he said ' it is better to be done with sin,' * where Christ most fully, most mani- festly, most unreservedly is — that is best.' ' Not that we are to be impatient of life ' or * longing instantly to depart.' But, he said, in his simplest, most natural tones : — ' The prospect of departing in God's good time, to us un- known, should be a great and bright hope before us — the refuge of our hearts in trouble, the retreat into which we go when we would soothe and cheer our souls, a great element of the cheerfulness and patience of our lives — while we assure ourselves that the best of all we find here is by and by to give place to that which is far better.' This was Dr. Rainy in his old age. Experience, both mundane and spiritual, seemed to have put its finishing chastening touches on his mind and char- acter and spirit. It might appear that our story should have ended here. We have traced a long and arduous career, and the subject of it seems now% if one may say it with reverence, but waiting for the opening of the portal to a better world. Yet before this man lie at once the greatest struggle and the crowning glory of his life. Upon the venerable and even saintly figure of the old Principal, the storm burst. ' So — one fight more. The best and the last.' CHAPTER XXV THE LAW CASE AND THE JUDGMENT THE catastrophe which fell upon the United Free Church of Scotland within four years of the Union, and with peculiar personal directness upon Principal Rainy in his old age, has alread}^ more than once been anticipated in the foregoing pages, and it may be well to state at the outset of this chapter and without further delay what it was. The claim upon the whole property of the Free Church made by a score of members of the Assembly of 1900, being dismissed by every Scottish judge — four in all — before whom it came, was appealed to the House of Lords, and the appeal on a second hearing was sustained by a majority, with the astounding result that every stone and every penny of the Free Church of Scotland was taken from the great Church of the Union with its seventeen hundred ministers and over h'alf a million members and given to the small body of dissentients who numbered about thirty ministers, nearly all in the remote Highlands, with their flocks and adherents. The results of this decision were so unjust, so absurd and indeed impossible, that, as we shall see in the next chapters, Parliament had to intervene and take the absolutely unprecedented step of redistributing the property, taking the greater }nrt of it away again 300 THE LAW CASE AND THE JUDGMENT 301 from those to whom, by the supreme legal tribunal of the land, it had been allotted. In this chapter we have to describe the judgment itself, which, with its authors, must eventually stand at the bar of history. The case is one that can be simply and shortly stated. The contention of the pursuers was as follows. The Free Church of Scotland is ' a voluntary association or body of Christians associated together under a definite contract involving the maintenance of definite principles.' This * contract ' is constituted by the Claim of Right of 1842, the Protest and Act of Separa- tion of 1843, and the Acts of Assembly of the Church of Scotland in so far as not modified thereby. From this contract, the majority have departed in two respects. One concerns the establishment principle : the other the doctrinal standards of the Church. The establish- ment principle is, the pursuers asserted, ' one of the essential principles ' in the * contract of association or constitution of the said Church.' This has been departed from by the Union in 1900 with the United Presbyterian Church — a body of which ' at the time of the Union ' it was ' an accepted and distinctive principle ' that it is neither lawful nor expedient for the State to estabhsh or endow any Church. The doctrinal defection alleged was the Declaratory Act of 1892, in which ' the Assembl}^ claiming for the first time the authority to determine what points in the Confession of Faith entered into and what points did not enter into the substance of the Reformed Faith, proceeded to qualify the Confession of Faith ' and claim the right to do so further if it deemed proper. The qualifi- cation complained of was, as appeared in the pleadings, 302 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY in respect of the Confessional doctrine of predestination which, it was maintained, was contravened by the freer terms of the Declaratory Act regarding the offer of the gospel. The above were the grounds on which : it was claimed that the property of the Free Church, fi being held on trust for the principles of that Church's constitution, should be taken from those who had thus departed from these principles and given to those — few though they might be in number — who adhered to them. The claim was for the whole of the property or, alternatively, for a division ; but the latter plea was subsequently withdrawn as untenable. The answer of the defenders was twofold. It was, first, a denial that there had been any real change. The * establishment principle ' is not and never has been a matter of imposed creed in the Free Church. It was at the time of the Disruption a prevalent view, but it was not part of the Church's binding doctrine. Similarly, the * voluntary * view of the relations of Church and State, while all but unanimously held in the United Presbyterian Church at the time of the Union, was nowhere made part of its creed. As regards the doctrinal question, it was also denied that such terms of the offer of the gospel as are used in the Declaratory Act are inconsistent with the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination as stated in the Confession, and it was maintained that both in the most authori- tative theologians and in the preaching of the Church, these two views were held side by side, as indeed they are in Holy Scripture itself. This denial of funda- mental change was the first answer of the United Free Church. But it took also a second and higher position. THE LAW CASE AND THE JUDGMENT 303 Even if it was held that there had been change, the Church claimed, as within her right, the liberty to legislate in the line of change. Such liberty had been claimed and also exercised by the Church of Scotland even in statutory relation with the State, and when, by the legal decisions in the decade prior to the Disruption, this had been vetoed by the courts of law, the Free Church was formed expressly to assert this liberty * as heretofore understood ' to be and act in all spiritual credenda and agenda subject only to Christ as the Supreme Head of the Church and to His Word as her only supreme standard. This, the respondents main- tained, was the very meaning of the Disruption, and every office-bearer in the Free Church was pledged to it as a fundamental principle. Such, stated in their briefest terms, are the two sides of the case. I shall not comment at present on the strange spectacle of men claiming to be the * Free ' Church of Scotland and yet maintaining that this Church is subject, as well as to Christ and His Word, also to a human confession and ' contract ' : we shall have further occasion to refer to this. But one very obvious remark on the case may be made at the outset, namely, that the question here is hardly a question of law at all. Certainly the law of the matter was clear and simple. The bearing of the law of trusts on a case such as this had "been settled by a leading decision given in 1813 by Lord Chancellor Eldon. Before that date the courts, at least in Scotland, had tended to the view that, in cases of division and dispute in nonconformist religious bodies, the property will be given to the majority. But Lord 304 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Eldon, in the notable test-case known as Craigdallie v. Aikman, laid down a different and sounder principle, namely — that property is held in trust for the principles of the Church and that, in any division, failing proof that the maj ority had, in the terms of the trust, power to modify these principles, it would be given by the law to the party adhering to those principles.^ Lord Eldon's doctrine — laid down in a notably clear and convincing opinion — has been the accepted law on the subject ever since. In the present case both parties knew it and accepted it. The law of this case of the Free Church was perfectly simple and even a layman could have stated it. I think one might say that there has never been a case, involving in its result such large issues, in which the legal principle was so simple and so easil}' reached. All the judges before whom the case came — with the exception of one ^ — were agreed as to the law. What then was the difficult question — so difficult that the supreme tribunal had to re-hear it ? The question was a much involved question of histor}/ and, to a lesser degree, a very abstruse and profound question in theology. It was practically the question of what was the real meaning of the Disruption and, also, what is the bearing of the Calvinistic doctrine of predestina- tion on the evangelical offer of the Gospel. These certainly are not properly legal questions. Upon these, judges — even the judges of the House of Lords — are in no sense experts. Their decision on them is entitled to respect as that of men of great ability who have 1 Vide The Law of Crreib in Scotland^ by A. Taylor Innes, pp. 333 ef. seq. (ist edit.). ^ Lord Youji},s in the Inner House of the Court of Session. THE LAW CASE AND THE JUDGMENT 305 carefully weighed the problems set to them — and, in- deed, when one thinks of what these problems were, the judges are entitled to sympathy as well as to respect — but it is a decision depending so greatly on theological and historical considerations, that it may be freely criticised, without presumption, by any person com- petently acquainted with Calvinism and with the Scottish Church. To turn then to the story of the case. It was when it was carried to the House of Lords, and it was seen that there was the possibility of a sensational decision being given, that it became historical ; but the earlier judgments in the Scottish courts deserve notice. The case was first brought before Lord Low in the Outer House of the Court of Session, and he gave judgment on gth August 1901. Lord Low decided in favour of the defenders, on the ground that the estab- lishment principle was always a subordinate and not a fundamental doctrine of the Free Church — not so fundamental that the Assembly could not depart from it. He did not altogether admit the right of the Church to make change of every kind in its doctrines : ' large as the powers of the General Assembly of the Free Church, in my opinion, were, I do not think that they were unhmited.' There were, he thought, ' certain doctrines and principles so essential that, without them, the Church would cease to exist.' But he was clear that establishment was not one of these. It was ' one which was regarded as of great importance by the Free Church at the commencement of its history, and naturally so,' but it does not follow it was ' so essen- tial ' as to justify the contention of the pursuers. He VOL. II. u 306 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY found it mentioned in the Disruption Claim and Protest, but ' in a parenthetical way in the clause in which the essential doctrine and fundamental prin- ciple of the Headship of Christ is stated.' No doubt, at the Disruption, the founders of the Free Church held the view (as expressed in the Protest of 1843) that it was the magistrate's duty ' to maintain and support an establishment,' but, Lord Low added, it did not follow that that * view ' was fixed and unchangeable. In face of the Act regarding the questions and formula to be put to entrants to the ministry, it seemed to him ' impossible to say that the Free Church regarded any particular method for the fulfilment by the civil magistrate of his duty to the Church as an essential and fundamental doctrine of the Church.' The ' essen- tial ' in the principles of the Free Church he found to be spiritual independence, and establishment, however 'important,' was not regarded as affecting its 'iden- tity,' in support of which he quoted the great declara- tion (drafted by Dr. Candlish and prefixed b}^ the Assembly of 185 1 to its issue to its people of the accepted standards of the Churcli) that ' it is her being free and not her being established that constitutes the real historical and hereditary identity of the Reformed National Church of Scotland.' He was thus of opinion that the Free Church had not given up ' any doctrine or principle which formed an essential or fundamental part of her creed or constitution,' but had only modified a ' view ' as to how an essential principle was to be embodied — a modification witliin the powers of the Assembly. He held the Declaratory Act also a legiti- mate exercise of the Assembly's powers. THE LAW CASE AND THE JUDGMENT 307 This judgment, whether adequate in its grounds and correct in its opinion or not, is interesting from the well-informed intelligence with which it deals with an historical question. Lord Low was not a member of the Free Church, but he set himself to understand what that Church was both in its principles and its methods. His mind thus accepted the conception of a Church to which views held by its members and even stated in documents were one thing, and fundamental principles to which it specifically pledged its office- bearers were another. He recognised the idea of a living, self-governing body which could modify at least the former and had done so. He read the Dis- ruption with the insight of one who understood an historical problem when he emphasised its contention that it was in ' her being free ' that the Church's 'identity' lay. Whether one accepts the conclusion of his decision or not, its historical spirit makes it a model with which I fear we shall find the methods of some of the judges in the Supreme Court compare unfavourably. The case was appealed to the Inner House of the Court of Session, where it was heard by the Lord Justice-Clerk (Lord Kingsburgh), and Lords Young and Tra^aier.^ They gave judgment on 4th July 1902, unanimously dismissing the appeal. However satis- factory from the point of view of the United Free Church this decision was, it cannot be said that all the judgments in the Inner House were beyond criti- cism. The judgment of the Lord Justice-Clerk was ' Lord Moncreiff, the fourth judye of the Court, was absent through ill- health. 308 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY substantially sound in its general view as to the free- dom of the Free Church, but it was loosely constructed, and it was seriously discounted by some mis-statements of fact. The judgment of Lord Young was out of touch with the law as laid down by Lord Eldon in the Craigdallie case already mentioned, and accepted by all parties. Lord Young held that there is ' no rule in law to prevent a dissenting Church from abandoning a religious doctrine or principle, however essential or fundamental,' while, as regards the property, an ex facie absolute title in a Church or other association is not to be limited ' by reference, not expressed but assumed to be implied, to essential doctrines and funda- mental principles of the Church or association — the questions (for they are many) what these are, being in case of dispute decided by the court as questions of law or fact.' This of course is not the Eldon doctrine. Still, the law of trusts had developed in many respects since Lord Eldon, and Lord Young's obvious sense that this development should apply also to the Church is of interest, if not actually of legal validity. The most valuable judgment given in the Inner House of the Court of Session was that of Lord Trayner. It began by definitely accepting the law as laid down by Lord Eldon, and it admitted that the defenders had aban- doned the principle of establishment ; but Lord Trayner, like Lord Low, found that that principle was not an essential or fundamental principle of the Free Church, and that its abandonment did not violate the terms of its constitution. His verdict on this is so accurate historically that I shall quote his words : — THE LAW CASE AND THE JUDGMENT 309 ' The essential principles of the Free Church, as they were in the eariier years of its history repeated again and again, were the Headship of Christ and the consequent independence of His Church (independence, that is, of the civil ruler) in matters religious or ecclesiastical. The estabhshment prin- ciple is never once referred to as essential or fundamental, nor presented as a principle on the same platform with those I have named. That it was frecjuently referred to in the Protest and other documents at the time of the Disruption as a principle which, notwithstanding their separation from the State, they still professed, is true, and the Lord Ordinar}^ has shown how natural it was that it should be so. But I repeat it was never set forth as an essential principle of the constitution of the Free Church.' ' This is practically the same viev^^ as that of Lord Low, and it has the same historical merits that the judgment of the Lord Ordinary had. So far then as the Scottish courts were concerned, the claim of the dissentient minority against the Union was unanimously dismissed. The result undoubtedly met with practically universal public approval ; even the Scotsman declaring that a decision the other way would have been ' little short of a national calamity/ ^ It may be mentioned that, some time before judg- ment was given in the Inner House, an attempt was made to bring parties together with the view of a settlement out of court. The movement came in the first instance from some in the minority who were not of the extreme type, and they approached the Lord Provost of Glasgow — Sir Samuel Chisholm, Bart, (an elder of the United Free Church) — suggesting that he might ask both parties to a conference. The Lord 1 Free Church of Scotland Appeals (authorised report), 77, 7S. ' Scotsman, 5th July 1902. 310 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Provost felt he could hardly do this without some assurance that it would be acceptable and had some likelihood of success, and in the first instance wrote to each of the members of the Law Committee of the minority asking how they would view ' a conference on the entire subject without prejudice.' The replies were various : some were willing to confer, some not desiring it but prepared to agree to it, some laying down conditions, and at least one (so Sir Samuel Chisholm informs me) was against it altogether. Still, with the desire, most creditable to himself, to aid if possible in relieving the situation, the Lord Provost of Glasgow wrote to Principal Rainy. In reply. Dr. Rainy said that he fully appreciated the motive of the suggestion, but saw 'strong practical difficulties,' adding : — ' At the stage now reached, the natural course would seem to be a different one. Either side, if so disposed, can take the responsibility of making proposals to the other in the usual way, and such proposals would no doubt be carefully considered.' The Lord Provost regretfully felt that the response on either side was not sufficiently encouraging to justify him going further, and the project dropped. While certainly, in one respect, this failure is to be regretted, still it is difficult to see what a conference could have done. With a few of the dissentients a compromise on suitable financial terms might have been possible ; but with their extreme leaders, who were dominant in their councils, the contention was that they were and wanted to be declared by law to be the Free Church. It was like the question of the THE LAW CASE AND THE JUDGMENT 311 succession to a title, and hardly admitted of com- promise. There was nothing for it but that the claim be withdrawn, which the dissentients would not do, or admitted, which the United Free Church could not do, or left to take its course to the end. The dissentients — who must have had considerable financial resources — resolved to appeal the case to the House of Lords. The appeal was heard by the House of Lords during eight sittings, beginning on 24th November 1903 and ending on December 7th. There were six judges, namely, the Lord Chancellor (Lord Halsbury), and Lords Davey, Lindley, Macnaghten, Robertson,^ and Shand. The leading counsel for the United Free Church were Mr. Asher (Dean of Faculty) and Mr. Haldane. I do not propose to describe this hearing, because a second hearing was ordered and it is unnecessary to tell the story twice. The follow- ing letter from Principal Rainy to Dr. Ross Taylor will give some idea of how it impressed him : — ' I have just come from the close of the pleading. On Thursday, things looked dark. On Friday morning they improved. Even Robertson ceased to be visibly hostile. And so it was to the end. The Chancellor was much taken up about predestination and perhaps cared less about the civil magistrate : with the others it was quite the other way. I provided Haldane with a dose of the Synod of Dort for him and the old gentleman seemed quite to enjoy it. ' Asher and Haldane, I think, put themselves thoroughh- into the case and did their best. ' The point that sticks with the judges is our power to alter the Confession or to depart from the establishment view announced in Disruption documents. They started with the * This is the same J. P. B. Robertson mentioned in vol. ii., p. 64. 312 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY view that we were a trust who took money on the strength of certain representations. Have we now the right to hold the money when we have varied our position on one distinct point, unless we can clearly make out that we had a power to vary ? That was their first impression and probably continues. But the sense of the magnitude of the case has grown upon them every day. They showed no wish to hurry the pleadings and they showed more and more a wish to understand things. I did not hear very well, but the general impression on our counsel is what I describe. ' Shand seems for us : he is important as he reveals often what the others are saying. Davey had many questions and perhaps more than any one revealed the feeling of having to do with a difficult case. Lindley and Macnaghten made no sign whatever. ' But we can be sure of nothing. The attitude was non- committal. Altogether, although when I came up I was under a good, deal of concern, I feel my own mind much more at rest. ' Davey spoke of some of the books referred to as good reading for the Christmas holidays, and Haldane said to me after all was over he doubted if we should have a decision till February. This, if otherwise inconvenient, may be far the best and safest thing, if they started with an unfavourable bias. ' I suppose it may be very good for us to be kept in some anxiety.' Of this first hearing little more need be said. February passed and no judgment was given. The two Scottish judges — Lord Shand and Lord Robertson — had their opinions written, but apparently some of the others had not reached their conclusions. Then a startling event happened which had fateful consequences for the case. On 6th March 1904, Lord Shand died. It has always been believed, and it has never been denied, that his judgment was in favour of the United Free Church.^ This means — assuming that the two judges ^ It is much to be regretted that permission has not been given for the publication of Lord Shand's opinion. It is true it is not technically his THE LAW CASE AND THE JUDGMENT 313 who eventually, after the second hearing, gave also this opinion, would have given it if judgment had been given on the first hearing and before Lord Shand's death — that the House would have been equallv divided. It was frequently said, subsequently, that in this case the appeal must have been held to be dismissed, and that thus all the extraordinary con- fusion which eventually was brought about would have been avoided but for this ' act of God.' But the growing practice in recent years is to order a re-hearing. And plainly this is a proper practice, and no complaint should be made that in this case it was followed. This re-hearing meant postponement till after the Assemblies of 1904. In these circumstances, it was natural that the thought of compromise should be again mooted. It was first publicly urged by, I believe, an article in the British Weekly, which was at once supported by the two most reasonable laymen among the dissentients — Mr. M'Neilage (whose name has already more than once been mentioned) and Mr. Rounsfell Brown. The latter tabled before his own Church an actual proposal — practically a tenth of the funds and also legal expenses. His Assembl}^ dis- cussed the proposal with closed doors ; the result was that the offer did not even find a seconder, and the Assembly resolved ' not at this time to move as pro- posed.' On the same evening that this suggestion was being rejected by the minority, the Law Committee of the United Free Church met and authorised Principal judgment because it was not actually delivered, and it must be assumed a judge might alter what he had written. But the document would be of historical value. Lord Shand himself is said to have considered it the best opinion he had ever written. 314 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Rainy to make a proposal. This proposal was the maintenance of the status quo as regards possession of churches, with facilities for joint use at different hours where that is desirable and feasible ; ^ the minority to share in the Aged and Infirm Ministers' Fund and the Widows' Fund ; the taxed expenses of the lawsuit to be charged to the funds in dispute ; and fifty thousand pounds to be paid to and to be at the dis- posal of the Assembly of the Church of the minority. The last part of this proposal, it must be stated, was not Principal Rainy's, and he was by no means clear about it. He consulted Mr. Asher, who said that if the case were a mere dispute about money it should be compromised, partly because the Lords were evidently divided on it, and partly from respect to public opinion and what is fair to the minority ; but the difficulty was, it was not a dispute merely about money, but as to the powers and principles of the Church. Dr. Rainy, however, did consent to bring the proposal before the Assembly. He made a very careful and conciliatory speech. He said they must remember that the question was not merely one of property, but ' of vindicating the right of this Church to be this Church,' and especi- ally ' its right to do what it had done in that great and blessed step of union ' ; still they had again and again expressed their desire to keep in view what was fairly due to those who had left. * The fact that they had separated and that there had been trying circumstances connected with it did not and ought not to make us forget that they are the children of the old Free Church * The oljject in this latter clause was to prevent unnecessary church building in tlie i liLiiilands. THE LAW CASE AND THE JUDGINIENT 815 still.' It would be, he said, * a right thing and a welcome thing ' that they should have some share in the Church's inheritance. He then detailed and tabled the proposals as given above, and the Assembly endorsed them. It must be admitted that many had the feeling that the proceeding, after what had occurred on the other side, had a futility about it and might indeed be construed into a confession of weakness and apprehension. In making the proposal, Dr. Rainy acted certainly against his earlier judgment — for he wrote Dr. Ross Taylor a few days before, * for the present, at any rate, I am against it ' — and possibly his better judgment. The spirit and motive of it, however, were only good.^ The re-hearing of the case in the House of Lords began on gth June and lasted till the 23rd of the month. Two new judges were present — Lord Alverstone (Lord Chief- Justice) and Lord James of Hereford. The Lord Chancellor stated at the outset that Lord Kinross (Lord President of the Court of Session) had been invited to attend, but that,. in view of the opinions which, as the reader is aware, he had alread}^ given on the case, he had not thought fit to do so. It must, however, be observed that there were other eminent Scottish judges who were qualified to sit — being peers — as judges in the House of Lords, and it is distinctly to be regretted that in a case of this peculiar ^ It apparently rankled in the minds of those to whom the otter was made that the ;!{^5o,ooo was not to be taken out of the funds of the Church but raised otherwise, and thus be — so these seemed to feel — a donation from the charity of the United Free Church. But it was not possible or legal to apply any funds of the Church to such a purpose, and this was the only way the money could be offered unless an Act of Parliament were got to divert some fund of the Church. 316 THE LIFE OF FRINCIPAL RAINY character, a case less of law than of a nation's eccle- siastical history, the tribunal disposing of an ap- peal against the decision of a unanimous Scottish bench, should have contained only one member — that member Lord Robertson — who (if the colloquialism be pardoned) 'knew the country.' This remark is not made from any chagrin over the result, for, as things turned out, the inclusion of another Scottish judge would not have altered the result. It is made because it is in the public interest that the supreme tribunal should command in every way the confidence of those whose interests are immediately affected by its decisions. I cannot in these pages give a full account of this memorable case, the pleadings in which lasted during eight sittings. But there are some features which must be briefly described. The case for the appellants was opened by Mr. Henry Johnston, K.C. (now Lord Johnston), who expounded the intricacies of Scottish Church History and the mysteries of the theology of predestination for fourteen hours with a steady, relentless, emotionless care. From the forensic point of view, the speech calls for no remark except that the speaker was well- informed, his matter weU arranged, and his argument clear and consistent. But from the point of view of the churchman, and particularly of the Free Church of Scotland of which the speaker was the mouthpiece, it was an almost incredible performance. Much of its argument was, from even that point of view, quite legitimate. But its main contentions cannot be described as anything less than sheer treason to all THE I.AW CASE AND THE JUDGMENT 317 that the Free Church of Scotland had counted dearest. A crucial part of Mr. Johnston's argument was to show that, if establishment had a place as a principle of the Free Church, then the Church had not power to alter it. To show this, he had to go back upon the whole history of the old Church of Scotland and to examine what legislative powers, if any, it had ; for, of course, the Free Church at the Disruption claimed to be the historic Church of Scotland and to inherit all the powers of self-government which it had claimed and exerted. He went over salient points in the history from the Reformation downwards, and at each stage denied there had been any legislative action on the part of the Church or any power at all except as granted or ratified by statute. In 1560, when the Church first met in General Assembly and adopted her first confession, ' it was not a matter of Church but a matter of State ' ; ^ indeed * there was no Church to act.' Or later, in 1638, when the great Assembly under Alexander Henderson, continuing to sit although the Lord High Commissioner had ordered it to dissolve, * ordained that episcopal government be holden un- lawful ' and thus restored the constitution of the Church from the Prelacy the King had tried to impose back to Presbytery — one of the landmarks of Scottish history — this, according to Mr. Johnston, was merely * declaratory ' (' though I do admit, candidly admit, ^ Knox's view of this may be gathered from his remark when Queen Mary refused to ratify the Church's confession : ' But that we little regarded or yet do regard. For all that we did [in seeking the royal ratification] was to show our debtfull obedience than to beg of them any strength to our religion, which from God bath full power and necdet^ not the suffrage of men.' 318 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY that these acts are couched in language which is of the legislative character'), and moreover was the act of ' an Assembly in revolt ' and ' what the}^ were doing was null.' And so on, counsel went through the history. Now there was nothing new in this reading of the story of the Church of Scotland ; but what was new — and startlingly new — was to hear it pleaded by one repre- senting the Church of the Disruption. For this is the identical view maintained, and successfully maintained, in the cases that led up to the crisis of 1843 (and in one case, the memorable one of Auchterarder, within these very walls of the House of Lords) against the Church ; and just because it was successfully main- tained then and adopted by the law as the true reading of the history of the Church of Scotland as connected with the State, the party headed by Dr. Chalmers left the Establishment and founded the Free Church of Scotland in which they could hold and exercise the legislative powers of the Church of Scotland ' as here- tofore understood.' It is one of those ironies which the spirit of history seems to enjoy that in 1843 the Free Church sacrificed all earthly possessions for the vindication of legislative liberties which, she main- :ained, belonged both inherently and by statute to the Church of Scotland, and in 1904, men claiming to be the only faithful representatives of the Free Church were suing for all her earthly possessions by the studiously erastian denial of that assertion. Mr. Johnston's line of argument was not impolitic in view of the predilections of the tribunal, which was', there can surely be no offence in saying, predominantly Anglo-erastian ; but in view of those for whom he was THE LAW CASE AND THE JUDGMENT 319 speaking — or rather, not of them but of those to whom they claimed to be the heirs — it was rank treason. But something further and graver must be said. Mr. Johnston came to the doctrinal question in the case. He read out the terms of the Declaratory Act which, says the Church, ' most earnestly proclaims, as standing in the forefront of the revelation of grace, the love of God — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — to sinners of mankind,' and ' holds that all who hear the Gospel are warranted and required to believe to the saving of their souls,' and that if they perish ' the issue is due to their own rejection of the gospel call,' for ' this Church does not teach and does not regard the Confession as teaching the foreordination of men to death irrespective of their own sins.' These were the words he read, and thereupon Lord Alverstone asked : ' Do you complain of this and say they had no right ? Mr. Johnston replied, ' I do,' adding, ' This is contra- dictory to chapter iii. and chapter x. in the Westminster Confession,' whicli are chapters dealing with pre- destination. Now I do not at this point discuss whether the terms about predestination in the Confession do or do not overrule other terms in it about * no violence being done to the will ' and so on as to permit, when it is construed as a legal docu- ment, such a free preaching of the gospel, and such a placing on men the responsibility for its rejection as are in the above sentences from the Declaratory Act. It ma}^ be that when a document with these unrecon- ciled statements is brought before a law-court and one set against another, the judge — if he pronounces on the matter — must, by technical construing of the 320 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY terms, decide which view, in his opinion, is to be held as ruHng the other. But what we have here is not merely the duty — the unwelcome duty — of a legal tribunal ; we have the plea — the voluntarily selected plea — of a Church. A Church — to gain a case, to secure property — pled that these views should be so con- strued as to exclude the * right ' to proclaim the love of God in the forefront of the gospel to sinners and to require them to believe and to lay on their consciences the responsibility of the rejection of this call. When one gets away from the atmosphere of a technical legal discussion and realises again what the Church is and for what the Church exists, then one feels that to characterise this, no words can be too stern. The plea that the Church has * no right ' to preach the gospel in such terms as those which have been quoted-was-tnade in the name of the Free Church of Scotland. If there was one thing which was the glory of the Free Church of Scotland it was that she preached the love of God to every man, and laid upon every man the responsi- bility if he rejected it. One wishes to speak with moderation, but really, in comparison with this, what is the establishment principle but the veriest baga- telle ? To say that a Church remains the Free Church of Scotland because it holds to a phrase in a protest about establishment, while it formally disclaims the ' right ' to preach this gospel, is, however legally arguable, something simply out of sight of the moral reaUties of history. And if anything could add to the reprehensibleness of all this, it is that the plea should be made in the name of the Church of Chalmers. If that great man had been living, who would have dared THE LAW CASE AND THE J[JDGMEXT 321 to use it in his name ? Here is Chalmers's gospel on this very matter : — ' There is not an Arminian or Univcrsalist who contended more zealously than we do for the duty of the preacher to urge the offer of the gospel on every man, and the duty of every man to accept of these offers. God has made the sal- vation of the gospel universal in point of proposition : the fault is man's if it be not universal in effect.' ^ In all this is again the same irony that I spoke of in connection with Mr. Johnston's erastian reading of the history of the Church. But here is something far graver than irony — something which perhaps it is better not to trust the pen to name." Mr. Asher and Mr. Haldane again represented the United Free Church. The former had hardly begun when it became apparent that he had to face a critical, and at times a hostile, tribunal. From the very outset much of his speech was a running argu- ment with some of the judges, and especially with the Lord Chancellor, whose mind, from this point forward, was undisguisedly inhospitable to the case of the respondents. Mr. Asher pled resolutely and power- fully a high and large doctrine of Spiritual Indepen- dence as the doctrine of the Church he represented, remarking of Mr. Johnston's historical erastianism that one ' would have thought he was representing the case of those who remained in the Establishment 1 bisiitutes of Theology, Pt. III. ch. vii. The whole chapter, which is on ' The Universality of the Gospel,' breathes the same spirit. - Later, some of the better men in the Church which was Mr. Johnston's clients, tried to make out it was not the free gospel in the Declaratory Act which was objected to, but the principle of modifying the Confession. Counsel drew no such distinction. One willingly believes these men them- selves preached a free gospel and human responsibility towards it, but, on their own Church's pleading, they have 'no right' to do so. VOL. n. X 322 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY in 1843 rather than the case of those who left ' — a just and most called- for comment. He gave the genuine Free Church reading of Church of Scot- land history, and then expounded the Disruption documents, especially emphasising the Question and Formula of the Free Church, of which he said, ' There is nowhere one would look more directly to find a disclosure of what were the essential doctrines or fundamental principles of the Church,' and which ' take their stand upon spiritual independence as that which is essential and fundamental and no- thing else.' On all these matters he did well, facing strongly almost constant argument. But Lord Davey brought up what he called * the prospectus of the Free Church ' — namely, the moderatorial address of Dr. Chalmers on the day of the Disruption, in which the leader of the Free Church declared * we are not volun- taries ' and warned the people against voluntaryism on the one hand as against erastianism on the other. Lord Robertson emerged from his vigilant reticence to emphasise what he called ' the pinch of this address on you.' Mr. Asher had not the best of it here. The reader should note this phase, for it proved crucial. I shall have a good deal to say of it later. The rest of the Dean's able speech, which lasted only an hour less than Mr. Johnston's (but was full of interruptions), need not detain us. Mr. Haldane, who followed, met with even more frequent opposition. He soon plunged into pre- destination, and the very air grew metaphysical. Whether or not it was war, it was philosophically magnificent. Tt may have been that the learned THE T.AW CASE AND THE JUDGMENT 323 counsel's aim was to warn the judges off pronouncing on this part of the case as too profound a mystery for dogmatic decision. But at least Lord James refused — as a judge should refuse — to be frightened away from any question submitted to him for judgment, though he somewhat sarcastically remarked that ' he never realised his incapacity to understand things till he heard this argument.' And, of course, nothing would drive the Lord Chancellor away from his favourite Synod of Dort, at every mention of which he stepped in and volunteered some more or less illuminating remark. The controversy between him and Mr. Haldane became strong, and both parties were stubborn. Now the doctrinal issue was simply, as I have said in speaking of Mr. Johnston's argument, the issue of the gospel ; and one morning Mr. Haldane began by saying he had * instructions from his clients ' to say they consider this discussion ' as going to nothing short of the right which they claim to determine the form in which they should preach the offer of a free gospel,' that ' they consider it their duty to preach and interpret the Word of God as revealed in Scripture as their only paramount standard,' and that ' they desire to take their stand upon that principle, whatever the conse- quences.' Whether the United Free Church was right or wrong in this case, no one can say she did not nail her colours to the masthead. Mr. Haldane at length went on to the crucial question of what was the body to whom the funds in dispute were given. He argued immovably and against great opposition that the identity of the Free Church consisted, not in any such doctrine as establishment, but in the living organic 324 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY bod}^ which had been formed ' under the Headship of Christ and teaching His Word.' The Lord Chan- cellor said stubbornly, ' The majority of the benefi- ciaries can never alter the trust.' * Your Lordship,' replied Mr. Haldane, * if I may respectfully say so, begs the whole question against me.' The first thing, he maintained, the disriiptionists did in 1843 was to constitute themselves ' a Church with certain powers,' and, among these, is ' power to change doctrine, but in order to do that it must be the Church, and it ceases to be the Church if it repudiates certain things vital to its existence — the Headship of Christ, His Word,' and, added Mr. Haldane, ' I think Presbyterian govern- ment.' This was the * trust ' with which the case was concerned. He did not shrink from saying the Church was a ' beneficiary ' — Lord James had asked if he did — but ' the Church is a beneficiary with these powers.' Otherwise, concluded Mr. Haldane, ' the Disruption was a profound illusion, and the whole conception of my clients has been from the beginning of their history a mistake.' Mr. Johnston made a comparatively brief reply, in which he very specifically asked judgment on the doctrinal as well -as the establishment question, and the Lord Chancellor, at the end, said that their Lord- ships would consider this case. Principal Rainy was of course a constant attender during the case, and in daily consultation with the United Free Church counsel. Mr. Asher remarked of him that he had never met with ' a more relevant mind,' and those who knew Mr. Asher will, I think, recognis(? that from him this expression was almost THE LAW CASE AND THE JUDGMENT 325 the highest form of compliment. I regret that none of Dr. Rainy's legal notes on the case have come into my possession ; and his letters during this busy time were naturally brief. The following are a few extracts, giving some of his impressions of the argu- ment and the persons concerned in it : — ' During the pleading for the appellants, the judges appeared to me to be principally anxious to understand their case. The whole pleading was erastian and to that extent easy for English judges. I think Asher has made a distinct impression on the judges, not least when they made interruptions to test his argument. But really, while the Chancellor and Robertson must be supposed against us and we have no reason to doubt that Lindley and Macnaghten are with us, it is mere conjecture as to the others. One likes the keen desire of Lord James to get to the bottom of everything.' ' I think that Asher has impressed the Court and Haldane is doing so. But nothing impresses the Chancellor.' ' I have nothing particular to say additional about the pleadings, only I am told the Scotsman's report yesterday, 24th June, which I have not yet read, does not do justice to the energy of Haldane's argument or to his success in his tilts with the Chancellor.' . [To Dr. Ross Taylor.] ' My son ^ had a letter yesterday from about being prepared for the consequences of .an adverse decision and how we can meet what might prove so disastrous. I have advised my son to reply that we must not give up hope of succeeding. For the rest, we can form no definite plan until we have the exact form into which the decision is cast. Before the pleadings ended, I was privately made aware that one judge had an idea of our being told that in the opinion of the bench, a division between parties was the best way of ending the case. Nothing of that kind appeared, but I am told it may still come to us as a hint or suggestion. It would involve incalculable difficulties for us. Yet it would be difficult to resist if it came to us with adequate authorship. I shall still ^ Dr. RoUand Rainy, now M.P. for Kilmarnock Burghs. 326 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY hope we may not have this difficulty to go through. I abide in the faith that all is in good hands. We may be cast down but not destroyed. And I can see that a " good fight " might be very wholesome for us.' [To his son George.] ' As to the case, we are now waiting what may be provided for us. What that may be no one can confidently tell. I take a cheerful view : a good many people form their impressions from the Chancellor's utterances and are doleful. The world passeth away. We have in the heavens a more enduring substance. The Lord give us His grace to seek first what endures to life eternal.' These few extracts give at least a glimpse of the serene spirit in which the old man awaited the blow that was impending. And the following letter to one of the appellants showed how he preserved good feeling even to one of the keenest — though also one of the most respectable — of his opponents. He happened to meet Mr. M'Neilage in the corridor on the last day of the pleading and they shook hands. Principal Rainy, the day after, sent him the following letter : — ' My dear M'Neilage, — I feel that I must write to you. Now that this law business is over for the present it is well to turn to other aspects of things. ' I know' you have not approved of various things I have said and done ; and I would like you to know that I have been more disposed to give consideration to your censure than to resent it. For the rest. I have all along felt sure of your fidelity to conscience and to our great Master, and have rejoiced in believing in your character as a Christian and your integrity as a man. * In these proceedings nothing hurt me more than to hear your lawyers trying to persuade the English judges — too easily persuaded — that our Confession is not consistent with a free gospel to mankind. But I am sure that was none of your doing. ' Let us hope that some good is to come out of all these THE r.AW CASE AND THE JLJDCiMENT 327 trying passages. He tiirneth the shadow of death into the morning. — With kindest regards, your old opponent and old friend, Robert Rainy.' Judgment was given on ist August. It is a date that already was historical in the annals of the judg- ments of the House of Lords in connection with Scotland, for on that day in 1746, the House condemned the rebel Jacobite peers — ' the greatest and most melancholy scene,' wrote Horace Walpole, ' I ever yet saw.' ^ On that occasion, Walpole tells us, ' when the peers were going to vote. Lord Foley withdrew as too well a wisher ' ; but nothing of this kind happened in the Church case, and all the seven judges were present and gave their opinions. A few of their fellow peers — the Archbishop of Canterbury prominent among them — attended to hear the judgment, and the general audience was so large that the upper gallery had to be opened. The result had leaked out, and it was even known that the numbers were five to two. Principal Rainy, when informed, made no remark. It will be convenient at once to summarise the opinions of the seven judges. On the question of establishment, five (Halsbury, Davey, James, Robertson and Alverstone) found there had been a breach of the Free Church constitution ; two (Macnaghten and Lindley) held there had not. On the question of predestination onl}^ one judge (Halsbur}') found a definite doctrinal change, but two (Davey and Robertson) thought the attitude of the Church to the Confession generally had been illegally modified ; two (Macnaghten and Lindley) thought there had been no ^ Letter to Sir Hoiiicc Mann, Aug. ist, 1746. 328 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY breach of trust in this respect, while the remaining two (James and Alverstone), having already found ground for deciding the case on the other issue, did not pronounce on this question. The sole basis of the judgment of the House was therefore the establish- ment principle. The Lord Chancellor first quoted, at some length, the recognised judgments of Lord Eldon and others as giving the legal principles on which the case must be decided, and concluded, in accordance with these, that * no question of the majority of persons can affect the question, but the original purpose of the trust must be the guide.' About this was no dispute, and we need not delay over it. Turning next to the question whether the establishment principle was ' an essential principle of the Free Church of Scotland,' he declared there is ' an overwhelming body of evidence in favour of the pursuers.' In support of this, he quoted at great length Dr. Chalmers's moderatorial speech. Then he quoted some ' views ' of the United Presbyterians against establishment, adding ' in fair- ness ' their statement that this is ' not a term of com- munion in the United Presbyterian Church,' but this fact, said Lord Halsbury, ' in my opinion does not at all qualify ' the passage he had read. * Here then,' he went on, * we have the two bodies,' and ' each of them treats the question as one of religious belief and obligation.' Presbyterians listened with amazement on hearing that their Churches had treated as de fide and obligatory, on the one hand, the speech of a Moderator, and, on the other, what Lord Halsbury had himself just admitted was not a term of com- THE LAW CASE AND THE JUDGMENT 329 munion. Then, after a long plunge into predestination (to which I shall refer separately), he inquired into the alleged power to change, faihng to find it in the Barrier Act which was practically all he considered in this connection. lie concluded by saying that the appel- lants were entitled to succeed on the further ground than this union with open questions was * not a union of religious belief,' but onh^ ' a colourable, union ' which ' did not constitute a Church at all,' or ' at most would be a Church without a religion.' He moved that the appeal be sustained. The somewhat lengthy disquisition in the Lord Chancellor's opinion upon the doctrinal issue might be passed over inasmuch as this question, as has been stated, did not form part of the ground of the judg- ment of the House as a whole. Still, as he himself was, in Dr. Rainy's phrase, ' much taken up about it,' it might be disrespectful to ignore his view ; moreover, as he persistently attempted to force upon churches holding the Westminster Confession, a view of pre- destination which they have persistently repudiated, it is well that this repudiation be made again. The real difficulty of the writer is to speak of this theo- logical performance on the part of the Lord Chancellor in terms befitting the respect due to the occupant of so eminent a judicial position. One must be permitted to say that Lord Halsbury never once got inside the Calvinism on which he so confidently pronounced. He persisted — most doggedly — in treating it as a fatalism which excludes any libertarian doctrine of the will or assertion of human responsibility. That, perhaps, is Calvinism as its opponents depict it, and among these 330 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY are the Greek Councils to which so strangely — and really, pedantically — Lord Halsbury turned. But if he had turned to Calvin himself — one cannot but wonder if he ever read the Institutio — he would have found predestination asserted not as the denial of freedom and responsibility but as in harmony with man's natural freedom and as the reason and source of his spiritual freedom, and thus would have found — to use a phrase of Augustine — ' the freedom of the will defended in accord with the grace of God.' ^ Calvin says of ' freedom from necessity ' (and this includes responsi- bility) that ' it is so inherent in man that he cannot possibly be deprived of it.' ^ Whether or not this is good theology or even logic, it at least means that no educated theologian has the right to say that the question is settled by merely quoting one against another (' My Lords,' said Lord Halsbury, ' I think it only necessary to put in juxtaposition') the Con- fession's Calvinism and the assertion of responsibility in the Declaratory Act. It would be just as legitimate to dispose of the doctrine of the Holy and Undivided Trinity by 'setting in juxtaposition' assertions of the unity and others of the plurality in the Divine Being. Similarly, no theologian can say that the question before the House of Lords is settled by the Synod of Dort. The Lord Chancellor was constantly saying that Arminian- ism was condemned by that Synod, as if the fact settled * I)e Correpf. et Gratia, 17. 2 Institutio, Lib. ii. cap. ii. : ' 5/6 homini naturalilcr inhnereat, ut nequeat ullo modo eripi.