r
 
 GEEMANY : 
 
 ENGLAND, AND SCOTLAND; 
 
 OR, 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF A SWISS MINISTER. 
 
 BY 
 
 J. H. MERLE D'AUBIGNE, D.D. 
 
 Hie enim liber .... professinne pietatis .... excumtits erit. 
 
 TACITUS. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 ROBERT CARTER, 58 CANAL ST. 
 
 1848.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 IN the spring of the year 1845, the author was called 
 upon to undertake a journey into Germany and Great 
 Britain, for the purpose of drawing closer the bonds 
 of union between those countries and the Christians 
 of Geneva, and in particular with the Evangelical 
 Society of this town. On his return, his Genevese 
 friends requested from him an account of what he had 
 seen. The author deemed it his duty not to refuse 
 this request ; and the report was made at the end of 
 the winter of 1846, in four meetings, which were held 
 either in the great hall of the Casino, or in the chapel 
 of the Oratoire. In the following year, in the winter 
 of 1847, the author was again asked if he had no 
 other communications to make, and, therefore, to the 
 recollections of his journey, presented on the previous 
 year, he added some historical recollections. As the 
 public who attended these meetings seemed to think 
 that it would be beneficial to publish his statements, 
 the author sends them to the press. This work is 
 naturally divided into two parts : Travelling Recol- 
 lections and Historical Recollections. The author is
 
 IV ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 desirous that these sketches should recall him to the 
 memory of the many dear friends from whom he re- 
 ceived so kind a welcome ; and to them he dedicates 
 his "Recollections," as a mark of his gratitude and 
 affection. He especially desires that, by the blessing 
 of God, they may conduce to the advancement of His 
 kingdom. 
 
 Eaux Vives, Geneva, December, 1847.
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 CHAPTER I. GERMANY. 
 
 SECTION I. SOLITARY LIFE. Page. 
 
 The Scientific and the Practical Elements in the Church. Trans- 
 formation -----------14 
 
 SECTION II. FIRST MOVEMENT. INFIDELITY. 
 First Arrival in Germany. Struggles. Kiel and Kleuker. Rieu. 
 Exceeding abundantly. Deliverance. Raitonalismus vulgaris. 
 Emancipation of Mind. Hegel. Orthodox and Heterodox 
 Tongues. Strauss. His Successors, Bruno, Bauer, Feuerbach, 
 Stirner. Atheism. Materialism. Oxford. Friends of Light - 17 
 
 SECTION III. FAITH. 
 
 Jubilee of the Reformation in 1817. Festival of the Wartburg. 
 Revival of Faith. Practical School. A Defect. Doctrine of 
 Election. The Gospel preached to the Poor. Scientific School. 
 Its Doctors. Symbolical School. Evangelical Gazette. Abso- 
 lute Conservatism. Ecclesiastical School. The Union. The 
 Liturgy. Lutheran Movement. Silesia - - - - - 27 
 
 SECTION IV. SECOND MOVEMENT. CHRISTIAN SOCIETIES. 
 Society of Gustavus Adolphus. Assembly of Stutgard. Univer- 
 sality and Mixture. The two great Principles of Protestantism. 
 Different Nationalities and Christian Catholicism. Conservatives 
 and Aggressives : Negatives and Positives : Externals and Inter- 
 nals. A probable Separation -------36 
 
 SECTION V CHURCH PRINCIPLES. 
 
 German Churches. A slow Passage or a Leap. Visit to a German 
 Theologian. The Foundation of the Church. The Mind and 
 the Body. Radicalism and Conservatism. Science and Life. 
 The State and the Church. The Monarchical and the Repre- 
 sentative Systems. The German, the Roman, and the Genevese 
 Systems. An Evening at Stolzenfels. The Inauguration. The 
 King of Prussia ---------40 
 
 SECTION VI. THE GERMAN CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 German Catholicism. Manheim, Heidelberg, Stutgard. Worship. 
 Catholicism, Evangelism, Morals. Orthodox Minority, Ration- 
 alist Majority. Radical Constitution. Music and Repasts. The 
 true Baptism of a Church. Probable Futurity. M. Gervinus. 
 The Life of Faith. Germany stirs. The Vocation of a People. 
 Geneva 48
 
 Vi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. ENGLAND. 
 
 Page 
 
 SECTION I. RELIGION AND THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Arrival. Salutation. Revolution now in progress. Error. The 
 Sectarian System. The Latitudinarian. The Christian. Po- 
 pery. The Gardener of the State ------ 56 
 
 SECTION II. THE ENGLISH. 
 
 Entry into London. Bustle. Practical Tendency. The Common 
 People. Public Men. The Youth. Equality and Liberty. 
 Wealth. Country Seats and Shops. The Aristocracy. British 
 Enthusiasm. Hospitality. Discipline and Piety - - - 62 
 
 SECTION III. DEFECTS. 
 
 Bondage to the Comfortable and the Fashionable. The Merit of 
 Wealth and Power. Puritanism and Worldliness. Christianity 
 should be manifested in the Flesh. Evils of large Properties. 
 An Exception. The Sites. Grandeur of the Manufacturing 
 and Mercantile Towns. The reverse of the Medal. A human 
 Form in the Strand. A Story in a Sermon. Want of popular 
 Instruction. Drs. Sack and Luke ------ 70 
 
 SECTION IV. PIETY AND DUTY. 
 
 Conscientiousness of a People. Religion necessary to England. 
 Service at Cambridge. Fear of God among the People. The 
 Divine Law or Duty. Sunday in Britain. The Railroads and 
 the Sunday. Puseyism proceeds from the same Principle - - 80 
 
 SECTION V. THE ARTICLES AND THE ORATORS. 
 Doctrine and Life. Religious Meetings. Capacity of the British. 
 Explosions of Eloquence. The Lions of Meetings in Scotland 
 and England. Preachers --------88 
 
 SECTION VI. UNION AND SEPARATION. 
 
 Christian Union. Breakfast at Liverpool. The Bishop and the 
 London Missions. Westminster and the Presbyterians. Hano- 
 ver Square Rooms and Finsbury Chapel. Communion at Ge- 
 neva. Strength of the Evangelical Party - - - - 95 
 
 SECTION VIL THE REFORMATION OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 Two Revolutions : In Theological Instruction, and in Church 
 Government. Convocations. The Shadows. Preservation and 
 Transformation. Reform. Intervention of Members of the 
 Church. Necessity of Ecclesiastical Institutions. Two Armies 
 against Rome. Confidence and Error - 101 
 
 CHAPTER III. SCOTLAND. 
 
 SECTION I. EDINBURGH. 
 
 Germany, England, and Scotland. Crossing England by Rail- 
 way. Arrival in Scotland. Chalmers. Edinburgh. The Old 
 and the New Town. The Castle Hill. Holyrood - - -113 
 
 SECTION II. SCOTTISH DOCTRINE. 
 
 Difference between the English and the Scotch. Scottish Char- 
 acter. A Proof of the Reformation. Importance of Doctrine. 
 Spirit and Life. Character of Scottish Theology. Basis. Apex 119
 
 CONTENTS. VH 
 
 SECTION III. WORSHIP. Page. 
 
 A Sermon. Length. A Farewell Sermon. Liberty. The Lord's 
 Supper. Standing or Sitting 1 Discipline; Essential or not? 
 Public Instruction - - - - - -.- - - 123 
 
 SECTION IV. THE CHURCH AND THE PALACE. 
 
 Disruption of 1843. State of the Established Church. Holyrood 
 and the Lord High Commissioner. The General Assembly of 
 the Establishment and the Platform. Was a Speech necessary ! 
 Dinner at Holyrood --------- 129 
 
 SECTION V. THE FREE ASSEMBLY. 
 
 Impartiality. The Assembly Time. The 18th of May and Can- 
 non Mills. Our Entrance. A Scottish Assembly. Speech of 
 Chalmers. Geneva and Scotland. Popery and Erastianism. 
 Bonfires of Straw 134 
 
 SECTION VI. SPEECHES OF THE DEPUTIES. 
 Dr. Gordon, Dr. Macfarlane, Dr. Brown. Fatigue and Repose - 140 
 
 CHAPTER IV. THE SCOTTISH QUESTION. 
 SKCTION I. Two INFLUENCES. 
 
 The Produce of Scotland. Development of Being. The two In- 
 fluences. The two Swords. Task of the Reformation - - 143 
 
 SECTION II. DOCTRINE. 
 
 Distinctions between the Evangelical and the Moderate Parties. 
 Not in Doctrine. Person of Christ. The two Natures. The 
 Arminian Question --------- 146 
 
 SECTION III. THE TWO EXTREMITIES OF THE SCALE. 
 
 The Church Question. Distinction between Scotland and Eng- 
 land. Different Origins of their Churches. Scotland considered 
 from the English point of View. Should Scotland draw nearer 
 to England, or England to Scotland 1 ----- 152 
 
 SECTION IV. CHURCH AND GOVERNMENT. 
 
 Doctrine of Scotland respecting the Church. Kingship of Christ. 
 His Laws. His Ministers. Spiritual and Temporal Govern- 
 ment. Incapacity of the latter to govern the Church - - 155 
 
 SECTION V. IMPORTANCE OF THE SYSTEM. 
 
 Government of Christ opposed to that of Antichrist. The Refor- 
 mation cannot be a mere Negation. The Right of Scotland. 
 The two Principles of the Secession: 1st. Non-intrusion; 2d. 
 Spiritual Independence. A Theorem and two Corollaries. Es- 
 sential Cause of the Disruption 159 
 
 SECTION VI. A COMPARISON. 
 
 The Scottish and the Separationist Systems. Differences. Com- 
 plete and Imperfect. Positive and Negative. Doctrine and is- 
 cipline. Effectual and Ineffectual. Claims of the State - -62
 
 V1U CONTENTS. 
 
 SECTION VII. A REQUISITE OP UNION. page 
 
 Three Phases of the Scottish Church. Conscience and Expedi- 
 ency. Discord not Union. Accusation. Complement. The 
 Solar System - 167 
 
 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 CHAPTER V. SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 
 
 SIXTEENTH CENTURY. POPERY. 
 
 SECTION I. THE BEGINNING. 
 
 Travellers. History and its Lessons. Two Men at Geneva. The 
 Vocation of Scotland. Return of Knox. St. Andrews. Tri- 
 umph of the Reformation. The Church Free - 173 
 
 SECTION II. A CHURCH AND A Q.UEEN. 
 
 First Book of Discipline. Election of Pastors. Mary Stuart. Op- 
 position. League of Bayonne. The Holyrood Murder - - 179 
 
 SECTION III. THE TULCHANS. 
 
 The Church established. Spiritual Independence of the Church. 
 Death of the Good Regent. Tulchan Bishops. Saying of 
 Erskine of Dun .-..--.-- 1S4 
 
 SECTION IV. THE COURTIERS AND A MINISTER or GOD^ 
 The Book of Policy. James, Lennox, and Arran. Archbishop 
 Montgomery. Act against Civil Admission. Protest of the As- 
 sembly. Melville before the King. James yields - 187 
 
 SECTION V. KING JAMES AND PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 The Black Acts. Protest. Protestant Reaction. Presbyterian 
 Speech of the King. Ecclesiastical Charter of 1592 - - 194 
 
 SECTION VI. Two KINGS AND Two KINGDOMS. 
 New Reaction. Deputation to the King. Andrew Melville. Dan- 
 gers. Strength and Courage - - 196 
 
 CHAPTER VI. SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 
 SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. PRELACY OF LAUD. PART I. 
 
 SECTION I. KING-CRAFT. 
 
 Utility of History. Maxim of James. Basilicon Doron. King- 
 craft. General Assembly gained over. Representation in Par- 
 liament. Northern Legion. The king prevails. James, King 
 of England. Assembly of Aberdeen. Persecution ... 200 
 
 SECTION II. A FREE MINISTER AND A SERVILE CHURCH. 
 Welsh, Minister of Ayr. Six Ministers before the Jury. Welsh's 
 Speech. Letter to Lilias Graham. The parting at Leith. 
 Welsh in France. Acts of 1610 and 1612. The Five Articles of 
 Perth. Welsh and Louis XIII. Mrs. Welsh and King James - 204 
 
 SECTION III. THE KING'S CANONS AND THE IMPRISONED MINISTERS. 
 
 Charles I. Arminianism and Immorality in Scotland. Prelacy 
 of Laud. The Canons. The Two Parties. The Inquisition. 
 Rutherford in Prison. The Service Book brought into Edinburgh 210
 
 CONTENTS. IX 
 
 SECTION IV. THE COVENANT. p age . 
 
 23rd July, 1637. The Service Book interrupted. Interdict. Agi- 
 tation. Orders of the King. Complaint against Bishops. Fast. 
 28th February, 1658. The Covenant signed. Livingstone. The 
 Highlands. Grutli 213 
 
 SECTION V. SECOND REFORMATION. 
 
 Hamilton. General Assembly called. The Bishops accused. The 
 Lord High Commissioner withdraws. Firmness of the Assem- 
 bly. Second Reformation. The Covenanters - - - - 219 
 
 SECTION VI. WAR AND PEACE. 
 
 Westminster Assembly. Election of Pastors. Abolition of Patron- 
 age. Charles II. called. Ireland and Scotland. Resolutionists 
 and Protesters. Ten Years of Peace. Spiritual Warfare - - 224 
 
 CHAPTER VII. SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 
 
 SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. PRELACY OF LAUD. PART II. 
 
 SECTION I. THE FIRST MARTYRS. 
 
 Individualism and Catholicism. Babylonish Captivity. 23d Au- 
 gust 1660. Middleton and his Parliament. Martyrdom of Ar- 
 gyle. Of Guthrie. Of Govan 231 
 
 SECTION II. THE DISRUPTION. 
 
 Act of 1662. The Four Prelates. Order to the Ministers. Jour- 
 ney and Banquets. Act of Glasgow. Resolution of the Minis- 
 ters. The last Sunday. John Welsh. Blackadder. Peden - 237 
 
 SECTION III. CURATES AND GARRISONS. 
 
 Delay granted. The Curates. Their Arrival. Horse and Foot. 
 Before and After. Co-operation of the Curates and the Garri- 
 sons. Soldier-judges. A Military Expedition - 244 
 
 SECTION IV. TYRANNY AND INDULGENCES. 
 
 Middleton dismissed. Drag-net Act. High Commission Court. 
 Pentland. Execution of M'Kail. First Indulgence. Act of 
 1669. Second Indulgence and Blair. Retirement of Leighton - 250 
 
 SECTION V. FAINTING OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Presbyterian Conventicles. Cameron. The Duke of York. Spirit. 
 Scarcity of the Word. Excommunication by Cargill. The Duke 
 of Rothes 256 
 
 SECTION VI. THE KILLING TIME. 
 
 Testimony of Marion Harvey. Death of Cargill. The Murderous 
 Time. Declaration of 1684. The Sea and Margaret Wilson. 
 John Brown and Claverhouse. General Persecution - - 262 
 
 SECTION VII. THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 Designs of James II. Peden's Wanderings. Act of Toleration. 
 The last Martyr. The Pope's Godson. Revolution of 1688. 
 Restoration of Presbyterianism and Abolition of Patronage 
 Communion of Saints. New Period and New Arms - - 271 
 1*
 
 X CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIIL SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 
 
 SECTION I. UNION AND PATRONAGE. p a ge. 
 
 Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century. Patronage. Awakening and 
 Sleep. Union of England and Scotland. Fundamental Con- 
 dition. The Jacobites and the Pretender. The Jacobites restore 
 Patronage. Alarm of Scotland. An old Iniquity - 281 
 
 SECTION II. ROBERTSON'S PERIOD AND MODERATISM. 
 Worldliness and Arminianism in the Church. Protesting for Sev- 
 enty-two Years. Moderatism. Ebenezer Erskine. Robertson 
 and his Times. Thomas Gillespie. Military Intrusions. Nigg. 
 A solemn Appeal. Unitarianism enters the Church - - - 287 
 
 SECTION III. CHALMERS' PERIOD AND THE VETO. 
 Transition. French Revolution. Missions. The Chalmers' Period 
 begins. His First Motion in 1833. Increase of Evangelical 
 Ministers. The Veto in 1834. Two Solutions. A Falsehood 
 in the Church. Another Way. Sufferings of the Church. Pas- 
 toral Relationship. Argument of Chalmers. An Ignorant 
 Christian. Politicians at first favor the Veto. Its Effects - - 293 
 
 SECTION IV. AUCHTERARDER AND MARNOCH. 
 A strong Opposition formed. Auchterarder and Mr. Young. An 
 Enormity. Marnoch and Mr. Edwards. Dr. Candlish's Motion. 
 The Sword drawn. Revivals. Edwards settled at Marnoch. 
 The Congregation withdraws. Feelings of Scotland - - 306 
 
 SECTION V. THE THIRD REFORMATION. 
 
 Dr. Buchanan's Motion. Petitions. Decision of the Moderate 
 Party. 25th August. Diplomatic Negotiations. Chalmers 
 against the Encroachments of the Civil Courts. Claim of Rights. 
 A Church in one Day _.-.-... 314 
 
 SECTION VI. STRUGGLES OF THE CHURCH AND STATE. 
 Decision of the House of Lords. Scotland prepares. Convocation 
 of the 17th November. Address to the People of Scotland. An- 
 swer of the Government. Its Mistake. Appeal of Chalmers. 
 Reply of the People. Decision of the Commons .... 320 
 
 SECTION VII. THE DISRUPTION. 
 
 Dilemma. 18th May 1843. Concourse of People. St. Andrews. 
 The Protest. The Exodus. Deputations 328 
 
 SECTION VIIL THE FREE CHURCH. 
 
 Cannon Mills. Chalmers, first Moderator of the Free Church. 
 Deed of Demission. Ministers leave their Manses and Churches. 
 Vital Preaching. Sites for the Wilderness. Efforts of the Chris- 
 tian People. Six Hundred Churches. Benmore and the Free 
 Church. No Recoil. The Procession, Cannon, &c. &c. - - 339 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Protestantism in the German Provinces of Russia ... 349 
 The Lutherans and the Moravians ------ 356 
 
 Conversions to the Greek Church ------- 360 
 
 The Synod, or Peace --------- 364
 
 GERMANY, ENGLAND, AND SCOTLAND, 
 
 PART I. 
 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 I HAVE been requested to give some account of the jour- 
 ney I undertook in the year 1845. The task imposed on me 
 is not easy : for on the one hand it is both disagreeable and 
 perilous to speak of one's-self ; while on the other, a vague 
 dissertation filled with generalities can have but little in- 
 terest. I am thus placed between two shoals, and incur the 
 risk of being either ridiculous or dull : 1 will do all in my 
 power to steer clear of the first, but I cannot promise to avoid 
 the second. t 
 
 My journey occupied four months, which were divided, 
 in pretty equal portions, among three countries, England, 
 Scotland, and Germany. 
 
 These three nations have each an individual character ; 
 for the people of England and of Scotland, though united 
 under the same government, are nevertheless essentially 
 different. 
 
 I might easily state their distinguishing characteristics ; 
 but I remember, that however great may be the differences 
 which separate nations, that which they have in common is 
 of still higher importance. All are alike in some essential
 
 12 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 points, and participate in their estrangement from that God 
 who ought to be the centre and the life of all. It may be 
 said of each of them, " The people weary themselves for 
 very vanity," (Hab. ii. 13.): and also, "There is neither Jew 
 nor Greek, in Christ Jesus." All nations are called upon to 
 rise and look forward to that restoration which the God-man 
 came to bestow upon the new race of whom He was made 
 the Saviour and the King. " There shall be a root of Jesse," 
 saith the prophet ; " to it shall the Gentiles seek." 
 
 The human race may be compared to an immense temple 
 ruined, but now rebuilding, the numerous compartments of 
 which represent the several nations of the earth. True, the 
 different portions of the edifice present great anomalies ; but 
 yet the foundation and the corner-stone are the same. All 
 spring from the same level, and all should be directed to the 
 same end. The walls of the building have been thrown 
 down, and the stones scattered by a great earthquake ; yet a 
 mighty Architect has appeared, and his powerful hand is 
 gradually raising the temple-walls. The only difference be- 
 tween one side of the edifice and the other is, that here the 
 restoration is somewhat farther advanced, while there it is 
 less forward. Alas ! some places are still overgrown with 
 thorns, where not a single stone appears. Yet the Great 
 Architect may one day look down on these desolate spots, 
 and there the building may suddenly and rapidly spring up, 
 reaching the summit long before those lofty walls which seem 
 to have outgrown the others, but which are still standing 
 half-raised and incomplete. " The last shall be first." 
 
 The discriminating features of the several families of man- 
 kind, the regenerating principle among the numberless races 
 of the earth, do not consist in a greater or less proportion of 
 natural talent, in different degrees of political advancement, 
 or in closeness of attachment to their ancient national tradi- 
 tions. All these may indeed be of some consequence ; but 
 the essential point is their degree of participation in those 
 heavenly influences which alone can call the dead mass of
 
 INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 humanity to life ; and in short, their interest in the person 
 and work of the Redeemer. The heathen are on the lowest 
 steps ; next come the Moslem ; then those Christian nations 
 most unacquainted with the doctrine of free grace ; and, 
 lastly, those among which there is a people who are able to 
 say, "The foundation is Jesus Christ." The evangelical na- 
 tions are the capital of humanity a capital, alas ! still mea- 
 gre and incomplete ! 
 
 These are general principles that we must not lose sight 
 of in contemplating the three countries of which I am to 
 speak, England, Scotland, and Germany. The worldly- 
 minded traveller sees little but diversities and contrasts : the 
 Christian traveller should especially notice relations and iden- 
 tities. I may add, that the three nations I have mentioned 
 are perhaps the three most illustrious branches of the evan- 
 gelical Christian family. These pages are a mark of the af- 
 fection I bear them ; and even when speaking of the faults I 
 may have met with, my doing so with freedom should be 
 regarded as an additional proof of my love and esteem for 
 them. 
 
 Nunquam te fallant animi sub vulpe latentes. 
 
 Quinctilio si quid recitares ; Corrige, sodes, 
 
 Hoc, aiebat, et hoc. 
 
 Si defendere delictum, quam vertere, malles : 
 
 Nullum ultra verbum aut operam insumebat inanem, 
 
 Quin sine rivali teque et tua solus amares. 
 
 HORAT. ad Pisones, 1. 437.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 GERMANY. 
 
 1. Solitary Life. The Scientific and the Practical Elements in the 
 Church. Transformation. 2. First Movement. Infidelity. First 
 Arrival in Germany. Struggles. Kiel and Kleuker. Rieu. E& 
 ceeding abundantly. Deliverance. Raitonalismus vulgaris. Eman- 
 cipation of Mind. Hegel. Orthodox and Heterodox Tongues. 
 Strauss. His Successors, Bruno Bauer, Feuerbach, Stirner. Athe- 
 ism. Materialism. Oxford. Friends of Light. 3. Faith. Jubilee 
 of the Reformation in 1817. Festival of the Wartburg. Revival of 
 Faith. Practical School. A Defect. Doctrine of Election. The 
 Gospel preached to the Poor. Scientific School. Its Doctors. Sym- 
 bolical School. Evangelical Gazette. Absolute Conservatism. Ec- 
 clesiastical School. The Union. The Liturgy. Lutheran Move- 
 ment. Silesia. 4. Second Movement. Christian Societies. Society 
 of Gustavus Adolphus. Assembly of Stutgard. Universality and 
 Mixture. The two great Principles of Protestantism. Different Na- 
 tionalities and Christian Catholicism. Conservatives and Aggressives : 
 Negatives and Positives : Externals and Internals. A probable Sepa- 
 ration. 5. German Churches. A slow Passage or a Leap. Visit to 
 a German Theologian. The Foundation of the Church. The Mind 
 and the Body. Radicalism and Conservatism. Science and Life. 
 The State and the Church. The Monarchical and the Representa- 
 tive Systems. The German, the Roman, and the Genevese Systems. 
 An Evening at Stolzenfels. The Inauguration. The King of Prus- 
 sia. 6. German Catholicism. Manheim, Heidelberg, Stutgard. Wor- 
 ship. Catholicism, Evangelism, Morals. Orthodox Minority, Ra- 
 tionalist Majority. Radical Constitution. Music and Repasts. The 
 true Baptism of a Church. Probable Futurity. M. Gervinus. The 
 Life of Faith. Germany stirs. The Vocation of a People Geneva. 
 
 I. 
 
 SOLITARY LIFE. 
 
 ON leaving Switzerland my course lay among the moun- 
 tains of the Black Forest, where I visited Konigsfeld, a little
 
 GERMANY. 15 
 
 Moravian congregation, which has established its contempla- 
 tive life, its quiet manners, and its pious chants, amid that 
 wild and gloomy scenery. Even this is characteristic of Ger- 
 many. Thence I repaired to Heidelberg, now resuming its 
 place as a centre of theological science, and then came 
 down the Rhine. 
 
 I had spent six years in Germany, from 1817 to 1823, first 
 as a student, afterwards as a pastor, and I can never revisit 
 it without again feeling myself among the friends of my best 
 years. 
 
 The German has several features which distinguish him in 
 a striking manner from the Englishman and the Scotchman. 
 He lives within himself ; he seems born for the ideal world. 
 His faith, when hehas any, is rather in his head than in his 
 heart, and he easily loses himself in mysticism. He feeds 
 upon the ideal ; he seeks out the first principles of things, 
 their general laws, their essence. Systems of philosophy 
 succeed one another in his country more rapidly than forms 
 of government with the people most changeable in politics. 
 
 While elsewhere the life of man assumes more and more 
 a public character, the German leads a solitary existence. 
 He lives in his study, from the window of which, late and 
 early, the light of his lamp is seen shining. A friend of mine, 
 a Frenchman by birth, who resides in a university town, op- 
 posite one of the professors, said to me, " That is a singular 
 man ; I really do not know when he sleeps ; his lamp is 
 always burning !" The Germans are a people to be taken 
 separately and singly ; they have seldom or never hitherto 
 formed into groups and parties ; and it may be said of Ger- 
 many, as regards the empire of thought, what the Bible said 
 of Israel at one period, with regard to social order "In 
 those days there was no king, but every man did that which 
 was right in his own eyes." 
 
 Germany, although some may think the contrary, is, in 
 many respects, the country of individualism; the church, 
 therefore, which is the concentration and organization of
 
 16 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Christian individuals, is yet in a state of infancy. One 
 evening last summer, being at the house of one of the most 
 distinguished German theologians., who had invited me to 
 meet some of his colleagues, I was speaking of England and 
 Scotland, which I had just left, and of what was doing there. 
 My entertainer, who listened to me with much interest, said, 
 " We in Germany have a science, but we have no Church." 
 This is a characteristic remark. 
 
 A science and no Church ! There are, in fact, two ele- 
 ments necessary to the progress of Christianity the scien- 
 tific and the practical. If the development of the latter is 
 the task God has imposed upon Britain, where ecclesiastical 
 life is so powerful, the development of the former has fallen 
 to the lot of Germany. It is only to be wished that she 
 would perform it with more respect for the source of all 
 science the Word of God. 
 
 Hitherto the German has been contented to live alone at 
 his ease, among his own ideas, his own faith ; perhaps even, 
 in some cases, his own errors. Faithful to the character of 
 the ancient Germans, he seeks, not indeed in the seclusion 
 of forests, but in the mysterious depths of his own mind, 
 some undefined divinity which he worships. Deorumque 
 nominibus appellant secretum illud, quod sola reverentia vi- 
 dent.* But a new epoch has now begun : throughout Ger- 
 many, individualities are tending to unite and form into 
 groups. The scattered members are here and there collect- 
 ing into a body. The bones are gathering together, according 
 to the prophecy of Ezekiel ; sinews are coming upon them, 
 flesh is growing, and soon they will stand upon their feet, 
 an exceeding' great army. 
 
 It is interesting to watch how this transformation is tak- 
 ing place in Germany ; how, from isolated existences, she is 
 advancing to a single concentrated existence. It is a re- 
 markable phenomenon. But there is another in Germany 
 still more so, the transformation, in which faith succeeds 
 * Tacit, de Mor. Germ.
 
 GERMANY. 17 
 
 unbelief. This phenomenon, unhappily, is not general ; yet, 
 though there are beyond the Rhine manifestations of infidel- 
 ity more striking than ever, I am persuaded that the move- 
 ment towards the truth will be stronger still. 
 
 There are, thus, two movements in Germany which I 
 would point out. In the first the opposite poles are unbe- 
 lief and faith ; in the other, individualism and the Church. 
 
 II. 
 
 FIRST MOVEMENT. INFIDELITY. 
 
 MY first visit to Germany was in 1817, immediately after 
 my consecration to the ministry of the Word of God, and 
 with the design of studying theology for a longer period be- 
 fore entering upon its active duties. I spent some time as 
 a student at the Universities of Leipsic and Berlin; after- 
 wards, four years in Hamburg, as pastor of the French 
 church. My arrival in Germany was rendered remarkable, 
 by a circumstance connected with my inward life. I was 
 stunned almost overwhelmed, by the tempest of rationalism 
 and infidelity which was then raging. After having remained 
 in the cheerless principles of Unitarianism until nearly the 
 conclusion of my studies at the academy of Geneva, I had 
 been seized by the Word of God. I had believed in the 
 divinity of the Saviour, in original sin, the power of which I 
 had experienced in my own heart, and in justification by 
 faith. I had experienced the joys of the new birth. I was 
 yet, however, weak : I was willing to take up the Cross -of 
 Christ ; but I preferred regarding it as wisdom rather than 
 foolishness. It was at this time that I arrived in Germany. 
 Every theological journal I read, every book I looked into, 
 almost every one, both ministers and laymen, whom I met, 
 were affected with Rationalism, so that the poison of infidel- 
 ity was presented to me on all sides. 
 
 I then entered upon a fearful spiritual struggle, defending
 
 18 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 with my whole strength my still feeble faith, yet sometimes 
 falling under the blows of the enemy. I was inwardly con- 
 sumed. There was not a moment in which I was not ready 
 to lay down my life for the faith I professed ; and never did 
 I ascend the pulpit without being able to proclaim, with 
 fulness of faith, salvation by Jesus. But scarcely had I 
 left it, when the enemy assailed me anew, and inspired my 
 mind with agonizing doubts. I passed whole nights with- 
 out sleep, crying to God from the bottom of my heart, or 
 endeavoring, by arguments and syllogisms without end, to 
 repel the attacks of the adversary. Such were my combats 
 during those weary watchings, that I almost wonder how I 
 did not sink under them. 
 
 It happened at this time (1819) that a friend of mine,* 
 settled in Paris, was on the point of visiting Copenhagen, 
 where his mother's family resided. Another friend of ours, 
 Charles Rieu, was the pastor of Fredericia in Jutland. We 
 were all three Genevese ; we had studied together at Geneva ; 
 and had come at the same time to the knowledge of the 
 truth, although Rieu had outstripped us in all respects, 
 especially in the simplicity of his faith and devotedness to 
 the Lord. We agreed to travel together to Copenhagen, 
 and to meet at Kiel, the capital of Holstein. 
 
 Kiel is a German university, and at that time was the 
 residence of Kleuker, one of the oldest champions of German 
 divinity, who had been for forty years defending Christian 
 revelation against the attacks of infidel theologians, in apolo- 
 getic works of some celebrity. There were many passages 
 of Scripture which stopped me, and I proposed visiting 
 Kleuker, and asking him to explain them, hoping by this 
 visit to be delivered from my agonizing doubts. 
 
 Accordingly I waited on Kleuker, and requested that 
 learned and experienced Christian to elucidate for my satis- 
 faction many passages whence some of his countrymen in their 
 writings had drawn proofs against the inspiration of Scripture 
 . * The Rev. Frederic Monod.
 
 GERMANY. 19 
 
 and the divine origin of Christianity. The old doctor would 
 not enter into any detailed solution of these difficulties. 
 " Were I to succeed in ridding you of them," he said to me, 
 " others would soon arise : There is a shorter, deeper, more 
 complete way of annihilating them. Let Christ be really to 
 you the Son of God, the Saviour, the Author of Eternal 
 Life. Only be firmly settled in his grace, and then these 
 difficulties of detail will never stop you : the light which 
 proceeds from Christ will disperse all your darkness." 
 
 The old divine had shown me the way : I saw it was the 
 right one, but to follow it was a hard task. God, who had 
 already revealed to me the glory of his well-beloved Son, 
 did not forsake me ; but he used another agency to bring me 
 to the mark which had been pointed out. 
 
 As steam-boats were not at that time very regular, we had 
 to wait some days for the one in which my friends and I 
 intended proceeding to Copenhagen. We were staying at 
 an hotel, and used to spend part of our time in reading the 
 Word of God together. M. Monod and I chose Rieu for 
 our chaplain. He was an ear of corn which the Lord had 
 early brought to full maturity, and which was soon after 
 carried to the everlasting garner. Two years after, I wept 
 over his grave, amidst his desolate flock, with whom I cele- 
 brated the death of the Lord. I was at this time at Kiel, 
 enjoying my last converse with this much esteemed friend. 
 We all three communicated to each other our thoughts on 
 reading the Word, but it was Rieu who most abundantly 
 brought out the hidden riches of the Book of God. 
 
 We were studying the Epistle to the Ephesians, and had 
 got to the end of the third chapter, when we read the two 
 last verses : " Now unto him who is able to do EXCEEDING 
 ABUNDANTLY above all that we ask or think, according to the 
 power that worketh in us, unto him be glory," &c. This 
 expression fell upon my soul as a mighty revelation from 
 God. " HE can do by His power," I said to myself, " above 
 all that we ask, above all even that we think, nay, EXCEEDING
 
 20 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 ABUNDANTLY above all !" A full trust in Christ for the work 
 to be done within my poor heart now filled my soul. We 
 all three knelt down, and, although I had never fully con- 
 fided to my friends my inward struggles, (for I dared not 
 make them known to any but to God alone,) the prayer of 
 Rieu was filled with such admirable faith, as he would have 
 uttered had he known all my wants. When I arose, in that 
 inn room at Kiel, I felt as if my " wings were renewed as the 
 wings of eagles." From that time forward I comprehended 
 that my own syllogisms and efforts were of no avail ; that 
 Christ was able to do all by his "power that worketh in us;" 
 and the habitual attitude of my soul was to lie at the foot of 
 the Cross, crying to Him, " Here am I, bound hand and 
 foot, unable to move, unable to do the least thing to get 
 away from the enemy who oppresses me. Do all thyself. 
 I know that thou wilt do it, thou wilt even do exceeding 
 abundantly above all that I ask." 
 
 I was not disappointed. All my doubts were soon dis- 
 pelled, and not only was I delivered from that inward anguish 
 which in the end would have destroyed me, had not God 
 been faithful ; but the Lord " extended unto me peace like 
 a river."* Then I could " comprehend with all saints what 
 is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height ; and know 
 the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. "f Then was I 
 able to say, " Return unto thy rest, my soul ; for the Lord 
 hath dealt bountifully with thee."J 
 
 If I relate these things, it is not as my own history not 
 the history of myself alone but of many pious young men, 
 who in Germany, and even elsewhere, have been assailed by 
 the raging waves of Rationalism. Many, alas ! have made 
 shipwreck of their faith, and some have even violently put an 
 end to their lives. On this account I shall always remember 
 the words of Scripture, " Thou hast set my feet in a large 
 room." " He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord."|| 
 
 * Isaiah, Ixvi. 12. f Ephes. Hi. 18, 19. $ Psalm, cxvi. 7. 
 
 Psalm, xxxi. 8. II 1 Cor. i. 31.
 
 GERMANY. 21 
 
 I do not mean to describe Rationalism as I then found it 
 in Germany that rationalismus vulgaris, as it has been 
 called, adopting the terminology of botany that edifice 
 which has now nothing left to show but here and there a 
 crumbling wall that unbelieving world in which two doctors, 
 who are still living, Paulus of Heidelberg, and Wegscheider 
 of Halle, were long the Fathers of the infidel church. A 
 celebrated theologian (now indeed too celebrated !) has al- 
 ready done this in a work which we are happy to have it in 
 our power to praise. I refer to the book entitled " A His- 
 torical Inquiry into the probable Causes of the Rationalist 
 Character lately predominant in the Theology of Germany, 
 by E. B. Pusey, M.A., Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. 
 London, 1828." 
 
 But this worn-out Rationalism has been succeeded by a 
 new one. The tree is withered ; but from its roots has 
 sprung an offshoot, which seems likely to extend its branches 
 still farther than the old one. I will, therefore, say a few 
 words of this more modern Rationalism, which I found in 
 Germany at the time of my journey in 1845. My remarks 
 will be a short supplement to the work of the celebrated 
 divine before mentioned, with whom, however, I would in no 
 way compare myself. I know not whether, during his resi- 
 dence in Germany (which as to time corresponds, I think, 
 with my own), he suffered, like me, from the attacks of Ra- 
 tionalism. If such was the case, as it well might be, Dr. 
 Pusey, I presume, made his escape through tradition ; while 
 I, as has been seen, was saved by the Word of God. The 
 weaker of the two found the stronger support. 
 
 The political hopes which Germany entertained in 1813, 
 1814, and 1815, having been disappointed, and the religious 
 movement not having been successful in renewing the church, 
 the more serious Germans were driven back upon themselves. 
 The emancipation of the state and the church having failed, 
 they turned to the emancipation of the mind. A philos- 
 opher (Hegel) was the great liberator. He sought to re-
 
 22 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 generate the people by the most profound speculations. 
 To know, instead of to believe, was the grand principle en- 
 throned by the great Gnostic of the nineteenth century ; and 
 thus he arrived at three great denials, the denial of a per- 
 sona] God, the denial of a personal Christ, and the denial 
 of the personality of man after death. 
 
 The fundamental principle of every pantheistic doctrine is 
 the basis of Hegel's religious philosophy. The idea of a 
 God is, according to him, a development, by virtue of which 
 the non-existent becomes a being (from not to be, to be), 
 from non-ens to ens.* We do not find in the system of 
 Hegel the historical Christ, the God-man of the Bible. Ac- 
 cording to him, the appearance of God in the flesh took 
 place at a certain time, in order to make known the unity of . 
 the divine with the human ; in order that the finite spirit 
 (man) might recognize his unity with God, and know that 
 God has his being within him. 
 
 " Christ is merely the first who acknowledged in himself 
 this unity of God and man," says the German philosopher. 
 
 " A man must believe in the unity of God and man in the 
 person of Christ, in order that he may recognize the same 
 unity within himself. 
 
 " Christ is not the only God-man, he is not even so in 
 any especial manner. The idea of God-man belongs to all 
 mankind. 
 
 " There is a universal incarnation of God which does not 
 proceed from Christ, and which renders all men essentially 
 equal to Christ." 
 
 Such is Hegel's Christology. 
 
 This philosopher, however, did not pretend to substitute 
 philosophy for religion. He knew, as a recent writer ob- 
 served, that in a time of famine, a dissertation upon the or- 
 gans and process of digestion will satisfy nobody's hunger. 
 But the disciples have done what the master could not ac- 
 complish. 
 
 * Ein sich Entwickeln von Nicht seyn zu Seyn.
 
 GERMANY. 23 
 
 He formed two principal schools ; that on the right hand, 
 which drew nearer to Christianity, and that on the left, 
 which rushed into a vulgar pantheism, dressed up in a few 
 scientific terms ; or, as these two parties have been called, 
 the orthodox and the heterodox tongues. Every adept of 
 the latter might now be seen endeavoring to exalt his own 
 personality (his ego) by the sacrifice of the personality (the 
 ego) of the Divine Being. Each would dethrone God to 
 make a god of himself, and each presents to us as the ul- 
 timate expression of Christianity and of Protestantism, the 
 dreams of ancient Paganism, or of some obscure sects of the 
 middle ages. 
 
 The doctrines of Hegel found at first but few adherents 
 among the youth of the German universities. It was too 
 profound for the majority of intellects ; but his disciples 
 soon tried to vulgarize it. The mystical lucubrations drawn 
 from the deep abysses of the Berlin professor were dispersed 
 abroad in a thousand different channels, in pamphlets, 
 newspapers, ladies' books, novels, and poetry. Its followers 
 did for Hegelism in Germany, what is doing for Puseyism in 
 England, and it soon became the gospel of the day.* 
 
 Strauss was the most powerful promoter of this pantheis- 
 tical gospel. Though the notion of sin had wholly disap- 
 peared from the new German theology, there still remained 
 some faint traces at least of the doctrine of redemption. In 
 Strauss not a glimpse of it is left. " The whole evangelical 
 history is one great myth an allegory, the meaning of 
 which is to be sought out. The Christ of the Gospel is," 
 according to Strauss, " the produce of the monotheist super- 
 naturalism of the Jewish nation. Here arises a dilemma. 
 Either this Christ Jesus is a miracle, that is to say, a contra- 
 diction, or else he has never existed. The latter supposition 
 alone is admitted by the mythological Christology. Hu- 
 manity is the Christ in which God incessantly makes him- 
 self flesh." 
 
 * Der Deutche Protestantismus, p. 193.
 
 24 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 The work of Strauss popularized the ideas which might, 
 perhaps, have remained within the boundaries of science ; 
 and a crowd of idle young men rashly yielded to these fatal 
 illusions. Strauss possessed, at least, science, method, criti- 
 cal skill, and a real talent for exposition. All these were 
 now neglected. The essential object was to bring forward 
 something strange and startling, and thus gain both reputa- 
 tion and money. Wider and wider spread the opinions of 
 the youthful pantheist, the author of a work on the Rehabi- 
 litation of the Flesh, who exclaimed, that if the world had 
 never heard of God it would have been very happy, and 
 would peaceably have enjoyed the intoxication of life ! " The 
 fool hath said in his heart there is no God." 
 
 They had gone very far, but the limit was not yet reached. 
 The German youth I mean those who were grouped around 
 these doctors were hurrying down a steep descent which 
 terminated in the abyss of atheism. This they quickly 
 reached, nay, even rushed beyond it. Then began in Ger- 
 many a fearful race of intellects, each striving to outdo the 
 other in impiety. Scarcely had one of these rebellious spir- 
 its reached a certain stage of irreligion, when another started 
 off to outrun him, and assert falsities still more diabolical. 
 Strauss had stripped Christianity of every positive and his- 
 torical element. Bruno Bauer, a theologian likewise, went 
 still farther. He stigmatized the " theology of the heart," 
 the pectoral theology as he called it, and exposed what he 
 termed the theological shamelessnesses or indecencies (scham- 
 losigkeiten) ; and, rejecting Christianity altogether, held it 
 up to the ridicule of his countrymen. 
 
 A general idea of religion still remained. But then came 
 forward Feuerbach, another of those champions of impiety, 
 who undertook to deliver his nation from the " illusion of 
 religion." And scarcely had the wretched man arrived at 
 this pitch of atheism, when he was overtaken by another 
 still bolder than himself, Max Stirner, who, as he passed on, 
 jeered at him, calling him a priest (Pfaffen), a superstitious
 
 GERMANY. 25 
 
 man, seeing that he had allowed one idol to subsist : the love 
 of mankind! "Down," he cries, "down with this supersti- 
 tion also ! Egoism, selfishness ! that is all that is left. Be- 
 hold the supreme ruler of the world !" All these forms of 
 impiety have thus devoured each other. Anti-christianism 
 has been swallowed up by atheism, and this in its turn by 
 egoism. This Satanic principle has asserted itself to be the 
 ultimate expression of human wisdom, These are " clouds 
 without water, carried about of winds ; raging waves of the 
 sea, foaming out their own shame : wandering stars, to whom 
 is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever." 
 
 Thus Germany has exhibited within these last few years a 
 terrible, yet no doubt a salutary spectacle. The great lesson 
 to be derived from it is to yield nothing when the truth of 
 God is concerned. If we take but one step backwards, we 
 give the first impulse to go a hundred, a thousand, and we 
 know not what will be the end. 
 
 Infidelity in Germany has not been confined to a few ob- 
 scure writers, obliged to hide themselves in some corner, and 
 reduced to communicate their blasphemies to a small number 
 of contemptible adepts. Such may be the case in England, 
 but it is far otherwise in Germany. These men have been 
 listened to with favor by the most cultivated classes. In the 
 course of the summer while I was in Germany (1845), a 
 great meeting of German writers, for the most part infidel, 
 was held at Leipsic ; and there, one Mr. Jordan, of Konigs- 
 berg, at a dinner of these literary men, proposed a toast to 
 
 The Atheists! I will not repeat the terms, 
 
 their impiety makes me shudder : an icy coldness and dead 
 silence pervaded the assembly. 
 
 This modern impiety of Germany has been accompanied 
 by great immorality ; and as faith is manifested by works of 
 charity, so does atheism show itself by the grossest material- 
 ism. The young German generation have declared in one 
 of their organs that " They will be free, throw off as oppres- 
 sive bonds all laws of civil order, of ecclesiastical and re- 
 
 2
 
 26 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 ligious institutions, and finally emancipate themselves from 
 the yoke of moral principles."* 
 
 It is whispered that a Young German party, forming at 
 Oxford, is desirous of planting in England the doctrines of 
 Hegel and of Strauss. I do not know the opinions of that 
 new school ; 'but if it belong to the modern German philos- 
 ophy, it is easy to see the course it will follow, and whither 
 it will lead England. Oxford would thus pass from the ex- 
 treme of superstition and formality (Puseyism) to the extreme 
 of unbelief and materialism. I trust that British good sense, 
 the practical sense of Englishmen, will confine these fol- 
 lies to a few men in a few colleges. Yet, let us beware. 
 Of all countries Germany is undoubtedly the one in which 
 these monstrosities spring up most easily, and where they 
 show themselves most openly. But if all the friends of 
 Christian religion and morality do not increase in decision, 
 holiness, and zeal, we may perhaps see them raising their 
 heads in every quarter. 
 
 The " Friends of Light" appear to be a mixture of the 
 old rationalism and the new. The opinions I have hitherto 
 described are more or less individual : but the societies of 
 the Friends of Light are associations of infidelity. Ration- 
 alism has been confined as yet to theological schools ; it is 
 now descending among the people. Since 1841 conferences 
 have been held, under the banner of infidelity, especially in 
 Saxony and Saxon Prussia, composed of ministers, school- 
 masters, clerks, and tradesmen. By degrees these confer- 
 ences have become popular assemblies. One of their chief 
 leaders is the Pastor Wislicenus, who once said, "Why 
 should not Jesus be the Son of God? I too am his son!" 
 Some have protested against Wislicenus, others have de- 
 clared in his favor : the dispute is not yet decided. 
 
 All these manifestations have met in Germany with a 
 vigorous resistance, of which I must now say a few words. 
 
 * Der Deutche Protestantismus, p. 200.
 
 GERMANY. 27 
 
 III. 
 
 FAITH. 
 
 WHEN I arrived in Germany in 1817 a great movement 
 was preparing among the people. 
 
 They were hastening as one man to celebrate the third 
 centenary jubilee of the Reformation. From this epoch 
 may be dated the revival of the church, the third reforma- 
 tion of Germany, if we may regard the revival in the time 
 of Spener, at the end of the seventeenth century, as the 
 second. 
 
 At Frankfort I first learnt how important the moment was 
 which I had selected for visiting this learned land. I was 
 informed that all the youth of the German Universities were 
 to meet at the castle of Wartburg some days before the ju- 
 bilee, to celebrate the memory of Luther. I travelled night 
 and day to arrive there in time ; and at eight o'clock on the 
 morning of the festival, I was set down with a friend in the 
 great square of Eisenach, at the foot of the Wartburg. A 
 crowd of students, dressed in the oddest costumes, filled the 
 place. I took part in the proceedings, for my designation 
 of Genevese student immediately opened to me the gates of 
 that old castle in which the Reformation had been held cap- 
 tive in the person of its principal leader. But, alas ! what 
 called forth the enthusiasm of these young men was far less 
 the faith of Luther than the reveries of demagogues. As 
 for me, I beheld only the monk of Worms within the place 
 of his captivity, and the idea of the reformer took a power- 
 ful hold of my mind. I attended divine service in the church 
 of Eisenach, and afterwards celebrated at Leipsic the festi- 
 val of the jubilee itself. Wherever I went, memorials of 
 the Reformation welcomed me, the bells rang out merrily, 
 troops of students were singing, and the people were rejoic- 
 ing : it was then I formed the design of writing the history 
 of that great renovation.
 
 28 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 The thoughts of the German people, and especially of the 
 ministers, being thus forcibly carried back to the ancient 
 paths, to the writings of Luther, and to the Bible itself, 
 found therein truth and life. One of those who contributed 
 more than others to this movement was Claud Harms, the 
 celebrated Archdeacon of Kiel, who published ninety-five 
 theses against Rationalism, as an appendix to those of Lu- 
 ther against the Papacy. I frequently saw him during the 
 time of my ministry at Hamburg. He is one of the most 
 respected leaders, of what I shall call the Practical school, 
 but which in Germany is termed (incorrectly as I think) the 
 Pietist party. 
 
 Faith, which had appeared to slumber, and even to have 
 died away in Germany, now revived among both people and 
 ministers, in universities and in courts. Believers were, no 
 doubt, in a minority, but this minority was sufficient to make 
 rationalism tremble. 
 
 There were, perhaps, some imperfections in this faith, 
 which has been ever since increasing. Two elements con- 
 stitute Christian piety ; the vital knowledge of the sin of 
 man, and of the grace of God. Now, the former of these 
 elements is, perhaps, in Germany, more powerful than the 
 latter. The cause of this, in part at least, is, that while the 
 doctrine of innate corruption is frequently brought forward, 
 that of election by grace is either unknown or disputed. 
 
 In this respect Germany is unfaithful to herself. Not 
 only does the Lutheran Church in its ancient articles affirm, 
 as decidedly as any other, the absolute incapacity of the 
 natural man, but also most faithfully declares the free elec- 
 tion of God. This election it regards not merely as a gen- 
 eral decree, but as a choice which applies individually to 
 every one of the elect.* It is not the mere foreknowledge 
 of God, that foreknowledge is extended to all creatures, 
 
 * Deus illo suo auxilio non tantum in genere salutem suorum procu- 
 ravit, verum etiam omnes et singulas personas electorum clementer prses- 
 civit, ad salutem elegit, et decrevit, &c. Formula Concordise, p. 603.
 
 GERMANY. 29 
 
 says the Formula of Concord, but it is a predestination 
 which appertains only to the children of God.* This elec- 
 tion not only foresees salvation, but is itself the cause of it, 
 and procures salvation with all things necessary thereto. f 
 It manifests and confirms, in an absolute and unexceptiona- 
 ble manner, that salvation is through grace, and that we are 
 justified without any merit on our part, only for the sake of 
 Christ, since we were elected in Christ unto eternal salvation 
 according to the counsel of God, before the creation of the 
 world, and while we were unable to do any thing good.J 
 As salvation thus rests upon the eternal decrees of God, it 
 is therefore infallible, " and the gates of hell shall not pre- 
 vail against it." 
 
 These are the tenets of the Lutheran church, which are 
 misunderstood, and even opposed by most of her minis- 
 ters and doctors. \ Happening, therefore, in 1845, to be, 
 with one of the principal theologians of Germany, (if he is 
 not, indeed, the first,) I told him, that Calvinist as I was, I 
 was more of a Lutheran than the Lutherans themselves ; and 
 that I did not think there were three sincere Lutherans in all 
 Germany. He smiled ; but I well remember, he did not 
 deny my assertion. 
 
 This forgetfulness of the elective grace of God has been 
 most hurtful to Germany, and is one cause of the weakness, 
 the hesitation, and the disorders which prevail there. The 
 doctrine of election by grace is necessary to the strength 
 and the stability of faith. We would therefore desire that, 
 
 * Prescientia ad omnes creaturas extenditur. jEterna vere electio 
 seu prsedestinatio Dei ad salutem tantum ad filios Dei pertinet. P. C. 
 p.GlO. 
 
 f Electio Dei est causa ipsorum salutis. Eorum salutem disponit, 
 procurat, efficit, juvat, promovet, &c. F. C. pp. 475 611. 
 
 ^ Cum quidem nihil boni agere adhuc poteramus, secundum proposi- 
 tum Dei in Christo, ad ffiternarn salutem electi sumus. F. C. p. 618. 
 
 Super hanc Dei prsdestinationem salus nostra ita fundata est, ut 
 infernorum ports earn evertere nequeant. F. C. p. 475. 
 
 I! See especially Kollner's Symbolik.
 
 30 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 on this point, Germany should retrace her steps ; that she 
 should believe as her fathers believed, and as she ought still 
 to believe. " Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, 
 and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, 
 and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls." 
 
 Yet, notwithstanding this defect in German piety, as re- 
 vived during the last thirty years, it must be owned that it 
 has displayed a salutary influence. The rationalist clergy 
 had abandoned the common people : evangelical piety turned 
 towards them. It remembered that through Jesus " the 
 poor have the Gospel preached unto them :" and this it did. 
 At the epoch of the Reformation, the movement in Germany 
 was too little felt among the people. Ministers, men of let- 
 ters, nobles, and princes, took the principal parts in it. This 
 cannot be said of the present time. Faith has descended to 
 the lower ranks of the nation, opened her arms to the lowly 
 and the wretched, and quickened them by her holy embraces. 
 There are few countries of Christendom, perhaps not one, in 
 which the Gospel has been brought down to the simple, and 
 received by the poor as in Germany. This is our trust, when 
 we behold the storm with which these pernicious doctrines 
 threaten that country. 
 
 Faith is not the only principle which has withstood infi- 
 delity in Germany ; science and theology have also come 
 forward, and fearful struggles have for some time past been 
 going on. Several of the most eminent men in the German 
 universities have been of opinion that it was the duty of sci- 
 ence to establish and fortify that faith, which science had 
 shaken and almost annihilated, and they set themselves cour- 
 ageously to the task. Xeander, Nitzsch, Ullmann, Tholuck, 
 Hundeshagen, and many more, have marched forward, and 
 are still pressing on towards this object by different roads. 
 In this learned school some of the doctrines upon inspiration 
 are rather lax ; they still incline a little through exegesis to- 
 wards rationalism, and a few of the sad consequences of this 
 system are now evident. But we find in these illustrious
 
 GERMANY. 31 
 
 men a real faith in Christ, and an efficacy of the Holy Spirit 
 working in them and by them. They may be called, and I 
 think they call themselves, Rational Believers. One of their 
 chief characteristics is their opposition to a faith determined 
 and limited by confession and creed ; or, at least, if they 
 should admit a confession of faith, it will not be that of the 
 sixteenth century. They would draw up their own, setting- 
 out from this principle, that a confession of faith should 
 represent the expression of evangelical piety, and reject the 
 more positive determinations of theology. 
 
 The march of these learned Christians towards the re- 
 establishment of faith is but slow. They have indeed to 
 combat a multitude of prejudices, which the rationalist pe- 
 riod has left upon the German soil ; but there are none of 
 those difficulties which their system is unprepared to con- 
 sider and to resolve. They do not content themselves with, 
 sneering at the doctrines of their adversaries, as superficial 
 theologians too often have done ; they endeavor to compre- 
 hend and refute them, and to convince those who profess 
 them. Yet the numerous individuals who compose this lib- 
 eral school vary in many respects from each other ; and it is 
 somewhat difficult to class them in the same category. All 
 are acquainted with the historical writings of Neander, who, 
 looking back over every age, skilfully seeks and discovers a 
 living Christianity in them all. The System of Christian 
 doctrine by Nitzsch is a profound, vigorous, concise theology, 
 where Christian faith and Christian life combine in most per- 
 fect harmony.* By the means of Tholuck, God has turned 
 the most numerous and the most infidel of the German uni- 
 versities into a school of prophets ; while the exegetical 
 writings of this learned man place him, with Olshausen, now 
 deceased, at the head of German theologians. Ullmann en- 
 ters with science, intelligence, and vigor, into all the ques- 
 
 * I do not mean that I agree in all points with this excellent book, 
 particularly with the sentiments expressed by the author in the chapters 
 upon Election and Reconciliation, pp. 251. 261. 266. 269. (4th edition.)
 
 32 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 tions of the day ; and his work upon the Impeccability or 
 Anamartesis* of Christ, is the best contribution of modern 
 times to apologetic literature. Hundeshagen has lately 
 joined this learned phalanx ; and by his excellent work on 
 German Rationalism has greatly moved all Germany, and 
 opened up new ways for her. 
 
 Above this Scientific school we find the Symbolical and 
 the Ecclesiastical schools. Although distinct, yet they ap- 
 proach each other, and seem to be gradually intermingling. 
 
 The former of these, the Symbolical School, of which 
 Hengstenberg of Berlin is the representative, and to which 
 Twesten and some others belong, holds essentially to the 
 creeds, the confessions of faith of the sixteenth century, 
 the orthodoxy of the Reformation. It is, in our opinion at 
 least, more pure than the preceding school, both in its prin- 
 ciples on the inspiration of the Scriptures, and also in its 
 doctrines. Hengstenberg is known by his remarkable writ- 
 ings on the Old Testament ; but his principal weapon is the 
 famous Evangelical Gazette, which he has edited at Berlin 
 ever since 1827. This periodical, which appears twice a 
 week, was at first essentially a paper for edification ; but it 
 has become, especially since 1830, an ecclesiastical and the- 
 ological journal, and from it have proceeded the most vigor- 
 ous blows which have been dealt against both the old and 
 the new rationalism. Never, perhaps, has any periodical 
 been such an object of fear and hatred. Dr. Hengstenberg 
 presides at Berlin as a mighty champion, he deals his 
 blows to the right and to the left ; they may not always be 
 kept within due measure ; but Christian truth, being at- 
 tacked by so great a multitude of different enemies as it is 
 in Germany, to make head against them requires one of 
 those powerful characters, whose very strength occasionally 
 leads them into excess. Perhaps, also, Hengtensberg is 
 not free from the fault which absolute Conservatives are 
 liable to commit. Seeing that his adversaries would destroy
 
 GERMANY. 33 
 
 every thing, he would preserve every thing. The constitu- 
 tional government of Lutheranism is very defective ; the 
 domination of the state over the church is carried to a height 
 in Germany which shocks even moderate Erastians. But it 
 would seem that Hengstenberg beholds a great dilemma pre- 
 sented to his church : her present condition, or the reign 
 of the Friends of Light, all to be kept, or all to be lost ; 
 and however ready to acknowledge what would be an im- 
 provement in the proposed change, he would rather keep all 
 as it is than risk any essential point. There is not in Ger- 
 many a name so hateful to the world as that of Hengsten- 
 berg ; but posterity will do him more justice, and even 
 already, decided Christians in every country, and foreigners 
 in particular, make him amends by their esteem, for the nu- 
 merous attacks which he is continually forced to endure. 
 
 If the symbolical school has been formed in opposition 
 to rationalism in every degree, the ecclesiastical school pro- 
 ceeds especially from an opposition to the union of the two 
 churches, (the Lutheran and the Reformed,) provoked by 
 the late King of Prussia. 
 
 This union, commenced at the time of the jubilee of the 
 Reformation in 1817, was almost completed at the jubilee 
 of the Augsburg Confession in 1830. It met at first with 
 great opposition ; and the saying of Madame de Stael is 
 well known : " It is two corpses embracing." If the living 
 faith, which was then reviving in the church, and which, by 
 drawing both the Lutherans and the Reformed nearer to 
 Christ, brought them nearer to each.other, rendered this 
 union more easy to some, it must be owned that most of the 
 ministers and churches united, because rationalism had 
 swept away not only the doctrines which separated the two 
 communions, but many of still greater importance. How 
 could they dispute on the manner of communicating in the 
 Lord's Supper with the body of Christ, when they no longer 
 believed that Christ " gave his life a ransom for many," and 
 even regarded his resurrection as a fable ? 
 2*
 
 84 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 A powerful reaction, however, soon took place, more es- 
 pecially among the Lutherans. They not only found doc- 
 trines still dear to many, more or less compromised, but 
 they were also shocked with the manner in which the union 
 was accomplished. The united church needed a common 
 form of worship ; but as committees composed of divines 
 could not come to an understanding on that point, the king 
 himself undertook (in 1822) to compose, with the help of 
 his aide-de-camp, a Liturgy, or Book of Common Prayer. 
 This was truly cutting the knot with the sword of Alexan- 
 der. At first the liturgy was imposed by the king only upon 
 the chapel royal and the garrison chapels ; it was merely 
 recommended to the rest of the churches. Upon this a most 
 animated controversy arose ; some finding the liturgy too 
 orthodox, others not orthodox enough ; some thinking it too 
 Romish, others too Reformed. Many discovered a political 
 element in it which ought to be foreign to the church. 
 
 Meanwhile the government persevered in its design, using 
 alternately promises and threats to get its prayer-book ac- 
 cepted. Some writers asserted that the king had a right to 
 impose his book upon all the churches, by virtue of the ter- 
 ritorial system, which considers church government as ap- 
 pertaining to the functions of the civil power; so that the 
 prince exercises this government in his temporal capacity, 
 like any other branch of his sovereign authority, and with- 
 out being in any manner bound by the opinion of the church. 
 While such principles were boldly professed, an outcry 
 arose in Germany, not so much against the union as in fa- 
 vor of the liberty of the church ; and it is to the honor of 
 the famous Dr. Schleiermacher, professor of Theology at 
 Berlin, that he courageously opposed the subjection of the 
 church to the civil power. An ecclesiastical commission 
 was appointed, a new revisal of the liturgy was made in 
 1829, and peace was gradually restored. 
 
 But if opposition on this head had ceased, it was to arise 
 with fresh strength on doctrinal points. The doctrine of the
 
 GERMANY. 35 
 
 real presence, or consubstantiation, again found enthusiastic 
 partisans. It was in Silesia especially that this strictly 
 Lutheran movement began. When the church of Breslau 
 accepted the liturgy, and entered into the union, Professor 
 Scheibel opposed it, and rejected the union as being an al- 
 liance of Christ and Belial. A purely Lutheran church 
 formed itself around him. 
 
 Doubtless there was, and is yet, something narrow and 
 exclusive in the Lutheran spirit. In the eyes of these doc- 
 tors, the sacraments administered in the Reformed church 
 are no sacraments at all. Still they had a right to religious 
 liberty as well as others ; and its refusal is greatly to be de- 
 plored. 
 
 An enthusiasm in favor of ancient Lutheranism spread 
 over Silesia and Thuringia ; in the former country persecu- 
 tion soon began, and pastors were suspended and deprived. 
 When the government endeavored to establish the liturgy at 
 Honigern, the whole congregation met on the Sunday morn- 
 ing round the church, and began to sing hymns, and, stand- 
 ing close together, these faithful Lutherans prevented the 
 government officials from entering the building, without 
 resorting to violence. In several places the magistracy 
 had recourse to arms to introduce its liturgy. It was a 
 pious prince, Frederic William III., who allowed himself to 
 proceed to such extremities! The present king, in 1845, 
 granted full liberty to the ancient Lutherans. 
 
 This party still possesses great strength, and is chiefly 
 represented by Dr. Harless, formerly of Erlangen, now of 
 Leipsic. With these ancient Lutherans, rationalism and the 
 Reformed church mean nearly the same thing ; while they 
 identify the Lutheran doctrine with that of the Bible. They 
 admit many of the doctrines held in England by the Pusey- 
 ites, as baptismal regeneration, and consubstantiation in tne 
 Lord's Supper ; but they maintain justification by faith, and 
 this has saved them.
 
 36 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Such is the first movement now taking place in Germany ; 
 and whose two opposite poles are infidelity and faith. 
 
 There is another which I have pointed out ; that whose 
 two poles are individualism and the church. I now proceed 
 to sketch some of its characteristics. 
 
 IV. 
 
 SECOND MOVEMENT. 
 
 THIS necessity of concentration, now evident in Germany, 
 seems to me to have assumed three successive forms. 
 
 The tendency towards union was first manifested by Chris- 
 tian societies, or religious associations similar to those we 
 have in Switzerland, France, and Britain especially. 
 
 In the meanwhile, until German individualism melts away 
 into great ecclesiastical unions, the people have been making 
 trial of religious associations, such as the Bible, and mission- 
 ary societies, with some others. The Bible meetings have 
 given us some valuable articles from the pen of Neander ; 
 and the missionary meetings have contributed everywhere 
 to reanimate the Christian spirit. This has been the case 
 more particularly in the grand duchy of Baden, and in Wur- 
 temberg, where the powerful voice of Inspector Hoffmann 
 of Bale has often been heard. The Germans seem inferior 
 to our British friends in the art of holding large meetings ; 
 but they are improving in this respect, as I witnessed on an 
 occasion of which I am about to speak. 
 
 The Bible and missionary societies had only united the 
 Christians of a few towns, or of a few provinces, and at 
 most of a few countries ; the Germans have now taken an- 
 other step forward. The Society of Gustavus Adolphus has 
 been formed for the purpose of uniting the evangelical 
 Christians of all Germany. 
 
 This society, founded for the maintenance of Protestantism, 
 met at Stutgard on the 2d of September. I attended in the
 
 GERMANY. 37 
 
 name of my friends of Geneva. At six o'clock in the morn- 
 ing, from the towers of the principal church, on which the 
 flag of Wurtemberg was hoisted, the melodious hymns of 
 Luther, announcing the dawn of an evangelical day, resounded 
 all over the town. At eight, an immense crowd rushed into 
 the sacred building, which was adorned with garlands and 
 boughs. Here divine service was to be performed, and its lof- 
 ty aisles already re-echoed with the Hallelujah of Handel. At 
 ten, a still greater multitude filled another church, where the 
 meeting of the society was to be held. Delegates from many 
 different countries from Germany, Switzerland, France, Bel- 
 gium, Denmark, Hungary, Transylvania, Portugal, and even 
 from America and the Indies, were there assembled. There 
 was no doubt that confusion which characterizes Germany ; 
 there were gathered together, pell-mell, all kinds of opinions, 
 from Pantheism and Rationalism, to the highest doctrines of 
 the faith ; nevertheless, the sound doctrines predominated in 
 the meeting. 
 
 The report was read by the secretary, Dr. Grossmann of 
 Leipsic, son of the chairman of the meeting. The principles 
 stated by this young theologian may be considered as the 
 general expression of all parties in Germany. Doubtless 
 they give these principles different interpretations ; yet it is 
 nevertheless important to know what are the general ideas 
 under which the Protestant world of Germany is now rang- 
 ing itself. These, then, are the tones in which the society 
 of Gustavus Adolphus addressed the Germanic nations : 
 " We shall give an account, gentlemen, of the fidelity with 
 which we hand down to future ages what we have ourselves 
 received. It is necessary to the development of mankind, 
 that the moment a new society is founded, certain spiritual 
 powers should be bestowed on it. If these forces are weak- 
 ened, the whole society will be affected, just as unwholesome 
 food weakens and reduces the body. Two of these forces, 
 for which we must now secure a great influence over man- 
 kind (unless we would permit it to be lost for a long series
 
 38 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 of years), are the grand doctrine of justification by faith, and 
 the exclusive authority of the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 These are certainly sound words : the whole of Christian- 
 ity is comprised in these two points. 
 
 But this was not all : another idea, an idea of great im- 
 portance to our times, was pointed out. One of the greatest 
 theologians of Germany, Dr. Ullmann of Heidelberg rose, 
 and said in the name of the Grand Duchy of Baden, "At 
 length we behold the manifestation of that living communion 
 which unites us as evangelical Christians. Yet the German 
 Evangelical Church, however important, is but one member 
 of the whole body. Christianity, far from destroying differ- 
 ent nationalities, consecrates and sanctifies them : at the same 
 time it hovers over them, and by elevating the nations would 
 make of them all one great society of brethren. All nations 
 are called upon mutually to complete each other on the com- 
 mon ground of Christianity. There must therefore exist 
 among them living and personal relations, and the evangel- 
 ical Christians of all nations must see, understand, love each 
 other, and join hands in brotherhood. A church which 
 has given to our age a great example of Christian devoted- 
 ness and sacrifice the Free Church of Scotland has just 
 called us to this. Let us therefore invite the other churches 
 of Christendom to found societies similar to ours, and to send 
 their representatives to our General Assemblies." 
 
 Immediately after the motion of Dr. Ullmann, we beheld 
 successively ascending the tribune to support it, Elvers, 
 judge of the Supreme Court; Sydow, chaplain of the Court 
 of Potsdam ; Dr. Schumann, the superintendent ; the pastor, 
 Steffenson from Denmark ; Dr. Filther, from Louisville, in 
 the United States ; Zimmermann, the Court chaplain ; and 
 Dr. Nitzsch, the distinguished theologian of Bonn, superior 
 counsellor of the Consistory ; and all spoke warmly in favor 
 of a great evangelical unity. 
 
 Let us profit by this : let us remember that there are in 
 reality but two nations on the earth, the believers and the
 
 GERMANY. 39 
 
 unbelievers ; and let us not allow trifles to separate those who 
 have alike received into their hearts the living faith of the 
 children of God. 
 
 I was next called upon to speak. " I am come from Ge- 
 neva," I said. " There is here at Stutgard an evangelical 
 meeting to uphold the work of the great Reformation. The 
 town of Calvin cannot hold back. Geneva also is a member 
 of Christ's body. Yes ; from the shores of the Baltic, Gus- 
 tavus Adolphus, the great Protestant warrior, and from the 
 foot of Mont Blanc, John Calvin, the great Protestant divine, 
 should join hands together over all the German people." 
 
 I will not repeat my speech ; it has been printed in German, 
 the language in which it was spoken. Though declaring 
 that I respected the individuality of our friends of the So- 
 ciety of Gustavus Adolphus, and honored their conscien- 
 tious convictions, I thought it right to exhibit to them in 
 what manner our evangelical society of Geneva differed from 
 theirs. I undertook to point out in a more especial manner 
 three principal features. I first showed that we proposed not 
 only to preserve the ancient Protestant churches, which is the 
 aim of the Society of Gustavus Adolphus, but that we de- 
 sired to gain over to the Gospel those souls which are still 
 enthralled by the yoke of Rome ; thus being aggressives as 
 well as conservatives. I added, that our second characteris- 
 tic was to be, as regards the faith, not only negative but posi- 
 tive ; not contenting ourselves with merely rejecting the er- 
 rors of Rome, but striving to set up in their room Jesus Christ, 
 his eternal Godhead, his expiatory sacrifice, and justification 
 by faith in his blood. Lastly, I remarked, as the third dis- 
 tinction, that we also desired Christian unity ; but, that with 
 us internal unity, the unity of faith, took precedence of ex- 
 ternal unity. 
 
 I learnt with pleasure that after my departure, a great 
 number of the most venerable men in Germany united to 
 form a society, which proposed to act on the principles I had 
 pointed out, yet without separating themselves from the So-
 
 40 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 \ 
 
 ciety of Gustavus Adolphus. I could not have had a more 
 satisfactory answer. May God bless this design ! I must 
 nevertheless add, that it seems difficult to prevent such con- 
 flicting elements, as are to be found in this society, from 
 separating at no very distant day. If the separation does 
 not proceed from the men of faith, the unbelievers will un- 
 dertake it. Is it not written in the Word of God, that He 
 divided the light from the darkness ? When a society, es- 
 sentially evangelical, is once established in Germany, its ac- 
 tion will be much more powerful, and much more blessed. 
 
 V. 
 
 CHURCH PRINCIPLES. 
 
 IN this manner is German individualism amalgamating 
 into large associations. But this is not all : there is an 
 analogous movement of concentration going on at this time 
 within the church. I have said, that in Germany there is a 
 science, but no church. The people wish for a church, they 
 now feel the want of it, and for this object all is in motion. 
 They desire to form all these isolated churches into one great 
 Presbyterian church, represented by the ministers and depu- 
 ties from their flocks. They go even farther, and would 
 unite all the churches of Germany into one great German 
 church. To accomplish this, they claim the self-regulation, 
 independence, and liberty of the church ; seeing that the 
 Erastian element divides, while the Christian element unites. 
 
 The official bonds of consistories and civil governments is 
 the starting point, while the goal to which they are hasten- 
 ing is the free institutions of the Presbyterian church. How 
 is the latter point to be reached from the former ? Some 
 are of opinion that they have only to break the ties that 
 unite the church to the state, and then allow the church to 
 organize itself as it sees proper ; to dissolve all, in order to 
 remodel all. In Germany (I speak merely as an historian
 
 GERMANY. 41 
 
 and not as a judge) they think, on the contrary, by what I 
 understand from conversation, that the church must be 
 emancipated by degrees ; and that if, after having so long 
 remained in pupilage, it were at once granted the liberty of 
 mature age, it would be exposed to the hazards of disorder, 
 and a dangerous influence would be given to individualizing 
 principles. 
 
 The Germans are willing to admit into the church the 
 popular, lay, or Presbyterian element, yet they would retain 
 that which is consistorial, governmental, or regal. They 
 want an ecclesiastical constitution somewhat similar to those 
 political ones, in which the people speak through their rep- 
 resentatives, and the crown through its ministers. I also 
 am averse to abrupt leaps, and in favor of successive devel- 
 opments, so long at least as God does not hasten the course 
 of events; yet I am persuaded that in these new ideas of 
 ecclesiastical constitutions, we are making a fatal admixture 
 of politics and religion, of faith and infidelity, and are sacri- 
 ficing to ancient prejudices the purity, life, self-regulation, 
 and independence of the church. 
 
 I have been requested to give some particulars of my visit 
 to a German divine who takes great interest in the new or- 
 ganization of the church. There are certain matters which 
 should be withheld by every traveller, yet there are others 
 which belong to the public, because they characterize the 
 time and the people of whom I am at present s'peaking. I 
 will therefore say a few words of one of the German theo- 
 logians, who appears to me the most faithful representative 
 of the present movement, I mean Dr. Ullmann. I saw him 
 at Heidelberg, where I remained about a month, and was 
 often at his house, at the bottom of the pretty hill on which 
 stand the splendid ruins of that ancient and well-known 
 castle. I met him again in the pleasing and delightful 
 walks in the environs of Baden, that little Switzerland ; and 
 lastly, in the numerous and imposing assemblies of German 
 Protestantism at Stutgard. Since then Ullmann has visited
 
 42 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Berlin as a member of the evangelical conference, assembled 
 by the king of Prussia. I can the more readily recall the 
 conversations I had with him, as I have since found, in a 
 pamphlet published by him, many things which he said to 
 me. They now belong to the public. 
 
 " The agitated period in which we live," said Ullmann, 
 " demands a strong remedy ; and the time is now come, if it 
 is ever to come, when we must have recourse to some great 
 measure fit to rebuild the church. 
 
 " The objective foundation of the church, (namely that 
 which is out of ourselves,) is Jesus Christ, the Son of Man 
 and the Son of God, Reconciler and Redeemer. The sub- 
 jective foundation, (namely, that which ought to be found 
 within ourselves,) is the living faith in Christ, by which 
 grace is applied to us ; the union with Christ in the Spirit ; 
 that union from which proceeds a new life consecrated to 
 God. It is only upon this double foundation, which in real- 
 ity forms but one, that the church can be rebuilt. The 
 essential always is, that Christ the Redeemer is the source 
 of the new life; and without this primary basis all external 
 improvements are but vanity and nothingness. 
 
 " Nevertheless, it is not an indifferent matter, to ascertain 
 what form and what constitution an ecclesiastical society 
 ought to have. There must be for the spirit a correspond- 
 ing body ; the tendency towards what is internal ought not 
 to lead us into a morbid spiritualism. The spirit begets the 
 form, but the form preserves the spirit : faith constitutes the 
 church, but the church nourishes faith. He who would de- 
 lay giving a constitution to a church until the true spirit is 
 universal therein, would have to wait to the end of time. 
 No : those in whom the true spirit of the church resides 
 the believers who have received a prophetic glance should 
 endeavor to find out the form in which the life of the church 
 may best prosper and move forward. 
 
 " What the church requires, is not so much a radical and 
 universal remodelling, as a development of the principles of
 
 GERMANY. 43 
 
 the Reformation. He who would abandon these principles 
 would break the bonds of union and fall into ecclesiastical 
 radicalism ; while, on the other hand, he who will not con- 
 tent himself with essential principles, but would preserve 
 every particular, and every regulation of olden times, would 
 deny the principles of liberty and development, and fall into 
 fetabilism or statu-quo-ism. Between these two extremes lies 
 the true way, sound historical progress : this is the path 
 which the church should now pursue, as in the days of the 
 Reformation. 
 
 " The church is sickly, whence should come its aid ? 
 
 " Science alone cannot heal it. We possess, in Germany, 
 the richest theology, and yet we have in the church only a 
 most confused, defective life which can by no means satisfy 
 us. Life can only proceed from life. 
 
 " But will not help come from the state, from the king ? 
 
 " To this again me must answer, no. We do not desire a 
 radical separation of church and state ; but yet it is evident 
 that there are here two very different spheres. The state 
 cannot administer the powers of redemption and sanctifica- 
 tion, and it must allow the church the right of freely devel- 
 oping herself. If the state, if a prince, claims to act in the 
 church, this can only infinitely augment the agitation and the 
 confusion. And even supposing that the state does all that 
 the church would have done, the result would nevertheless 
 be entirely different. The whole duty of a prince is to leave 
 a fair field to the church ; for the safety of the church can 
 come only from the church, and through the church. 
 
 " In Germany, we find in the church the monarchical sys- 
 tem, by virtue of which, in the sixteenth century, the eccle- 
 siastical power was transferred from the bishops to the prin- 
 ces. But by the side of this system there stands another, 
 which, coming originally from Geneva, has been especially 
 realized in Scotland ; this is the Representative system, by 
 virtue of which the ecclesiastial p6wer resides in the whole 
 body of the church, and is exercised by the organs she her-
 
 44 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 self chooses. Now, the German church must, without re- 
 jecting the former of these elements, receive the latter, the 
 representative Presbyterian element. Let us not, through 
 hesitation and anxious delays, allow the decisive moment to 
 pass away. If a man is to learn to swim, he does not throw 
 himself at first into the deepest part of the sea, yet he must 
 go into the water. So it is with the church. We must 
 build up the edifice by degrees ; we must build cautiously, 
 so as to leave the different stories time enough to consoli- 
 date ; but we must begin at once, we must set to work on a 
 fixed plan, in order that the house may, without delay, be 
 built up, raised to the light of day, and ere long even to the 
 corner stone." 
 
 Thus spoke Ullmann. I have but few words to add upon 
 the two elements he points out : the Governmental or Ger- 
 man element, and the Presbyterian or Genevese. For my 
 own part, I declare myself for the Genevese element purely 
 and simply. We love the Germans much, but in this re- 
 spect we desire to have nothing in common with them. We 
 will have nothing to do, either with those Germans who 
 place the ecclesiastical authority in the state, or with the 
 Romans who place it in the clergy. We desire to remain 
 true Genevese, who, looking to Christ as the Head of au- 
 thority to the church, place the church power in the assem- 
 bly of the faithful, and the exercise of it in the council of 
 ministers and elders. 
 
 This is the goal to which Germany is tending, but she 
 will not take any sudden leaps. The eminent man, whose 
 thoughts I have expressed, said nothing to me on this sub- 
 ject ; yet this may be gathered from his writings. The ad- 
 ministration of the church of Germany is at present wholly 
 gevernmental. Those Germans who wish for successive de- 
 velopments would not have it made entirely Presbyterian ; 
 they therefore propose a system half governmental, half 
 Presbyterian ; but this is merely a step. The Genevese sys- 
 tem will go round the world. May it but be found in Geneva !
 
 GERMANY. 45 
 
 May God raise up within her that truly Christian people 
 who are the essence of the church, and without whom the 
 best ecclesiastical constitutions are of no avail ; that people 
 who are not the whole multitude of the citizens, but, as the 
 Bible says, " The multitude of them that believe, who are 
 of one heart and one soul ;"* that people who having at- 
 tained their majority, well know how to choose of their elders 
 and pastors, without being obliged to have recourse to the 
 guardianship of municipalities. f If the Christian world can 
 say that this system was once born in Geneva in the six- 
 teenth century, may it be able to say, that in the nineteenth 
 it was there born again ; otherwise, there will be a medicine 
 that formerly grew within our own walls, everywhere in use, 
 except among ourselves. " Physician, heal thyself," saith 
 the Bible. 
 