^ One may in this connection remark on the curious observations made on the subject by Lord Halsbury during the pleadings. This may suffice as a sample : ' Historically one knows that his [Calvin's] views underwent from time to time great change.' The very last man of whom this can be said is Calvia. THE LAW CASE AND THE JUDGMENT 331 anything in the question before him. The Synod of Dort condemned Arminianism not as an asser- tion of man's natural freedom and responsibiHty — the members of the Synod upheld these attributes of man's moral nature ^ — but for affirming that some power remains in him to convert himself to the state of salvation, and this change the Calvinists held to be wholly a work of grace. These distinguos are known to all informed theologians ; and it is impossible to say less than that it was not a creditable thing for any one in the eminent and responsible position of a Lord Chancellor to be found pronouncing on the subject with so much confidence and yet showing no kind of appreciation of them. The present writer feels as much as any one that, when all is said, the human mind, on the fathomless subject of predestination and freedom, where man is at the very limit of knowledge, must come out by the same door as that by w^hich it went in. But Lord Halsbury never even got in. I may add to these remarks on this matter part of a letter from Principal Rainy to Mr. Asher — a letter from a man who knew the subject : — ' Practically and historically the point is an old one. The Reformation Calvinists united a strong assertion of the doctrine of decrees with a free and unembarrassed use of the general and universal form of speech in reference to the gospel call. In this they followed Luther. As soon as the Calvinistic theologians of the more scholastic type began to straiten their liberty by their definitions, immediately the other side asserted itself. The same points as those on which the Declaratory Act lays stress were asserted in the French Protes- tant Church by Amyraldus and his followers in the middle of ^ Vide Canons of Dort ^ iii. and iv., i, 4, 8, 9, etc. 332 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY the seventeenth century. They did so in forms which were new and questionable. But the French Church, which had recently received the Decrees of Dort, as authoritative and binding, declared the teaching of Amyraldus to be not a departure from the Church's doctrine but only a new method of explaining it. In the Church of Scotland, the " Marrow men," as they were called, represented the same interest ; and, though the General Assembly condemned the book, they maintained their ground successfully. Once Thomas Boston (in his notes) had disentangled the theological position from the peculiarities and exaggerations of the Marrow, it was no longer questioned that the position could be maintained. Hence both in the Established Church and the Secession, the right to conceive things in this way was a settled point. I have myself heard Dr. Chalmers say that, if he had lived in those days, he would have been a " Marrow man." And that attitude was quite common. ' It does not surprise me that you should judge the position of Calvinism on the one hand and of the Declaratory Act on the other to be mutually exclusive. That can always be argued. Yet the precise point which has been maintained by all the wisest Calvinists for generations has been this — that they had a right to hold both together. . . . The two aspects were held together because both are presented in Scripture and because God is held to be so great and so transcendent that modes of relation to us men which we cannot perhaps reconcile, are yet, each of them, realised in Him.' This digression on the Lord Chancellor's theology has been longer than I have desired, but it is not un- necessary to show how the United Free Church of Scotland is in accord with the whole history of evan- gelical Protestantism in refusing to be prohibited, by the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination, from the gospel of freedom and responsibility, and also of the love of God to all men which is articulated in the Declaratory Act. The Lord Chancellor's refusal to see this is of personal and psychological rather than THE LAW CASE AND THE JUDGMENT 333 historical and theological interest. Moreover, as has been said, he was the only judge who pronounced on this issue, and it need not be further dealt with. Lord Macnaghten spoke after the Lord Chancellor. He had said hardly a word throughout the hearing, and had been as unobtrusive as Lord Halsbury had been what the Scotch call ' argifying.' But he struck the spectator as a deadly listener, and certainly, when he rose to give his judgment, he went to the root of things. What was the original ' trust ' ? Was it ' incapable of growth and development ? ' Was the Free Church, * in a word, a dead branch and not a living Church ? ' ' That is, I think, the real and only question.' He discussed the position of the Church of Scotland as the Free Church party held it, and then of the Free Church itself in taking the step of the Disruption. The Church of Scotland — for example in 1638, at the overthrow of Episcopacy — ^had claimed to exercise exclusive jurisdiction in its doctrine and discipline ; and the Free Church, which upheld the view that that claim was right, did not do less. It was, indeed, in this claim to freedom that Lord Macnaghten found the enthusiasm of the Disrup- tion which was the source of the funds in dispute — certainly far more in this than in a negative injunction in Dr. Chalmers's speech (one of thousands of speeches) against voluntaryism, by which, moreover, was meant something to be classed with anarchy. In view of this, establishment was ' a very small question,' which had occupied too much of the argument. The same reason- ing — nameh', that the Free Church did not go out as a sect with peculiar cut-and-dried tenets, but claiming to 334 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY be and do what they had held the National Church of Scotland to have been and done — applied to the doctrinal question. Lord Macnaghten spoke with great feeling. He had intended to follow his usual practice of not delivering an argued judgment when in the minority. But at the last moment his strong con- viction was too much for him, and he read an opinion which in the circumstances may have been open to the criticism of being a trifle rhetorical — fecit indignatio versus — but which certainly was illuminative and radical. He thought the appeal should be dismissed, and he warned the House that ' your Lordships' deci- sion to-day will be, for good or evil, of far-reaching and momentous consequences — graver, I think, and more serious than the consequences of any decision in which it has been my lot to take part.' One advantage in knowing the result beforehand was that the mind was left free to study the judges, and, after Lord Macnaghten, an interesting psycho- logical contrast presented itself as Lord Davey pro- ceeded with his opinion. It is worth recording that Lord Davey — so he himself told Principal Rainy — wrote first an opinion in favour of the United Free Church, but became convinced it was ' not sound in law,' and the judgment he actually gave was for the appellants. This fact considerably illuminates his speech. The crucial point of Lord Davey's judgment was this : your alleged power to change must be made explicit in terms, and should indeed ' be made clear beyond the possibility of question.' He went carefully over act after act, but could not satisfy himself that it was legally provided. As to this, I think the general THE LAW CASE AND THE JUDGMENT 335 remark might be conceded that the hberty of the Church was something the Church of Scotland acted upon as an inherent part of her constitution rather than enacted as something added to it at a particular date/ The interesting contrast between Lord Mac- naghten and Lord Davey was that the former — though perhaps the most genuinely powerful legal intellect of the whole seven — still took regard, in his answer, to broad historical facts and contentions ; the latter, on the other hand, was — I use the phrase in no disrespectful sense — the mere lawyer, going through documents with a legal microscope to see if certain provisions were there in black and white. Their respective views are stated in a passage of a speech made shortly after the judgment by a master of clear and careful statement — Mr. Asquith, the present Prime Minister — whose words I shall quote, all the more as they contain an illuminating reflection which I shall italicise : — * One view was that the Free Church was intended to be a Church in the full sense of the term, a living organisation with inherent vitality and a power of growth and self-determining personality. The other view was that, so far at any rate as the holding of property is concerned the Free Church must be treated like any other voluntary association — that you must look to the constructing acts and documents, just as in a company you look to the memorandum of association, just as in a family settlement you look to the deed of trust. If the fathers of the Disruption could have been summoned from their tombs and asked which of these conflicting views accorded with their intentions, I suppose there is very little doubt what ' At the same time, it is to be noted that (as we shall see) so eminent an authority on trusts as Lord Lindley was satisfied even that it had been provided fon 33C THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY answer they would have given. But the question put to the House was not one of intention merely but of intention expressed in words and writing.' ^ This last sentence would be, I presume, Lord Davey's justification for his judgment. The previous sentence (which I have italicised) will be, in the opinion of many, its condemnation. And did not even the Lord Chancellor say the question was what, in fact, the trusters ' thought about it, and what we are con- strained to infer would be their view of it if it were possible to consult them ' ? Whether or not it is sound for a lawyer to take large views of history is perhaps not for a layman to presume to say. Some persons will no doubt cite Lord Davey's revised judgment as a fine example of pure fidelity to what to him seemed the law ; others may think it rather an illustration of how law may narrow a man's mind as well as sharpen it, and may lead it, with great precision of reasoning, to a conclusion which is not in accord with sub- stantial truth. It is to be admitted that there are times when, inevitably, the letter of the law must be followed even if it diverge from equity. But a great judge should never let law distort fact. The judgment of Lord James, who came next, does not call for detailed remark, not because it was un- important, but because it followed very simple and straightforward lines. Lord James found the estab- lishment principle not only in the documents of the Free Church, but also in the Confession (which was more than Lord Davey did) and, in particular, in the address of Dr. Chalmers, to which he thought ' great ' Speech on nth August 1904. THE LAW CASE AND THE JUDGMENT .337 importance should be attached ' ; and he did not admit any power to change ' such fundamental doc- trine.' He concluded with an unusual remark. ' At the risk,' he said, * of exceeding my duty, I venture to express the sincere hope that some way will be found to avoid the capture by either litigant of any spoils of war.' The motive and spirit of the remark are entitled to respect, but if Lord James imagined, as these words suggest he did, that this case was largely an academic dispute on a point merely of abstract principle, it indicated how remote he was from the actual realities of the situation in Scotland. Still, no one will question the sincerity of Lord James's assurance that his judgment was given * after very earnest consideration.' By this time, the appellants knew that they had won their case. Of the total of seven judges in the House, three had already pronounced for them, and the man on whom they probably most surely counted was yet to come. He came next. Lord Robertson — a man of whom one really must be allowed to say that his undeniable abilities were equalled only by his undisguisable antipathies — gave a very exhaustive judgment, and gave it with a zest which showed how keen was his interest in the case. It is impossible to summarise it here, not only because of its length, but also because it was not based on some general ground, but traversed a series of matters which it would take far too long to recapitulate. Lord Robertson's speech was full of points — some of them made with great acuteness as well as with admirable literary lucidity and force. He VOL. ir. Y 338 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY went into criticism in some detail of the judgments of the lower courts, fastening keenly on blunders in them. He went over the documents and the history with a very exact scrutiny. One new point to which he attached great importance was that Dr. Chalmers's moderatorial address was ' conclusive ' of the refusal of the Free Church in 1843 to coalesce with voluntaries : ' the just inference seems to be that the founders of the Free Church deemed the difference between them- selves and the voluntaries so vital that the duty of Christian unity must give way to the more imperious duty of Christian fidelity to truth.' On this I shall comment later. He found the raison d'etre of the Free Church ' extremely special and limited,' which the respondents forgot when, ' contemplating them- selves as a Christian Church,' they ' measure the importance of any doctrine in relation to Christianity as a whole and not with reference to their own dis- tinctive origin.' It is indeed difficult to discover in the animus of a remark such as this, any trace of either the historical or the judicial spirit. Surely every fair-minded man will say that the Church of the Disruption claimed to be the Church of Scotland — however impossible the claim was legally or may have been even religiously. And surely, in turn, the Church of Scotland had contemplated itself ' as a Christian Church,' and had viewed its doctrines 'in relation to Christianity as a whole.' On another point Lord Robertson was very emphatic. Speaking of the claim to change doctrine, he said : — ' I find nothing from beginning to end which supports the theory that the Church of Scotland exercised or claimed THE LAW CASE AND THE JUDGMENT 339 the right to alter doctrine which she had asserted to be scriptural.' I recall the most positive emphasis of tone with which these sentences, and especially the last words, were said : it was such as almost to make one think the remark must be accurate. But what is the fact ? The very first Confession adopted by the Church was declared to be * hailsome and sound doctrine, groundit upon the infallible trewth of Godis word ' ; yet of this very Confession, it is immediately intimated thus : — ' Gif ony man will note in this oiire confession any article or sentences repugning to Godis holie word, that it would pleis him of his gentilness, and for Christiane Cherities saik, to admoneise us of the samyn in writ ; and We of our honour and fidelitie do promeis unto him, satisfaction fra the mouth of God (that is, fra his holy Scriptures) or cllis reformatioun of that (^uhilk he sell prove to be amyss.' The claim that the United Free Church was making in 1904 to hold her Confessions alterable subject only to Christ's Word as her only supreme standard could not be made more clearly than in these words of 1561. One other remark of Lord Robertson's must be recalled, for it was commented on in many quarters. Speaking in meaningfully incisive tones and straight at Principal Rainy across the floor, he said : — ' It is honourable to the United Presbyterian Church that, in good times and in bad, it has never used ambiguous language or nicely balanced phrases about this matter and has never sailed under false colours.' Of this, with its obvious innuendo, it is perhaps enough to say here that it was characteristic of the man rather than worthy of the judge. 340 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY The next judgment was Lord Lindley's, and it was the finest of the series. I say this not because it was in favour of the United Free Church, but because of its intellectual qualities. It was so perfectly to the point and so free from redundance and repetition, that it was an intellectual pleasure to listen to it, apart altogether from any agreement with its conclusion. ' The whole controversy,' said Lord Lindley, ' turns on the powers of the General Assembly of the Free Church.' The powers of the Assembly of the Church of Scotland, as originally established, he found in the Second Book of Discipline and the Confession. In the former is ' a very large legislative power ' to ' abrogate and abolish statutes,' and in the latter, a power * of inter- preting Holy Scripture and the various articles of the Confession,' infallibility in this being specifically disclaimed, from which it would seem to follow that such interpretations may be modified or rejected later. With these powers he found a condition — ' that they shall be used hona-fide for the purposes for which they were conferred.' If under colour of using these powers, a council were to destroy the Church or ' the doctrine they were appointed to maintain,' that would be tiltra vires and the civil court should regard it as such if a question involving civil rights arose. That (as I take it) means that Lord Lindley perceived that while the power of change ma}^ be admitted, still it must be recognised that there is such a thing as apostasy, though it may not be easy to define what or where that is. On this he said : — ' I cannot agree with those who contend that the powers of the General Assembly as declared in these documents are THE LAW CASE AND THE JUDGMENT 341 unlimited ; but I am not able myself to define the limits of its authority more accurately than above stated. . . . Great as the powers are, they are limited by what can be found in the Scriptures. The Church must be a Christian Church and a Reformed Protestant Church. So far is plain. I should myself think that it must be a Presbyterian Church. But this question is disputable and happily does not arise.' All this * very extensive but not accuratel}^ defined power both as to doctrine and government ' was — when denied by the State — claimed and carried over by the Free Church as separate from the State, and was, moreover, added to. From all this Lord Lindley drew the following pregnant conclusion : — ' These powers are, in my opinion, as fundamental in the constitution of the Free Church of Scotland and as essential to its preservation as any of the doctrines of the Confession or other subordinate standards.' Let any unprejudiced mind compare this view with Lord Robertson's * extremely special and limited raison d'etre of the Free Church ' and say on which side historical truth lies. * Both appeals,' Lord Lindley went on, ' are based on the erroneous view that the Free Church had no freedom.' He could not so regard it : * the struggle for liberty was not so abortive as that.' He made brief reference to some minor points, saying of Dr. Chalmers's address that while it shows he would have opposed the change, ' it does not follow that he would have denied the power of the Assembly to change,' and ended b}' declaring that ' in passing the Declaratory Act of 1892 and the Union of 1900, I can discover nothing ultra vires or contrary to law.' It is true that this opinion of Lord Lindley was not that 342 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY sustained by the House ; on the other hand it will always remain an opinion of great weight, not only from its intellectual interest but because it came from one who is recognised as the most eminent authority in the land on the law of trusts. The last opinion was that of Lord Alverstone. It was somewhat long, but as it traversed much of the same ground that others had done, it is not necessary to go into it. Lord Alverstone was very clear that estab- lishment was repeatedly affirmed as a fundamental principle of the Church and was ' satisfied ' from Dr. Chalmers's speech that ' he at least ' made it so — another of those remarks that sounded so curiously in Presbyterian ears, as if a man by saying a thing in a Moderator's address or even the Assembly by publishing the address, thereby made it a principle of the Church. The alleged power to change, Lord Alverstone treated with what one must be allowed to call a very superficial consideration. If establishment is in the Confession and in the Free Church documents, ' I am,' he said, ' utterly at a loss to understand on what ground it can be said that the Assembly, either of the Established Church or the Free Church, had the right to permit its ministers and elders to depart from it ' ; and thereupon, with a mere glance at the Barrier Act, he dismissed the question which Lord Lindley had called the ' one crucial question ' and had thought it worth while to devote his whole judgment to elucidate. Might it be made clear to Lord Alverstone in this way ? If he had been living in Scotland in 1638, I am sure he would have been * at a loss to understand on what ground ' the Assembly, in that famous year, claimed THE LAW CASE AND THE JUDGiMENT 343 the ' right,' and that despite the Royal Commissioner's protest, to ' depart from ' Episcopacy and its attendant doctrines. But the\^ claimed it and acted on it ; and their ' ground ' they affirmed to be that * Christ as Head of the Church hath therein appointed a govern- ment in the hands of Church officers distinct from the civil magistrate.' It may be, and it appar- ently is, difficult for an Anglican who is an erastian, habituated to the powerlessness of ecclesiastical con- vocations and congresses, to * understand ' this or take it seriously, and of course erastianism rejects it. But surely. Lord Alverstone in this case should have got himself to understand it, and then, and far more thoroughly than by a mere glance at the Barrier Act, inquired whether that principle is not a fundamental one of the Free Church constitution — more important even than establishment itself. Of Lord Alverstone personally one would say nothing but what is respectful, but, as regards his judgment, it must be said that it was unfortunate that this closing opinion should so inevitably revive the feeling awakened by the opening one, of how much the main plea of the United Free Church suffered from the change in climate when taken from Scotland to England. The Lord Chancellor put the question and declared ' the contents have it,' and then left the Woolsack with an easy air, relieved no doubt that this long case was done. But there are events which are less things done than things begun. A member of the House is said to have remarked after the judgment, ' These men do not know what the}^ have done to-day.' Indeed, they did not know. They thought they had settled 344 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY the question of the property of the Free Church of Scotland ; but, as a hne of Browning puts it : — - * There 's a superstructure : wait a bit.' In the sequel yet to be told we shall find abun- dant material for comment on. this judgment. Meantime, and before we pass on to deal with the extraordinary questions which it raised and the un- precedented solution of them which had to be found, it is necessary to point out the extreme dubiety — to use a gentle term — of the historical reasoning on which it was based. I shall not here refer to the larger and far more important question of the claim of the Church to be free to change her doctrine within certain limits : that will emerge in the next chapters. But, confining attention to the smaller and purely historical question as to whether establishment was or was not a binding principle of the Free Church, I ask the reader to con- sider whether the following considerations and facts do not show the judges of the majority to have been on this point in demonstrable historical error. There is no doubt as to what the evidence on this question was. It was, first, the Claim and Protest and other Dis- ruption documents, and, secondly, the moderatorial speech of Dr. Chalmers, which was called ' the pro- spectus of the Association ' and was undoubtedly regarded as very important evidence. The conclusion that establishment is a fundamental, essential, binding or fixed principle of the Free Church of Scotland because it was stated in the Claim and Protest is unhistorical, for this plain reason — that the identical Disru})tion Church, at the earliest reasonably THE LAW CASE AND THE JUDGMENT 345 possible moment and in the only constitutional way of doing so, decided it was not. I refer, of course, to the fact of which a somewhat full account has been given in a much earlier chapter, that, immedi- ately upon the Disruption, the Church definitely and formally considered to what degree these documents should be made binding, and deliberately — as I brought forward evidence to show — omitted any reference to establishment and bound the Church's office-bearers only to the general principles of these documents and their general principles as regards, not Establishment, but Spiritual Independence/ This, beyond all question, is the constitutional way by which a Presbyterian Church determines what is binding principle. I should be very sorry indeed to think that I, as a Presbyterian minister, am bound to any general documents even though adopted by the Assembly. I am bound to what the Church requires me to subscribe. Here was the constitutional way by which the judges should have estimated what is funda- mental in the Free Church. The Scottish judges knew that, and thus, for example. Lord Trayner said * the principle in question was never de fide.' The English judges were told it but would not take it in ; and thus the Lord Chancellor jumped from certain ' views ' of the founders of the trust to the ' body's ' ' religious belief and obligation,' without any conscious- ness of the hiatus. The broad, indisputable historical fact is that the ' body, ' in fixing what was to be made matter of ' religious belief and obligation,' and im- ' Vide vol. i., pp. 156-61. I must particularly request the reader, who may have forgotten this earlier part of the book, to turn back to it here. 346 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY posed as such on all holders of office, distinctly, and intentionally omitted establishment in the question bearing on the subject. If it be replied that this was not completed till 1845 or 1846 and is therefore too late, then all one can say is that if that be the law, it means law is a quibbler incapable of dealing with history. There is no shadow of a doubt that the Church which did what I have just indicated was the identical Disruption Church, acting in this matter as soon as was reasonably possible. I therefore repeat the broad fact that the judges of the majority insisted in treating as binding the very thing which the in- disputably genuine Disruption Church, by the con- stitutional form for doing so, deliberately decided should not be made binding. I turn now to Dr. Chalmers's address. It was called the ' prospectus of the Association,' and regarded as of very great importance by judge after judge, not only because of the eminence of the speaker, but still more because he was Moderator and because the Assembly authorised its publication. But, again, as a Presbyterian minister I am not bound by any man's speech, however eminent he may be, and even though he be a Moderator, and even though the speech is published by the Assembly's authority. Presbyterianism binds its office-bearers in the way I have above stated and in no other way. But it so happens that in the matter of this particular address of Dr. Chalmers, and in regard to the very portion of it on which the House of Lords judges fastened, this has been historically demonstrated in a remarkable way. The facts about this address are the following, and they are worthy THE LAW CASE AND THE JUDGMENT 347 of the attention of the reader — whether or not he was a judge in the case — who may have been led to take Dr. Chalmers's statements in it about voluntaryism and the relation of the Free Church to voluntary Churches as binding that Church to establishment as a funda- mental principle prohibitive of such a union as that of 1900. As to its publication, the whole day's proceed- ings were ordered to be published (for obvious reasons) as a ' simple gazette ' : to take even the Moderator's speech out of this and call it * the prospectus of the Association ' is surely unwarranted. The passage in that speech — ' we are not voluntaries/ and so on — which the judges quoted so much, awoke immediate objection within the Free Church. So much was this the case, that within two days Dr. Chalmers had to refer to it, and this is what he said : — ' Before I conclude I have one thing to state to which I would request the attention of our voluntary friends who may be present. I do not know anything that has more annoyed me than the report of the speech I gave from the chair in which I am represented as saying that I can hold no communion with those that hold the vohmtary principle. Now I said no such thing. I did not ask them to renounce their principle, and all I ask at their hands is that they ^vill not ask me to renounce my principle. It was a point of difference between us, but I expressly said it was a point about which we could agree to differ.' Then he went on to speak of union — * ostensible union ' — and to advocate immediate co-operation, * although it may be the work of years ' before ' that union can be so complete as to come to incorporation.' This is Dr. Chalmers speaking to the Assembly of the Free Church two days after the Disruption. A few days later, Dr. Guthrie referred with delight to what he 348 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY called Dr. Chalmers's * explanation,' and went on to say, ' I am for the Union — in the meantime in the way of co-operation, but we cannot stop there ' ; and his whole speech was received with what the Witness calls ' immense applause.' These are the facts about * the prospectus of the Association.' It may be added that only about six weeks later, Dr. Chalmers, speaking at a celebration of the bicentenary of the Westminster Confession, declared as follows : — ' Between the Free Church of Scotland and the Presbyterian dissenters of that country, there was no difference of government and no difference of theology which he was aware of, or, in other words, no insuperable barrier — he would not say in the way of immediate, but in the way of an eventual and he hoped a speedy incorporation.' Further evidence on the subject lies to hand, but is it necessary ? May it not be said with confidence, that the above facts are sufficient to show that both the emphasis and the construction the judges of the majority put on this address of Dr. Chalmers are utterly unhistorical ? To take three sentences from their remarks on it almost at random. Lord Robertson, as I have already mentioned, said the address is * conclusive ' that the Free Church ' de- clined to coalesce with voluntaries,' because * that would be against our principles ' : here is Dr. Chalmers openly paving the way to that union by advocating immediate co-operation, and declaring within a few weeks of the Disruption that there is * no insuperable barrier ' to what he hoped would be * a speedy union.' Lord James asked if those who ' listened to the appeal of Dr. Chalmers ' would have regarded the principle THE LAW CASE AND THE JUDGMENT 349 of establishment as ' non-essential,' and he answered, * I think not ' : those listeners heard Dr. Chalmers himself explain that the ' point ' of difference between them was ' a point about which we could agree to differ.' And Lord Alverstone said that * at that date union between the Free Church and either of the Churches subsequently forming the United Presby- terian Church would have been out of the question ' : yet Dr. Chalmers and Dr. Guthrie raised the idea in the very Disruption Assembly, and it was hailed with ' immense applause.' In face of the facts that have been given, are not such dicta as those of the judges I have quoted palpably untenable, and indeed does not the whole assertion that establishment was a fixed fundamental principle of the Free Church become an historical absurdity ? Now it will be said that the judges did not know all these facts. And that is true. Certainly this goes far to mitigate any censure that must otherwise be passed on them for proved historical errors in a matter which they admitted was a great factor in framing their opinions. But this is not to say they are wholly exculpated. They are not to blame for being unac- quainted with all these historical facts, for these were not pointed out to them at the time ; but they were warned that that was not the path along which to look for a Presbyterian Church's binding principles. The judges of the majority persistently chose to regard the Free Church as they would a mercantile company. They said: here is the prospectus, here is the chairman's speech, and here we shall get the terms of the trust. The answers by the United Free Church told them the 350 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY right and constitutional plan to find a Presbyterian Church's fixed principles — namely in its imposed formula and questions — but they disregarded this and, in their opinions, gave it hardly a glance. The result is this. Lord Macnaghten and Lord Lindley did not turn aside to a scrap of even a Moderator's speech in search of a Church's fixed principles, and their reward is that (whether these opinions on the whole case be right or wrong) they are the only two judges whose judgments have riot been convicted of demonstrable historical blunders. The others pursued their way, making the most sweeping historical generalisations from data both illegitimate and insufficient for the purpose, and must now bear the historical conse- quences. People who meet with accidents in a place where they have no business to be are entitled to some, but not too much, sympathy. But as to any question of blame I have no wish to say much. It is enough for the purposes of history to show that the most explicit argument with the judges in favour of the contention that establishment was to Dr. Chalmers and the Disruption Assembly a prin- ciple prohibitive of the Union is, on further historical investigation, simply exploded. And the explosion blows up the whole case as to establishment, which, be it remembered, was the one point upon which the judgment of the House was given. For is it not palpably absurd to say that that is a fundamental principle of the Free Church which, in the circum- stances I have mentioned. Dr. Chalmers explicitly declared to be * a point about which we could agree to differ,' and to veto, as prohibited by the standpoint of THE I.AW CASE AND THE JUDGMENT 351 the Disruption fathers, a union which was anticipated by him and others even in the Disruption Assembly ? These remarks might easily be prolonged, but there is no need. Personally, if he may say so, the writer attaches comparatively little importance to whether or not the Church has changed on this point. The vital thing from his point of view as a churchman is the claim of a living Church to be free to change in obedience only to Christ's Word as the Church's only supreme standard. But we are here concerned with history, and, as was said at the outset of this chapter, the authors of this judgment must stand at the bar of history. It was therefore right and necessary to show that on essential historical matters they are found to be in error — matters indeed so essential that, if they are wrong here, they may well reconsider whether, as an historical verdict, their judgment is not wholly wrong. It is a pity the case cannot have a third hearing : if all stories about the majority judges are true, the result might be interesting. Wrong, however, or right, the judgment was given. The House rose and the crowd from the galleries gathered in the lobby. One personality was in the thought of many minds, and when Principal Rainy emerged from the door of the House every eye was fastened upon him. He stood for a moment in an easy attitude with a serene gravity of expression on his countenance. It has been stated more than once in public print that he was, for the time, stunned by the blow. Nothing could be further from the fact. As his attitude of mind at this moment when the supreme crisis of his fortunes had fallen upon him is 352 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY of legitimate historical interest, I shall mention the following incidents, which give the first words he spoke (and in the circumstances, I need not apologise for the necessary quotation along with them of words of my own), and show the direction to which he at once turned. Finding myself standing within a yard of the Principal, I ventured to step forward to shake hands. He returned the greeting with his accustomed friendli- ness, and then, speaking in his usual tones, said, ' Well, Carnegie, what do you think of it ? ' It was said in almost an off-hand way as if the matter referred to was a curious incident. The reply (which is quoted to make his reply to it intelligible) was, ' Whatever one's thoughts are, Mr. Principal, they do not take the form of any kind of resiling from the two things we 've done.' He turned with a swiftl}^ searching look : one not only saw right into the usually impenetrable and half-closed blue eyes, but seemed almost physicalh^ to feel the force of the living personality which resided somewhere within. Then — quietly, but with that ring of authoritative finality which those who have heard Dr. Rainy utter a decisive word must be able to recall — he said, ' We '11 never do that.' At this moment Mr. Haldane came up, and the Principal took his arm and they passed out. Mr. Haldane's account of what occurred is as follows : — ' We walked in silence till he was seated in the library of my house. Then he spoke. His mind was made up. Not for one instant did he lose courage or look back on the course his Church had taken under his leadership. The future was not clear, but his duty was clear to him. The one expression of regret that fell from his lips was that he was old. But that he was old did not affect his resolution. If the Church was THE LAW CASE AND THE JUDGMENT 353 prepared to follow, he was prepared to lead, and the line of action was plain to him. I felt that I was in the presence of a man of the rare order that rises in strength as the tide of misfortune rises.' In half an hour these two had talked over the main lines of how the situation was to be met, and, it may be added, an emergency fund was, on the suggestion of Mr. Haldane, started on the spot. As has just been said. Dr. Rainy's one regret was that he was not younger. He was approaching his seventy-ninth year when his fortunes thus crashed over his head and he was called to the supreme effort of his Hfe. And the years are something against which even the bravest fight a losing battle. VOL. TI, CHAPTER XXVI THE CRISIS : THIRD MODERATORSHIP FEW men recognise their mercies, and it is not likely that the majority judges have ever been sufficiently grateful for the fact that an indulgent Pro- vidence has spared them and the world the spectacle of seeing this great judgment come into actual being. The effect would have been to make the very name of justice both a laughing-stock and a scandal. The entire property of the Free Church of Scotland, which was a Church with some eleven hundred ministers, three fully equipped theological colleges, and a mis- sionary organisation which ranked second or third among the Protestant missions of the world, was given over — or rather was ordered to be given over — to a Church with some score and a half of ministers, one professor with (it was said) three students, and not a single missionary. It is difficult to record on the pages of sober history that this was done on the principle, as the Lord Chancellor repeatedly put it, of securing that ' the intentions of the donors of the property are carried out.' This would seem to mean that in the opinion of the majority judges the intentions of the donors of, for example, the mission funds of the Church, are better carried out by the missions being paralysed and indeed (so far as the Free Church is concerned) simply stopped, than if the gospel is preached to the THE CRISIS: THIRD MODERATORSHIP 355 heathen by persons sent from a Church which does not uphold as a fundamental principle the theory of an establishment. ' That,' as Mrs. Bertram in Guy Mannering once said to her husband, ' sounds like nonsense, my dear.' * May be so, my dear,' replied the magistrate, ' but it may be very good law for all that.' ^ It is sometimes said that for this chaotic and cal- amitous result of their judgment, the judges in the House of Lords must not be blamed, for their business was simph^ to declare the law, whatever the conse- quences were. This defence is inappropriate and inadequate. The property in question was not private, but trust propert}^ and therefore the question before the House was not only who had broken the trust, but also and equally who should and could discharge it. It was not an issue between two private individuals over some personal possession ; and one may add here that Lord Robertson's emphatic declaration in the case that 'since the days of Cyrus it has been held that justice is done by giving people not what fits them but what belongs to them ' was therefore quite irrelevant, for the dictum, admirable in any question about private possessions, has simply no bearing- whatever on propert}^ which is held in trust. But, it may be asked, could the judges, having come to the conclusion that the United Free Church had violated the trust, do other than the}^ did ? It is a mistake to assume that this question must be answered in the negative. From the conclusion they adopted, the judges were certainly bound to declare that the property must not be used by those who, in their opinion, had violated the terms 1 Guy Mannering, ch. ix. 356 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY of the trust — namely, the respondents. But it b}' no means follows that then they were bound to hand it over without question to the appellants. What, in the opinion of high authorities, they could have done, and what, I venture to think, few persons looking to subsequent events will deny that, if they could, they should have done, is something such as the following : having declared the true constitution of the trust and ts violation, thereafter to have remitted the case to the Court of Session with a discretion to inquire whether the appellants or any other (and, if so, what other) persons were proper persons to administer the trust, and even whether the public interest was not such that, by application to the equitable jurisdiction of the court or otherwise, a remodelled form of the trust ought not to be framed. If they had viewed the matter in this way, they would have declined to proceed offhand further than the declaration and interdict, thus allowing time for examination and application, and meanwhile, if necessary, appointing a curator. If a course such as the above was within the judges' competency, I am sure no one who has lived through the confusion produced in Scotland by their decision, will say it would not have been their wisdom. Instead of this, and although the Lord Chancellor declared that the question before them was * the due administration of the trust,' the};^ handed the whole property over to a competing body without any inquiry as to whether that body would or could duly administer it, or indeed administer it at all. The result was chaos throughout a whole country, scandal to the sacred name of justice, and, finally, the necessity for f THE CRISIS: THIRD MODERATORSHIP 3.57 parliamentary reversal in a form unprecedented in British legal annals (and surely peculiarly abhorrent to the House of Lords), for it was the compulsory taking away of property from people who held it by a title given them the day before by the supreme tribunal of the land. If this trouble, this scandal and this attack on * the rights of property ' were avoidable — and it has been indicated that they were — those whose action occasioned it cannot, in the public interest, be absolved from criticism. For it is not in the public interest that a great judicial decision should occasion a national scandal, and it is not in the public interest that the law should give one day and the State take away the next. That the judgment was wrong in its historical basis has been argued in the last chapter ; but this, of course, is matter of opinion. That it was, in its form and application and result, a blunder is matter less of opinion than of indisputable observation, and if it was avoidable, it is surely matter of regret and for criticism that it was not avoided. A tribunal should not avoidably plunge a nation into confusion, expose the name of justice to scofhng, and make Parliament take away legally given property. It is said the tribunal did not know the situation. A well-authenti- cated story is told of one of the judges, whom I shall not name, who said : ' If we had known, we should have made provision.' This is not an excuse : it is an aggravation. And at least the Scottish judge among the seven must have known. It is further said that the expectation in high quarters was that, on the House of Lords deciding as it did, the Church would dissolve the Union and all trouble be averted. 358 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY This was to repeat the ignorance of Scottish reUgious character and conviction shown by Peel and Graham before the Disruption. Finally it is said — and in this defence is more reason — that this incapacity of the minority to administer the trust was not pled at the bar by the respondents. Of course it was not ; for it was no part of their case, which was that the property belonged to the United Free Church. When the Lords decided against this, then and for the first time the question emerged whether, on the other hand, the Free Church could administer the property. It was the decision as to principle by the Lords which raised this question, and it seems clearly within the competency of the House, which has complete dominion over its own proceedings, to remit that for inquiry. Instead of doing anything of the kind, they settled the matter offhand, with the grotesque, disastrous and impossible results which are known, making their judgment, whatever it was in law, a scandal in practice which will not readily be forgotten or forgiven. We must, however, turn from the authors of this scandal to the facts concerning it. The situation was something unthinkable. If the whole of the property and funds and machinery of the Church of England were suddenly given to the diocese of Sodor and Man, that m ght give an idea of its far-reaching effects. But this is a mere supposition : in Scotland the thing was law, fact, existence. The first indication of how it was received in Scotland is naturally to be found in the Scottish press on the morning after the judgment. With one notable exception, the representative organs THE CRISIS: THIRD MODERATORSHir 359 of public opinion — by no means habitually favourable to the interests of the United Free Church — were aghast. The Glasgow Herald — a journal representative of studi- ously moderate opinion in a great commercial centre — summed up the general verdict in the word ' monstrous.' The exception referred to was the Scotsman, which, although it had declared when the Court of Session de- cided for the United Free Church, that any other decision would have been ' a national calamity,' now, when this calamity had happened, poured out its long-hoarded animus against Principal Rainy in articles of extra- ordinary vehemence, rejoicing in the ' punishment ' which had fallen upon his ' tergiversation ' and the * stamp of dishonesty ' put on the position of the United Free Church by the judgment, which, this journal added, ' will be endorsed in the future by all who give attention to the subject.'^ This was, however, not only exceptional but overdone, and I think it was generally felt to be more injurious to its author than its object. The attitude of the Times was that an ' abuse of the victory would be a national catastrophe which must be averted,' and that ' if the victors press the victory too far, the legislature would not hesitate to correct and develop the law so as to harmonise it with facts.' ^ The subject was at once mentioned in Parliament, and the very day after the decision Mr. Edmund Robertson (now Lord Lochee) asked the Prime Minister if the Government had considered it and were prepared to make an}/ statement as to legislative action. Mr. Balfour replied that the ^ Scotsnicin, August 2nd and jvd, 1904. ^ Times, August 2nd, 1904. 360 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Government had not yet considered it, and he had no statement to make ' at present.' The situation, it may be added, had been privately represented to Mr. Balfour, and I am told he showed an entire apprecia- tion of its extraordinary character ; but, obviously, his position was not an easy one, and moreover for any leader, and more particularly the leader of the Con- servative party, to propose to take property away from persons to whom it had been legally allotted, was a thing requiring great caution from even the party point of view. Meanwhile, opinions on the judgment itself were freely given on all sides. I shall quote one which is of interest because it came from Lord Halsbury's successor on the Woolsack, and therefore from one who would have presided over the case if its date had been a little later. Sir Robert Reid — now Lord Chancellor Loreburn — * gave it as his opinion that the body which entered into union with the United Presbyterian Church in 1900 was the Free Church and, as such, was entitled to take into the Union with it the temporalities of the Free Church.' ^ The obvious want of unanimity among legal authorities as to the rightness of the judgment itself,^ and further the palpable practical scandal which was resulting from * Scotsman., 6th August 1904. ^ It maybe useful to tabulate this 'want of unanimity.' Of the eleven judges who pronounced formal decision, six were in favour of the United Free Church and five against. But to the six may really (though, of course, not technically) be added the opinion universally ascribed to Lord Shand and also that of Lord President Kinross wliich the reader knows. And here we have the opinion of Lord Halsbury's successor. In these circum- stances it is useless to expect the public to have confidence in the decision of the House of Lords majority as right. The views of other learned judges are known to the writer, but it would not be fair to publish them here, however great may be the temptation. THE CRISIS: THIRD MODERATORSHIP 361 it, combined to produce towards it, at least in Scotland, an utterly unparalleled state of feeling. Within the United Free Church there was immediate action. An informal conference was held in Edinburgh on the afternoon of the day after the judgment, and a pastoral letter, signed by the Moderator and ex- Moderator of Assembly, was drafted to be sent out to all ministers in view of the coming Sunday. It was a document clear as to the issues — ' once again, apparently, we are to endure the loss of possessions for obedience to what we regard as the will of Christ and for practically asserting the inalienable liberties of the Church,' which *we supposed to be written as a sunbeam on the face of the documents of 1843 ' — and it called on the Church to stand by a principle ' which is worth suffering for.' It deprecated ' bitter- ness, anger and clamour towards those who have been successful,' And it was full of trust ' that our Heavenly Father has wise and good ends in calling us to pass through this ordeal.' The conference dealt also with another question. The House of Lords had taken away the whole machinery of the greater part of the United Free Church. There was a suggestion that the United Church should simply vacate every church, manse, college, mission station. If this had been a war of this world only, it would have been the best thing to do. It would have overwhelmed the legal Free Church even financial!}^ almost immediatety.^ But obviously there were higher interests to think of, * An impending charge of some ;,/^40,ooo for feu-duties would alone have done this. Of course all the funds allotted to the appellants were in trust for specific purposes and not available for current expenses. 