 " The part of the prince," said Ullmann, " is to leave a fair 
 field to the church." Princes easily forget this. They like 
 to grasp and mould in their iron hand, the spiritual interests 
 of the church. It has been reserved to our times to furnish 
 a deplorable instance of this usurpation. The civil power 
 of Russia is employed in converting to the Greek church, 
 not only Roman Catholics, but also the poor Protestants of 
 Livonia.J I hope that in Germany, on the contrary, the 
 princes will feel more and more convinced that they should 
 leave to God all that appertains to God. It is observable 
 that at this very time God has bestowed upon that German 
 state, which takes the lead of the others, a prince, not only 
 
 * Acts, iv. 32. 
 
 f By the constitution of 1842, the election of elders was vested in the 
 municipality of Geneva. The constitution of 1847 grants it to all the 
 people who possess political rights. 
 
 Some exact and interesting information will be found at the end of 
 this volume (Note A.), concerning the great work undertaken by the 
 Greek church, supported by government, to abolish Protestantism in the 
 German provinces of Russia, and to bring the worshippers of Jesus 
 Christ to the feet of the Virgin and the Saints.
 
 46 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 of an exalted intellect, but of a piety capable of understand- 
 ing and sharing in the wants and wishes of the church. 
 
 With this prince (the king of Prusia) is associated one 
 of the most pleasing recollections of my visit to Germany. 
 Having arrived on Saturday the 2d of August, at Coblentz, 
 on my return from England, I went to pass the night at the 
 village of Lahnstein, delightfully situated on the right bank 
 of the river, at the confluence of the Lahn and the Rhine, 
 opposite to the castle of Stolzenfels, where the king of Prus- 
 sia was awaiting the arrival of the queen of England. I 
 shall never forget that evening. The Prussian flag was 
 floating from the highest tower of that superb fortress ; and 
 the whole village of Stolzenfels, which extends along the 
 river, was adorned with garlands, and filled with eager 
 crowds. The cannon, which re-echoed from hill to hill, an- 
 nouncing every moment the approach of the king, who was 
 returning from an evening excursion in his steam-boat the 
 heights that closed in the horizon, everywhere crowned with 
 noble ruins, amidst which arose, in queen-like majesty, the 
 picturesque walls of the castle of Stolzenfels, which the king 
 has so admirably restored : that proud and noble river, im- 
 petuous but without fury, wild but majestic ; sweeping the 
 boats and the reedy shore with his flowing mane, " his oozy 
 beard," as Boileau calls it, the noise of which is a loud but 
 gentle roar, not unlike the mighty sea; the quiet of the 
 evening, the coolness of the river, the first shades of night, 
 formed a spectacle which we could not contemplate without 
 emotion, and which raised us to communion with the mighty 
 works of God in nature. A great poet (Victor Hugo) has 
 said, " The Rhone awakens in my mind the idea of the tiger, 
 the Rhine that of a lion." I know not if we, who dwell 
 on the banks of the Rhone, will allow of the former compari- 
 son, but the latter is a correct one. 
 
 I learnt, that on the following day the chapel royal was 
 to be consecrated, and that there would be no other evan- 
 gelical service. I therefore asked permission of the minister
 
 GERMANY. 47 
 
 of the king's household to attend it ; and in the morning I 
 repaired thither with the friend who was travelling with me. 
 We were introduced by the captain of the guard. "Even 
 as this ancient castle has arisen from its ruins in all the 
 splendor of modern times," said the officiating minister, " so 
 is the ancient Christian worship to-day established within 
 this chapel, in all the Gospel light of the new times." Af- 
 ter service, while remaining in that modern Gothic chapel to 
 examine its beauty, the king condescended to invite me to 
 go on the terrace where he was. In the brightest morning 
 of kist year, under one of the lofty arches of those magnif- 
 icent terraces which encircle the castle, where every thing is 
 perfect in coolness and beauty, looking out on the finest 
 view of the banks of the Rhine, I found the king, the queen, 
 and their court. I will not repeat the conversation I had 
 with his majesty. He did not speak of Germany ; I can- 
 not therefore say, from my own knowledge, what are his 
 views on the subjects I have mentioned above ; and even 
 had he spoken of them, I should not tell what passed. The 
 fashion of repeating whatever the personages we meet with 
 in our travels may have said, and of describing their per- 
 sonal appearance, will long, I hope, among us be considered 
 as a mark of indiscretion, even when a king is concerned. 
 I can only say that, in my interview, I had an opportunity 
 of verifying the words of the wise man, " there is grace in 
 the mouth of a king." It was his father's birth-day. I 
 was not aware of it ; and having spoken of the late king 
 with an expression of gratitude for Geneva, his son started 
 and looked up. This sudden touch of filial emotion affected 
 me. We saw all the castle, and afterwards its delightful 
 environs, even the old stone which marks the spot where, in 
 ancient times, the electors of the empire used to assemble 
 by the rivers's side, in a simple and rustic manner, to exer- 
 cise their august functions. 
 
 With any other prince than the king of Prussia, the wish 
 of the church to be freed from governmental leading-strings,
 
 48 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 would, no doubt, have been greeted with a decided refusal ; 
 let us hope that it will not be so no\v. Yet, let us ac- 
 knowledge how difficult is the position of a king, and not 
 be too ready to accuse him, as is the wont of men who are 
 always exacting, and always unsatisfied. During his reign 
 the bark of the church, and the bark of the state, are both 
 about to launch into an unknown sea : may the Lord be the 
 pilot to steer them through the numerous shoals ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE GERMAN CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 THE first step taken by Germany to free herself from 
 the isolation which had hitherto characterized her, was 
 the foundation of a vast society including all Protestants. 
 The second was the formation of evangelical Presbyterian 
 churches in all the countries of Germany churches which 
 will be united by common bonds. Yet a third step might 
 be taken. A great part of Germany is still Roman Cath- 
 olic : to establish a complete unity, it would be therefore 
 necessary to amalgamate the Romish and the Protestant 
 parts into one church. This, in the opinion of many, is to 
 be effected by the late German Catholic movement. I do 
 not coincide, with this opinion myself, yet I must own, that 
 this third step might be practicable, and even desirable ; and 
 in any case, I cannot take leave of Germany without adding 
 a few words on German Catholicism. 
 
 I did not see it in its centre, in Silesia and Brandenburg. 
 I did not visit the place where this new blast had raised the 
 storm. I only saw a few of its waves breaking at my feet. 
 Nevertheless, the very countries in which I saw it, are those 
 in which it is now exciting public attention to the greatest 
 degree. You are aware that in the Grand Duchy of Baden, 
 numerous petitions have been signed, both for and against
 
 GERMANY. 49 
 
 religious liberty ; as it is not on the shores of our lake alone* 
 that worldly men are not ashamed to attack that first of all 
 rights. 
 
 At Manheim, the new church, now in a flourishing condi- 
 tion, was just forming when I passed through it. It is a gay 
 and worldly town. " Why," said some one to a Roman 
 Catholic, " do not you, who are opposed to the priests and 
 the pope, join the German Catholic Church?" "For two 
 reasons," was the reply. " The first, because I should have 
 to go to church, and I had rather amuse myself ; the second, 
 that I should have to give money, and I had rather keep 
 it." These are some of the motives that keep the adherents 
 of the pope faithful to their standard. 
 
 While I was at Heidelberg, the new church had neither 
 priest nor minister ; the members celebrated divine worship 
 among themselves. " I must own to you," said one of these, 
 " that up to the time (a month ago), when I joined the Ger- 
 man Catholic church, I had never opened the Bible ; but I 
 read it now." This person, who had been reading the Bible 
 " for a month," was a teacher in these meetings ! 
 
 At Stutgard, the capital of Wurtemberg, I attended, at 
 seven o'clock on Sunday morning, the worship of this new 
 church in the Reformed chapel. There were very few 
 women, but many men ; several, no doubt, strangers like my- 
 self. I observed very little seriousness before the service 
 began ; they were standing in groups, and even talking some- 
 what loudly. It was more like the commencement of a 
 political or literary meeting, than of one for religious worship. 
 
 At length the priest, having put on his canonicals in a 
 corner of the building, came and stood before the altar, 
 which was somewhat shabbily ornamented with garlands, 
 tapers, and a picture. He was a tall, stout, red-faced man, 
 with a drawling tone and coarseness of manner, which are 
 not uncommonly found in the Romish clergy. He told us 
 
 * The Canton of Vaud, and the persecutions of the Free Church 
 there. 
 
 a
 
 50 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 he knew the papacy well, for he had been a priest twenty- 
 five years, which was plain enough to be seen. 
 
 The only satisfactory part of this worship was the singing : 
 it was almost too good, but the words were not very Chris- 
 tian ; even what was sung during the Lord's Supper, or the 
 mass (in which four persons, one of whom was a soldier, 
 took part), celebrated Christ merely as a model. God was 
 the " universal father " (Allvater). The sermon was pretty 
 long, inveighing against Rome, principally as to confession, 
 but I could discern in it no trace of a truly evangelical 
 spirit. ' 
 
 Let us now inquire, what is the religion of this new 
 church ? Is it Catholicism ? Is it Evangelism ? Or is it some- 
 thing new ? 
 
 Is it Catholicism, as we might be led to think, by the 
 name this church has taken ? Rejecting the narrow and 
 sectarian Catholicism of the Council of Trent, and even that 
 wider and less definite, though equally superstitious one of 
 the middle ages, it might indeed fall back upon the Catholi- 
 cism of the earlier periods, the Catholicism of Augustin and 
 Cyprian, as a powerful party in the Anglican church pro- 
 fesses to do. But this has not been done in Germany. It 
 must, in that case, have adopted the Nicean and Athanasian 
 creeds, the doctrines of Irenaeus and Augustin, while it will 
 not have even the Apostles' Creed. And as for church gov- 
 ernment, the episcopal aristocracy and strict discipline of 
 the early ages would be most distasteful to these new 
 Catholics. These, then, have nothing to do with the re-es- 
 tablishment of primitive Catholicism. 
 
 Are they, then, simply an evangelical church, similar to 
 those formed by the Reformation in the sixteenth century ? 
 By no means. They reject the name, for they are tenacious 
 of the appellation of Catholic ; they reject the faith, for 
 they dislike the creeds of the sixteenth century, still more 
 than those of the fourth. Lastly, they reject the com-
 
 GERMANY. 51 
 
 munion, for they will not amalgamate with the Protestant 
 church ; they are determined to be an isolated sect. 
 
 But as they belong to neither of these great manifestations, 
 being neither Catholic nor Evangelical, are they, then, some- 
 thing new ? What, it is not enough to say that you are no 
 Papist ! Begin, if you will, by pulling down the old build- 
 ing, and throwing away the mouldering stones and rotten 
 beams ; sweep the rubbish out of your way, but then build 
 up something, lay a foundation, erect a better edifice, that 
 is an essential thing. This, it must be owned, is the weak 
 side of the new community ; we cannot see what it sets up 
 in the room of what it overturns. 
 
 We might be tempted to think that it establishes mere 
 morality in the place of faith. Humanity and love are what 
 they generally talk about in all these churches ; and it seems 
 that faith is to be left to each congregation, even to each in- 
 dividual, as being merely a private affair. This is an error 
 which unfortunately is not uncommon elsewhere. But the 
 Theophilanthropists of Laveveillere Lepeaux, at the end of 
 the French Revolution, did not last long. To try to found a 
 church upon morality, would be like pretending to plant a 
 tree composed of fruits alone, and which should have neither 
 stem nor roots. 
 
 Of all the numerous congregations of German Catholicism, 
 there are three, and no more, if I do not mistake, who cling 
 to the religion of God ; those of Schneidemuhle, Berlin, and 
 Elberfeld. They have preserved the Holy Trinity, the Fa- 
 ther Almighty ; His only Son, very God, having the same 
 nature and .the same essence with the Father, by whom all 
 things were made, who became man and died for us ; and, 
 lastly, belief in the Holy Ghost, who is to be worshipped 
 and glorified together with the Father and the Son. But 
 most of the other churches all, indeed, to the best of my 
 recollection have turned aside to Rationalism. When Ronge 
 appeared in the east of Switzerland, he said " The Protes- 
 tants have rejected the pope, but they have set up another
 
 52 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 pope in his place the Bible !" Would to God that were 
 everywhere the case ! Since that time he has more openly 
 professed infidelity. 
 
 The confession of Leipsic, the only one recognized by the 
 whole of German Catholicism, confesses simply : " Belief in 
 God, the Creator and Preserver of the world ; in Jesus Christ 
 our Saviour, in the Holy Ghost, in the Christian church uni- 
 versal, in the remission of sins, and in life everlasting." In 
 this confession it is not even said that Jesus is the Son of 
 God, He may be a mere man ; nothing is said of His work 
 of expiation and reconciliation, of sin, of condemnation, of 
 the fall, of justification, of regeneration, and of sanctification. 
 It has been said of the confession of Leipsic, that it is a frame 
 without a picture ; perhaps that may come afterwards, but 
 as yet it is a mere blank. 
 
 And what will be the constitution of the new church ? 
 This we may conceive from what took place at the first pro- 
 vincial synod of Silesia, which decided that the clergy have 
 no voice in church councils, and may not be deputed to the 
 provincial synods. On the 17th of August, 1845, they abol- 
 ished the pastoral duties, and granted votes to widows, wives, 
 and young girls. (Evang. Kirchen. Zeit., 1846, p. 13.) 
 Ecclesiastical radicalism can go no farther. 
 
 Let us follow the new apostles in their mission. We hear 
 them speak enthusiastically of enlightenment, liberty, charity, 
 and patriotism ; but very little of Jesus Christ dead, raised 
 to life, and glorified with God in heaven. In their meetings 
 we see nothing of the holy gravity of the apostles and re- 
 formers ; but in their stead we find enlivening music, nu- 
 merous banquets, and noisy toasts. Some have therefore ex- 
 pressed a fear that all this stir will come to nothing in the 
 end, but to organize a society of good fellows, a jovial anti- 
 papistical club, which will last as long as there is sparkling 
 Champagne to fill their glasses. 
 
 No, this is not the soil on which churches are erected. 
 A church is proved by struggles, sacrifices, trials, and per-
 
 GERMANY. 53 
 
 secutions. Before the judgment seat, and in dungeons not 
 at tables covered with wines and loaded with delicacies- 
 does a new church receive her baptism. 
 
 The new Catholicism is not a church, but an anti-ecclesi- 
 astical movement. It has been called a new Free-Masonry : 
 a severe expression, the justice of which time alone can show. 
 Doubtless, we must not judge of a work by its first begin- 
 nings. The Holy Spirit may act upon these masses, and 
 bring forth from them children of God, able to form a true 
 church. We hope we pray that it may be so ; but we 
 speak according to human probabilities. If a tree is to ex- 
 tend its grateful foliage, there must be a germ fitted to pro- 
 duce that tree, otherwise it cannot spring up ; and as yet, if 
 we except three or four of the congregations of the German 
 Catholic church, we may search in vain for that living germ 
 which is sufficient to form a church of Jesus Christ. To 
 no purpose do we traverse the different countries where it 
 has been formed ; we see none of those men of great faith 
 of that faith which God bestows when he would form or re- 
 generate the church those Luthers or Calvins, those Pauls 
 or Peters, those rocks which serve to raise up the new edi- 
 fice. 
 
 The most probable destiny of German Catholicism is a 
 union with the Protestant rationalism of the Friends of Light. 
 The old Reformation and the new will thus cross each other. 
 While the many rationalists in the Protestant church will 
 leave it to unite with the new Catholicism, the three or four 
 Christian congregations of the new Catholicism will come 
 
 O O 
 
 out from it to join the Evangelical church, then purified 
 from the infidel elements it yet contains. There will thus be 
 in Germany three great communions with well marked and 
 well defined characteristics Evangelism, or the religion of 
 God ; Popery, or the religion of the priest ; Rationalism, or 
 the religion of fallen man. 
 
 M. Gervinus, a Heidelberg doctor, has recently taken 
 upon himself to predict a new church, and to announce the
 
 54 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 fusion of all churches into one vast religious community, of 
 which German Catholicism is to be the forerunner. He 
 styles Goethe, Voss, Wieland, Schiller, Lessing, Herder (all 
 of them, more or less, decided rationalists of the eighteenth 
 century), the " reformers of a new Reformation," and asserts, 
 that " the seed sown by them, having grown up in the num- 
 berless attractive forms of poetry, and in the countless works 
 on science, has penetrated into religion, and reanimated it 
 with the amiable and humane spirit of antiquity." 
 
 It may, perhaps, come to this ; German Catholicism may, 
 perchance, only give to Protestant Rationalism the strength 
 to constitute itself into a regular community. But let us 
 take heed how we think that evangelical Christianity will be 
 absorbed into that vague and indifferent society which is to 
 bring back the spirit of pagan antiquity. No ! the essential 
 revelations of Christianity will still subsist ; the life of faith 
 which God produces in the heart will yet continue to ani- 
 mate innumerable souls. The church may, perhaps, once 
 more become a poor, unknown, and despised sect ; but was 
 not her Head, during his sojourn on the earth, contemned as a 
 sectarian and a stranger ? There will yet be seven thousand 
 men who have not bowed the knee to this new Baal, one 
 aspect of which reminds us of the times of Aristophanes and 
 of Horace, the other of those of Voltaire and of Frederic. 
 
 However this may be, Germany is stirring ; Germany is 
 moving. It might long have been thought that she was sacri- 
 .ficing every thing to science theological science ; that this 
 was her only aiir, her ne plus ultra. But it is not so. I 
 have been in company with the most learned men, and have 
 always found them firmly persuaded that Germany must pass 
 through successive developments ; that the labors of theo- 
 logical science are necessary to her ; and yet, that this labor 
 and science are to lead to two ends to doctrine and to life. 
 
 It has often been said at Geneva and in France, " Why do 
 you busy yourself so much about the church, about doctrine 
 and life ? That is what the English, the Methodists do ;
 
 GERMANY. 55 
 
 but look at the Germans, who are far more learned in these 
 matters, they do not stir." This can be said no longer. 
 The Germans arc stirring they are interesting themselves 
 about doctrine, the church and the Christian life ; they are 
 rising in their turn. This is a very recent fact of great im- 
 portance in the development of the kingdom of God. May 
 we be enabled to understand it ! While they are rising, shall 
 we lie still ? Shall we remain in that mean and narrow 
 bed which the last century made us ? When all are stir- 
 ring, shall we alone continue to slumber ? 
 
 Germany seems to have forgotten the call she received 
 from God three centuries ago, and now she suddenly recol- 
 lects it. She starts up, and again finds her Melancthons, if 
 she no longer finds a Luther. She is moving upon the field 
 of the church, after having appeared to move solely upon 
 that of philosophy and the arts. 
 
 Honor to the people who remember their history, their 
 fathers, their destiny, their calling, their work ! Honor to 
 Germany who remembers hers ! 
 
 But has Geneva no history? Has she no fathers, no 
 work, no destiny, no calling ? 
 
 I trust that in this rising generation, to which we must 
 soon give place, there may be some who will remember it. 
 I trust that young men, firm in the faith, will undertake, 
 amidst so many struggles, and in spite of so many adverse 
 influences, to build up the temple of God. And as I have 
 seen the flag of Wurtemberg waving from the towers of its 
 metropolis, and the colors of Brandenburg floating over the 
 picturesque battlements of Stolzenfels, so I trust that from 
 these ancient towers of St. Peter, at the base of which we 
 are now met, we may soon (I speak figuratively) behold the 
 banner of Jesus Christ, of Jesus Man, God, and Saviour ; 
 so that the whole world may know that new Geneva has 
 hoisted on her turrets the standard of ancient days, which 
 is that of the new times, of the everlasting ages.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 1. Arrival. Salutation. Revolution now in progress. Error. The 
 Sectarian System. The Latitudinarian. The Christian. Popery. 
 The Gardener of the State. 2. Entry into London. Bustle. Prac- 
 tical Tendency. The Common People. Public Men. The Youth. 
 Equality and Liberty. Wealth. Country Seats and Shops. The 
 Aristocracy. British Enthusiasm. Hospitality. . Discipline and 
 Piety. 3. Bondage to the Comfortable and the Fashionable. The 
 Merit of Wealth and Power. Puritanism and Worldliness. Chris- 
 tianity should be manifested in the Flesh. Evils of large Properties. 
 An Exception. The Sites. Grandeur of the Manufacturing and 
 Mercantile Towns. The reverse of the Medal. A human Form in 
 the Strand. A Story in a Sermon. Want of popular Instruction. 
 Drs. Sack and Luke. 4. Conscientiousness of a People. Religion 
 necessary to England. Service at Cambridge. Fear of God among 
 the People. The Divine Law or Duty. Sunday in Britain. The 
 Railroads and the Sunday. Puseyism proceeds from the same Prin- 
 ciple. 5. The Articles. Doctrine and Life. Religious Meetings. 
 Capacity of the British. Explosions of Eloquence. The Lions of 
 Meetings in Scotland and England. Preachers. 6. Christian Union. 
 Breakfast at Liverpool. The Bishop and the London Missions. 
 Westminster and the Presbyterians. Hanover Square Rooms and 
 Finsbury Chapel. 7. Reformation in the Church of England. Com- 
 munion at Geneva. Strength of the Evangelical Party. Two Revo- 
 lutions: In Theological Instruction, and in Church Government. 
 Convocations. The Shadows. Preservation and Transformation. 
 Reform. Intervention of Members of the Church. Necessity of Ec- 
 clesiastical Institutions. Two Armies against Rome. Confidence 
 and Error. 
 
 I. 
 
 RELIGION AND THE PEOPLE. 
 
 I EMBARKED at Ostend, and quitted the Continent. We 
 soon came in sight of the white cliffs and chalky hills of
 
 ENGLAND. 57 
 
 Kent. Here, in the Isle of Thanet, the first Saxons landed ; 
 farther on, at Hastings, landed William the Conqueror ; at 
 Dover, Caesar disembarked ; and there also, at the foot of 
 its ancient castle, I stepped on shore, and some thousands 
 do the like every month. In five hours I had come from 
 Ostend to Dover, and soon after I reached London by rail- 
 road. 
 
 For nearly thirty years, England was incessantly eulogized 
 in a religious point of view. Now the wind has changed, 
 and loud complaints are raised against her. No doubt there 
 is some reason for them : Puseyism is a fearful manifestation. 
 Yet let us not go into either extreme ; let us not be ultras in 
 any way ; let us be grateful, let us be just. For my own 
 part, I confess, that on setting my foot on the soil of Eng- 
 land, a thrill came over-me : " Hail to thee, ancient land of 
 Wickliffe, Latimer, and Tindal ; for ages thou hast been the 
 bulwark of Reformation ! Within thee have been wonder- 
 fully preserved, for these three hundred years, the holy doc- 
 trines of grace ! More than once, hast thou proudly stood 
 forth among the nations a representative of the religion of 
 the Word of God ! Thy mighty hand has scattered the 
 sacred writings over every country of the earth, and thy 
 ships have carried to all nations, even to the most distant 
 isles of the sea, the messengers of peace ! No , we will not 
 forget thee ! Who could ever forget the children thou hast 
 brought up, quickened by the spirit which comes down from 
 the Head ; Owen, Flavel, Baxter, Bunyan, John Newton, 
 Scott, Cecil, Simeon, and so many more in whom the Church 
 of God rejoices ? Surely the fount of blessings which has 
 sprung from thee, can never be dried up, and the whole 
 world may still come and joyfully drink of it !" 
 
 But for this purpose, one thing is necessary. A great 
 revolution is now taking place in the political destiny of 
 England.* The old Toryism is falling ; the Church of Eng- 
 
 * This was written during the last days of Sir Robert Peel's Min-
 
 58 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 land privileges are threatened ; the form of the state is 
 changing. It is remarkable too, that it is not the adversa- 
 ries of the ancient principles who are bringing them to the 
 dust, but the chiefs themselves, their most illustrious sup- 
 porters. In this movement, there are, in our opinion, some 
 errors which ought to be pointed out and opposed ; but 
 there is also something which must run its course. There is 
 a progress of history, there are developments of time which 
 no human hand is able to stop. 
 
 But if the state is changing, will the church maintain the 
 same position ? Can this be thought a possibility ? If an 
 edifice has leaned upon a pillar, and that pillar has been re- 
 moved, must it not seek another support ? Tbo support of 
 the state is taken from the church of England ; she must 
 seek for strength elsewhere, or her rffin is not far off. 
 
 This strength she must seek in that faith in Jesus, which 
 in her articles she confesses with such purity, in the Chris- 
 tian life of her members, and their sympathy with all that 
 concerns her. Her strength lies no longer in parliament, or 
 in the bench of Bishops ; but in the benches of Christian 
 men, of Christian families, of Christian churches. The re- 
 ligious community must have strength within itself, and not 
 through the powers of the civil community. 
 
 The danger which now threatens the church of England 
 is one of the greatest to which it has ever been exposed. 
 Some of her most eminent sons are bowing down at Rome 
 before idols ; the deserters are on the increase ; most of her 
 bishops are silent, or connive at this apostasy ; many even 
 of those ministers who were considered evangelical, though 
 they still protest against Rome, are rushing into human and 
 superstitious fancies, which -are half-way towards Popery. 
 This is a deplorable weakness, which would raise a shudder 
 among those holy men whom this church once reckoned as 
 her leaders. If, while the state is accomplishing an im- 
 mense revolution, the church remains dumb and motionless, 
 or clings to what is slipping from her grasp ; if there is nei-
 
 1 
 
 ENGLAND. 59 
 
 
 
 ther animation, courage, nor resolution, except in those who 
 are turning towards the pope ; if those who ought to seek 
 the salvation of the church in the Christian doctrine, in the 
 Christian people, in independence of the kings of the earth, 
 and in submission to the King of Heaven, exhibit nothing 
 but timidity, prejudice, fear, bigotry, and listlessness, then 
 we must indeed fear, that the ruin of the church of England 
 is at hand. And that tribute of admiration which burst 
 from my lips the moment the white cliffs of Albion rose to 
 my view, must I, alas ! if ever I return, must I bestow it 
 on her grave ? 
 
 Is the revolution now going on in England, taking a right 
 direction ? 
 
 I think that some revolution was necessary, but not that 
 one which the politicians of England propose. 
 
 Hitherto, in England, the state has been Anglican, Epis- 
 copal ; it has attached itself to one special confession, has 
 espoused all its interests, and during a long period has pro- 
 tected it by oppressing and persecuting all other Christian 
 confessions. Thus, in the very midst of Protestantism, 
 scenes of intolerance have been witnessed, similar to those 
 exhibited in the middle ages. 
 
 It is now felt that this narrow and sectarian system can 
 no longer be the system of the state ; but what can be sub- 
 stituted for it ? an equal favor of the state towards all relig- 
 ions, even the most opposed and the most contradictory. The 
 state would thus alike maintain Protestantism and Popery, 
 Judaism and Islamism ; perhaps, even all kinds of Pagan- 
 ism. If politicians do not proceed quite so far in their ap- 
 plication, the principles they profess would lead to this. 
 
 If the state seemed at first too narrow-minded, it now ap- 
 pears too latitudinarian. What then should it be ? 
 
 There is one solution for which some on the Continent, at 
 least, loudly clamor. It is proposed that the state should 
 be atheistical. That, indeed, removes every difficulty; but 
 we can no more admit of this solution, than of the other
 
 60 TEAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 two. We believe that the more a people and its govern- 
 ment are brought under the influence of Christianity, the 
 more their prosperity, both moral and temporal, will be 
 found to increase. We demand the self-regulation of the 
 church ; we claim her independence of all the powers of the 
 world : yet we would not have the atheism of the state, 
 which finds defenders, on the Continent at least, among men 
 who are eminently religious. 
 
 Can a state, placed in the midst of Christendom, abstract 
 itself from a fact so important as Christianity ? This is im- 
 possible. 
 
 If, as Scripture asserts, " Righteousness exalteth a nation" 
 it means, plainly, not uprightness in a restricted sense, as 
 maintained by police officers, but that righteousness which 
 has for its basis the love and the fear of God. 
 
 Religion cannot, therefore, be an indifferent matter to a 
 nation. There is a something which a people must desire 
 to see flourishing among them ; but this something is not a 
 particular ecclesiastical form, a particular feature which dis- 
 tinguishes one sect from another ; it is the Christian relig- 
 ion itself. 
 
 The animal wh^ch feeds upon nuts knows how to crack the 
 shell, throw it away, and feed on the kernel ; will a nation 
 do the contrary ? Will it throw away the inner part of Chris- 
 tianity, and feed upon the husks ? 
 
 We do not require the state to be either episcopal, pres- 
 byterian, or congregationalist ; we do not see what advan- 
 tage it could gain by this. But we wish, that the essential 
 principles of Christianity should be within the soul of every 
 individual, of every family, of every institution, and of the 
 whole people ; and among the people we reckon, in the first 
 place, those who govern them. 
 
 We do not think that either the episcopal, the presbyte- 
 rian, or the congregational form, can impart a superior in- 
 fluence to the state, that is, taking the word in its widest 
 sense, to the people at large. No, it must be the very es-
 
 ENGLAND. 61 
 
 sence of Christianity, divine life, true evangelism. Now, 
 this may be found in any of these forms. 
 
 If a king is called upon to give battle, will he, in order to 
 gain the victory, take a fancy to some particular uniform, 
 setting aside the man himself with the strength which God 
 has given him ? Certainly not. The great evil of the church 
 and of the state also, has been the preference of the form to 
 the life. 
 
 Wherever we see form occupying the chief place, we will 
 boldly declare war against it. 
 
 But it will be said, If the state is not to attach itself to a 
 strictly confessional principle, it must then welcome all 
 creeds, the Roman Catholic in particular ? 
 
 The English government proposes, they say, to receive 
 Popery among the religions calculated to make the British 
 people flourish ; and will, in consequence, enter into commu- 
 nication with the pope, and give salaries to his clergy. 
 
 But if the Gospel alone can render a people prosperous, 
 how can they enter into alliance with its most deadly foe ? 
 Are not the great principles of evangelical Christianity, 
 " The Word of God alone the grace of Christ alone the 
 regeneration of the Spirit alone," altogether rejected by 
 Popery ? 
 
 Besides, we have already said that the state should re- 
 ceive no form whatsoever ; but is Popery, in its essence, any- 
 thing but a form ? The external church, the pope, and rela- 
 tions with the pope, are not these the chief objects at Rome? 
 Does not ecclesiasticism hold there the place of religion? 
 does not legalism take the place of morality ? 
 
 Let the state beware ! Popery is less a religion than a 
 state. The papacy everywhere tends to constitute itself a 
 state within the state. We know that it is yet far from its 
 object ; but let us be patient ! we are clearing the road for 
 it. With politicians so short-sighted, as some of those who 
 have, in other respects, justly acquired the highest reputa-
 
 62 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 tion in Europe, Popery will quickly make its way. The state 
 talks of finding another ally, but it will receive a master. 
 
 Let us, then, remember Christ's words, " Render unto 
 Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things 
 that are God's." Let not the state, like Uzziah, put forth 
 its hands to sustain the ark, even if the oxen stumble ; but 
 let every man among the people, and especially their gov- 
 ernors, seek, each for himself, that kingdom of God which 
 is righteousness, and peace, and joy, in the Holy Ghost. 
 These will be the surest means of bringing spiritual blessings 
 on the country. To the living church of Christ belongs the 
 labor, to the state will belong the fruits. It is not the tree 
 itself, but the gardener who " digs about it and dungs it." 
 Now, the gardener of the state, the gardener who raises the 
 finest fruits, is the church. I do not mean to discuss in this 
 place the exact relations which should subsist between the 
 two societies, T will enter into this when I speak of Scot- 
 land, but I may say here that I like to distinguish between 
 the temporal and the spiritual, and attribute to each of 
 them its proper sphere ; and that, as I would not have the 
 church discharge the functions of the state, I would not 
 have the state discharge the functions of the church. 
 "Every one shall bear his own burden," saith the Scripture. 
 
 Let but the church be what she ought to be ; let her 
 draw from her stem a life of her own ; let her develop her- 
 self with vigor and independence ; let her remember that, 
 like her Master, she is come to minister : then will fairer 
 days than those gone by be granted to the church of Christ 
 in England, and to all her people. Life will then proceed 
 from the roots, and the tree will flourish once more. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE ENGLISH. 
 
 BUT I perceive that I have taken too lofty a flight. I must 
 be allowed to return to my humble character of a traveller,
 
 ENGLAND. 63 
 
 and seat myself in the noisy and rapid train, which bears 
 me with the swiftness of an arrow along the railroad from 
 Dover to London. 
 
 On approaching the capital, my wondering eyes looked 
 down from the carriage into innumerable narrow streets of 
 small houses, all of uniform and mean appearance, blackened 
 with coal-dust and shrouded by a smoky atmosphere. Such 
 is the gloomy avenue which leads to the delightful parks of 
 the metropolis, its superb squares, magnificent bazaars, and 
 rich palaces. 
 
 What crowds in the streets, what bustle, what hurry! 
 These carriages, public and private, almost as numerous as 
 the foot passengers ; that dazzling display of every produc- 
 tion of British industry, and of the most distant lands; 
 those forests of ships, motionless in their immense docks ; 
 the steam-boats, which, like a weaver's shuttle, incessantly 
 ply up and down the Thames with inconceivable rapidity, 
 taking up and setting down at every pier a fresh cargo of 
 breathless passengers, every thing you behold tells you that 
 you are now in the capital of the commercial world. 
 
 If the German feeds upon the ideal, the practical is the 
 characteristic of Great Britain ; I say, Britain, because most 
 of what I say here of England is applicable to Scotland 
 also. Reality, action, business, bear sway in the politics, 
 the industry, the commerce, and, I will even say, in the re- 
 ligion of the English. Yet this practical tendency which 
 characterizes England is not selfish, as might have been ex- 
 pected. The large scale on which the people work gives a 
 certain scope and grandeur to the imagination. The habit 
 which the English have of forming into parties, and of look- 
 ing constantly at themselves as a nation, is opposed to a nar- 
 row selfishness ; and a more elevated sentiment struggles 
 with this vice in a large portion of the people. 
 
 Perhaps, one of the things that strikes a stranger the 
 most on his arrival in London, is not the nobility but the 
 common people ; their strength, their energy, their quick-
 
 64 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 ness, their skill, their civility, and, above all, their calmness 
 and silence during their unceasing activity. They are all 
 alive to what they are about, and they are clever at it ; you 
 can see this in the carriages, the ships, and especially in the 
 railroads. The skill with which an English coachman drives 
 you through the streets of London, among thousands of 
 vehicles, without ever jostling you, is inconceivable. 
 
 The day after my arrival in London, I visited the ancient 
 
 seat of our friend M , built in the time of Elizabeth. 
 
 The railroad took me a certain distance, where I had to find 
 
 a carriage to take me on to L Park ; but what on the 
 
 Continent might perhaps have occupied an hour, was here 
 done in an instant. In less than a minute all our luggage 
 was lifted from the train into the carriage, and the Fly was 
 winging its way towards the park. 
 
 If I speak thus of the common people, what shall I say 
 of the statesmen of England, of her sailors, of her warriors ? 
 of that character of simplicity and grandeur which strikes 
 every impartial beholder, and of which they have lately 
 given such remarkable instances 2* The constitution of 
 Great Britain, the balance of her powers, the slow but sure 
 energy of the universal thought of the people, all this is 
 so beautiful, that we cannot but recognize the Master-hand. 
 But I did not leave the Continent to study the wondrous 
 mechanism of this state. I, therefore, content myself with 
 saluting it respectfully as I pass on. I think myself fortu- 
 nate to have been present at the debates in the Houses of 
 Parliament. I will only add, that if the political institutions 
 of England, by conducing to her power and glory, have been 
 of incalculable benefit to all mankind, this has proceeded 
 from their having held within them a higher living principle, 
 the religion of Him who has said, "I will make you free 
 indeed." 
 
 I observed in England one thing, that the people talk much 
 less of liberty than we do on the Continent, but practise it 
 * I allude to the late war in India.
 
 ENGLAND. 65 
 
 more. This is quite natural : when we possess a thing, we 
 mention it less frequently than when we are in search of it. 
 The young men, who play so important a part in Germany, 
 and even in France and other countries, do not so in Eng- 
 land. It is not for want of spirit in the English youth they 
 have even rather too much ; but it is confined in the pre- 
 paratory sphere of schools and colleges, and does not display 
 itself in public business. Influential institutions satisfy this 
 people. The young men know that their turn will come, 
 and they wait quietly. Among a people deprived of public 
 institutions, vigor is often misplaced ; it is forced forward in 
 youth and exhausted in riper years. In England, on the 
 contrary, it is disciplined in youth and exerted in manhood. 
 On the continent, paternal authority is much shaken ; in 
 Britain, the parents, generally speaking, know how to keep 
 their children at a respectful distance ; and this is a great 
 element of strength for a nation. When the Bible would 
 pronounce a threat against a people, it says, " I will give 
 them children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over 
 them."* This curse has been but too well fulfilled among 
 many nations. When the unfortunate Legislative Assembly 
 was convened in France after the Constituent Assembly, the 
 multitude of extremely young men was notorious ; and when 
 the president by seniority, in order to form the provisional 
 committee, called upon the deputies, who had not yet com- 
 pleted their twenty-sixth year, to come forward, sixty youths 
 crowded round the tribune, competing for the office of Secre- 
 tary to the Assembly.f This predominance of youth is an 
 evil which, thank God, is still far removed from England. 
 
 The French writers assert with pride that, while in England 
 there is liberty but not equality, in France there is equality 
 but not liberty.^ We cannot help thinking that England is 
 right. God would have liberty for all ; but equality, which 
 
 * Isaiah, iii. 4. f Les Girondins, by M. de Lamartine. 
 
 This thesis was maintained by the Journal des Debats in May, 
 1847, appropos of religious liberty.
 
 66 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 would bring all men to the same level, is but an idle dream. 
 No doubt the French writers do not claim equality in every 
 respect, but we regret that they set such bounds 'to the 
 principle of liberty. 
 
 It is, nevertheless, in these very marked distinctions, which 
 prevent equality, that one of England's dangers lies. If there 
 is too much equality on the south of the Channel, there may 
 be too little on the north. The distinctions of rank and for- 
 tune are, perhaps, exaggerated in Britain ; and were it not 
 for that vital Christianity, which is a powerful remedy for 
 this evil, the whole people would be seriously affected by it. 
 But the Gospel corrects the defects of institutions. Before 
 God all are equal ; all have the same sin, the same salvation, 
 whatever be their intellect, their wealth, or their rank. 
 Noble and learned, low and ignorant, rich and poor, all say 
 together, " Have mercy upon us, miserable sinners."* I am 
 aware that this is with some persons a mere form, but I also 
 know that with many it is a solemn reality. I do not think 
 there is any aristocracy which, like that of England, con- 
 tains so many nobles who are men, who are Christians. 
 
 And yet, to what an extent are wealth and aristocracy de- 
 veloped ! By them I have been so struck, that I must pause 
 upon these two features which characterize Great Britain. 
 
 First, as to her wealth. In the eighteenth century, England 
 had already become the chief mart of the world ; she is now, 
 moreover, the largest workshop. Nothing can be said against 
 her wealth ; it is the reward of her labor and of her works. 
 She wears her greatness well. Her rich men make an ad- 
 mirable use of the wealth which God has entrusted to them. 
 It is not in hundreds or by thousands of francs, but in sums 
 of twenty-five or fifty thousand, that money is given in Eng- 
 land for benevolent or evangelical purposes. And, more- 
 over, the men in Britain, who owe all their fortune to them- 
 selves, have not those upstart manners so often met with on 
 the Continent. They are both great and simple. They 
 * In the public worship of England.
 