362 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY and in obedience to them this United Free Church conference sent a communication to the agents of the victors asking their ' intentions as to the use of the property during the ensuing few months/ and offering to have a conference on the subject between the two Churches. The reply to this we shall see presently. The reply to the pastoral letter was manifest on the succeeding Sunday, when practicall}^ every pulpit dealt with the Church situation and duty. There could be no doubt as to the result. The Church was solid as rock so far as the ministry, at least, was con- cerned, and that in the formerly United Presbyterian quite as much as in the Free Church section. Already, indeed, men began to see that the judgment, instead of tending to dissolve the Union, had welded it as absolutely nothing else had done or could have done. Many who hitherto had merety approved of the Union, and that perhaps a little coldly, came now to glory in it because a great principle of Church life and liberty had become bound up with it. ' There 's a hard time in front of us,' Dr. Rainy said one day to a friend, ' a hard time ; but we 11 get through.' Principal Rainy's correspondence during these days is full of interest but so voluminous that to quote it would fill this chapter. A few letters are abusive, bidding him admit his folly and go back. A few others suggest wild and futile schemes of general reunion. But the mass are full of the profoundest sympathy. Leaders of the Evangelical Churches in England and elsewhere write. The Australian Presbyterian Church telegraphs its * indignation,' and this was the first of over fifty similar messages from Churches. Sir I THE CRISIS: THIRD MODERATORSHIP 363 Andrew Fraser, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, communicates the amazement of ' every Scot ' he meets. And so on : I cannot even begin to quote the letters. One notable feature is the large number of particularly loyal and even loving declarations from the younger ministers of the Church. This is deserving of note, and it is safe to sa}^ it must have been a revela- tion to the old leader. He had always been admired by the younger generation, but somewhat at a distance. It is the fact that he was not in the closest touch with the best younger preachers and thinkers of the Church. They rallied to him now with — as their letters show — the frankest enthusiasm, and it is certain this was not the least of the encouragements that came to Principal Rainy in this dark and critical hour. * We younger men,' writes one, than whom no one has a better right to represent the very flower of the Church's ministry, ' are all at your command in the most affectionate loyalty.' The first opportunity for any utterance of the Church as a whole was in the week following the judg- ment, when the statutory Commission of Assembly fell to be held. Usually the August Commission is a somewhat formal affair attended chiefly by officials. On this occasion the Assembly Hall — enlarged since the Union — was crammed, and men came from every corner of the land. It was a remarkable meeting. The Moderator gave out the 46th Psalm : — ' God is our refuge and our strength, In straits a present aid, Therefore, although the earth remove, We will not be afraid ' ; and the singing of it was something not easily for- 364 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY gotten by those who heard it. After the devotional service, the procedure fohowed is worth mentioning. The Commission went straight on with its routine business — its usual reports and cases. The proceeding was significant : the work of the Church was not to be altered or stopped by any House of Lords judg- ment. In presenting his customary report as Con- vener of the Sustentation Fund, Dr. Ross Taylor made some general remarks which are of interest as bearing on the judges' favourite principle of respecting the ' intentions of donors.' He pointed out that of the £114,000 belonging to this fund taken from them by the judgment, only some £4000 had been contributed within twenty years of the Disruption, and over £100,000 had been given since the Church formally declared that it had set its face in the direction of union. ^ After some other business had been disposed of, the way was clear for Principal Rainy to refer to the situation of the Church. When he rose, he met with an almost overpowering reception. Not only did the vast audience rise and break into prolonged cheering but, when the applause had apparently subsided and he was about to speak, it broke out afresh in an extraordinary demonstration. For the only time in his life the Principal showed some sign of emotion in face of his reception, and before entering on his speech he said, almost aside, ' I wish such a great cause had a worthier representative/ ' In the second hearing the Lord Chancellor said : 'The great majority of the property was settled, I suppose, at the time of the Disruption,' and when Mr. Asher protested, *0h no, my Lord, on the contrary,' he replied, 'Do not let us w.iste time on what is really immaterial.' — {AutJioriscd Report^ p. 452.) THE CRISIS: THIRD MODERATORSHIP 365 Then he went on to speak, in his usual cahii and dignified tones, of the judgment, saying he did not ' intend to try ' to express himself adequately about it, but adding ' it is so plainly interfering with the equities of the case ' that * something is wrong some- where.' He did not * for a moment question the ability or the integrity of those interpreters of the law who have had the responsibility of coming to this decision ' ; nor did he complain of the litigants. One thing he was thankful for : ' the effect of the judgment, however bewildering otherwise, by its very thoroughness has had the effect of uniting us,' when anything less threatening might have had ' a perplex- ing and distracting effect on our counsels.' We are left, he said, with ' a clear view of what our principles require,' and these he articulated as follows : — ' We have to maintain as of old the spiritual views of the Church of Christ, the liberty and independence which belong to the Church of Christ, the hberty and independence which are valued because they are necessary to obedience. We cannot obey our Master unless we keep ourselves free to obey Him. We claim for Churches as well as for individuals to have a conscience, and we ask that we may have leave not to go against our conscience in managing our own affairs, committed to us b}^ our Lord.' Then he went on, in stronger tones : — ' Moderator, if there is anything to which this principle applies ; if it applies to setthng of ministers, if it applies to arrangement of our constitution with reference to its ways and workings, if it applies to discipline, to questions of receiving members and of exercising discipline on members or ministers, surely as much or more than any of these it applies to the Confession of our Faith. And surely it is implied in 366 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY that relation that as our Confession of Faith itself declares that we are not infallible and that no Confessions are infallible, as we claim to be living under the wise providence and administration of Christ, and as we claim still more — humbly we may claim it, but our hearts would be sore indeed if we could not claim it — that we are living under the promise of the Holy Spirit of God, and that under His influences we pursue our calling, surely it is implied in that relation that it is part of our calling to learn whatever Christ makes apparent to us through His word, whether our fathers had learned it or not. The idea with which some of these distinguished men seem to be content, the idea of a Church consenting to be held absolutely and for ever by the faith of men who died two hundred or two hundred and fifty years ago — good men, no doubt — that idea is simply to be denounced as thoroughly ungodly. It is an ungodly idea, and the Church or the tribunal that cherishes it is unawares proceeding on fatally wrong principles. Moderator, I very much desire to be restrained from saying anything that is unsuitable to the importance and solemnity of the occasion, but I do feel that in this matter it is essential that we should speak out. The Christian faith is to believe in a living and present God, a living and a present Saviour, a living and a present Holy Spirit, to whom we hold relations while we live and till we die.' He proceeded to say that while it was true that the judgment had not, in itself, prohibited any act of the Church but only taken away her property, still this penalising of the Church was simply a denial by law of toleration to the principles he had indicated. In closing, he said they desired ' to render to civil govern- ment that obedience which is the great security for the order and peace of the country,' but they held that ' great injustice has taken place,' and they were * entitled to hold up to the whole country this injustice ' and say ' there ought to be a remedy for it.' His last word was a call to tlie Church herself, and tlie whole THE CRISIS: THIRD MODERATORSHIP 367 assemblage responded with enthusiastic acclamation to this stirring appeal : — ' We call upon our people in the circumstances in which they are placed — the whole extent of which we cannot yet foresee — we call upon our people boldly and courageously to face the sacrifices that may be necessary in order to carry on the work of the Church, and to abound in prayer for the blessing of God. All is not lost. Nothing is lost. If as a Church, a Church spreading over this country of Scotland of ours, this historic ground of Scotland, with which we are proud and thankful to be connected — if our Church, spreading over this land of ours, is enabled to be true to its calling, true to the Saviour, and true to His service, and if God, notwithstand- ing our great unworthiness — for He might rebuke us and forsake us — in answ^er to the prayers, which I know are ascend- ing everywhere, is pleased to give us fresh spiritual life and devotedness, then everything is gain and nothing is lost.' It was a speech which no one but a really great leader could have made, and it steadied, united and inspired the whole Church. Resolutions affirming the prin- ciples of spiritual liberty were passed with unanimity and enthusiasm. An Advisory Committee, with Dr. Rainy as Joint-Convener, was appointed, to take charge of the Church's interests in the crisis. The Emergency Fund was formally inaugurated. Lord Overtoun heading it with a donation of £10,000 ; it was intended to ask for £50,000, but so enthusiastic was the feeling in the Church that it was resolved to ask for £100,000, and it may at once be added here that the sum received amounted to £150,000. The spirit of Disruption liberality .rose again, and seemed able as of old to do anything. After the date of that meeting of Com- mission, the United Free Church never turned back. The same day, the Commission of the Assembly of 368 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY what now came to be called the ' legal Free Church ' * formulated its answer to the inquiry of the United Free Church as to what was immediately to be done with the mass of the propert}^ and the suggestion of conference. The reply was that all churches where the Church recognised by the House of Lords had any following, however small, must be handed over at once, and that the use of others might be granted to the United Free Church till June 1905, on condition ' that the premises be not used for dogmatic teaching con- trary to the principles of the trust ' or attacks on the judgment or on the Free Church. The existing missions, it was further stated, might go on if the Free Church is satisfied that * only the simple gospel is being preached by the missionaries,' and an effort would be made to accommodate two of the colleges on ' a similar honourable understanding ' as that applied to the churches. There were other details which it is unnecessary to mention. The Advisory Committee of the United Free Church replied that the Church's ministers, missionaries and professors must be answer- able to it alone, and that no conditions about teaching could be accepted. It was thus at once obvious that the likelihood of mutual arrangement between the two parties was not great. Meanwhile, Principal Rainy had been in correspond- ence with several public men as to the situation. On the day after the judgment he sent a note to Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman deprecating the question which, - I shall continue to use this term occasionally, meaning by it no dis- courtesy but for the sake of clearness, and quite admitting the retort that the other side was, therefore, the 'illegal Free Church.' THE CRISIS: THIRD MODERATORSHIP 369 as already stated, Mr. Edmund Robertson put on the subject to the Prime Minister, and saying the Church had not suggested it. Sir Henry's reply was as follows, and is dated from Marienbad : — * Dear Dr. Rainy, — I have been travelling out here and have been accidentally delayed on the way, with the result it was only last night I arrived and received your letter. ' Robertson's question will have done no harm, but before I left London, I discouraged some of my colleagues who were burning to move the adjournment by way of discussing your question. It seems to me to be far from ripe, that there are weeks and even months for consideration, and above all that we should keep a calm sough ^ until we knew what views and intentions you and your friends were prepared to favour. ' I do not wonder that the Government make no sign. ' The whole thing, while not unexpected, has astounded the world and its effects spread to other Churches and other circumstances than yours. And I doubt if Balfour would commit himself in the least degree. ' Probably, so far as political effect is concerned, the matter is better left to ripen. But, as I said, Robertson's question — quite individual — will do no harm. — Believe me, yours very truly, H. Campbell-Bannerman. ' I was so struck with a passage in one of Anatoie France's latest stories that I jotted it down as being ludicrously applic- able to this judgment — i.e. pure law against common sense. Even the overriding of the Scotch courts is reproduced ! It is in the peculiar irony of the author : — ' " The presiding judge has the juridical spirit and he knows what a magistrate owes to society. Justice is social. It is only ill-disposed men who expect it to be humane and feeling. It is administered according to fixed rules and knows nothing of thrills of the flesh or of flashes of the intellect. Above all, don't ask of it to be just, it has no need to be just seeing that ^ ' Keep a calm sough. Be silent ' {Janiiesoiis Scottish Dictionary). Jamieson adds : ' I have given the phrase under this word as signifying silence. But I hesitate whether it may not allude to the wind when it continues low, as opposed to the idea ot it becoming boisterous.' VOL. II. 2 A 370 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAE RAINY it is itself justice ; and I w^ill even say that the idea of a justice which is just can only germinate in the head of an anarchist. True, President Magnaud is different ; he gives decisions which are just. But his decisions are reversed on appeal, so that is justice.^ It was, however, with the leader of the Govern- ment rather than with the leader of the Opposition that Principal Rainy desired to be in touch, and on 6th August he telegraphed to the Prime Minister asking if it would be convenient to grant an inter- view. Mr. Balfour, pleading the great pressure of his engagements, asked Dr. Rainy to write, and this the latter accordingly did as follows : — ' Dear Sir, — I can well believe that you may be unable to see me. I thank you for inviting me to write. ' I would like to say first that I had nothing to do with Mr. Robertson's question. As soon as I heard of his notice I wrote Campbell-Bannerman that influence might be used to get it withdrawn. But by the time my letter reached London, I believe he had left for Marienbad. ' From your knowledge of Scotland, I think it needless to enlarge on the situation created by the recent judgment. The principle laid down sweeps away all our property, both local and general. There may be title-deeds for some churches and manses that protect them from attack, but all the property in the Model Trust Deed and much of that held on other deeds is either directly transferred to the appellants or must necessarily go when claimed. This appeared to the judges no doubt as inevitable in law. But it strikes our people and many who are not our people as an almost incredible injustice. ' From many quarters, following up a suggestion of Lord James, we have it suggested that Parliament must interpose. But assuming Parliament to be prepared to consider the proposal, observe the situation. The House of Lords has remitted to the court below to apply the judgment. In ' Crainqucbille^ iv. ('Apologie pour M. le President Bouriiche'). THE CRISIS: THIRD MODERATORSHIP 371 October, the Court of Session will resume its sittings and will be ready to entertain an application. Suppose detailed judgments are obtained dealing with all or some of the property and these enforced, will not a situation exist rendering parliamentary interposition, say in early summer of next year, a more complicated and difficult question ? ' Considerations of this kind and others with which I will not trouble you led different persons, including some in both Houses of Parliament, to press upon me the idea of a Suspensory Act, in the simplest and shortest form, being passed even yet in the present Parliament, delaying execution till some time in next year. It was to speak of this that I ventured to ask an interview. I think I see many of the difficulties, but it seemed important, almost vital, to take your mind upon it. ' A matter connected with eventual parliamentary inter- position is this. The Press speaks of an agreement between the Free Church and the United Free Church as the basis of an application for an Act. But it is important to observe that in any ordinary sense negotiation or agreement can have no place. They have everything : we have nothing. It is entirely in their own discretion how much they may offer to allow us to retain. I take for granted that any eventual arrangement, if any possible, would leave them a liberal share of the property concerned — liberal in proportion to their number and wants. ' There are several aspects of the case which I should have liked to speak of if an interview had been possible which I must not trouble you with. ' I happen to differ from you politically, but I have perfect confidence in your disposition to be just and considerate in reference to our situation and I am very far from being insensible to the diificulties which it must present to your mind. — I have the honour to be, yours very faithfully, ' Robert Rainy.* The reply of the Prime Minister, dated loth August, was as follows and is marked private : — ' My dear Sn<, — I greatly regret that two or three days 372 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY should have elapsed before I could send a reply to your letter of the 5th, and I hope that you will consider the exceptional pressure of public business as a sufficient excuse for the delay. ' I do not think that any member of Parliament, whatever be his opinion, would regard " a suspensory bill " at the present period of the session and in the present state of public business, as practicable ; even if there were no other reason which would make the propriety of such legislation (to say the least of it) doubtful. ' I think, however, that both parties to the recent suit have some reason to congratulate themselves on the fact that there must be a considerable interval between the date on which judgment was given and the date on which under any circum- stances it could be carried into effect. I earnestly trust that in that interval, some arrangement satisfactory to both parties may be carried out and all cause of bitterness removed. — Pray believe me, yours very truly, Arthur James Balfour.' The general counsel indicated both in the Prime Minister's letter and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's that things should be left to ripen a little was also the mind of more intimate advisers, as is shown in the following notes to Dr. Rainy from Mr. Haldane, who had been conferring on the situation with the Arch- bishop of Canterbury and others : — [Aug. 8th.] ' I saw the Archbishop to-night and Balfour of Burleigh. The matter is well in hand, and I think it must have time. We should go on gently and leave people to reflect. The Archbishop is to see Finlay.^ I do not think any inter- vention would be fruitful until feeling had somewhat calmed j down.' I [Aug. nth.] ' The opinion among those responsible is that ] they can only act if there is either (a) agreement or (b) consensus of public opinion. To move at present would not be in their power. As to (b), it will take time. What will in the end j. move pubhc opinion most is the spectacle of a Church pre- | * Sir Robert Finlay, Atloiney-General. THE CRISIS: THIRD MODERATORSHIP 373 ferring its liberty to its property. I therefore feel you must go straight ahead I admired much the strength and idealism of your speech.' That is the policy that commends itself — to seek first the truth and stake all for it.' The interest of the Archbishop of Canterbury in the case had been manifested by his attendance during the hearing and at the judgment ; he had also invited Principal Rainy to dine at Lambeth during the pro- ceedings. He now wrote to the Principal and also to the Moderator of the legal Free Church offering, in most considerate terms, his services, as well as those of others, in any way that could be helpful. Principal Rainy, with concurrence of the Advisory Committee to which the letter was read, replied most cordially thanking the Archbishop for his ' generous and thoughtful interest,' saying that at the moment there seemed no immediate opening for such good offices, but adding that later ' the aid of persons eminent by parliamentary position and general esteem will be very important.' I suppose this is the first time in history that an English Primate has offered his friendly services to mediate between ' dissenting Churches,' and the offer, even though it did not bear fruit, is worthy of cordial recognition. Meanwhile another Scotsman — a layman — was not 'ess concerned in the problem and was earnestly exert- ing himself in it. Lord Balfour of Burleigh wrote, on gth August, the following letter : — ' Dear Principal Rainy,^ — For a week I have hesitated to write to you, fearing you might regard it as an intrusion and a liberty. I have now seen the text of the circular letters issued to your Church in regard to recent events and I have also ^ Dr. Rainy's speech at the Commission, already quoted. 374 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY seen the newspaper reports of addresses from pulpits on Sunday. I feel I must write now or keep silence altogether. ' I wish to express my sympathy as a Scotsman and as a Presbyterian with you in the situation which has been created, and I add my profound admiration of the spirit and temper of the document and utterances to which I have alluded. ' It has not been our lot to see eye to eye in all things, but we are bound by some ties. We are Scots and Presbyterians and desire the honour and welfare of all that double bond means to us in the service of our Master and our country. ' I conclude by saying I regard the things in which we can agree as infinitely greater than the points in which we may differ. ' I do not ask for any reply, but I subscribe myself with great respect, faithfully yours, Balfour of Burleigh.' To this friendly letter, Principal Rainy replied with evident appreciation of its spirit : — ' Dear Lord Balfour, — It was very good to receive your letter, for which I heartily thank you. Allow me to say that however gratified, I was not surprised. Yes, what we agree in is infinitely more than that in which we differ. Besides that, you have earned the respect of all sections of your countrymen. ' The Archbishop of Canterbury, speaking to me before judgment was delivered but when its character was foreseen, said to me, " But what will you do ? " I told him we would try to take joyfully the spoiling of our goods, and beyond that it was difficult to say. The situation is still very far from clear. Might I say to you that any indication confidentially of any impression you have would be most valuable to me and through me to the rest of us ? ' Many of our friends have pressed the idea of an immediate Suspensory Act. I therefore communicated with Mr. Arthur Balfour on that idea, but he has not responded. In any case, it would have been difficult. Some speak of action in next Session of Parliament and some of a Royal Commission to inquire with a view to parliamentary action as the result. THE CRISIS: THIRD MODERATORSHTP 375 ' It is natural to say, let the parties agree to something. Perhaps you have seen the terms they agreed to — not for any permanent settlement but as conditions of truce till June. They are impossible. People will not occupy churches consenting to be muzzled. ' One consideration perplexes me. If Parliament could have interposed now, all could have stood over till some method of arbitration was devised. But if the judgment begins to be applied in October, it will perplex the position before another Parliament assembles. ' I shall perfectly understand if you prefer to say nothing about these things. — With my great regard, yours very truly, ' Robert Rainy. ' We intend no party action, but would appeal to the justice of all parties.' Lord Balfour replied, again assuring Dr. Rainy of his S3^mpathy in a situation of ' unexampled difficulty,' and saying he was still ' looking hopefully to the idea of an agreement between the two sides,' but adding ' the ideas of the minority, as reported, are pre- posterous,' and he fears 'there is no man among them of large ideas or of knowledge of affairs.' These letters between two men who had long stood as pro- tagonists against one another's views on the vexed question of Church and State are a pleasure to quote. The United Free Church was, at this stage, in a critical position. On the one hand, it was clear that any action on the part of the legislature could not be immediate. On the other, the legal Free Church was — quite properly from its point of view — straining every nerve to attract former Free Churchmen to return to its fold and issued a pastoral letter inviting them to do so. In these circumstances, the United Free Church could not sit still and wait. She had, 376 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY first, to rally her own members, and secondly, keep awake or if necessary rouse the countr}^ to the sense of the need of reparation. It was in these circum- stances that the Advisory Committee, not without consideration of the question from different points of view, started a campaign of conferences and public meetings over the land. The Highlands were clearly the first strategic point, and this movement was inaugurated by a conference and public meeting at Inverness which were held on i6th August. The con- ference showed there was little or nothing to be feared on the part of the Highland ministers yielding to the temptation to ' follow the siller.' ^ The public meeting, in the largest hall in Inverness, was packed more than an hour before the time to begin. Principal Rainy had the ovation which seemed now to be his inevitable lot whenever he made an appearance. He made an unembittered but a plainly ' fighting speech.' * This was not the end of the case ; it was the beginning.' Without any undervaluing of the judicial position and attainments of the judges, he said 'it was a judgment so astonishing that nobody defended it,' and ' in the midst of their concern and anxiety, one could not help laughing now and then.' * It was not good for a country when the law came into such violent collision with the sense of the community.' Then he analysed the judgment, illustrating what would be its practical effects, and dissecting its historical and legal basis. As regards its general principles, he said it was ^ Of the 123 ministers belontjing to the ' northern synods' of the Church, 107 were present, 13 sent letters of apology for absence, leaving 3 to be accounted for. I THE CRISIS: THIRD MODERATORSHIP 377 ' high time ' that statesmen and lawyers, especially if they claimed that national religion was important, ' should familiarise themselves with what was involved in the great name of the Church of Jesus Christ.' He restated what at least they in Scotland, and certainly not least in the Church of the Disruption, had unswerv- ingly held as involved in it : — ' In that long history from which they drew their constitution various elements mingled ; but the line of it to which they clung and to which they adhered had prevailing through it from first to last one dominant purpose, and that dominant purpose was the right and duty of the Church to hear its Master's voice, and the right to obey that voice, not according to other people's conscience, but according to its own conscience and through its own organs. But that was the dominant purpose which was denied or overlooked in this judgment. Well, but they were not going to deny it. If any one asked what was the importance they attached to Spiritual Indepen- dence, and why they were so solicitous to maintain the right of their Assembly acting constitutionally under the Barrier Act, under the guarantee provided by the wisdom of their fathers, their anxiety about.it was just this — that they desired that the Church of Christ, that every society that claimed that name — at all events, that their society claiming that name maintained its right to have a mind derived according to its own best judgment from the Word of God, and the power to put that mind in force.' The enthusiasm with which the meeting endorsed these sentiments was a practical proof of how living this ' dominant purpose ' still is in the Scottish Church. Principal Rain}^ concluded b}^ saying they were going to appeal to the ' national sense of justice in both political parties.' Other speakers included Lord Overtoun, who had a right to say something on ' the 378 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY intention of donors ' ; ^ Principal Miller of Madras, who nobty represented the missionary interest at stake ; Professor MacEwen, who was an example of how absolutely the formerly United Presbyterian section of the Church stood by the Free Church section ; and also Professor Denney and Mr. Kelman (now Dr. Kelman of St. George's, Edinburgh), the one the finest scholar and the other the most popular preacher in the Church, whose presence showed how this crisis had called out men who ordinarily took little or no part in ecclesiastical controversy. This meeting was the first of a series which was continued all over the country until the Government took action in the form we shall presently see. Strong things, no doubt, were sometimes said regarding the judges — said, it may be remarked, chiefly not by ministers but b}^ laymen, and these laymen, lawyers — but they were few and pardonable. If this crisis had been in Ireland, there would have been shooting. Principal Rainy stoutly held that, on the whole, the speaking was moderate rather than violent ; to a distinguished correspondent who complained of some things that had been said in criticism of the House of Lords, he wrote : — ' I do not defend all the things that have been said of the H. of Lords. But how could it be expected that people would be silent or mealy-mouthed in such a preposterous situation and with a Lord Chancellor making himself ridiculous by his theological vagaries ? You must take it that a great ^ He told, for example, how ^137,000 had been collected for church extension in (ilasgow. Of this sum, ^25 had been contributed by persons connected with the legal Free Church to which the buildings thus erected were handed over by the judgment. THE CRISIS: THIRD MODERATORSHIP 379 mass of people are very sincerely angry. I do not think that our Church has made herself responsible for any excess in this direction.' It was the more important only of these meetings that were addressed by Principal Rainy but the work he did in this respect was astonishing for a man of his years. The meetings were held in the largest available build- ings, which were crammed to overflowing, and the Principal met everywhere the same enthusiastic re- ception. It was a remarkable popular experience for a man about whom his enemies had been con- fidently prophesying that the judgment, even if the Church survived it, was at least a blow to his personal prestige.^ After all, as Lord Rosebery once truly said, the nation loves a brave man ; and the calm and courage with which this venerable leader was meeting his adverse fate extorted the admiration of all but unworthy opponents. Unquestionably, these meetings carried the Church with them. I cannot find space here to give any account of them or even of Dr. Rainy 's speeches at these gatherings ; but one thing should be said. It would be a great mistake to think that they were primarily a clamouring for property, still less an attack on judges or on the successful litigants. The ' A sample of this view of the matter may be read in an article entitled the 'Ultramontane Debacle in Scotland' in Blackwood's Magazine for September 1904, the writer of which rejoices over the collapse of 'an enterprise conceived in duplicity and embarked upon under false pretences,' and also ' most of all the personal rebuff thus administered to the arch-author of the intrigues and subterfuges,' etc. Maga (in which all Edinburgh men, whatever their political or ecclesiastical opinions, have a pride) should be above writing in this way. In the same number, however, is a quite delight- fully humorous poetical skit on the judgment which does much to atone for the article. This poem, I am permitted to mention, is from the pen of Mr. John Buchan. 380 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY present writer can speak from a pretty wide experience of these meetings and can testify that what, more than anything else, really stirred them was simply the asser- tion and the resolution to stand by — property or no property — the idea of the Church as free to obey what seemed to be the voice of her Head in either doctrine or duty. These meetings were far more than an agita- tion for political redress, though that, in the name of justice, was legitimately a part of their object. But, primarily and essentially, they were a campaign for spiritual liberty even more than for civil justice. They were a reinstating in the mind of Scotland the idea of the Church of Jesus Christ as a society which must be free to be His servant. Sometimes it was replied by critics that the judgment had not touched liberty but onty property. And the distinction has a measure of truth. It was true and significant that while the judgments prior to 1843 were held — and the ' residuary Assembly' of 1843 acquiesced as the reader knows — to cancel the ecclesiastical acts in question, this judg- ment of the House of Lords did not pretend to cancel the Union but only forbade certain, property -entering into it. In other words, the law which prohibited liberty in the Established Church only penalised it in the Free Church. But in either case there was the call to stand by it at any sacrifice. And it was — pace the Lord Chancellor — the same Church which had done that in 1843 by the sacrifice of possessions with which the State had endowed her, which now did it as unhesitatingly again even at the loss of possessions she had herself accumulated. Of til is firmness in the Church there could by this THE CRISIS: THIRD MODERATORSHIP 381 time be no doubt. It became quite manifest that, even though the minority had won the judgment and the property, there was going to be hardly any per- ceptible * slide ' to it from the defeated Church. A declaration of adherence to the United Free Church was signed by 950 ministers of the Free Church section of the United Church, and this, be it observed, was done while yet no sure promise of relief from the direful effects of the judgment could be given. It is amusing and a little sad to find how surely the leaders of the minority seem to have counted on defection swelling their ranks ; and to read of anticipations and indeed fears that many, if not all, will come back and swamp the small Free Church and lead it into voluntaryism again.' The suggestion was a libel on Scotland. Scottish ecclesiastical character has its faults, and I will add that these faults are, while often less reprehensible than those of some other people, often more visible. But among them is not that of a flitting from one Church to another because the latter has become a millionaire. The weeks were now rapidly passing on to the date when the Court of Session would be compelled to make the judgment operative, and the crisis obviously greatly intensified. Suggestions of compromise were made in many quarters, and now included one even from a judge among the majority in the House of Lords. A letter was published in the Times " written by Lord Davey to a correspondent (who, there can be no harm ^ In letters from the General Secretary of the legal Free Church to Lord Balfour of Burleigh. The letters lie before me, but I refrain Irom further reference to them. ' Times, 26th September 1904. 382 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY in saying, was Mr. Taylor Innes), in which he wrote : — ' Needless and useless for me to say how heartily I should have welcomed any proposal which might have been accepted by both parties. If I had been asked (which I was not) I should have suggested that each congregation should retain its own property and be at liberty by vote of the members to join either party or the other ; and that three Com- missioners be appointed, one by each party and one by the Government (the Secretary of State for Scotland), to divide the general property having regard to number of members, number of congregations and any other consideration affecting the question. Is it too much to hope that something of this kind may yet be done ? ' The date of this letter (though it was not published till much later) is nth August — ten da37S after Lord Davey had given his judgment. The significant thing about this letter is that, along with Lord James's hope there would not be 'any spoils of war,' it meant that a majority of the judges were against the judgment being actually carried out. But the legal Free Church did not show any sign of yielding its full claim. Its law agents wrote to the agents of the other side that * parties are no longer in the region of litigation where compromise might have been possible and expedient,' and intimated that ' our clients conceive that they must, to the best of their ability, administer the property under the con- ditions of the trust.' The leading minister in the legal Free Church — the Rev. J. D. M'Culloch of Glasgow — declared at a meeting of Commission on October 5th that they ' did not admit ' that ' they of the Free Churcli were not fit to make good use of what, through r THE CRISIS: THIRD MODERATORSHIP 383 the overruling of Providence, had been committed to their care.' Nevertheless, the conference suggested by the United Free Church on the day after the judgment was held. The United Free Church made elaborate preparations for it, and chose as delegates men who had been little mixed up with the controversy. The result was a failure. One need not go into details or apportion blame. But one fact must be clearly stated. The United Free Church wished to put forward the suggestion of arbitration. This the legal Free Church refused to entertain. They said they were not at liberty thus to dispose of the * trust.' The day after the conference broke up, the date arrived — 19th October — when application was made to the Court of Session to make the judgment opera- tive. There had been a good deal of talk in Edinburgh as to whether the Scottish judges, or at least some of them, might not even yet put obstacles in the way of the carrying out of a judgment the consequences of which every one saw would be disastrous. Principal Rainy was very anxious that no conflict of this kind should arise : * It would not help our struggle,' he said to me, ' if there got mixed up with it a conflict between the Supreme Court and a subordinate court.' Lord Young made some attempt in this direction, but the majority on the bench held they had no alternative but to im- plement the decree. Public feeling in the matter was manifested b}^ a crowded court and a good deal of applause and laughter at times, especially when a judge asked if ' there had previously been any case like this ? ' These demonstrations were certainly indecorous, but the}^ were significant. When this first application, 384 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY dealing with the general property of the Church, had been disposed of, particular claims for interdict fol- lowed. The first claim was to the New College and the Assembly Hall — the ' citadel,' as they were called. The attitude of the legal Free Church to the whole question of their ability to carry on the trust was made clear once more in this case, when Mr. Johnston — their counsel in the House of Lords and their counsel in this claim also — stated that ' they intended to show that they could administer the property, but they intended to go step by step.' Similarly, Mr. M'Neilage (whose name has been mentioned several times and who, it will be remembered, said he would not be a party to taking the case to law) said in the Commis- sion of the Free Church Assembly that ' as Christian people, they claimed what the law had declared to be theirs.' The result of the claim on the New College was that Principal Rainy, his colleagues and students, had to leave its loved walls. Dr. Rainy, as I have remarked once before, was not the man to show his wounds, but that this cut him to the quick there can be no question. At the last dinner in the ' Rainy hall ' of the College, he said, with a quiet pathos which touched many a heart, * I find myself taking leave of these halls at a time of life when one does not look far forward : I did not reckon on seeing this College go before myself.' But, with a legitimate pride, he added to the students, ' I am not taking leave of you, because it is a great comfort to thmk that we go, wherever we shall go, solid.' Of the teachers — drawn with a catholicity otherwise unknown to the legal Free Church, from many ecclesiastical regions — THE CRISIS: THIRD MODERATORSHIP 385 and the students who came into occupation, it is unnecessary to write. The question was where the real New College — the best-equipped theological school in Scotland — was to go. There was some talk of a joint- arrangement, but the legal Free Church was determined that there should be no chance of contamination in the quadrangle, and would agree only to the use by the United Free Church of some class-rooms entering by a back door. I recall Principal Rainy saying in the Advisory Committee that he did not care what door he entered by, but, he added, * I care very much by what door my Church enters.' The solution was found when, with great generosity, the University of Edin- burgh gave the College its hospitality. At the same time, the Keeper of the Advocates' Library offered to give facilities to meet the deprivation arising from the loss of the valuable New College library. These things indicate the public appreciation of the situation. But the case of the College was only a beginning. A flood of interdicts followed. Day after day ministers and congregations received notice to quit. The judg- ment was beginning to become a reality. In these circumstances, the United Free Church summoned a great * Convocation ' of all her ministers and representative elders. This Convocation met in Edinburgh on 15th November, and magnificently served its object by showing sympathy and giving encouragement to men on whom the battle was pressing sore. The meetings were the greatest ecclesiastical demonstrations of modern times held in Scotland, and culminated in a gathering which was attended by ten thousand persons. At a conference in the morning, VOL. TI. 2B 380 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY resolutions on the principles of the Church were passed with enthusiasm. All the leading men of the Church — Dr. Rainy, of course, among them— spoke. The students and probationers testified their adherence. The missionaries spoke through their representatives. The women of the Church sent messages of their devoted loyalty. There was not a discordant note. An address was issued by the Convocation to the Church, and Dr. Whyte, in moving it, told in his own incomparable way how his congregation of St. George's in Edinburgh and many others had been stirred to liberality and conviction by the ' vitalising judgment.' * All hail,' he cried, ' such judgments ! ' In the evening the great demonstration was held which, as I have said, was attended by over ten thousand persons. It was a memorable sight. The singing was overpowering. Principal Rainy was in the chair. Letters were read from, among others, Bishop Gore (then of Worcester, now of Birmingham) and Professor Masson. From the letter of the latter, than whom no person in Scotland was better qualified to pronounce a judg- ment, at once informed and yet independent, on the Disruption history, the following sentences may be quoted : — ' Nothing of recent occurrence has moved me more deeply than the disaster brought about by the decision of the House of Lords. . . . That the historic Free Church of Scotland should now stand arrested, paralysed, and dispossessed — the whole surface of the Scottish earth overstrewn now and apparently for an indefinite period with the vast wreckage of her valuable fabrics and all her other gradually accumulated belongings — it seems to me monstrous. My hope therefore, in common with hundreds and thousands of other onlookers, THE CRISIS: THIRD MODERATORSHIP 387 is that there may be some rectification even yet of an intolerable state of things^ and that, if this cannot come in any other fashion, it may come speedily in the shape of some suitable act of intervention by the British legislature.' From Principal Rainy 's speech, I shall give but one extract as follows : — ' This great meeting was enough to prove how the heart of Scotland in their branch of the Church, but not in their branch alone, was moved by the situation in which they found them- selves placed. He would like first of all to say this, that the great interest which they were called upon to defend, which they must die in defence of, but which in these humane days they must live in the defence of, was the freedom of the Church of Christ to obey her Master only, according to her conscience and not according to any other conscience than her own. Now, the House of Lords had decided a question of property, which doubtless it was their duty to decide, in a way which involved the denial of this freedom as in any recognisable degree a part of their constitution. Whether it was recognisable to the House of Lords or not, they thought they had done a great deal to make it visible to mankind. They had tried hard indeed to show in things spiritual, in the things that pertained to the Kingdom of Christ, in the affairs of the souls of men, that they were free. Well, they meant to take care of their own freedom whoever said them nay. They were there free, and they meant to be free.' It was sentiments like that of this last sentence which went to the heart of that great meeting. Among the other speakers both sides of the House of Commons were represented and also sister Presby- terian Churches. Vast as the gathering was, an over- flow meeting had to be held in one of the largest halls in the city. There were several subsidiary meetings held in connection with this great convocation, and of these 388 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY special mention must be made of one because at it Principal Rainy made a unique speech, A meeting of the boys and girls of the Church was held and the audience packed a great hall in Edinburgh. I shall give Principal Rainy's speech yerbatim. It was as follows : — ' Now, boys and girls, people don't believe that I can speak to boys and girls, and I don't know that I can do it myself. But though I dare say you '11 find it difficult to believe, I was once a boy — I really was ! When I was about eight years old, like a boy, I tumbled over the stair-railing and went from top to bottom of the house. So you see I was a real boy, for no one but a boy could have done that. ' I am here to say a word or two to you, boys and girls. What we are gathered together about is rights and wrongs. Now when any two of you get into a quarrel, each side is very apt to say, " I am in the right and the other 's in the wrong " ; but usually they are both a little in the right and both a little in the wrong. The one is wronger than the other ; but they are not blacks and whites — there is always a mixture. ' Now, our Church has been trying to obey Christ, and we 've been punished. We are here to-night because we have been punished. We have had money taken from us because we were in the wrong, people said ; we have had houses taken from us, and we have got missions taken from us — at least, the houses — they can't take the missionaries from us, but the houses. (Applause.) And we are very apt to say, ' Well, I am in the right ; I am punished for being in the right." And I believe that that is true. (Applause.) But then we are very apt to say, " The others are all wrong and we are all right." Now, don't sa\^ that. There is a good deal that 's right about the people on the other side. There are some of them very good people, though I think they have made a mistake this time. And as for us, however right we were in trying to obey Christ — and, dear boys and girls, that is what Christianity is for — Christ says : " Keep My Word " — that 's the first thing, keep Christ's Word. Very well, we have THE CRISIS: THIRD MODERATORSHIP 389 been trying to do that, and so far as we have done that we are right. But we are not all right. There 's a good deal that 's wrong about us. Now take care of that. When you are trj^ng to do what 's right, and some one tries to hinder you and make you do what 's wrong, you arc quite entitled to say " You 're wrong ! " But you are not entitled to say " You 're all wrong, and I 'm all right." ' I mean to be short if I can. I have sometimes made awfully long speeches, but I want to be short to-night. And I want to tell you a story on this business of rights and wrongs. I was only told it to-night, and I have never told it to any one. ' It 's a story about two brothers, and their names were John and Jack. Now, it was very odd in one family that there should be two called John and Jack, especially as they were twins. Now these two — what were their names ? — (cries of " John and Jack ") — yes ; these two were pretty good boys. They did not always get on well together ; but still, on the whole, they were very good boys. John was big and Jack was small. The one grew bigger than the other, and at last Jack — was Jack the big one or the little one ? — yes, the little one. Well, Jack was angry at the other and it was about his clothes. Jack was very particular about his clothes, always to have them the same as they had been, years and years ago. But John thought he would like to have his clothes a little more grown-up like. You see, John was getting big, and he wanted to make a change in his clothes. The fact is, John was thinking of getting married, and people get particular about their clothes when they are going to get married. But Jack was for keeping the old clothes in the old shape. And that did pretty well for him, for he was not very big, though I am told that here and there an arm or a leg would stick out a little. But still he wore the old clothes with the old cut. ' Now so it was, Jack and John held one inheritance between them. W^ell, Jack was very angry with John, and for two reasons — first, he didn't want a wife or a sister-in-law ; and, secondly, he did not want a change in the clothes. So he said, " John is quite wrong, and he should have none of the in- heritance, and I should have it all." So what do you think he did ? First he threw stones at John, and then he went 390 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY about trying to get people to decide that he was right and John was wrong. And where do you think he went at last ? He went to the King of the Fairies. (Laughter.) " I want you to decide that John is all wrong and I am right, and that I must get all John's things." And the King of the Fairies said, " Oh, yes, I '11 decide." So he took this way of deciding. He had them both brought before him, and he got a photo- graph of them both when they were little. And he had a microscope, and he looked at this photograph very carefully. And then he said to John, " Oh, this will never do ! You are not right. Dear me, I think you have got a tail to your coat (Laughter) — you are not right." But then he looked at Jack, and then he looked at the photograph and he said, " This one 's right. I do believe he has got the very jacket and trousers that he had sixty years ago ! (Loud laughter.) He 's all right ; he must get everything. And John is all wrong ; he must get nothing." But he said nothing of the people inside the clothes. So they took everything from John, his houses, and his workshops, and all the rest of it. And then about John's clothes he said : " We will not meddle with his clothes. Indeed, it does not matter what clothes he puts on, for he has lost his identity." (Loud laughter.) ' Do you think that was a right decision for the King of the Fairies to make ? (Cries of " No ! ") I say no. For the truth is that Jack was not all right, and John was not all wrong. And if the King of the Fairies was right Ah ! but we must take great care what we say about the King of the Fairies ! (Loud laughter.) ' Now, you just think over that when you go home, and remember that it 's a mistake — even if the King of the Fairies says it — to think that the one side is all right and the other side is all wrong.' (Tremendous applause.) The reader may remember in an early chapter ^ an ironical poem by young Rainy ; he had the same spirit still, a man of eighty and after a great cata- strophe. But there is philosophy in this parable as well as humour. ' He said nothing of the people ' Vol. I., p. 30. THE CRISIS: THIRD MODERATORSHIP 391 inside the clothes ' — that is British law on the subject of a living growing Church (or almost any developing corporation) in a nutshell. It has seemed needful and right to narrate at some length the course of events immediately after the falling of the tremendous blow of the judgment. It is, however, impossible in these pages to continue to tell with any fulness of detail the story of this crisis. Only the essential historical stages can be mentioned here and even these briefly. Behind them, the reader must imagine a sea of confusion and often real distress — law pleas, interdicts, ministers and congregations seeking advice at headquarters, endless legal and other correspondence, not to mention continual speech- making from all kinds of public men and discussions flooding the press. It was not a spectacle which any one who reveres the great name of civil justice could look on with equanimity. People will not respect law if its decisions result in chaos. And they have a vague instinct that courts of law are instruments for the production of justice, and when they produce sheer injustice the result is not good. But I pass to the main developments of this strange story. Lord Balfour of Burleigh made in November of this year a last effort to aid in the solution of the imhroglio by trying to bring parties together. He wrote to some representative men of the legal Free Church asking from them, as an individual, the ' favour of an interview to talk over the position of affairs.' He further wrote (on 3rd November) to its Law and Advisory Committee, stating his aim as follows : — ' Like many others, I have been deeply concerned at the 392 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY failure of the recent conference to arrive at any modus vivendi between the Free Church and the United Free Church. . . . I attribute no greater responsibihty to one side than to the other. It is enough for me that they have failed, and in that failure I discern many dangers to the religious life of Scotland, My object in proposing the meeting was to arrive, in the first place, at a correct understanding of the causes of failure and to see whether on some explanations, the conferences might not be resumed with or without the mediation of one or two persons agreeable to both sides and possessing knowledge enough to soften asperities and to suggest means of meeting difficulties. I do not conceal from you that if nothing of this kind can be arranged an appeal in some form to Parliament will be inevitable.' Lord Balfour had an interview apparently with only the General Secretary of the legal Free Church, and the upshot may be gathered from a letter he wrote to this official two or three days later, in which he says ' in all friendliness ' that ' my interview with you on Saturday made me think that you regard every one who does not agree altogether with you as altogether your enemy.' Shortly after Lord Balfour wrote to the same gentleman : — ' I have learnt from Dr. Scott ' that your Committee refuse to see me. While I greatly regret this decision, I can of course carry the matter no further. As I approached one minister and layman of the United Free Church just as I did in your case, I must of course now tell them of the refusal of your Committee.' It was later explained to Lord Balfour that the refusal v/as not a refusal but rather a postponement, as com- munications were. being entered into with the Secretary for Scotland. The Secretary for Scotland, however— ^ The Kcv. Dr. Scoll, the leader of the Established Church Assembly. THE CRISIS: THIRD MODERATORSHIP 393 •Mr. Graham Murray (now Lord Dunedin) — was aware of all Lord Balfour was doing, and there was no reason why communication with him should prevent the continuance of negotiations with the other. The minister and layman of the United Free Church, referred to in the letters last quoted, were Principal Rainy and Sheriff (now Lord) Guthrie. They cordially agreed to meet Lord Balfour. All this is recorded because it is necessary that the reader should realise that before the Government interfered in this matter, a full opportunity was given to the victorious party to have the matter dealt with in a less compelling way. Unquestionably the knot of men who controlled the action of the legal Free Church threw away their chance. If they had been reasonable then, they could have commanded a large amount of public support, and in any division they could have had first choice and claim almost irresistibly every- where. They foolishly went on declining arbitration and seizing property in the utterly vain belief that once in possession they would not be dispossessed. It would be unjust for any one, and particularly un- suitable for the writer, to comment with severity on this shortsightedness in men few in number, unequal to so vast a charge, naturally exhilarated by victory, and unaware or unafraid of what Tacitus calls magnae fortunae periciila. But it is necessary for the purpose of the story that the reader should see it clearly even if he judge it charitably. It was now clear that some action must be taken whether the legal Free Church concurred or not. The United Free Church was pressing for legislative inter- 394 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY ference, and the following letter from Principal Rainy- to Lord Balfour indicates the form that was desired : — ' A movement is growing among our friends to approach the Prime Minister asking him to bring in a bill for an executive Commission and to ask all Scottish members to accompany the deputation. Failing a favourable reply, to shape and give notice of a private bill. All this goes on in ignorance of your plans and efforts. ' I am quite aware of the propriety — the naturalness, at least — of approaching the Prime Minister. But I am anxious he should not be approached until he is ready, so far as we can secure it, to give the right answer. Otherwise, I have little doubt that the friends I speak of would cordially support your leadership if they were aware that it was available. ' In any case it is gratifying to us all that you should have it in your heart to " do worthily " in this business. And I hope you will not be too easily discouraged. The dislike to this kind of action is no doubt strong. But there is an extraordinary set of opinion in one direction. I have seldom seen Scotland so united about anything, and I have never seen a Scottish ecclesi- astical business so extensively taken up by the English press.' This idea of a Commission was even shaped into the draft of a bill.^ It was advocated subsequently in public by Mr. Thomas Shaw, M.P. (now Lord Shaw), who in a speech at Galashiels on 12 th October — after remarking that * men were asking whether the judg- ment of the House of Lords was pronounced by those who were fully conversant with the facts ' and whether at its root was not * some cardinal and distorting error,' and the remark indicates the kind of thing that was daily being said in Scotland even by speakers habitu- ated to respect a legal decision — went on to support, as ' a way out,' a Parliamentary Commission invested ' Another bill was drafted by a Scottish member— Mr. A. W. Black — but was not pressed. THE CRISIS: THIRD MODERATORSHIP 395 with powers for arbitration and also executive autho- rity. On these lines, the United Free Church steadily worked. The method adopted by the Government went in this direction, but not so far. It became apparent that the appointment of a Parliamentary Commission would certainly raise debate, and the Government chose to appoint a Royal Commission — thus avoiding the bringing of the question before the legislature. This Commission had not executive powers, but was appointed to inquire how far the Free Church was in a position to carry out the trust, to investigate * into all the facts,' and to report whether action, by legislation or otherwise, should be taken. Mr. Graham Murray treated the Churches with much frankness in the matter, and the terms of the reference of the Commission were the subject of correspondence between him and the Advisory Committee of the United Free Church and, of course, the other Church also. He sent down the draft of the reference which the Government proposed, and invited the two Churches to make suggestions on it ; these he considered, fixing, however, his revised reference on his own authority and without consulting the Churches further. This was both frank and business-like ; and one may say here that it was a fortunate circumstance that at this crisis there was found a Scottish Secretary with the open-mindedness and also the grasp that Mr. Graham Murray displayed. In the end, the terms of reference were generally satis- factory, though the United Free Church would have preferred if the Commission had had executive powers. But Mr. Graham Murray, while of course aware 396 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY that an executive Commission would be necessary eventually, was against beginning with this. On November 22nd, he wrote to Principal Rainy inclosing the final revised form of reference for the Commission, and added : — ' I have tried my best to meet your views, and I think you will see that the actual terms of reference are wide. I do not think it advisable to argue the matter, but I may say at once that I cannot agree with your view that an executive Com- mission would be preferable. It seems to me to have several very grave defects, ist, It is not so prompt.^ 2nd, It opens almost endless and perhaps bitter parliamentary discussion settling its terms on facts which must necessarily be assumed. 3rd, I think the question much too big and national for Parliament to delegate to five men or any number of men. There is absolutely no precedent for such a thing — for charity commissions, etc., are no precedent at all. But while I say this out of courtesy to you, I am not inviting a discussion on the subject.' An important matter was the personnel of the Com- mission. The legal Free Church requested Mr. Graham Murray to favour it with the proposed names ; but this he declined to do as unprecedented in the case of a Royal Commission and also as inadvisable in itself. Unquestionably, the man the country looked for to be chairman was Lord, Balfour of Burleigh, but his name was not acceptable to the minority. The chairmanship was offered to Lord James, and he placed his services at the disposal of the Government ; but on further deliberation it was thought that a Scotsman should be appointed, and in this view Lord James * This is true in the sense that a Royal Commission could be appointed at once. On the other hand, if an executive Commission had been set up then, it surely would have fiuished the work quicker than has proved to be the case. THE CRISIS: THIRD MODERATORSHIP 397 cordially concurred. Finally, the Earl of Elgin was appointed. The two other Commissioners were Lord Kinnear (one of the judges of the Court of Session) and Sir Ralph Anstruther, Bart. At the same time, another Commission was appointed to arrange interim settle- ments, where possible, as to the use of particular properties, of course without prejudice to the rights of parties as to ultimate possession. This Commission was intrusted to Sir John Cheyne. Thus ended the first phase of the story, and I may close this account of it by quoting Principal Rainy's letter to one who had taken an honourable and useful part in it : — ' Dear Lord Balfour, — I suppose we may take to-day's news as authentic. If it is, I dare say we shall feel that as to Commissioners we might possibly have been worse off. But I am quite sure that the unanimous opinion of our side is that the chair of the Commission ought to have been given to 3'ou and that no other occupant will do the work so well as you would have done. We shall always remember how powerfully you contributed, while opinion was still unformed, to turn it into the right channel and to fasten the conviction on the general mind that this was a national question and that the great point was to deal with it worthily.' This last word was (as the reader may himself have observed) a very characteristic one of the Principal's. Indeed one might justl}^ say that * worthj^ ' was as much his favourite epithet as ' sweet ' is Shakespeare's or * noble ' Burke's. Therefore Lord Balfour could have from Dr. Rainy no higher praise than the above. With the result of this first phase of the crisis that had followed the judgment, the United Free Church had considerable reason to be satisfied. Three 398 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY great ends had been successfully achieved. First, the Church had remained perfectly solid. As he looks back upon it, the reader must recognise it as really a most notable thing that so tremendous a blow should have been struck and yet cause hardly a splinter in the Church's structure. It is not improbable that in the future, this rallying under so great a shock and standing steady may appear as notable a thing as the enthusiastic daring of the Disruption. Moreover, the two sections of the Church were united in a way which, but for this crisis, would not, I believe, have been attained for a generation. Men began to say it was not only Prin- cipal Rainy who had made the Union : it was not less the Lord Chancellor. Secondly, the demand for redress had been kept successfully on entirely non-party lines. The risk of political feeling coming into it v/as not slight, and Principal Rainy's skill and tact (in a hundred little things) were nowhere more really — though, in the nature of the case, not conspicuously — manifested than in the avoiding of this danger. And now, thirdly, the Government had acted. These were distinct achievements for the United Free Church. Yet this was not a race to be run in one heat, and a long struggle was still ahead. And let the reader never forget that Dr. Rainy was now on the verge of his eightieth year. During these four months — from the ist of August to the end of November — he had been, physically and intellectually, little short of wonderful. It is no ex- aggeration to say that Scotland as a whole — despite any political or ecclesiastical divergences — looked with admiration at the spirit and resource, the dignity and the courage with which the old man met this crisis. THE CRISIS: THIRD MODERATORSHIP 399 Certainly not his keenest enemy could ever call Prin- cipal Rainy a craven. Even physically he was remark- able. He kept splendid health. He never lost a night's sleep amid all his anxieties : once he said that when in danger of worrying and like to be put off his sleep he 'just began to think about the Japs.' ^ Sometimes, at the end of a prolonged Advisory Committee meeting, he would look white and aged ; but next day he was fresh again. He was never nervous and never careless. He attended to everything, for Dr. Rainy's was essen- tially the t3^pe of mind which can at once grasp general principles and 3'et not neglect details. The following little incident shows his assiduous conscientiousness. One day I was walking with him in Princes Street, as he desired some fresh air ; suddenly he remembered it was the hour for a sub-committee. I ventured to say that the sub-committee was not very important. He turned and said almost severely, ' Everything is of importance just now.' That was the spirit in which he served his Church. To sit with him in the Advisory Committee was a real education in affairs. On the one hand, he saw instinctively what is impossible and need not be sought, and, on the other, he never for one moment lost sight of what is essential and must at all costs be maintained ; and thus he worked steadily, purposefully, effectively, for a definite end at once reasonable and vital. His mind had, if one may so put it, a very large surface area and took in the impressions of a subject from all quarters ; yet with this it had^what does not alwa^-^s accompany a comprehensive intelligence — persistent ' The Russo-Japanese War was then in progress. 400 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY driving power. It should be added he was always perfectly calm, courteous to every one, and absolutely serene in his spirit. Any one who has heard the few words of prayer with which he would open the Com- mittee will not be in doubt as to the source of this serenity. To this last remark, however, it may be added that a great support to his confidence and calmness of mind during this struggle was the satisfaction, or rather thankfulness with which he saw how the ' moral ' of the Church was rising to the occasion. He often spoke of this — not boastingly, but gratefully as a cheer to his heart even when he felt he and others were near the end of their strength. At a time when Dr. Ross Taylor was ill, and when Principal Salmond and Dr. Melville (the Principal Clerk of Assembly) were plainly drawing near death, he writes : — 'One thinks of Cromwell saying before Dunbar, " We are indeed but a feeble and sickly company ; yet we shall work the time that is appointed us and after that, rest in peace." However, it is ungrateful to take that tone when one thinks of our magnificent Church and the younger men that are rallying to the service.' And to his son George, in India, he writes : — ' The crisis is visibly doing good ; we are being raised up to more feeling and conviction, and the spirit of prayer is developing wonderfully. I have not the least doubt that the result will be a great moral and spiritual impetus to the work of the Church.' This impression was felt by many. The judgment had impoverished the United Free Church of Scotland in those material things which a Churcli possesses ; but it had strengthened and enriched in it those spiritual things by which a Cluirch lives. THE CRISIS: THIRD MODERATORSHIP 401 If he was thus proud, or rather thankful, as he thought of the Church, certainly the Church was proud and thankful as she thought of him ; and this feeling found expression in his being nominated — for the third time — to the moderatorship of the General Assembly. There are few precedents in the history of the Church of Scotland for a third moderatorship — Melville, how- ever, and Carstares were each Moderator four times — and Dr. Rainy was really annoyed at the proposal. But the Church was resolved that the voice that spoke officially at the Assembly after the judgment should be her representative voice. Moreover, in this way she passed a unique vote of confidence in the leader on whom the blow of the judgment had most personally fallen, and whose prestige his enemies had fondly hoped had been irretrievably injured by it. Principal Rainy was most reluctant to accept. He stoutly protested that the Church ' must not be represented as a one- horse affair,' and that he had plenty of better things to do than ' get into Moderator's breeks again.' More- over, he was chivalrously jealous lest it should seem in any way a slight upon the venerable Dr. Hutton — the staunch champion of voluntaryism — who had been generally named as the probable Moderator of the Assembly of 1905. But, in the very exceptional cir- cumstances, Dr. Rainy's elevation was of real import- ance, and it was pressed on him till he accepted. It need hardly be added that between him and Dr. Hutton (who was elected Moderator in the year following), nothing but friendly sentiments were exchanged over the matter. Not even, however, the almost unprecedented honour of a third moderatorship could add to the VOL. II. 2 c 402 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY supreme position which Dr. Rainy now held in the estimation, not only of his own Church, but of practi- cally all Scotland. These months since the House of Lords judgment had revealed the stature of the man, alike to friend and foe, as it had never been seen before. It is difficult to define a great man : human greatness can hardly be standardised. Certainly it is not to be de- fined in terms merely of conspicuous outward acts, for circumstances may conspire to aid in the achievement of these, and the man with whose name their actual accom- plishment is associated may thus easily receive more honour than his due. One way of describing native personal greatness is that a great man is always adequate to whatever test he may be put by circum- stance — especially, of course, adverse circumstance. As old Nestor, in Troilus and Cressida, says : — ' In the reproof of chance Lies the true proof of men.' If ever man proved himself in ' the reproof of chance,' it was Dr. Rainy during the crisis that followed the strange catastrophe of the judgment of 1904. What had seemed to be his ruin before his fellow-men had only revealed his real magnitude. And, as we have now to see in the next chapter, out of this apparent defeat of his career, was to come something which made his life-work far more complete than otherwise it would have been, and was definitely to mark his place in the historic succession of the great names of the Scottish Church and the epoch-makers in its long and heroic struggle for the vindication of the freedom wherewith Christ lias made His people free. \ CHAPTER XXVII THE DECLARATION OF LIP.ItRTY THE struggle into which the Church had been plunged was now focussed upon two great ends — one, the vindication of the Church's liberty : the other, the restoration, at least in part, of the Church's property. It was a struggle for freedom and for justice, and are not these almost the two most sacred of secular words ? In this chapter and the next we shall see how these ends were attained — how the Church reaffirmed her constitution and the State made a great restitution. In these things, we have the climax as well as the close of Principal Rainy's career. There is perhaps hardly any other public man of whom it can be said that his eightieth year was the year of his greatest achievement. The two ends which have been mentioned naturally intermingle to some extent in the story, and while the more important part of this chapter will deal with the matter — the more important matter of the two — concerning the Church's vindication of her liberty, we must first narrate some phases of the struggle about property. With the opening of the year 1905, it was certain that Parliament would in some way intervene in the situation. The appointment of the Royal Commission inevitably pointed to that and would pave the way for it. But there was 404 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY entire uncertainty as to what form that intervention might take. This uncertainty was due not merely to the fact that obviously much depended on the report of the Royal Commission. Already there had arisen a good deal of vague talk about a parliamentary measure which should deal not only with the question of the Free Church property but with the larger ques- tion of the status of Churches generally before the law. Mr. Graham Murray, in a speech — a very able speech, at once independent and sympathetic — at Rothesay on 5th January, after a survey of the situation which he described as ' unendurable,' went on to speak of the demand of a Church to be a developing organism. He declared it to be a * modern idea ' and one ' not for a court of law' ; but, he added, 'it is a demand which, in my view, rings true to a sense of justice.' Then he said : — ' If the Free and the United Free Church were to come to Parliament to get from them not endowments but some recognition of their status as a Church which will make, in legal jargon, their possessions depend rather on the law of status than the law of trusts, and which will give them elasticity to develop without feeling that the slightest develop- ment may rob them of their property — I say, if this is to be given to them, why should the claims of others be ignored ? This utterance caused some anxiety in United Free Church circles. As regarded her own liberty as a living organism, the Church thought she saw a better way — of which much will be said before the chapter closes — than to have it * given ' by statute with whatever conditions statute might accompany the gift. As regarded ' the claims of others,' no one could suggest that the United Free Church regarded this liberty as a THE DECLARATION OF LIBERTY 405 thing of her own : it is a cathohc principle which belongs to the Church of Christ everywhere, at least where the Church claims it. But it was a serious matter if this large and, in many respects and many quarters, con- troversial question was to get mixed up with the plain business of a just and practical settlement of the question of the Free Church property. In a letter to Dr. Ross Taylor, written the day after the Secretary for Scotland's speech, Principal Rainy gives expression to his fears as to this : — ' Graham Murray's speech seems to me generally good, but the more I consider the latter part the more I dislike it. It seems we are to be rehabilitated in point of status, whatever that may mean, and that in company with other people. If this is so, we shall have no bill. Parliament will fall out about it, and so should we ourselves, though I don't fear 7nuch trouble within ourselves. Their business, whatever else they do, is to give us back our property or a share of it ; and I for one will make no bargains about it. Graham Murray is diplomatically vague, but I feel convinced there is something under it which will . probably turn out serious. I am much disposed to write to Arthur Balfour before his speech.^ He may justly complain if, after Murray's preliminary hint, he receives no warning.' Principal Rainy did write to Mr. Balfour, and the letter is as follows : — ' Dear Sir, — In Mr. Murray's generally excellent speech, a few sentences occurred at the close which appear to me rather enigmatic and possibly even ominous. I should be glad to fmd that my apprehensions are unreasonable. ' I refer to the passage in which he speaks of the action of Parliament as likely to include something in the nature of recognition of status with a view to avert loss of property by future decisions. I assume that this will be some enactment * The Prime Minister was announced to speak at Glasgow on January 12. 406 THE TJFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY applicable to all Churches as such or to all bodies making a bona-fide claim to be Churches, and that it will recognise and sanction their right to make changes. But whatever the lines intended to be proceeded on, I earnestly trust it will not be mixed up with the measure giving effect (so far as Government sees its way) to the recommendations of the Com- mission regarding property, as to which all Scottish members will probably be agreed, and English members will let it alone. But on the other subject, with its real difficulties, there may quite likely be honest differences, extending to English members as well, and the risk attending the bill may indefinitely be increased. The subject of a reasonable settlement to follow on the Lords' decision is in its own nature distinct from the very important question how the law is to stand for the future. ' I would not have troubled you but that the cause for anxiety seems to be considerable. A good deal of private discussion is going on, but I think no public statement will be made, for there is no wish to embarrass the Government. — I am, Dear Sir, yours very faithfully, Robert Rainy.' I do not find any answer to this letter, but Mr. Balfour, who, Mr. Graham Murray had definitely said, would speak further on this question in his speech at Glasgow, refrained from dealing with it and declared he would not ' add anything ' to what the Secretary for Scotland had said. About a month later Parliament opened, and the King's Speech contained a clause which said that ' a situation has arisen in connection with the administration of the property belonging to certain ecclesiastical bodies in Scotland which "requires legis- lative intervention,' and reported the appointment of Commissioners, whose report, it goes on, ' may enable you to frame such proposals as will, I trust, tend to the efficient administration of ecclesiastical funds and the promotion of peace and goodwill.' This was vague enough to cover what some writers in the press THE DECLARATION OF LIBERTY 407 were urging — a * broad settlement of the question of spiritual independence.' Eventually, however, as we shall see, nothing came of this larger possibility in the Government bill. Meanwhile, the Royal Commissions had begun their work. That under the chairmanship of Lord Elgin held its first public sederunt for the taking of evidence on nth January. At the outset, the chairman defined the scope of the Commission's inquiries in terms which somewhat disappointed the United Free Church, inas- much as it ruled out all evidence on the subject of donors' intentions. On this matter, the United Free Church, deeming it within the reference ' to inquire into all the facts connected with the said funds and property,' had accumulated a great deal of evidence and could have produced an overwhelming case. Much of this was edged in as the proceedings went on. One matter is entitled to special mention. A great deal, in the House of Lords, had been made of ' the pro- spectus of the Association,' as several of the judges called Dr. Chalmers's moderatorial address. The in- appropriateness and inaccuracy of the phrase have been already commented on. But Principal Rainy, in an opening statement preliminary to his evidence — a statement somewhat out of order but which. Lord Elgin courteous^ said, ' out of respect to you and recognising the value of this paper as a whole, w^e do not wish to exclude ' — brought up what might really be called the financial ' prospectus ' of the Disruption, or at least was the original appeal for funds. It was issued three months before the Disruption — for funds had been gathered in expectation of that event when 408 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY it was seen to be inevitable ^ — and by Dr. Chalmers as ' Convener of the Financial sub-Committee.' Its heading is, ' Subscriptions for support of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland.' In a second cir- cular, dated February 24, 1843, the object for which subscriptions are invited is defined as follows : — ' The support and extension of an evangelical ministry in the land who might be at liberty to act conscientiously and according to the Word of God in all things pertaining to the worship, discipline and government of the Church — not over- borne by the control and interference of the civil court.' " This is the essential statement of the object held forth in a long circular — signed by Dr. Chalmers — in which the idea of establishment is not even once hinted at. Beyond any historical doubt, here is the * prospectus ' the Lord Chancellor and his colleagues so unwarrantably ima- gined they found in a Moderator's address. Here was that to which donors were specifically asked to con- tribute ; and the establishment principle — of which Lord Alverstone, in his judgment, had incautiously said, ' It cannot, I think, be doubted that this prin- ciple was put forward as one of the main inducements in the appeals for pecuniary aid ' — is not even sug- gested to their thoughts. Lord Elgin said pleadingly to one of the witnesses before his Commission (not Dr. Rainy), ' Please don't bring in the Lord Chancellor.' But who can help doing so when reading this circular ? Here is money asked and given for the support of an evangelical ministry in the land who shall be free to ^ This is an additional reason for the absurdity of calling Dr. Chalmers's speech the prospectus. Who ever heard of money being begun to be collected first and the prospectus issued afterwards? ''■ The document may be found in the report of the Royal Commission, vol. i. p. 1 10. THE DECLARATION OF LIBERTY 409 obey conscience in Church affairs — for that and nothing else. Sixty years later, the Lord Chancellor and his colleagues of the House of Lords give that money (and all added to it since) to a handful of men who palpably cannot carry out that specified national object, taking it away from a Church which indisputably could and sacrificingly did carry it out ; the ground of this forfeiture being that this Church was not carrying out another and quite different object which was not even suggested in the appeal to subscribers. And in doing this, the judges — particularly the Lord Chancellor — reiterated repeatedly that their solemn duty was ' to carry out the intentions of the original donors of the trust,' and that ' money given for one purpose shall not be devoted to another.' It is not merety these donors — now safely dead — who are wronged b}- a spoliation like this : it is the very name of justice. The Commission held twelve sessions for the taking of evidence. All the heads of departments of the United Free Church appeared, and a mass of facts was presented showing the immense ' trust ' of means and money which was being carried on and the really grotesque incapacity of the Church successful at law to use even a tithe of this great inheritance. The representatives of the legal Free Church, however, when their turn to give evidence arrived, did not abate their rights as owners of the property. The}' claimed at once over three hundred church buildings, the re- mainder to be regarded as 'negotiable assets.' The^' regarded any scheme of joint occupation of buildings as * impossible ' and ' impracticable . ' They claimed the New College and its endowments as 'an inalienable right.' As 410 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY regards funds, the position taken was that even if the special trusts — missionary or other — could not be carried out, they should be given to the successful litigants ' for the general purpose of strengthening the Free Church/ After the completion of evidence, an interval elapsed before the Commission produced its report. The other Commission, under Sir John Cheyne, appointed to make interim temporary arrangements between the parties, had meanwhile been pursuing a somewhat chequered way. The legal Free Church had never really accepted it, and at length they for- mally withdrew, though their law-agents continued to give Sir John some assistance. But this Church preferred the more summary method of obtaining from the Court of Session an interdict to oust any United Free Church congregation whose property they desired. During these weeks and months, this process — ^which the judge of the Court of Session regarded himself as powerless to prevent in view of the terms of the House of Lords order — went merrily on all over the country, and large, vigorous congregations of the United Free Church were, in place after place, turned out to make room for sometimes a mere handful of people gathered together from various sources and, in certainly some cases, with not a person among them who ever had had the slightest connection with the property claimed. I have no wish to revive painful stories ; but it is neces- sary the reader should understand what was going on, for the unrighteousness of it undoubtedly was a factor that hastened the end. What was going on was this. A letter would be sent from the offices of the legal Free Church urging some smalt nucleus of more or less Free THE DECLARATION OF LTT^ERTV 411 Churchmen — in some places they were actually adver- tised for — to organise, and efforts were made to get practically any one to adhere to the movement. Then this miscellaneous body of persons was ' re- cognised ' and in their name — not in every case was it even with their consent — some existing United Free Church congregation in the place was, however nume- rous its members or important its agencies of work, ousted. The figures of a single lowland and a single Highland case may be given. A particularly vigorous and well-organised congregation at Ayr, largely com- posed of the working class and numbering over six hundred members (besides adherents), was turned out of church and schools for a company that never filled more than two pews in the church and that left the schools absolutely derelict. In Lewis, a congregation of some hundreds was compelled to worship on the hill- side every Sunday in order that a company averaging about twenty might occupy their church. Incidents like these — and these are but two cases out of many — could not but create feeling. Be it noted, there was no question of the legal Free Church obtaining accom- modation for worship. Sir John Cheyne was there for the very purpose of arranging that. But the legal Free Church was not content to get in : she must, at any hurt to the work of great congregations, get the other church out. I refer to all this as lightly as is possible. Some of the better men in the legal Free Church defended it by sa3dng they had no alternative, for they were bound by the obligations of the trust. No man can justify doing what is unrighteous on the ground that he is a trustee. If a trustee finds that a trust is 412 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY working out contrary to equity, he can seek or accept authority to stay his hand or to find a more righteous way of performing his obhgations. This was the one thing the legal Free Church refused to do. On this part of the story one should add that the bearing of many of these evicted United Free Church congregations was one of the most creditable and indeed noble phases of the whole crisis. These congregations showed a spirit of forbearance and of loyalty which evoked the sympathy of the whole Church. Among the ways in which this sympathy found expression — besides, of course, the material assistance given through the Emergency Fund — was the formation of what was modestly called a ' Temporary Committee ' among women of the Church. To none of the many spon- taneous movements which arose during the crisis did Principal Rainy give a more hearty welcome than to this. Mrs. Rainy was asked to become its Convener, and she was enthusiastic in her sympathy and support. To the first public meeting held in connection with this Women's Committee, the Principal wrote : — ' As joint Convener of the Advisory Committee I desire publicly to acknowledge the great value of the work done at this crisis by the women of the Church, the help they are giving in connection with all her interests, and the high tone they do so much to sustain among the whole community. In pro- moting, by their influence and example, a temper of mind that is humble and prayerful as well as diligent, believing and courageous, they are performing the most important service which could be rendered to the Church by any of its members.' And later, when the Committee was discharging varied offices of kindly help towards the families of the manse in troubled districts — very many ministers and their THE DECLARATION OF IJRERTY 413 families were evicted, though in very few cases indeed was there a minister of the legal Free Church to occupy the house — and also in developing social work in out- lying districts, Mrs. Rainy wrote that it ' had accom- plished what Dr Rainy sometimes felt he had failed to do — enlisted the interest of the young people of the Church in the needs of the Highlands.' In such ways did the crisis bring alike its pains and its gains. The Elgin Commission presented its report, and it was published in April. It was a most remarkable document and, except for one passing observation, was practically everything the United Free Church could desire. This passing observation was that the Commissioners regretted that ' the minority did not receive more consideration at the hands of the majority.' On this, it is enough to say that it is a matter upon which not one word of evidence was laid before the Commission, and the censure was based therefore on hearsay or a general impression.^ The reader of the foregoing pages of this book can estimate its value. But, apart from this (and really when the Com- missioners were saying so much for the United Free Church, they may have felt they must say at least something on the other side), the report was a complete vindication of the protest that had been made against the sweeping and impossible character of the judgment of the House of Lords. The Commissioners, in perhaps the crucial passage of their report, declare that they ' The charge that the United Free Church had acted oppressively towards ministers and members of the minority was assiduously circulated from some quarters. Every one of these charges was refuted in a long statement sent, with a covering note by Dr. Rainy, to the press. I cannot possibly go into them here. 414 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY ' are satisfied that, so far as its moral and material resources are concerned, the United Free Church can perform efficiently the trust purposes, which cannot be performed by its rival.' As regards the judgment — * which must be,' they say, ' received with all sub- mission ' — ^they go on as follows : — ' The only question submitted to the adjudication of the Court and decided by the House of Lords was the question of legal right and title. No question of the equities which might arise when the question of legal identity had been decided was before the House of Lords or the Court of Session. It is not, we think, inconsistent with respect for the decision to say that, while the legal title of the Free Church has been placed beyond question, it is still to be noted that for practical purposes, it is only an inconsiderable minority of the original and undivided Free Church which it now represents ; and that, on the other hand, the United Free Church, apart from the single divergence from the original constitution which has deprived it of its claim to be identified with the Church of the Disruption, does still for all practical purposes, answer the description of the institution which the endowments obtained on Dr. Chalmers's circular were intended to maintain and is still a true representative of the original Free Church by virtue of its institutions and traditions and of its inheritance of the spiritual ideas and efforts which are the life of a religious body.' The formal respect given in these words to the House of Lords judgment — and, from Royal Commissioners, properly given — only emphasises their frank statement that it was not equity, and even that the United Free Church, if not the legal representative of the Disruption, is yet a ' true ' one in view of the things ' which are the life of a religious body.' As regards the specific funds and property, the Commissioners put aside, almost with sarcasm, the idea that what the legal Free Church cannot use may be available as ' negotiable assets * THE DECLARATION OP^ IJHEin Y 415 and that money given for special purposes such as missions should be appropriated ' to strengthen gener- ally the Free Church.' They remark : — * We think it impossible that the Free Church should perform adequately or with any reasonable degree of success trusts which were intended to enure to the benefit of the nation and to be administered by an organisation covering the length and breadth of the country. This consideration alone would exclude their claim to the greater bulk of the real property of the original Free Church.' The report goes on to indicate pretty plainly that the remark includes reference to the New College and the Assembly Hall, while Foreign Missions are an obvious illustration of it. Further, it gave no countenance to the idea that the legal Free Church may increase so as to ' enable it, within any calculable period, to take the place and perform the work of the Church which it professes to represent ' — this last expression being surely one where even the lip service elsewhere done to the judgment forgets itself in face of the facts. The Commissioners' conclusions were drastic. The interference of Parliament is necessary. An executive Commission should be appointed and the whole of the property * vested in it.' The ' first consideration ' in any redistribution by the executive Commission must be ' the due performance of the purposes for which the Funds were raised.' Where the Free Church are unable to do this, the Commission should transfer the property elsewhere and 'the United Free Church, b}^ virtue of its institutions and traditions, its material and moral resources, and its organisation as a National Presbyterian Church, is entitled to be preferred on the 416 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY ground that it can adequately perform the trus't purposes ' ; Uberal provision being made for the Free Church, with a full allowance for their special circum- stances in ' the poverty of congregations and otherwise.' Other recommendations, referring to matters of detail, follow in the same line. Such a report was never given before on a matter which the supreme tribunal of the country was supposed to have decided. It is not sufficient to say — as the Commissioners, in their desire to be respectful to the judgment, say — that the question before the law court was only a question of technical title. ' The only question,' said the Lord Chancellor himself, ' is the due administration of the trust.' ^ The report was an illuminative comment on his decision as to * due administration.' Principal Rainy received many congratulations on this report, which, one may add, was supported almost everywhere in the press. I quote Mr. Haldane's letter to Dr. Rainy : — ' I congratulate you warmly on the report. It is a complete victory, and it reverses the decision of the House of Lords in so far as that decision found continuity between Chalmers's National Church and the legal Free Church instead of the United Free Church. ... It is just a Httle over eight months since you and I walked away from the Bar of the House of Lords apparently defeated. But I think neither of us doubted — magna est Veritas et praevalehit.' This report marked another and a notable stage in the progress of the claim of the United Free Church for justice, and yet one must repeat here the caveat which was given on the appointment of the Commission — * Authorised Report^ p. 177. THE DECLAKATTON OF LIBERTY 417 that the battle was by no means yet won. There was indeed the more need now for wisdom and prudence as the time approached for the actual parliamentary intervention to take place. Party feeling might easily arise at the last moment and wreck everything. The very reflections on the House of Lords decision so unmistakable in this report, however veiled, while they carried the mind of Scotland clearly with them, might produce a reaction south of the Tweed in favour of standing by the judgment the more stiffly. The report of the Royal Commission was a great step, but the victory was not won till a bill — and an adequate bill — became law. This was essentially a game which — if the metaphor may be permitted in these pages — was not won till the last ball was bowled. We now, however, may leave this matter till the introduction of the Government Bill, and turn to the subject — too long delayed in this chapter — of the Church's action in relation to the question of its own liberty, which courageously and consistently she had always treated as of prior importance even to the claim of a restitution of property. For a Church that claimed freedom to live, the most serious thing about the House of Lords judgment was not the judgment itself but the principle or ground of it. The judgment itself took away property worth millions, and certainly that was serious enough and, the Church thought, also incredibly unjust. Still property is merely property, and the life of a Church consisteth not in the abundance of the things which it possesseth. Moreover, property is a matter of which a civil court is the appropriate and appointed arbiter — VOL. IT. 2 D 418 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY that is the complement to the old Free Church claim that a civil court is not the appropriate or appointed arbiter of spiritualia. So, while the Church regarded this particular judgment as outrageously unjust, there was no violation of any principle of the Church in the fact that the law should order property to be transferred from one body to another. But beneath this, was the ground of the judgment, and this was that the Free Church of Scotland was denied, at law and so far as civil effects were concerned, her claim to be a self- governing and legislatively free body which could determine such question of duty as the articulation of her faith. Here was a question far more serious than any question about property for a Church that called herself ' free,' and which had in 1843 sacrificed ever^^thing in order to be free to think and act in obedience to one Master and in subjection to one standard. At all costs the ' freedom to obey ' must be held to, and, if possible, protected from future penalties. It has already been pointed out that from the very day that the storm burst, the Church put this matter, and not the matter of property, in the forefront. In the resolutions adopted by the Commission held on August loth, there is only one passing reference in the last resolution to the procuring of ' remedies ' for * a great and startling wrong ' : all the other declarations are concerned with the far greater question of the principles of liberty of the Church's conscience * with which this Church is identi- fied, and to which it is incumbent upon her to give effect, notwithstanding whatsoever trouble or hard- ship she may have to encounter in so doing.' I have THE DECLARATION OF LIBERTY 419 also said that at the meetings held up and down the country this, and not a whining over lost property, was unquestionably the prevalent, as it was also the popular, note. And now, while the whole question as to the manner or degree of any restitution of property was still in the utmost uncertainty, the Church went on boldly to vindicate her principles of liberty of conscience in the most uncompromising manner. There were voices that counselled that this might be kept quiescent till the property was at least on the sure way back to the Church — or at least, if not counselling this, would have preferred it as the safer course. Principal Rainy, and indeed the whole spirit of the United Free Church in both sections, would not think of any kind of prudent temporising here. ' That Church,' said Dr. Rainy in one of his great rallying-cries in the struggle — ' that Church will be free that dares to be free.' And at a stage when, as has just been said, there was absolute uncertainty what property would ever come back and, if any came, what conditions as to the principles of the ' trust ' might be imposed upon the restoration of it, the Church renewed her claim to be subject to one Master and one standard only and that she would accept any property on no lower terms. The declaration of this was prepared in the Advisory Committee with great care and submitted to the Assembly of 1905. This — the first meeting of Assembly since the judgment of the House of Lords — was, in many respects, a notable gathering. For one thing it had to meet in the old Synod Hall of the United Presbvterian Church which, after the Union, had been 420 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY sold to the City of Edinburgh : the enlarged Assembly Hall of the Church was tenanted by the Assembh'' of the legal Free Church, and the curious spectacle was presented there of a body of a few score trying to spread themselves over a hall which was built to accommo- date thousands. Then, as was stated at the close of the last chapter, Principal Rainy had been nomi- nated Moderator, and, of course, when the Assembly came, he was elected with unanimit}^ and enthusiasm. ' We wish to show,' said Lord Overtoun in seconding the election, ' that to-day we continue to trust and honour our great leader.' Principal Rainy, on taking the chair, said he ' did not well know what to make of it ; but,' he added, * I comfort myself with the reflec- tion that, whatever my shortcomings may be, the traces of them will speedily be swept away by the rising tide of young life in the Church — life intellectual, moral and spiritual.' His opening moderatorial address does not call for reproduction here. It was a careful resume of the facts of the story since the judgment of the House of Lords, with which, of course, the Church was (as also the reader is) acquainted, but which it was of service to have restated to the public in an authori- tative form. Dr. Rainy was full of hope. He spoke of the resolution and patience of the ministers and people who had been called to suffer. He was thankful for the way different sections of the Church had been drawn together. He was struck — and this really is one of the most remarkable features of the story — ^with the quiet persistence with which the entire work of the Church had continued to be carried on ' exactly as if the House of Lords had never acted or even existed.' THE DECT.ARATION OF LIBERTY 421 And he closed with an expression of spiritual expecta- tion and of spiritual desire towards all the Churches. He said of this, in words which lifted the Assembly from any danger to think too much of material questions and too exclusively of its own interest and well-being : — ' Before the blow fell which has so strongly affected our fortunes, many persons among us were conscious, I think, in a more than common degree, of the need of spiritual quickening. For though it would have been foolish, morbid and untrue to regard our work as fruitless and unprogressive, yet one felt as if tokens of the joy of God's salvation were too scanty, as if the presence of the Spirit of power were too little manifest — as if the administration of the Gospel went forward in some places in a manner too level, in other places in a manner too languid, with too little of the stir and animation which betoken vigorous life. I am sure that this impression led not a few to turn with renewed earnestness and expectation to Him whose lovingkindness is better than life. And then we heard of renewed earnestness and remarkable awakening else- where, and that stirred us afresh to consider our ways. Now, in many of our congregations, there has come awakened interest. Young people have been stirred, more new communicants have been admitted, more readiness to do something for the good cause has been shown, and more expectancy in connection with effort ; and in not a few cases plain and solemn signs of souls seeking peace with God have remarkably appeared. Undoubtedly the strain and the anxiety of our Church troubles have had, under God, a place — how great a place I will not say, but certainly and visibly a place — in opening the way to these results. There is enough of this to encourage us. I would rather say there is enough to lay on us a happy obligation to look for more. We need more. The worst result of all would be if, in any case, the thought of the blessing received should minister to that fatal contentedness which lulls us into slumber and bereaves us of so much. And here especially, when we think and when we 422 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY pray in connection with the work of God, let us remember that we must not think of our branch of the Church alone. As we believe that other Churches are sharing, each in its own way, in the goodwill of the Giver of all good, so let us never forget to give to these Churches not only respectful consideration, but a genuine and a warm place in our affections, in our interest, in our prayers. Let us not dare at any time to desire and seek God's grace for denominational reasons. Let us desire the blessing for all the Churches of the saints.' This note was carried on through much of the Assembly, which was indeed a religious more than a merely ecclesiastical gathering. I cannot here describe its proceedings, but space must be found for the brief address which the Moderator gave to the twelve new missionaries who were presented to him on the * Foreign Mission night ' — always the most densely crowded and most impressive of all the Assembly sessions. Dr. Rainy, speaking with the utmost simplicity to the row of missionary volunteers — six men and six ladies — standing before him said : — ' My dear friends, I need not say I am not going to make any set speech. You are going forth as missionaries ; and we are none of us worthy to be missionaries ; and you may have had your own difficulties about your own worthiness and fitness ; but our trust and belief is that God has been moving you to think of this great work, which He has committed to us whose unworthiness He perfectly well knows. He takes it well at your hands that you are willing to go forth to the Gentiles to minister in some form the gospel of the grace of God. You have been hearing to-night what will suggest many encourage- ments and hopes. You will also have your difficulties — difficulties in the human nature you will have to deal with, and difficulties of other kinds. You must learn to bring your difficulties to your Master. There is a place for your own intelligence, your courage and watchfulness in the problems THE DECLARATION OF LIBERTY 423 you have to deal with, but your great need is to bring it to your Master, and to lean on Him who is able to solve all your difficulties. You will also make mistakes ; you must make them ; and you will be sorry for them. But we serve a Master of whom we believe this, that out of our very mistakes He can bring something good for us and for others, although it is connected with some wholesome humiliation. You will discover — and it will not be pleasant to discover — not only mistakes, but faults and weaknesses, which, perhaps, you are. not enough conscious of as yet. And when you discover them, I know no way for it but to go straight to the Lord with them. My dear friends, give to this work the elasticity and strength and natural cheerfulness of your youth. And, by and by, give to it the results of your experience and your discipline. The first and last word I desire to say to you is — Put your trust in God, and in Jesus Christ His Son, absolutely and always. I would leave with you this text : " Who forgiveth all our iniquities. Who healeth all our diseases, Who redeemeth our life from destruction, Who crowneth us with lovingkindness and tender mercies.' The cold print can convey nothing of the religious impression which these words from the venerable and saintly leader carried with them to the hearers. We must turn, however, to the declarations passed by this Assembly on the subject of the Spiritual Freedom of the Church. What has been referred to is not irre- levant to this, for no one can understand the claim of the Church for freedom who does not look on it as part of the religious life of the Church. This principle, in at least the Scottish Church, has never been — as an Anglican bishop (who need not be named) curiously described it at this time — a merely ' romantic ' idea ; nor is it, as the layman in England not un- naturally regards it, a claim of clericahsm. In the simplest terms, it is this. The Church has a Master, 424 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY and that Master is living ; therefore the Church must be free to obey whatever His hving voice says to her, either of truth to confess or duty to do. That is the whole idea at the root of the principle of liberty. The Church's authority is not anything dead. It is one Who lives and Who says, ' Because I live ye shall live also.' Therefore the Church claims the right to live, and the right, because the duty, to be free to listen and learn and obey. If it be said that this obedience means no more in the end than that a company of fallible men in an Assembly or other Church court decide what they think right, it is admitted. But in the end, what, put in the same way, does conscience mean but that a fallible man decides what he thinks right ? A great and sacred principle is not to be dethroned because it operates through human channels. The living voice of conscience remains a vital law for the individual, and the living voice of the Spirit, both as to truth and duty, remains the law of the Church. Surely this is neither romanticism nor clericalism.