 ENGLAND. 67 
 
 practise an amiable hospitality, the charm of which I have 
 often experienced. I have visited country seats, adorned 
 with all the graces of architecture, containing spacious and 
 imposing apartments, and built in the most delightful situa- 
 tions, a flag flying from their highest towers ; and the next 
 day, being in the neighboring town, I have entered the 
 warehouse of the owner, which he could survey with pride 
 as the source of all his greatness, and found him unosten- 
 tatiously exhibiting his goods to us, and cordially pressing 
 us to accept some remembrance. 
 
 On another occasion, I was in what was almost a palace, 
 situated near a large mercantile town. The master led me 
 from his villa to his carriage, and from his carriage to his 
 warehouses, an immense building, not only all the rooms of 
 which, but even all the stories, communicated with each 
 other by a kind of well, in which a movable cabinet, with- 
 out any fatigue to yourself, carried you rapidly up or down 
 to whatever floor you desired. This is a staircase often met 
 with in such establishments, and very agreeable to asthmatic 
 patients. 
 
 I mentioned another feature. In Britain, of all the coun- 
 tries in the earth, the nobility have the most power. The 
 king or queen is but the key-stone of the aristocracy. This 
 aristocracy, also, wears its greatness well. There is in the 
 manners of the great ones of England, a nobleness, a grace, 
 a simplicity, an exquisite perfume of sociability, and a regard 
 for their inferiors in the social scale, which wins every heart. 
 There is among the English, especially among the aristocracy, 
 a physical beauty celebrated all over the world, and with 
 which the moral beauty of the mind is often in harmony. 
 These nobles have not merely, like those of some other na- 
 tions, an external polish, but there is within them an internal 
 grace, a politeness of the soul. 
 
 In other respects the English aristocracy appears to me 
 no less admirable. When we behold elsewhere the frightful
 
 68 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 tyranny which Radicalism sets up,* we can understand the 
 mischief it would do in England, if ever it were triumphant ; 
 and we are inclined to regard the aristocracy, which there 
 exercises such strength, as one of the necessary guarantees 
 for freedom. I was present eight or nine years ago in the 
 Hanover Square Rooms, at crowded meetings, among which 
 were the flower of the English aristocracy, the leaders of the 
 Tory party ; and where, on sofas placed at the foot of the 
 platform, were seated princes of the Royal Family, ministers 
 of state, and bishops. The speaker who electrified these 
 large meetings was Chalmers, that prince of British orators. 
 Sometimes energetic words in favor of political liberty, and 
 of the independence of the church, fell from his burning lips ; 
 for he was then bearing witness in London, in the Queen's 
 Concert Room, to the same truth^ which, five years after, he 
 maintained in the rustic hall of the Cannon Mills at Edin- 
 burgh. He alluded to the saying, so famous in England, 
 that every Englishman's house is his castle ; he repeated 
 those well-known words, that no one has a right to enter it : 
 " The king cannot the king dare not." And then, return- 
 ing suddenly to the church, he declared that the political 
 power could not -meddle with her doctrine and her spiritual 
 administration ; and thus, taking his stand as it were at the 
 door of the church, he hurled forth these words, which re- 
 sounded like thunder through the assembly : " The king 
 cannot the king dare not." When Chalmers had thus 
 spoken in the honor of true liberty before this English aris- 
 tocracy, think not that murmurs were heard around ; no, 
 there was unbounded applause. Loud acclamations arose 
 from this multitude of noblemen and Tories ; and when this 
 cheering had finished, it began again, and was thus three 
 times renewed. I then saw the fine and venerable head of 
 the Duke of Cambridge, the queen's uncle, nodding with an 
 expression of the most cordial acquiescence. I was con- 
 founded. "How magical," thought I, "is eloquence!" 
 * This was written after the revolution of the Canton de Vaud.
 
 ENGLAND. 69 
 
 " Do you know," said I, as I went out, to a Tory friend who 
 accompanied me, " that if on the Continent, even in France, 
 they were to hear this applause given, such homage rendered 
 to liberty, they would think themselves, I am certain, in a 
 
 conventicle of Carbonari." I remember St n's smile as 
 
 he somewhat proudly replied, " It is the Tories, who are in 
 England the guardians of liberty." 
 
 Liberty is, in fact, the passion of every Englishman. What 
 Tacitus said of the Britons, is still characteristic of them. 
 " They respect power, but they cannot suffer the abuse of it. 
 They know how to obey, but not how to serve."* 
 
 Such, then, are these common people, so full of intelligence 
 and activity ; these rich men, so simple and so generous ; 
 these nobles, so amiable and so fond of liberty. It is a re- 
 markable nation which is the result of such an assemblage. 
 What enthusiasm among all classes of this people for great 
 ideas ! It is ideas, indeed, which thrill this people when a 
 foreigner, whose name is linked with some principle or some 
 illustration, comes to visit them. It matters not whether he 
 belongs to the highest or to the lowest degree of the social 
 scale. We know how they welcomed Marshal Soult, who 
 had fought against England, but who was in their eyes the 
 personification of French glory ; and humble and obscure 
 individuals have also been received with unheard of kind- 
 ness, merely because their names were considered by our in- 
 sular friends as attached to some great idea, to that, for 
 instance, of the Reformation. In this respect, I will not say 
 merely, that England surpasses the Continent; there is 
 nothing like it among us. Our people are, as it were, insen- 
 sible and dead, while the people of Great Britain are full of 
 feeling and life. It is a nation complete in all its parts ; our 
 nations, in this respect, are mutilated. It is true that Ger- 
 many begins to present some manifestations of this kind ; but 
 it is to be regretted that they are not in the best of causes. 
 
 It is not the masses merely, that give this warm welcome 
 %" Ut pareant nondum ut serviant." Tacit. Agr. 13.
 
 70 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 to a stranger ; what shall I say of that frank hospitality 
 which is met with throughout England and Scotland ? It is 
 true, that in Britain every house is more closed to what is 
 without, than is the case in France and in Germany. But 
 even this circumstance gives more liberty and independence 
 within. When once a stranger is received into a house, he 
 becomes a member of the family ; he meets with the same 
 freedom, the same cordiality. I met with no strangers in 
 England and Scotland ; everywhere I found friends and 
 brothers. 
 
 In these houses you are struck with the order and disci- 
 pline that reigns throughout ; and at the same time, if it is 
 a Christian household, with the excellent spirit that pervades 
 all. I have been occasionally present at the dwelling of a 
 nobleman, or of a merchant, or of a bishop, and sometimes 
 of a plain minister, at the morning or evening worship. You 
 may see a score of servants, male and female, come in to the 
 room like a file of soldiers ; at the end of the march they 
 turn round, as regularly as a regiment of the line, and sit 
 down. But together with this discipline, the gravity of these 
 people, their attention, and the devotion with which they 
 bow the knee before God, are something imposing. These 
 English households are the households of Christian patriarchs. 
 
 III. 
 
 DEFECTS. 
 
 THOUGH I admire in many respects the wealth and aristoc- 
 racy of Britain, I do not close my eyes to certain abuses 
 which sometimes arise from them. Why should I conceal 
 them ? does not the Bible say, " Open rebuke is better than 
 secret love ?" This is the best friendship. 
 
 As we look at certain features of English society, we can- 
 not help thinking that some of its members are, so to speak, 
 overloaded, overwhelmed by the very weight of their riches.
 
 ENGLAND. 71 
 
 The search after the comfortable and the fashionable is carried 
 to an excess, which often detracts from the search after en- 
 joyments more intellectual, more spiritual, and more pure. 
 Houses, clothes, the table, plate, equipages, powdered foot- 
 men, are all made and organized in such a manner as to 
 attract attention and even surprise ; and one of the pleasures 
 of the nobility and gentry is to drive every day through Re- 
 gent Street, Hyde Park, and elsewhere, with a parade of 
 horses, carriages, and liveries. This is beneath such a peo- 
 ple. True, my opinion is only that of a foreigner, and I 
 merely state my doubts to the children of Britain. I speak 
 freely of their faults, but it is for them to decide ; I accept 
 by anticipation the verdict of the wise among their own 
 people. 
 
 It has always appeared to me that there is in all this a 
 certain littleness of mind, and that England would be greater 
 without her fashionable slavery. One wonld think that, in 
 order to buy their liberty hi the gross, the English make 
 themselves slaves in detail slaves to fashion. The queen, 
 powerless among her people, is an autocrat in her court. 
 
 What brings so many English families to the Continent ? 
 Various motives, no doubt ; but frequently the fear of not 
 being able to shine in England as much as their equals. 
 There is a tendency among certain Englishmen to estimate a 
 man, not by his intrinsic qualities, by his intellectual or moral 
 worth, but by his fortune and his rank. Wealth is with them 
 the chief of merits ; and when they wish to know a man's 
 standing in society, they ask, " What is he worth ?" The 
 sum of his wealth is also the sum of his value. When a 
 party is assembled in one of the fine drawing-rooms of the 
 aristocratic towns of England, and when dinner is announced, 
 the master of the house generally points out to each of the 
 gentlemen the lady to whom he is to offer his arm, to lead 
 her to the dining-room. All this is arranged with great care, 
 according to rank and fortune ; and sometimes, very seldom 
 no doubt, the stranger has to go in the last. We must, how-
 
 72 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 ever, except the houses of the high aristocracy. In England, 
 the greater they are, the more regard they exhibit towards 
 the little. The foreigner nowhere meets with so much atten- 
 tion and kindness as in the fine mansions of the earls, mar- 
 quises, and dukes of the United Kingdom. 
 
 With these worldly defects, which I have now pointed 
 out, even Christians have been reproached, and we have 
 perhaps reason to inquire how far the reproach is deserved. 
 Much has been said of the worldly, the fashionable Chris- 
 tianity of England. We must observe, in the first place, 
 that it is not only among the nobility that such Christianity 
 is to be found ; and we must even add, that in the highest 
 families of England, there are instances of piety, spirituality, 
 and of true simplicity, which are scarcely to be found else- 
 where. 
 
 Nevertheless, a real danger exists. Wealth and grandeur 
 are two elements not in exact harmony with true Christianity. 
 This the Scriptures themselves declare. These two circum- 
 stances throw difficulties in the way of a Christian life. The 
 renunciation of self, of the world, and of its pomps and 
 vanities, must be essential to true piety. " They that are 
 Christ's have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts ;" 
 and the Word of God savs to all, " Mortify, therefore, your 
 members which are upon the earth." Those Christians who 
 are living in the midst of abundance, and in the high places 
 of society, must have more difficulty in fulfilling such com- 
 mandments, and consequently need a greater degree of watch- 
 fulness. 
 
 But we may sometimes go too far, and require from them 
 things which the Word of God docs not demand. On the 
 one hand, the Christian should make a decided separation 
 between Christianity and the world ; yet, on the other, the 
 world, considered as the creation of God, ought not to be 
 entirely rejected. It is only necessary that all things should 
 be made new. The natural faculties of man should not be 
 annihilated, but sanctified, glorified, and devoted to God.
 
 ENGLAND. 73 
 
 The natural gifts of God are not to be despised, as an ex- 
 treme puritanism may do, but enjoyed with " giving of 
 thanks," as St. Paul says. When we behold the riches of 
 the creation which David enumerates in the 104th Psalm, 
 we have only to exclaim with him, " Bless the Lord, my 
 soul !" 
 
 Puritanism or ascetism rejects the enjoyments of the nat- 
 ural life, because it considers them as tainted, saturated 
 with sin. Doubtless, " the whole world lieth in wickedness," 
 but this is one side of Christianity ; there is another which 
 says, " Ye are bought with a price ; therefore, glorify God 
 in your body and in your spirit, which are God's." Puritan- 
 ism does not perceive with sufficient clearness that this re- 
 demption is universal ; that it is for the body as well as for 
 the spirit ; and that it is to be realized in every phase of the 
 natural life. There is nothing which is not capable of being 
 redeemed ; even riches, and nobility are so : they are to be 
 redeemed and consecrated to God. 
 
 We may, it is true, be too precipitate in this business. 
 Puritanism is right not to yield too hastily to this glorifica- 
 tion of the whole life. If we hurry forward in this work, it 
 may only prove at last a vain imagination. The renewing 
 of our nature is not to be accomplished in a day ; we must 
 go on progressively, step by step. There are some natures 
 especially, which require to remain a long time in the lower 
 degrees. The foundation of repentance, of conversion, of 
 faith, and of spiritual baptism, must be well laid, before, as 
 St. Paul says to the Hebrews, we "go on to perfection." 
 
 Puritanism is, therefore, right in insisting upon the work 
 of renewal, and in fixing the mind upon it. When I speak 
 of Puritanism, I ask myself whether it still exists in Eng- 
 land ? whether it has not fallen under the influence of na- 
 tional developments, and the sneers of novelists ? whether, 
 in fine, it would not be necessary to go back to the seven- 
 teenth century in order to meet with it ? or whether the 
 Oxford asceticism has not now taken its place ? Yet if, with 
 4
 
 74 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 the Gospel, we must insist on the necessity of dying to the 
 world, we must still, with faith, advance towards life, to that 
 life which in God enjoys all lawful blessings. The fault of 
 puritanism and asceticism consists in hurling against an or- 
 der of things (which proceeds from the Creator, and which 
 ought to be brought back to God,) an interdict too pitiless, 
 and an excommunication too general. Thus, Protestant pu- 
 ritanism and Roman asceticism easily assume the appearance 
 of a forced piety and of a mere profession of Christianity. 
 No doubt, with regard to the things of this life, we should 
 neither buy, sell, possess, nor enjoy, but with moderation 
 and watchfulness. We should " use this world as not abus- 
 ing it : for the fashion of this world passeth away."* But, 
 on the other hand, it is sinful to despise and reject the gifts 
 of God, and it is not even allowable to treat them with in- 
 difference. They are, in truth, " seducing spirits," who teach 
 " doctrines of devils," who " forbid marriage, and command 
 us to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be re- 
 ceived with thanksgiving of them which believe and know 
 the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing 
 to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving,"! 
 
 Christianity must be carried into every sphere of human 
 existence, into literature and science, into domestic and 
 public life, into commerce, into the navy and army, and into 
 politics. And, perhaps let us do England this justice 
 perhaps there is no nation which so well responds to this 
 divine call. Of all lives, the Christian life is the most do- 
 mestic, the most social, the most literary, the most scien- 
 tific, for it is of all lives the most humanizing. This is what 
 one of its earliest apologists incessantly repeated to the Pa- 
 gans. " We remember," says Tertullian, " that we ought to 
 give thanks to God, and we refuse no work of his hand. We 
 are not without a forum, not without markets, not without 
 workshops ; we live in the same age with you. We navi- 
 gate, we make war, we farm, we trade with you. We are 
 
 * 1 Cor. vii. 31. f l '^ m - iv - 1 4 -
 
 ENGLAND. 75 
 
 your brethren by the law of nature ; we have the same mo- 
 ther."* There is, I repeat it, no other nation and this is 
 England's highest glory in which we see Christianity car- 
 ried so truly, and often so decidedly, into every station of 
 life, into the peasant's cottage and on board the ships of 
 Avar, behind the counter and amidst the camp, into the work- 
 shop and the halls of the universities, into the offices of the 
 lower clerks and the Houses of Parliament, into the humble 
 abodes of the poor and the cabinet council. This is right. 
 It was necessary for the salvation of the world that the 
 Word should be once made manifest in the flesh, and that 
 this miracle should be continually renewed in a spiritual 
 sense. We may say that Christianity is truly made man in 
 England. 
 
 But here, we say again, lies the danger. This spiritual 
 and legitimate secularization of the Gospel in Britain, is a 
 reaction against the extreme puritanism of the seventeenth 
 century. The human mind rushes willingly from one extreme 
 to another. If slavery to fashion and the display of vanity 
 are faults even in the worldly, how much more so are they 
 in true Christians. There must be oil in the lamp ! Let 
 England therefore beware. 
 
 I have to point out another of the dangers of grandeur 
 and opulence. There is something patriarchal in the im- 
 mense possessions of the English and Scotch nobility ; in 
 those estates covered with inhabitants ; in those populations 
 which depend entirely on their lords, and who might be 
 their fathers. How much good has been done and is still 
 doing by these lords, by their wives, and by their daugh- 
 ters ; how many churches and schools have been erected at 
 their expense ! How often have angels of Christian charity 
 
 * Meminimus nos gratiam debere Deo, nullum fructum operum ejus 
 repudiamus. Itaque non sine foro, non sine macello, non sine officiis ; 
 cohabitamus vestrum nos saeculum. Navigamus, militamus, rusticamur, 
 et mercatus miscemur. Fratres etiam vestri sumus, jure naturae, matris 
 unius. (Tertul. Apolog.)
 
 76 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 been seen gliding into humble cottages, carrying consolation, 
 assistance, and even instruction ! Nothing of this kind is to 
 be seen to the same degree in other countries. 
 
 Nevertheless, these large properties of the nobility, which 
 sometimes entirely exclude the small proprietors, produce a 
 melancholy impression. When I have been walking in one 
 of those beautiful English parks, so fresh and verdant, so 
 dotted with stately trees, so charming with the graceful undu- 
 lations of the soil and with their beautiful lakes, I occasion- 
 ally felt an indescribable sadness. I saw nothing but foli- 
 age upon foliage ; the only sign of life was the cawing of 
 the rooks, necessary inhabitants of these velvet glades. 
 " Oh, who can restore me," thought I, " those smiling habit 
 tations, the delightful hamlets, the lively villages of my own 
 Switzerland ?" I gazed anxiously around, trying to discover 
 among the trees the appearance of a roof ; and could I but 
 perceive the slightest trace, I ran forwards that I might see 
 some peasant, man or woman some symptom of life ! 
 
 This is still more striking in Scotland. You may travel 
 for miles through the Highlands, without meeting other 
 inhabitants than thousands of sheep feeding in solitude. 
 " Were I in Switzerland," I said to myself, " these hill-sides 
 would be divided among several small owners : here would 
 be a farm, there a chalet, and everywhere the animation of 
 a free people." Yet there are exceptions. When I drew 
 near that charming site at the extremity of Loch Tay, close 
 by the romantic Kenmore, on which rises the stately palace 
 of the Breadalbanes (many Genevese will remember that 
 the present Marquis of Breadalbane, then Lord Glenorchy, 
 visited their city twenty-five or thirty years ago), I was 
 delighted to find the country dotted with pretty cottages, 
 covered with roses, and to see healthy, ruddy children, play- 
 ing before their smiling homes. It was like an oasis created 
 by the beneficence of a Christian lord. But in general there 
 is a desert. It is not long since, instead of the system of 
 small farms, the landlords have substituted large ones,
 
 ENGLAND. 77 
 
 and the unfortunate small farmers, finding themselves out- 
 bid, have been obliged to forsake their beloved mountains, 
 and emigrate either to the Antipodes, to New Holland, 
 or to throw themselves into the ever open, ever devouring 
 gulf of the manufacturing towns of England or Scotland. 
 It often happens that one lord is the sole proprietor of a 
 whole county, from one sea to another ; and he can, as has 
 often been done within these few years, refuse the Chris- 
 tians who inhabit his estate, a site of thirty feet square in 
 which they may worship God. It would be a glorious task 
 for the statesmen who preside over the destiny of Great 
 Britain, and whom no difficulties can deter, to seek some 
 legal means of establishing small properties in Scotland, and 
 delivering the country from the oppression of a few lairds. 
 
 I have already said that the opulent merchants and man- 
 ufacturers of England wear their riches well. How can I 
 recount all that is admirable in those mercantile and manu- 
 facturing towns, which sixty years ago were perhaps mere 
 villages, and Avhich are now among the most powerful cities 
 in the world ? Certainly the inhabitants may well have a 
 feeling of pride ; and that feeling is a right one, when ac- 
 companied with gratitude to God. Not without great vir- 
 tues could such prosperity have arisen. Whether we con- 
 sider those ports filled with ships from every quarter of 
 the globe, among which tower, Colossus-like, those floating 
 islands moved by steam : or whether we contemplate those 
 vast manufactories in which the productions of the earth are 
 so rapidly transformed, and where hundreds of workmen and 
 thousands of machines are going on with wonderful order, 
 activity, noise, and calmness, you certainly see before your 
 eyes one of the finest spectacles that man can behold. I 
 remember a short trip I made with an excellent friend from 
 Liverpool, to visit that immense steam-ship, the Great 
 Britain, then lying in the docks of that city.* I still fancy 
 
 * Since wrecked on the Irish coast, whence, after twelve months, it 
 was, by immense exertion, floated off and towed back to Liverpool.
 
 78 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 I can see the forests of masts of the ships which filled the 
 basins, and the universal and perpetual bustle which the 
 Roads presented. One seems at such a moment to be placed 
 in a situation whence, as from an exceeding high mountain, 
 we can behold " all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory 
 of them:" and that the whole earth is brought before our 
 view, with the ships that cover it, with its towns, its shores, 
 and its most distant islands. From Liverpool Roads we 
 survey the globe. 
 
 Yet here, also, there is a reverse to the medal ; let us 
 then turn it. What a contrast is exhibited between the smi- 
 ling meadows of England, and the fresh Highlands of Scot- 
 land, with the manufacturing cities ! When we walk through 
 these dirty towns covered with coal-dust, whence, instead 
 of the elegant spires of our Gothic steeples pointing to the 
 skies, nothing but gigantic chimneys soar towards heaven ; 
 when we are surrounded by a stifling atmosphere, incessantly 
 fed by volumes of smoke vomited forth from the blackened 
 mouths of these tall and formal pyramids, and heavily de- 
 scending again in clouds upon factories and houses, and ob- 
 scuring the light of day ; when we see the population of the 
 country crowding into these narrow and unwholesome streets 
 oh, we would rather a hundred times that these poor families 
 should have remained in their fields, cultivating and enliven- 
 ing them, peopling them with a healthy and vigorous youth, 
 and making them resound with their pious hymns ! 
 
 What, alas ! is the fate which in such large cities awaits 
 these humble country people, either with regard to their phy- 
 sical or their moral existence ? There is no country in which 
 so much is done for the poor as in England : legal charity 
 perhaps even goes too far. Numerous Christian and philan- 
 thropic societies are instituted to afford aid to all kinds of 
 misery. More is done for this purpose in England than on 
 the whole of the Continent put together, and yet the evil is 
 not checked. You may sometimes see one of those rich and 
 brilliant streets of London slowly traversed by a human form,
 
 ENGLAND. 79 
 
 pale, dirty, frail, and tottering : is it man or woman ? one can 
 hardly tell. This phantom, a type of the lowest wretched- 
 ness, has come from its abode, perhaps only a few paces off, 
 iu some close alley hidden behind these stately mansions ; and 
 made its appearance in another world, as if to accuse it the 
 more fearfully from its very silence. I remember one day 
 passing through the Strand, one of the busiest streets of the 
 capital, when I saw stopping before a splendid provision 
 warehouse, in which all the most tempting delicacies that 
 luxury could furnish were displayed, one of these human 
 forms, dressed in a coat which had once been black, with 
 shapeless hat and listless arms, trembling legs, and hollow 
 cheeks, and eyes, though sunken, yet fixed with longing look 
 upon those exquisite dainties, from which only a thin pane 
 of glass separated him. The rich display in its gilded frame, 
 and that living skeleton ! here, in two strokes, is the picture 
 of London. 
 
 Not far from thence I heard one day in St. Dunstan's 
 church, 1 think the most eloquent preacher of the metropolis 
 
 as regards the form of his discourses. Mr. M 's sermon 
 
 was the history of a young man. He took him from the cra- 
 dle in the fields of his birth-place : we beheld him growing 
 and improving, happy and joyous in the midst of his family : 
 when he was setting out for the capital, we heard the dis- 
 course of his father and his mother ; he embraced them, and 
 departed full of the best resolutions. He arrived in London : 
 he resisted the first time the seductions of young men of his 
 own age ; but he was not so firm the sedond time. His 
 struggles, his remorse, his backslidings were all painted in 
 the most striking colors. At length, seized by sickness, the 
 reward of his misconduct, we saw him on his death-bed, rest- 
 less, terrified, expiring without hope : he carried his whole 
 auditory into hell itself, and showed them the wretched 
 youth crying out, "Mountains fall on us, and hide us from 
 the wrath of the Lamb !" Alas, how often has this dismal 
 history proved a sad reality !
 
 80 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 One of the greatest evils of England is the want of instruc- 
 tion for the people ; an omission on the part either of the 
 church or of the state. There are, doubtless, Christian ef- 
 forts by which they endeavor to supply it ; and these efforts, 
 I say again, infinitely surpass all similar ones made else- 
 where. Much, very much has been done, and yet these are 
 but insufficient palliatives. Even the rivalry of the different 
 Christian communions sometimes opposes the good they 
 would wish to do. Not long since we received a visit from 
 a very distinguished member of parliament, closely connected 
 with a statesman who some years ago was at the head of the 
 British government. He came to the Continent for the pur- 
 pose of studying elementary instruction. I sent him to the 
 Director of the Normal School of Lausanne, with whom he 
 was much pleased. Since that time, we have had many 
 visits of the same kind ; every one feels that something ought 
 to be done : yet, notwithstanding the most powerful means 
 of action, and the most earnest and sincere desires ; notwith- 
 standing even the most valuable labors, the English have not 
 yet succeeded in finding a sufficiently efficacious remedy for 
 the physical and moral wretchedness of the poor. I am not 
 the only one who sees this state of things in such dark colors. 
 " A former will not is punished by a present cannot" says a 
 Christian Protestant writer, Dr. Sack ; and another, the 
 Abb6 Dr. Luke, exclaims at the sight of this evil : " Oh, 
 what a shadow in the bright picture of English life ! An 
 ecclesiastical institution, stiff, liturgical, technical, and epis- 
 copal if you will, but without a well-informed people, without 
 a living flock where, I ask, where can this lead to ?" 
 
 IV. 
 
 PIETY AND DUTY. 
 
 AND yet, if there is now the will, I cannot allow that there 
 is no longer the power. There would be the power to rem-
 
 ENGLAND. 81 
 
 edy this evil, if the influential men of England were to unite 
 in trusting to Him of whom it is said, " I can do all things 
 through Christ, who strengtheneth me." 
 
 Now, most politicians in England show, it is true, but little 
 liking to the Gospel ; yet there is something in the people 
 which can still inspire much hope, and this is the power of 
 religious feeling, and of Christian principle, so strong in 
 Britain. 
 
 It may be said, that the people of Britain have more con- 
 scientiousness than any other. I mean a true consciousness 
 of what they ought to be according to the will of God. 
 Knowledge, science, is the idol of the Germans, and they 
 know more perhaps than any other. Honor is the idol of 
 the French, and none have heaped up so many military tro- 
 phies. The British have an instinctive feeling of a vocation 
 they have received from above, of a talent intrusted to them, 
 which is to be made available over the whole earth, and they 
 go forward in this work with enthusiasm and perseverance. 
 There is yet much to be done in this respect. Interests, en- 
 tirely temporal, and quite opposed to justice, too often pre- 
 dominate in the nation ; and several melancholy instances of 
 this might be adduced.* For England to attain to her high 
 calling, conscience must become the moving principle of her 
 people, and the religion of the Gospel the soul that animates 
 the nation. It is in individuals that this work must com- 
 mence ; but, as soon as it is within the individual, it will ex- 
 hibit itself in the whole mass. If, even in our own times, 
 we have beheld in this nation great inconsistencies ; if the 
 most eminent men have been but " reeds shaken by the 
 wind ;" if they have rushed from one extreme to another ; 
 and such glaring apostasies have moved the whole people ; 
 it is because the primary principle the Christian basis was 
 wanting. It is not of the corn laws, but of the religious 
 questions that I speak. 
 
 There is no people to whom religion is so necessary as to 
 * In China, for example.
 
 82 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 the British. The material, agricultural, manufacturing, and 
 mercantile interests are so predominant, that, were not relig- 
 ion to counterbalance them, the nation would be undone. 
 The energetic activity which distinguishes the Britons ; those 
 gigantic enterprises that characterize them ; the founding of 
 an immense empire in India ; the gates of China, which her 
 powerful hand has wrenched open ; that creation of Austra- 
 lia ; those expeditions to the poles and to every climate ; that 
 abolition of the slave-trade and of slavery itself, all these 
 giant-like labors require that a pure religion should animate 
 the people, that oil should be always pouring into the lamp, 
 and that a truly moral force should inspire, moderate, and 
 direct all these efforts. If the Britons, and even the Ger- 
 mans, are much better colonizers that the French, and the 
 nations under the Papal rule, it is to the Gospel that they 
 are indebted for it. Neither is this all. Even the admirable 
 political institutions of Britain have need of the rule of faith ; 
 the liberal in politics should be conservative in religion. If 
 the people of the United States, notwithstanding their many 
 elements of disorder and dissolution, are not only still in ex- 
 istence, but increasing more and more in power and impor- 
 tance, it is because they are the sons of the Puritans. 
 
 From the very moment that England begins to yield ; nay, 
 from the moment she ceases to press onward in religion, we 
 think she will decline towards her abasement, perhaps to 
 her ruin. Evil elements are not wanting. She possesses, to 
 a greater extent perhaps than any other country, a low, im- 
 pious, and impure literature ; and the efforts made to diffuse 
 it among the people are very great. If once the mighty 
 floodgates, which religion and morality oppose to those in- 
 famous publications, are thrown down, the torrent will break 
 forth and overwhelm the whole nation with its poisonous 
 waters. 
 
 Yet, though we wish that England should improve, we do 
 not shut our eyes to her excellencies. I know of no mani- 
 festations of Christianity more attractive than those I have
 
 ENGLAND. 83 
 
 met with in some of the ministers and evangelical Chris- 
 tians of the church of England. The essential principles of 
 Christian truth are by none, perhaps, maintained with so 
 great a purity, and so indomitable a firmness. Yet, at the 
 same time, there is in these friends something so spiritual, so 
 heartfelt, so full of grace, in short, that you are subdued by 
 them. I know not whether even the defects of their church 
 are not advantageous to them. The church is imperfect, the 
 ecclesiastical bond is weak, no one scarcely has any thing 
 to say about church government. This, with many minis- 
 ters and members of the church, is productive of serious 
 inconveniences ; yet Hhe result is, with others, that their 
 whole being is turned, as it were, towards God. That 
 Christian piety which is diffused over all the world, pos- 
 sesses in the Episcopal church of England some of its noblest 
 representatives. 
 
 Eight or nine years ago I spent a Sunday in Cambridge. 
 The dean of Trinity College, who had afforded me hos- 
 pitality, took me to Trinity Church, of which he was the 
 pastor, and placed me in his pew. Another person entered 
 it ,shortly after. As he wore the. university costume I took 
 him for a student, or, at most, a Master of Arts. When the 
 service commenced, my neighbor reverently knelt down and 
 began, according to custom, to repeat the prayers in a low 
 voice. Never shall I forget those humble and pious accents ; 
 every one of them, coming from his inmost bosom, sank into 
 my own. I seemed to have entered the closet in which an 
 elect soul was communing with his Saviour. Never, per- 
 haps, have I spent an hour more truly edifying. When the 
 prayers were finished, I looked at my neighbor with devout 
 regard ; I was wondering who he could be, when I saw him 
 rise, go towards the pulpit, and ascend it for the sermon. It 
 
 was Mr. B , who was then on a journey for the Church 
 
 Missionary Society, in which he took and still takes an inter- 
 est no less lively than that which he has subsequently shown 
 in the cause of Christian union. I understand how he can
 
 84 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 compose so many admirable works upon Prayer, on the 
 Lord's Supper, &c., from which so many souls have been re- 
 freshed as from Jacob's Well. He is in my opinion one of 
 the types of a good evangelical English clergyman. 
 
 But it is not merely of these chosen ones that I would 
 here speak ; it is of the people. There is among them a uni- 
 versal religious feeling, a general awe of the name of God, 
 of the Invisible Judge. Does this arise from nationality, or 
 from the different Christian communions to be found in it ? 
 I know not but even during the time when Deism had in- 
 vaded a certain portion of society, it could never entirely 
 efface the deep-seated feeling of the holiness of the divine 
 law. Infidelity in England was grave, and often moral ; 
 while in France it was habitually riotous and dissolute. We 
 must, however, in justice acknowledge, that there is a small 
 nation on the frontiers of France, in which this riotous prin- 
 ciple has been found, perhaps even in greater strength, than 
 among her more powerful neighbors This feel- 
 ing of the holiness of the Law of God of which I speak, per- 
 haps more particularly distinguishes the Christianity of Eng- 
 land from that of other evangelical nations. There the doc- 
 trine of free grace is certainly proclaimed as well as else- 
 where ; but the respect shown to the divine law is still more 
 striking. Duty is an idea but too much forgotten among us, 
 while in England it is all important. This nation, so power- 
 ful and so haughty, bows before the thought of duty. It 
 was Nelson's signal to his fleet at Trafalgar : " England 
 expects every man to do his duty" and every man did it.* 
 
 One of the features which most completely brings out the 
 character of British Christianity, is the observance of the 
 Lord's Day, or the Sabbath as they term it, I think improp- 
 
 * The Duke of Wellington, being asked if he had seen a French 
 criticism on the fourteen volumes of his Dispatches, replied in the nega- 
 tive, and inquired, " What do the French say of them 1" He was told, 
 that the reviewer remarked the word glory did not once occur, but that 
 duty frequently did.
 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 erly. It is the custom of continental travellers, even of 
 Christian ones, to complain loudly of the servile and exag- 
 gerated observance of the day of rest in Britain, and of all 
 the annoyances it causes them. I shall not do .so. I cer- 
 tainly cannot undertake to defend all the ideas that have 
 been put forward upon this subject by our insular friends, 
 and all the applications they have drawn from them ; but I 
 do not hesitate to say, that this submission of a whole people 
 to the law of God, is something very impressive, and is prob- 
 ably the most incontestable source of the many blessings that 
 have been showered on the nation. Order and obedience, 
 morality and power, are all in Britain connected with the 
 observance of the Sunday. Amidst the activity which per- 
 vades all things, the bustle of the towns, and the energy 
 with which the inhabitants pursue their earthly callings, what 
 would become of them had they not a day of rest in which 
 to recruit themselves, and laying aside things temporal 
 which are seen, to look forward to things eternal which are 
 unseen? (2 Cor. iv. 18.) 
 
 A mighty struggle is now going on in this cause ; and at 
 the head of those who stand up for the maintenance of re- 
 ligious principles and national manners, is Sir Andrew Ag- 
 new, a worthy Scotchman, to whom I had the pleasure of 
 being introduced. Many meetings, at which he presided, 
 have been held in Edinburgh, in favor of the sanctification 
 of the Lord's Day, now so violently threatened. The rail- 
 roads, like a terrible battering-ram, are incessantly striking 
 against this ancient stronghold of the Christian habits of 
 Britain. In Scotland, there is no travelling on most of the 
 railroads on Sundays ; but on that from Glasgow to Edin- 
 burgh, in which English shareholders, who assert that all 
 days are alike, are more numerous, two special trains had 
 been kept up on that day, to carry the mails before and after 
 divine service. The Christians did not abandon their cause, 
 and at last they gained the victory. When I was in Scot- 
 land it had not yet been won ; and, in the meanwhile, Chris-
 
 86 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 tians abstained from travelling on that line. As we were 
 leaving Edinburgh, a Christian lady, who was to have ac- 
 companied us to Fairlie, beyond Glasgow, told us that she 
 would take the stage coach to the latter town. When I ar- 
 rived in Glasgow by the railroad, I went with a friend to the 
 coach office ; the lady had not arrived. " But what advan- 
 tage is there," said I, " in using this slow conveyance, when 
 it sets out much sooner and arrives much later ?" "The 
 train," replied the friend who was with me, "runs on Sun- 
 days, and we only use it, even on week-days, in cases of 
 necessity. The coach does not go on Sundays, and there- 
 fore we prefer it." Thus, while the railroads were every- 
 where driving the stage coaches off the roads, this zeal for 
 the sanctification of the Lord's Day still kept them up be- 
 tween Edinburgh and Glasgow. Unfortunately, this is not 
 the case in England. Not only do the trains run on Sun- 
 days, but a considerable reduction in the fares is often made 
 on that day ; thus offering temptations to the common peo- 
 ple, who, for a trifling sum, can thus transport themselves to 
 a considerable distance to engage in their diversions. In a 
 meeting held at Edinburgh, on the 27th of February, 1846, 
 it was stated that there were no fewer than 600 different 
 trains running on Sundays in various parts of England, and 
 that sometimes they are so long that they need six engines 
 to draw them (the famous and terrible train of Versailles had 
 only two) ; that they have sometimes consisted of 147 car- 
 riages, carrying 1710 passengers, and reaching the length 
 of half a mile. There are now to be spn in the streets 
 placards with gigantic letters, announcing that pleasure 
 trains will run on Sunday at half price. Certainly, this is 
 enough to justify the saying of a Christian of German Swit- 
 zerland, an old federal colonel, who used to say, " Our Lord, 
 when he appeared in the world, came on foot ; the devil, 
 when he comes, will travel by the railway." Yes, no doubt, if 
 a remedy is not found out for this evil, immorality and dis- 
 order will be brought into England by these new roads. The
 
 ENGLAND. 87 
 
 old British habits are disappearing. This claims the earnest 
 attention of the friends of religion and of their country. 
 
 The English people might, doubtless, throw off the yoke 
 of Sabbath observance; as they have abolished the corn 
 laws. Sad manifestations sometimes break forth on this sub- 
 ject in the House of Commons, and even in the House of 
 Lords ! But we believe that the British nation is too much 
 interested in preserving it, lightly to throw away the keeping 
 of the Lord's Day. Though to many it may be a yoke, they 
 will bear it without repining, convinced that by discipline 
 alone liberty can be preserved among a people. To those 
 of our continental friends who complain of the strict forms 
 they meet with in Britain, we would reply, " Do you not see 
 it is at the price of these very forms, that this people pos- 
 sesses such great political, and religious freedom ? You on 
 the Continent are more lax in regard to religious institutions ; 
 you smile at these strict forms : but you have either no lib- 
 erty at all, or you have only its excesses." Where there is 
 much public freedom, each individual must watch over him- 
 self. Great characters are not to be formed without severe 
 discipline. We say again, the severity of England as to the 
 Lord's Day and other institutions, is in our eyes an essential 
 feature of the national character, and an imperative condition 
 of the greatness and prosperity of her people. 
 
 I must here point out, although the association may ap- 
 pear singular, another manifestation of a very different kind, 
 but opposed, like the Sunday trains, to this principle of re- 
 spect for the divine law, which has hitherto been one of the 
 characteristics of the English nation. I mean Puseyism. 
 In fact, the essence of Puseyism is to set up the law of the 
 church above the divine law ; the traditions of men above 
 the Word of God. I have elsewhere shown the principal 
 features of the Oxford theology,* and will not repeat what I 
 have there written. I shall only add, that two of the great- 
 est dangers which threaten England are, worldliness, which 
 * " Geneva and Oxford."
 
 88 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 by means of the railroads endeavors to make the law of the 
 flesh prevail over the law of God ; and Puseyism, which 
 with the aid of surplices, and a few paltry traditions, seeks 
 to overturn the law of the Lord by the law of the church. 
 The latter of these manifestations is, in my view,*no better 
 than the former. Let us hope that, in both cases, the sin- 
 cere attachment of the British people for the holy law of 
 God will obtain the victory. 
 
 V. 
 
 THE ARTICLES AND THE ORATORS. 
 
 THERE are two elements essential to a church ; the one 
 fixed, and always the same ; the other active, and always 
 new : the former is the doctrine, the latter the life. These 
 two elements are to be found in a remarkable degree in the 
 Church of England. The former manifests itself in its arti- 
 cles of faith, the latter in all its Christian societies. 
 
 The Thirty-nine Articles have often been attacked. It 
 has been asserted, that by maintaining them the church puts 
 a stop to every spontaneous manifestation of faith, and de- 
 stroys all spiritual freedom ; the signing of them has been 
 looked upon as a mere matter of form, a superstition, an act 
 of hypocrisy. 
 