^ It is, indeed, a very essential of the idea of the Church. The whole idea of the Church — as the place of its mention in the Creed indicates — is part of the belief in the Holy Spirit. The Lord Chancellor held that it is ' the unity of its doctrines ' that constitutes ' the identity of a religious community described as a Church.' Well, an apostle tells us that ' the devils believe,' and I imagine that their creed must be entirely orthodox and that the}^ are quite agreed upon it : that does not make them a Church. A Church is not a Ch urch • It may be observed that in Presbyteiianisni, the Church never means iiierely the clergy. THE DECLARATION OF LIBERTY 425 of a creed : a creed is a creed of a Church. The essential bond of the Church is a spiritual bond to a Lord who lives and teaches and leads His faithful people, and does so to-day every whit as much as He did in the first or the fourth or the sixteenth century. This is the * high-churchism ' of the New Testament. And there follows from it the claim to be free, for where the Spirit is, there is liberty — there must be liberty to obey the living Spirit of truth. The resolutions or declarations by which the General Assembly of 1905 reasserted the scriptural and evan- gelical claim of spiritual liberty — articulated now with the fresh distinctness which the situation demanded — are as follows : — ' The General Assembly resolve and declare as follows : — ' I. They assert and protest that these branches of the Church of Christ in Scotland now united in this Church have always claimed, and this Church continues to claim, that the Church of Christ has, under Him as her only Head, independent and exclusive jurisdiction and power of legislating in all matters of doctrine, worship, discipline, and government of the Church, including therein the right from time to time to alter, change, add to, or modify her constitution and laws, subordinate standards, and Church formula, and to determine and declare what these are. ' 2. The General Assembly accordingly declare anew and enact that it is a fundamental principle and rule of this Church that, in dependence on the grace of God, recognising the authority of the Word of God, contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as the supreme, unchangeable standard, and looking to the Head of the Church for the promised guidance of the Holy Spirit, this Church has the sole and exclusive right and power from time to time, as duty may require, through her courts to alter, change, add to, or modify her constitution and laws, subordinate standards and 426 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY formulas, and to determine and declare what these are, and to unite with other Christian Churches ; always in conformity with the Word of God, and also with the safeguards for deliberate action and legislation in such cases provided by the Church herself — of which conformity the Church herself, acting through her courts, shall be the sole judge — and under a sense of direct responsibility to the ever-living Head of the Church, and of duty towards all the Church's members. ' 3. The General Assembly also declare and enact that in all the courts of the Church a decision of the court given either unanimously, or by a majority of its members present and voting, is the decision of the court, and the decision of the General Assembly so reached is final. With respect to Acts which are to be binding rules and constitutions of the Church the Assembly shall have regard to the safeguards referred to in the foregoing resolution. ' 4. The General Assembly further declare that the Church holds her funds and property, present and future, in con- formity with these principles ; the Church reserving her right to accept and hold benefactions, subject to specific conditions attached to them by the donor, when and so long as she judges these conditions to be consistent with her liberty and her principles, and to be expedient in the circumstances of the time.' As it has often been said that the claim of Spiritual Independence on the part of the Church of 1905 went to lengths unwarranted by the historic claim of the Church of Scotland and even by the principles main- tained at the Disruption, I think it useful to let the reader compare these resolutions with the resolution passed by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1838. This is as follows : — ' That the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, while they unqualifiedly acknowledge the exclusive jurisdiction of the civil courts in regard to the civil rights and emoluments secured by law to the Church, and ministers thereof, and will THE DECLARATION OF LIBERTY 427 ever give and inculcate implicit obedience to their decisions thereanent, do resolve, that as is declared in the Confession of Faith of this National Established Church, " The Lord Jesus as King and Head of His Church, hath therein appointed a government in the hand of Church officers distinct from the civil magistrate," and that in all matters touching the doctrines, government, and discipline of this Church, her Judicatories possess an exclusive jurisdiction, founded on the Word of God, " which power ecclesiastical " (in the words of the second Book of Discipline), " flows immediately from God, and the Mediator, Jesus Christ, and is spiritual, not having a temporal head on earth, but only Christ, the only Spiritual King and Governor of His Kirk," and they do further resolve, that this spiritual jurisdiction, and the supremacy and sole- Headship of the Lord Jesus Christ, on which it depends, they will assert, and at all hazards defend, by the help and blessing of that Great God, who, in the da^'s of old, enabled their fathers, amid manifold persecutions, to maintain a testimony, even to the death, for Christ's Kingdom and Crown ; and finally, that they will firmly enforce sub- mission to the same upon the office-bearers and members of this Church, by the execution of her laws, in the exercise of the ecclesiastical authority wherewith they are invested.' From a resolution like this, the reader may not only judge which of the parties at the bar of the House of Lords (and even which branch of Scottish Presbyterian- ism) is inheritor of the historic position of the Church of Scotland, but will see how in 1905 the Church could do no otherwise than 'she did. In essentials the resolution of 1838 — which, let it be carefully noted, includes jurisdiction over * doctrine ' — and those of 1904 are the same, the additional clauses in the latter about majorities and the acceptance of benefactions being addenda called for in the new circumstances. Never did a Church act more, not merely with Christian 428 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY conviction but with historic consciousness, than did the Church of this Assembly. She was in the full stream of the history of the Church of Scotland. Principal Rainy, by request, vacated the chair to move these resolutions. He said that this was not any new constitution, but was a declaration in a new form of principles ' dear to them and their fathers.' The judges of the House of Lords had failed to see in their history and documents ' what the Church thought very visible ' — though of this he added, ' they ought not to allow what had taken place to shake their belief in the desire of judges in the civil courts to do justice ' — and so, now they were ' certified by law as a new Church,' it was natural to state what the constitution of this * new Church ' was. The principle which the House of Lords applied ' so resolutely, if he might not say ruthlessly ' — the principle, namely, that every doctrine read into the Church's origin must bind it for ever — ' was not their conception of the Church of Christ.' It was * utterly inconsistent with the idea of the Reformation.' Therefore they gave in these declarations * a plain statement ' of what their claim was that it should be regarded in the future. The Principal then went on to expound, at once boldly and cautiously, this doctrine of spiritual freedom subject only to one Master and one supreme standard. ' They made no claim to have the right to alter their supreme standard.' But ' they claimed the right to study it,' and * they claimed the very responsible right from time to time to express convictions as to what the Spirit of God taught them out of His Word.' As to their confessions and creeds, they were gratefully to be acknowledged and guarded, THE DECLARATION OF LIBERTY 429 but as ' human statements and therefore not above being reformed and amended ' and certainly ' not allowed to come between them and the Scriptures as something that was to dominate their faith.' They must still ' hold themselves responsible primarily to their Lord in subjection to His Word and looking for the promised influence of His Holy Spirit.' This did not mean — it was ' a travesty and caricature ' to say it meant — anything ' subversive ' or ' revolutionary ' or ' casting loose in the matter of doctrines.' Dr. Rainy repudiated that in a passage spoken with feeling emphasis. He said : — ' They were the children of the Reformation ; they were the children of the Scottish Reformation. They were Presbyterians. They were believers in a great evangelical system of faith. They believed in God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. They believed in the great redemption of Christ. They believed in the office and work of the Holy Spirit. They believed emphatically that salvation was of the Lord always, and in every case it was His wonderful work of saving the sinner. And so it was from no desire to change— he would not say the foundation of the creed — it was from no desire to cease to be Scottish evangelical Presbyterians that they made that assertion. They did it because they must make clear to the world the meaning of the Reformation, and the meaning of that independence of the Church of Christ, which was not conceived by their fathers as something that existed then, and never was to exist any more.' This last sentence was delivered with immense force and awoke prolonged cheering. But all the above is the merest indication of a weighty and powerful speech. The few speeches that followed, in support of the resolutions, were also worthy of the occasion. Mr. 430 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Taylor Innes, whose mastery of the whole subject of the law of creeds is acknowledged, closed the dis- cussion with this just -summary of what was being done : — ' What they were doing that day was nothing bnt expressing the ordinary conviction of nine-tenths of Scotland, and of all Presbyterians throughout the world, that it was the business of a Church to manage its own affairs. They had to write that out in clear words not for themselves, but for those who needed it. He believed that it was the best thing also for the law. Meantime, the lawyers were taking the " low road," and the Churchmen the " high road " — the old, hard, high road of suffering and of honour ! It was well for the Church — but what of the law, with its great capacities of justice ? He held that by the Church as a whole accepting those resolutions they would be doing the best thing, and the first thing, and the only thing they, at this moment, could do, to lay the founda- tions for the law of the future in this matter, as well as to safeguard their own rights.' The declarations were unanimously adopted. It was further resolved to send them down to Presbyteries * in order to make it manifest to all that the whole Church explicitly adheres to these principles.' At the subsequent Assembly of 1906, it may be added here, the resolutions were reaffirmed with the unanimous consent of Presbyteries. The very unanimity with which all this was done, with, therefore, the absence of great or prolonged debate over it, may disguise from the reader the historical significance of the step. In a very true sense, this was the crowning act of Dr. Rainy's ecclesiastical career, and it may very possibly prove, in the future, to be liis great contribution to the long and heroic story THE DECLATIATION OF LIBERTY 431 of the battle of the Scottish Church in defence of the Uberty of Christ's Church. It is of biographical importance to pause and realise the precise place and significance of this step in the historical development that had taken place in Scotland since the Reformation. The history of the Reformed Church of Scotland, in connection with this matter of spiritual freedom, is, on the one hand, an unswerving adherence to it as the principle of the Church's conscience to be therefore maintained at whatever cost of pains and penalties, and, on the other hand, a series of experiments by which this principle and the civil power might be harmoni- ously related to each other. The great Scottish Churchmen were men of conviction and never sur- rendered the Church's conscience ; but they were never mere fanatics and were always desirous to assert it as advantageously as possible in relation to the State. Hence this series of experiments I speak of, which began with Knox, and of which the declaration of liberty which has been described is the culmination. Only the briefest and baldest indication of the history of these can be given here. At the Reformation, the Church under Knox was independently organised by her own act without any reference to the civil authority. This came first. The Church was in being — claiming to be, or rather acting as, a Church — before any question arose as to her relation to the State. But seven years later — in 1567 — this Church was established.^ In this establish- ' It would be well, even in the present day, if people realised that there was a National Presbyterian Church in Scotland years before there was an Established Church — as there may be the former again after the latter has come to an end. 432 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY ment. the Church held and behaved that the civil authority was not conferring any Church powers upon her but was ' recognising ' the rights and powers already existing and operating. It was on these terms that the Church sought and accepted establishment. This was the first experiment. ^ But even before Knox's death, Stuart absolutism was pressing upon the Church's freedom — either out- wardly denying it or secretly undermining it. A struggle began and was carried on resolutely by Melville and others. At last a respite seemed to be reached by the great Act of 1592 which gave an explicit charter to the Church ancC^^'annulling the royal supremacy, acknowledged * the liberty of the true Kirk of God presently professed within this realm.' A new and apparently safer relationship between Church and State was thus entered upon, and this was the second experiment. I What liberty, however — ecclesiastical or civil — was safe from the perfidy and tyranny of the later Stuarts and their ministers ? The struggle broke out more fiercely — the freedom of the Church's and the freedom of the individual's conscience being now equally assailed — and this phase was a terrible one, the story of which is written in blood over areas of Scotland. Into the ' killing times ' — the times of Claverhouse and the Covenanters — I do not now even begin to enter. They were not ended till the Stuarts were deposed. Episcopacy disestablished and the Revolution brought a new era. It brought also a new ' settlement ' of Church and State. This * Revolution Settlement * — associated with the name of the sagacious Carstares I THE DECr.ARATION OF LIBERTY 433 — seemed to provide ample guarantees for the spiritual liberty of the Church. The Confession of Faith itself — with its emphatic doctrine of a government of the Church committed by Christ to church officers and ' dis- . - \ tinct from the civil magistrate ' — was actually made statute law ; and whejv-iBr-x^^, the Union of the Parliaments of England and Scotland was effected, this * settlement ' was most carefully ' secured.' This was the next experiment, and, though from the outset"^ ■ fj some Presbyterians distrusted it and refused to enter the Establishment under it, the Church as a whole accepted it as a great security for the future. But this experiment, too, proved fallacious. In the legal decisions given immediately prior to the Disrup- tion,^ it was laid down (as has been narrated in an early chapter of this work) that, under the terms of her statutory relation to the State, the Church had no inherent rights and liberties, that she was ' the creature of statute ' and must obey statute even, in certain circumstances, in the performance of, or the refraining from the performance of, spiritual acts. The Church protested, and appealed to Parliament to revise the terms of the contract if this was the meaning of it ; but Parliament, as we know, refused even to inquire into the question. This ended the experiment of establishment abruptly for a large and certainly not the least faithful section of the Church, and Chalmers led forth a great band to a new experiment — a Church sacrificing all State protection and support and going 1 I omit reference to the Secessions of the eighteenth century simply because they did not mark a separate phase of the development. But they are m the direct line of it, and indeed have the credit of having anticipated its next step. VOL. II. 2 E m3 vf 434 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY forth to be ' free ' in name as in fact. Probably at this time, no one — either friend or foe of the 'Free Church of Scotland' — doubted that, by this great act of sacrifice, the Church had now fully purchased her freedom and that this would be the last experi- ment. But it has proved not the last experiment. Yet once again disillusionment awaited the Church. The judgment of 1904 has declared that, not even by the surrender of all State support, had the Church won her ever-cherished freedom. It was laid down that the ' Free ' Church still is bound — ^bound not now by the tyranny of kings or by the conditions of statutory establishment, but by her own documents and declara- tions at the date of her separate formation. If she would completely be free, yet another step was needed — that she make the claim to that freedom in explicit terms which the law can read and interpret. Here, to take this next step, appears the churchman whose life we have recorded in these pages ; and under him, the Church — once again paying, be it carefully observed, all the price demanded rather than com- promise the actual work of freedom — made the formal declaration of her constitution which has been described. This is the latest experiment in the long series. Knox, Melville, Carstares, Chalmers, Rainy — ^it is a clear and consistent historical development, and it gives the subj ect of this biography his definite historical position in the succession of the Scottish Church. The story, too, is of more than historical or bio- graphical interest. It bears immediately on to-day. THE DECLARATION OF LIBERTY 435 The three last phases in this series of experiments are each represented in the modern Presbyterianism of Scotland. The Established Church represents the phase of statute guarantee — including both statute protection and statute control. The legal Free Church represents a Church tied byjaw to her own past. The United FreeChurch is at the further stage — apparently the only Stage where the law of the land can recognise the liberty of the Church of Christ. It is safe to add that this last Church will not forget the lessons that have been learned from these experiments in the past.^ Is then this really the final phase of a great historic series ? Has Rainy, in truth, achieved the practical security of that Church freedom which Knox maintained was recognised when the Church was first established, and Carstares planned to safeguard in his great settle- ment, and certainly Chalmers was assured was at last vindicated by a superb sacrifice ? ' Freedom's battle, once begun, Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son. Though baffled oft, is ever won.' Is it won now ? It is not for the writer to answer more than the reader. For my own part, I must be pardoned for saying that a man who has lived to hear the astounding misreading of history and see the monstrous miscarriage of justice in the judgment of 1904 cannot but feel that, if law could say that, ^ The reader who wishes to trace more fully the historical development thus briefly outlined may be recommended to Dr. Thomas Brown's CJiurch and State hi Scotland or Mr. Hector Macpherson's Scotland s Battle for Spiritual Indepciidence. 436 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY it is (as Voltaire said of Habakkuk) capable de tout. It is enough to say that the Church of 1905 has done her duty in the matter and she has every reason to beheve she has not done it in vain. This question has issues far beyond merely one Church. Spiritual Independence is sometimes spoken of as a ' distinctive ' principle of the Scottish Church, but this is an inaccurate way of speaking. A Church has really no business to have ' distinctive ' principles. A Church's principles should be Christian principles, and if they are Christian principles, then these are not a peculiarity or prerogative of some special com- munion. What is true is that the Church in Scotland has peculiarly articulated the principle and peculiarly striven and suffered for it. But, in itself, spiritual freedom is a catholic idea, and if it is not asserted or vindicated in some other Churches that is only to their disadvantage. It may well be that the action of the United Free Church of Scotland may give a great impetus to the advancement of the development of law in general toward the recognition of the existence of the living and growing Church. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that at the present, our law (except for a very qualified recognition of change in such matters as charities) takes cognisance of only two existences with the capacity of growth — the State itself and the individual. This is plainly in- adequate to the facts of life. And law should meet the facts it has to govern. There is certainly great room for a development of legal doctrine in this respect and particularly in respect of the Church — a development such as already is to be found in American li THE DECLARATION OF LIBERTY 437 law.^ On the other hand, there are great difficulties — difficulties on the part of the law, because the very conception of a spiritually living body is hardly capable of legal definition, and also on the part of the Church, for, in some quarters (in, for example, a large section of the English Church), a deliverance from erastian bonds is not even desired. It ma^^ be that the method adopted by the United Free Church of continuing under the law of mere trusts, but stating this liberty as an essential part of the trust, will remain the only method by which Churches may achieve liberty ; in which case, facilities ought to be provided for its adop- tion. Into this wide subject I cannot here enter : but in it lies the really interesting problem of Church and State for the future. Principal Rainy, more than once, expressed a somewhat quaint regret that in the Church case in the House of Lords, there had not been found ' some great judge ' who would have taken that unique opportunity to do something which would help to * redd the marches ' on this subject. If only the Principal could have been on the Woolsack,- what an interesting judgment we might have had! 1 American law on this subject is (I understand) not that of Lord Eldon or Lord Halsbury. It does not inquire into the original principles of the trust, unless a specific trust is involved. W^here the trust is simply for the Church, the Court does not imply or manufacture its terms but treats the case on the ordinary principles of a voluntary association and regards the decision of the governing court, provided that has been arrived at in due form, as the determining authority, even though change of faith or doctrine has taken place. This principle of law was laid down by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1872 in the leading case of Watson v. Jones. 2 Mr. Gladstone, I find, was the source of the often repeated remark, that if Dr. Rainy had gone into law he would have been Lord Chancellor. He made it at Hawarden in 1895 to a Free Church minister. The remark is now so hackneyed that, but for this, I would not give it even a foot- note. 438 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY In his closing address as Moderator of this notable Assembl}', Dr. Rainy again referred to the declaration which had been passed, and I may give the passage as again stating and also safeguarding this claim to freedom. He said : — ' To make one comprehensive affirmation is a course that has been forced upon us by a negation just as general : for the judgment of the Lords proceeded on the view that they could make no distinction in doctrines more or less important. Their business was to hold the Church bound (for the purposes of any civil suit in which she might be engaged) to retain what she had at the outset of her history declared, in the sense in which the civil court understood it — and that the attempt to do otherwise entails the forfeiture of identity and of the civil rights which accompanied it. That laid on us the obliga- tion to declare plainly our position. Our faith as a Church is not grounded in the wisdom of our fathers — no human councils authoritatively bind it. Our orthodoxy is not guar- anteed by civil restraints. We are as a Church subject to the Church's Head ; we receive His revelation in the Word ; and looking for the promised grace of His Holy Spirit, we are free because we must hold ourselves ready to obey One only. But this assertion of freedom is not of the kind that fosters arrogance : rather it is akin to reverence and godly fear. And there is much in the constitution of our Church tending to deliberation and caution in the exercise of it. Besides, we are thoroughly persuaded that Christians of former days, and sister Churches of our own day, have attained under the same Master to great knowledge and certainty of Divine truth, which we share with them. Therefore, while we have something to leara, we have much also to hold fast. We are conscious, by God's grace, of our possession of a great body of doctrine, which through the Word, and also through the providence of God in the history of the Churches — through the fidelity of marytrs and fathers — through the great return to Scripture of the Reformation, through many particular conflicts and revivals, became clear and dear to our fathers, and has become so also to us. In particular, we are Scottish THE DECLARATION OF LIBERTY 439 Presbyterians ; we value the life and the traditions we inherit, though we refuse, and we need to refuse, to place them in the room of our living Head or of His Word. We own some benignant purpose of God in the genealogy of Church life in which He has cast our lot, and in the peculiar influences which are derived to us from past history. We are not insensible to this, we are not tired of it ; but it must not run into idolatr}^ We desire to draw from our history, for ourselves and those who corr j after us, all the good it has carried with it. We are not asl imed of our fathers. But they taught us that one is our He;id, even Christ, and that this holds not only for the individu^il Christian, but for the Church, for that peculiar society which He created and has promised to sustain. That the Church, every branch of it, in this relation, bears itself and performs its part most imperfectly we sadly believe and know. Nevertheless, it is the Church's life to claim this relation, to assert it, and to guard it through whatever trouble and persecution may arise.' Whatever else be in the constitution of the United Free Church of Scotland, this is. The Church had thought it was written over all her history from the Reformation, and especially in the great deed of 1843. But this kind of writing is apparently not everywhere legible. It is written now in black and white and surely may be read of all men. But to this something must be added. The Church will make a great mistake if she puts her trust finally even in this declaration. The real security of the Church's freedom is not there. It is where it has always been at each critical phase in her historic struggle — in her own faithfulness in any hour of danger. After making even the clearest declarations, after taking the amplest securities and the most careful legal precautions, it is not to be forgotten that freedom of conscience remains for a Church, as for an 440 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY individual, something to stand for and, where need is, to suffer for and never to sell or surrender. The Church that passed the historic declaration of 1905 may be free — I think, is free. But the final guarantee for it is still in Dr. Rainy 's great word — ' that Church will be free that dares to be free.' e t 1 CHAPTER XXVIIl THE RESTITUTION OF JUSTICE IT has been pointed out that no small part of the si^^nificance of the Act of the Church in thus un- compro^Tiisingly asserting her claim to liberty lay in the circumSjjance that this was done while there was yet the utriost uncertainty as to what might be done by Parliament in any proposals for the restitution of property. The secular press was, I find, somewhat at a loss to know what to make of the * unwisdom ' of this. It was only of a piece with all Dr. Rainy's methods. He was realty a man of most unswerving adherence t^ principle as something to be kept the first thing whatever the risk. At this very moment when he was reaffirming the Church's principle so uncompromisingly — almost defiantly, as some thought — the risks as to the question of property seemed to be increasing rather than passing away. The Government Bill was delayed, and it was clear, from many reports, that it was not going to be an entirely simple measure. A short bill giving the Commission executive powers and general directions to carry out the Elgin report would have satisfied the United Free Church. But persistent rumour attributed to the Government the intention of large specific endowment of the legal Free Church. Principal Rainy went up to London and saw, 442 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY among others, the Attorney-General (Sir Robert Finlay), and found him chiefly ' concerned as to how the Free Church was to be financed.' Thereafter the Principal wrote to the Prime Minister as well as to others. It is sufficient to give his letter to Mr. Balfour, which was as follows : ^ — * ']th May 1905. ' Dear Sir, — My only excuse for troubling you ar id your many preoccupations is the critical point at which thmgs now stand with reference to the Scottish Churches Bill. I have of course no information, but I have observed a disposition to take securities for the number of churches to be allotted to the Free Church and for the endowments to be given to c xupants of charges in that Church. I believe it is impossible to reckon just now how many churches should go to the Free Church because the figures as yet differ so widely ; but a Commission with powers would soon get near the truth. So it is impossible to predict in how many places the Free Church rationally could and ought to plant an ordained ministry even if they got churches. They must largely employ lay missionaries foi small groups of people, just as we in future wil' cease to have ordained ministers in thirty places where we had them before. Then among the churches claimed by the Free Church, there are forty in which there are either two churches or a church and mission-house or a church with separate hall ; and in such cases the question of accommodating both parties naturally arises. Surely we should not have new churches built amid the decreasing population of the Highlands unless on absolute necessity. Again there are cases in which two United Free Churches could be united and a church and manse left free for the Free Church — though not necessarily that which they would prefer to have. Surely all these points might be left to a free hand and a large discretion for the Commissioners. ' Fixed rules in the bill, then, will be difficult and sources of difficulty. One could understand schedules disposing of * The version I quote is ninrked ' Copy (minor alterations).' THE RESTITUTION OF JUSTICE 443 every case ; but tluit is what the Commission is to arrive at, not to depart from. ' Finally, we dread an immense diversion of Trust funds from their original purpose for the sake of equipping a small Church on a chimerical scale — that is, on the scale of their claims and expectations. They must have houses for worship, college, hall and offices, and a large share of Sustentation Fund capital and Highland endowments. But a Church mainly upheld by fixed endowments at the cost of Funds con- tributed for totally different purposes is a quite diiferent thing. All these questions, however, we are willing to leave to a Commission of men like the Royal Commission, who knew how to get at facts and to apply Christian sympathies and common sense to the situation. ' I must again apologise for asking your attention to these considerations. — Yours very truly, Robert Rainy.' There was another source of anxiety regarding the forthcoming bill. This was the complication of the matter by the introduction of the large and contro- versial, or at least debatable, subject of relief to Churches generally in their relation to their doctrinal subscrip- tion. It gradually became apparent that nothing was likely to be attempted in this direction on a large scale. But in connection with one Church — ^namely, the Established Church of Scotland — it assumed an unexpected urgency, and an element suddenly was introduced into the situation which had the possibility of new dangers for the bill, though, it should be added, some observers took a different view. The circum- stances connected with this are of interest and are not irrelevant to our story. For a number of years (as was mentioned in the earlier chapter which dealt with the passing in the Free Church of the Declaratory Act of 1892) a move- 444 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY ment had been carried on in the Estabhshed Church, under the leadership of Principal Story, for the relaxa- tion of the stringent bonds of the Confession of Faith. This had resulted in the Assembly, which was legally advised that it had no power to pass a Declaratory Act/ approving of certain resolutions on the subject, particu- larly in 1903, when it was declared that * the Confession of Faith is to be regarded as an infallible rule of faith and worship only in so far as it accords with the Holy Scriptures, interpreted by the Holy Spirit.' With this somewhat curious deliverance — which declares some- thing nobody ever denied, least of all the Confession itself — the question subsided, it being explicitly stated that nothing more could be done without consent of Parliament. The idea of going to Parliament was put aside as impossible. Dr. Scott, the leader of the Assembly, denounced the suggestion in the following strong terms : — ' If they went to the State to get a modification of the Con- fession of Faith or of their relation to it, they would be opposed by their own people, they would be opposed by the whole dissenters of Scotland, they would be opposed by their very friends in the Government — there could not be a more insane proposal.' ^ This was in 1903. But the judgment of 1904 and the prospect of a parliamentary measure dealing with it seemed to leaders of the Established Church to give ^ ' He said boldly, with all the contidence he could give to a legal propo- sition, that the Church had no power whatever, unless it was prepared to break its bargain with the State and give up that connection, to make such a Declaratory Act as their friends over the way passed some years ago.' — Sir John Cheyne, Procurator to the Church of Scotland, in the Assembly of 1903. ^ Debate in Established Church General Assembly, 27th May 1903. THE RESTITUTION OF JUSTICE 445 an opportunity too good to be lost to apply for what, a year or two before, it would have been ' insane ' to ask. Accordingly Lord Balfour of Burleigh, as Convener of the Church Interests Committee, brought before the Assembly of 1905 (though his Committee had had no remit on this subject) a recommendation to approach Parliament to secure for the Church the repeal of certain Acts binding her ministers very stringently to the Confession of Faith and also per- mission to make her own formula of subscription. There was a long debate over the proposal and several amendments were moved, among them one proposing to refer the matter for the consideration of Presbyteries, which, in view of Dr. Scott's declara- tion two years before, that ' they would be opposed by their own people,' seemed not uncalled for. But by some power of persuasion other than the force of public debate, every amendment was withdrawn. Lord Balfour's motion was carried unanimously amid enthusiasm. This was on 24th May. On 3rd June, it was stated in the press that the Church of Scotland's request would be included in the Government Bill dealing with the Free Church trust. It was inevitable that this sudden action on the part of the Established Church should provoke a certain amount of criticism in sections of the United Free Church ; but fortunately any hostility thus awakened was not predominant. Certainly some were inclined to regard the action as a not very considerate jumping on to a neighbour's back in the mid-stream of his troubles in order to be quickly borne across waters w^hich the Established Church had admittedly shrunk 446 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY from venturing to ford alone. And clearly, it was a fresh case of a State Church securing from a friendly Government something for which — as in the Patronage Act — another's staunchness and sacrifices were paying the price. Moreover, from the more public point of view, it was justly to be observed that this was a change in the contract between the Established Church and the nation and yet the constituencies of neither had been consulted. Nevertheless, the general feeling in the United Free Church was that no opposition should be offered to this movement. Not certainly that, in any sense, this was doctrinal liberty as the United Free Church understood and claimed it. The very altering of the statutory bond was a reminder of it : you cannot lengthen a chain without clanking it. But if this was what the Established Church desired in the way of relaxation, it was not for the Church which claimed real liberty (and claimed it not for herself alone) to grudge it. As for the time of it. Lord Balfour disclaimed any idea of taking an unfair advantage of other people's troubles, and that disclaimer was — as was right it should be — accepted. The Advisory Committee, on behalf of the United Free Church, took up a strictly ' correct ' attitude on this matter. No responsibility was taken for its introduction, but, neither directly nor indirectly, was any opposition offered, though it was considered that, as it dealt with a quite separate matter, it should not be made part of the bill dealing with the disputed funds and property. Moreover, as the part of the bill dealing with the Free Church property was really urgent and must be passed, if prolonged controversy arose over this new element THE RESTITUTION OF JUSTICE 447 and thus threatened to delay or wreck the bill, then the United Free Church reserved the right to reconsider her attitude. There was, at first, considerable anxiety as to this, and Principal Rainy was undisguisedly anxious about it. But the position taken by the Church was as indicated above, and I find Dr. Rainy writing on these lines to Sir Henry Campbell- Bannerman, who was much exercised over this new development. It was, then, amid uncertainties and anxieties such as these that Principal Rainy went up to London immediately after the close of the Assembly of 1905 as one of a deputation from the Advisory Committee, to look after the interests of the Church in connection with the bill. He had aged visibly since the day, less than a year before, when he walked out of the House of Lords after the j udgment . One reason for this the public did not know. It was some weeks before this date that the glandular swelling which eventually developed into the serious affection that proved incurable and ended his work, first gave Dr. Rainy anxiety, and he, at this very time, consulted two London specialists about it. As has been said, the public had no hint of this, and it was well, for a strong man in a struggle hates to be pitied — at least by strangers. But now it is all over, we may perceive the pathos of it, that this most personal reminder of human frailty should be brought home to him just when this long battle was come to its critical issue. There is no doubt that at this time Dr. Rainy was very anxious. One day in the Advisory Committee, when very dark forecasts of the Govern- ment Bill had been sent in from parliamentary friends. 448 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY he sat still in his chair at the close and then looked up and said we must remember that these things were really settled on another plane from that of human calculation and that we must ' take the whole matter anew to God.' On another day, when the prospects seemed worse, his face set like stone as he listened, and at the end, after a pause, he quoted the prayer of Ajax for hght by which to die. My distinct impression is that Dr. Rainy was far more anxious on the day he returned to Westminster for redress than on the day he had left it defeated. On the latter occasion, he was going to appeal to his Church and his country, and he did that with a great deal of confidence. Now the issue lay in the quicksands of politics and was by no means sure. The day before the bill was to be introduced into the House of Commons, he asked the Prime Minister for an interview ; but Mr. Balfour, in a most courteous reply, said this might do harm rather than good, for any points in the bill the Free Church might dislike ' would certainly be attributed to your inspiration,' and he invited suggestions after the measure was introduced. ' The Churches (Scotland) Bill ' was at last brought into the House of Commons on 7th June by the Lord Advocate, Mr. C. Scott Dickson, in whose charge it was placed, as Mr. Graham Murray — ^greatly to the loss of politics and of this question in particular but equally to the gain of the Scottish bench — had by this time resigned the Secretaryship for Scotland in order to become Lord President of the Court of Session in succession to Lord Kinross. The chief provisions of the bill were as follows. It established an executive THE RESTITUTION OF JUSTICE 449 Commission to allocate the property between the Free and United Free Churches ' fairly and equit- ably but subject to the provisions of this Act.' * Adequate provision ' was to be made for certain specified Free Church objects — the support of the ministry and other schemes, including ' general pur- poses ' — and the Commission was directed to appro- priate for these ' such of the property as they think proper.' Congregational buildings were to be given to the Free Church wherever its members and ad- herents were one-third of * what, in the opinion of the Commissioners, would have been the number of the congregation if the Union had not taken place.' Other details as to procedure followed. Then appeared — in Clause 5 — the strangely irrelevant provision grant- ing the Established Church power to fix its formula of subscription to the Confession of Faith, while a subsection in the last clause repealed parts of certain statutes of 1693 and 1707 which had bound every signatory in that Church to accept that document as ' the confession of his faith.' These were the essential provisions of the bill. The only speaker on the first reading (besides the Lord Advocate) was Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who fastened his criticism chiefly on the already famous ' Clause 5.' The measure certainly did the essential thing which the situation demanded by appointing an executive Commission to re-allocate the property. But the manner in which this re-allocation was to be made was such that the gravest question was raised as to what attitude should be taken to the bill. This is said not merely from the point of view of the interests of VOL. ir. 2 F 450 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY the United Free Church. It is said not less from the pubhc point of view as represented in the report of the Royal Commission. That Commission had declared that, in any readjustment, ' the first consideration should be adequate provision for the due performance of the purposes for which the funds were raised and the trusts on which they are held.' The bill not only ignored this ' first consideration,' but deliberately violated it by permitting the ' pooling ' of all the separate trusts— for missions or colleges or any other object — to make up what was needed for the endow- ment of the legal Free Church. This was not only a disregard both of the chief recommendation of the Commission and of the very principle of the judgment, but it was also legalising malversation. If there was one thing which, in these months of controversy, had really got into the public mind and conscience of Scotland, it was that it was unrighteous malversa- tion of funds to take money given, say, for Foreign Missions or Colleges, and apply it to, say, the * general purposes ' of the legal Free Church. A settlement which was based on such lines would not end the breach between law and ethics which had existed in Scotland since the judgment began to be put in operation. This ' pooling ' of the trusts, whether done by an individual or by Act of Parliament, was not a proper use of the money, and it was no answer to this to say that the trust had already been broken as a whole, and might therefore be broken also in its compartments. On this point, public opinion at once voiced itself. But there were other serious dangers in the bill besides this primary one. The provision to give buildings to the legal Free THE RESTITUTION OF JUSTICE 451 Church wherever they could get persons to the number of one-third of the congregation at the Union to come forward now and declare themselves members or adherents of the Church invited gross abuse. The farcical character of the lists put forward as containing these ' followers ' was matter of notoriety, and if an allocation of buildings was to be made that would really command public consent, the calculation would need to be made on some securer basis. Moreover, the word ' adherent ' in the bill was absolutely undefined as to age or any other qualification. One other serious defect in the bill should be mentioned. It made no mention of the large number of legacies — amount- ing to betw^een two hundred thousand and three hundred thousand pounds — which had fallen in since 1900. If these were not included in the scope of the allocation, the legal Free Church would of course claim them under the judgment and be endowed twice over. Moreover, this second endowment would still be held only for its specific trust purposes — for missions or whatever else was the purpose — and many of these the legal Free Church could not fulfil, so there would soon arise another derelict trust and the need for new parliamentary intervention. These were some of the grave defects of the bill, which, however, had one feature which was a great relief to the mind of the United Free Church. There was no attempt to accompany the restitution to that Church with any hampering conditions. The property was to be held under the Church's constitution ; and thus it was made manifest that the bold policy followed by the uncompromising claim to freedom had justified itself 452 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY and indeed was made not a da}^ too soon. It was in full knowledge of that bold claim — which was by Royal Command laid on the table of both Houses of Parliament — that the bill proposed to act. The Lord Advocate's words on this important point may be quoted : — ' We propose that the United Free Church, even after that declaration of power to alter her subordinate standards, should receive the property subject only to its being appropriated to "similar purposes" as it now stands appropriated to — that is to say. Home Mission property will stand appropriated to Home Missions, Foreign Missions to Foreign Missions, and so on — but otherwise no condition shall be attached to the property to be given to the United Free Church.' ^ This, of course, was entirely satisfactory to the United Free Church. But in the important provisions that have been indicated, the bill was really a bad bill, and, if the Government would not accept amendments on these, it would certainly become a grave question whether the United Free Church could accept it as a settlement. The situation at this moment was critical and un- certain. Dr. Rainy wrote of it thus to his son George in India : — ' What we may do if we don't succeed in getting amend- ments, I don't know. Some of our calmest men advise that if we don't get amendments we ought to oppose the bill out and out and allow the legal Frees to do their worst. I am very unwilling to come to that conclusion, but I am impressed by the kind of men who say that under the bill we might possibly be worse off than we should be the other way. ^ 4 Hansard, cxlvii. 975. THE RESTITUTION OF JUSTICE 453 ' This intense preoccupation about questions of property is not quite safe. We need to feel that there are interests far more important, and if God sees we are losing sight of these, perhaps fresh troubles are a very fit way of bringing us to a wiser mind.' The critical nature of the situation at this moment lay here. On the one hand, the bill as it stood was disastrous. On the other, to ' oppose it out and out ' would be at once to make the whole matter a party question and that meant delay and all manner of danger. The only wise course was to press steadily on non-party lines for certain crucial amendments. This, during the next few weeks, Dr. Rainy did with remarkable prudence and perseverance, and in the end with a large degree of success. The story of these negotiations for the amendments desired by the United Free Church is, in the nature of the case, one that cannot be detailed in an historical narrative. It was done by continual conferences, by meetings with members of Parliament and, above all, by private interviews with ministers of State. In this delicate and responsible work, Principal Rainy took the most influential part, and did it in a spirit and with an assiduous devotion that were extraordinary. The members of the deputation met together daily. Dr. Rainy's few and simple words of opening prayer were a feature the mention of which should not be omitted. Then he worked, and required others to work. The deputation frequently sat for hours continuously, but Dr. Rainy never seemed to flag, and his alertness as well as force and clearness of mind were astonishing. Then followed meetings with the Scottish members 454 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY of Parliament connected with the United Free Church. Here it is right to put on record the great debt the Church owes to the aid given at this time by Mr. Thomas Shaw, to whom was entrusted the care of the amend- ments pressed for by the deputation ; and with him should also be mentioned Unionist members — notably Colonel Denny and Mr. Cameron Corbett — whose active co-operation did invaluable service in preserving the non-party character of the question. At first little progress was made. There seemed to be some resisting power behind, which the repre- sentatives of the United Free Church were unable to reach. Of course, too, the other side was making its representations, and its vantage ground in law was strong. In these circumstances, it would be impossible to overstate what the interests of the United Free Church owed to the really great personality of Principal Rainy. Of this, a member of the Church's deputation — Professor George Adam Smith — has given a true description in the following sentences : — ' In so crowded and busy a situation, what one remembers most is Dr. Rainy himself. We met and heard many of the foremost men of the time, but to see him with them was to recognise that none was built bigger than he was. All classes whom he touched were impressed by the power and the dignity of his bearing, and his word had as full authority as that of the highest. We were in the position of appellants with the difficult task of justifying our claims before Parliament against the highest court of the land. But more than once, his unique experience and his sheer moral force would, for the moment, seem to reverse these relations, and his quiet word would be accepted as the decisive sentence on the issue. At one conference, a member of the Government was impatient THE RESTITUTION OF JUSTICE 455 over some suggestion that Dr. Rainy put before him, and sprang to his feet saying, " You ask this, and they ask that : what are we to do between you ? " Dr. Rainy 's quiet reply was, " You are there to see justice done between us." The sympathy and reasonableness of his mind were manifest in his appreciation of convictions on the other side of the case and of the difficulties and sincerity of the Government ; but these never impaired the clearness and force with which he put for- ward our claims. On one occasion we had reason to know that his quiet review of a part of the situation, given rather as by a judge of the case than as by the advocate of one of the parties, was the cause of an important modification of the Bill.' The above is an impression v^hich many could corroborate. The result of it all was remarkably manifested when — on 4th July — the second reading was taken. In his first sentence, the Lord Advocate announced important amendments. The Government agreed there should be no ' pooling ' of the separate trusts in order to endow the legal Free Church. They were prepared to include the subject of legacies. On the crucial question of the basis on which to reckon members and adherents, they made the important concession that it should be the state of the congregation in igoo : that is to say, only those who could prove a connection with a Free Church congregation then would be reckoned, and thus the somewhat dubious ' Free Churchmen ' whose zeal for the faith of their fathers had suddenly revived with the announcement of the windfall which was brought b}' the judgment, were debarred from the reckoning. With this, however, the Lord Advocate intimated that as a quid pro quo to the legal Free Church the proportion required to obtain a building might be reduced from a third to a fourth. On Clause 5, he was frank. He 456 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY pointed to the freedom the United Free Church claimed and possessed, and said this ' would handicap the Church of Scotland,' for ' younger men desiring to enter the ministry would enter the wider portals of the /United Free Church and the Church of Scotland would not get the more tender consciences.' ^ A more naive admission showing to whom the Estab- lished Church was really indebted for this relief could hardly be made. But the battle for freedom always has this among its fine features — that it benefits even non-combatants. This is, indeed, one of the blessings of fighting it : — ' Happy are all free peoples, too strong to be dispossessed ; But blessed are those among nations who dare to be strong for the rest.' In all this, however, there is, as has been said before, nothing to grudge to a sister Church. While comment such as the above could not but be freely made in the United Free Church, it was made quite good- humouredly, and the general feeling certainly was to wish the Established Church only well in a relief which, by the confession of those who gave it, she had been granted because some one else had been ' too strong to be dispossessed ' and had thus been strong for others too. The debate on the second reading need not detain us. It was an admirable debate, and made it manifest that at least all the Scottish members realised that the mess into which the judgment had plunged the country must be remedied. To this feeling, no one gave more ' 4 Hansard, cxiviii. lOio. THE RESTITUTION OF JUSTICE 457 representative expression than did Sir Henry Campbell- Bannerman, who, however opinions may differ as to his views on questions which divide parties, was on a matter such as this a * member for Scotland ' as few, if any other, Scottish parhamentarians were. His opening statement may be quoted as giving an outside view — and really the public view — of a judgment and a situation which have, in these pages, been recorded from the Church's standpoint. He said : — ' The decision of last year came like a thunderbolt on the people of Scotland. But the people of Scotland are a sensible and law-abiding people, legal in their disposition, and they have accepted loyally that decision, subject to two reservations to which I think it right to refer. In the first place, it would not be fair to conceal the fact that there is an underlying sentiment that the judgment is weak in one . particular — namely, that it was the judgment of a number of eminent men, perfectly impartial and perfectly competent, no doubt, in their own sphere ; but men who, with one exception, had no personal acquaintance with the conditions, history, sentiment, and feeling of the people of Scotland, and men who did not possess full knowledge of the actual situation. This point had been decided in Scotland at every stage in the career of litigation, going from one court to another, and by every judge whose duty it was to form an opinion on the subject it was decided in an opposite sense to the decision given by the House of Lords. However loyal we may be and are to the judicial arrangements of the country, we cannot somehow get this altogether out of our hearts. Then there is another thing. After all, the Church is not a limited liability company or a great engineering concern. It exists for a higher, nobler and more beneficent purpose. The sight of this great ecclesiastical organisation which permeates Scotland and which reaches out its hand in missionary effort to the ends of the earth — an organisation created and sustained among us by efforts and sacrifices perhaps as splendid as anything the history of mankind can show — that this organisation 458 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY should be stripped of its power to fulfil its great functions and its funds handed over to a small number of men who have no pretension that they can fulfil these great duties, moved the heart and conscience of Scotland more than anything in our generation. Therefore, while we accept the decision of the Supreme Court, we accept it subject to these feelings and convictions ; and we feel, with all respect, that the tribunal ought to have taken into account the ultimate result of their decision. At all events, it becomes clear that this legal wrong must be righted.' ^ It surely is rare — happily rare — that a responsible leader in Parliament comments in such free terms on a judicial decision, yet it was done without a whisper of protest from any quarter of the House. In the debate that followed, the only matter that really caused cleavage was Clause 5. On this, some erastian and non- conformist English members divided against the second reading, which was, however, carried by more than three to one. Immediately after the second reading debate in the House of Commons, a special meeting of the Commission of Assembly of the United Free Church was held to receive the report of the Advisory Committee on the bill. Principal Rainy made a long statement dealing with various matters of detail. He gave the Government full credit for much, but made this general criticism : — ' The Government were considering the question too much as one between two contending parties with reference to whom they would make a concession on this side or on that, and did not sufficiently realise the position which they had assigned to themselves as men whose business it was to regulate the application of trust funds and to make sure as their primary duty that trust property was applied to its proper purpose, ^ 4 llainurd^ cxlviii. 1025. THE RESTITUTION OF JUSTICE 459 and beneficially applied, by those who would administer it to that effect.' This was a just criticism — the original proposal of the Government to * pool ' the funds is in itself sufficient proof of it — and it is an example of Dr. Rainy's habitual faculty of stating his case, not as his case on his side, but on general public grounds which were the grounds on which the Government should act. It was reasoning of this kind which was the real lever he so successfully applied in many of his negotiations in the matter, and it was the kind of reasoning to which there was no answer. On Clause 5, Principal Rainy, in his speech at this Commission, was careful only to repudiate the idea which had been advanced by some Established Church members of Parliament that the State was in the bill ' giving ' the United Free Church its freedom, from which it was argued something might also be given to the other Church. On this Dr. Rainy spoke in characteristic vein as follows amid much applause : — ' He did not deal wdth that further than to say that the Government was not giving them, the United Free Church, any liberty. It was not proposing to interfere with their liberty. It had not threatened them with any privations of their liberty and they had not supposed or taken it for granted that it even wished to do so. It was dealing with property, and most emphatically, in dealing with that property, it was not pretending to give benefits to any party but to provide for the efficient administration of trusts. They regarded the desire of the Government to enter into this matter as prompt and worthy on the part of the Government, and they were grateful to it ; but they were not to be regarded as having any liberty given them by the Government in the history of the bill or any stage of it. Their liberty w^as liberty which they had vindicated for themselves.' 460 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Into the details of this speech we need not enter. A motion was adopted upon the various aspects of the bill, the suggestion as to Clause 5 being that it dealt with a subject quite distinct and should not form part of this bill. This meeting of Commission supplied an illustration of how strenuously the venerable Principal was spending himself for the Church. He had had meetings in London the day before, had travelled down all night, and was travelling up to London again the next night to speak at a great meeting in the Queen's Hall, which had been organised in order to enlighten English opinion on the situation. This Queen's Hall meeting was a great success, but it is impossible to stay to quote from its speeches here. After the second reading was over, the battle of negotiating for amendments was resumed. It must not be thought that the amendments intimated by the Government were adequate from the point of view of the United Free Church. But on some things the Government were curiously firm. There were words in the bill confessedly ambiguous. What, for example, is an ' adherent ' ? What is ' adequate ' provision for the Free Church ? Does it mean, as perhaps from an Established Church point of view it might be held to mean, complete endowment, or, as certainly had always been the system in a Free Church, a fund auxiliary to continual free-will offerings ? On such points the Government did not differ from what the United Free Church took the words to mean, but they would not agree to make the meaning more explicit. The bill in places was a ' concealed ' bill, and this, it was frankly admitted, it had to be to meet some one's THE RESTITUTION OF JUSTICE 401 * susceptibilities.' With this cryptic yet significant observation, the United Free Church had to be con- tent. On one important point, however, the Church — one might say, Principal Rainy personally — scored a great gain. It will be remembered that the Lord Advocate, in intimating that they would go back to the congregation of 1900 as the basis of calculation, added that, as a counterbalance to this, they might reduce the proportion required by the Free Church in order to qualify for a building, from one-third to one- fourth. Now, the Government practically gave the United Free Church the choice of either alternative. If you want to go back to igoo, you must take it at a fourth. If you agree to the basis of calculation in the bill, 3^ou will get it at a third. Here was a fine occasion for a trial of wits. The Prime Minister said to Principal Rainy categorically (the Principal told me this himself), ' You can get either, Dr. Rainy, but you cannot get both ' — that is, both the year 1900 and the proportion of a third. The end of the story is that the United Free Church got both. The result is a tribute to Dr. Rainy's remarkable power of argument, but it is also a tribute to Mr. Balfour's openness of mind to the force of a reasoned position, even though its acceptance involved going back on his own ultimatum. The amendments were rapidly passed through Com- mittee — Clause 5 alone leading to much discussion and division, but it was carried by 270 to 157 — and the bill went up to the House of Lords a very different measure from what had been introduced into the Lower House. As a Conservative ministry was in office, there was no danger to a Government measure 462 THE T.IFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY to be apprehended in the second chamber, but naturally there was interest as to what might be said of it in a place not unconnected with the reason of its exist- ence. The second reading was moved on 31st July — the day before the anniversary of the judgment — by the Marquis of Linlithgow, Secretary for Scotland, who made a sym- pathetic speech. As soon as he had finished, up rose Lord Robertson. After an explanatory justification for speaking though he had been one of the judges in the case of the previous year, he proceeded to point out that the bill raised questions ' which involved the most serious consequences to propert}^' He objected to these two bodies being treated in the bill as * com- petitors ' for the property. ' One,' he asserted emphati- cally, * is the true owner and the other is not the true owner ' — a remark the maker of which surely forgot that the Free Church was not legally absolute owner, but was merely a trustee for certain specific purposes. The proper course. Lord Robertson maintained, was first to deal only with the Free Church, relieving it merely of what it could not administer and putting this ' at the free disposal of Parliament,' which * might say that it should go to the Established Church and not the United Free Church.' ^ Now, whatever may be thought of Lord Robertson's intervention on this subject, it must be admitted that his speech politically took a view of property rights which might be supposed to be acceptable to the House of Lords, and, legally, suggested a course which indubitably was a quite arguable one. And yet the speech was received with ' 4 ILitis>ir(f, cl. 850 I'/ sr//. THE RESTITUTION OF JUSTICE 463 the most chilling silence. The Lord Chancellor sat as if he had no earthly connection with or interest in the question — though surel}^ one might imagine that he was, in his legal capacity, not unconcerned with a proposal to take property forcibly away from persons to whom the law had assigned it, and, in his political capacity, not indifferent to any charge of being in a government whose bills ' involved the most serious consequences to property.' But he had not a word to utter, and eloquent as he had been about predestination the year before, it is just to say his silence now was more eloquent still. A general debate followed of no particular importance, and it was closed by Lord Rosebery, who counselled Lord Robertson not to ' apply too much of his legal acumen ' to the matter. The sequel, when the Committee stage was reached, was not less remarkable and amusing. The venerable Earl of Wemyss appeared and was greeted with warm congratulatory cheers, for the day was his eighty- seventh birthday. He was a fine picture of vitality, and his voice filled the Chamber as he uttered his protest against this ' State interference with property.' He drew an appalling picture of a government ' with a Socialist Prime Minister ' saying some day to the leader of the House, Lord Lansdowne, that he had ' more than is adequate ' and perhaps even taking Lans- downe House awa}^ from him. The title of the Free Church was, he maintained, ' indefeasible ' and — here Lord Wemyss appealed straight to the Lord Chancellor who had given it — ' had been affirmed by a decision of their Lordships' House.' He ccncluded by saying he would move amendments. Lord Robertson rose next, 464 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY but declared his intention to refrain from moving amendments, as at first he had meant to do. The reason he gave was surely the most remarkable ever heard in the House of Lords. He ' shrank from crystallising opinion on his own side in favour of the dangerous opinions to which he objected.' Here was a dilemma indeed for a faithful peer. The bill, Lord Robertson held, was Socialistic ; but he dared not move against it, because that would be to forctf his fellow peers (since the bill must go through) to vote for Socialism. So he refrained, comforting himself with the feeling that the House was passing the bill with a contemptuous tolerance as * a Scotch experiment/ Lord Wemyss's amendments were then rejected, and the measure passed through — the last word said being a pious hope from the venerable Earl that the Commissioners would not heed * the prayers of Dr. Rainy.' The Principal heard and watched all this from the steps beside the throne — usually reserved for Privy Councillors — to which a member of the House had conducted him. The whole affair had an air of comedy which was a welcome relief after so many months of strain. The silent figure on the woolsack was the most interesting of all. Miserum est tacere cogi quod cupias loqui. ^ Thus was passed into law a measure unique on the British statute-book. So far as the present writer can learn, there is no other instance (in modern times) of an Act of Parliament forcibly depriving persons of property to which they had made out their legal title to the satisfaction of the supreme tribunal of the land, ' ' It is wretched to be compelled to be silent on what you long to speak about.' A saying of Publius Syrus. THE RESTITUTION OF JUSTICE 405 and arranging that the greater part of it be given to persons who had been declared in law to have no right to it.^ As a writer at the time of the Free Church judg- ment said in an influential organ of legal opinion : — ' Acts are not infrequently passed to remove foy the future what judgments of the court have shown to be hardships. But to take from a successful litigant by an Act of Parliament \\hat the law has allowed him would be a dangerous precedent.' ''^ Nothing can now obliterate from legal history the fact that the judgment of 1904 made this ' dangerous pre- cedent ' unavoidable, and that the Act of 1905 actually has created it. It will not do, as Lord Robertson attempted, to dismiss this with contemptuous tolerance as merely a Scottish experiment. A single sentence suffices to show that it was something far more serious. A decision of the House of Lords as to the distribu- tion of property had been, up to the passing of the Churches Act, absolutely final : it is no longer so. That is the result of August ist, 1904. I venture to say no legal authority is disposed to congratulate himself or the law upon this result of a legal judgment in the supreme court. In the second reading debate in the Upper House, Lord Rosebery spoke of the bill as ' respecting the soundness of the decision.' Not even the fact that the words were spoken by the most beautiful public voice in England could make them sound other than almost 1 The Dissenters Chapels Act of 1S44 — passed to obviate further litiga- tion after the House of Lords' decision in the well known Hewley case (1842) — is no precedent for the retrospective action taken in the Churches (Scotland) Act. The debates on the Act of 1844 will be found in 3 Hansard^ Ixxiv., Ixxv. - The Law Qua) terly Revieiu^ xx. 426. VOL. II. 2 G 466 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY cruelly ironical. Respect is a good thing. The more respect the law has, the better for it, and the better for the country. Well ; is there a single judge in the land who is ambitious of this form of respect for his decisions ? Can, indeed, any one who desires — as every right-thinking man must desire — to see the good name and the unquestioned authority of our supreme courts of justice upheld and magnified do otherwise than hope that this respect will not need soon to be paid again to a legal judgment ? The truth is that Lord Halsbury and his colleagues in the majority in this famous case have done a worse turn to the law than to the Church which seemed so smitten by the result. The last word on the whole matter Principal Rainy said to me was, ' It has done us good.' Will any Lord Chancellor or ex-Lord Chancellor say of the House of Lords as a judicial court, ' It has done us good ' ? Is it a good thing for the prestige of the supreme tribunal of the land that the results of one of its decisions have thus been largely reversed by a Parliamentary Commission ? Not only is this not a good thing, but it is, in very truth, ' a dangerous precedent.' There is only one thing which will, to at least some extent, detract from its character as a precedent, and make it something exceptional. That is, to admit that the judgment itself was that most exceptional thing in our judicial decisions — simply an error. The alternatives are these — either admit that five eminent but fallible men made a bad blunder, or establish the precedent that the results of even a right legal judgment may be reversed, and that retrospectively, at the instance of a parliamentary THE RESTITUTION OF JUSTICE 467 majority. One may leave the judges to impale them- selves on whichever horn of that dilemma they may find the more agreeable. The safe conclusion will to many readers seem that the sooner this historically and legislatively discredited judgment of ist August 1904 comes to be frankly looked on as — one does not expect or even desiderate it should be formally declared to be — simply an error (made, of course, in all bona fides) the better for the prestige of the supreme tribunal of the land, the decisions of which were a final and unalterable word till this indelible wound was inflicted on their finality by the hands, not of an enemy, but of its appointed highest custodiers. CHAPTER XXIX THE CLOSING YEAR ! ILLNESS THE work which Principal Rainy had gone through during the twelve months since the judgment of August 1904 was, for one of his years, extraordinary, and, with the passing of the Churches Bill into law, he looked forward (as he wrote to one of his family) ' to a little rest.' Assuredly he had well earned it. But there was waiting for him a burden of a different kind which deepened into a great sorrow. Mrs. Rainy was ill and was not get- ting better. It is pathetic how, during this period of exceptionally heavy public responsibility, Dr. Rainy's mind was also burdened with private anxieties. First, there was the appearance of his own glandular trouble ; and now, his wife's illness. His own health, it should be said, had not continued to give much cause for fear and the swellings in the glands almost dis- appeared. But Mrs. Rainy, too evidently, was not going to get better. ' We must realise,' wrote the Principal in a letter in July, * that the evening is falling.' In family letters, he wrote touchingly how grieved he was to be compelled to be so much away from her side, and how ' brave and cheerful ' she was about it. During August and September she grew worse, but her bright spirit did not fail her. In one of ■u;8 THE CLOSING YEATJ : ILLNESS 4G9 his published sermons, Dr. Rainy says, ' Do not make dying a separate thing from Uving ; let the one and the other be continuous parts of one unbroken fellowship with Christ, so that you may die at last departing to that which is far better, on the self-same principles and grounds on which you have gone about any day's or any hour's avocations.' ^ Mrs. Rainy 's last service was to give illustration to these words : 'she went down the valley,' said her husband, ' in the same simple way in which she went througli the other stages of her life.' She died, without suffering, on 30th September. The event evoked so much sympathy that the funeral had to be made public. The Principal had the comfort of being surrounded by all the members of his family (except his son George, in India), for Principal and Mrs. Harper and their children had come home from Sydney for a visit. The following is from a letter written by Dr. Rainy to the Rev. Alexander Lee a few days after the death : — ' I cannot say that I realise what nas happened. I know she is gone who was the light of my home and of my life. But I don't know what it means. I would not be the least surprised if she opened the door and walked in. It is as if she were in another room. And so she is, but it is higher up on the ever- lasting hills. What it means will come home to me as the daj's go by. ' I have received a great flood of most sympathetic letters, and it has gratified me much to see in many of them such a discriminating appreciation of my dear wife. It ma}' interest you to know that M'Neilage, Rounsfell Brown, and Macleod of Oban ^ have written ; also, of the Established Church, Dr. ^ Sojoi(7->u}ig luitJi Got/, and otJier Scrvions, 265. 2 Moderator of the Free Church Assembly. 470 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Scott, Cameron Lees, Forrest, and Elder Gumming, besides laymen. ' I believe it will be good for me to keep up with what goes on.' To another friend he wrote : — ' I must always feel the empty place, and yet 1 should be most ungrateful if I did not consider that eight-and-forty years of happy life together are not given to many married couples. Also there was much of Divine gentleness in the circumstances of her last illness. It remains that I should seek to learn the lessons set for me, and 1 am still a very slow scholar.' In a letter, some weeks later, to his son George, he wrote : — ' The days run on and it is more than a month now since your beloved mother died. Nothing can deprive me of the memory — nor of the fact — of forty-eight years filled and gladdened by a great affection on both sides. Then — the love and loyalty of our children. All that has left its rich deposit in my life and has made me very rich. If now I am enabled to be alike rich towards God, how good it will be.' In another letter to the same, after speaking of the political changes taking place at the time, he goes on : — * But how deeply interested your dear mother would have been in all that is going on. One constantly thinks of telling her. But, as it is in Balde's poem — "J3dla super et Suecica castra, Nubesque levaris, et astra; Penetrare quo nequeat sors, Multo minus attonita mors. Inde mundi despiciens molem, Lunam pede calcas et solem ; Dulce sonat ex aethere vox, Hyems transiit, occidit nox." ' ^ ' ' High above wars and the camps of the Swede thou soarest, and the clouds and the stars, where chance cannot penetrate nor dismayed death. THE CLOSING YEAR: ILLNESS 471 Through all his married hfe, Dr. Rainy had been not only the tenderest of husbands but the true lover of his wife, and the change which the greatest of earthly losses meant to him was something that cannot be written. Things such as these are too really of a man's life ever to be told in a biography. Thus the very title of this book is, after all, a fallacy. Quietly and steadily, the Principal continued to work for the Church in the Advisory Committee in connection with the proceedings of the Executive Commission which had been appointed under the Churches Act. This Commission — the members of which were the three previous Royal Commissioners (the Earl of Elgin, Lord Kinnear, and Sir Ralph Anstruther, Bart.), with, in addition, Sir Thomas Gibson-Carmichael, Bart., and Sir Charles Logan — issued a recommendation that the two parties should confer with a view to agree as far as possible and so facilitate the work of allocation. Principal Rainy, as Convener of the Advisory Com- mittee, at once wrote to the authorities of the Free Church, saying * we welcome the opportunity of friendly conference ' and offering to meet their views as to time and place and other arrangements. A formal acknow- ledgment was received, and later the following reply from the official secretary of the Free Church : — ' Although the Free Church holds that the Act which the Government has deemed it expedient to pass is essentially unjust, especially in that it is calculated to deprive of their Thence, thou lookest down on the great globe, sun and moon beneath thy feet, and thy voice sounds sweetly from the sky — "Winter is past, the night is gone."' Balde was a German Jesuit who flourished in the seventeenth century (at the time of the wars of Gustavus Adolphus 'the Swede'), and his poems won high praise from Herder and others. 472 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY rights in the property of the Church many considerable bodies of Free Church people whose legal title was perfect and who have done nothing whatever to forfeit their property, and to endow with it another Church, the Law and Advisory Com- mittee have, nevertheless, resolved that it is their duty to facilitate the work of the Executive Commission and to appear before the Commission and to contend for the third time for the rights and property of the Church, The Committee are therefore prepared to act on the recommendation of the Commissioners by instructing their law-agents to communicate with your agents on the lines suggested by the Commissioners. I am instructing our Agents accordingly. " Friendly con- ference between the parties," I may add, seems to us neither necessary nor appropriate. The principles on which the property is to be allocated have been defined in the Act, and all that remains to be done is to apply these principles to the existing facts — a matter of business properly to be entrusted to Agents. The time for party conference was before the legal decision was pronounced. These considerations appear to be conclusive, and therefore it is fortunately unnecessary to lay stress on the fact that it might be difficult to find among your representative men, those qualified to meet us in friendly conference by reason of the opinions held, and at least publicly expressed, within the last year by many of those regarding the Free Church and its leaders.' This letter is not quoted here in order unsympathetic- ally to show the soreness felt by the legal Free Church over the passing of the act of restitution. On the contrary, that soreness is entirely intelligible. The complaint about having to contend ' for the third time ' is not without its justification. This was part of the manifold injustice of the judgment of the House of Lords that not only did it do a ' monstrous ' wrong to the United Free Church, but the very righting, to some degree, of that necessarily led to what the success- ful litigants felt to be hard. In short, this ill-starred THE CLOSING YEAR: lELNESS 473 judgment succeeded in the end in doing a bad turn to everybody and everything connected with it — except, indeed, the pockets of lawyers. But not to dwell on this — a letter such as the above shows the character of the new phase into which the Church crisis was pass- ing. It became now a matter of legal statement and counter-statement, of proposals and alternative pro- posals. Into all these often wearisome and vexatious details, one is not called to enter in this biography : all the more that, while Principal Rainy continued to take a most personal interest in it all, naturally the work was largely done by the agents and the officials of the Church, who gave themselves unsparingly to an often weary task. It was in work of this kind that the later months of the year were passed. The Commission made but little headway and, of course, every one blamed some one else for the slow progress that was achieved. At the end of the year, Mr. Balfour's ministry resigned, and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman formed an admin- istration in which the Earl of Elgin became Colonial Secretary ; but fortunately this did not necessitate the resignation of the chairmanship of the Commission, though perhaps it helped still further to retard the disappointingly slow settlement of its problems. Behind all these important but not very inspiring details of this settlement by the Commission, the situation within the Church made a continued call upon the steadiness and patience of those upon whom it more severely pressed. The New College had to begin a second year in quarters not its own, but the students were loyal to a man. With the passing of the Churches Act, evictions were now no longer possible, but the 474 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY numerous large congregations which had been turned out of their churches prior to the Act were of course still homeless. This was a cause of real strain in many places. But it brought great gains too. The sym- pathy and unity of the Church at large were awakened and developed. The Women's ' Temporary Com- mittee ' continued its timely aid in many directions. Leading ministers of the south — notably Dr. Whyte of St. George's, Edinburgh — went about among the harassed districts and brought new encouragement. Public sympathy too became enlightened, and many an English visitor in Scotland during the shooting season of 1905, finding a large congregation shut out from its familiar home and worshipping in perhaps a tent or a barn, while the church itself was either locked up or used by a handful of persons, got a new insight into the practical meaning of the House of Lords judgment. A glimpse of a single case will enable the reader to realise this more than many general statements. In a Highland congregation, one of the great religious seasons of the year is the early winter Communion, celebrated after the work of the harvest is finished and in the time of comparative leisure before the winter fishing. Where was an evicted congregation to keep the feast ? In, for example, a district in the Lewis, there was a large congregation homeless ; the old Free Church, seated for fifteen hundred persons, was in other hands and was standing locked and empty. It was manifestly impossible to ask a congregation, including many aged people, to sit through the services of a Communion season — which, in the Highlands, THE CLOSING YEAR: ILLNESS 475 is continued from a Friday to a Monday — exposed to the open weather ; and there was no house or even barn in the place which could accommodate a tithe of the number who would attend. But, as in Disruption days — when, in one case, a huge hulk was constructed and moored near the shore and the people, denied a meeting-place on land, worshipped on the waters — so now the faith of the congregation and the generosity of friends were equal to the occasion. A large quantity of timber and sails was provided, and a weird structure like a great African kraal was erected in the manse garden. The Communion Table stood on a platform made of the door of the manse gig-house resting on two forms. The seats for the people were planks placed on boxes or stones or peats. There was no flooring, and by the Monday, after a night of heavy rain, the ground was a mass of mire. Yet in these surroundings gathered a congregation of not much under a thousand, and was celebrated ' one of the happiest and one of the most profitable Communions held in the district for years.' A whole chapter might be filled with the stories and pictures of this time in the evicted congregations of the Highlands ; but I must resist the temptation to be turned too far from our biographical story as it narrows to its close. One remark, however, should be added. To the reader, scenes such as these have the interest merely of the picturesque — or the grotesque, if he so looks on them — but, in reahty, they have a far deeper element. In many of these cases there was real hardship, and the quiet lieroism with which congregations bore the loss of buildings for which in many cases they had paid out 476 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY of scant}^ means, and with which ministers and their wives endured not merely inconvenience but constant worry and even risk to health as they had to leave comfortable manses for whatever temporary quarters could be prepared, is part of a not unworthy chapter of the story of the trials of the Scottish Church. With the close of 1905, Dr. Rainy completed his seventy-ninth year, and on ist January 1906 he reached his eightieth birthday. He received man^^ congratu- lations, among them a letter of ' sincere and affectionate good wishes ' signed by his colleagues on the Advisory Committee. He was in wonderfully good health, and he had, amid his continued labours and in his now lonelier home, a serenity and sweetness about his life which every one who was with him felt. One of his daughters writes of him at this time : — ' Father is very well. More than ever, the house where he lives seems filled like a benediction with an atmosphere of serenity and love and childlikeness.' Two or three of his letters about this date may be quoted. Of his birthday, he wrote to Dr. Ross Taylor : — ' My dear Taylor, — I do not know whether you are fully aware of how much your friendship means for me. I cannot tell you how much I value it. Nor can I say how greatly I esteem the service which your disinterested, sustained and cheerful application of mind and heart to the work of the Church is continually rendering. As to future New Year Days, they must be few for me — they may be none. But I am thankful to have been spared to see the Church so far thro' the storm. An extraordinary amount of friendly feeling is expressed towards me — for which I am most grateful to God and man. But it puts me to shame. I used sometimes to say THE CLOSING YEAR: ILLNESS 477 that I was sure to be detected and exposed some day ; but it really looks as if I were to escape ! ' What an egotistical letter. Have you heard of Dr. Frew ? ^ He is ninety-three and preached the other day on the text, " How old art thou ? " He said he had found an old sermon on this text, but it proved of no use and he wrote a new one. The old one was dated 1847. That is an old man worth speaking about ! ' In the same month he wrote the following to Dr. Alexander Maclaren of Manchester, with whom, the reader may remember, the Principal had been a schoolfellow : — I hear that you have completed or are just completing your eightieth year. As I completed mine on the first of this month, I send you a word of cheer at this advanced stage of the voyage. I rejoice to think of all God's goodness to you, and by you to others. I hope that, like myself, you have still a good measure of bodily health and comfort. And I pray that you may prove, with clearness and gladness, on to the end, that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. ' M}' dear wife was taken, after forty-eight years of happy fellowship, on the 30th of September. We had begun to talk of our golden wedding in 1907 ; but the Lord has ordered it otherwise, and no doubt it is well. I have great rest in the remembrance of her.' To this look to the past, may be added the thought of the future from a letter to the Rev. Dr. Charles Watson of Largs (brother-in-law of Lord Kelvin), himself another noble and beautiful figure in old age:— ' I have been hearing much of you from friends who have recently seen you and everything I can hear is always deeply interesting to me. I hear indeed that you do not get any ^ Minister of St. Ninian's United Free Church, Stirling. 478 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY younger : strange to say, that is my experience too. But we may have a humble hope that the best kind of youth awaits us in another country. The Lord grant it in His wonderful mercy.' The thought in this letter of ' the best kind of youth ' was so characteristic of Dr. Rainy in his old age that I shall insert here the following expression of it from one of the sermons in the volume already referred to in this chapter. In a singularly beautiful sermon on * The Child Element in Christianity,' he says : — ' The poets indeed have said that the beauty and glory of childhood are left behind, so that only faint reminiscences are possible for us now. The vision has faded into the light of common day. It is only in " seasons of calm weather," since " Inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither, Can in a moment travel thither, And see the children sport upon the shore, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore." Only in some happy hour can we once more recover the point of view " From which the enlightened spirit sees The shady city of palm trees." Shall the Kingdom of God avail to restore to us that blessedness ? Indeed, it is not possible, it would not be desirable, by a process of retrogression, by resuming the con- ditions of immaturity ; still less through the mere operation of decay, with its feebleness and its blunted sensibility. Far otherwise : we are to set our faces forward, leaving that which is behind. But in this Christian calling of ours, with its burdens and efforts, with its humiliations and its yearnings, there lies the promise (and there is found the earliest) of a noble childhood — childhood with its vivid natural experiences, its consciousness of a greatness all around that does not fret nor fever but that guards and rests, its fresh perception of THE CLOSING YEAR: ILLNESS 470 the wonder and mystery of being, its pleasant ministries, and its contentedness to be a child.' ^ And, in the same sermon, he adds later : — ' It would be good for some of you to be more in the way of coming to sit down at the feet of God in Christ, and to think that a child is glad to have a Father ; also, that the Father is glad to have a child ' ^ This simple, trustful, natural gladness shone like a beautiful light in Dr. Rainy's life and character in his old age. Every one noticed it. One of his grand- children said that she thought * grandpapa must go to heaven every night, because he was so happy every morning.' Principal Rainy was now in the last year of his life ; but indeed, in a far truer sense than the Athenian poet ever dreamed :• — '^Ov ol deol (^iXovcTLv airoOvqaKei veo^. ^ Yet with all this, it is evident he was feeling the time was now near when he must put off the burden of his labours and that the end could not be far away. ' I am very well,' he once said, ' but at any moment, something may snap and my work be done.' ' At my age,' he wrote in a letter, ' a man should look steadily and quietly at the end.' In another, he tells how he has been going over letters of his father's, which described ' how he felt old age creeping on.' As to the question of his withdrawing from public work, he writes very unaffectedly and almost impersonally : — ' I feel as if I could be of some use in toeing the line along with others. Yet an old man should always remember that, ' Sojourning with God and other Sermons, p. 162. - Ibid., 166. 3 ' He whom the gods love dies young.'- -(Menander). 480 THE LIFE OF PJllNCIPAT. RAINY while in a case like mine, people will always put him at the head of things so long as he is there, there may be a feeling that his work is done and that he lags superfluous on the stage. So that a graceful retiral is not to be despised.' It is safe to say that the suggestion that Dr. Rainy lagged superfluous on the stage never occurred for a moment to one of his colleagues. Indeed, the above extracts show that he himself was more conscious of his years than others were. Those working with him were rather in danger of forgetting how old he was and how much he needed rest. He had hardly any of the physical limitations of age (except, perhaps, a little deafness, on which, however, it was not safe to pre- sume), and his mind was still not only clear but forcible. What did sometimes strike one about the laborious and not always inspiring work in which he was now so much engaged was its incongruity with, not so much his years, as what one cannot call anything else than the heavenly-mindedness — the word sounds unreal and pietistic, but it is the true word — of a man whom every one about him reverenced as almost the great- est saint they knew. The writer may be pardoned for recalling, in illustration of this, a little incident that im- printed itself deep on his mind. It was one day after an Advisory Committee meeting when a few of us, including Dr. Rainy, remained behind to adjust some document. While the law-agents drafted it, the Principal sat back in his chair looking out of the window to the evening sky with that wistful expression which his face often had in repose. I ventured to go beside him and tell him something about the death, which had recently taken place, of Mr. George Brown THE CLOSING YEAR: ILLNESS 481 of Pau — his cousin and lifelong friend, and a man of great culture and remarkable purity and happiness of nature, for whom Dr. Rainy cherished a warm affection. The Principal turned and, with what was nothing less than zest, plunged into a conversation — I should call it rather a monologue — such as only a man whose spirit was dwelling much in the unseen could have uttered. He spoke first of the goodness of God to men of the pure and happy character of Mr. Brown, and ' to all of us.' He spoke next of death, with great gravity. ' It is not a thing,' he said, ' to meet on pagan principles.' He actually described a man * feeling death stealing over him to grip him ' — the last words said with a quite startling intensity. Then he went on to speak of the other life, saying we had yet not even the glimpse of ' how wonderful a thing it is.' Much more he said in this strain which I cannot now repeat — solemnly, and yet with a kind of glad familiarity as a man would speak of home. But all the while he had an eye on the business being prepared at the table, and the moment he saw the agents had finished their drafts he turned, almost without a pause in the sentence, saying ' Well, is that paper read}^ ? ' and immediately took it up and was engrossed in its very mundane details. I never saw a man so absolutely ready for either world : at the same time, one felt the almost irration- ality of it, that a man whose treasure was so manifestly in heaven must wear out his last days in battling about property on earth. The mundane battle had by this time reached its least edifying phase. Early in the year, the Com- VOL. II. 2 H 482 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY mission began the allocation of buildings by deciding some 715 cases (of which 659 went to the United Free Church), but over the cases where it was doubtful whether or not the legal Free Church had the requisite third of members and adherents, there arose what was, in places, a somewhat squalid discussion of names and their qualifications. There were many who felt the unseemliness of a competing claim of this kind for a building between two bodies of professing Christians, but it was unavoidable. There were indeed those who felt that it would have been more Christian not to resist and rather to adopt the attitude commanded in such precepts as those about surrendering the cloke or turn- ing the cheek to be smitten. The difficulty about this suggestion was simply that this was not a matter of an individual or private right, which it is in accord with Christianity not always to claim too urgently. As Zinzendorf (I believe) once put it, when this view of non-resistance was put to him, ' I have colleagues, and I cannot allow any one to smite them on my cheek.' The Advisory Committee of the United Free Church — while of course at once admitting any case where the other side clearly had the legal qualification — did not feel called on to let property pass into the hands of the Free Church unnecessarily : and hence arose claim and counter-claim with all the attendant un- edifying controversy. Lists of names were sent in. Sub-commissioners were appointed to conduct local inquiries. Evidence was taken at great length, and there is no doubt — it was matter of notoriety and it can do no harm to any one to say it — there was plenty of hard swearing. Most of the trouble arose out of THE CLOSING YEAR: ILLNESS 483 the word ' adherent ' which the Act of Padiament had left — this was one point where the United Free Church had failed to obtain amendment — absolutely undefined. From the point of view of efficient parliamentary draughtsmanship, I think one is entitled to say that a government has no right to pass a bill including an important term which has never been legally defined and which they still definitely decline to define. The consequence was that a considerable number of persons were claimed as ' adherents ' of the legal Free Church whose ecclesiastical status was very dubious. But into this we need not enter in this biography. The results of it appeared in the Com- missioners' allocations and, much more eloquently and indelibly, in not a few church buildings, given by the Commissioners to the legal Free Church on figures thus made up, and to-day standing either derelict or used by the merest handful of persons, who in most cases have no minister. These are monuments to the Commission's work which probably the Commissioners, if only for their own credit, regret as much as any one, and the blame for which must, in part at least, be placed further back.^ This contest over the allocation of buildings went on slowly, and even by the time of the General Assembly — the end of May — little more had been decided or at least publicly intimated. One important and signifi- ^ It may be convenient here to state the result, and I give it in not my own words : ' Influenced naturally by the optimistic evidence given by the representatives of the Free Church, the Commission allocated to them something like 170 churches and manses and funds amounting to ^5oo,coo. How stands the situation to-day? There are over one hundred vacant charges in the Highlands.' — {T/id Scottish Review, November 19, 1908.) 484 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY cant intimation, however, was made by the Com- missioners in view of the Assembly. They recom- mended — adding, they would enforce it by declaration if necessary — that the United Free Church should have the use of the Assembly Hall, the other Assembly to be accommodated in the adjoining High Church. Thus the Assembly of 1906 was held in the familiar place, and this of itself gave it a happy and hopeful spirit. This was Principal Rainy's last Assembly. As retiring Moderator he preached the opening sermon and gave a quiet, spiritual meditation on the first verse of the 103rd Psalm. He proposed Dr. Hutton as his successor with great cordiality, paying the indefatig- able voluntary warrior the notable and just compliment that he * had encountered opposition enough, but had achieved the singular honour that never had his sincerity been impeached or doubt been thrown on his fine and deep integrity.' Principal Rainy continued to discharge the duties of Convener of the Assembly's Business Committee and leader of the House, and did so with all his wonted incomparable efficiency, though he spoke less frequently than had been his wont. The proceedings of the Assembly need be referred to at present only in so far as they bore on the situation in the Church. The following statement, made by the Rev. Dr. Howie — the admitted authority on Church statistics in Scotland — is worthy of notice : — ' In spite ot all the losses the Church has sustained in con- nection with the Union and the decision of the House of Lords there has nevertheless been a net increase in these six years of nearly ten thousand members, and it is matter of special THE CLOSING YEAR: ILLNESS 485 thankfulness that last year the number of those joining on a profession of faith ^ was higher than it has ever been before.' The most interesting evening of the Assembly was when Principal Rainy, as Convener of the Highland Committee, presented his report to a densely crowded house. He spoke freely of the situation and also — it was the only occasion on which he did so in public — of the Free Church there. It need not be said he had no uncharitable words to utter, and he had no difficulty in cherishing the impression that many of those adher- ing to that Church were * estimable Christian people and worthy of respect ' ; but * at the same time it must be said distinctly enough that there were other elements.' Principal Rainy went on to say that the Church thus separated from them * was to be — could not help being — a reactionary Church,' and that meant ' a Church which placed itself apart and sought to build up the people in traditional views, in traditional experiences, in traditional prejudices and in traditional antipathies.' ' That,' he said earnestly, * is the very worst service that can be done to the Highlands.' He concluded by saying — and * he did not feel as if he were called on to be modest about it ' — that * the hope of the Highlands was con- nected with the United Free Church,' and ' for himself he had not lost a jot of heart in connection with the Highlands.' Some remarkable speeches followed the Convener's address. It was officiall}- stated that the membership of the Church in the ' disturbed area ' of the Highland Synods was, at the close of 1905, only ' I.e. those coming to first communion, as differentiated from persons bringing certificates of membership from other churches. 486 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY seventy-four less than it had been at the close of 1899, the year before the Union, so that whatever loss the Union or the judgment had entailed, had now been practically made up.^ The reasons of this appeared in the speeches of many Highland ministers who followed. Speaker after speaker — many of them evicted ministers — told of the brighter outlook for the mental and moral and spiritual welfare of the High- lands. Most especially was there a new interest among the younger generation, and that not merely in intel- lectual life but also in spiritual, and the superstition was being broken which had made the Communion Table a place only for the old. The Assembly heard all this with a glad and grateful heart, and further, sent a special message of sympathy to evicted ministers and congregations and a promise of speedy help. The whole spirit of Dr. Rainy's last ' Highland night ' was one of cheer. As his thoughts went back to his long and laborious and sacrificing convenership, he must have felt it had not been in vain that he so patiently worked through the sad old days of disunion and dispeace and that now a better day was really dawning. It was, as has been said. Principal Rainy's last General Assembly. One still recalls his figure on the ^ This applies only to members: the figures for 'adherents' are not available in statistical returns. With regard to the latter, the Rev. Alexander Lee, the Secretary of the Highland Committee, made the interesting remark that 'from 1843 to 1900 the Free Church had been the National Church in that region of the country, and there were many who at least could say that they went nowhere else.' This meant that not a few of the so-called adherents of the legal Free Church were of the type who always say they belong to the National Church if a census is taken, but whose connection with it goes little further. THE CLOSING YEAR: ILLNESS 487 closing night. There is something strangely touching and impressive about the close of an Assembly, and it must be peculiarly so to those who feel they probably will not see another. The roll of ministers and prominent elders who have died during the year is read. The Moderator gives a closing address and, at its finish, the following simple service is observed. The Moderator, rising again, declares in time-honoured terms, which are rigidly adhered to, that ' as this Assembly was constituted in the Name and by the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, the only King and Head of the Church ' — as he says it, how Scottish history attests the phrase ! — so, ' now in the same Name ' — and at this invocation, all rise and stand — ' and by the same authority, I dissolve this Assembly.' Then he appoints the next to meet in the place and on the date which had been resolved upon. Prayer follows, and thereafter are sung, to a traditional tune, the closing verses of the 122nd Psalm, beginning with the words : — ' Pray that Jerusalem may have Peace and felicity.' Finally the Moderator pronounces the Benediction. It is all so simple as scarcely to stand description ; yet to a Scottish Churchman with faith really to believe in the Church (which, as the Creed tells us, is something to believe in and not merely see with the outward eye) and with historic knowledge and vision, it has often seemed as if, during that simply and yet significantly ordered service, there throng in silently a crowd of witnesses from the chequered yet heroic past of the Church of Scotland, and of even a wider fellowship ; 488 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY and men in the struggles and labours of their soon finished day are linked on to great memories and lifted up to holy hopes. It is not fanciful to suggest thoughts such as these as one looks at the venerable figure of this historic Scottish Churchman standing for the last time to take part in the close of a General Assembly. With this Assembly closed Dr. Rainy's life-work. There is no doubt that it fatigued him more than he would admit or was by others realised at the time. Little more than a month later, the glandular affection in the neck reappeared and rapidly developed in a way to cause real anxiety. Not only had the former swelling grown, but there were signs of the formation of another. A medical consultation was held. The trouble was diagnosed to be ' senile tuberculosis,' but it was not thought to be of a malignant character. The result is told by the Principal himself in the following letter to Dr. Ross Taylor : — ' I would like you to know from myself how things stand with me. I have had three excellent surgeons in consultation, and I thought by this time I should have been ordered to have an operation to remove the affected glands in my neck. But after repeated consultations, they wish to try first to bring the parts into a more favourable state for operation. Accord- ingly they have ordered very special treatment, and I am to go to North Berwick to go through with it. Meanwhile I am not to talk more than I can help and attend no meetings or committees. I am not absolutely prohibited from corre- spondence, but must forgo continuous attention to details. If this succeeds in effecting the immediate object, I take it the operation will follow — and then, if God will, the process of healing up. I am sorry to be set aside in this way, but apparently it must be.' THE CLOSING YEAR: ILLNESS 489 Principal Rainy accepted the prospect of this im- pending operation with characteristic cheerfulness and obedience. His words were : ' I have had a very happy life. God has been very good to me. Whatever is His dear will, I shall do it gladly.' To his elder son, Dr. Rolland Rainy, M.P., he wrote the following letter : — ' My dear Rolland, — I greatly value your frank and affectionate letter. I have always realised with gratitude the remarkable affection and loyalty of my children to your dear mother and myself. ' I do not feel nervous about the operation. I know that doctors must speak hopefully to patients, but I scarcely think they are in this case so apprehensive as you are. But I quite understand that, at my time of life especially, accidents may happen and results expected may fail to be realised. They do not expect to have serious difficulty with the vessels ; they must interfere a little with the facial nerve. But I take it much depends on whether the tumour is non-malignant, as the doctors incline to hope it is. If it is genuinely malignant, I must say I distrust the power of operation to effect final cure, though I suppose it may prolong life more or less. ' Well, one desires to be ready, and readiness is God's gift, for which I humbly pray. I am conscious of having come infinitely short — especially in thoroughness, inward consistency and living up to what I knew and what I preached. I would not say to any human ear what I think about that. I can only listen to the gospel of the forgiveness of sins. Salvation is all wonderful — most wonderful. ' Now, my dear fellow, you have been a great comfort to me. And what your mother and I owe to dear Balla,^ it would be difficult to say. ' You must not be too much moved over my prospects. You have had me, for good or ill, for a pretty long spell, though I know you will be the last to say that the veteran lags superfluous on the stage 1 Mrs. Rolland Rainy. 