 We must own, that in certain cases these reproaches may 
 have some foundation. The Articles presuppose a certain 
 degree of Christian experience : if there are men who have 
 not realized this experience, and who, nevertheless, sign the 
 Articles, there is indeed on their part either illusion or hy- 
 pocrisy. They ought to consider these Articles as the very 
 voice of God, calling upon them to look into their own 
 hearts, and to examine themselves upon the faith professed 
 by the church ; and they ought not to sign them, so long as 
 this confession is not the real expression of then- own per- 
 sonal faith.
 
 ENGLAND. 89 
 
 As for those who know what salvation in Christ really 
 is, what harm can the Articles do them ? None ! indeed, 
 rather the reverse. Every true Christian has a spiritual life, 
 an inward history, composed of distinct phases faith, re- 
 pentance, justification, and conversion, sanctification, peace, 
 joy, and hope. It is requisite, both for the sake of others 
 as for his own, that he should profess the great doctrines to 
 whteh his inner life corresponds. Poor and ignorant Chris- 
 tians and these are the greater number would not know 
 how to do this. If the church to which they belong pre- 
 sents to them an evangelical confession of faith, at once 
 plain and profound, it renders them a very useful assistance. 
 Theologians could, no doubt, without a creed easily give ut- 
 terance to their faith ; but we must think first of the poor 
 and simple of the flock, of those of whom the Lord said, 
 " I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that 
 thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and 
 hast revealed them unto babes."* 
 
 Men of the world regard the Articles of Faith of the 
 Reformation as antiquated forms, become unmeaning in the 
 present age. This error arises from their having never ex- 
 perienced in their hearts that faith in Christ which is the 
 same in every age. Those confessions of Christian hope 
 which our fathers made even in the face of Rome, and for 
 the sake of which so many martyrs have ascended the scaf- 
 fold, can never grow old, can never lose that divine fire 
 which the Holy Spirit imparted to them. It has been said, 
 " The Articles are useless to the church, the Bible is suffi- 
 cient." But most frequently, at least upon the Continent, 
 those who will not have confessions of faith, will not have 
 the Bible either. Very lately, one of the most eminent 
 Protestant clergymen of Germany, Dr. Ammon, first preacher 
 of the court at Dresden, a rationalist, but yet an enlightened 
 theologian, made this candid avowal : " Experience teaches 
 
 * Matt. xi. 25.
 
 90 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 us, that those who reject a creed, will speedily reject the 
 Holy Scriptures themselves." 
 
 Of all the churches of the Reformation, (with the excep- 
 tion of Scotland), the Church of England is that in which 
 Articles of Faith bear the most important part, ^he beau- 
 tiful creeds of the church of the fourth century (the Nicene 
 and the Athanasian) form a part of her worship ; and it is 
 to be regretted that there is not some period of the year in 
 which the Thirty-nine Articles are not also publicly read in 
 the churches. The importance given to doctrine in the 
 Church of England is her safeguard. Without it, she would 
 long ago have fallen beneath the assaults, not of rationalsm, 
 but of traditionalism and superstition. Let the ministers 
 and the members of the church set forth and maintain once 
 more the purest doctrines of grace, as contained in the Bible, 
 and stated in the Thirty-nine Articles ; let them raise on 
 high and firmly wave that glorious standard, and the evil 
 spirits will flee away. 
 
 But while the fixed element, the doctrine, is to be found 
 in the Church of England : life, the active element, is not 
 wanting. I should be afraid of the former element if the 
 latter were not there. The creed alone might impose upon 
 religion a stiffness and a monotony, which would be its ruin. 
 But in a community where both the fixed and the active 
 energies are united, these two contrary elements control each 
 other. They are both equally essential to every Protestant 
 church. It has sometimes been said, that doctrine is the 
 characteristic of the Romish church, and life that of the Re- 
 formed churches. This is false : doctrine in Rome is but a 
 secondary element ; the primary thing with her is Rome 
 itself, the papacy, the hierarchy. In my opinion, it is these 
 two agents united, doctrine and life, which form the charac- 
 teristic of Protestantism. It is essentially a religion of life, 
 of that life, of which it is said in the Word, " In him was 
 life, and the life was the light of men :"* a life with all its 
 * John, i. 4.
 
 ENGLAND. 91 
 
 varieties and multifarious effects. " To be spiritually-minded 
 is life."f 
 
 There is no country in which this vitality is so manifested 
 as in Great Britain. The character of the people, at once 
 energetic and practical, will not allow them to make a mere 
 play of spiritual matters. Action immediately follows affec- 
 tion. All the religious and philanthropic societies of Eng- 
 land are but the manifestations of life. They are the fruits 
 with which a vigorous sap covers the tree of faith. It is 
 true that this vital element has not reached perfection, either 
 in the Church of England or in her dissenting churches. 
 There is still much to be done, but we must acknowledge 
 what already exists. If the national spirit exhibits itself in 
 secular matters, by the vast colonization which encircles the 
 globe ; by those bold and distant conquests which bend be- 
 neath the dwellers on the Thames, those of the Ganges, the 
 Indus, the Cavery, and the Burhampooter : by that immense 
 trade which transports and exchanges the productions of the 
 whole earth, the Christians of England have not remained 
 behind in spiritual matters, and their extensive missions have 
 followed their merchants, their colonists, their armies, whith- 
 ersoever they have gone forth. 
 
 Never do the labors of Christian vitality appear in Eng- 
 land in a more imposing form than in the great public meet- 
 ings which are held in London, especially in the month of 
 May. If the world, if the despisers of the Sunday, have 
 their monster trains ; the worshippers of Jesus Christ have 
 their monster meetings, if I may call them so ; and these are 
 no doubt the most remarkable manifestations of the religious 
 spirit of Britain. Certainly, the thing most worthy of admi- 
 ration is not the meetings of those societies, but their labors 
 and their acts. The Bible, Missionary, Tract, and Christian 
 Instruction Societies, with many others, are the highest glory 
 and the chief strength of England. Not only has she taken 
 the lead, but she has nowhere been outstripped. The re- 
 | Rom. viii. 6. 
 
 *
 
 92 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 ports of these societies are everywhere ; you have read them 
 over and over again. It will therefore be more interesting 
 to give you a description of Ifceir meetings. 
 
 To speak in that immense area of Exeter Hall, to four 
 thousand auditors, nay, four thousand impassioned audi- 
 tors, who reply by acclamations to the least word that finds 
 an echo in their hearts, is no trifle, especially to foreigners. 
 The remarkable capacity of the English and the Scotch for 
 speaking well, clearly, and eloquently, is known to every 
 one. This is in some degree a natural gift, but it is partly 
 also an acquired one. Every son of Britain grows up in the 
 midst of public life. Every one accustoms himself to think 
 clearly, and to express forcibly, whatever is essential in all 
 things. Besides this, the English, those at least who speak 
 in these meetings, are familiar with the two great treasuries 
 from which all elegant diction and eloquence is drawn : the 
 one is the Bible, the other is the Greek and Latin classics. 
 The art with which these assemblies are prepared, the con- 
 tinued progress, the animated, onward march which the 
 leaders seek to impress upon them ; the appearance, at one 
 time of a Syrian, at another of a North American Indian, 
 now of a New Zealander or of a Chinese, in the full cos- 
 tume of their respective countries, and each making a speech 
 in his turn, like others (I was myself confounded with these 
 orators from the different parts of the world) ; the art with 
 which the most powerful speakers are generally reserved for 
 the conclusion all these things render the meetings overpow- 
 ering and wonderful. If I were asked which affords the 
 most exquisite enjoyment to the mind ; the intimate conver- 
 sations in a German study, where three or four eminent the- 
 ologians assemble, with -whom the mind freely ranges over 
 the highest regions of thought ; or these stupendous meet- 
 ings, in which the souls of the auditory are drawn on by an 
 orator as in a race, are subdued with him, and then on a 
 sudden carried away amidst shouts and acclamations, were 
 I to be asked which of these two enjoyments I prefer, really
 
 ENGLAND. 93 
 
 I should not know on which side the balance would incline ; 
 but were I to judge of the intensity, or rather the enthusi- 
 asm of enjoyment, I think I should decide in favor of the 
 London or Scottish meetings. Oh, how much do we live in 
 those few hours ! how do our hearts burn within us ! And 
 yet, after those volcanic explosions, and those streams of 
 burning lava which flow in torrents, it must be owned, some- 
 thing more calm and more intimate is salutary, and we love 
 to return to "the waters of Shiloahthat go softly." (Isaiah, 
 viii. 6.) 
 
 I will not mention all the admirable orators whom I have 
 heard in England and Scotland ; the list would be too long. 
 But if I must give the names of the lions of eloquence, I 
 would point in Scotland to Chalmers,* whose profound intel- 
 lect and ardent heart are displayed through the medium of a 
 diction of fervid, I would even say, of Scottish energy, Chal- 
 mers, whose lips utter flames and fire, so that in spite of an 
 accent so strongly provincial as to be almost unintelligible to 
 us, the foreigner loses not one of his expressions, for the soul 
 of the orator reveals what his organ seems to conceal, 
 Chalmers, who fearlessly throws himself into the most diffi- 
 cult subjects, because wherever this great orator bends his 
 steps a ray of light springs up, and makes all clear, Chal- 
 mers, the most powerful soul that was ever made subservient 
 to the most lucid and vigorous intellect. I would next name 
 Dr. C ; at first grave, severe, abrupt, letting his sen- 
 tences fail with a certain monotony, appearing torpid, almost 
 asleep ; then all at once bursting like a shell amidst the as- 
 sembly, moving heaven and earth, and leaving all his audi- 
 tory crushed and shattered by the thunders of his eloquence. 
 
 I would name also the Rev. T. G , smiling, jesting, 
 
 scattering flowers around you, and then soaring like an eagle 
 
 * I had intended giving the initials only of this eminent Christian's 
 name ; but as he has since fallen asleep in the Lord, I shall be acquit- 
 ted of indiscretion if I make him an exception to the rule I have gener- 
 ally observed in this volume.
 
 94 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 from these gay parterres, among "which you thought he 
 would leave you, and carrying you with him to the highest 
 heavens. 
 
 In England, I would name Dr. H. M'N , one of the 
 
 most commanding figures I ever met with in that country, 
 taking his stand before his auditory like a general, or like a 
 king ; with unembarrassed air, dealing his blows manfully on 
 every side, sometimes not sparing in his admirable archness 
 even the friends that are sitting beside him, and carrying 
 away his hearers with wonder at the elegance of his style- 
 
 I would mention the Rev. H. S , in the pulpit simple and 
 
 gentle as a lamb, but as soon as he steps upon the platform 
 he suddenly becomes a lion : head, hands, and feet, are all 
 in motion ; you fancy you can see his very mane rising on 
 end. But it is not a mere physical agitation that animates 
 him ; and, as the stamp of Pompey's foot upon the ground 
 
 caused soldiers to arise from it, so do S 's starts and 
 
 stamps bring forth armies which subdue his auditors. Last- 
 ly, I would name B. N , that man so noble and so simple ; 
 
 whose look is so candid, and whose soul so heavenly ; who, 
 when he begins, appears an unruffled sea lying in the deepest 
 tranquillity. But, stay! little by little the waters move, 
 
 N 's soul grows warm, the wind of heaven descends and 
 
 blows, the speaker abandons himself to it without restraint, 
 he mounts up to the skies, and rises aloft in the midst of 
 lightnings. The calm is changed to a sublime tempest, and 
 you feel that it is not only on the surface, but to the very 
 depths of the abyss, that the sea is stirred. 
 
 You may judge of the enjoyment I received from my trav- 
 els, when I say that all these men, and many more besides, 
 of talents perhaps not less remarkable, welcomed me as a 
 friend and a brother; and that some among them have 
 afforded me hospitality, so that I could enjoy in their homes, 
 and at their tables, for several days, the charms of their most 
 intimate conversation. I shall only add, that all these 
 speeches are extempore ; this it is, doubtless, which consti-
 
 ENGLAND. 95 
 
 tutes their beauty. More than once I have seen Mr. N , 
 
 for instance, arrive at a meeting in the middle of the pro- 
 ceedings. His entrance might be perceived by a murmur of 
 pleasure running through the assembly, if not by noisy ac- 
 clamations. Immediately one of the secretaries would go to 
 him, and hand him a card, on one side of which was written 
 the motion which they requested this powerful orator to 
 
 second. N would listen for a few moments to what was 
 
 going on, as if he would make a note of it, and then taking 
 out his pencil, and turning the card, would write six or 
 eight words upon the back. This was the skeleton of the 
 speech he was about to make. Soon after he would rise to 
 speak, and a remarkable production of the human mind would 
 proceed from these scanty elements. 
 
 If the orators of Britain surpass those of the Continent when 
 on the platform (as they call it), I cannot say as much of them 
 when they are in the pulpit. Here they are inferior, if not 
 to the continental preachers, at least to themselves. I do 
 not mean to say, however, that their preaching is not excel- 
 lent. I heard in London, in the month of July, Mr. B. N 
 
 deliver ode of the clearest, the most scriptural, and the most 
 eloquent discourses, upon the assurance of salvation, that I 
 had ever heard in England ; and I was the more struck by 
 it, as a newspaper affirmed the very next day, I think, after 
 this eloquent display, that Mr. B. N preached very in- 
 different sermons. At any rate, the editor could not have 
 been at St. J 's Chapel on that day. 
 
 VI. 
 
 UNION AND SEPARATION. 
 
 MANY of the Exeter Hall meetings are composed of Chris- 
 tians of different denominations. This brings me to one of 
 the objects of my journey to England and Scotland, which 
 was to promote the grand idea of the union of all Christians
 
 96 TRA% r ELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 of every denomination, if they but love and confess Jesus 
 Christ as God and Saviour. 
 
 At Liverpool, I was present at a breakfast, of five to six 
 hundred covers, where Christians of all communions assem- 
 bled for the first time ; and similar meetings took place in 
 almost all the towns of England and Scotland through which 
 my friend and I passed. We were brethren from the Con- 
 tinent, strangers to their disputes, and all joined with one 
 accord to receive us. This was one of the most pleasing in- 
 cidents of our journey. 
 
 The breakfast at Liverpool was very animated ; speeches 
 succeeded one another with lively rapidity ; and it was beau- 
 tiful to witness that mercantile population bursting forth in 
 the most enthusiastic manner at every religious idea. I expe- 
 rienced in other places the same enjoyment, and everywhere 
 felt a happiness of which even few Englishmen are able to 
 partake. I have come in contact, not only in private con- 
 versation, but also on public occasions, with Christians of 
 every different communion. At Manchester, Bath, Bristol, 
 London, and elsewhere, I was called upon to speak, as at 
 Liverpool, before numerous assemblies, at one time exclu- 
 sively episcopal and national, at another exclusively inde- 
 pendent, and, occasionally, mixed. Nay, more, I was re- 
 ceived with equal cordiality by men occupying the most dif- 
 ferent situations. At Fulham, on the delightful banks of 
 the Thames, in that palace which, for seven or eight centu- 
 ries, has been inhabited by the Bishops of London, being in- 
 troduced to the present bishop by one of those ecclesiastics 
 in his diocese for whom he has the highest esteem, the Rev. 
 
 R. B , I was entertained with to aching hospitality at 
 
 the table, and among the clergy of that eminent and active 
 prelate. And nearly at the same time, in the library of the 
 Congregational churches, in the house of the London Mis- 
 sionary Society, I took my seat among the Independents, 
 who cordially invited me to a dinner, at which presided our 
 respected friend, Sir Culling Eardley Smith, and at which
 
 ENGLAND. 97 
 
 were present some of the missionaries who had escaped 
 from the savage invasion of Otaheite. 
 
 Being invited by the Dean of Westminster, the son of the 
 celebrated Wilberforce, and now Bishop of Oxford, to at- 
 tend the too pompous cathedral-service in that magnificent 
 abbey, and to sit down at his family table, which has lost its 
 loveliest ornament, I proceeded thither at the usual hour. 
 Here I a Presbyterian minister was conducted by one of 
 the officials to the canons' stalls ; and I could not show 
 greater bigotry by refusing, than they had done by leading 
 me thither. After the sermon, and before his dinner, the 
 dean took me round the vast pile, and pointed out to me 
 the most remarkable objects jt contains. I noticed espe- 
 cially the Halls of Convocation, in which the Anglican 
 clergy assemble to no purpose ; and the tomb of the great 
 Wilberforce, one of the most interesting monuments in the 
 abbey, and which had a more particular attraction in my 
 eyes ; and that statue, so characteristic and so animated, 
 with the design of which all of us are familiar. There was 
 indeed something striking in the son being stationed there, 
 the guardian, as it were, of his father's tomb. But almost 
 at the same time, as I was walking with the dean through 
 the long-drawn aisles and beneath the fretted roofs of West- 
 minster, the English Presbyterians invited me to a hall in 
 the city to one of those monster breakfasts, where tea 
 and coffee speedily make way for animated speeches, cor- 
 dially responded to by the acclamations and the applause of 
 the guests, until the hour of business, eleven or twelve 
 o'clock, obliges them to disperse. 
 
 I was at the Hanover Square Rooms, at the meeting of 
 the Foreign Aid Society,, founded, for the most part, by the 
 
 activity of our friend Mr. R. B , and consisting entirely 
 
 of members of the national church, and which has already 
 done so much good on the Continent. There I spoke before 
 a numerous and select assembly, composed chiefly of the 
 English aristocracy ; and I also went to Finsbury Chapel, 
 5
 
 98 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 the largest dissenting meeting-house in London, then filled 
 with an immense crowd, where I stood upon an elevated 
 platform, among the most eminent of the English Noncon- 
 formists. My hand clasped their hands, my prayers min- 
 gled with theirs, and on that very day was founded a new 
 Auxiliary Nonconformist Society for the Continent of Europe. 
 
 Christian union, as I have already said, was one of the 
 chief subjects of my speeches during my journey through 
 England and Scotland ; but I thank God that I was enabled 
 to do more than speak about it. I was able to practise it. 
 It is a cause which continues to engage all my sympathy ; 
 and may it please God to remove the many obstacles which 
 it meets with, and which it has still to encounter, from 
 churchmen too bigoted, nationalists too timid, and dissenters 
 too ardent ! I will add, may God also preserve it from ideas 
 too exclusive on the part of its own friends ! 
 
 There are indeed manifestations most opposed to this 
 union. But these manifestations (Puseyism, for instance, 
 which is in our time the most prominent event in the exist- 
 ence of the Anglican church,) are, as I think, but phases of 
 this great work of union, phases natural and even necessary. 
 
 When, after a period of spiritual death, (as was the case 
 in England during the earlier part of the eighteenth century,) 
 the Christian life begins to revive, all vital Christians feel 
 themselves drawn together ; whatever be the different de- 
 nominations to which they belong, they feel themselves 
 united. This is what happened in England at the period of 
 the foundmg of the London Missionary Society, and during the 
 following years. It is well known that this society proposed 
 to give admission to members of , all religious communions. 
 
 But a period of separation succeeded to this time of union. 
 Each Christian gradually became more attached to the par- 
 ticular church form to which he belonged. The Nationalist 
 became more national, the Dissenter more dissenting, the 
 Episcopalian more episcopal, the Presbyterian more presby- 
 terian, the Wesleyan more Wesleyan, the Congregationalist
 
 ENGLAND. 99 
 
 more congregational, the Baptist more Baptist, the Calvinist 
 more Calvinistic, the Arminian more Arminian. It would 
 be unjust to attribute this narrow mindedness, this sectarian 
 movement, to any one church : it is to be found in every de- 
 nomination, among dissenters as well as among churchmen. 
 At first it was the Word and the Spirit of God alone which act- 
 ed together on every heart, and this action was everywhere 
 alike. Now, the history of each church, her traditions, her 
 antecedents, her special doctrines are at work ; but as this 
 operation is infinitely diversified, it divides instead of uniting. 
 
 There is in this latter action something natural, something 
 even allowable, if kept within certain bounds ; but it is easily 
 carried to an extreme, and this is what has everywhere hap- 
 pened. 
 
 The Episcopalians, for instance, after having felt the infi- 
 nite value of Christian truth which belongs to all evangelical 
 communions, may without impropriety attach a certain value 
 to their own special form, their episcopacy. This is done 
 by the evangelical Episcopalians, and no pious and wise 
 Presbyterian or Congregationalist can blame them for it. 
 
 But many have not contented themselves with this. They 
 have abandoned Christian liberty to rush into the servile 
 ways of a narrow ecclesiastical system. From certain prin- 
 ciples, which in their eyes are absolutely true, they have 
 drawn most merciless deductions. Misapprehending the na- 
 ture of the true church, which is " the general assembly of 
 the first-born, which are written in heaven," (Heb. xii. 23,) 
 the internal, spiritual, and invisible church, they have pro- 
 ceeded to set up in her stead a certain external organization, 
 a certain human institution ; and all that is to be found out 
 of this organization, out of this succession and episco'palian- 
 ism, has been rejected as not belonging to the church. From 
 this it has followed, that in the eyes of these ultra-orthodox 
 divines, Presbyterian ministers are no ministers at all, and 
 that the Lord's Supper celebrated by Congregationalists is in 
 like manner no Sacrament. I am aware that the church is
 
 100 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 visible as well as invisible ; but I also know that almost all 
 the errors of Rome have proceeded from her ascribing to the 
 visible church what belongs to the spiritual church alone. 
 Let us beware of imitating her example. 
 
 These are the extremes of the re-action we are now wit- 
 nessing. It must, and will pass away. The system is too 
 void of truth to have any vitality, in the midst of the Gos- 
 pel light. In the first period we pointed out (that of the 
 revival), differences had perhaps been too much forgotten. 
 At the present time, unity is too much overlooked. We 
 now see a third period commencing, in which it is to be 
 hoped due importance will be given both to essential and to 
 secondary objects. 
 
 Notwithstanding these weaknesses, however, I have a lik- 
 ing for the Church of England ; and I must say so, even if 
 I should somewhat displease my Presbyterian and my In- 
 dependent friends. There is one circumstance of my life 
 which may serve to explain this. Fifteen or sixteen years 
 ago, before a free chapel founded by the Evangelical So- 
 ciety was erected in Geneva, I could not go to hear, in the 
 Genevese places of worship, sermons of mere morality or of 
 Unitarian doctrine ; and it was painful to me to communi- 
 cate in them, after discourses in which the works of men 
 were set up, instead of the blood of Jesus Christ. At that 
 time, the English church, which had successively as ministers 
 two excellent men, Mr. Burgess and Mr. Hartley, was as a 
 place of refuge for me. I there spent many precious hours, 
 and was privileged to join in the celebration of the Lord's 
 Supper. Those very parts of the Liturgy which shock some 
 persons, were those which delighted me the most. When I 
 heard the Nicene, or the Athanasian Creeds, profess so ex- 
 plicitely the holy and glorious doctrines of the Trinity, so 
 obstinately denied in Geneva, I experienced a feeling of joy 
 and adoration. I must here pay my tribute of gratitude to 
 this church. She has done me good. 
 
 I like to proclaim, with the Anglican Church, faith in
 
 ENGLAND. 101 
 
 Christ, very God and very Man; the corruption of our nature 
 by original sin ; justification by faith alone; and regeneration 
 or the new birth, of which baptism is the sign ; and when 
 our Genevese school of theology desired to confess her faith, 
 she borrowed, as you know, the seventeenth Article of the 
 Church of England, to affirm the doctrine of Election. 
 
 There is much vitality in the Evangelical Episcopal party in 
 England. There are, both in the ministry and in the congre- 
 gations, many men who pray, many men who believe, and who 
 are ready to do all things, to be faithful to Jesus Christ. The 
 other two parties, that of Canterbury, whose essential dog- 
 ma is Episcopal succession, and that of Oxford, which leans 
 towards the Papacy, are in the presence of the Evangelical 
 party, but as phantoms before living men. They may frighten, 
 but they cannot conquer it. Several circumstances, no doubt, 
 concur in weakening the Evangelical Episcopalian body in 
 England. Some of its most distinguished adherents have 
 latterly too much lost sight of what is truly essential the 
 Word of God to attach themselves to the little superstitions 
 of hierarchical parties. But this evil will pass away. These 
 men are, above all, Christian men. They will remember this 
 in the day of battle, and will openly range themselves under 
 the banner of Jesus Christ. 
 
 What is most Avanting to the Evangelical party is the con- 
 sciousness of its own strength. It is much stronger than it 
 thinks itself. Perhaps nowhere in Christendom is there a 
 greater love for the Word of God, and, consequently, more 
 pledges of a certain victory. 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE REFORMATION OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 AFTER having gone through the different manifestations of 
 English life, rising step by step, shall I finish with the church, 
 and thus end where I began ? It is an entire world, from
 
 102 TEAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 which I shrink. I have no time to enter upon it, and, be- 
 sides, it is well known to you. Yet the church is essential 
 to the existence of England, and with it I must conclude. 
 
 Looking through the various parts of the constitution of 
 the Church of England, I find certain institutions which, ac- 
 cording to my convictions, are not what they ought to be in 
 a church, and these I consider it my duty to point out. If 
 there is a process termed development, to carry us away from 
 evangelical simplicity, ought there not to be another, called 
 reformation, to bring us back to it ? 
 
 Reformation should begin with the institutions destined to 
 train up the ministers of the church. The Church of Eng- 
 land is essentially an aristocratic church. The members of 
 the English clergy are taken from all ranks of society, and 
 the sons of British peers sit sometimes as ministers beside the 
 sons of artisans. In this no doubt there are advantages ; but 
 there are also inconveniences. The worldliness of the clergy 
 has long been a general complaint in England. The love of 
 liturgical and architectural forms in the present day is an- 
 other. Puseyism, to corrupt the church, has begun with the 
 universities: in them it has sought to establish its power. 
 " The children of this world are in their generation wiser than 
 the children of light." The Evangelical party must endeavor 
 to diffuse, both in Oxford and in Cambridge, more of true 
 light, true science, and true piety. 
 
 I have visited Cambridge. I have seen her students, ar- 
 rayed in the academical gown and cap, meet together morn- 
 ing and evening for their liturgical worship in their magnif- 
 icent chapels. I remember my stay in that university eight 
 or nine years ago ; the services, the lectures, my repast in the 
 immense hall of Trinity College, and the chamber of the great 
 Isaac Newton, in which the dean had the kindness to lodge me. 
 I found among the members of the university a vital piety, 
 and I am convinced that any efforts they may make to revive 
 these nurseries of the church will certainly not be useless. 
 
 I am aware that the Evangelical party has been reproached
 
 ENGLAND. 103 
 
 with being too narrow-minded, and not sufficiently learned. 
 Dr. Arnold has given utterance to these accusations, and 
 they may have some foundation. I do not think that the 
 Evangelical party should, or even could, be reinstated purely 
 and simply, such as it was in the time of Cecil and of Mil- 
 ner. This would be a loss of labor. A new development 
 is necessary. If evangelical England is to be rebuilt, she 
 must be set up anew upon the living rock of the Divine 
 Word. She must cease to cultivate almost exclusively in 
 her universities the classical languages and the mathemat- 
 ics ; and in order to form theologians, some attention must 
 be paid to theological science. England, in this respect, is 
 far behind the churches and universities of the Continent. 
 
 It is asserted that a Young German party is forming in 
 the English universities, especially at Oxford. I know not 
 what will become of it, for there are many tendencies in 
 Germany, as we have seen. There is among a few German 
 ministers an ecclesiastical tendency, somewhat resembling 
 that of Dr. Pusey. There is a rationalist, philosophical, and 
 pantheistical tendency, which aims at nothing else but the 
 destruction of the faith. But there is also another tendency, 
 exegetic, biblical, and historical, whose object it is to temper 
 the church anew in the living springs of truth. If it is Pan- 
 theism that England is about to import from Germany, we 
 have seen what eccentricities and errors may be expected 
 from it. But if she goes to the school of Neander, of Nitzsh, 
 of Hengstenberg, and of Tholuck, to train herself to the 
 study of the Bible, of Christian history and divinity, she 
 may derive much benefit. It is evident that if England re- 
 ceives from Germany any tendency whatever, that tendency 
 will be modified. English individuality is too strongly 
 marked not to impress on it a peculiar stamp. The* ration- 
 alist elements, that may be met with, will be rejected. These 
 biblical, historical, and theological studies, will enlarge the 
 theology of England, and cause her to produce other works 
 besides Apocalyptical commentaries.
 
 104 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Can nothing be done to promote this ? When the Chris- 
 tians of Bale beheld their university almost invaded by Ra- 
 tionalism, they united to found a theological chair, which a 
 biblical doctor was called to fill. And when, at Geneva, we 
 saw the old school absorbed by Unitarianism, we established 
 our new evangelical and free school. Will England so en- 
 ergetic, so powerful, so wealthy, and so faithful do nothing ? 
 
 Theological science plays too prominent a part in Ger- 
 many ; in England it is not held in sufficient importance. If 
 in Germany there is a science and no church, may it not be 
 said that in England there is a church and no science ? The 
 great aim of the church is not science, but the salvation of 
 souls, and thence the glory of God. We would rather have 
 a church without science, than science without a church. 
 Nay, more ; we acknowledge that England is far from being 
 without the theological element. Nevertheless, the philo- 
 logical, mathematical, physical, and economical sciences oc- 
 cupy the mind more than theology. If we compare Eng- 
 land with her good old times, with the church of the Refor- 
 mation, or with that of the early ages, she appears far be- 
 hind. Theology is a fine career opened to the lofty intellect 
 of Britain. 
 
 Not only at the basis, in the universities, is a reform 
 needed, but also at the summit, in church government. 
 
 I might here instance one of the first elements of this 
 government the elections. The church members in Eng- 
 land have no share in the choice of their ministers ; and what 
 takes place in the elections of the bishops is still more extra- 
 ordinary. When a vacant see is to be filled up, the chapter 
 receives from the crown a congt d'tlire ; but this writ is ac- 
 companied by another (a letter-missive), in which the crown 
 designates the person whom the chapter is to appoint. If 
 after twelve days the election does not take place, the king 
 nominates the bishop by letters patent, and the chapter, if it 
 opposes this, exposes itself to the penalties of prcemunire, 
 which renders the members liable to imprisonment " during
 
 ENGLAND. 105 
 
 the king's pleasure." At the same time the king takes pos- 
 session of the revenues. 
 
 But it is, in particular, of the supreme government of the 
 church that I would speak. In this the rights of the church 
 are still more completely sacrificed. 
 
 The Church of England is composed of two archiepisco- 
 pal provinces Canterbury and York. Each of these has 
 from very early times, probably since the reign of Edward I., 
 held convocations, or ecclesiastical synods ; which being 
 called to grant taxes to the crown, levied upon church prop- 
 erty, always met at the same time with the parliament. 
 
 The convocation of Canterbury, which is held at West- 
 minster, is composed of two houses the bishops' and the 
 lower house, in which are twenty-two deans, fifty-three arch- 
 deacons, twenty-four deputies from the chapters, and forty- 
 four of the lower clergy ; but no laymen. To these convo- 
 cations once belonged, saving the king's prerogative, the 
 government of the church. But in 171Y, at the time of the 
 Jacobite troubles, the debates having displeased government, 
 the convocation was dissolved ; and now it no longer exists. 
 It is true, that whenever a new parliament meets, the elec- 
 tions again take place ; the convocation assembles at West- 
 minster ; a Latin sermon is preached ; after which the con- 
 vocation recognizes what the last parliament has enacted 
 concerning ecclesiastical affairs, and draws up an address to 
 the king or the queen ; after this it adjourns sine die. Thus 
 the Anglican Church meets to take off its hat and make a 
 low bow to those who have taken away all its power, and 
 then the mutes disperse. It is the shadow of a body, which 
 having the shadow of a jurisdiction, holds the shadow of an 
 assembly ; and then all these shadows dissolve and vanish 
 under the antique arches, and among the pillars, statues, 
 urns, and tombs of the Gothic abbey. 
 
 The crown might convoke the synods ; but it never calls 
 them together, and thus, by maintaining the status quo, it 
 seems, in my opinion, to show that this right out not to be- 
 
 5*
 
 106 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 long to it. A right which is never made use of is an ab- 
 surdity. 
 
 Can such a church government subsist ? 
 
 I have often met with two very different opinions with re- 
 gard to the Church of England that which would preserve 
 every thing hi it, and that which would entirely abolish it. 
 Neither of these opinions is mine. This church, it must be 
 owned, is dear to the people of England ; and it has never 
 ceased to bear valuable fniits to Christianity in general. But 
 I do not think that in the present age the Church of England 
 can preserve the institutions which she owes to the middle 
 ages ; and I am of opinion that the changes, more or less 
 violent, which the state introduced into it during the eight- 
 eenth century, ought to be revised and corrected under a 
 more Christian influence. 
 
 . I believe in the preservation of the Church of England ; 
 but I also believe in her transformation. The state has 
 hitherto gagged and stifled her. I think that the Christian 
 element within her ought to disengage and develop itself, and 
 create a new independence and a new life. Of all Evangeli- 
 cal churches, that of England is the least ripe for indepen- 
 dence. The Reformation in the sixteenth century took deep 
 root among the people ; a biblical Christianity was then ar- 
 dently sought after ; but the change of the ecclesiastical 
 constitution was for the most part accomplished by the gov- 
 ernment, and consisted at first of little more than the substi- 
 tution of the king for the pope as the head of the church. 
 The English, therefore, stand upon a very different historical 
 ground to that of other nations ; and this we must consider 
 in order to do them justice. 
 
 But the force of times and circumstances is bringing about 
 a revolution which England little thought of. It is evident 
 that sinct> the Emancipation and other acts have given Ro- 
 man Catholics and Dissenters seats in parliament, it is an 
 unreasonable and humiliating thing for the church that par- 
 liament should rule over her. Only think of the tail of
 
 ENGLAND. 107 
 
 O'Connell, of Young Ireland those headstrong Papists, be- 
 ing placed by law among the heads of the Protestant Church 
 of England. It is one of those monstrosities which can only 
 last a few years. The principles of eternal justice will soon 
 set it right. 
 
 I stated my views on this subject in 1845, before leaving 
 England, in a letter addressed to one of its most venerable 
 leaders, the Bishop of Chester ; which, though published in 
 the English papers, was but little responded to.* The An- 
 glican church was formerly governed, as we have seen, by a 
 body purely clerical the convocation of the bishops and 
 other members of the clergy. All were sensible of the im- 
 mense abuses arising from this state of things, and, at the 
 beginning of the last century, it received a government 
 essentially lay the parliament. Every one feels, at present, 
 that this state of things, also, cannot exist. There evidently 
 must be a third. The Church of England must have a gov- 
 ernment independent of the parliament a government in 
 which, doubtless, the bishops will sit ; but in which will ap- 
 pear also the ordinary clergy, and wherein deputies from the 
 parishes will have an influential voice. Every true Protestant 
 should reject the hierarchical course ; which may be very ser- 
 viceable, perhaps, for ancient Egypt, or modern Rome, but is 
 unsuited to Great Britain. The ideas which I put forth in 
 my letter to the Bishop of Chester, may meet with contra- 
 diction, but they will also, I am certain, meet with commen- 
 dation. 
 
 One of the men who are called upon to exercise great in- 
 fluence in the Episcopal Church of England made this obser- 
 vation to me, which I well remember : " To wish in our 
 days for a church government without the intervention of 
 the members of the church, is to wish for a church -without 
 
 * I have been informed that an Evangelical Episcopal journal re- 
 fused to insert articles in which this letter was discussed, and which 
 were sent by one of its usual contributors.
 
 108 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 influence and without greatness." These are the words of a 
 dignitary of the church. 
 
 The want of ecclesiastical institutions and representation 
 in England, is, I am convinced, one of the most active causes 
 of Puseyism. Both the ministers and the members of a 
 church require occupation ; and when there are no public 
 institutious calling upon them to discuss ecclesiastical inter- 
 ests, and to realize salutary reforms, then they rush into 
 something else. In Germany, they have taken to science 
 and rationalism ; in England, they have turned to ecclesias- 
 ticism and popery. 
 
 The young men leave the universities. There they have 
 gone through their studies, philological, mathematical, 
 physical, architectural, if not theological ; but there, at least, 
 they found movement and, life. The more pious, no doubt, 
 devote themselves to the care of their flocks ; but even they 
 have need of some other aliment ; their intellect has wants ; 
 their ecclesiastical capacity demands to be satisfied; they 
 desire to escape from isolation. The greater the stores of 
 their minds, the greater will be their wants. They meet 
 with ideas of tradition, of succession, of sacramental influ- 
 ence, of sacerdotal character, all the tenets of false Catho- 
 licism. These proffered aliments the young men joyfully re- 
 ceive and devour ; and if no remedy be found, they will fall, 
 more and more, into that way of superstition. 
 
 This must not be overlooked. Doubtless, the first means 
 of remedying the evil is what I have pointed out namely, 
 pure Christian doctrine. However, since Puseyism is the re- 
 sult of certain ecclesiastical wants, some other means must 
 be sought to satisfy them. Channels should be formed in 
 which the life of the church may circulate. We have had 
 enough of " Tracts for the Times," of Puseyite romances, 
 disfigured histories, and architecture of the middle ages. 
 Something else is needed for the church ; she needs action 
 action, that great virtue of England. 
 
 Would it be erroneous to affirm, that the ecclesiastical
 
 ENGLAND. 109 
 
 forms of a Protestant people ought to be in correspondence 
 with their political forms ? Let us be rightly understood. 
 We by no means say, that because one form is in the state, 
 it ought also to be in the church ; this would be Erastianism, 
 and we reject it. But we ask, if it would be possible for a 
 nation which has felt a certain Christian influence in her po- 
 litical developments, to reject that influence in her ecclesias- 
 tical developments ? We find the principle of the deliber- 
 ative assemblies of Christendom in the 15th chapter of the 
 Acts of the Apostles, the result of whose deliberation was a 
 letter written from " The apostles, and elders, and brethren, 
 to the brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch, and 
 Syria, and Cilicia." Hence have proceeded, doubtless de- 
 creasing and degenerating, the synods and councils of Chris- 
 tendom ; and these institutions have powerfully concurred 
 in producing the political assemblies which are becoming 
 more and more prevalent among all Christian nations. Eng- 
 land is the nurse, the terra alma of these great debates. 
 From her they are transplanted into all other countries. 
 Now, while this form holds so important a part in the state, 
 is it possible it should hold none in the church ? 
 
 There is, in the spirit of a nation, a complete unity. If 
 the mind, in a certain sphere, needs to exhibit itself in cer- 
 tain forms, would it not, in another sphere, require some 
 analogous forms? What! a people will have publicity in 
 worldly things, and yet reject it in the things of the church ! 
 They demand to be enlightened by debates in matters of 
 taxes, of gold and silver ; and they care not for light upon 
 questions concerning imperishable riches more precious than 
 gold ! The ecclesiastical institutions of the first century 
 have helped to give political institutions to modern nations. 
 Will these nations reject the same institutions in the field of 
 the church, which is, however, the field peculiar to them, 
 and the soil in which they primitively flourished ? 
 
 How can any one in England deny the necessity of an ec- 
 clesiastical representation, in which the members of the
 
 110 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 church, and not the ministers alone, may be heard ? All the 
 societies formed for so many different objects, all these meet- 
 ings, all these deliberations are they not proofs of a want 
 which is felt more and more in the present day ? 
 
 It has been remarked, that there is in England much ec- 
 clesiastical isolation; a minister is frequently left almost 
 alone. This, in some cases, will not prevent him from act- 
 ing with fidelity and activity ; yet he will often fall into re- 
 missness, languor, supineness, and a death-like inertia. 
 
 An ecclesiastical constitution, inspired by a spirit of wis- 
 dom and piety, would remedy this evil. Councils, synods, 
 and connections of different ministers with each other, would 
 rouse those who are on the point of falling asleep, and be a 
 means which the grace of God would employ to " lift up 
 the hands that hang down, and the feeble knees." (Heb. 
 xii. 12.) They would prevent two evils the want of su- 
 perintendence, of order, and of discipline on the one hand ; 
 and the arbitrary rule of the bishops on the other. 
 
 But, above all, when once ecclesiastical rights are granted 
 to the members of the English parishes, as for so many cen- 
 turies political rights have been granted to the commons, the 
 Church of England will become what she ought to be, a truly 
 popular church. The state, by swallowing up the church, 
 has become great and powerful ; but what is the condition 
 of the people? Must not statesmen themselves acknowl- 
 edge that they are poorer and more vicious. This would 
 not have been the case, if the church, instead of appearing 
 only by its dignitaries, on the bishops' bench and in the 
 privy council, had also bestowed rights on her little ones, 
 on those members of the flock to whom the word gives so 
 high a place in the church of the living God. 
 
 I will only add that episcopacy, far from being shaken by 
 these important reforms, would, on the contrary, be strength- 
 ened by them. The executive power, the ecclesiastical ad- 
 ministration, the superintendence of the churches, would re-
 
 ENGLAND. Ill 
 
 main with the bishops, and the episcopal authority be placed 
 on a more elevated pedestal. 
 
 I conclude, by saying, that a revolution in theological in- 
 struction and in ecclesiastical institutions, are two grand de- 
 siderata in the Church of England. 
 
 These two revolutions would be at once salutary and glo- 
 rious. 
 
 The Roman phalanx is advancing in every country, and 
 presents a fearful front. How is it to be vanquished ? The 
 Bible tells us, " They overcame him by the blood of the 
 Lamb, and by the word of their testimony." The Word and 
 the Blood, behold the arms of the church ! 
 
 But will the church combat alone ? Is not the state called 
 upon to withstand Rome ? What, then, is the history of the 
 middle ages, but the picture of a great combat between the 
 State and the Papacy ? Can we do otherwise than withstand 
 an enemy who never ceases from attacking us ? and is not 
 every one aware that the sometimes hidden, but always cer- 
 tain aim of Rome, is to rule over the state ? It is painful and 
 alarming indeed, to see the enlightened statesmen of England 
 fancying that Rome has laid aside her ambition and her de- 
 signs, and is no longer to be distrusted. I do not think that 
 infatuation so astonishing has ever before been observed in 
 minds so eminent. Let the state arouse herself. Standing 
 upon the consciousness of her rights, let her keep Rome in 
 check ; nay, repel with firmness her hypocritical and crim- 
 inal invasions. 
 
 There are two powers that ought to attack Rome, as there 
 are two which Rome would enthral ? Let these two armies 
 set forward, each on its own ground, to meet the enemy. 
 Let the state proceed with her own warfare, and the church 
 also with hers. And, while the state opposes to Rome her 
 unquestionable rights, let the church oppose to her a living 
 and individual Christianity. 
 
 Our own little Geneva, and Great Britain, are both sus- 
 taining violent assaults ; but we shall not perish. No !
 
 112 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Evangelical Christianity will not perish either in Geneva, or 
 in England, or in the whole world. I have, for my warrant, 
 the memory of our fathers, the zeal of those who now pro- 
 fess "the faith which was once delivered to the saints." 
 Nay, more, I have for my warrant the ancient, immortal, and 
 ever faithful companions of the Lord our God. He will 
 neither forget the great nation of England, nor the small 
 community of which we, the countrymen of Calvin, form a 
 part ; countries so dissimilar in many respects, and which, 
 nevertheless, He has chosen the one in her power, the 
 other in her lowliness, to make them beacons of the Gospel 
 and bulwarks of Christianity.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SCOTLAND. 
 
 1 . Germany, England, and Scotland. Crossing England by Railway. 
 Arrival in Scotland. Chalmers. Edinburgh. The Old and the New 
 Town. The Castle Hill. Holyrood. 2. Difference between tho 
 English and the Scotch. Scottish Character. A Proof of the Ref- 
 ormation. Importance of Doctrine. Spirit and Life. Character of 
 Scottish Theology. Basis. Apex. 3. Worship. A Sermon. Length. 
 A Farewell Sermon. Liberty. The Lord's Supper. Standing or 
 Sitting 1 Discipline; Essential or not 1 Public Instruction. 4. Dis- 
 ruption of 1843. State of the Established Church. Holyrood and 
 the Lord High Commissioner. The General Assembly of the Estab- 
 lishment and the Platform. Was a Speech necessary ! Dinner at 
 Holyrood. 5. Impartiality. The Assembly Time. The 18th of May 
 and Cannon Mills. Our Entrance. A Scottish Assembly. Speech 
 of Chalmers. Geneva and Scotland. Popery and Erastianism. 
 Bonfires of Straw. 6. Speech of the Deputies: Dr. Gordon, Dr. 
 Macfarlane, Dr. Brown. Fatigue and Repose. 
 
 I. 
 
 EDINBURGH. 
 
 I HAVE spoken of England and of Germany. I might 
 have gone more deeply into the church questions of these 
 two countries, but one consideration has deterred me. Great 
 things are in preparation both for England and for Germany ; 
 but the crisis has not yet arrived, and I am no prophet. It 
 is not so with Scotland. There the crisis has not reached 
 its full development, but the effort has been made. On this 
 country, therefore, I shall especially dwell. 
 
 England, Germany, and Scotland exhibit, with regard to 
 the church, a different aspect.
 
 114 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 In Germany, the Vandal spirit of rationalism destroyed 
 every thing ; the church went to ruin, and that noble coun- 
 try presented a vast chaos in which contrary forces were 
 struggling together. But already the Spirit of God is mov- 
 ing on the face of the waters ; the divine word has been ut- 
 tered, and the new creation is begun. 
 
 In England, they had not fallen quite so low. Ancient 
 and venerable forms had been maintained ; but, generally 
 speaking, the true, the divine Spirit had forsaken those forms. 
 In its place a human spirit, produced by these very forms, 
 had taken possession of them ; and, alas ! still sits proudly in 
 the antique porch of many a college and cathedral. But the 
 true spirit, banished from these elevated stations, has found 
 refuge in humble retreats, and is now about to come forth with 
 power to attack the human and traditional one, and to drive 
 it from its Gothic strong-holds, and set up in its stead that 
 which is always ancient yet always new the Eternal spirit. 
 If ever it gains the mastery, may it so accomplish the primi- 
 tive reform, that these high places can no longer serve as a 
 retreat for the enemy ! 
 
 Scotland is in a better situation. A victory has been 
 achieved, but there are still many triumphs to be won. Vic- 
 tory has to struggle against victory itself. There are all 
 kinds of dangers for success : there are those of lassitude and 
 slumber, those of pride and disdain ; there are those of idola- 
 try, which makes an idol of all belonging to the conqueror ; 
 and there are those of narrowness, which forsakes the mighty 
 river of Christian life, to confine itself in paltry conduits. 
 
 Having thus glanced at Germany and England, I hasten 
 onward to Scotland. 
 
 I traversed England, from London to Newcastle, in one 
 short day, thanks to the railroads ! I often went forty-eight 
 miles in one hour, three times the distance from Geneva to 
 the other end of our lake. I flew like an arrow through 
 the delightful and celebrated landscapes of Derbyshire, and 
 waved my hand, as I passed by, to the majestic towers of
 
 SCOTLAND. 115 
 
 .the ancient Minster of York. The next day, for want of 
 better accommodation, I took my seat in one of those heavy 
 vehicles of the Middle Ages, called mails, or stage-coaches, 
 and proceeded slowly, by comparison, although at full gal- 
 lop, from Newcastle to Edinburgh. After crossing the Bor- 
 der, the magnificent ruins of Jedburgh Abbey, one of the 
 finest remains of Saxon architecture, soon attracted my no- 
 tice. These ruins of olden time, which appeared before me 
 the moment I entered Scotland, after having crossed the 
 desert moors which divide it from England, made a deep im- 
 pression upon me. I seemed to hear a voice from them say- 
 ing to me : " Thou art setting thy foot upon an ancient 
 land, and it is not only the present times which thou must 
 behold there, but those also which are no more !" 
 
 Yet I must not forget the present. After having passed 
 within sight of Abbotsford, celebrated as the residence of 
 Walter Scott, we arrived in Edinburgh. It was the day on 
 which the Queen's birth-day is kept ; there were great rejoic- 
 ings in the streets, and fireworks were thrown against the 
 coach. I had not yet alighted, when I perceived amidst the 
 crowd a head already whitened by age, with a lively eye and 
 benevolent smile. It was Chalmers, that man who for these 
 thirty years has been all over Europe the representative of 
 Scotland; he had had the kindness to come and meet me. 
 The hearty welcome of this venerable Christian, with whom 
 I was not before personally acquainted, and who adds to his 
 great genius the simplicity of a child, affected me even to 
 tears. Thenceforward I loved Chalmers as a brother, and 
 reverenced him as a father. I was united to him, to his 
 church, to his people, by a powerful bond of affection. A 
 month afterwards, having gone to spend my last two days in 
 Scotland with Chalmers, in a delightful village at Fairlie, on 
 the sea-shore, opposite the mountains of Arran, I repaired to 
 Greenock, to meet the steamer which was to carry me to Liv- 
 erpool ; and, notwithstanding the distance, notwithstanding 
 his age, and a heavy rain, (a Greenock day, as they call it
 
 116 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 there,) Chalmers would see me to my cabin, and did not leave 
 me till the signal was given for our departure. Chalmers was 
 the first and the last whom I saw in Scotland. If I recall 
 this cordial welcome, it is not only for the sake of doing honor 
 to this friend ; I merely point to the venerable Edinburgh pa- 
 triarch as the type of Scottish hospitality. 
 
 Here am I, then, in Edinburgh, the most picturesque of 
 all the towns which I have ever visited. Its situation has 
 been compared to that of Athens, but it is added that the 
 modern Athens is far superior to the ancient. Edinburgh, 
 built upon the two brows of a large terrace, presents the most 
 wonderful perspective. If from that beautiful Prince's Street, 
 which separates the Old Town from the New, you turn to- 
 wards the south, you have before you the old Edinburgh, with 
 its historic walls, its colleges, its hospitals, its ancient towers, 
 and those houses that, from the side on which you now look, 
 have as many as fourteen stories, while on the other they 
 have but two or three ; you see those narrower streets, in 
 which you must seek the memorials of the city, and in par- 
 ticular the residence of Knox, around which the Free Church 
 has lately purchased a site, to raise to the Reformer of Scot- 
 land a monument worthy of him, two churches and a school. 
 Geneva is not doing as much for Calvin ! 
 
 Such is the view which from the New Town we have of 
 the Old. But, if I change my position, and climb to the 
 heights of the Old Town, and look back to the place I have 
 just left, on the north side to the New Town, I then see a 
 very different prospect : squares, gardens, magnificent streets, 
 adorned as it were with palaces ; and, at the corner of two 
 
 of them, the hospitable abode in which Archibald B 
 
 received me like a brother ; that house, which, during the 
 sitting of the Assembly, never ceased to be filled with friends, 
 from breakfast time until after evening worship, between 
 eleven and twelve ; the crowd renewed at every moment, so 
 that it was rare to see the same face twice, and it might have 
 been called a very caravanserai of Christian friends, where
 
 SCOTLAND. 117 _ 
 
 every one is free to enter. Farther on, I beheld the Frith 
 of Forth ; the sea, with its islands, its rocks, its vessels trav- 
 ersing it in all directions ; towns, light-houses ; and all around 
 me in the distance the shadows of the Ochills and the Pent- 
 lands, and the rugged summits of the Grampians. 
 
 But what, even to a Swiss, is most striking in Edinburgh, 
 and especially when walking in the cool groves of the val- 
 ley which separates the Old Town from the New, is that 
 mountain, which, in the very midst of the city, shoots up its 
 immense and abrupt walls of rock, which an Irishman de- 
 scribed as being more than perpendicular. You wander 
 amid Scotch firs, (we call them here Genevese pines ; Ge- 
 neva and Scotland have both joined in giving their own name 
 to their favorite tree,) you contemplate the base of the 
 mountain, you climb from rock to rock, you hide yourself 
 under their shadow and dive into their recesses, you fancy 
 yourself in one of the most picturesque and most distant 
 solitudes of our Alps ; in some secluded glen of the Valais, 
 of the Oberland, or of Glaris, beside the Glaciers : you look 
 up, and palaces surround you ! 
 
 But what are those ancient walls which I see perched 
 upon the summit of these bold rocks ? What is that loud 
 blast of the trumpet which re-echoes from the heights ? 
 What mean the bands of armed Highlanders, who, clothed 
 in their picturesque costume, ascend and descend the moun- 
 tain ? These walls are the castrum puellarum, the camp of 
 the maidens, where in ancient times the Pictish kings, as the 
 tradition tells us, placed their daughters to be educated in 
 these inaccessible heights, safe from the tumults and the 
 wars of the plain ; it is the old Castle of Edinburgh, which 
 has been as the kernel to the town, that has gradually ger- 
 minated around it. More than once in critical circumstances 
 for the country, during the thirteenth, fourteenth, sixteenth, 
 and seventeenth centuries, armies have spread their banners 
 around this lofty fortress ; and now, all that remains of those 
 historical times, are the royal jewels of Scotland, the
 
 118 TEA YELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 crown, the sceptre and the sword, which, having been 
 found by accident, and in a dark room, are now exhibited at 
 noonday to visitors by the red glare of lamps. 
 
 But how many more memorials are there in Edinburgh ! 
 Coming down from the Castle, along the High Street and the 
 Canongate, which join the two most remarkable edifices of 
 the metropolis, Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace, I 
 find the ancient cathedral of St. Giles, near whose Gothic 
 walls lie the remains of Knox, and whose lofty aisles have 
 witnessed so many celebrated events of Scottish history. 
 Continuing my walk, I reach the palace of Holyrood, situat- 
 ed between the splendid Calton Hill, which commands the 
 sea, and on which stand the monuments of Nelson, and of 
 other famous men, and where a strong wind is always blow- 
 ing ; and on the other side Arthur's Seat, that picturesque 
 mountain which reminds us of our Saleve on a smaller scale. 
 Here, then, is Holyrood, that ancient abode of so much 
 grandeur, of so much beauty, of so many painful and terri- 
 ble remembrances. Here are the half destroyed walls of 
 that chapel, whose graceful ruins are a sad but significant 
 monument of the desire of the Stuarts to introduce Prelacy 
 and Popery into Scotland, and of the fruitlessness with 
 which efforts so uncongenial must ever be attended. But 
 the great name which seems to hover over Holyrood, is that 
 of the unfortunate Mary Stuart. We see her bed, her dress- 
 ing table, and her work. Every moment you meet with this 
 name in Scotland. " Here," they say, pointing to some fine 
 ruins, " Here Mary Stuart was born." " There, very near 
 Edinburgh, Mary often resided." They have given the name 
 of Little France to the village in which the French guards 
 were lodged. Nations keep the remembrance of those who 
 do them evil, better than that of those who have done them 
 good. Thus, near the Gulf of Baiae, not far from Naples, 
 you still find everywhere the memorials of Nero ; there are 
 Nero's baths, Nero's grotto, Nero's palace ; and farther on,
 
 SCOTLAND. 119 
 
 Nero, Tiberius, the Cape of Misene. The poets describe 
 with exactness the places in which tyrants resided. 
 
 Caesar Tiberius 
 In Misenensem villam 
 Quse monte summo posita Luculli manu, 
 Prospectat Siculum, et despicit Tuscum mare. 
 
 Thus, Scotland everywhere recalls Mary Stuart. "But 
 the memory of the just alone is blessed." I shall have 
 another opportunity of speaking of the recollections which 
 Mary Stuart has left in Holyrood. I now leave Edinburgh, 
 and turn to the Scottish people. 
 
 II. 
 
 SCOTTISH DOCTRINE. 
 
 A DISTINGUISHED th^logian, Dr. Sack, has said, that the 
 predominant principle in the English is the soul, V"/ 7 ? the 
 principle of life, of thought, of voluntary motion in man ; 
 and in the Scotch the mind, irvevpa that spiritual being by 
 which man enters into relation with God and the invisible 
 world. The Englishman, according to him, would lean more 
 towards reality, the Scotchman towards ideality. As this 
 distinction might lead to a deeper study and discussion than 
 we can now enter upon, I shall not dwell upon it. 
 
 I found the Scotchman kind, cordial, hospitable, active, 
 and generous. If I had accepted all the invitations which 
 were given me in Scotland, to spend only a few days with 
 each, I should certainly have been there until now. What 
 excellent people ; what love, what Christian life, what zeal, 
 what devotedness among all those kind friends by whom I 
 was surrounded ! I only regretted that what might have 
 filled up a year was crowded into a few days. I was more 
 especially struck by the energy of this people, their energy 
 of feeling, of words, and of action. There is still something
 
 120 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 of the old Scots and Picts in these Christians of the nine- 
 teenth century. Christianity has sunk deeper into them 
 than into any other nation ; but you see that the Christian sap 
 has been transfused into them, not from the weakened off- 
 shoots of the Romans, but from a young, vigorous, and in- 
 digenous stock. This union of natural energy, with that 
 energy which comes from above, can alone explain the Church 
 of Scotland, and what she is now doing. The Scotchman 
 has even the defects of his good qualities. If there are any 
 who are suspicious, violent, intolerant, or bitter, they are not 
 so by halves. This is to be found in the most legitimate 
 controversies ; as in the Apocryphal controversy, for instance, 
 which, although founded on justice, was sometimes carried 
 beyond all reasonable bounds. The same may perhaps be 
 said of more recent discussions. 
 
 The religious feeling which I pointed out as an essential 
 characteristic of the people of Great Britain, is still more de- 
 cided in the north ; and while the ^glishman is sometimes 
 inclined to asceticism and mysticism (the Puseyite movement 
 is with some purely ascetic), the Scotchman has certain as- 
 pirations, certain poetical desires, as to religious and invisible 
 things ; and every one is familiar with that species of vision- 
 ary prophecy, called in Scotland second sight. 
 
 Scotland appears to me to present the best proof of the 
 Reformation. I do not mean that nothing is wanting in it. 
 But, comparatively speaking, it is, of all Protestant nations, 
 that in which the Gospel has worked the best, and in which 
 its effects have been the most durable. This gives to Scot- 
 land a great importance in that Christian restoration which 
 we should wish our age to witness. Though Scotland should 
 not be for us the model country (it is in ages further back, 
 in the primitive times of Christianity, that the model of the 
 church is to be sought), it is perhaps destined at the present 
 period to be the vanguard of Christ's army. 
 
 What, then, has secured to the Church of Scotland this 
 eminent rank ? I hesitate not to reply, " Her attachment to
 
 SCOTLAND. 121 
 
 sound doctrine." When we see how important the church 
 question is in Scotland, and that for the sake of this question 
 a large number of ministers have forsaken all, we may per- 
 haps be disposed to think that the country takes no great 
 interest in doctrine. Quite the reverse ! It is because doc- 
 trine is placed so high in Scotland, that the church meets 
 with so much sympathy. Wherever doctrine is not cared 
 for, the people care little for the church, and a miserable 
 esprit de corps alone remains, which is the most opposed of 
 any to a Christian spirit. The church itself is doctrine. 
 The most characteristic distinction between the Christian 
 church and Paganism, Mahometanism and Deism, either pure 
 or Socinian, is the Christian doctrine, as essentially different 
 from the Pagan, Mahometan, Deistical, or Socinian doctrines. 
 This also distinguishes the Romish from the Protestant 
 church. Observe, when I speak of doctrine, I do not mean 
 a cold, arid, lifeless orthodoxy ; I mean " the doctrine which 
 is according to godliness," as the apostle says ; that doctrine 
 which produces life, which leads to regeneration, to sanctifi- 
 cation, to fellowship with God, and to good works. 
 
 The beautiful Westminster Confession is still the exponent 
 of the faith of the Church of Scotland. But doctrine, as it is 
 to be found within the Church of Scotland, is neither an ab- 
 stract dogma nor an obsolete formula. It is spirit and life. 
 These minds so quick and so penetrating ; these intellects so 
 moulded by public life and civil liberty, to great movements 
 and great manifestations ; these souls so fresh, so ardent, so 
 energetic, cannot take delight in that phantom of orthodoxy 
 which we have seen on the Continent subsisting long after 
 the life of faith had disappeared. The critical, exegetical; 
 patristic, or historical element, which characterizes Germany, 
 does not, it is true, exist to the same degree in Scotland ; yet 
 we must not therefore expect to find an external and super- 
 ficial theology. There is more real theology, that is to say, 
 knowledge of God, in Scotland, than in Germany. You will 
 find the fundamental basis of faith laid down with great wis- 
 
 6
 
 122 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 dom and great energy ; you will find an incomparable firm- 
 ness in the development of the whole Christian system, a 
 clear and penetrating spirit, which distinguishes, explains, 
 and characterizes every dogma and every question with re- 
 markable distinctness ; and, over all, you will find a steadi- 
 ness and assurance which does one good, after being accus- 
 tomed to see so many theologians in Germany and elsewhere, 
 hesitating and contradicting themselves, being like " children 
 tossed to and fro, and carried about by every wind of doc- 
 trine." 
 
 The Scottish theologian places himself at once in the cen- 
 tre of the Christian doctrine ; it is on faith in the reconcilia- 
 tion by the expiatory sacrifice of Christ that, he takes his 
 stand. This grand dogma, which tells us at once of the sin 
 of man and the grace of God ; this fundamental doctrine, 
 which contains, on the one hand, the consciousness of our 
 guilt, and, on the other, the assurance of an irrevocable coun- 
 sel of mercy and salvation, is the vivifying centre of Scotch 
 theology. Faith in the Lamb of God, who has borne the 
 sins of the world ; this is the milk with which the Scottish 
 child is fed in the schools of the towns, the mountains, and 
 the plains ; and the strong meat, whose nourishing juices are 
 dispensed by the theologians of Edinburgh or Glasgow to 
 the future ministers of the church. 
 
 But if Christ, once dead, is the groundwork of the edifice, 
 Christ now living is its corner-stone. If there are some 
 countries in Christendom which worship Christ as much in 
 his death and as a victim (which there certainly are), I think 
 that there are none which honor Christ in his imperishable 
 life as King so much as the Church of Scotland. Christ is 
 to the Scotch the High Priest, ever living, incessantly inter- 
 ceding for His people. He is with them the Prince who 
 truly reigns -over the church ; and they are quite in earnest 
 in taking Him for their King. Nay, more, Christ is also for 
 the Scotch, He who will " come quickly." Without, per- 
 haps, entering so much as the English into millenial questions
 
 SCOTLAND. 123 
 
 and Apocalyptical calculations (which I do not mean to de- 
 spise, but which, as has been observed, may sometimes be 
 carried to excess), the Scottish Christians, more perhaps than 
 any other people, look forward with hope and joy to the 
 approaching coming of the Saviour. 
 
 III. 
 
 WORSHIP. 
 
 LET us take a nearer view of the religion of this people. 
 Let us enter one of. the temples wherein a Christian congre- 
 gation is worshipping the Lord, and bow down with them 
 before the throne of grace. 
 
 If you happen to be within a Scottish church, the worship 
 edifies, and even awes you, by its great simplicity, by the 
 devout attention of the flock, and by the singing of psalms 
 carefully performed by the faithful, but without the aid of 
 an organ. This instrument is almost a Romish superstition 
 in the eyes of the Scotch. The preacher commences his 
 discourse, and what strikes you is, not the oratorical arrange- 
 ment or the brilliant imagery the Scottish minister, on the 
 contrary, aims at great plainness but what is presented to 
 you is a series of thoughts well conceived and well ordered. 
 The only observation I have to make is, that occasionally the 
 ramifications of these thoughts are perhaps carried to an 
 extreme. I heard a Scotch sermon which was like a tree, 
 and the comparison is certainly not unfavorable ; the doc- 
 trine was exhibited in full detail ; there was not only the 
 stem, and the limbs, and the branches, but even the smallest 
 bough, the slightest stalk, the tiniest leaf. The idea, the 
 doctrine, was divided and subdivided almost to extinction. 
 I hasten to say that it was not during my last journey, but 
 some eight or nine years ago, that I heard a sermon of this 
 kind on justification by faith, preached by a Minister of the 
 Presbyterian Church in London, who, with a voice like
 
 124 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 thunder, presented the most minute and orthodox analysis, 
 and in which truly nothing was wanting, nothing, excepting 
 the essential the life. I would have given anything to have 
 had fewer distinctions, orthodox as they were, and in their stead 
 one single sigh one burst of the soul. May God preserve our 
 churches from a new scholasticism, more pure, indeed, than 
 the former, but which, nevertheless would be their death ! 
 
 In Scotland the discourses, and especially the prayers, are 
 rather long ; the latter, in my opinion, too much so. A 
 Christian alone in his closet may pray for a quarter, a half, 
 a whole hour, or more ; but when a large assembly has been 
 praying for ten or fifteen minutes, are not most of the hear- 
 ers unable to follow the prayer, except on extraordinary oc- 
 casions, and sadly liable to wandering thoughts ? On the 
 Continent, at least, it would be thus. Now, a minister 
 must be all things to all men, and accommodate himself to 
 the weaknesses of a large auditory. 
 
 All things considered, better preachers are to be found in 
 Scotland than in any other country of Christendom. We gen- 
 erally see, mingled in due proportion, in the discourses of the 
 Scottish preachers, those two elements which constitute all 
 Christian eloquence the objective truth on the one hand, 
 and the individuality of the preacher on the other. The de- 
 velopment of the latter principle, the subjective element, is 
 very prominent among some of the leading men in Scotland ; 
 and this it is which constitutes their eloquence, but not to the 
 injury of the other. Perhaps, on the contrary, among the mass 
 of the preachers, the former element is too predominant. 
 
 I had the high satisfaction during my stay in Scotland of 
 hearing Dr. Chalmers. You know that he was a minister 
 of Glasgow, first in the Tron Church, and afterwards in St. 
 John's. Dr. Brown, his friend, and successor in the latter 
 church, having left the Establishment in 1843, his people 
 built him a Free church, in which they studiously endeav- 
 ored to give the architecture a certain style of elegance, in 
 order, no doubt, to show what can be done in our own day
 
 SCOTLAND. 125 
 
 by the free contributions of Christians. The steeple, tower, 
 and facade, of this building, make it one of the finest in 
 Scotland. I will not here repeat passages of the sermon ; 
 I have already spoken of Chalmers ; and, besides, some of 
 his discourses, translated into French by Professor Diodati, 
 one of the best preachers of Geneva, are known to every 
 body. But what I would say is, that it was the last time 
 Chalmers preached in Glasgow, where he had first begun to 
 be known to the Christian world. You can imagine the de- 
 sire felt in that city to hear him ; the crowds that gathered 
 from all quarters ; but you can have no idea of the order 
 and the devotion of the Assembly. The collection, on leav- 
 ing the church, amounted to 40,000 francs (1600?.), for the 
 morning service only ; there was another in the afternoon, 
 and one in the evening. These 40,000 francs, thrown into 
 the plate at the church door by Christians who, to build 
 this church, had already taxed themselves extraordinarily in 
 considerable sums, is a characteristic feature of the Free 
 Church of Scotland. On leaving the church, Chalmers 
 took my arm, and we retired together. A great crowd 
 gathered in the wide streets of Glascow, to behold the ven- 
 erable and humble doctor, the pride of Scotland, and we 
 could with difficulty make our way along. 
 
 There is in the Scottish worship an element of liberty. It 
 is the expression of the free-will and the Christian piety of 
 the congregation there is no liturgy. On certain occasions 
 they even preach in the streets, in the highways, in the open 
 air, and always with admirable order, and without those raille- 
 ries and insults which would not be wanting in many countries 
 of the Continent. One Sunday, while I was in Edinburgh, 
 there was a service in Gaelic (the language of the Highlands), 
 under a tent ; I went near, But without understanding one 
 word of it. These Highlanders, with their short kilts, bare 
 
 O 
 
 legs, plaids thrown over their shoulders, and raised heads, 
 covered with their characteristic bonnet, presented a most 
 picturesque spectacle.
 
 126 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 After speaking of sermons, shall I take you to the celebra- 
 tion of the Lord's Supper in Scotland ? The Scotch hold 
 that we cannot change the least thing in the sacrament which 
 Christ has instituted, without offending against His kingship. 
 They think that the Supper celebrated by the Lord with his 
 disciples, was a true repast, and ought now to be remembered 
 by us in the position natural to a meal, that is, neither kneel- 
 ing nor standing, but sitting. I had a very fraternal discus- 
 sion on this subject with a Scotch minister. I will not 
 dispute the principle on which they act I admit it I shall 
 only observe that in the Supper there can be no question of 
 servile imitation ; if it were so, the Scotch themselves should 
 be rebuked ; for the disciples were not sitting, they were, 
 according to the Eastern custom, reclining on small couches. 
 I will add that there are two positions in which we may 
 place ourselves when about to eat. When hurried, on a 
 journey, or even in haste at home, we eat standing. Thus 
 was the sacrament of the Paschal Lamb originally instituted. 
 "Thus shall ye eat it," said the Lord to Moses, "with your 
 loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your 
 hand ; and ye shall eat in haste : it is the Lord's Passover." 
 This standing posture to eat the Passover, which is the one 
 we still adopt, well represents our deliverance from the 
 bondage of sin, as well as the necessity of marching onward 
 from that moment to meet Him whose death we are to " show 
 forth until He come." If, when standing at the Supper, we 
 think of the things signified thereby, it would be, I am sure, 
 a source of much edification. 
 
 The Lord's Supper in Scotland, which is celebrated in the 
 most complete silence, is very solemn, and recalls in a satis- 
 factory manner its first institution. It is kept only twice a 
 year, and the Church of Scotland is thus distinguished from 
 the Lutheran and Anglican churches, in which it is repeated 
 every week, or at least every month. Each of these two cus- 
 toms has its advantages. Frequent communion, more in 
 accordance with the habit of the primitive Christians, seems
 
 SCOTLAND. 127 
 
 more appropriate to select and truly Christian flocks ; while 
 the contrary system, which makes the days of its celebration 
 periods of general penitence and solemnities of Christian 
 brotherhood, is most appropriate to multitudinous churches. 
 
 It is only, however, to a certain extent that the Church of 
 Scotland deserves this latter name ; ecclesiastical discipline is 
 enforced in the established, as well as in the free and the 
 dissenting churches. This ecclesiastical discipline may be 
 exaggerated ; and it has sometimes been harsh, domineering, 
 and superstitious. But there is a right discipline ; the care 
 taken of the salvation, of the sanctification, of the Christian 
 life of every one by the directors of a church, whether minis- 
 ters or elders ; the watchful love which they bear to the 
 eternal life of the church members, a serious love, which 
 would prevent them from eating and drinking judgment to 
 themselves, by partaking unworthily of the bread and the 
 cup of the Lord. On the Continent the Protestant churches 
 in general profess to believe, that only two things are essen- 
 tial to a church : Firstly, the profession of true doctrine ; 
 and secondly, the administration of the sacraments con- 
 formably to Christ's institution. Wherever these things are 
 not to be found, there may be a religious establishment 
 maintained by the civil power, but there is no true church of 
 the Lord. It is allowed, however, on the Continent, that a 
 church which has a discipline, is a better, a more perfect, 
 a normal church. It is not so with the Church of Scot- 
 laud. With her, discipline is a qualification which the church 
 cannot be without. The first Confession of Faith of Scot- 
 land, speaking in the eighteenth chapter " Of the Notes by 
 which the True Kirk is discerned from the False," states, 
 first, the two signs we have pointed out, and then adds, in 
 the last place, " Ecclesiastical discipline uprightly ministered, 
 as God his word prescribeth, whereby vice is repressed and 
 virtue nourished."* 
 
 * Postremo loco est disciplina ecclesiastica recte administrata. (Conf. 
 Scot. I. 18.)
 
 128 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 In Scotland, as formerly in Geneva, the church rebukes, 
 and even, if necessary, excludes from the Holy Supper, those 
 who have fallen into any scandalous sin. The great solem- 
 nity of the Communion makes such an exclusion the more 
 sensibly felt, and thus discipline keeps in the path of duty 
 many persons who might otherwise easily go astray. Often 
 when a father comes to ask for baptism for his child, he is 
 answered, " You are an unclean person, or a drunkard ; what 
 assurance have we that you will bring up your child in the 
 fear of the Lord ?" The strictness of the Scotch in this re- 
 spect is the more natural, as they have no godfathers and 
 godmothers to take care of the child, if the parents neglect 
 it. They regard this institution as opposed to the headship 
 of Christ, who never commanded it ; and they place it in the 
 same rank as the refusal of the cup in the Romish Church, 
 or the invention of the five sacraments unrecognized by the 
 Lord. This is, I think, going rather too far : it is natural 
 that baptism should have witnesses, and with us the god- 
 father and godmother are nothing more. 
 
 As to the instruction of the people, it is much more gen- 
 erally diffused in Scotland than in England. The Bible' and 
 the Catechism are familiar to every Scottish child. Scotland, 
 Holland, and our French Switzerland, which are the three 
 countries in which the Reformation was the most complete 
 and the most pure, are also of all the countries of Christen- 
 dom, nay, even of the world, those over which intellectual 
 culture is the most universally spread. I have entered a 
 poor hut in the Highlands, built of a few rough stones, 
 scarcely rising above the ground, and roofed with turf, and 
 beside which one of our chalets would be almost a palace, 
 and I have found hi it people of pleasing manners and of a 
 remarkable cultivation, which formed a striking contrast with 
 their poverty. A pure and living Christian church is the 
 greatest blessing that can be granted to a people, it is the 
 only instrument fitted to civilize nations.
 
 SCOTLAND. 129 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE CHURCH AND THE PALACE. 
 
 THE most striking thing in Scotland, at the present time, 
 is the division which took place in her national church in 
 1843. It is now divided into two parts : the one half re- 
 maining Established, that is, connected with, and more or 
 less subordinate to, the government ; the other having be- 
 come Free, resembling what has lately happened in the Can- 
 ton de Vaud. These two parts of the National Church of 
 Scotland have about an equal number of adherents. Though 
 even the Established Church were the more numerous, (and 
 I do not think it is,) the difference would be compensated by 
 the zeal and fervor of the members of the Free Church. In 
 such a case we weigh, we do not measure. 
 
 At the time when I arrived in Edinburgh the two churches 
 were drawn up in array. Their two General Assemblies (we 
 should call them their two synods) were holding their sit- 
 tings at the same time, and I saw both of them. 
 
 I do not mean to speak here as the exclusive friend of one 
 of these churches, and the enemy of the other. I do not 
 conceal my sympathy with the principles and the works of 
 the Free Church, but I wish to do justice to the Established 
 Church. This church, transported to the Continent, would 
 be, both as regards doctrine and constitution, in advance of 
 many of our national churches ; more so, for instance, than 
 a great part of the churches of Germany in their present 
 state ; than the reformed churches of France ; and, it is 
 needless to add, more advanced than those of Geneva and 
 Vaud. We continentals can have, therefore, no right to 
 throw a stone at her. I respect many of the men who are 
 in the Established Church of Scotland. I should like to 
 see Scotland united ; and which of her sons does not share 
 in such a wish ? Far from delighting to set the two churches 
 6*
 
 130 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 against each other, like two hostile camps, I would rather 
 see them draw towards each other like two sisters, and com- 
 bine into one church, independent of political power. This 
 is the best wish, I am convinced, that can be formed for 
 Scotland, for her prosperity, her holiness, and her glory. 
 
 The great distinction of the Established Church is the 
 splendor that surrounds her. A state like that of Great 
 Britain is no contemptible matter ; and there can be little 
 doubt, that to be the church recognized by the state, and 
 kept up by its favor, is a kind of glory, by which many 
 minds on the Continent would be swayed. To see in her 
 temples, when she visits Scotland, Queen Victoria, that sov- 
 ereign of the Indies and of the seas ; to have on her side 
 the greatest statesmen, such as Peel and Aberdeen, the two 
 houses of parliament of the most powerful nation of the 
 globe, and the most illustrious and the most learned lords 
 are honors by which, for my own part, 1 own myself but 
 little impressed, but which must, nevertheless, be a great 
 distinction hi the eyes of many. 
 
 Holyrood, the ancient palace of the Scottish kings, is sel- 
 dom opened except during the General Assembly of the 
 Established Church : but it is then filled with guards and 
 officers ; while a royal Lord High Commissioner there rep- 
 resents the queen. The Marquis of Bute, a Scottish noble- 
 man, respected by all parties, has for some years filled that 
 important office. 
 
 I saw both parties, and must now, as characteristic of 
 Scotland at present, say something of them. I beg to be 
 excused if I am personally mixed up with them. 
 
 I begin with the Established Church, and equity requires 
 me to say that I have rather beheld her in her relations with 
 the state, than in herself : these relations are what especially 
 distinguishes her, and must consequently most attract the 
 attention of a foreigner. 
 
 The Lord High Commissioner had the kindness to invite 
 me, through the Moderator, Dr. Hill, to go and pay my re-
 
 SCOTLAND. 131 
 
 spects to him. A stranger in the country, I could only has- 
 ten to offer my homage to the queen's representative. A 
 carriage of the court came to fetch us, and the Moderator 
 and I arrived at the palace at his Grace's levee about ten 
 o'clock. We crossed the courts, the halls and anti-chambers 
 of that ancient edifice, and reached a spacious saloon, where 
 stood the Lord High Commissioner, in full dress, surrounded 
 by several noblemen, officers, and other persons, who were 
 paying their respects to him. A personage, wearing a black, 
 antique, and singular costume, who was, I think, the master 
 of the ceremonies, presented me to the Marquis of Bute, 
 who, with much kindness, addressed me in French, and in- 
 vited me to dine the same day at the palace. I accepted the 
 invitation and withdrew. 
 
 One of the officers of the court followed and said to me, 
 " We are going to the General Assembly ; stay a moment, 
 and you will go with his Grace." I thought proper to re- 
 fuse, for several reasons, especially (this was what I alleged) 
 because I had made an engagement to see in the course of 
 the morning the Castle, the Parliament House, the Univer- 
 sity, and other curiosities of Edinburgh. " Well," said one 
 of the elders of the Established Church, with whom I had 
 travelled from Newcastle to Edinburgh, and who had very 
 kindly welcomed me, " I will come and meet you at the Cas- 
 tle ; we will go and see the rest of the lions together, and 
 among others, the General Assembly." I thanked him, and 
 agreed. I preferred walking quietly into the Assembly to 
 going in the Queen's carriage with her representative. It 
 was too high an honor for me. " 
 
 When, after having seen the Castle and the Parliament 
 House, we arrived at the church in which the Established 
 General Assembly was sitting ; " As you were presented to 
 his Grace this morning," said my friend ; " we will go to his 
 platform." I should have preferred a more modest place, 
 but it was impossible : a door immediately opened before 
 us, and we were admitted to our seats, I on the right, and
 
 132 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 my companion on the left of the throne of the Lord High 
 Commissioner. 
 
 The platform in which I was seated rises majestically 
 over the Moderator's chair, as if to represent the superiority 
 of the state over the church. The Commissioner's throne is 
 placed under a rich canopy of crimson velvet. Behind him 
 stand two little pages, with powdered hair, in full court 
 dresses of scarlet ; in the background were several officers 
 in waiting. The Marquis of Bute, who was in an adjoining 
 room when we arrived, entered almost immediately after. 
 Below the throne was the Assembly, besides the ministers, 
 the elders, and a few advocates in their gowns and wigs, 
 representing the courts of law which now exert so great an 
 influence over the Established Church. As for the audience 
 or spectators, they were very few in number, scattered here 
 and there in the nave ; and in the galleries there were none. 
 
 " Ran nantes in gurgite vasto." 
 
 At the sight of so much grandeur, and at the same time 
 so much coldness, one could not help inquiring whether this 
 Assembly, which had in its favor the pompous representa- 
 tion of power, possessed also the cordial sympathies of the 
 people. However, I was told, that in the evening there 
 were more spectators present. After having for a short time 
 listened to their debates, the subject of which I do not 
 remember, I rose, made a low bow to his Grace, and re- 
 tired. 
 