490 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY ' We will take it coolly, as it turns out to be in the day's work. And we are in good hands. ' God bless you always.' The news of Principal Rainy 's illness soon became public, and it evoked wide sympathy. Of his many correspondents, I shall refer here only to one. To his life-long friend, Mr. Taylor Innes, the Principal wrote the facts of his case at some length, and closed his letter thus : — ' It is a long time since you and I became friends and we have tried to serve the good cause. We cannot be very far from the end of our pilgrimage, though we need not prematurely fix boundaries for it. The longer I live the more important and wonderful does the forgiveness of sins seem to me. May God fill us with all peace and joy in believing that we ma}^ abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost.' To this, Mr. Taylor Innes replied in the following letter which I quote, partly because the letters a man receives, as well as those he writes, indicate his character and influence, and partly because it truly describes the culmination of the career now drawing to its close : — * My dear Rainy, — I feel deeply the extraordinary kindness of your letter to-day. I had been in two minds about writing you ; but the mere announcement that at your age you were not in the meantime to take the routine work of Committees did not alarm me. They will feel very helpless without you. But really you have been enabled, beyond all ex- pectation and in a strange crisis, to lay the lines and build the foundations for all their present and future work. I thought so and said so on the evening of the Commission of loth August 1904 ; and the year that followed that prophecy more than fulfilled it. For even if that crisis were for you, as you described it to me, " the last great strain of my life," it will be found to have expressed and summed up that THE CLOSING YEAR: ILLNESS 491 life, and made it luminous to posterity, in quite another sense from what could have been attained by all those years of great service, had Providence not thought fit so to crown them. For these reasons, I would not have regretted a mere time of rest from toil, which, besides, would have given space for the utterance of many things, seminal and plastic, for the future, such as I and others have hung upon you for, during forty years now. But these things don't go as those who love us here would plan. . . . For myself, I have followed the strongest and wisest man of all whom I have known. But I have never taken so much interest in your natural gifts or in the achievements by which you will be remembered, as in your outlook upon and entrance into the Divine. Your voice is still to me, more than any other, the voice of conscience and of God, and the assurance that a Promise has come into the world. And many who have heard and responded to that Promise as I have not done, will join with me in daily trust and prayer that all its strength and all its tenderness may now be made good to you from day to day.' During the month of August, Dr. Rainy rested quietly in his home at North Berwick — he had a house there to which he went every summer — his symptoms remaining little changed. But in September, several new glands in different, directions became affected. It thus was made clear that the trouble could not be extirpated by a single operation, and that indeed more than two operations would be necessary. Moreover, this showed that, even if these operations were carried out, it would not hinder the emergence of new swelling. In these conditions, the opinion of the consulting surgeons turned from the idea of an operation, and the proposal was made — or rather revived, for it had been thought of much earUer — that Dr. Rainy should go off for a long voyage in the hope that his excellent general health and strong constitution might thus be enabled 492 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY to master the morbid tendencies in the glandular swellings. Moreover, an opening for such a plan seemed almost arranged in the circumstances of his family. His daughter, Mrs. Harper, was not able to stay longer in this country — Principal Harper had left early in the year — and proposed to return to Austraha with her family in October, so that Dr. Rainy could go with her and have her care and company ; while, if all went well, he might return in the following year with his son George, whose furlough would then commence. The question of what should be done was a difficult one, for it need not be said that for a man in Dr. Rainy's condition and at his time of hfe to undertake so great a journey was both a grave consideration and a real personal wrench. ' The question always returns to me,' wrote the Principal to Dr. Ross Ta^dor on 8th October, ' whether I should not go on with my usual duties and responsibilities till the breakdown comes.' Five days later, however, he wrote, with a clear mind, to his son Rolland as follows : — ' My dear Son, — I thank you for your loving letter. I have been singularly blessed in the love of my children. They all think infinitely more highly of me than they ought to think ; but of that I suppose I must not complain. When a man after eighty years still retains the regard and love of those who know him best, that man has much to be thankful for. For my part, I would have accepted an operation quite wiUingly ; and now I accept the voyage very cheerfully. I keep in view always what you say — that very possibly, I may never return. But I have no forebodings — I suppose because my general health keeps good and the pleasure of living still remains — and I do look forward to coming back with George, if it be God's will. I confess I don't count on these swellings turning out quite so innocent as the doctors seem to hope. But I am very THE CLOSING YEAR : ILLNESS 493 thankful that I can look forward to the alternatives without any nervousness. I am rather conscious of and afraid of taking things too easily. Pray for me that I may be brought and kept near to God. I pray often for you in reference to your public responsibilities.' When it was publicly announced that Principal Rainy was about to sail for Australia, the Church received the news with a kind of incredulous stupe- faction. When, however, the pathetic necessity for the step became better understood, a feeling of pro- foundest sympathy and interest was aroused, and, in the few weeks remaining before his departure, the Principal received countless letters and many callers, including persons of eminence in the country. His general health was so good that it almost deceived a visitor, while he was invariably calm and even cheerful. At the same time, there was often in his face an inscrutable expression that betrayed the real trial it was to him to go. The date of his departure from Edinburgh was fixed for 24th October, and he was to sail from London by the Geelong for Australia via the Cape — this route being chosen for the sake of the longer sea- voyage — ^two days later. It was difficult for the Church to realise that, v^dthin a month, one who for more than a generation had been almost part of her very structure, would no longer be seen in her midst. His last public appearance — indeed his farewell to the Church — took place on the 17th October, when he presided at the opening of the session of the New College, a week before his departure. The last sentence of the prayer with which he opened the proceedings 494 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY printed itself on the memory of one who was present and who subsequently recorded it and has sent it to the writer : ' Grant that whatever in Thy good pro- vidence may be before us, we may have the assurance that Thou art perfecting that which concerneth us, and wilt not suffer one good thing to fall of all that Thou hast spoken to us.' It did not form the duty of the Principal to deliver the address on this occasion, but at the close he said a few words. Speaking amid a silence that could be felt, he said : — ' He was there to say to them for the present farewell, and also to wish them heartily Godspeed. He felt he had no choice but to obey the orders he had received, but he certainly went from the College and from the Church's work with a great deal of reluctance. That, however, was fixed.' The last words were said with that finality so char- acteristic of Dr. Rain37's manner of speech at times. Then he went on to refer to the time of trouble through which the College was passing — the College buildings had not yet been restored and this opening lecture was given in the High Church — and expressed the earnest hope that the time of suspense would soon be ended. He called on the students * resolutely and cheerfully to make this session not merely an average but a memorable session.' Then he referred more generally to the call there would yet be on the resolution and the liberahty of the Church, the extent of which could not yet be estimated, and concluded with these words which may be given verbatim : ' If there is one thing which, on my part, I desire, which I more than desire — I believe it is in many hearts — and about which I am deeply concerned, it is that when that day comes, THE CLOSING YEAR: ILLNESS 495 the Church may be found — and I believe she will be found by God's grace— whatever the claim is, whatever the difficulties are, whatever the emergency may turn out to be, with the same calmness, the same courage, the same trust in God and the same cheerfulness with which she had met the great blow of August 1904. That is what I hope for. That is what I shall be listening for far awa}''. And that is what, I trust in God, if God is pleased to spare me, I may come home to see.' His words were never more fitly spoken and, one may add, never more beautifully spoken. Dr. Rainy once said that * the ideal of utterance is that it should attune itself to all the movements and changes of the thought and especially of the feeling, and, as the words clothe the thought, so the voice should be the last ethereal and exquisite vesture which clothes the words, embodying and revealing the last fine play of feeling.' ^ His own parting words to the Church were uttered with a simplicity and yet movingness of tone which was indeed their ' exquisite vesture,' and the confidence of the trust which they expressed gave his voice a ring that seemed almost to promise that he would 3'et ' come home to see ' what thus he so bravely looked for. His appearance too was still strong : the shoulders, on which his scarlet hood gleamed, were squared and erect, and the head was, as ever, proudly poised. There was nothing to suggest that the hope of recovery he had reverently expressed might not be realised. But that was not to be, and this was the last time the Church was to hear his voice.- * From a fragment of a class lecture on pulpit work. 2 The imminently pressing part of the future demand spoken of in the passage quoted from Dr. Rainy's address is mentioned in the last letter, dated 12th October, I received from him and in which he said : 'What I am most concerned about is the Church meeting resolutely and worthily 496 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Three days later a notable announcement was made, which included a pleasant parting gift to the Principal. The Commission, on 20th October, published their allocation of the Foreign Mission funds and properties of the Church, all of which were apportioned to the United Free Church, and also their decision as to the destination of what had often been called ' the citadel ' — that is the Assembly Hall and New College. These were finally allocated also to the United Free Church and with the following interesting note : — ' The Commission are of opinion that this allocation makes the best use of the buildings and is in accord with their historic interests and claims.' The neighbouring offices of the Church were allocated to the legal Free Church with a sum with which to fit them up as a College. The date at which the United Free Church was to re-enter the College was fixed for the ist of January 1907. It would have been Principal Rainy's eighty-first birthday. But he did not live to see it. Meanwhile, the Advisory Committee — from the meetings of which he had, of course, been absent for now more than three months — sent him a message of farewell and Godspeed. At a meeting of the Committee on the 23rd October, he unexpectedly the call that will be made upon her to meet the necessity of housing her expelled congregations.' It may not be out of place to mention here how the United Free Church met the demand so made. As the result of the Commission's allocations it was found that churches and manses had to be built at a total cost of / 150,000. This large sum — though following so soon after the Emergency Fund which also reached ;^i 50,000 — was all subscribed by 1908. THE CLOSING YEAH: ILLNESS 497 appeared. He took the chair as of old ; the business began as usual, and proceeded for a while. Then, suddenly and in the simplest manner, he said he was touched by the kindness of the Committee's message to him and added, ' I am sorry to go.' He said no- thing more, but rising quickly, passed with a smile on his face out of the room. The chair was taken by Mr. William Stuart Fraser, W.S.,^ who was joint- Convener, and the business resumed. One hardly realised what had happened — it was so swift, and so simple. Yet what had happened, when that venerable figure slipped smilingly out of that room, was that an epoch in the Church history of Scotland was at last ended. Later on the same afternoon, I called to say good- bye to Dr. Rainy, and one incident in that brief visit may be mentioned here without, I trust, presumption or impropriety. Just before rising to go, I felt I had never frankly told the only man I would ever call Master what hundreds of his students owed to him alike for intellectual and ecclesiastical guidance and, even more, in things far deeper and more sacred. I said a few very halting words. When I had finished he did not answer, and looking up, I saw his eyes were filled with tears. After a silence of several moments, he replied in a voice the humility and gentleness of which one can never forget, and the ^ It is impossible to mention Mr. Stuart Eraser's name here without saying with what devotion and adequacy he carried on the work of the Advisory Committee in the great blank made by Dr. Rainy's departure. And with him should be named Mr. John Nicholson, upon whose shoulders lay the burden both of the Emergency Fund and the Building Fund mentioned in the previous note. Upon these two laymen, more than on any one else, the Church leaned when her great bereavement came. VOL. II. 2 I 498 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY words were, ' I am truly grateful if my brethren think I have been of any use.' But for a kindly farewell, these were the last words I heard from one whom, in the well-known phrase of the Phaedo, * I may truly call the wisest and justest and best of all the men whom I have ever known.' ^ Next morning, a small company — including Dr. Whyte, Mr. Taylor Innes, and others — gathered at the station to see him off. He was still cheerful but said little. He repeated, * I am sorry to go.' His last words and farewells were, of course, to the members of his own family whom he was leaving. Mrs. Harper and her children went with him, and also two maids who begged to be allowed to attend to him and who went all the way to Australia. The party sailed from London two days later. In all this was, as every reader must feel, real pathos. And in the above brief narrative, I have not ventured to enter within the sacred circle of the family where the pathos of it was most deeply felt. Only one incident within the home I shall mention. On his last Sunday before leaving — a day of peculiar sacred- ness in which the family had been present at a special celebration of the Communion in Roseburn Church, of which Dr. Rainy was an elder — when, in the evening, some hymns were being sung, he asked his eldest daughter (whose voice he used to say recalled to him her mother's) to sing Whittier's hymn beginning, * When on my day of life the night is falling.' I shall quote the verses, as every reader may not have ' /'/tacdo, 1 i8,y?«. THE CLOSING YEAR: ILLNESS 499 immediate access to them, and each stanza has its appropriateness for the circumstances : — ' When on my "day of life the night is falhng, And in the winds from unsunned spaces blown, I hear far voices out of darkness calling My feet to paths unknown, Thou, Who hast made my home of life so pleasant. Leave not its tenant when its walls decay ; Love Divine, O Helper ever present, Be Thou my strength and stay. Be near me when all else is from me drifting, — Earth, sky, home's pictures, days of shade and shine. And kindly faces to mine own uplifting The love which answers mine. 1 have but Thee, my Father ; let Thy Spirit Be with me then to comfort and uphold ; No gate of pearl, no branch of palm I merit, Nor street of shining gold. Suffice it if — my good and ill unreckoned, And both forgiven through Thy abounding grace — I find myself by hands familiar beckoned Unto my fitting place : Some humble door among Thy many mansions, Some sheltering shade where sin and striving cease, \nd flows for ever through Heaven's green expansions The river of Thy peace. There, from the music round about me stealing, I fain would learn the new and holy song. And find at last, beneath Thy trees of healing. The life for which I long.' 500 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY When his daughter had sung this hymn, he requested it be sung to him again. In it aU, as has been said, is a pathos which every reader must feel. It is indeed a touching thing for an old man to be thus called to go away from his work and his home and the graves of his dear dead, to set forth on a journey to the ends of the earth, knowing in his heart how uncertain, how unlikely, is his return. To the eye of the spectator it is sad and almost bitter. And even though there so manifestly was that about Dr. Rainy's faith which was intrinsically superior to any incidents of fortune, still there was a sensitive- ness in his humanity which made this trial for him all the sharper. Yet there is a deeper aspect of it which was full of a Divine kindness. By no other means than by such an entire removal from the work and anxiety still pressing on the Church, could it have been so well provided that this too long burdened servant should secure a time of uninterrupted quiet with God before being called home. Dr. Chalmers used to desire that the seventh decade of life should be a Sabbatic rest. Dr. Rainy had had no such lengthy respite from labour and battle given to him ; but he was given at least this one quiet hour on the Saturday night before the eternal day dawned. There is a verse in the Book of Job,^ the rendering of which in the Vulgate is a prayer which might surely not unfitly have been breathed by the Principal in his old age : Dimitte me paululum ut qniescam donee optata venial dies — ' Let me free for a little that I may ' Job xiv. 6. The correct translation and the context are, of course, quite different from the free rendering referred to above. THE CLOSING YEAR: ILLNESS 501 have quiet till the longed-ior day comes.' As, in a concluding chapter, we watch the sunset, we shall see that such a prayer as this found for him its answer in the strangely pathetic yet most gracious journey over the wide seas to die. CHAPTER XXX THE LAST JOURNEY AND THE END THE voyage was, in all outward respects, a most prosperous one. The weather was propitious and the ship made an excellent passage. The heat was never very great and — especially after the Cape was passed — the sea was generally smooth. Dr. Rainy entered into his new conditions of life with enjoyment. He had always loved the sea, and on board ship could take his meals, regular exercise and sleep with entire comfort. He liked to lie on his long deck-chair and watch the bright sky and the wide waters. During the earlier days of the voyage he talked with animation to those round about him.^ He also read a good deal, taking in hand solid books, such as Lord Acton's works and the volume on the Renaissance in the Cambridge Modern History, but he admitted a difficulty in getting through them ; and later he read Sterne's Sentimental Journey and ' The Captain — for whom Dr. Rainy formed the highest regard — tells how one day the Principal plunged into a description of the handling of a vessel in difficult circumstances which he had observed on one occasion in the course of a journey on the Mediterranean. It was given v/ith remark- able fluency and also accuracy of detail. ' I couldn't have reeled it off like that,' was the Captain's comment on Dr. Rainy's account of it; 'it shows an extraordinary close knowledge of ships.' The 'close knowledge' of particular lines of life was a thing which, as has been indicated more than once in foregoing pages, experts were frequently struck with in Dr. Rainy's conversation. 602 THE LAST JOURNEY AND THE END 508 Marryat's Peter Simple, and even Meredith's Egoist. He also enjoyed Chaucer. After a while, however, he read only the Bible — reading it (as Dr. Whyte once illuminatively phrased it) ' as if he had never seen the Book before.' He used chiefly a fine two- volume edition of the Greek New Testament which his son RoUand had given him. The following extract from a letter written on 30th October to his eldest daughter indicates his general good spirits in the earlier days of the voyage : — ' We land passengers at Las Palmas, so we shall be able to post letters there. Beautiful passage so far — a little rolling, but only moderate. No sea-sickness in our party. The ship is fairly full but not crowded : no objectionable people so far as we can see. For myself, I have enjoyed myself very much. Yesterday and to-day, I feel a little tired — the reaction from the exertion and excitement of leaving and the new way of life on board. A quiet day or two will set me all right. It is getting warm, but we have a fine breeze. I am sitting in my State-room, under the port, writing letters to various persons. Bartie ^ and I have divided that task between us. Every one aboard is most comfortable. Captain Ilbery is one of a thousand. The children are perfectly at home and making friends all round, especially among the ladies. Never was a man so well looked after. There is no news except that there is to be a fancy ball : Bartie and I have not yet settled our costumes,' On the nth November, Dr. Rainy conducted divine service and preached his last sermon. The subject of the sermon was St. Luke xii. 35-40 — the passage exhorting men to have the loins girt, looking for the Lord's coming. In the course of the sermon, in speak- ing of the * watches ' in which it is said the Lord may * Mrs. Harper. 504 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY come, he remarked it is ' perhaps not altogether fanciful ' to divide the life of man into ' three watches.' The first is child-life, * when we have not yet begun to awake to the seriousness of life and only see the bright and joyous side ' ; and the third is age, ' when our experience of life is ripe, but when we feel the ties that have bound us to earth gradually but surely loosening their hold upon us and we are forced to look on to the great end.' But, the preacher continued, ' there is a second period of life — let us call it the middle watch, though it may be the last, ' and it is ' the time when we are in greatest danger of forgetting watchfulness.' Very simply and earnestly he said of this : — ' When the cares of business, the pleasures of society, the greed of gain, and the glamour of the world threaten most to choke out the good seed from our hearts, — then is it we need to pull ourselves together, to strive to realise we are not living for this world alone, and to listen most intently, amid the confusing voices of earth, for the rustle of the angels' wings.' In closing, he came to the verse, ' Blessed are those servants whom the lord, when he cometh, shall find watching ; verily, I say unto you that he shall gird himself and make them sit down to meat and shall come and serve them.' He leant across the high desk covered with the Union Jack, and placing both arms underneath the Bible — hugging it, as was sometimes his habit in the pulpit — he said with great solemnity : — ' What does this mean ? The serving of the servant by the Master. Dear friends, I cannot tell what it fully means. " He will come forth and serve them " : what a pregnant description of our Lord's condescension and His servant's ex- altation — the Master girded, the servant sitting — the Master serving, the servant sitting down to meat ! What does it THE LAST JOURNEY AND THE END 505 mean ? Let us pray that one day we may know what it means.' His prayers impressed many of the hearers even more than the sermon — they were, as one said, * so unutter- ably simple and yet so weighted with the experience of life and full of love and trust and peace.' He got through the service, but it was an effort for him/ On the 13th, in closing a letter to his son Rolland, Dr. Rainy wrote : — ' We shall not reach Table Bay till morning of i6th — head winds and currents. I shall not go ashore there, for I should burden others. To-day, I think I am better than ever. Excellent spirits : good sleep : more up to exertion. Good deal of sea on. We have hardly had the ports of my cabin shut the whole voyage. Captain and Stewardess pet me in every way. Preached in Saloon last Sunday without any bad effects.' On the day before the steamer reached Cape Town, he wrote the following last letter to Dr. Ross Taylor : — ' My dear Friend, — We do not reach Cape Town till to- morrow morning, but we have been getting letters ready for a day or two. ' I think of things at home continually and pray daily for our Church and for you in particular. May you be strengthened with all might and guided continually by the great Shepherd. I am sure if w^e attained more simplicity in telling our Father that we cannot do without His guidance, we should have greater peace and greater success. ' I feel that situations and questions may arise in which a magnanimous and generous course must be the Salvation of our Church. That must be inspired by His good Spirit. And, amid aU our shortcomings, why should it not be expected ? ^ For some of these recollections of Dr. Rainy's last service I am indebted to the Rev. H. Deacon of Cape Town — an Anglican clergyman who was on board the Geelong and kindly sent me notes of the sermon. 506 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY Remembering all we have come through, I find myself saying, " If the Lord had been minded to slay us. He would not have shown us such things as these." ' I have had many pleasant hours aboard, thinking of all the branches of the Church — as dear to their members as ours is to us — and also I hope, of more central subjects. I understand better now how a period of pure idleness may have its usefulness. ' God bless you and yours. * This is a beautiful day — a wide expanse of heaving sea, with a brisk breeze and the ship quite lurchy. This must excuse my handwriting. Remember me specially to Mrs. Taylor. Robert Rainy.' It was after Cape Town was passed that a change began to be observable. There was no pain or distress, but the vitality steadily lowered, almost each day his whole system seeming to be on a lower key. Gradually he gave up going into the saloon for meals and even going on deck. Every one on board was full of interested sympathy. The Captain sent from his own cabin a large armchair, which was a great comfort, and daily found some new kindness he could render. The doctor's attention was unremitting. The purser and the cook did everything in their power. A special steward was told off to attend to him. And among the passengers,- most sympathetic friends were found — especially one, the wife of a Colonel in the Indian army, whom Dr. Rainy called ' Lady Bountiful.' His daughter's loving care and the invaluable assistance of the two devoted maids need not be told. Dr. Rainy lay in his cabin with every obtainable comfort and with much ease, but his weakness increased rather than diminished. He was very quiet, and obviously spent a great deal of his waking time in THE LAST JOURNEY AND THE END 507 communion with the Unseen. He generally lay with his head propped up, his eyes closed, his hands clasped on his breast and — as was noticed by those who entered the cabin unperceived — his lips moving in silent prayer. He conveyed to those around him a wonderful impres- sion of being already within the secret of the other world. But he kept up his interest in life. He liked to see the children, and they came into his cabin usually once a day. On one occasion, he said to one of his grand- daughters : * Do you know what you do ? You make grandpapa very happy. Will you remember that ? ' He read little now for himself, but his daughter read to him usually from the volume of Scripture texts called Daily Light. One day when. she had finished, he said, ' And it 's all true, Bartie — that 's the wonder- ful thing ; it 's all quite, quite true.' On another occasion he said, ' For myself, when I come to die, I think it will be with this prayer in my heart, " God be merciful to me, a sinner," ' He evidently knew he would not live to return home. He said : ' I overrated my powers of standing a long voyage. I had still so much joy in life and I felt so well. But, even so, I don't see how I could have done otherwise when the medical advice was so clear. No one must say I regretted it : I do not do that.' He spoke touchingly of how some became unreasonable to others when the last weakness was on them, and said : * I would not like to be like that, if it were God's will to take me sooner.' He expressed to his daughter the wish, if it were not ' unreasonable,' to be ' laid beside your dear mother.' 508 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY- He liked to hear the 23rd Psalm read, and also some hymns — a favourite being Bernard's ' Jesus, Thou joy of loving hearts.' One day he asked for the hymn he had twice requested should be sung to him before leaving Edinburgh — ^Whittier's ' When on my day of life the night is falling ' ; but with characteristic con- sideration, laid his hand on his daughter's as she was finding it and, feehng it might be too trying for her, asked if she would ' rather read another.' Again and again, he said encouragingly to those round about him : * It 's all right, I 'm in safe hands — good hands.' Thus quietly the days passed on. Adelaide was reached on 4th December. On the day before. Dr. Rainy had a kind of collapse, and there were signs of a danger of heart failure. He rallied ; but the doctors — a second had come on board with the pilot boat at Adelaide — insisted that a warning message must be sent home in view of the possibility of a graver one. This was the first tidings the home country had of Dr. Rainy's critical condition, as the last news from Cape Town had been encouraging. At Adelaide a trained nurse was obtained. Also Principal Harper joined the ship to be a new strength to the party to the end. Dr. Rainy revived at the sight of him and welcomed him with animation. The next few days passed uneventfully, and on 8th December Melbourne was reached. Here his cousin — the Hon. James Balfour — and others were waiting to meet him. The landing was managed with much care and skill, and the Principal — having given his blessing to the Captain and others in the ship — was conveyed THE LAST JOURNEY AND THE END 509 without fatigue to a house in the suburbs, which was to be his last earthly dwelling. It was the house of Mrs. Cairns — the widow of the Rev. Dr. Adam Cairns, a minister who did great work in the early days of the Presbyterian Church in AustraUa. Mrs. Cairns was a devoted church woman, and her whole house was arranged with a view to the comfort of one whom she so venerated and loved as she did Dr. Rainy. It is right that the Church at home should know that, while it was the Will of God that Dr. Rainy should die in a land, interesting to him for many ties but still far from the country where his great Hfe was lived, yet hardly anywhere could his immediate surroundings have been more sympathetic than in this house. On the very walls of the room where he lay, hung the portraits of Cunningham and Candlish, the one his master, the other his almost father. It was forty-five years since the young minister of the High Church had been summoned to Cunningham's death-bed : it was thirty- three years since the dying Candlish committed the charge of the Assembly to the young professor of Church History. Amid memories and in surroundings such as these. Dr. Rainy passed his last days on earth. The Melbourne doctors who were consulted came definitely to the conclusion that it was a clear case of lymphadenoma. For this no cure is known, and even treatment which, in some cases, retards its progress, could hardly be given to an octogenarian. Those round about the invalid could now do little more than pray God to take him gently and without suffering. This prayer was answered. Into the sacredness of these last days — and especially 510 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY into his tender relations with his own dear ones — the writer must not intrude. Dr. Rainy was full of loving thoughts, naming the members of his family one by one, and particularly — with terms of endear- ment — his wife. A few of his less private words may be recorded. One day, after Principal Harper had prayed with him, he said : ' That helps me. It is good to have another's experience of the same thing — of the love of God. I wonder at the love of God to me, as He has shown it all my life.' Then he added, * And I believe that, notwithstanding all my shortcomings, I am not shut out, but — shut in.' On another day, when Dr. Harper had quoted the words of the paraphrase — * A hope so great and so divine May trials well endure ' — Dr. Rainy interjected a ' yes ' with great firmness. He received with much feeling a cablegram of sympathy sent from his colleagues in the Senate of the New College. He asked that it be read more than once. * Praying for me,' he said. Later, his speech grew feebler and the words were spoken more slowly. One morning he looked straight at his daughter, and said, faintly but intelligibly : * I am quite sure . . . that . . . when all . . . is said and done ... we are ... in wiser hands . . . in . . . God's . . . hands.' Then, taking hold of her hand, he repeated with great emphasis, ' / am quite sure . . . and . . . I am satisfied — quite satisfied.' His daughter, some time after, asked him if he had THE LAST JOURNEY AND THE END 511 any message for the Church. The answer was in- distinct. She repeated what he had seemed to say, asking ' Did you say God will guide the Church ? ' * Yes,' he said with marked emphasis, ' always, always.' Sometimes his utterances were not easy to hear and sometimes he wandered a little. But there was no pain or distress. Not only his faith and courage and patience continued, but his unfailing courtesy and gentleness. The nurses (one of whom was a Roman Catholic) had no words with which to express their admiration and reverence, and, with tears in their eyes, wished he would give them more trouble. The end came, with the utmost gentleness, on December 22nd. His last act was to lay his hand on the head of his daughter who was kneeling by the bed md to murmur a blessing. Thereafter he lay appar- ently unconscious. Shortly before nine in the morning, the end seemed to be approaching. Dr. Harper committed his soul to God. Then, the eyes opened, but they saw nothing of this world. The breath came more and more softly. The watchers hardly knew the moment when he breathed the last. So tenderly God took His servant home. After death, the face bore a lofty calm that was not less than majesty. On Monday, the 24th, the coffin was temporarily deposited in the beautiful cemetery of Kew in the outskirts of Melbourne, a service being held in Toorak Presbyterian Church. On the same day, a service was held in Edinburgh in the Assembly Hall — the first occasion on which the Hall was used after its 512 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY restoration to the United Free Church. The body was subsequently brought home on the same steamer as that with which Dr. Rainy had voyaged out and under the care of the same captain. The funeral took place in Edinburgh on 7th March 1907. The service was again held in the Assembly Hall, which was filled with a great and representative congregation. The corporations of several Scottish cities were represented ; also the University of Edinburgh and many other pubHc bodies. Several prominent clergymen of the Established Church were present, and one — Dr. Scott, the leader of the Assembly — took part in the devotions. The service was of the simplest — which certainly was in accord with Dr. Rainy's views of what a funeral service should be. It included the fine old Scottish paraphrase : — * How bright these glorious spirits shine ! Whence all their white array ? How came they to the blissful seats Of everlasting day ? ' which was sung almost with joy. It is a sure tribute to the spirituality of a man's character when the imagina- tion cannot consent to limit its conception of his life by the terminus of the grave. The procession was the greatest spectacle of its kind which Edinburgh had witnessed since Chalmers was carried to his grave with, as Hugh Miller said, 'more than kingly honours.' The day was one of rain, but dense crowds lined the streets and the moving line of black, preceding or following the hearse, extended for over a mile. Round the grave in the Dean Cemetery a great throng gathered, though the words of committal were spoken in a torrent. THE LAST JOURNEY AND THE END 513 Later, the rain ceased and the sun pierced the black clouds with conquering shafts of clear white light. Everything was still, save the vehement voices of the birds jubilating after the storm. His were now the light perpetual, the rest eternal, and the joy unspeakable. Of the innumerable tributes paid to Dr. Rainy 's memory, no account can be given here. But one was of a unique character — unique, probably, in the case of a man not a parliamentarian, and certainly unique in the case of a minister of a non-established Church — and it should be recorded. Dr. RoUand Rainy was asked to second in the House of Commons the motion for the address in reply to the King's Speech at the opening of the parhamentary session in 1907. At the close of his speech, he said : — ' I do not conceal from myself that there were other reasons than personal ones for asking me to undertake this task, and I wish to express my most sincere and earnest thanks for the kindly thought that prompted it '^ The leader of the Opposition, Mr. Balfour, who immediately followed, made the following observations on what was covered by this remark : — ' The hon. gentleman, in the concluding words of his speech, made a reference which certainly every Scottish member and I think everybody in this House would understand. It was made with admirable taste and propriet}^ if he will allow me to say so. He comes of a stock which has borne a great part in some of the most important domestic affairs of Scotland for two generations. The abilities of his father have been shown, ' 4 Hansard, clxix. 62. VOL. II. 2 K 514 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY indeed, upon a smaller field than is offered by this House ; but all who had the opportunity of watching the late Dr. Rainy's actions, whether they agreed with him or whether they did not — and I was sometimes in the one position and sometimes in the other — uniformly admitted that, had his lot been cast in the political sphere instead of the not less stormy sphere of Scottish ecclesiastical politics, he would have made, not only upon his own country, but on every citizen of the Empire, that impression which we, who have had the opportunity of judging, have carried away of his great powers and abilities.' ^ The Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, following Mr. Balfour, referred also to Dr. Rolland Rainy's remark and said : — ' His father, who was perhaps personally but little known to the bulk of the members of this Assembly, was a man who was a statesman in a degree which is very seldom reached by those who are passing their lives in the parliamentary field. I always fight shy of the word " statesman " and of the fashion which somewhat prevails of taking a statesmanlike view of a matter. But certainly, if ever there was a man who was calculated by tact, by ingenuity, by straightforwardness of character, by high talents and by patriotic motives, to deserve the name of statesman, it was the late Principal Rainy.' " These are tributes — in the circumstances in which they were delivered, very remarkable tributes — paid by the leaders of the two great parties in the State to one who, however, was and deliberately chose to be, not a statesman but a churchman. They mean that in Principal Rainy, almost alone of modern ecclesiastical leaders, we may see an example of the great governing type of churchman, for representatives of which one naturally looks almost exclusively to long past ages * 4 Hansard, clxix. 63. - 4 Hansard, clxix. 78. THE LAST JOURNEY AND THE END 515 of the Church's history. It is not in the mere events of his career that this is to be seen ; for their theatre was Umited. It is in the unmistakable power and nobihty in his way of doing them. I hnd this so admirably and justly expressed in the following passage that I shall quote it at length : — ' The great service he did the Church in his day was by setting the example, and leading the Church to do the same, of a thoroughly high-hearted and grand style of deahng with duties, with events, with assailants. Clear as to his principles, in full possession of the practical forces by which the Church must be moved and guided, he brought to every occurrence, above all these, a grand resoluteness, fidehty and unselfishness, that lifted his cause and all who shared it to a higher platform. In all he did he was a magnanimous Christian ; and by the grandeur of his impulses and the nobility of his attitude, he raised the Church's own conception of her cause and of her work. The great Christian ideas which inspired his action were seen in him undegraded by association with personal littleness, with paltry feelings and paltry ends. Is not this what we need through all the Churches, — a high-hearted Christianity ; conscious of the greatness of the Christian truths and the Christian calling, resolute in the assertion of them, not with the bitter and narrow obstinacy of small men, but with the strength of great principles, of a temper too assured to be passionate or faltering or perplexed ? One should pray for great men — Christian men of great moral and mental stature. It is the privilege of such men to strike keynotes, to step out and take positions which decide instantly how things shall go ; then the chorus of the rejoicing Church rises in harmony with their utterance, the strength of the Church moves and ranks itself behind them, and each man is potenti- ated into twice his own power by the impulse which he receives and the consciousness in which he shares. Such service he did for the Church of his day.' No words could more truly describe the grand characteristic of Principal Rainy's churchmanship. 516 THE LIFE OF PRINCIPAL RAINY The interest of the words is that they are by Principal Rainy. They are part of a lecture which he gave on Ambrose. But they are also an unconscious portrait of himself. And the words with which the lecture closes are as true if applied to the great Scottish pres- byter whose life has been portrayed — so inadequately — ^in this work as to the great prelate of Milan in the fourth century : * When God gives such a man to the Church's service, be he Bishop or no Bishop, we may well call him a Prince of the Church.' ^^A^ /sf Jf /^. INDEX Aaronic Benediction : incident at New College Jubilee festival, ii. 259. Abercrombie, Miss Barbara, i. 437. Aberdeen, sixth Earl of, introduces Church of Scotland Bill, i. 57 ; remon- strates with Duchess of Gordon for joining Free Church of Scotland, i. 106 ; passes Benefices Act, i. 252. seventh Earl of, Lord High Com- missioner, ii. 30 ; mediates in Railway Strike, ii. 107, 108 ; accepts invitation to Union Assembly, ii. 236, 254. College, i. 309, 334. Presbytery, Robertson Smith case in, i. 331, 346, 361, 362. Acton, Lord, ii. 502. Adam, Dr., of Glasgow, as Church leader, i. 268, 293, 360, 381, ii. 109; Robertson Smith case, i. 357, 393 ; Dods-Bruce case, ii. 112; his death, ii. 123. letters to, i. 360, 363, 3S0, 381, 382, 384-5; ii. 109, 121. W. P., M.P., ii. 5. Adelaide, ii. 508. Advisory Committee formed, ii. 367 ; Rainy's last appearance in, ii. 496-7. Advocates' Library, ii. 3S5. Aird, Dr. Gustavus, i. 11. Alverstone, Lord, hears Church case in House of Lords, ii. 315, 319; his judgment, ii. 342, 349 ; incautious statement by, ii. 408. Ambrose, ii. 516. America, Cunningham on voluntaryism in, i. 161; Rainy's visit to, i. 410; law of Church property in, ii. 437 ;/. Amyraldus, ii. 331, 332. Ancient Catholic Church, The, Rainy's book on, i. 213, ii. 288. Angels, Robertson Smith on, i. 310. Anglican Church, Court of Arches and questions of criticism, i. 405 n. ; High Church party, i. 233 ; Rainy on, ii. 177, 179-80. Anstruther, Sir Ralph, Bart., member of Royal Commission on Church case, ii. 397 ; and of Executive Commission, ii. 471. Apostolical Succession, ii. 1S2. Aquinas, ii. 120 «. Arabian Mission, ii. 84, 85. Ardmillan, Lord, i. 241 ; on Rainy's reply to Dean Stanley, i. 244. letter to, i. 245. Ardwall, Lord. .SVi? Jameson, Sheriff. Argyll, Duke of, introduces Church of Scotland Bill, i. 57 ; rejection of Bill by ' moderate ' party, i. 59 ; on aboli- tion of Patronage, i. 263 «. ; on Dr. Buchanan, i. 293 ; supports Mr. Fin- lay's ]?ill, ii. 64; on Gladstone's letter on the Disruption, ii. 142 ; on Estab- lishment as a barrier 10 Union, ii. Arminianism, ii. 330. Arnot, Rev. W., i. 181. Ascetit of Man, The, ii. 169-70. Asher, Alex., Q. C, advice on proposed Union, ii. 226, 227 ; suggests retention of name 'Free Church of Scotland,' ii. 233 n. ; counsel for United Free Church in House of Lords, ii. 311, 321, 325, 364 n. ; on compromising the case, ii. 314 ; on Spiritual Inde- pendence, ii. 321, 322; on Rainy's ' relevant ' mind, ii. 324. Asquith, H. H., M.P., on the Church case, ii. 335. Assembly. See General Assembly. Assembly Hall, ii. 363, 3S4, 420 ; re- stored tf) United Free Church, ii. 484, 496, 511 ; funeral service in, ii. 512. Atonement, doctrine of, i. 424-6. Auchterarder Case, in Ten Years' Con- flict, i. 48, 60, ii. 318. Augustine, projected life of, i. 135, ii. 287-8 ; on free-will, ii. 330. Australia, first visit to, i. 101-04 ; voyage to and last illness in, ii. 493, 502-II. Australian Presbyterians and House of Lords judgment, ii. 362. See a'.so Victoria. Ayr instance of 'legal' Free Church interdicts, ii. 411. Bai.de, poem of, quoted, ii. 470. P.alfour of Burleigh, Lord, i. 71, ii. 396; on Disestablishment as a condition of Union, ii. 57 ; on the House of Lords 517 518 INDEX judgment, ii. 373, 375 ; attempted mediation in Churches' settlement, ii. 391-2; seeks legislation for creed re- laxation in Established Church, ii. 445- Balfour of Burleigh, Lord, letters to, ii. 374. 394, 397- A. J., M.P., ii. 163,473; on the Union of the Churches, ii. 260 ; House of Lords judgment and legislative pro- posals, ii. 360, 372, 448, 461 ; tribute to Rainy, ii. 513-14. letters to, ii. 370-1, 405, 442-3- Hon. James (cousin), ii. 102, 508. James, W.S., i. 192. J. B,, Q.C. See Kinross, Lord. John M., of Pilrig, i. 33. Mrs., i. 82. See also Rainy, Annie (sister). Bannerman, Professor, i. 174. Dr., of Perth, ii. 184. Barrier Act, ii. 128. Payne, Dr. Peter, i. 142. Bazaars, raffles at, i. 303. Ijeaconsfield, Lord, passes Patronage Bill, i. 259 ; fall of ministry, ii. 9 ; Rainy on, ii. 29. Begg, Rev. Dr. James, action in Convo- cation of 1842, i. Gt,, 273 n. ; leader of anti-union party, i. 161, 170, 173'; opposes Mutual Eligibility scheme, i. 187 ; obtains legal opinions on Estab- lishment Principle, i. 188-90; prepara- tions for separation, ii. 192, 195 ; accepts compromise, ii. 197 ; descrip- tion of, i. 198 ; on Patronage abolition, i. 265, 272 ; opposes Disestablishment motion, i. 278 ; place in Church councils, i. 293 ; action in Robertson Smith case, i. 315, 316, 317, 322, 369 ; ' trembling for the ark of God,' i. 337 ; Robertson Smith's reply, i. 337-9 ; ' fanaticising the Highlands,' i. 440 ; his death, ii. 49 ; Rainy on, ii. 50. Beith, Rev. Dr., i. 369. Gilbert, M.P., letter to, ii. 294-5. Belhaven, Lord, i. 70 w. Bell, Dr. Benjamin, i. 370. Benefactions, United I'ree Church's de- claration as to acceptance of, ii. 426. Benefices Act of 1843, i. 252. Bernard, hymn of, ii. 508. Beza, i. 160, 230, ii. 120 n. ' Bible and Criticism,' London Lectures, i. 341-6. See also Higher Criticism; Inspiration. Black, A. W., M.P., ii. 394 «. Dr. James, ii. 191. Dr. J. Sutherland, i. 377 n. Blackie, John Stuart, ii. 21. Blackwood's Magazine, ii. 3;/., 379 «. Blair, Dr. Hugh, i. 419. Boer War, ii. 281, 297. Bonar, Dr. Andrew, Robertson Smith case, i. 340, 351. Dr. Horatius, attitude on Union question, i. 174, 192. Boston, Thomas, ii. 332. Breadalbane, Marquis of, i. 32 ; leaves the 'residuary Assembly,' i. 71. Brewster, Sir David, i. 90. British Weekly, The, ii. 313. Brougham, Lord Chancellor, approves Veto Bill, i. 46; judgment in House of Lords, i. 51. Brown, Professor Cnmi, ii. 191. Principal David, action in Robert- son Smith case, i. 334 ; Newman's letter to, i. 354. Rev. George (cousin), i. 19 ; enters New College with Rainy, i. 90; minister at Pau, i. 190; Rainy's visit to, i. 245-6 ; his death, ii. 480-1. letters to, i. 102, iio. III, 115, 140, 166, 190, 220, 341. James (cousin), i. 83. Dr. John, i. 284. W. Rounsfell, ii. 313, 469. Robert, i. 13. Dr. Thomas, i. 25, 88, ii. 435 n. Bruce, King Robert, i. l. Mr. , of Kennet, leaves ' residuary Assembly,' i. 71. Dr. John, of Edinburgh, ii. 97. Professor A. B., on Presbyterian reunion and Establishment, i. 286 »/. ; action in Robertson Smith case, i. 394 ; power as a teacher, i. 407 ; attacks on teaching of, ii. ill ; As- sembly's deliverance, ii. 112; Car- lylean strain in, ii. 117; last illness, ii. 293. Mrs. A. B., letter to, ii. 293-4. Buccleuch, Duke of, grounds for refusal of sites at Disruption, ii. 156 «. Buchan, John, ii. 379 «. Buchanan, Professor (' Logic Bob '), i. 28, 90. Dr. Robert, i. 53 ; takes Rainy to his first General Assembly, i. 78 ; Convener of Union Committee, i. 151, 191, 194; on Dean Stanley's lectures, i. 226 ; his death, i. 293 ; suggests name of ' United Free Church,' ii. 223. letters to, i. 178, 181, 183, 1S4, 234, 264. Building Fund, .Special, ii. 496 «. Burns, John, M.P., and Scottish Railway Strike, ii. 107. INDEX 519 Burns, Robert, Dean Stanley on, i. 225 ; Rainy on the cult of, i. 239. Bute, Marquis of, Lord High Com- missioner, i. 62. Cairo, Dr. Edward, influence on Scottish religious thought, i. 407, 409. Cairns, Dr. Adam, of Melbourne, ii. 509. Mrs. Adam, receives Rainy to her home in his last illness, ii. 509. Rev. David, on Union negotiations, ii. 212. Professor D. S., Rainy's conversa- tion on advance of criticism, ii. 1 16-17. Principal, i. 226 ; share in in- augurating proposal of Union, i. 151 ; on the progress of Union negotiations, i. 167 ; anticipates successful issue of future negotiations, i. 300 ; his ad- vocacy ol Disestablishment, ii. 25 ; signs Disestablishment manifesto, ii. 30; his death, ii. 165 «. letter to, i. 17S. Calderwood, Professor Henry, ii. 70 «., 157 «., 197. Calvin, on Predestination, ii. 119M. , 330-2- Calvinism, affected by new influences in Scottish religious thought, i. 407, 409 ; in the Highlands, i. 449 ; of ' Con- fession of Faith," ii. 119. Cambridge, lecture in St. Columba's Church, ii. 177. Cambridge Modern History, ii. 502. Cambusnethan case, i. 60. Cameron, Sir Charles, M.P. , his Dis- establishment Bill, ii. 148 ; supported by Gladstone, ii. 150; and by Rose- bery administration, ii. 150-3. Rev. Murdo, i. 11. ' Cameronians. ' See Reformed Presby- terian Church. Campbell, Lord, on Spiritual Independ- ence, i. 50. James Alexander, of Stracathro, ii. 27 ; his Bill to facilitate Presbyterian reunion, ii. 148 «. John Macleod, i. 408. Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry, M.P., on the relation of Patronage to the Disruption, i. 260 ; supports Dis- establishment, ii. 27 «. : on the House of Lords judgment, ii. 369, 457-8 ; attitude to legislative proposals in Church case, ii. 447, 449 ; Prime Minister, ii. 473 ; tribute to Rainy, ii. 514- Candlish, Dr. R. S., i. 53, 63, 128, 191, ii. 306, 509; appeal to 'moderates' to accept Duke of Argyll's Bill, i. 58 ; Rainy's youthful impression of, i. 79 ; brings forward Rainy in the Assembly, i. 141 ; made Principal of New College, i. 144 ; on formula of Free Church, i. 159; Union speech in Edinburgh Presbytery, i. 181 ; jiroposes Mutual Eligibility scheme in Assembly, i. 194, 196 ; relinquishes Church leadership, i. 214; his death, i. 283 ; last charge to Rainy, i. 284. Candlish, Prof. J. S.,on Begg's opposition to Disestablishment, i. 27S ; action in Robertson-Smith case, i. 319, 320, 321, 328, 330, 365, 392; signs Dis- establishment manifesto, ii. 30; raises question of creed revision, ii. 120; part in movement for Presbyterian reunion, ii. 157 n. letter to, i. 323. Canterbury, Archbishop of. See David- son, Dr. Randall. Card-playing, ii. 95. Card well. Lady, i. 13. Carlyle, ii. 117 n. Garment, Dr. John, ii. 77- Carnegie, Andrew, ii. 280. Carnock, 139. Carstares, ii. 81, 401, 432, 434, 435. Celts and Gaels, i. 429 w. Chalcedon, Canons of, quoted, i. 42. Chalmers, Dr. i. 74, 88, 299, ii. 434, 435' 50°) 512; opinion of Margaret Parker, i. 12 ; ministry in Glasgow, i. 15, 22 ; leader of evangelical party, i. 45 ; initiates Veto Act, i. 46 ; in- augurates Church Extension, i. 46 ; leader in Ten Years' Conflict, i. 53 ; preaches in defiance of Strathbogie interdict, i. 56 ; disapproves of Earl of Aberdeen's Bill, i. 57 ; accepts Duke of Argyll's Bill, i. 58 ; moves adoption of Claim of Right, i. 62 ; summons Convocation of the Church, i. 62 ; will not leave Establishment till 'forced,' i. 65 ; leads the Disrup- tion, i. 67 ; in the New College, i. 91 ; Rainy's estimate of, i. 91 ; his view of Rainy as a student, i. 95; as 'Apostle of Union,' i. 150, ii. 347; attitude to Voluntaryism, i. 152, 153, ii. 347 ; places Spiritual In- dependence before Establishment principle, i. 273 «., 279; as ethical preacher, i. 419; his appeals to 'men of the world,' ii. 127; Gladstone's appreciation of, ii. 141 ; part in suggesting name ' Free Church of Scotland,' ii. 233 ; on the free preaching of the Gospel, ii. 321 ; House of Lords and his ' prospectus of the Free Church,' ii. 322, 328, 333, 336, 338, 341, 342, 346-50; on in- 520 INDEX corporating Union with Presbyterian dissenters, ii. 348 ; original appeal for Free Church funds, ii. 407-8. Chamberlain, Joseph, ]M.P.,on religious equality, ii. 30, 43 ; Rainy on, ii. 282. Chancellor, Lord. Set Halsbury. Chapels Act, i. 47 ; civil appeal against, i. 60. Chatteris, Professor, i. 251, ii. 132 n. ; on the answer to the Protest of 1843, i. 72 «• ; part in movement for Pres- byterian reunion, i. 264, ii. 2, 50, 157 «. Chaucer, ii. 503. Cheyne, Professor, i. 375. Sir John, Commissioner for Church properly settlements, ii. 397, 410, 411 ; on inability of the Establish- ment to revise its creed, ii. 444 «. 'Child Element in Christianity,' ii. 478. Children's meeting, Edinburgh, in Church crisis, ii. 388-90. Chisholm, Sir Samuel, Bart., Lord Provost of Glasgow, attempted media- tion in Church case, ii. 309-10. Christian Knowledge Society, i. 437 n. 'Christian Unity' movement in Scotland, ii. 184-6. Church of Scotland. See Established Church, Free Church, United Free Church. Church, the. Visible and Catholic, ii. I S3 ; Christian idea of, ii. 424. Union. See Union. Churches (Scotland) Bill, provides for allocation of Church property, ii. 448 ; Clause V. and Established Church formula, ii. 449, 455-6 ; proposed malversation of funds, ii. 450 ; amend- ments to the Bill, ii. 455, 460; House of Commons debate, ii. 456-8; House of Lords, ii. 462-4; Bill passed, ii. 464 ; unique character and effect of, ii. 464-7. ' Claim of Right,' adopted by Church of Scotland, i. 61 ; rejected by Govern- ment, i. 64. Clark, Sir Thomas, Bart., ii. 198, 204. Cleghorn, Sheriff, i. 192. Cockburn, Lord, on the Church of Scotland, i. 61 ; on the Disruption, i. 68. Colenso case in Anglican Church, i. 405- Columba, i. 469. Communion, a Highland, under diffi- culties, ii. 474-5. Concurrent Endowment, ii. 76. 'Confession of Faith,' Establishment principle not contained in, i. 172 «. ; its doctrine of inspiration, i. 333, ii. 114; Calvinism of, ii. 119; Bicen- tenary of, ii. 348 ; as statute law, ii. 433. Confession of 1561, ii. 339. Congregationalism, ii. 177. Contagious Diseases Act (India), ii. 176. Contemporary Kevtni', ii. 9. Convocation of 1842, i. 62 ; of 1904, ii. 385-7. Corbett, A. Cameron, M.P. , ii. 454. Courant, The, on Begg's threatened separation, i. 197. Court of Session, Free Church anti- union minority institute proceedings in, ii. 262, 301-5 ; Outer House decision, ii. 305 ; decision upheld by Inner House, ii. 307-9 ; application of House of Lords judgment, ii. 3834, 410. Craigdallie v. Aikman, ii. 304. Craighill, Lord, on Establishment prin- ciple, i. 190 n. Cranbrook, Lord, on Patronage abolition and Presbyterian reunion, i. 259. Creed Revision. See Declaratory Act. Creeds, authority of, i. 290. Crimean War, i. 140. Crofter Commission, i. 466-7. Cromarty, Hugh Miller Centenary cele- brations at, ii. 279-80. Cromwell, ii. 400. Cumming, Dr. J. Elder, ii. 470. Cunningham, Principal John, of St. Andrews, on the rejection of the Duke of Argyll's Bill by the moderates, i. 59 ; on the motives for abolition of Patron- age, i. 254 ; favours creed revision, ii. 120. Cunningham, Dr. William, i. 53, 63, ii. 64, 509 ; professor in New College, i. 91, 92 ; Rainy's view of, as a teacher, i. 93 ; his view of Rainy as a student, i. 95 ; Principal of New College, ii. 118; great speech on Australian Union, i. 143; his death, i. 144; on Free Church principles, i. 160-1 ; Rainy's Life of, i. 214. Lecture on the Delivery and Development of Christian Doctrine, i. 288-92. Currie, Sir Donald, ii. 162. Daily Review, The, on the movement for abolition of Patronage, i. 258 ; Robertson Smith's letter to, i. 321 ; Rev. John S. Macphail's letter to, i. 440 n. Dalhousie, Earl of. Parliamentary action in pre-Disruption crisis, i. 66 ; he.ids lay movement to meet any post-union litigation, i. 192 ; supports Rainy's election as Principal, i. 285. INDEX 521 Darwinism, i. 285. Davey, Lord, hears Church case in House of Lords, ii. 311, 312, 322; his first opinion favours United Free Church, ii. 334 ; his revised judgment, ii. 334 ; on a division of the Church properly, ii. 382. Davidson, Professor A. B., i. iSi, 210, 454, ii. 165 ; influence as a teacher, i. 213, 407 ; attitude in Robertson Smith case, i. 354-5 ; signs Disestablishment manifesto, ii. 30 ; on the advance of criticism, ii. 1 15. Dr. Randall, Archf)ishop of Canter- bury, his interest in the Church case, ii- 327, 372, 374 ; offer of mediation, ii. 373- Days of the Fathers in Koss-shire, i. 442. Deacon, Rev. IL, ii. 505 n. Dean Cemetery, ii. 512. Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, i. 218. Declaratory Act, United Presbyterians first Scottish Church to adopt, ii. 120 ; terms of Free Church Act, ii. 124-5 '< its adoption causes small secession, ii. 129, 176, 199 ; an issue in Church case, ii. 301, 302, 319. Deer Forests, i. 464. Delitzsch, Professor, i. 354. Denney, Professor James, ii. 115, 378. Denny, Colonel, M.P., ii. 454. ' Deuteronomy,' historicity of, count in Robertson Smith case, i. 333, 335. Dickson, Charles Scott, M.P. , Lord Advocate, introduces the Churches Bill, ii. 448 ; on the United Free Church and allocations of property, ii. 452 ; announces amendments to the Bill, ii. 455. David, i. 230. Disestablishment, issue raised by aboli- tion of Patronage, i. 252, 262, 276-8 ; ii. I, 2; overtures to Assembly and appointment of Committee, i. 265-7 ; Rainy not the originator of movement for, i. 267 ; his motives in advocacy of, i. 279-82, 420, ii. 17-24; opinion in the Highlands, i. 445-7 ; attitude of Liberal Governments, ii. 2, 5, 30, 148, 150, 152 ; Rainy's correspondence with Gladstone, ii. 5-16, 31-5, 41, 69-70; adopted by Scottish Liberals, ii. 29, 40 ; manifesto of Scottish clergy, ii. 30; Gladstone's declinature to adopt, ii. 36-46 ; debate in House of Com- mons, ii. 65-6; Sir Charles Cameron's Bill, ii. 148-9; supported by Gladstone, ii. 150 ; adopted by Rosebery Adminis- tration, ii. 151-2; question remains as obstacle to Presbyterian reunion, ii. 154-5 ; Establishment not essential to a National Presbyterian Church, ii. 431 n. Disraeli. See Beaconsfield, Lord. Disruption, the, clue to Rainy's life, i. 40, 84 ; principle of, i. 41, ii. 273 w. , 433 ; Scottish Home Rule and, i. 66; a glory and a catastroi)he, i. 67-9 ; the 'glow' of, i. 73-6; the sufferings of, i. 88; false worship of, i. 163; Dean Stanley on, i. 224 ; position of the Establishment after, i. 248 ; an epoch- making event in the Highlands, i. 433- 6; Jubilee celebrations, ii. 140-7; Gladstone on, ii. 140-2 ; House of Lords and 'prospectus' of, ii. 322, 346, 407-8. Dissenters Chapels Act, ii. 465 n. Dods, Dr. Marcus, on Rainy's preaching in High Church, Edinburgh, i. 129; his views on inspiration challenged, i. 339 ; Assembly departs from the charge, i. 339 ; attitude to Robertson Smith, i. 386 ;;. ; notable Assembly speech in Robertson Smith case, i. 394 ; signs Disestablishment manifesto, ii. 30 ; Rainy on his qualifications for professorship, ii. 109 ; his election to New Testament chair in New College, ii. 1 10 ; attacks on teaching of, ii. 1 1 1 ; Assembly's deliverance, ii. 112; in- tellectual fidelity of, ii. 1 1 7. Dort, Synod of, ii. 311, 323; its con- demnation of Arminianism, ii. 330-2. Douglas, Rev. A. Halliday, ii. 177. Francis Brown, i. 192. Principal, fellow - student with Rainy, i. 28, 90. ■ letters to, i. 127, 140, 167, 198. Driver, Professor, i. 375. Drummond, Professor Henry, associa- tion with Moody's Mission, i. 409 n. ; attends ministry of Marcus Dods, ii. 109 ; publishes The Ascent of Mati, ii. 168; Assembly dismisses heretical charges against, ii. 169 ; character of, ii. 170. Duff, Dr., his interest in Union, i. 174, 179, 181 ; Moderator of General As- sembly, i. 197 ; attitude in Robertson Smith case, i. 316. Duncan, Dr. John ('Rabbi'), i. 91, 92. Dunedin, Lord. See Murray, Graham. Dunlop, Alexander Murray, i. 60, 156; ii. 67. Duns, Professor, i. 315. Durie's Psalm, i. 74- Dykes, Principal, ii. 257. Edinburgh, Rainy's settlement in, i. 126; the Union procession, ii. 247; funeral of Rainy, ii. 512. .522 INDEX Edinburgh Philosophical Institution, i. 222. University, Rainy in the Speculative Society, i. 97 ; offers accommodation for New College classes, ii. 385. Education, Free Cliurch and primary, i. 216 ; transference of schools to national system, i. 217; Rainy stands for religious instruction in schools, ii. 22 ; Rainy on Oxford and classical studies, ii. 168. Edwards, Mr., Marnoch case, i. 54. Eldon, Lord, on the law of trusts, ii. 304, 308, 328. Elgin, Earl of, Chairman of Royal Com- mission on the Church case, ii. 397, 407 ; Chairman of Executive Commis- sion, ii. 471 ; accepts Colonial Secre- taryship, ii. 473. ' Eli and the Ark of God,' Robertson Smith's reply to Begg, i. 337-9. Emergency Fund, ii. 367, 496 11. Encyclopcedia Britannica, Robertson Smith's contributions to, i. 310, 376; his editorship of, ii. 138. Episcopacy, Rainy on Presbyterian Union with, ii. 178-9. See also Anglican Church. Episcopal Church, Scottish, Dean Stan- ley on, i. 223, 225. Erastianism of Dean Stanley's Scottish Church lectures, i. 225, 233, 234 ; of ' legal ' Free Church pleas in House of Lords, ii. 318, 319, 321, 325. Erskine, Ebenezer, i. 230. Established Church of Scotland, rehabili- tation after the Disruption, i. 249-51 ; agitation for removal of Patronage, i. 253 ; misses opportunity for Presby- terian reunion, i. 254, 262 ; anticipates return of Free Churchmen on abolition of Patronage, i. 255, 274; ' estab- lished dissenters' in the Highlands, i. 433 ; meets Disestablishment move- ment with Church Defence organisa- tion, ii. 26 ; overtures to Free Church on Union or co-operation, ii. 51, 55; Church Interests Committee on un- restricted conference, ii. 57-8 ; relation to Mr. Finlay's Bill, ii. 59 ; movement for creed revision balked by State connection, ii. 120,444; congratulates Free Church on Disruption Jubilee, ii. 146 ; Rainy on, in Union Assembly, ii. 251-2 ; movement for creed relaxation revived in view of Churches Bill, ii. 443 ; Church Interests Committee presses for legislation, ii. 445-7 ; Clause V. of Churches (Scotland) Bill gives power to adopt new formula, ii. 449. Establishment principle, never placed in principles of Free Church of Scotland, i. 155-61, 302, 344-6; Dr. Begg obtains legal opinions on, i. 188-90 ; an issue in Church case in House of Lords, ii. 301, 305, 327-8, 342, 344- Evangelicalism, i. 235-6. ' Evolution and Theology,' i. 285. Ewald, i. 136. Executive Commission, constituted by Churches (Scotland) Act, ii. 471 ; allocations made by, ii. 481-4, 496. Fairbairn, Principal A. M., ii. 237. Fairweather, Rev. Alexander, prophecy at Rainy's ordination, i. no. Ferguson, Dr. William, of Kinmundy, ii. 202. Finlay, Sir Robert, ii. 70, 442 ; his Church of Scotland Bill, ii. 59 ; its ' declaratory ' character, ii. 59 ; atti- tude of the Scottish Churches to, ii. 61 ; claims of disestablished Churches ignored, ii. 62 ; tribute to the Disrup- tion in the House of Commons, ii. 64 ; defeat of Bill, ii. 65. Foley, Lord, ii. 327. Foreign Missions of Free Church, ii. 161 ; Skibo Castle incident, ii. 280 ; alloca- tion of property to United Free Church, ii. 496. See also Missionaries. Formula, adjustment of, in Union ne- gotiations, ii. 215 ; question of the Church's relation to the State, ii. 215 ; new and old formulae quoted, ii. 216- 17; distinguished from 'testimonies,' ii. 217-18. Fori est. Dr. R. G., Ii. 470. France, Anatole, quoted, ii. 369-70. Fraser, Sir Andrew, ii. 363. Professor Campbell, Rainy's impres- sions of, i. 94. W. Stuart, W.S., ii. 497. Fraser-Mackintosh, Charles, M. P., 'the Crofters' Member,' i. 466. Free Church of Scotland (1843-1900), extraordinary early success of, i. 75 > period of reaction in section of, i. 163; provision for primary education, i. 216-17; Patronage abolition does not remove ground of separation from the Establishment, i. 268, 272-3 ; Rainy's unique authority in, i. 420-1 ; her strength and work in the Highlands, i. 433-40; small secession follows Ijassing of Declaratory Act, ii. 129, 176, 199; Jubilee Assembly, ii. 139- 47 ; last Assembly before Union, ii. 242. Vide also Disruption. INDEX 523 Free Church of Scotland, 'legal,' anti- Union minority constitute themselves an Assembly of Free Church, ii. 247, 261 ; institutes legal proceedings, ii. 262, 301 ; ajipeal to the House of Lords, ii. 311, 316; denies right to free preaching of the Gospel, ii. 320- 1 ; lays down conditions for temporary use of churches, ii. 368 ; rejects sugges- tion of arbitration, ii. 3.S3 ; obtains interdicts against congregations, ii. 385, 410 ; declines to entertain schemes of joint-occupancy, ii. 409 ; withdraws from Cheyne Commission, ii. 410; Royal Commissioners on her inability to administer trust, ii. 415. Free-will and predestination, ii. 330. French Protestant Church, doctrine of, ii, 331-2. Frew, Dr., ii. 477. Gaels and Celts, i. 429 «. Gambling. See Lotteries. Garden, Mr. Murray, ii. 74. Geelong, ss., ii. 493, 502, 512. Geikie, Sir Archibald, ii. 279. General Assembly, Rainy's first visit to, i. 78 ; judicial function of, i. 370 n. ; 'reserve power' of, i. 394 «., 397; Lord Lindley on powers of, ii. 340-1 ; solemnity of closing proceedings of, ii. 487. German theolog)', i. 136, ii. 126. (jib, Adam, i. 23a Gibbon, i. 19, 231. Gibson, Professor, Glasgow Students' case, i. 14I ; opposes Australian Union, i. 143 ; on Establishment principle, i. 163. Gibson-Carmichael, Sir Thomas, Bart., ii. 471. Gifford Lectures. Otto. Gillan, Rev. Dr., i. 254, 256. Gillespie, George, i. 230. Thomas, i. 139 n. Gillies, Lord, on Spiritual Independence, i. 51. Gilston, Rev. William, i. 139. Gladstone, W. E., i. 39, ii. 17, 77, 201, 250, 263, 269 ; kinship with Principal Rainy, i. 4 ; on the ministry, i. 85 ; receives Established Church deputa- tion on Patronage, i. 256-7 ; opposes Disraeli's Billforabolition of Patronage, i. 260; on the real Church of Scotland, i. 260; on the rights of the disestab- lished Churches, i. 261, ii. 60, 65-6 ; theological outlook of, i. 288 ; attitude to Scottish Disestablishment, ii. 4, 43-8 ; correspondence with P.ainy on See Pfieiderer, Dr. Disestablishment, ii. 5-10, 31-5. 41, 69-70 ; speech in Free Asseniljly 1 lull, ''• 35-9 ; places Disestablishment issue in the background, ii. 38; on the Dis- ruption, ii. 140-2; Governnunl (>( 1892 favourable to Disestablislinieni, ii. 148-9; Rainy on, ii. 149, 282: I'arliamentary retirement, ii. 150; hi> citimate of Rainy, ii. 163, 437//. Glasgow, a century ago, i. 13?/. ; Kainy's early homes in, i. 17. Assembly of 1843, i. 88; of 1878, i- 335- Bank, failure of City of, i. 301 -3. ■ College, i. 28, 142, ii. 269. Herald on the House of Lords judgment, ii. 359. High School, i. 19. University, Rainy studies at, i. 27 ; Students' Missionary Association, i. 32 ; 450th Anniversary Celebrations, ii. 286. Gnosticism, ii. 288. (loethe, ii. 290. Goold, Rev. Dr., i. 177, 340. Gordon, Barbara. See Rainy, Barbara (mother). Duchess of ('the good'), i. 102, 105 ; joins P'ree Church of Scotland, i. 106 ; invites Rainy to be chaplain, i. 106 ; on Rainy's declinature of call to Edinburgh, i. 12 1. E. S., on Establishment principle in P'ree Church, i, 189 11. ; on Patron- age Bill as ' basis of conciliation,' i. 259. Dr. Robert, i. 118, ii. 97. Gore, Bishop, ii. 114, 115//., 386. Graf-Wellhausen theory of the Penta- teuch, i. 310, 376. Graham, Sir James, i. 65, 67 ; returns answer of Government to the Church's Claim of Right, i. 64 ; refuses Com- mittee of Inquiry in House of Com- mons, i. 66 ; on the cessation of the abuse of Patronage, i. 252-3. Grant, Dr., of Chinchew, i. 443;/. Green, Thomas Hill, i. 407, ii. 137 «. Grotius, i. 160, 391. (lun, Miss, i. 19. (iuthrie. Dr., i. 128 ; preaches in de- fiance of Strathbogie interdict, i. 56 ; on Union, ii. 348-9. Lord, ii. 213, 393. Haddington, ii. 260. Haldane, R. B., K.C., ii. 107, 14S, 260; on legal aspect of Union, ii. 227 ; counsel for United Free Church in House of Lords case, ii. 311. 321, 325 ; on the doctrinal issue, ii. 322-3 ; 524 INDEX on the identity of the Free Church, ii. 323-4 ; on Rainy's reception of the House of Lords judgment, ii. 352-3 ; on prospects of Parliamentary inter- vention, ii. 372-3; on the report of the Royal Commission, ii. 416. Ilalsbury, Lord Chancellor, hears Church case, ii. 311, 315, 398, 408, 409, 416, 424 ; his attitude to case for United Free Church, ii. 321, 323, 324, 325, 364 w. ; his judgment, ii. 328-9 ; on 'a colourable union,' ii. 329; mis- understanding of Calvinism, ii. 329-30 ; his silence on Churches Bill, ii. 463, 464. Hardy, Gathorne. See Cranbrook, Lord, Harper, Rev. Principal Andrew (son-in- law), ii. 104; visit to Scotland, ii. 469, 492 ; ministers to Rainy in last illness, ii. 50S, 510, 511. Mrs. (daughter), i. 219; marriage, ii. 104; visits Edinburgh, ii. 469; accompanies Principal Rainy to Australia, ii. 492, 506, 510. Hartington, Marquis of, on position of Disestablishment question, ii. 1-2; on the Patronage Act, ii. 2. Harvey, Thomas, Rector of Edinburgh Academy, i. 28. Hebrides, the, Rainy's tour in, i. 431. See also Lewis. Hegelianism, its influence on Scottish thought, i. 407. Henderson, Alexander, i. 123;;., ii. 317. Dr. Andrew, ii. 249. Dr. Archibald, recalls Candlish's statement on formula of the Free Churcl), i. 159 ; on the resumption of Union negotiations, ii. 202 ; on the place of Establishment Principle in the Free Church, ii. 221. High Church, Edinburgh, call to Rainy, i. 118; his appointment by General Assembly, i. 123 ; first sermon, i. 126 ; farewell sermon, i. 145 ; jubilee pre- sentation, ii. 267. Churchmanship, ii. 203 «. Higher Criticism, Rainy on, i. 136, ii. 116-17; Professor George Adam Smith's acceptance of, ii. 269-70. See also Smith, Professor William Robert- son. Highland Committee, Rainy's Convener- ship, i. 431. 453. •'• 275. 485- Highlands, the, problem of, i. 429, 439 ; Rainy's great interest in, i. 431-3; extent and influence of the DismiHion in, i. 433-4 ; work of the Free Church in, i. 4356; relief of famine, i. 436 ; Ladies' Association sets up schools, i. 437-9 ; malign effects of Begg's anti-unionism in, i. 440-3 ; influence of 'the men' in, i. 443-5; efl"ects of lowland changes in mode of worship and thought upon, ii. 447-9 : influence of the Highland clergy, i. 450 ; true lyj^e of Celtic religious genius, i. 451 ; Rainy's influence in, i. 450-60; land question in, i. 462-8; ' constitutionalists ' and later union negotiations, ii. 205-8 ; Rainy on ' idolatrous feeling ' for Free Church in, ii. 276-7 ; Rainy on influence of ' legal ' Free Church in, ii. 485. Hildebrandism, i. 234. Hill, Dr., 'moderate' leader, i. 79. History, on the study o.'', ii. 203-6. Hobbes, ii. 143. Hog, James, i. 139'/. Home Rule, Scottish, i. 66. Hope, Lord President, on Spiritual Independence, i. 50. John, Dean of P'aculty, inspiring genius of the moderates, i. 54. Hort, F. J. A., ii. 180 ;/. House of Lords, Free Church minority appeals to, ii. 311 ; the case reheard, ii. 315-26; judgment for appellants, ii. 327, 343 ; effect and character of the decision, ii. 354 ; occasions a national scandal, ii. 357, 369, 388-90; judgment reversed by Churches Act, ii. 464-7. ' Howglen' (Huntly), i. ill. Howie, Rev. Dr., ii. 484. Hume, David, i. 225, 406. Huntly, i. 102 ; Rainy's call to, i. loS ; description of, i. 1 1 1 ; Rainy's ministry at, i. 112, 114; farewell sermon at, i. 124. Hutton, Principal, raises question of Union, i. 151 w. ; as advocate of Dis- establishment, ii. 23 ; voluntaryism of, ii. 197, 238 ; takes part in Union Assembly, ii. 242 ; Moderator of Assemljly, ii. 401, 484; Rainy on, ii. 484. Hymnal, Scottish Joint-, an influence for Union, ii. 191 ; rejected at first by Established Church, ii. 203 ; its later adoption, ii. 204. Hymns, opposition to, in the Highlands, i. 449 ; Rainy's last illness, ii. 498, 508. 'Ian Maclaren,' See Watson, Dr. John. Ilbery, Captain, ii. 502;/., 503, 506. Incarnation, Rainy on the, ii. 134 5. India, Rainy on future of, ii. 283-4. INDEX 525 India, Southern, native students' tribute to Dr. Miller's work in, ii. I74-5. Inglis, Dr. Joiin, i. 243. Innes, A. Taylor, on Kainy's preaching in High Church, Edinburgh, i. 129- 33 ; part in legal consultation on Mutual Eligibility, i. 192 ; controversy with Duke of Argyll on Patronage abolition, i. 263;/. ; part in movement for Presbyterian reunion, ii. 157 «.; raises question of possible anti-union minority and appeal to Civil Courts, ii. 213; Lord Davey's letter to, ii. 382 ; on the declaration of Spiritual Independence, ii. 430 ; on Rainy's life-work, ii. 490-1. letter to, ii. 490. Inspiration, Robertson Smith asserts Reformation doctrine of, i. 334 ; Rainy on, i. 345, ii. 113; decision in Dods- Bruce case, ii. 1 14-16. Inverness, Assembly meets in, i. 468 ; meeting at, in Church crisis, ii. 375-8. lona, visit to, i. 459-60. Irish Church, Disestablishment of, ii. 76. Home Rule Question, its effects on Scottish Disestablishment movement, ii. 69-72. Iverach, Principal, ii. 165. Tacobites, i. 2, ii. 327, James, Lord, of Hereford, re-hearing of Church case in House of Lords, ii. 315. 323* 325. 348;* his judgment, ii. 336; on 'the spoils of war,' ii. 337, 382 ; offered Chairmanship of Royal Commission, ii. 396. Jameson, Sheriff (Lord Ardwall), opposes Disestablishment policy, ii. 67; on the legal aspect of the Union, ii. 231. Jeffrey, Lord, on the Disruption, i. 224. Jc^nston of Warriston, i. 61. Henry, K.C. (Lord Johnston), counsel for ' legal ' Frees in House of Lords case, ii. 316, 324; on legisla- tive powers in Scottish Church, ii. 317 ; denies Church's right to preach a free Gospel, ii. 319-20 ; Erastianism of his pleas, ii. 321 ; on the ability of Free Church to administer the pro- perty, ii. 384. Justice, Anatole France on, ii. 369-70. Keig, a remarkable parish, i. 308. Keith-Falconer, Hon. Ian, career of, ii. 84 ; Rainy on missionary services of, ii. 84-5. Kelman, Dr. John (Leith), on omission of Establishment principle in formula of Free Church, i. 159; his attitude to Union, i. iSi, 183. Kelman, Dr. John (junr. ), i. 438, ii. 378. Kelp industry, i. 465//. Kelvin, Lord, i. 309. Kennedy, Rev. Angus, i. 13. Dr. John, of Dingwall, comes under influence of Dr. Begg, i. 442 ; char- acter of, i. 442 ; preaching of, i. 442 ; opposed to Moody's mission, i. 447 ; his temperance views, i. 447 «. Dr. Thomas, ii. 191, 196. Ker, Dr. John, ii. 30. Kew Cemetery, Melbourne, temporary burial in, ii. 511. Kincardine (Sutherland), i. 3. King's Speech on Church case, ii. 406. Kingsburgh, Lord Justice-Clerk, his judgment in Church case, ii. 307-8. Kinnaird, Lord, ii. 254. Kinnear, Lord, member of Royal Com- mission on Church case, ii. 397 ; and of Executive Commission, ii. 471. Kinnoull, Earl of, i. 48. Kinross, Lord (J. B. Balfour), on the Establishment Principle in the Free Church, i. 189 ; takes part in legal consultation in 1873, i. 192, 193 ; con- sulted on legal risks involved in Union, ii. 213 ; later consultation and change of view, ii. 227-8 ; declines invitation to hear Church case in House of Lords, ii. 315. Kintore, Earl of, ii. 84. Dowager Countess of, letter to, ii. 85. Kirkwood, Dr. Anderson, i. 192. Knox, i. 299, 468, ii. 431, 434, 435, Kruger, President, ii. 281. Kuenen, Professor, i. 375. La Bruyere, ii. 97. Ladies' Association, its work for the Highlands, i. 437, 461. Lagarde, Professor, i. 310, 375- Laidlaw, Professor, part in Robertson Smith case, i. 369. letters to, i. 329, ii. 72. Lambeth Palace, visit to, ii. 287, 373. Lansdowne, Marquis of, ii. 463. Lang, Principal Marshall, ii. 148, 157 w. Laughton, Rev. Dr., i. 322. Layman's League, ii. 71, 231 ; stands for 'threefold union,' ii. 193, 198, 204. Lectures, on History, i. 203-6 ; on the Scottish Church (reply to Dean Stanley), i. 227-42 ; on Evolution and Theology, i. 285-7 ; on the De- livery and Development of Christian Doctrine, i. 28891 ; on the Bible and Criticism, i. 341-6; on Modern Theological Thought, i. 410-12; on the Ministry, i. 414-15 ; on Prtaching, 526 INDEX i. 416-19; on Jesvis and Paul, i. 426-S ; on Christianity (reply to Dr. Pfleiderer), ii. 132-7. Lee, Principal, i. 72 «. Rev. Alexander, services on High- land Committee, i. 454 «. ; on Rainy 's knowledge of the Highland Churches, i, 460 ; on Union negotiations and the northern presbyteries, ii. 206-7 ; on Church membership in the Highlands, ii. 486. Lees, Dr. Cameron, attends Union As- sembly, ii. 236, 254, 255. Leighton, Archbishop, i. 236. Leslie, Alexander, i. 2. Letters, to a young communicant, i. 133-4 ; to a correspondent in spiritual perplexity, i. 422-4; to the bereaved, i. 219-21, ii. 85, 293-8. Lewis, extent of Disruption in, i. 433 «. ; instance of 'legal' Free Church inter- dicts, ii. 411; a communion under difficulties, ii. 474-5- Libel process in Scottish Church, i. 331-2. Liberation Society, ii. 20 «. Liddon, Canon, ii. 114. Lindley, Lord, hears Church case in House of Lords, ii. 311, 312, 325 ; his judgment, ii. 340, 342, 350; on the powers of a General Assembly, ii. 340. Lindsay, Professor, part in Robertson Smiih case, i. 366; on Rainy's action in the case, i. 395 ; part in Highland land agitation, i. 466 ; voluntary posi- tion in Disestablishment, ii. 22. ■ letter to, i. 395. Linlithgow, Marquis of, ii. 462. Local Veto, ii. 279. Lochee, Lord, See Robertson, Edmund, M.P. Lockhart, John (iibson, i. 14. Logan, Sir Charles, member of Executive Commission, ii. 471. Loreburn, Lord Chancellor. See Reid, Sir Robert T., K.C. Lotteries, Rainy on, i. 301-2. Low, Lord, his judgment in Church case, ii. 305 ; on the Establishment Prin- ciple, ii. 305-6. Lushinglon, Professor Edmund L., i. 27. Luther, ii. 331. Macaskii.l, Rev. Murdo, ii. 195, 206, 211, 232. letter to, ii. 207. M'Cheyne, Rev. R. M., preaches in defiance of Strathbogie interdict, i. 56- M'Crie, Dr. Thomas, i. 150. M'Culloch, Rev. J. D., ii. 382. MacDonald, Dr., 'the Apostle of the North,' i. 451. Macdonald, George, i. Hi. M'Ewan, Rev. John, i. 190, 192 ; ii. 209. MacEwen, Professor A. R., biographer of Principal Cairns, i. 167, ii. 25 ; part in Union negotiations, ii. 157 «., 19^^, I97> 378; succeeds Rainy in New College professorship, ii, 287, letter to, ii. 25. Macfarlane, Principal, on Students' Missionary Association, i. 32 ; on University tests, i. 91 n. M'Gillivray, Rev. Duncan, i. 89. MacGregor, Dr. James, ii. loi. Dr. W. M., i. 438. Mackay, Rev. John, i, 459. Dr. Mackintosh, i. 103. M'Kendrick, Professor, i. 392, Mackenzie, Lord, on Spiritual Inde- pendence, i. 51. Rev. James, i. 214. ■ Rev. Murdo, ii. 206, 207, 237, 238, 245- Mackintosh, John, ' the Earnest Student,' his remark about Rainy's future, i. 96-7. Maciagan, David, on progress of Union negotiations within Free Church, i. 191 ; describes the legal consultation in May 1873, i. 193 ; on Rainy's reply to Dean Stanley, i, 227, 24I ; part in Robertson Smith case, i. 357. Maclaren, Ian. Set Watson, Dr. John. Dr. Alexander, school-fellow with Rainy in Glasgow, i. 19; attends Union Assembly, ii. 237, 254. • letter to, ii. 477. M'Lauchlan, Dr. Thomas, Convener of Highland Committee, i. 191, 430, 454 «. ; part in Union negotiations; i. 191 ; attitude in Robertson Smith case, i. 340. Maclennan, J. F., i. 361. Macleod, Rev. Ewen, ii. 469. Dr. John, of Govan, opposes adop- tion of Joint-Hymnal by Established Church, ii. 203; on a 'reformed' National Church, ii, 204; Dr, Wallace Williamson's tribute to, ii, 205 n. Dr, John, of Morven, i, 433 n. Norman, his life of ' the Earnest Student,' i, 96 n. ; influence in re- habilitating the Establishment, i. 251 ; heads Patronage deputation to Glad- stone, i. 256 ; on the Church's anxiety to avoid the Disruption, i. 257 ; on anti-Patronage, i. 259 «. Dr. Norman, of Inverness, ii. 236 ; 246. INDEX 527 Macnaghten, lyord, hears Church case in the House of Lords, ii. 311, 312, 325 ; his judgment, ii. 329, 350; on the Establishment Principle, ii. 329. M'Ncilage, Archibald, ii. 195, 235, 263, 384 ; on Kainy's treatment of anti- union minority, ii. 244. letter to, ii. 326. Macphail, Dr. James Caldcr, i. 440 «., 466. Rev. John S. , i. 440 n. Macpherson, Hector, ii. 435 n. Madras Christian College, ii. 171. Magdeburg Centuriators, i. 213. Mair, Dr. Alexander, ii. 247, 249. Marnoch case, i. 54. ' Marrow Men,' ii. 332. Marryal's Peter Simple, ii. 503. Martineau, James, ii. 136. Masson, Professor, on Rainy, i. 242, 257-8 ; Rainy on, ii. 257 n. ; on the House of Lords judgment, ii. 386-7. Malheson, H. M., ii. 104. Maule, P'ox. Ses Dalhousie, Earl of. Meadowbank, Lord, on Spiritual Indc pendence, i. 50. Melbourne, Lord, i. 65, 67. Rainy's last illness at, ii. 508- 1 1 ; temporary burial in Kew Cemetery, ii. 511. Melville, Andrevi^, i. 230, 231, ii. 401, 432, 434- Dr. A., ii. 400. Meredith's Egoist, ii. 503. Miller, Hugh, i. 291, ii. 512; edits The Witness in Ten Years' Conflict, i. 53 ; on the 'residuary Assembly,' i. 69; on the Sutherland clearances, i. 464 ; share in suggesting name of ' Free Church,' ii. 233 ; centenary celebra- tions at Cromarty, ii. 279 ; Rainy on, ii. 279-So. Principal, of Madras, Moderator of Assembly, ii. 170; influence on Southern India, ii. 171 ; Address from native students and others, ii. 171; Assembly's reply, ii. 171-5; at Inverness meeting, ii. 378. Milman, Dean, i. 213. Milne, Mr. (Milne- Home), on the answer to the Protest of 1843, i. 72. Ministry, Gladstone on the office of the, i. 85 ; Rainy on the institution of the, ii. 181-3. Minnesingers, i. 137. Missionaries and the Disruption, i. 75, 435. See also P'oreign Missions. Mitchell, Professor A. F., on the aboli- tion of Patronage, i. 264. Dr. Murray, i. 316, ii. 247 ; moves Uniting Act, ii. 249. Model Trust Deed, ii. 264. Moderaiism, reply to Dean Stanley, i. 236-9. Moderatorship of Assembly, honours c)f, ii. 79-80. Monasticisni, ii. 89-90. Moncreiff, Lord, moves Veto Act, i. 46. Rev. Sir Henry, Bart., inducts Rainy tochairof Church History, i. 146; part in Union negotiations, i. 185 ; chal- lenges Dr. Begg on authority of Estab- lishment Principle, i. 188; jnirt in Mutual Eligibility negotiations, i. 192, 194 n. ; share in Church leadership, i. 217, 293 ; on Patronage abolition, i. 272 ; motion in Assembly for Dises- tablishment, i. 278 ; moves Rainy's election as Principal, i. 285 ; action in Robertson Smith case, i. 316, 330, 335, 340, 346, 357, 358, 367, 368 ; his death, n. 49. Montanism, i. 1 13. Monteith, Earle, i. 129. Moody, D. I-., influence of Scottish mission, i. 408; oj)position in High- lands, i. 447. Moiay, Earl of, ii. 81. Morley, John (Ivord Morlcy), i. 399; Rainy on his L/fe of Gladstone, ii. 282. Morungen, Heinrich von, Rainy's trans- lation of poems by, i. 138. Mosheim, i. 213. Mounsey, Mr., i. 192, 193. Muir, Rev. Dr., leader of middle party in Ten Years' Conflict, i. 54 ; advises Government prior to Disruption, i. 66, 82. Munro, Sir John, of Foulis, i. 16. Munros of Achany, i. 15. Murray, A. Graham, Secretary for Scot- land, ii. 393 ; appointment of Royal Commission in Church case, ii. 395-6 ; on legal status for Scottish Churches, ii. 404, 405. James, i. 29. Mutual Eligibility, outcome of Union negotiations, i. 187 ; threatened se- cession of Begg party, i. 191-2 ; legal consultation, i. 193 ; Assembly debate, i. 194-6 ; motion passed, i. 197. Napoleon, i. 14 ; ii. 290. Nauroji, Dhanjitihai, impression of Rainy as a fellow-student, i. 96. New College, Edinburgh, i. 90; its first staff, i. 91 ; Candlish appointed Prin- cipal, i. 145 ; Rainy as Principal, i. 285, 493 ; presentation of Rainy por- traits, ii. 165 ; Jubilee P'estival, and opening of Rainy Hall, ii. 257 ; allo- cated to 'legal" Frees, ii. 3S4, 409, 528 INDEX 473) 494 ; restored to United Free Chuich, ii. 496. Newman, Cardinal, his theological out- look contrasted with Gladstone and Rainy, i. 288 ; Rainy's article on, i. 289 «. ; on the Robertson Smith case, i. 354 ; his view of Anglican Church, ii. 180, 183. Newtyle, visit to, ii. 285. Nice, Council of, i. 394. Nicholson, John, ii. 497. Nixon, Dr., i. 171, 195. Noldeke, Professor, i. 375. North Berwick, ii. 491. North British Rail way Co. , labour dispute, ii. 105-8. Norway, visit to, ii. 286. Old Testament in the Jewish Church, The, Robertson Smith publishes his lectures on, i. 386-7. Oliphant, Mrs., on the Disruption, i. 249. Ordination in Scottish Church associated with Induction, i. 42. Organs, opposition to, in the Highlands, i. 449, 451. Original Secession Church unites with Free Church, i. 150. Orr, Professor, ii. 132; part in Union negotiations, ii. 196, 219; action in George Adam Smith case, ii. 273. Overtoun, Lord, ii. 194, 250, 266 ; dona- tion to Emergency Fimd, ii. 367 ; on the 'intention of donors' to Free Church funds, ii. 378 «. ; on Rainy's leadership, ii. 420. Oxford University, place of classical studies in, ii. 268. Pan-Presbyterian Council (Phila- delphia), paper on Modern Theological Thought at, i. 410. Parker, Mrs. (Margaret Rainy), i. 12. C. S., M.P., on the Patronage Act, ii. 4 n. Sir James, i. 13 «. Dr. Joseph, ii. 237, 254. Parliament, Spiritual Independence de- claration (1905) laid on table of both Houses of, ii. 452. Pascal's Pensies, ii. 127. Patronage, restoration of, i. 44 ; move- ment in the Establishment for atjoli- tion of, i. 253, 254 ; deputation to Gladstone, i. 256-7 ; Liberal Govern- ment refuses to support anti- Patron- age Bill, i. 258 ; Disraeli grants full abolition measure, i. 259 ; al)oIition and movement for Disestablishment, ii. I, 7., Pattison, Mark, ii. 138. Paul, St., Rainy on Jesus and Paul, i. 427. Peel, Lord, ii. 278. Sir Robert, i. 60, 252 ; ii. i ; warned before Disruption, i. 65 ; a sincere Erastian, i. 66. Pfleiderer, Dr. Otto, Gilford lectures in Edinburgh, ii. 131 ; Rainy's reply to, ii. 132-7. Philippians, Rainy's commentary on, ii. 289. Pirie, Principal, on the removal of Pat- ronage, i. 254, 274. Poetry, i. 30, 138. Polwarth, Lord, part in movement for Presbyterian reunion, ii. 2, 51, 157 ;/. letter to, ii. 52-4. Prayer, Rainy on, i. 115; ii. 285, 291. Preaching, Evangelical, Rainy on, i. 416-19. Predestination, doctrine of, ii. 119; raised in Church case in House of Lords, ii. 302, 319, 329-30-. Presbyterian, The, Rainy's editorship of, i. 178. Presbyterian Reunion. See Union. Presbyterianism, Rainy's reply to Dean Stanley's lectures on Scottish Church, i. 228 ; Cambridge lecture on, ii. 177- 80. 'Priesthood and Sacrifice,' Oxford Con- ference on, ii. iSi. Protest of 1843, story of answer of 'residuary Assembly' to, i. 71-2. Pusey, Dr., i. 53; his attitude to Criti- cism, i. 137. Quakers, ii. 183. Queen's Hall meeting in Church crisis, ii. 460. Railway Strike, Scottish, ii. 104-6 ; Rainy takes part in Edinburgh meet- ings, ii. 106, 107. Rainy, Robert: — Personal: — Ancestry, i. 5 ; kinship with Mr. Gladstone, i. 4; parents, 13-16, 20-29, 87, 99; birth, i. 17; child- hood and school days, i. 18, 19; love of reading, i. 19; admitted as a communicant, i. 25 ; student at Glasgow University, i. 27 ; youthful poem, i. 30 ; member of College Missionary Society, i. 32 ; speaks at lyiberal Association, i. 32 ; enters on study of medicine, i. 33 ; Con- tinental tour, i. 34-8 ; early character, INDEX 129 i. 39 ; first visit to General Assembly, i. 78 ; letters on the Assembly, i. 79 ; runs home with news of Dis- ruption, i. 83 ; resolves to enter the ministry, i. 84 ; graduates at Glas- gow, i. 89 ; enters New College, i. 89 ; fellow-students' impressions of, i. 95-7 ; member of the Speculative Society, i. 97-9 ; personal religion as a student, i. 100 ; probationer, i. 100 ; visit to the Highlands, i. 103 ; goes to Huntly, i. 106 ; receives various calls, i. 107 ; called to Huntly and accepts, i. 108 ; ordina- tion, i. 1 10; ministry at Huntly, i. I11-16; call to High Church, Edin- burgh, i. 118-23; ministry in High Church, i. 128-35 > marriage, i. 139 ; death of first-born son, i. 139, 219; made D.D. of Glasgow, i. 146 ; edits T/ie Presbyterian, i. 178; in- troductory lecture as Professor of Church History, i. 203-6 ; his mental outlook, i. 207, 287 ; impressions of New College students, i. 208-14; influence on students, i. 212, 213, 421 ; writes Life of Cu7iningham, i. 214; supports National Education movement, i. 216 ; opposed to legal- ising of marriage with deceased wife's sister, i. 218; family and home life, i. 219, ii. 92-7, 165, 167; visits to the Continent, i. 245-6. ii. 99-101, 286 ; elected Principal of New College, i. 285 ; appearance in his prime, i. 293-4 ; disapproves pro- posed City of Glasgow Bank lottery, i. 301-3; visit to America, i. 410; ruling biographical fact about, i. 420 ; letter to a correspondent in spiritual perplexity, i. 422-4 ; interest in the Highlands and Gaelic lore, i. 431-3 ; a Highland appreciation, i. 457 ; Assembly motions on Crofters Bill, i. 467 ; a Disestablishment incident, ii. 77 ; sense of humour, ii. 97 ; interest in military strategy, ii, 99, 2S1 ; visit to Australia, ii. 101-4; action in Railway Strike, ii. 104-8 ; replies to Pfleiderer's GifFord Lectures, ii. 132-7 ; Gladstone's estimate of, ii. 163, 437 w. ; New College portrait presentation, ii. 165 ; on Oxford and classical studies, ii. 168 ; Cambridge lecture on Presby- terianism, ii. 177 ; recalls mother's conversation with Chalmers on naming of 'Free Church,' ii. 233; letter from his sister on achievement of Union, ii. 255; 'Rainy Hall' opening, ii. 257 ; New College VOL. H. Jubilee Banquet, ii. 257-61 ; cele- brates ordination jubilee and resigns professorship, ii. 265 ; receives address and presentation from Assembly, ii. 266-8 ; supports Peel programme of temperance reform, ii. 278-9 ; as total abstainer, ii. 279 ; on Hugh Miller, ii. 279-80 ; incident at Skibo Castle, ii. 280-1 ; on the Boer War, ii. 281 ; on Mr. Chamber- lain and Gladstone, ii. 282 ; on the art of G. F. Watts, ii. 282-3; on the future of India, ii. 283-4 ; letter to grandchildren, ii. 285 ; later writings, ii. 288-90 ; appearance in old age, ii. 290 ; his spiritual character, ii. 291-2 ; 'a father of consolation,' ii. 292-9 ; favourite epithet, ii. 397 ; Ijearing in Church crisis, ii. 398-400, 454 ; his health, ii. 447, 468, 488, 506; death of Mrs. Rainy, ii. 470; eightieth birthday, ii. 476 ; on the best kind of youth, ii. 478 ; readiness for either world, ii. 480-1 ; voyage to Australia, ii. 493, 498, 502 ; last Sabbath evening in Scotland, ii. 498-500 ; knowledge of ships, ii. 502 ; last sermon on board ss. Geelong, ii. 503 ; asks to be buried in Edin- burgh, ii. 507 ; last illness in Mel- bourne, ii. 509; his death, ii. 511 ; temporary burial, ii. 51 1; body brought to Scotland, ii. 512 ; funeral in Edinburgh, ii. 512 ; tributes in House of Commons, ii. 513-16; his churchmanship, ii. 515-16. Ecclesiastical : — First speech in Assembly, i. 142 ; on Australian Union, i. 143 ; made professor of Church History in New College, i. 145 ; member of Union Committee, i. 15 1 ; notable Assembly speech on Christian Unity, i. 168-9; pamphlet on Union Question, i. 175-7 ; thrust by Candlish into position of leadership, i. 215 ; action in Walter C. Smith case, i. 215; replies to Dean Stanley's lectures on the Scottish Church, i. 227-45 ; on Spiritual Independence, i. 230, 234, 272-3, ii. 221, 253; letter to Glad- stone on Patronage Bill, i. 269-71 ; advocates Disestablishment for the sake of Union, i. 280-1, 420, ii. 53-4, 67, 159-60; preaches Candlish's funeral sermon, i. 2S4 ; inaugural address as Principal of New College, i. 285 ; on ' Evolution and Theo- logy,' i. 286-7 > theological outlook compared with Gladstone and New- man, i. 287 ; publishes his Cunning- 2L 530 INDEX Rainy, Robert — continued. ham Lecture, i. 288 ; on the Church's relation to creeds, i. 289-91, ii. 126-7 ; recognised leader of the Free Church, i. 292, ii. 176-7 ; secret of his influence, i. 294-5 ; supports Robertson Smith's appoint- ment to Aberdeen Chair, i. 309 ; efforts to avoid a 'heresy hunt' in Robertson Smith case, i. 316-29 ; lectures in London on the ' Bible and Criticism,' i. 341-6 ; later stages of Robertson Smith case, i. 352, 362, 383, 388-92, 396 n. ; apprecia- tion and criticism of his action, i. 395-7 ; secures critical liberty in the Church, i. 398-402 ; addresses Pan-Presbyterian Council at Phila- delphia, i. 410; on 'Modern Theological Thought,' i. 410-12 ; addresses to students, i. 412; on the work of modern preaching, i. 421-2 ; view of the Atonement, i. 424-6 ; on Jesus and Paul, i. 426- 8 ; made Convener of Highland Committee, i. 431 ; correspondence with Glad- stone on Disestablishment, ii. 5-15, 31-5, 41, 69-70; reluctance to enter on disestablishment campaign, ii. 16 ; declines to take voluntary position, ii. 22-4 ; supports religious instruction in schools, ii. 22 ; on Presbyterian reunion, ii. 53, 72-4, 86-8, 146-7; desires 'unrestricted conference' on Union, ii. 56; on Free Church principles and Dis- establishment, ii. 67-8 ; on alter- natives to Disestablishment, ii. 76 ; incident in Edinburgh lawyer's office, ii. 77 ; Moderator of 1887 Assembly, ii. 81-4 ; action in Dods- Kruce case, ii. 112; on difficulties about Inspiration and Criticism, ii. 113, 114, 116-17; concerned for tender consciences, ii. 1 17-18; moves adoption of Declaratory Act, ii. 125 ; on the Incarnation, ii. 134-5 ; replies to address from Indian students, ii. 172-5 ; on the reunion of Christendom, ii. 178-9, 185-6; on the institution of the ministry, ii. 181-3; on the Church Visible and Catholic, ii. 183 ; approaches re- sumption of Union negotiations with caution, ii. 188-91, 197-200; con- venes meeting of Edinburgh laymen, ii. 198, 204 ; speaks on Union at United Presbyterian Jubilee Synod, ii. 209-10; attitude to legal difficulties involved in Union, ii. 214, 228, 230, 234 ; moves Uniting Act in Assem- bly, ii. 233 ; recalls Dr. Buchanan's suggestion of name ' United Free Church,' ii. 233 ; on proposed refer- ence of Union question to congrega- tions and sessions, ii. 243 ; moves adoption of Act of Union, ii. 243-4 ; elected Moderator of first Assembly of United Free Church, ii. 250 ; on the larger Presbyterianism, ii. 252 ; attitude to critical views of Professor George Adam Smith, ii. 272-5 ; stands for frank discussion of ques- tions of criticism, ii. 274 ; on the idolatrous feeling for the Free Church in the Highlands, ii. 276 ; on compromise in the Church case, ii. 314-15; on the progress of legal proceedings, ii. 311-12, 325-7; on Calvinism and the preaching of a free Gospel, ii. 331-2 ; reception of House of Lords judgment, ii. 35i-3» 362-4 ; on the Church's position in the crisis, ii. 365-7, 421 ; reasserts principle of Spiritual Independence, ii. 365, 366, 377, 387, 428-9, 438-9, 459 ; on proposed Parliamentary intervention, ii. 370- 1 ; addresses public meetings on Church crisis, ii. 375-80; leaving the New College, ii. 384 ; addresses meeting of Edin- burgh children, ii. 588-90 ; third Moderatorship of Assembly, ii. 401-20; attitude to proposed legis- lation for Scottish Churches, ii. 405, 442-3, 452-5, 458 ; place in the succession of Scottish Church leaders, ii. 434; attends last As- sembly, ii. 484, 486 ; on the influ- ence of the ' legal ' Free Church in the Highlands, ii. 485 ; farewell messages to the Church, ii. 494, 511; last appearance at Advisory Committee, ii. 497. Rainy, Susan (wife), i. 139, ii. 165, 167, 267, 268, 510; Convener of Women's 'Temporary Committee,' ii. 412; ill- ness and death, ii. 468-9. Dr. Harry (father), i. 19, 27, 32, ii. 103 ; studies medicine in Glasgow, i. 13, 14; and in Paris, i. 14-15; friendship with Dr. Chalmers, i. 15, 22 ; marriage, i. 15 ; description of, i. 21 ; appointment to Glasgow chair of Medical Jurisprudence, i. 22 ; interest in Ten Years' Conflict, i. 78, 86 ; on his son's choice of the ministry, i. 85, 87 ; his death, i. 305. letters to, i. 79-81, 94, 99, 100, 107, 108. Barbara (mother), i. 15, 95, ii. 233; description of, i. 23 ; on the prospect INDEX 531 of the Disruption, i. 82; on her son's rising fame, i. 99 ; her death, i. 127. Rainy, Barbara (mother), letters to, i. 34, 38, 114, 119, 122. Adam Rolland (son), i. 219, ii. 503; marriage, ii. 104 ; enters Parliament, ii. 325 ; seconds the Address to the King, ii. 5, 13-14. letters to, ii. 489, 492, 505. Annie (sister), i. 16, 20, 33. See also Balfour, Mrs. Annie (daughter), i. 219 ; death of, ii. 293. Barbara (daughter), i. 219. ^ee also Harper, Mrs. Charlotte (daughter), i. 219; letter to, ii. 503. Christina (sister), i. 17, 24, S^, 295, 431, 455, 457 ; her work for the High- lands, i. 438 ; letter to Principal Rainy on accomplishment of Union, ii. 25=;. George (brother), i. 17, 34; draw- ings by, i. 30; Highland tour, i. 103. i letter to, i. 38. George (son), i. 219, ii. 492 ; proceeds to Oxford, ii. 167 ; Indian appointment, ii. 283. letters to, ii. 167, 283, 285, 326, 400, 452, 470. George (uncle), i. 13, 34. Rev. George (grandfather), attends Aberdeen College, i. 2 ; minister of Creich, i. 3 ; marriage, i. 3 ; influence in Creich, i. 10 ; family, i. 12, 13. Mrs. (grandmother), i. 3, 4, 12 ; description of, i. 24; Principal Rainy's memory of, i. 25, 236. Gilbert (uncle), i. 13. Henry (son), i. 219 ; death of, ii. 167. Isobel (grand-aunt), i. 2. John (great-grandfather), i. i, 2. Margaret (sister), i. 17. Reformed Presbyterian Church, enters into Union negotiations, i. 161 ; unites with Free Church, i. 297-9. Reid, Sir George, his portrait of Rainy, ii. 166. Sir Robert T., K.C. (Lord Lore- burn), on identity of Free Church after Union, ii. 360. Reith, Rev. Dr., impression of Rainy as professor, i. 208-10. Renfield Church, Glasgow, Robertson Smith delivers lectures in, i. 386 n. 'Residuary Assembly' of 1843, i. 702. Reunion, Presbyterian. See Union. of Christendom, ii. 178-9, 184-6. Revival, of 1859-60 prepares for Union, i. 151 ; Moody and Sankey in Scot- land, i. 408-9, 447, 449. Revolution, English, Rainy on princij le of, i. 232. Settlement in Scottish Church, ii, 432. Richmond, Duke of, on Patronage Bill as step to Union, i. 259. Robertson, Lord, on Tree Church atti- tude to Mr. Finlay's Bill, ii. 64 ; hears Church case in House of Lords, ii. 311, 312, 355 ; his judgment, ii. 337-9 ; on the Free Church and Voluntaryism, ii. 338, 348; on the Churches Bill, ii. 462, 464. Principal, as Church leader, i. 44, 297. Anne. See Rainy, Mrs. (grand mother). (mother of Mr. Gladstone), i. 4. Edmund, I\LP. (Lord Lochee), ii. 359, 369- Rev. Gilbert, i. 3. Rev. J. C. , on position of ministers opposed to Union, ii. 223 ; tribute to Rainy, ii. 224. letter to, ii. 223-4. Rev. James, of Ellon, i. 54 ; acknowledges intrusion in the Strath- bogie interdict, i. 56 ; objects to re- scinding of Veto and Chapel Acts, i. 70 ; his labours for Church E.xtension, 1-251, 255 «. of Kindeace, i. 3, 16. Rolland, Adam, of Gask, i. 139. Susan. See Rainy, Susan (wife). Roman Catholic Church, Rainy on, i. 213, ii. 178, 180, 183. Rosebery, Earl of, ii. 70«., 163, 278; on Patronage and the Disruption, i. 260 ; on the place of Disestablishment in politics, ii. 30, 42 ; becomes Prime Minister, ii. 150; on Church Estab- lishments, ii. 150; on Disestablish- ment and National Religion, ii. 151 ; pledges government to Disestablish- ment, ii. 152 ; administration ends, ii. 153; attends Union Assembly, ii. 248 ; on the Churches Bill, ii. 463, 465. Roseburn Church, Edinburgh, Rainy's connection with, ii. 296 ; his last com- munion in, ii. 498. Roseneath, description of open-air Dis- ruption services at, i. 84. Ross of Mull, visit to, i. 459. Routh of Magdalen, i. 243. Row, John, i. 139. Royal Commission, appointment of, ii. 395; work of, ii. 407-10; Chairman rules out question of donors' intentions, ii. 407 ; report of, ii. 413-16; on the 532 INDEX United Free Church as representative of Disruption Church, ii. 414; re- commends appointment of Executive Commission, ii. 415. Russell, Sir James, ii. 165. Russia, reform in, ii. 284. Rutherford, Samuel, i. 123 «., 230. Rutherfurd Clark, Lord, on Rainy in the Speculative Society, i. 91 ; on the Establishment Principle, i. igon. ; part in legal consultation on Mutual Eligibility, i. 193. St. Kilda, relief of distress in, i. 462. Salmond, Principal, ii. no, 288, 4Chd ; defends Robertson Smith, i. 346, 392. letters to, i, 346, 349, ii. 181. Sanday, Dr., ii. 181. Sandford, Lord, i. 28. Scaliger, ii. 138. Schleiermacher, ii. 133. Scotsman, The, on the Disruption, i. 67 ; on the ' residuary Assembly,' ii. 69- 70 ; on the Patronage Bill, i. ^58 n. ; on Rainy's leadership, i. 379 ; personal attacks during Disestablishment move- ment, ii. 17-19, 22 ; on the Free Church and creed revision, ii. 120; on the Union movement, ii. 211, 255; on the anti-union minority, ii. 262 ; on the Court of Session decision, ii. 309 ; on the House of Lords judgment, ii. 359- Scott, Dr. Archibald, ii. 157 «., 392, 512 ; denounces seeking Parliamentary power for creed revision in the Estab- lishment, ii. 444. Sir Walter, i. 137, ii. 88; Dean Stanley takes history from works of, i. 222 «., 227. Sedan, visit to, ii. 99. Sellar, George (Huntly), letter to, i. 109. Seneca, i. 397. Sermons, Huntly farewell, i. 124 ; High Church, Edinburgh, i. 130-2 ; selec- tion published, i. 28990 ; on the Child Element in Christianity, i. 477-9 ; last sermon, ii. 503-5. Shand, Lord, hears Church case in House of Lords, ii. 311 ; dies before second hearing, ii. 312; his presumed judg- ment, ii. 312. Shaw, Thomas, M.P. (Lord Shaw), on the House of Lords judgment, ii. 394 ; amendments to Churches Bill, ii. 454. Simpson, Sir Alexander, letter to, i. 219. — : — Rev. R. S., ii. 267. Sinclair, Sir (leorge, Bart., raises ques- tion of Union, i. 151 n. Sismondi, i. 464. Skil)o Castle, ii. 280. Smith, Professor George Adam, signs Disestablishment manifesto, ii. 30 ; publishes lectures on ' Modern Criti- cism and the Preaching of the Old Testament,' ii. 269 ; report of College Committee, ii. 270 ; Assembly debate, ii. 272-3 ; on Rainy's efforts to amend Churches Bill, ii. 455. Professor Michie, i. 359. Dr. Walter C, impression of Rainy as a fellow-student, i, 95-6 ; Assembly considers his views on the Decalogue, i. 215 ; moderator of Assembly, i. 215, ii. 140, 145 , on Creed revision, ii. 121 ; on the Dis- ruption, ii. 142, 144; on Presbyterian reunion, ii. 147. Professor William Robertson, his father's history, i. 307-8 ; education of, i. 308 ; remarkable career at Aberdeen, i. 308 ; pressed to continue studies at Cambridge, i. 308, 309 ; enters New College, i. 309 ; ap- pointed to Hebrew Chair in Aberdeen College at twenty-four, i. 309 ; con- tinues studies on the Continent, i. 310 ; contributions to EncyclopcEdia Brit- attnica, i. 310 ; takes higher critical ground, i. 310-12 ; surprised at hostile reception of his views, i. 313-14; College Committee's report, i. 316 ; his inability to realise the situation, i. 318 ; letter to Daily Review, i. 321 ; demands a libel, i. 330 ; the charges specified, i. 333 ; his appearances in the Church Courts, i. 334 ; acquitted by Aberdeen Presbytery, i. 335 ; pro- ceedings in Glasgow Assembly, i. 335-40 ; on Dr. Begg and ' The Ark of God,' i. 338 ; conducts defence too much on legal lines, i. 362 ; Assembly votes for admonition, i. 371, 373 ; his speech on receiving admonition, i. 374 ; case revived by new article in Encycloptudia Britannica, i. 376 ; Commission suspends him from teach- ing classes, i. 378 ; lectures in Edin- burgh and Glasgow, i. 386 ; proceed- ings in Asseml)ly of 1881, i. 387 ; Rainy's motion for ending the case, i. 387-8 ; Assembly accepts this solution, i- 395 '■> o" Rainy, i. 396;;.; effects of case on Scottish people, i. 404, 409 ; on inspiration, i. 405 ; Cambridge professorship, ii. in, 138; editorship of Encyclopadia Britannica, ii. 138 ; his death, ii. 138. letters to, i. 320, 374. Dr. Thomas, ii. 267 ; suggests Mutual Eligiliiiily scheme, i. 187 ; attitude on Union question, i. 191, INDEX 533 196, ii. 233 ; Robertson Smith case, i- 323- Sojourning with God, selection of ser- mons published, ii. 289. Somerset, Lady Henry, ii. 278. Somerville, Dr. A. N., letter to, ii. 81. Speculative Society, Rainy as member of, i. 97-9. Speirs, Graham, i. 129. Spion Kop, ii. 281. Spiritual Independence, supreme issue of the Disruption, i. 41, 273 n. ; denied to Church of Scotland, i. 50, 155, ii. 433; resolution of 1871 Assembly, i. 185 ; Rainy's reply to Dean Stanley, i. 230, 234 ; position of Dr. Chalmers, i. 279 ; embodied in United Free Church formula, ii. 216-17 ; an issue in Church case, ii. 321, 345, 418, 434 ; declaration of 1905 Assembly, ii. 425-6, 452 ; declaration of As- sembly of 183S, ii. 426-7 ; Scottish Church's struggles for, ii. 431-4; a Catholic idea, ii. 436. Spurgeon, C. H., on Unity in the Free Church, i. 166 ; on modern theology, ii. 114. Stalker, Professor, impression of Rainy as professor, i. 210. Stanley, Dean, Edinburgh lectures on the Scottish Church, i. 222 ; on Pres- byterianism and Prelacy, i. 223 ; takes his history from Waverley Novels, i. 223 w., 227 ; on the Disrup- tion, i. 224-5 ; eiTect of lectures, i. 225-6 ; originally delivered at Oxford, i. 227 ; Rainy's reply to, i. 227-42 ; source of quotation in praise of 'mode- rates,' i. 243. State, Church and. See Establishment Principle; Disestablishment; Spiritual Independence. Sterne's Sentimental Journey, ii. 502. Stewarton case, i. 60. Stock Exchange (Glasgow) and the Disruption, i. 67. Stornoway, visit to, i. 458. Story, Rev. Robert, of Roseneath, the Rainys' minister, i. 83 ; on Disruption sacrifices, i. 83 «. Principal, on ' moderates" rejection of Duke of Argyll's Bill, i. 59 ; sup- ports Creed revision, i. 120, 122, 444 ; on Lord Aberdeen's support of Dis- establishment, ii. 30 ; opposes adop- tion of Joint-Hymnal, ii. 205. Strathbogie Presbytery, i. 54 ; case of, i. 55 ; interdict, i. 56, 80 ; deposed ministers recognised by ' residuary Assembly 'of 1843, i. 70; 'moderate' ministers of, i. 105. Stuart, Dr. Moody, attitude in Robertson Smith case, i. 316, 322, 331. Stuart dynasty and Scottish Church, ii. 432. Sustentation Fund, started, i. 65, ii. 407-8. Sutherland, i. 6, 103 ; extent of Disrup- tion, i. 433 n. ; a meeting of ' the men,' i. 443 n. ; clearances, i. 464. ' Sutherland Highlanders,' i. 6, 7. Synod Hall, ii. 419. Tait, Professor P. G., i. 309. Taiitallo7i Castle, ss., ii. 161. Taylor, Dr. Walter Ross, part in Robertson Smith case, i. 372 ; nomi- nates Dr. Dods for professorship, ii. 1 10 ; part in Presbyterian reunion movement, ii. 157 n. ; moves Union overture in Glasgow Presbytery, ii. 194 ; opposed to policy of cautious advance, ii. 202 ; on treatment of pos- sible anti-union minority, ii. 225, 239; Moderator of last Free Church Assem- bly, ii. 247, 249 ; part in New College Jubilee celebrations, ii. 258 ; concilia- tory motion respecting Free Church minority, ii. 262 ; part in Rainy Jubi- lee testimonial, ii. 266, 267 ; on Sus- tentation Fund and donors' intentions, ii. 364. letters to, ii. 213, 311, 325, 405, 476, 488, 492, 505-6. TzyXox' s Ductor Dubitantiu7n, i. 136. Teinds. See Tithes. Temperance, Edinburgh meetings and 'Minority report' proposals, ii. 27S ; Rainy on Peel programme, ii. 278-g. Tennent, Hugh, of Wellpark, i. 13. Tennyson's poems, i. 137. Tertullian, ii. 289. Thomson,Dr. Andrew (Broughton Place), expresses desire for renewal of Union negotiations, ii. 188-9. letter to, ii. 189-90. Dr. (Archbishop of York), i. 237 n. Sir William. See Kelvin, Lord. Times, The, on Robertson Smith case, i- 339; on Rainy's motives in Disestab- lishment movement, ii. 19; on respon- sibility for the Disruption, ii. 60; on the House of Lords judgment, ii. 359 ; Lord Davey's letter to, ii. 382. Tithes and Church extension, i. 47. Toorak Presbyterian Church, Melbourne, funeral service in, ii. 511. Toronto, Bishop of, i. 279. Trayner, Lord, Court of Session judg- ment in Church case, ii. 30S ; on Free Church principles, ii. 309, 345. • 534 INDEX Trevelyan, Sir George, M.P., Secretary for Scotland, opposes Mr. Finlay's Bill, ii. 64 ; on Sir Charles Cameron's Disestablishment Bill, ii. 152-3. Trusts, law of, Lord Eldon's judgment, ii. 303-4, 308, 328. Tulloch, Principal, i. 242 «. , 249, 251 ; on Disestablishment, ii. 3 ; on Church Establishments, ii. 27, 28, 14S, 252 ; Rainy's respect for, ii. 28, 252 u. Turrift", i. i. Tyndall, Professor, i. 406. UisT, clearances in, i. 464. Union, Australian, i. 142 ; desire for, after the Disruption, i. 150, ii. 347-9; with Original Seceders, i. 150; first proposal for negotiations with United Presbyterian Church, i. 150; analysis of feeling against, i. 168-70; cam- paign of Dr. Begg and anti-unionists, i. 173-8, 180-1 ; middle party seeks delay, i. 179, 183 ; Assembly agrees to postponement, i. 185, 200; adop- tion of Mutual Eligibility, i. 186-7, 197; with Reformed Presbyterians, i- 297-300; Gladstone's treatment of Disestablishment and possible Pres- byterian reunion, ii. 47-8; overtures from Established Church, ii. 51-5 ; Free Church desires ' unrestricted con- ference,' ii. 56; Mr. Finlay's Bill and obstacles to reunion, ii. 59; lay move- ment and informal conferences, ii. 72 ; Establishment found to be the one barrier, ii. 74, 157-9; influence of Joint-Hymnal, ii. 191,203-4; overture to Assembly of 1894, ii. 191-3; Free Church makes overtures to United Presbyterian Church on co-operation, ii. 195 ; United Presbyterian Synod reaffirms readiness for Union, ii. 196; negotiations resumed, ii. 211-12; coun- sel and legal claims of minority, ii. 213-14, 226-9; adjustment of formula, ii. 215-18; feasibility of legislation to secure Church property, ii. 229 n. ; Assembly of 1899 decides for Union, ii. 232 ; Churches adopt Uniting Act, ii. 241-6 ; protest of Free Church mi- nority, ii. 246-7 ; Union Assembly, ii. 247-57 ; minority institute civil pro- ceedings, ii. 262 ; Union welded by House of Lords judgment, ii. 362, 39S. See also Christian Unity, Reunion of Christendom. • of Parliaments, ii. 433. Unionist Liberals and Disestablishment issue, ii. 70-1. United Free Church of Scotland, first - General Assembly, ii. 249; defences in Church case, ii. 302-3, 321-4; meets House of Lords judgment and loss of property, ii, 361-8, 381, 398; pastoral letter to congregations, ii. 361 ; Convocation summoned, ii. 385 ; AssemlDly of 1905 adopts declaration of Spiritual Independence, ii.425-6, 452. United Presbyterian Church, enters into first negotiations for Union, i. 151, 200 ; congratulates Free and Reformed Presbyterian Churches on Union, i. 300 ; misconception of, in the High- lands, i, 446 ; Declaratory Act of, ii. 120, 122; delegates to Free Church Jubilee Assembly, ii. 191 ; Synod re- affirms readiness for Union, ii. 196 ; Jubilee celebrations, ii. 209-11; last Synod adopts Uniting Act, ii. 241. University tests, i. 91 n. Vastness 'a great element in beauty,' i. 35- Venice, letter on, i. 37. Verona, letter on fortifications at, i. 35. Veto Act, passed, i. 46 ; civil appeal against, i. 48. Victoria, Queen, influence of her ad- hesion to Presbyterian worship in Scotland, i. 250; her example in the exercise of Patronage, i. 252. Presbyterian Union in, i. r42, 151 ; Jubilee celebrations, ii. 101-4. Voluntaryism of United Presbyterians, i. 152, ii. 301, 302 ; in America, i. 161 ; altitude of Chalmers recalled in Church case, ii. 322, 347. Walker, John, ii. 327. Wallace, Dr. Robert, i. 222 «., 258 n. Walpole, Horace, ii. 327. IVatson V. Jones, ii. 437 n. Watson, Dr. Charles, letter to, ii. 477. Dr. John (' Ian Maclaren '), ii. 254. Watts, G. F., art of, ii. 282. Waverley Market, Edinburgh, Union Assembly meets in, ii. 247. Webster, Dr., M.P., ii. 46. Wellhausen, Robertson Smith's friend- ship with, i. 310.. 354. 375; on * Robertson Smith, ii. 137. See also Graf- Wellhausen. Wellington, Duke of, on solution of Church difficulty in Ten Years' Con- flict, i. 58. Welsh, Dr., professor in New College, i. 91. Wemyss, Earl of, on Churches Bill, ii. 463-4. 'Westminster Confession,' See 'Con- fession of Faith.' Whitlier, hymn of, ii. 498, 500, 508. INDEX 535 Whyte, Dr. Alexaader, prompts Rainy to reply to Dein Stanley, i. 226 ; description of scene at Candlish's death-bed, i. 2S4 ; part in Robertson Smith case, i. 313, 321, 324. 363. 392 ; signs Disestablishment manifesto, ii. 30 ; on the House of Lords judg- ment, ii. 386 ; encourages dispossessed churches, ii. 474. letters to, i. 324, 348. Wilberforce, Samuel (Bishop of Win- chester), i. 237 n. Wilkinson, Bishop, ' Christian Unity ' movement, ii. X84 ; visit to Rainy, ii. 185. letter to, ii. 185. Williamson, Dr. A. Wallace, ii. 205 ;/. W^ilson, Dr. J. Hood, i. 340. Wilson, Dr. William, i. 285, 293 ; part in Robertson Smith case, i. 330, 340, 357. Witness, 'J7ie, i. 53, 69, 79, ii. 348. Women and the Disruption, i. 74 ; and Church crisis, ii. 386, 412, 474. Wood, Professor, ii. 220. ' Worthy,' Rainy's favourite epithet, ii. 397- Young, Lord, services to national education, i. 217; view of law of trusts, ii. 30, 308 ; judgment in Church case, ii. 308 ; attitude to House of Lords judgment, ii. 383. Dr. John, ii. 196. Mr., Auchterarder case, i. 48,, 60. ZiNZENDORF quoted, ii. 482. THE END Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to His M.njesty at the Edinburgh University Press / ^ UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. FormL9-25m-9,'47(A5618)444 ^^^T&^^. BX Simpson - ^.^ ,The life ojT- R2S6 Principal Rainy.^J> UC SOUTHERN REGlONAUiBRAR/ FACILITY ' AA 001 264 427 4 BX 922^ R2S6 \o ■ i:',-A\ •'■':.■■.;■■■,■'> ■