 It was a general wish that I would make a speech before 
 this Established Assembly. My friend, Mr. Frederic Monod, 
 the delegate from Paris, and I, had even received a deputa- 
 tion to that effect. We thought it right to refuse. In the 
 first place, it was to the Free Church that we had been 
 deputed ; and I was not even aware that the Established 
 Church was sitting, until the very moment of my arrival in 
 Edinburgh. Besides, we perceived that such was the state 
 of the public mind in Scotland, that we must absolutely
 
 SCOTLAND. 133 
 
 make a choice ; and thus we had only to keep within the 
 limits of our commission. In fact, neither of these churches 
 look with complacency on those who are undecided ; and 
 this is very natural. Some colonial churches of Australia, 
 having, after much hesitation and wavering between the 
 Establishment and the Free Church, decided at last upon 
 belonging to " both Assemblies :" this resolution, was not 
 only repulsed disdainfully by the Established, but received 
 in the Free Assembly, while I was present, with shouts of 
 laughter. I had no wish for either of these fates. Besides, 
 what could I have said in the Established Church ? It would 
 have been against my conscience not to speak in all sincerity ; 
 and yet my remarks would have been out of place before so 
 august a body. I repeat, I should like to see once more, 
 and at no distant day, a united Assembly ; still I think that, 
 under the circumstances, Mr. Monod and I took the only 
 course honorable and possible. And in fact, the deputies 
 of the Established Church, who behaved towards us with 
 much consideration and nobleness, said to us, " Had we been 
 in your place we should have acted as you did." 
 
 In the evening I returned to the palace, to the state din- 
 ner. In one of the most spacious halls of Holyrood stood 
 an immense table magnificently covered. There might have 
 been about eighty guests. The Lord High Commissioner 
 was seated in the middle, and by his side were placed two 
 Scottish lords. Opposite to him was the Moderator, and on 
 his right hand I was seated. On the other side I had the 
 Hebraist, Dr. Lee, one of the most famous and amiable pro- 
 fessors of the University of Edinburgh. Many toasts were 
 given for the Queen, the Church, Scotland, &c. There were 
 only men present, but the Lord High Commissioner invited 
 six or eight of the guests to take coffee with the Marchioness 
 of Bute, in her apartment, and had the kindness to include 
 me in the number. Some time after we retired, and the 
 Marquis accompanied me to the door of the drawing-room 
 with the kindest expressions.
 
 134 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 V. 
 
 THE FREE ASSEMBLY. 
 
 I NOW leave the Assembly of the Established Church, sur- 
 rounded by all the pomp of royalty, and turn to that of the 
 Free Church. I repeat it, I wish to be impartial, and I 
 think I have been and am so, notwithstanding what some 
 persons may say.* I can respect and admire the science 
 of Dr. Lee, the grace of Dr. Hill, the seriousness of Dr. 
 Muir, the eloquence of Mr. MacLeod, and the many other 
 eminent qualities that are to be found in this church. But 
 ought a traveller to carry impartiality so far as to conceal 
 the impressions he 1 has received from the things he has seen ? 
 I do not think he ought, and were I to do so the distin- 
 guished men I have just named would themselves be the 
 first to condemn me. I will) therefore, speak without parti- 
 ality and without fear. 
 
 On passing from one Assembly to the other, we feel that 
 the state and its power, the nobility and their influence, are 
 with the Established Church ; and certainly this is some- 
 thing. The Free Church has on her side the people and 
 their enthusiasm ; but let us not forget that among this peo- 
 ple there are to be found influential merchants and manufac- 
 turers, enlightened lawyers, respectable magistrates, and no- 
 bles belonging to the most illustrious houses of Scotland. 
 
 Perhaps the union of Scotland with England, which re- 
 moved the seat of government, and afterwards the parlia- 
 ment itself from Edinburgh to London, may have contributed 
 to direct the attention of the Scottish people to church mat- 
 
 * I was surprised to see the contrary opinion expressed by the Lord 
 Provost of Edinburgh, on the occasion of an honor which it was in- 
 tended to confer on me. I can assure the Scotch, that an act of the 
 Town Council of Edinburgh is not necessary to my becoming their coun- 
 tryman. However that may be, I am at heart their fellow-citizen.
 
 SCOTLAND. 135 
 
 ters. The meeting of the General Assembly of the church, 
 which takes place every year in Edinburgh at the end of May, 
 has become the greatest solemnity of Scotland. The As- 
 sembly sits for ten days, Sunday excepted, from eleven 
 o'clock till midnight, or sometimes two o'clock in the morn- 
 ing ; and if at that late hour any person wishes to retire be- 
 fore the closing prayer, one of the clerks cries, " Lock the 
 doors !" and he must stay. It is true, that at ten o'clock in 
 this country it is still light enough to read. All church bus- 
 iness is publicly transacted in the General Assembly ; and 
 in the Free Church, before an immense auditory, often of 
 four thousand persons. 
 
 I wish I could give an idea of the first sitting of the Free 
 General Assembly at which I was present. It was known 
 that Dr. Chalmers, who had lately announced his intention 
 of devoting himself exclusively to his functions of professor 
 of theology, and of retiring from all other public business, 
 would on that occasion raise his venerated voice (some 
 thought for the last time) to introduce three foreign ministers, 
 sent to Scotland from France, Switzerland, and Germany. 
 They could not certainly do us greater honor than appoint 
 Chalmers to introduce us. The thought of hearing once 
 more this venerable old man, whose life had been so full of 
 action and of power, and whose voice (a fact before unheard 
 of in the history of the church) had, as if endowed with 
 magic power, twice covered the whole of his country with 
 temples consecrated to the Lord ; perhaps also the thought 
 of saluting the foreigners, had drawn together an extraor- 
 dinary concourse. The Free General Assembly meets in a 
 plain, modest, but vast building, formerly destined, I be- 
 lieve, for a manufactory, situated at Cannon Mills, at the foot 
 of a hill on a picturesque road leading to the sea, towards 
 Fife. The hall is low, which renders the atmosphere stifling ; 
 but it is very spacious. Under its bare rafters and rude 
 beams, which form a strong contrast with the desert magnifi- 
 cence of the Established Assembly ; with no throne, no Lord
 
 136 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 High Commissioner, no powdered pages, was assembled, on 
 the evening of the 18th of May, an immense auditory enthu- 
 siastic for the church and for liberty. 
 
 The ministers and elders, members of this great synod, 
 who are very numerous, were seated round the table and the 
 Moderator's chair. A Christian people filled the rest of the 
 hall. A number of ministers and elders, not members of 
 Assembly, had come to Edinburgh from different parts of 
 the country on this occasion, and after the morning meeting, 
 many ladies and gentlemen had intruded into the benches 
 for the evening sitting. No one enters without a ticket, 
 which may cost as much as ten francs, and the hall is gen- 
 erally filled. I shall never forget the moment we entered, 
 my friend, Mr. Frederic Monod, of Paris, the Rev. Mr. 
 Kuntze, of Berlin, and I, following Chalmers's steps. Not 
 only every seat, but every passage was full ; and even where 
 there was no possibility of standing, some had found means 
 of suspending themselves ; and groups of heads pressed to- 
 gether, heaped up, and piled one above another, rose like an 
 amphitheatre from the floor to the roof. Long before the 
 commencement of business, there was no getting in, whatever 
 price was offered for a ticket, and a crowd surrounded the 
 entrances without being able to hear any thing. We ad- 
 vanced slowly, headed by Dr. Chalmers, as it was necessary 
 for the dense crowd to open and allow us a passage. Some 
 one was reading at that moment a report of the committee 
 for the propagation of Christianity among the Jews; but 
 the instant Dr. Chalmers appeared, a general movement in- 
 terrupted the reporter. The audience rose, shouted, clapped 
 their hands, stamped, and waved hats and handkerchiefs. I 
 can speak of this, for I shared not in these acclamations ; I 
 had arrived only the day before, and nobody knew my face. 
 Whenever Chalmers or any other personage, either a Scotch- 
 man or a stranger, who attracts much attention, appears in 
 the hall, he receives the same salutation, unless they are 
 either praying, reading the Scriptures, or singing, in which
 
 SCOTLAND. 137 
 
 case all goes on in perfect silence ; but if an orator is speak- 
 ing, or a report is being read, the business, whatever it may 
 be, is forgotten, and the only way of preventing this noisy 
 interruption is to glide behind some high benches, holding 
 down your head, and thus slipping unperceived into the 
 place you are to occupy. The same enthusiastic demonstra- 
 tions often burst forth in the midst of the speeches of the 
 most eloquent orators. The moment some powerful expres- 
 sion, some " winged word," strikes the assembly, it acts like 
 a waterspout falling on a calm and quiet sea. The waters 
 move and rise ; the waves roll onward and rush together, 
 now falling, and now dashing furiously upwards. A Scottish 
 assembly is no corpse that nothing can move, as our own too 
 often are ; it is a living body of extreme sensibility, which 
 will start at the slightest touch. Yes: these multitudes feel- 
 ing so deep an interest in the debates of the church, for the 
 cause of the people of God, is a spectacle which even the 
 world does not present, when political debates are in prog- 
 ress, and the earthly interests of nations are at stake. 
 Neither hi the Houses of Parliament in London, nor in the 
 Palais Bourbon in Paris, is to be seen any thing like what is 
 witnessed in the Cannon Mills at Edinburgh. Let us, there- 
 fore, respect these noisy exhibitions, however extraordinary 
 they may appear to us. It is right that the church should 
 somewhere show to that world which so often sneers at her, 
 that she is able to feel more enthusiasm for the cause of 
 Christ, than the world does for social and material interests. 
 
 We thus advanced, following the gray head of Chalmers : 
 a Parisian newspaper, " l'Esp6rance," (generally Christian, 
 but rather high church,) took an opportunity, in a report of 
 this meeting, to speak jestingly of the circumstances. " The 
 hoary head," Solomon declares, " is a crown of glory." 
 
 Chalmers, as he said at the time, felt as if that were the 
 most interesting moment of his existence. Can I avoid re- 
 peating his eloquent and energetic discourse ? Can I, for 
 instance, keep back these words addressed so particularly to
 
 138 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Geneva ? " I know not how it is," exclaimed Chalmers, 
 " there is no geographical relation between Geneva and 
 Scotland: Geneva is not much in the way, but certainly 
 there is a strong historical relation between them. Why, 
 in former days, as by an electric spark from Geneva, the 
 moment that Knox landed upon our shores, a flame was 
 awakened, which quickly spread itself over all the provinces 
 of Scotland. Could that flame be again awakened, the cause 
 of truth might again prevail over the counsels of the ungodly, 
 as it did centuries ago, when in the days of Mary and of 
 James, it prevailed over the perfidy of courts !" 
 
 Chalmers went still farther. His great name has been 
 throughout both Scotland and England, as upon the Conti- 
 nent, the apology of the Free Church. Many were unable 
 to study the whole details of the question ; but Chalmers, 
 one of the most philosophical minds, and one of the most 
 Christian souls of our age, was upon that side ; this was 
 sufficient to make them say, " There lies the truth ;" and I 
 should not be surprised, if the thought that a Corresponding 
 Member of the Institute of France was at the head of this 
 movement, had some influence in biasing the Journal des 
 Debats in its favor, as shown in a remarkable article which 
 appeared in it at the time of the disruption. The adversa- 
 ries of the Free Church laying hold of the fact that Chal- 
 mers, on account of his age, had retired from the Financial 
 Committee, were saying, when I arrived in England, that he 
 had had enough of it, and that he was drawing back. The 
 doctor thought it his duty, such is my opinion at least, to 
 embrace this opportunity of declaring, that his sentiments 
 were still the same, and he did so with precision and energy. 
 " What I have to say may look a little hard and exclusive ; 
 nevertheless I will not forget the apostolic admonition of 
 ' first pure, then peaceable,' it may look a little hard and 
 exclusive ; but I do confess to you that I regard as co-ordi- 
 nate errors, standing upon the same level, antichristian 
 Erastianism on the one hand, and popery on the other .
 
 SCOTLAND. 139 
 
 (that is to say, the doctrine which attributes supremacy in 
 the church to the state, and that which attributes it to the 
 priest of Rome.) It is of no consequence to me where the 
 power that claims to be paramount to the Bible springs from, 
 whether it come from a civil or from an ecclesiastical 
 source ; it is still human authority claiming precedence over 
 the dictates of that great directory of our faith." These 
 words of Chalmers deserve to be well weighed. 
 
 As for the reproach of a sectarian spirit, which the adver- 
 saries of the Free Church have sometimes addressed to her, 
 who is pure, except the Infallible One? I think that in 
 every man, and I will not except myself, there lies the germ 
 of sectarianism. But with regard to the intention of the 
 general spirit of a church, the words which Chalmers next 
 uttered, and the manner iii which they were received, are a 
 sufficient answer to this reproach. " I trust," said he, " that 
 you will not charge me with over-liberality, if I say, as I do 
 from my conscience, that among the great majority of evan- 
 gelical Dissenters in this country, I am not aware of any 
 topics of difference which I do not regard as so many men 
 of straw ; and shall be exceedingly delighted if these foreign 
 gentlemen get the hearts of the various denominations to 
 meet together, and consult to make a bonfire of them." 
 
 Here enthusiastic cheers, the voice (as it were) of the Free 
 Church, interrupted the speaker, and thus gave the full sanc- 
 tion of the Assembly to this condemnation of sectarianism. 
 " Yes," resumed Chalmers with energy, the moment that he 
 was allowed to proceed ; " while I deprecate the latitudina- 
 rianism that would lay too little stress on what is important, 
 I feel, as if I could not sufficiently deprecate and denounce 
 the evil of that ultra and exclusive sectarianism which lays 
 too great stress upon what is insignificant, and the suppression 
 of which would remove a mighty obstacle which at present 
 lies in the way of a visible union of Christians."
 
 140 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 VI. 
 
 SPEECHES OF THE DEPUTIES. 
 
 MK. MONOD, Mr. Kuntze, and I, spoke in succession. I 
 will not repeat all our speeches (I think mine lasted above 
 an hour). They have been embodied in the official report 
 of the General Assembly. My friend, Mr. Monod, gave a 
 very striking picture of continental Popery, that drew upon 
 him a letter from the Romish Bishop of Edinburgh, which 
 he triumphantly answered. As for myself, I will only say, 
 that I endeavored, among other things, to show to our breth- 
 ren of the Free Church, that they were placed in a very fa- 
 vorable position for becoming the engine of a mighty Chris- 
 tian union, and that God himself was calling them to the 
 work. You know what has since been done : to their Chris- 
 tian activity we owe the meeting at Liverpool and the Evan- 
 gelical Alliance. I trust that, with God's help, we shall be 
 indebted to them for more ample developments in time to 
 come. Satisfied with having called for this great work in 
 Geneva, in St. Gall, in Edinburgh, in Liverpool, and in Lon- 
 don, I now leave it in better hands. 
 
 Dr. Gordon, one of the most venerable and respected 
 men in Scotland, after we had done speaking, moved that 
 the Assembly should express its sincere gratitude to Al- 
 mighty God for his great and unmerited goodness shown to 
 the Free Church of Scotland, by permitting it to enjoy the 
 blessings of Christian and brotherly communion with the 
 churches and evangelical societies of other countries. " The 
 best wish I can express for the brethren from foreign lands 
 who have visited us this evening," said he in conclusion, " is, 
 that they may leave it with impressions as deep, as solemn, 
 and as salutary, as those which they have left in the minds 
 of this Assembly." 
 
 The moderator, Dr. Macfarlane of Greenock, then rose
 
 SCOTLAND. 141 
 
 and addressed to us the answer of the Assembly with that 
 noble simplicity which characterizes him. " Geneva," he 
 said, addressing himself particularly to me, " Geneva, the 
 city of Farel and Calvin, had cast off its first love, and had 
 sunk into Arianism and infidelity. You and my beloved 
 brother, Dr. Gaussen, have been two of the honored instru- 
 ments of reviving in it, evangelical, I trust I may add, spir- 
 itual religion. * * * I regard the formation of your Evan- 
 gelical Society as one of the most interesting events of mod- 
 ern times, one which, it is to be hoped, will issue in un- 
 speakable blessings, not to Geneva and Switzerland only, but 
 to the continent of Europe." 
 
 The Rev. Dr. Brown of Glasgow ended the proceedings 
 with a most simple and deeply affecting prayer. We felt 
 that the Lord was in the midst of us. The auditors, to the 
 number of four or five thousand, raised their voices together 
 to God in a solemn and thrilling strain ; and then the As- 
 sembly adjourned between one and two o'clock in the morn- 
 ing, without having, for an instant, ceased to exhibit the 
 most earnest attention, and the most lively and Christian in- 
 terest. 
 
 One word more, and I have done. I also can say, like 
 Chalmers, that the 28th of May, 1845, was one of the most 
 interesting moments of my existence. Such days are, no 
 doubt, exciting ; perhaps, for that very reason, oppressive to 
 the body : but we are also supported from on High ; we en- 
 joy the purest delights ; and hence our strength is renewed. 
 I have seen a foreigner, who being drawn into the midst of 
 the movement of this Scottish vortex, during these chosen 
 days, had no longer a thought at his command. Every thing 
 was in a whirl, both within and without ; and his only desire 
 was to be quiet and unnoticed, under some pine, in some 
 lonely mountain glen. But this desire of solitude and peace, 
 so natural in the midst of incessant activity, is in a manner 
 realized in Scotland every seven days, for there is every week 
 the day of rest, the Sunday so precious to Scotland, which
 
 142 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 refreshes you. Besides, when we remember that the primary 
 and true principle of the bustle and eagerness of these great 
 assemblies is the love of God, and, that the true end of them 
 is the glory of God, we can easily bear the fatigue which 
 accompanies them. 
 
 I was ill when I left the Continent, I hadJbeen unwell all 
 the winter, and I was but very imperfectly acquainted with 
 the English language in which I had to express my thoughts ; 
 yet I set out with the belief that I was fulfilling a duty, and 
 trusting in the Lord. This help never failed me ; God car- 
 ried me in His arms. In one day I had to speak three times 
 before large assemblies, and to set out immediately after- 
 wards to speak in another town ; yet, I repeat, He never 
 failed me. The Lord gave me words, strength, and rest ; at 
 the same time surrounding me with the most unmerited and 
 valuable kindness. It is good to take Him for a master. 
 We must work, for the Lord has said, " Work while it is 
 day ;" but woe to him who glories in his own work ! Jesus 
 opened eyes with clay ; does the clay think of glorying ? 
 Let us labor, if we can, with Peter, with Paul, and with 
 Martha ; but, after our labors are ended, let us sit down with 
 David, with John, and with Mary, at the feet of the Master, 
 and say to Him, " Consume with thy fire the impurities I 
 have mingled with my offering, and bring out of it a sweet 
 savor to thine own glory." Yes, there is only one glory, 
 that of being the least in the household of God ! May God 
 grant it unto us !
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE SCOTTISH QUESTION. 
 
 1. The Produce of Scotland. Development of Being. The two Influ- 
 ences. The two Swords. Task of the Reformation. 2. Distinc- 
 tions between the Evangelical and the Moderate Parties. Not in 
 Doctrine. Person of Christ. The two Natures. The Arminian 
 Question. 3. The Church Question. Distinction between Scotland 
 and England. Different Origins of their Churches. Scotland con- 
 sidered from the English point of View. Should Scotland draw 
 nearer to England, or England to Scotland 1 4. Doctrine of Scot- 
 land respecting the Church. Kingship of Christ. His Laws. His 
 Ministers. Spiritual and Temporal Government. Incapacity of the 
 latter to goverji the Church. 5. Government of Christ opposed to 
 that of Antichrist. The Reformation cannot be a mere Negation. 
 The Right of Scotland. The two Principles of the Secession : 1st. 
 Non-intrusion; 2d. Spiritual Independence. A Theorem and -two 
 Corollaries. Essential Cause of the Disruption. 6. The Scottish 
 and the Separationist Systems. Differences. Complete and Imper- 
 fect. Positive and Negative. Doctrine and Discipline. Effectual 
 and Ineffectual. Claims of the State. 7. Three Phases of the Scot- 
 tish Church. Conscience and Expediency. Discord not Union. 
 Accusation. Complement. The Solar System. 
 
 I. 
 
 TWO INFLUENCES. 
 
 I HAVE stated my general impressions of Scotland : but 
 is this all I have to say of her ? Here are public places, 
 temples, palaces ; there, mountains, plains, and lakes. Who 
 are they who frequented those temples, those palaces, those 
 markets? What has taken place on those plains? And 
 what interests have moved the hearts of the inhabitants of
 
 144 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 those Highlands ? Can I only behold Scotland in the pres- 
 ent ? No : when first I set my foot on this venerable land,, 
 it was the Scotland of three centuries ago that appeared be- 
 fore me. 
 
 I have been in Scotland ; what shall I bring you from 
 thence ? If a traveller returning from distant countries, 
 from the Tropics or from China, brings home to his country- 
 men the rich productions of their soil, shall I not bring home 
 to you that excellent plant which God has caused to flourish 
 in the Caledonian regions ? If another traveller brings from 
 England information as to manners and the laws of political 
 science ; and if one in particular of our fellow-citizens, (De- 
 lolme,) has rendered himself illustrious by a work, which has 
 contributed to establish constitutional rule in Europe, shall I 
 not bring back to you from Scotland those manners and laws 
 of the church, which so eminently distinguish her among 
 nations ? 
 
 As I was engaged with various occupations, I might have 
 kept silence, when asked for an account of my journey. But 
 this it is which induces me to speak. Scotland has a mission 
 in the Christian world, and in order that this mission may 
 be accomplished, we should become acquainted with it. If 
 Scotland is intrusted with a mission to the Continent, in 
 what part of the Continent should this mission be recognized 
 and pointed out ? Who is called upon to act as mediator 
 between Scotland and the rest of the church, if not Geneva? 
 You have already heard Chalmers upon the relationship ex- 
 isting between Scotland and Geneva. 
 
 Every being, in order to prosper, must have ; a develop- 
 ment peculiar to itself, sui generis, as it is called. If once for- 
 eign influences come to be mingled with it, that development 
 is compromised. It is thus with every plant, every animal, 
 every man, and even with inorganic beings. Ask the Rhone 
 wherefore, after leaving our lake as pure as the sky itself, it 
 becomes so muddy ? 'It is because the sandy torrent com- 
 ing down from Mont Blanc, mingles its troubled waters
 
 THE SCOTTISH QUESTION. 145 
 
 with the azure wave of the river ; the confluence, the union 
 defiles it. 
 
 "the Christian church had at first, like our Rhone, a sepa- 
 rate existence, a development of her own, and she was then 
 comparatively pure. But in the beginning of the fourth cen- 
 tury, the half Pagan state became united to her, and this 
 juncture immediately threw into the heavenly blue of the 
 church those muddy waters which deform her beauty. The 
 church comes from God ; but she is, she must be, on the 
 earth, and therein lies her danger. If you tie her down to 
 the earth, closer than is strictly necessary ; if you unite her 
 intimately with civil order : if you give political society a 
 power over her : the evil becomes alarming. The church 
 thenceforth will have two principles of development ; on the 
 one hand, the Word and the Spirit of God ; on the other, 
 the policy and the diplomacy of the world. How can a so- 
 ciety prosper subjected to two such contrary influences? 
 Know you not that in education, homogeneous influence is 
 a primary condition ? Know you not that a ship must be 
 carried forward by one current alone ; and if a contrary cur- 
 rent interfere, the result is a dangerous whirlpool, and per- 
 haps a dreadful gulf in which the ship will be swallowed 
 up. Christ has established the church under one headship, 
 and that is His own. 
 
 The state having intermixed its headship in the church 
 since the era of Constantine, political society being inter- 
 woven with the spiritual, it became necessary to return to 
 the order of things from whence they set out, and recom- 
 mence the primitive existence. This was one of the tasks of 
 the sixteenth century. 
 
 It was the more indispensable, as this double, half-politi- 
 cal, half- spiritual existence, was realized in its greatest com- 
 pleteness in the Papacy. You all know the famous fable of 
 Rome, about the two swords. The Popes pretend that the 
 saying addressed by St. Peter to his master, " Here are two 
 swords," signifies that the spiritual and the temporal power 
 
 7
 
 146 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 ought to be united, and united in the hands of the Pope. 
 Certainly St. Peter had little idea of what he was saying. 
 
 What is at this moment (1846) agitating the Legations 
 and the States of the Church ? It is the desire of separat- 
 ing these two powers a desire which Rome obstinately re- 
 sists ; knowing that from the moment she is no longer sup- 
 ported by the sword, by musketeers, and, alas ! by Swiss, 
 she will fall into contempt, and her end will not be far dis- 
 tant. 
 
 In order, therefore, to be a complete work, the Reforma- 
 tion ought to correct that evil. 
 
 She has partly done so in Germany, France, and Geneva; 
 but it was especially in Scotland that the church, which ever 
 since the fourth century had led a twofold existence, half 
 civil, half spiritual, like one of the monsters of antiquity, 
 returned to its pure source, and commenced anew a single 
 and divine existence. , 
 
 Many Protestant churches, depriving the Pope of the su- 
 premacy he had usurped, consented that the magistrate or 
 the king should take upon him that jurisdiction, and thus 
 maintain, under another form, that confusion of civil and re- 
 ligious things which is to be found in Popery. The Church 
 of Scotland, on the contrary, asserting that it was the place 
 of Christ himself which the Pope had usurped, resisted 
 every effort made by the political power to take possession 
 of it. This, then, is the point from which diverge the two 
 parties now existing within the national church of Scotland, 
 the Evangelical, and the Moderate party ; the former com- 
 posing the Free Church, the latter the church established by 
 the state. 
 
 II. 
 
 DOCTRINE. 
 
 IN fact, the difference between these parties lies not, 
 properly speaking, in doctrine. The Moderate party, though
 
 THE SCOTTISH QUESTION. 147 
 
 doubtless less strict and less vital than the other, and though 
 towards the end of the last century very near falling into 
 Arianisra, is now in general applying itself to maintain pu- 
 rity of doctrine ; and I have often thought, that on the 
 Continent, it would be happy for us if our national churches 
 professed so orthodox a faith. The difference does not arise 
 in Scotland, as in Geneva, France, or Germany, from the 
 one being Unitarian and Pelagian, while the other is ortho- 
 dox and evangelical : no, all are orthodox in Scotland. Jus- 
 tice requires us to acknowledge this. 
 
 One of the most amiable men I met with in Scotland was 
 Dr. Hill, then moderator of the General Assembly of the 
 Established Church, who showed me a kindness which I re- 
 member with sincere gratitude. While we were in the car- 
 riage which was taking us to the Palace of Holyrood, I 
 asked him if he were any relation to Dr. George Hill, the 
 author of some remarkable Lectures on Divinity. " He was 
 my father," said he, seemingly much pleased that his parent's 
 writings were known on the Continent. There are in Eu- 
 rope, and not far from this place, many academies in which 
 I would fain see professed the doctrines which the late Dr. 
 Hill taught in the University of St. Andrews. This is worth 
 stopping to consider. If it is evident that, what is com- 
 monly called, among us, " doctrines essential to salvation," 
 are not implicated in the Scottish question, I am of opinion 
 that the church, which is capable of producing by its indi- 
 vidual efforts, movements so considerable and sacrifices so 
 wonderful, must rise the higher in our eyes in grandeur and 
 importance. 
 
 Would you, therefore, know what the party opposed to 
 the evangelical or, as it would here be called, the Metho- 
 distical party taught, and is yet teaching in Scotland, upon 
 the person of Christ ? I like to repeat it in this town of Ge- 
 neva, wherein the divinity of Christ and the Holy Trinity are 
 so obstinately combated and denied. These are the words 
 of the moderate Scottish doctor : " Jesus Christ is the Ore-
 
 148 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 ator of the world. * * * The Jehovah who appeared to 
 the patriarchs was worshipped in the temple, and by the 
 prophets announced as the Author of a new dispensation. 
 
 * * * We find the Scriptures ascribing to Jesus an ex- 
 istence without beginning, without change, without limitation ; 
 and connected, in the whole extent of space which it fills, 
 with the exercise of the most perfect intelligence. These are 
 the essential attributes of Deity. Measures of power may 
 be communicated ; degrees of wisdom and goodness may be 
 imparted to created spirits ; but our conceptions of God are 
 confounded, and we lose sight of every circumstance by which 
 he is characterized, if such a manner of existence as we have 
 now described, be common to him and any creature."* 
 
 In another place the Moderate theologian says, " It is by 
 the union of two natures in one person that Christ is quali- 
 fied to be the Saviour of the world. * * * Had Jesus been 
 only man, or had he been one of the spirits that surround the 
 throne of God, he could not have accomplished the work 
 which he undertook ; for the whole obedience of every crea- 
 ture being due to the Creator, no part of that obedience can 
 be placed to the account of other creatures, so as to supply 
 the defects of their service, or to rescue them from the pun- 
 ishment which they deserve. The Scriptures, therefore, re- 
 veal that he who appeared upon earth as man is also God, 
 and, as God, was mighty to save ; and by this revelation, they 
 teach us that the merit of our Lord's obedience and the effi- 
 cacy of his interposition, depend upon the hypostatical union. 
 
 * * * The hypostatical union," adds the doctor of St. 
 Andrews, " is the corner-stone of our religion."f 
 
 This was what was taught in Scotland in the age of Vol- 
 taire and Rousseau; and is now still taught in the party 
 opposed to the Evangelicals, for the theology of Dr. Hill is 
 the text-book of the lectures of their professors. 
 
 * Lectures on Divinity, bj the late George Hill, D. D., vol. ii. pp. iv. 
 201. 
 
 t Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 249. 251.
 
 THE SCOTTISH QUESTION. 149 
 
 I will not exhibit the St. Andrews' doctor, victoriously es- 
 tablishing these great truths, that there is one God in three 
 persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost ; that there 
 exists original and hereditary sin, in consequence of which 
 the whole human race is corrupt and guilty before God ; 
 that the sufferings of Christ are the punishment of sin, and 
 the effects ascribed to them are reconciliation and redemp- 
 tion ; that in order for this immense grace to be applied to a 
 sinner, there must be within him, by the works of the Holy 
 Spirit, regeneration, conversion, and faith ; from which pro- 
 ceeds justification ; and from justification repentance, sancti- 
 fication and good works. But you will, perhaps, wonder 
 more if I tell you of the lectures of Dr. Hill, upon the doc- 
 trines of Arminius and Calvin compared. You are aware 
 that Arminius was a Dutch theologian in the beginning of 
 the seventeenth century, and that it was by the introduction 
 of his lax opinions that the reformed churches of Geneva and 
 France began to depart from the doctrines of the Reforma- 
 tion. This part of Dr. Hill's work had always struck me : 
 I said so to his son, the Moderator. He replied with an ami- 
 able smile, that it was, in fact, the part on which his father 
 had taken most pains, and with which he was particularly 
 pleased. 
 
 I must be excused if this is tedious. Having been called 
 upon as a theologian to speak of Scotland, how can I do so 
 without speaking of theology ? Were I asked to speak of 
 railways, or things of that kind, I should answer that I am 
 no engineer. If you will have me talk of Scotland, I must, 
 whether you like it or not, occupy a few minutes with the- 
 ology, otherwise you will have nothing of Scotland, of its 
 characteristics. To speak of Scotland without theology, is 
 to say nothing about it. " The Arminian system," says the 
 Doctor of St. Andrews, " while in words it ascribes all to the 
 grace of God, does, in effect, resolve our salvation into some- 
 thing independent of that grace."* 
 * Lectures on Divinity, by the late George Hill, D. D., vol. iii. p. 80.
 
 150 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 " For, while the grace of God and the will of man are con- 
 ceived (in the Arminian system) to be partial causes, concur- 
 ring in the production of the same effect (as it may, perhaps, 
 be said, that a horse, and the coachman who whips it, are 
 two partial causes of the progress of the car), the grace of 
 God is only a remote cause of salvation a cause operating 
 indifferently upon all ; sufficiently, indeed, but often ineffec- 
 tual. The proximate, specific cause of salvation, by which 
 the effects of the universal cause are discriminated, is (ac- 
 cording to the Arminians, whom we assert to be wrong,) to 
 be found in the qualities of the subject which receives the 
 grace of God, since upon these qualities it depends whether 
 this grace shall overcome or shall be counteracted."* 
 
 " For, if the grace which is given indifferently to two per- 
 sons, John and Judas, which is sufficient for both, and might 
 have been resisted by both, is not resisted by John, and in 
 consequence of that non-resistance conducts him to salvation, 
 but is resisted by Judas, and in consequence of that resist- 
 ance proves ineffectual ; ' * * * Thou didst give to my 
 neighbor,' may the former say, ' as to me : but my will has 
 improved what thou gavest, while the will of my neighbor 
 has resisted all thine operations.' This language, which the 
 Arminians must suppose every one that is saved entitled to 
 hold to the Almighty, by implying that man has something 
 independent of the grace of God, whereof he may boast, 
 and whereby he may distinguish himself from other men in 
 the sight of God, not only contradicts the doctrine of original 
 sin, and those lessons of humility which the Gospel uni- 
 formly teaches (and that declaration of Scripture, ' What 
 hast thou, oh man, which thou hast not received ?'), but 
 seems to involve the Arminians themselves in contradiction. 
 p or * * * while in words they ascribe all good works to 
 the grace of God, they suspend the beginning, the progress, 
 and the continuance of these good works upon the will of 
 man." These are the words of the professor of St. Andrews.f 
 
 * Lect. on Divinity, vol. iii. p. 89. f Ibid. p. 90, 91.
 
 THE SCOTTISH QUESTION. 151 
 
 I need not say that the Scottish theologians do not'think 
 that man is to be saved without free will, his own free will ; 
 they only say that the will which necessarily enters into the 
 work of salvation, is a will purified, regenerated by the Holy 
 Spirit, in virtue of the election of God. 
 
 But I will go no further into theology ; let this sample suf- 
 fice : and I repeat, that I have not taken it from the writings 
 of evangelical divines, because it might perhaps have been 
 said to me, " These are the Scottish enthusiasts ; they are 
 to be found everywhere." No, I have chosen my specimens 
 from among the Moderates, as they are called hi Scotland, 
 and they have no other name there. I have taken my sam- 
 ple from among the national party, from a church united to 
 the state. 
 
 I do not hesitate to affirm that so pure a doctrine, even 
 among those who are not called Evangelicals, redounds to 
 the honor of Scotland at large, without any party distinction. 
 I am no party man, I do not wish to be so, and wherever I 
 find any thing praiseworthy, I give it praise. I have to add, 
 (and after what I have just said of its doctrine you will not 
 be surprised at this,) that the General Assembly of the 
 Church of Scotland, united to the state, desiring last year 
 (1845) " to draw closer the bonds of Christian union between 
 herself and all the churches which maintain the truth as it is 
 in Jesus" these are its own expressions, and having pro- 
 posed to write to the Church of Geneva, has addressed the 
 Evangelical Society of Geneva which meets in this place. 
 This society has received three letters from the Convener of 
 the Committee of Correspondence of the established Church 
 of Scotland with foreign churches. But for some time there 
 have been no other communications.
 
 152 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE TWO EXTREMITIES OF THE SCALE. 
 
 IF they are so well agreed upon these important points, in 
 what, then, do the Evangelical and the Moderate parties dif- 
 fer in Scotland ? It is in the doctrine of the church with 
 regard to its relations with the state. 
 
 The Free Church has remained steadfast to the character- 
 istic principles of Scotland. The Moderate party, the pres- 
 ent Established Church, appears to me to have, unthink- 
 ingly, deviated towards the principles established in England. 
 
 A comparison between the Church of Scotland and that 
 of England, may make the essence of the former more easily 
 understood. It is acknowledged in Scotland that there may 
 be a union between the church and the state. I will not just 
 now examine whether this is right or wrong ; but I merely 
 observe that, to realize this union, they think it requisite not 
 to mingle or confound, but, on the contrary, to distinguish 
 and separate with the greatest possible exactness, the tempo- 
 ral and the spiritual interests ; in order, on the one hand, to 
 render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and, on the 
 other, to render to God the things that are God's. 
 
 In England, the contrary has been done : there was, orig- 
 inally at least, more than union between the church and the 
 state, there was unity of both ; and instead of distinguish- 
 ing and separating the spiritual from the temporal interests, 
 as in Scotland, they took the opposite way, and have inti- 
 mately united, and completely interwoven them. 
 
 Of all the churches of the Reformation, the Church of 
 Scotland is the one in which the principle of the independ- 
 ence of the church, as to the state, has been carried to the 
 greatest extreme ; while the church of England, on the con- 
 trary, is the one in which the principle of the royal preroga- 
 tive, or supremacy, has been the most strictly realized. Thus 
 the two churches, which are geographically next to each
 
 THE SCOTTISH QUESTION. 153 
 
 other, are placed, as to ecclesiastical principles, at the two 
 extremities of the scale. 
 
 These very different modes of realizing the union of the 
 two bodies, originate in the manner in which the Reforma- 
 tion was brought about in the two nations. 
 
 In Scotland, the Reformation proceeded from the conver- 
 sion of souls among the people ; it made its way from the 
 inward to the outward, from low to high. In England, there 
 was a similar Reformation ; but there was also another, and 
 it was this latter which bestowed her peculiar constitution 
 on the Anglican Church. In that country the movement 
 which organized the church proceeded from the king and a 
 few bishops ; it operated from the outward to the inward, 
 from high to low. It was, therefore, natural to expect that 
 the Christian people should bear rule in the Church of Scot- 
 land, and the Christian state, on the other hand, govern in 
 the Church of England. 
 
 This explains why there is now, in a considerable number 
 of the ministers and members of the Church of England, a 
 decided movement towards Rome. By the principles above 
 stated, the Church of England comes near to that of Rome, 
 though in other respects they are as far apart as heaven from 
 earth. In both, the Christian people have but few rights, 
 and must remain more or less passive; while, on the con- 
 trary, the Church of Scotland, in which is realized to the 
 greatest extent what we have called the Genevan element, 
 that church in which in great measure are to be found the 
 rights and the vitality of the Christian people, forms of all 
 the Protestant churches the most decided contrast to the 
 Papacy. 
 
 There is great injustice in judging of Scotland, as is fre- 
 quently done in England, from the English point of view. 
 They misunderstand the very essence of the Scottish Church, 
 who assimilate it in principle with the Church of England, 
 and then conclude that the Scotch are a turbulent people, 
 and are acting very improperly. But justice requires us, 
 
 7*
 
 154 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 when we judge of a church, to apply to it its own rules, and 
 not those rules with which it is unacquainted. Yet by fol- 
 lowing out the contrary plan, a wrong has been done in 
 England, not only by the government, but by many ministers 
 and members of the church. Let us hope they will soon 
 view it aright. 
 
 It may be asked, Should Scotland draw towards the prin- 
 ciples of England, or should England draw towards those of 
 Scotland ? This is a question of importance. The English 
 government, under Sir Robert Peel, decided for the former 
 alternative. If I am to express my own opinion candidly 
 and fearlessly, I will say, that I incline towards the latter. 
 
 Two tendencies, or rather two facts, of the present day, 
 which are now developing themselves in England in a decided 
 and alarming manner, seem to call upon that country to draw 
 closer towards the principles of Scotland. 
 
 The first of these, is the manner in which an important 
 part of the Church of England is from day to day drawing 
 nearer Rome. If they desire to oppose Rome, it cannot be 
 done by resembling her, or by placing dependence upon the 
 hierarchy, or upon the assistance of the state, as Rome her- 
 self does ; but, on the contrary, by a contrast with Rome, by 
 seeking support in the faith and activity of a Christian people. 
 
 The second of these facts, is the ever increasing tendency 
 of the English government to detach itself from Protestant 
 interests, and to sacrifice them to political expediency. When 
 once the government withdraws its patronage from the 
 Christian people, ought not these people to arise, bestir 
 themselves in their own affairs, and undertake to defend 
 themselves ? 
 
 I therefore think that England, in the serious circum- 
 stances in which she is now placed, instead of striving 
 against Scotland, and always opposing her views, would do 
 much better to study impartially the principles there pro- 
 fessed, and to apply them in the degree in which they are 
 applicable to herself ; for that the Church of England ought
 
 THE SCOTTISH QUESTION. 155 
 
 to preserve her own distinctive character, is what we do not 
 mean to contest. 
 
 In England, on the contrary, it will be thought that Scot- 
 land ought to approach nearer to the governmental system ; 
 or, at least, that Scotland and England ought to persist, 
 each in its own way, in the system peculiar to itself. In 
 many respects, no doubt, they should ; but I do not think 
 they ought to do so in all. I am aware it will be said, that 
 the opinion I express is not to be wondered at : that I am a 
 Presbyterian, that I am a Genevese. So I am. Yet it is 
 not in the spirit of narrow bigotry that I speak. I love 
 England, and I am not prejudiced against episcopacy. But 
 I have studied the times and the systems, and I candidly 
 state the result of my examination. Every one may accept 
 or reject it as he thinks proper. I do not presumptuously 
 affirm it, but appeal with modesty to the judgment of the 
 wise in the church and in the nation. 
 
 IV. 
 
 CHURCH AND GOVERNMENT. 
 
 I NOW come to the doctrine of Scotland upon the Head- 
 ship of the church, and upon the the church itself. This 
 doctrine appears to me to have all the exactness of a theo- 
 rem. These are the propositions by which they proceed ; 
 they are the foundation of the whole edifice : 
 
 Our Lord Jesus Christ is the King of the church both 
 visible and invisible. "He is the head of the body, the 
 church." (Col. i. 18.) 
 
 " The Lord shall give unto him the throne of his father 
 David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for- 
 ever ; and of his kingdom there shall be no end." (Luke 
 i. 32, 33.) 
 
 Our Lord Jesus Christ is the King of the particular 
 churches, comprehended in the visible church, as may be
 
 156 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 seen in the letters which he writes to each of the seven 
 churches of Asia. (Rev. ii. 2.) 
 
 Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Head of every member or 
 minister of the church. " The head of every man is Christ." 
 (1 Cor. xi. 3.) 
 
 Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Head of every Christian as- 
 sembly : " For where two or three are gathered together in 
 my name, there am I in the midst of them." (Matthew 
 xviii. 20.) 
 
 Christ alone, as King, creates the church and churches, 
 and alone he builds them up. When he communicates the 
 Gospel and his grace to a town, a province, or a country, 
 the instantaneous effect is, that within this town, this prov- 
 ince or this country, there is a church of Christ : this is 
 what happened at Jerusalem, at Ephesus, at Rome, and at 
 Geneva. Churches are not, cannot be, created and estab- 
 lished by civil decrees or by acts of parliament, by repub- 
 lican legislatures, or by concordats. 
 
 Christ, as King, bestows on the church, the knowledge and 
 the rules which she needs, and in the Bible alone are these 
 to be found. 
 
 The laws of Christ, the King of the church, regulate doc- 
 trine, life, worship, discipline, government ; and these laws 
 are sufficient : so that no case can occur in which the church 
 is unable to decide conformably to the will of her King, or 
 at least to the general principles laid down in the Bible. 
 
 Christ, the King of the church, having instituted a min- 
 istry, the government of the church belongs exclusively to 
 the elders and ministers whom He has set over her. 
 
 The authority of these rulers of the church is not derived 
 either from Episcopal or Presbyterian succession, or by 
 transmission from their predecessors, or by the appointment 
 by the state ; but immediately and exclusively from Christ 
 the King. 
 
 A minister must, it is true, receive the laying on of hands 
 from those set apart for that purpose, (this the Word of
 
 THE SCOTTISH QUESTION. 157 
 
 God commands) ; but the minister does not derive his au- 
 thority from that company of elders. When a judge or an 
 officer is appointed by the king, it is necessary that the ap- 
 pointment or the commission which he has thus received 
 from the prince, should be recognized and proclaimed in 
 the court of justice, or in the staff to which he is to belong ; 
 yet it is neither from this staff, nor from this court, that his 
 authority is derived. In the same manner, the commission 
 of the incorruptible Prince, the appointment and the calling 
 of the King of kings, is the only source of the authority of 
 the holy ministry. 
 
 Christ being thus the King, the only King of the church, 
 and having provided every thing necessary for 'her, it results 
 therefrom that the church ought to be " subject to Christ," 
 (Ephes. v. 24. ;) and to Christ alone. 
 
 As there is a spiritual government established by the 
 Lord to rule over the church, so there is also a temporal 
 government established by the Lord to rule over the social 
 and political interests of nations. Each of these govern- 
 ments should remain within its own sphere. 
 
 The political government can have no claim to direct in 
 any way the affairs of the church ; in this lies the essence 
 of the question. 
 
 It cannot, for it is to the spiritual government alone that 
 Christ has delivered the power of the keys. (Matt. xvi. 19. 
 John, xx. 23.) 
 
 It cannot, for it is on the spiritual government alone that 
 Christ has laid all the responsibility of the government of 
 the church. (Acts, xx. 1Y 28. 1 Peter, v. 1 4. Rev. 
 ii. 1420.) 
 
 It cannot, for it is to the spiritual government alone that 
 Christ has given all the directions necessary for the admin- 
 istration of the church. (Matt. xvi. 15 18. Titus, i. 5 9., 
 iii. 10. 1. Tim. iii.) 
 
 It cannot, for it is to the spiritual government alone that
 
 158 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Christ has promised all the grace requisite' to perform it. 
 (Matt, xxviii. 20. 2 Cor. xi. 28. Ephes. iv. 7. 11, 12.) 
 
 It cannot, for it is to the spiritual government alone that 
 Christ requires the members of the church to be subject 
 as to the affairs of the church. (1 Thes. v. 12. Heb. xiii. 
 7. 17.) 
 
 It cannot, for Christ has nowhere enjoined to the mem- 
 bers of the church obedience to the civil magistrate, except 
 as to civil matters. (Rom. xiii. 1 7. Luke, xii. 13, 14.) 
 
 It cannot, for Christ has prescribed the qualifications re- 
 quired in the spiritual rulers of the church; in order to 
 govern the church ; but has nowhere prescribed the same to 
 the civil magistrates. (1 Tim. iii. 4 6. Tit. i. 5 11.) 
 
 It cannot, for Christ has declared that the power with 
 which the civil magistrate is armed, is the power of the 
 sword (Rom. xiii. 14.) ; and this is a species of power which 
 cannot, without persecution, be used in the government of 
 the church. 
 
 Lastly, it cannot, because Christ by his addressing Pilate 
 in these memorable words, "My kingdom is not of this 
 world" (John, xviii. 36.), has drawn the line of demarcation 
 between the church and the state in such a way that it is 
 well established, that the government of the one cannot in- 
 trude into the limits of the other. 
 
 It results from all this, that the civil magistrate has no 
 right whatsoever to rule in the church ; that not only he has 
 no right to command in it that which is evil, but he has not 
 even the right to command in it that which is good. 
 
 This is the system of the Church of Scotland, a system 
 wherein each of its propositions is supported by the declara- 
 tions of the Word of God.
 
 THE SCOTTISH QUESTION. 159 
 
 V. 
 
 IMPORTANCE OF THE SYSTEM. 
 
 THIS system was a necessity. The Papacy of Rome being 
 essentially a system of ecclesiastical government, and that a 
 very able and powerful one, displaying all the wisdom of 
 darkness ; a system which by its force, its consistency, its 
 coherence, has achieved, and is even now achieving great 
 things ; it was necessary for the Reformation to establish, in 
 opposition to the government of Antichrist, the government 
 of Christ himself. If the Reformation is not a mere denial 
 of Popery ; if, on the contrary, it has everywhere established, 
 in opposition to the errors of Rome, positive principles and 
 truths salvation by grace, in opposition to salvation by 
 works regeneration by the Holy Spirit, in opposition to the 
 opus operatum of the sacraments, and so on ; in like manner, 
 it was necessary that it should do the same with regard to 
 the organization of the church, and her relations with the 
 state. It is the glory of the Church of Scotland, that she 
 has been intrusted by God with this work, and admirably 
 has she accomplished it. To this her whole history bears 
 witness. It is in Scotland we find all that distinguishes in 
 the most striking manner the Evangelical from the Papal 
 church. 
 
 We therefore protest against the insinuations and the ac- 
 cusations to which Scotland has been more than once sub- 
 jected, from the wise men of.this world, even on the Conti- 
 nent. No ; the great principles maintained by this church 
 are not those of a narrow Puritanism, a political agitation, a 
 desire of subjecting the state to the church, or the intrigues 
 of an ambitious clergy. Scotland has received a vocation 
 from God, and this vocation she is fulfilling. The principles 
 she maintains rest upon the most venerable statutes, the 
 most ancient laws of this nation ; nay, upon the Word of
 
 160 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 God itself. These principles are the right, the strength, the 
 glory of Scotland. They pervade her whole history, the 
 struggles of her fathers, the constitutions of her people, the 
 scaffolds of her martyrs, her revolutions, her restorations, and 
 all the great events in which her annals abound. They run 
 through them like a reviving stream, whose waters carry in 
 all directions fertility and life. " This controversy," says 
 Gillespie, " rises to the heavens, and its summit is above the 
 clouds." 
 
 Now, the English government having determined to inter- 
 fere in the spiritual matters of the church, as we shall see, by 
 means of the courts of law and the parliament ; the Evan- 
 gelical party of the Church of Scotland, by virtue of the 
 very principles we have just laid down, has severed the 
 bonds which unite the church to the state, and declared her 
 independence. 
 
 It is now necessary to specify, in a more precise manner, 
 the points which have brought about the rupture. In fact, it 
 is not, properly speaking, the abstract doctrine of the king- 
 ship of Christ, but upon the application of that doctrine, that 
 the difference turns. These are the two points which have 
 been debated, and resolved in opposite ways. 
 
 The first point was that of non-intrusion. You are aware 
 that by intrusion is understood the act of introducing a pre- 
 sentee by force or by stratagem, against right and form, into 
 any cure of the church. By non-intrusion the Free Church 
 of Scotland understands the right of a church, or of a par- 
 ish, to refuse the minister presented to it, so that he may not 
 be imposed upon them against ^heir consent, even when the 
 higher ecclesiastical authorities do not concur in their objec- 
 tions. This is an important point in the ecclesiastical consti- 
 tution of Scotland ; yet it is not the one of which the Free 
 Church has been the most tenacious. They might even have 
 come to some compromise on this head ; but the next prin- 
 ciple is, in their eyes, of the utmost importance, and it is im- 
 possible on that subject to yield in the slightest degree.
 
 THE SCOTTISH QUESTION. 161 
 
 This latter principle is, that of Spiritual Independence ; 
 that is to say, independence in all the spiritual concerns of 
 the church, subject to Christ and his Word alone ; and most 
 particularly, the right which the church alone has of induct- 
 ing and depriving her own ministers, without any civil court, 
 any political authority, even the highest, having any claim 
 to command in these respects. Herein lies the knot of the 
 matter. 
 
 The real and exclusive kingship of Jesus Christ, by virtue 
 of which the church is independent of any earthly king or 
 magistrate, is the theorem, the Palladium, as it were, of the 
 Church of Scotland. 
 
 The non-intrusion of ministers, and the spiritual independ- 
 ence of the church, are the two corollaries of that theorem, 
 for the sake of which the Scottish Church has in our own 
 day fought so memorable a battle. 
 
 The first of these principles, non-intrusion of ministers, as 
 the Free Church understands it, is not, perhaps, a strict con- 
 sequence of the sole kingship of Christ. This non-intrusion 
 is founded, doubtless, upon the rights of the Church of Scot- 
 land, both in the letter and the spirit ; but if the refusal of a 
 parish to receive any minister is to be submitted, not to a civil 
 court, but to an ecclesiastical assembly, to a presbytery, for 
 instance, or to a synod, the kingship of Christ, as the Church 
 of Scotland understands it, is in no way affected. There- 
 fore, if it were only for the sake of non-intrusion that the 
 separation took place, we might understand how opinions 
 might be divided. It has been said in Switzerland, that the 
 Scottish disruption was effected, not for the sake of the 
 headship of Christ, but for that of the people. This shows 
 a complete ignorance of facts. 
 
 The essential cause of the disruption was the duty of 
 maintaining the spiritual independence of the church, of 
 preventing the civil power from deciding in religious mat- 
 ters ; and that duty is one which most incontrovertibly flows 
 from the constitution of that church, and from the tenet of
 
 162 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 the kingship of Christ, which she has been commissioned 
 from God to declare openly in the church. The Church of 
 Scotland cannot yield this point without proving unfaithful 
 to her calling, without sacrificing the very principle of her 
 existence. 
 
 VI. 
 
 A COMPARISON. 
 
 HAVING been called upon to make you acquainted with 
 the system of the Church of Scotland, it will be advanta- 
 geous to compare it with the system well known among our- 
 selves, that of the separation of church and state. 
 
 These two systems have one great point of resemblance ; 
 that is, they both aim at the independence of the church. 
 Yet if we examine the matter more closely, we shall find 
 between them some remarkable differences which it is worth 
 while to point out. 
 
 The Scottish system is complete. It lays down princi- 
 ples, and deduces consequences ; it is, in fact, an entire ec- 
 clesiastical system. The theory of the separation of church 
 and state (which is a different thing from Voluntaryism), 
 cannot be called a system ; it is defective as to the first 
 principles of church government, and, in fact, does not pre- 
 tend to define them. It is a certain number of consider- 
 ations, some metaphysical, some historical, or of some other 
 nature besides, which may be powerful, but which do not 
 form a perfect whole like the Scottish system. 
 
 The latter system is essentially positive, while that of the 
 separation of church and state stands forth as being essen- 
 tially negative, and consequently less powerful ; I will even 
 add, less pious and less Christian. The positive question is 
 of more importance than the negative ; although, in our 
 opinion at least, one includes the other. 
 
 The first thing is, that the church should attach itself to
 
 THE SCOTTISH QUESTION. 163 
 
 Jesus Christ, and fully recognize his sovereign kingship. 
 This is the positive. The next thing would be, that the 
 church should maintain her own independence with respect 
 to earthly governments, and detach herself from them in all 
 spiritual concerns. But what would be gained if the church 
 were. detached from the state, without the kingship of Jesus 
 Christ being recognized in the church ? What would hap- 
 pen to a church which has neither a head upon earth, nor a 
 head in heaven ? Doubtless, and we may thank God for 
 this, a great number of those who maintain the principles 
 of separation are Christians, and it is this which counteracts 
 the evils. But there are also some, and these too very em- 
 inent men, especially in England, who are Unitarians and 
 Deists ; and in that case, what is to become of a church 
 with the mere idea of separation ? She would end by 
 making herself both head and God ! 
 
 The Church of Scotland is not, above all things, sepa- 
 ratist : she is unionist in the most spiritual and sublime 
 sense. Her great aim is, for the church to unite herself to 
 her divine Head, Jesus Christ. She demands that this King 
 should reign, not only in the hearts of humble believers, or 
 of ministers, but also in the hearts of kings, and of all who 
 are placed in power. She makes no separation between the 
 kingdom of Jesus Christ and the rulerS of the nations. 
 
 And such is also my own feeling. God forbid that I 
 should stand before any man whatsoever, whether he speaks 
 in our own Diets, or sits on the throne of St. James, or on 
 that of the Tuileries, without proclaiming, " Worship the 
 Son and submit to his Word !" But I do not stop there, as 
 I shall proceed to show. 
 
 I have to make a third observation. In the ordinary sys- 
 tem of separation between church and state, it is exclusively, 
 in my opinion, a question of discipline, or of ecclesiastical 
 constitution founded on reasoning, with which we have to 
 deal. But, in the system of the Church of Scotland, we 
 are concerned with a doctrinal question based upon the
 
 164 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Word of God ; not with a merely secondary doctrine, but a 
 leading dogma, acknowledged as such by all. In effect, the 
 Mediator, Jesus Christ, fills three offices in the church, he 
 is Prophet, Priest, and King ; this we have all learnt in our 
 Catechism, and, what is still better, in our Bible. Christi- 
 anity is comprised in these three points ; and whenever we 
 deprive Christ in any manner of one of these offices, we re- 
 ject the Lord of Glory, or tread him under foot, and Christi- 
 anity is shorn of its proportions, or, in other words, destroyed. 
 Now these offices of the Mediator have always been attacked 
 in diverse ways. 
 
 Whenever, instead of the teaching of his Word and of his 
 Holy Spirit, we substitute that of human reason, of the 
 Fathers of the Church, or of the Popes, Christ is denied as a 
 Prophet. Whenever, for the sacrifice of his body and blood, 
 by which he has once redeemed his people, we substitute 
 certain penances, the mass, or the doctrine of salvation by 
 works or by good intentions, Christ is denied as a Priest. 
 
 Think you, then, that it is not possible to acknowledge or 
 deny Christ as a King? 
 
 It Is this denial of Christ as a King which is renounced 
 by the Church of Scotland. With her, Christ is the King 
 of the ehurch, as well as her Prophet or her Priest ; this is 
 all. But, it is to be observed, he is not the King merely of 
 an invisible impalpable church, which is nowhere to be found. 
 When Christ founded the church, he did so indeed in the 
 first instance as spiritual and invisible ; but immediately 
 afterwards as visible and external, for he introduced the 
 sacraments. Now, are not the sacraments visible ? He 
 established the ministry, and are not the ministers visible? 
 The visible cannot be separated from the invisible church ; it 
 is one and the same church, and it is of the church in both 
 these relations that Christ is the King. 
 
 For our own part, we worship the kingship of Christ as we 
 worship his prophetical and his priestly character. We be- 
 lieve that this sacred, too much forgotten kingship, ought to
 
 THE SCOTTISH QUESTION. 165 
 
 be reinstated in the church ; and we think that Scotland has 
 received from God a call to this effect. 
 
 But in so doing, there is an excess which we must point 
 out. To make all the institutions of the visible church flow 
 directly from the kingship of Christ ; to believe that Presby- 
 terianism, with all its forms, is alone of divine institution, is, 
 in my opinion, to fall into a dangerous error. Revelation 
 was given to us for the purpose of proclaiming the great 
 truths of salvation, and of imparting a new life. To convert 
 Revelation into an ecclesiastical rule is to lower it considera- 
 bly. It is to forget the essential nature of Christianity, and 
 make of it a mere system more or less similar to Judaism, 
 which consisted in ordinances.* (Ephes. ii. 15.) No; Christ 
 " hath broken down the middle wall of partition :" let us 
 beware of rebuilding it. I prefer the Presbyterian govern- 
 ment to all others, I even think it most comformable to the 
 Bible ; but I will never consent to condemn the Episcopalians 
 as Episcopalians, nor the Congregationalists as Congrega- 
 tionalists. Let us entirely abandon bigotry, of what nature 
 and species soever. The apostle St. John does not say, " If 
 any bring not this church government, receive him not ;" but 
 he says, " If any bring not this doctrine." Most Scotchmen 
 think as I do : of this I am assured. The farther Scotland 
 removes a sectarian spirit from her, the more also will she 
 become fair, strong, useful, and pleasing, in the sight of 
 God and of the people of God. Let us be enthusiastic in 
 the cause of Jesus Christ, he is worth it all ; but not for the 
 sake of our own sect and our own constitution. 
 
 I have to make a fourth remark. The Scottish system is 
 more powerful ; it draws on the people of God with greater 
 force. In fact, considerations more or less metaphysical are 
 not within the reach of every body, and do not convince them. 
 Take one of the finest productions of the human mind of late 
 years, the work upon " The Manifestation of Religious Con- 
 victions ;"f and, even among those who have understood it, 
 * NO/JOV TWX tvro\uv. * By the late Dr. Vinot.
 
 166 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 there are a great many unconvinced by it. But put the ques- 
 tion as it is put in Scotland : " Will you in things spiritual 
 give all obedience to Jesus Christ your King ; or will you 
 give a part of it to the President of the Council of State, or to 
 the Right Honorable the First Lord of the Treasury ?" This 
 is the question, and there is no Christian conscience that can 
 hesitate. It has been seen that during two centuries this 
 simple question induced the meanest among the people of 
 God in Scotland to ascend the scaffold. A man will lay 
 down his own life for the sake of Christ, but he will not lay 
 it down so easily for a mere argument. This system has very 
 lately bestowed freedom upon two churches, those of Scot- 
 land and of Vaud. I know of no similar effect produced by 
 the separationist system. 
 
 I remember the powerful sensation which, at a Christian 
 Union meeting at Edinburgh, Dr. Candlish produced by a 
 speech which I have unfortunately been unable to find very 
 correctly reported. " Gentlemen," said he, " in a nation 
 there are many conflicting opinions, many different parties, 
 and these factions are ranged against each other in the par- 
 liament and among the people ; but if the King if his crown 
 be attacked by a foreign power, all divisions cease, all fac- 
 tions are silent, all hands are stretched out to preserve the 
 crown and maintain its independence. Thus," added the 
 orator, " thus it is with the church. There are many differ- 
 ent opinions, sects, and parties ; but if a foreign power 
 touches the honor of our Divine King, all divisions cease, 
 all sects unite, all hearts join in one, and all hands are raised 
 together to support His crown." 
 
 I can only compare the energy of the speaker to the 
 tumult of applause with which these words were received. 
 
 - Let us now observe a last difference in the degree of sepa- 
 ration which the two theories assert between church and 
 state. If the state is opposed to the church, then, according 
 to both systems, the separation should be complete ; but if 
 the rulers of the state are animated by Christian feelings,
 
 THE SCOTTISH QUESTION. 167 
 
 and remain within their own sphere, in that case the separa- 
 tion will still exist as to all things spiritual, though it will be 
 wanting in the Scottish system, in an external and temporal 
 point of view. Is the Scottish system right ? This brings 
 me back to Scotland and her history. 
 
 VII. 
 
 A REQUISITE OF UNION. 
 
 THERE is no history in which the incessant struggle be- 
 tween the church and the state is so strongly marked as in 
 that of Scotland. The powerful vitality of the church is 
 the cause of this. A church might exist, as for instance, in 
 the canton of Vaud, where the church lay for three centu- 
 ries bound by the state without a struggle, at least without 
 any considerable one, for the very simple reason that there 
 was but little life within her. A living body may well hold 
 down a corpse and find no resistance ; but when once the 
 corpse is restored to life, the struggle will begin anew. 
 
 The state everywhere would be the master ; it would be 
 so in the different phases of the life of nations, whether in 
 matters of industry, of instruction, or of war ; but it would 
 be so especially in matters of religion, because religion has 
 great influence over the people. Now, this is precisely the 
 sphere which is to be withheld from the grasp of the state. 
 "The power of the state ends where that of conscience 
 begins." 
 
 The history of Scotland is that of the struggle between 
 the state and the church. Scarcely does the church come 
 into existence, when the state begins to make war upon her. 
 Combats to the death, or else deep slumber, behold, in two 
 words, the history of the Scottish Church. One of these 
 phases succeeds the other, and the slumber is no sooner 
 broken than the combat is renewed. 
 
 It is to this duel, continued for three centuries, that we
 
 168 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 wish to recall your attention. But you must observe, that 
 while the church stands alone in the conflict alone with 
 her Divine Head the state in Scotland has always an aux- 
 iliary. 
 
 That auxiliary changes at different periods of the struggle. 
 
 In the sixteenth century the auxiliary of the state against 
 the Church of Scotland was Popery. 
 
 In the seventeenth century it was Prelacy (not evangeli- 
 cal episcopacy, but the half-popish prelacy of Laud). 
 
 In the eighteenth century, and at the beginning of the 
 nineteenth, it was Patronage ; that is to say, the right of 
 the landlords, of the crown, or of the councils, to appoint 
 the ministers of the churches. 
 
 Hence proceeded : 
 
 During the sixteenth century, a struggle hateful and per- 
 fidious ; 
 
 During the seventeenth century, a struggle violent and 
 cruel ; 
 
 During the eighteenth century, a struggle enervating and 
 deadening. 
 
 And observe, that the state, vanquished each time by the 
 church in her unjust aggressions, and obliged to sacrifice her 
 auxiliary, has always taken another less odious in its stead. 
 
 The prelacy of the seventeenth century is better than the 
 popery of the sixteenth; and the patronage of the eigh- 
 teenth century is better than the prelacy of the seventeenth. 
 
 It may be thought that the conflict between the state and 
 the church is ended in Scotland. The church has found the 
 true way of enjoying at once liberty and peace. She has 
 restored to the state the property and the privileges she had 
 received from it, and has wrapped herself in the mantle of 
 poverty. 
 
 Were this struggle to be renewed, the state would apply 
 to another auxiliary an auxiliary better than patronage ; 
 that is, the establishment of moderatism. 
 
 The only chance for the renewal of the conflict in Scot-
 
 THE SCOTTISH QUESTION. 169 
 
 land would be, that the Established Church should gather 
 up the remains of life and independence. It is probable, 
 that with the Free Church before them, the State and the 
 Establishment will long remain agreed. But if there should 
 be in the Establishment, as I trust there will, a return to the 
 first principles of the Church of Scotland, the struggle 
 would, doubtless, terminate in a new disruption, which 
 might, perhaps, unite into one church all the congregations 
 of North Britain. 
 
 I intend to take a rapid survey of the three great periods 
 of the conflict between the church and the state in Scot- 
 land : 
 
 1. The period of Anti-popery, from the commencement of 
 the church till the year 1600. 
 
 2. The period of Anti-prelacy, from 1600 to the begin- 
 ning of the eighteenth century. 
 
 3. The period of Anti-patronage, from the beginning of 
 the eighteenth century to 1843. 
 
 But for the present, with these facts before our eyes, I re- 
 turn to the question I first stated. 
 
 Is not the Church of Scotland mistaken in thinking that 
 there may be a certain combination between the church and 
 the state ? 
 
 I answer, that, in the abstract, and in principle, she is not. 
 The obedience which the Christian owes to Jesus Christ, as 
 the only King of the church, is opposed to the Christian's 
 recognizing any jurisdiction of the state in spiritual matters ; 
 but it does not prevent the state from .uniting with the church 
 in certain external and temporal relations. Conscience for- 
 bids our rendering to the state what belongs only to the 
 Lord, but it forbids no more. The American Church, though 
 quite independent of the state, still maintains some relations 
 with it. The state, for instance, proclaims a fast-day, and 
 the church observes it. 
 
 But with regard to expediency and to possibility, that is 
 another matter. I do not think that such relations can be- 
 
 8
 
 170 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 come intimate or influential without danger. A salary, for 
 instance, paid by the state to the church, besides having 
 other inconveniences, gives the state a hold upon the church, 
 and compromises the latter. 
 
 A church jealous of maintaining the prerogative of the 
 Lord, and which would withstand the state as soon as it 
 made the least encroachment upon her, must always be in 
 opposition, and in conflict with the state. Of this the his- 
 tory of the Church of Scotland is a proof. 
 
 Should it, then, be the aim of these two great associations, 
 the state and the church, to hate and wage incessant war 
 upon each other ? Are these two powers, which both pro- 
 ceed from God, which are both placed by him above the 
 nations, to diffuse inestimable benefits among them, set up 
 merely as two champions, two gladiators, to fence incessantly 
 together, and aim at each other's lives ? 
 
 I am too desirous of a real and cordial union between the 
 civil and the religious body, not to wish those ties to be sev- 
 ered, those complications unravelled, which, hitherto, have 
 never ceased to make them rivals and enemies. In my opin- 
 ion, the greatest argument against such union is its impossi- 
 bility, its incompatibility with the peace, the liberty, the 
 vitality, and the prosperity both of the state and of the 
 church. 
 
 I ask not, therefore, the suppression of a union, but of a 
 discord. I am tenacious of establishing this fact 
 
 O 
 
 It is no question now, of a discord which existed in past 
 ages, in the times of Henry of Germany, of Gregory VII., 
 of Philip Augustus, of Boniface VIII., of Frederick Barba- 
 rossa, of Gregory IX., or of Innocent III. No ; our business 
 is with a deplorable discord and struggle which exists in our 
 own day, which is vigorously recommencing in France (see the 
 late "pastoral letters," for example), in Germany, in England, 
 and even in our own Switzerland, once deluged in blood by 
 the questions of the convents and the Jesuits, and destined, 
 perhaps, to be so again. I say nothing of the Canton de
 
 THE SCOTTISH QUESTION. 171 
 
 Vaud ; of the struggle even now sustained there by a few 
 noble witnesses for the kingship of Jesus Christ ; of the con- 
 flict in which the power of faith is opposed by the power of 
 the bluQgeon ; of that battle which is going on at our own 
 doors, which is felt even in our own homes, and which speaks 
 with a voice from which some useful lesson might surely be 
 learnt. 
 
 < Yes ; I accuse those governmental systems which would, 
 at any price, keep up these complications, these invasions, 
 these subjections. I accuse them as enemies of a cordial and 
 healthful union between the church and the state. I accuse 
 them of being the instigators of troubles and conflicts be- 
 tween the two bodies. I accuse them as being calculated to 
 perpetuate among the nations the causes of their desolation 
 and their ruin ; and it is in the name of this very principle 
 of union which they assert, while they pervert its nature, 
 that I condemn them. 
 
 May the Free Church of Scotland maintain that ancient 
 and grand principle, by virtue of which the kindly influence 
 of Christianity is to penetrate not only into individuals, but 
 into families ; not only into families, but into the most ex- 
 tensive societies, and most especially into the great body of 
 the nation. May the Church of Scotland maintain, that 
 there is upon earth, neither individual nor society in behalf 
 of which she is now to offer up this prayer, " Thy kingdom 
 come." May she reject with alarm, as we ourselves do, the 
 saying of a celebrated French Roman Catholic politician ; 
 " The state is Atheist," (a saying which, I am aware, has 
 been explained, but which nevertheless has been perniciously 
 invented.) May the Church of Scotland never cease to re- 
 peat before the whole world, that she will not have a state 
 without God; but let her at the same time acknowledge 
 with thankfulness what God has done for her, and glory in 
 her perfect freedom. 
 
 I conclude by observing that, while the Scottish system 
 builds its theories upon a solid scriptural basis, a powerful
 
 172 TRAVELLING RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 principle, which is too much neglected by separatism ; the 
 latter develops the Scottish system in a very important ap- 
 plication. They are, or at least ought to be, two friendly 
 systems, each the compliment of the other. 
 
 Allow me, in conclusion, to make a strange supposition. 
 Should a madman, in order to establish a greater union in our 
 solar system, propose connecting the earth, the moon, and 
 the sun together by some monstrous chain, what, I ask, 
 would be the result ; but that such a bond would prevent 
 the free motion of these bodies, would draw our system into 
 unheard of disorder, and plunge us into a fearful cataclysm, 
 into the darkness and desolation of chaos ? 
 
 Far better is that liberty which God has given them, a 
 liberty which allows of the free circulation of light, heat, 
 and life ! Not only in Scotland, therefore, but throughout 
 the world, may the church become free, and avail herself 
 betimes of the advantages of that freedom to cause all na- 
 tions, and consequently all states, to rejoice in the light of 
 the Sun of Righteousness !
 
 PART II, 
 
 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 
 
 Sixteenth Century. Popery, 
 
 1. Travellers. History and its Lessons. Two Men at Geneva. The 
 Vocation of Scotland. Return of Knox. St. Andrews. Triumph 
 of the Reformation. The Church Free. 2. First Book of Discipline. 
 Election of Pastors. Mary Stuart. Opposition. League of Bayonne. 
 The Holyrood Murder. 3. The Church established. Spiritual Inde- 
 pendence of the Church. Death of the Good Regent. Tulchan 
 Bishops. Sayings of Erskine of Dun. 4. The Book of Policy. 
 James, Lennox, and Arran. Archbishop Montgomery. Act against 
 Civil Admission. Protest of the Assembly. Melville before the King. 
 James yields. 5. The Black Acts. Protest. Protestant Reaction. 
 Presbyterian Speech of the King. Ecclesiastical Charter of 1592. 
 6. New Reaction. Deputation to the King. Andrew Melville. Dan- 
 gers. Strength and Courage. 
 
 I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 LAST year I related some passages of my travels in Ger- 
 many, England, and Scotland. I have been asked whether 
 I have nothing more to tell ; whether my store is exhausted. 
 I have found yet a few fragments which I have brought to- 
 gether, and now proceed to lay them before you.
 
 174 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 To explain the nature of these fragments, I must confess 
 to a foible of my own. 
 
 A number of travellers journey through the same country, 
 and yet each one sees different things. The artist brings 
 home his portfolio full of sketches of rustic cottages, bub- 
 ling cascades, delightful views of lakes, smiling valleys, and 
 proud mountain tops. The architect does not leave unno- 
 ticed one Gothic church, one elegant mansion, or even a 
 single colonnade or capital. The statesman studies the in- 
 stitutions, the senates, the prerogative, the working and the 
 balance of power. The pedagogue visits every school, con- 
 verses with every schoolmaster, inquires into their methods, 
 and the results they produce ; and so on. 
 
 As for me, I delight in going back into past ages, and, as 
 I contemplate what I meet with in the places I visit, to seek 
 out what happened there in times gone by. I inquire into 
 the historical reminiscences. I cannot look upon a field of 
 battle without marshalling armies upon it ; on an ancient 
 house, without bringing back its inhabitants ; on a church, 
 without placing in the pulpit the illustrious man who has 
 preached there, and in the nave, the audience he was wont to 
 animate with his words. I cannot pass through a cemetery 
 without calling up its dead. 
 
 In consequence of this, the fragments I shall now lay be- 
 fore you are historical. As I travelled through Scotland, for 
 to this country I confine myself for the present, I re-peopled 
 it with its former inhabitants. Therefore, after having told 
 you of my friends of the present day, I have only to speak 
 of my friends of one, two, and three centuries ago. 
 
 The contemporary history of a people is contained in 
 the history of its early times. The present lies everywhere 
 within the past, as the ear within the grain of wheat, and the 
 bird within the egg. Therefore, in thus carrying you with 
 me over the fair country of Scotland, I intend, indeed, like a 
 necromancer, to call up the spirits of the departed ; yet I
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 175 
 
 am performing an actual work, and explaining the obscurities 
 of the present by the lights of the past. 
 
 Every one acknowledges the utility of historical lessons ; 
 yet we must make a selection from them, since there are 
 some which are suited to one time, though not to another. 
 If there is one feature especially characteristic of our own 
 age, it is the studies of thinking men upon the relations 
 which should exist between those two great societies, the 
 political and the religious. If there is one appeal now spe- 
 cially addressed to the Christian man, amidst all these con- 
 flicts, all these falls, and all these transformations of power, 
 it is, doubtless, the call to remain immovably faithful to the 
 Invisible and Immortal King. If the kingdoms and the 
 republics of this world are shaking and falling, so that fearful 
 men are ready to flee lest they should be crushed among 
 their ruins ; the Scripture declares that there is one state, one 
 " kingdom that cannot be moved," and in which the exiles 
 must take refuge.* Now, if there is any history fertile in 
 lessons on this important subject, on the steadfastness, the 
 vitality of the church, it is that of Scotland since the Refor- 
 mation. I have torn from the book of ages, the leaf on 
 which was inscribed those ancient times so pregnant in les- 
 sons for our own ; and this is, perhaps, the most important 
 of the remembrances I have preserved of my journey. Allow 
 me to exhibit it ; to read to you this page so full of struggles 
 and of sufferings, yet of triumph and of faith also. 
 
 Nearly three centuries ago, in the old streets of our old 
 city, in the Rue des Chanoines, in the Bourg de Four, upon 
 this very hill where we are now met, and near these three 
 towers of St. Peter which rise steeple-less beside us, two 
 men might have been seen walking together, men of se- 
 rious and venerable demeanor, with deep and piercing glance, 
 men of conflict and of prayer. One of these was John 
 Calvin, the other John Knox. The latter had been, for two 
 
 * This was spoken shortly after the revolution of Geneva, in October, 
 1846.
 
 176 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 years, the pastor of those English and Scotch whom per- 
 secution had driven to seek refuge in our hospitable city. 
 He came in 1556, with his wife and her mother, then a 
 widow, and there two sons were born to him. In the con- 
 versations they held together, the doctor of Geneva and the 
 doctor of Scotland mutually enlightened each other ; ex- 
 amined the Bible to discover the condition of the ancient 
 church ; grieved that the ecclesiastical government of the 
 early times had been entirely subverted by the tyranny of 
 the Papacy ; re-established the chief heads of that Pres- 
 byterian constitution of which, during the sixteenth century, 
 they were the two great representatives ; and thus formed, 
 on the shores of our lake, the bonds of that brotherhood 
 which will forever unite Scotland and Geneva. 
 
 Knox having learnt, in 1559, the extremity to which his 
 brethren of Scotland were reduced, and having received let- 
 ters, by express, inviting him to return to his own country, 
 he resolved to repair thither, and devote his life to the cause 
 of the Gospel and of the Reformation. He left Geneva, where 
 he had enjoyed all the calm delights of a Christian life ; he 
 left Calvin, whom he had so well understood. He turned 
 from our snow-topped mountains, and from our free and 
 happy city, traversed France, embarked at Dieppe, and be- 
 ing prevented from passing through England, landed at 
 Leith, near Edinburgh, on the 2d of May, 1559. 
 
 But it was not only what he had brought from Geneva, 
 that Knox was to realize in Scotland; Knox and Scotland 
 were to perform a task, which was not given (in the same 
 degree at least) to Calvin and Geneva. 
 
 The independence of the church which Christ has re- 
 deemed with his most precious blood, and which belongs to 
 Him alone, and not to earthly rulers, is the treasure which 
 was to be intrusted to the regenerated men among the de- 
 scendants of the Picts and Scots. One circumstance con- 
 tributed to this special vocation : it was, that nowhere, un- 
 less in France, did the government show itself so hostile to
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 177 
 
 evangelical doctrine and discipline as in Scotland. If Scot- 
 land so energetically resisted all state interference, it was 
 not only for the sake of maintaining a few ecclesiastical 
 forms ; but because through these forms, the state was en- 
 deavoring to reach and to destroy the doctrine and the very 
 life of the church. Scotland is a small country ; not so in 
 the struggle she has had to wage during the last three cen- 
 turies, and it well deserves the interest of all who are con- 
 vinced that those whom Christ has redeemed should forever 
 be free. 
 
 At the time of Knox's arrival in Edinburgh, a number of 
 the evangelical ministers of Scotland had been summoned 
 before the Justiciary Court, and in eight days they were to 
 take, their trial for having taught heresy, and excited tumults 
 among the people. Their enemies, preparing a treacherous 
 scheme to get rid of them by death, had met for several 
 days in the monastery of the Grayfriars at Edinburgh ; when, 
 on the morning of the 3rd of May, while the priests were 
 maturing their plots, a monk, who liad probably been beg- 
 ging about the town, rushed into the monastery, and run- 
 ning breathless, and pale with terror, into the room where 
 the clergy were assembled, exclaimed, " John Knox ! John 
 Knox is come ! He is here ! He slept last night in Edin- 
 burgh !" If a thunderbolt had fallen in the midst of them, 
 the priests could not have felt more alarm. They rose 
 hastily, left the hall and the convent ; and dispersed, some 
 one way, some another, in the greatest confusion and dismay. 
 
 Such was the effect produced by the arrival in Scotland of 
 the refugee from Geneva. He lost no time, and his preach- 
 ing quickly excited every mind. His friends for his sake 
 feared the effects of his courage. " As for the fear of dan- 
 ger that may come to me," said he to them, "let no man be 
 solicitous ; for my life is in the custody of Him whose glory 
 I seek. I desire the hand or weapon of no man to defend 
 me." With such sentiments, Knox determined to remain in 
 St. Andrews, the see of the primate, the Scottish Rome, for
 
 178 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 he knew that it was at the centre of an army that the strong- 
 est blows should be dealt. On the 16th of June, 1559, he 
 ascended the pulpit, and preached before a numerous audi- 
 tory ; among whom were many of the clergy, and of the 
 armed retainers of the bishop, who had been prepared to 
 take the Reformer's life. 
 
 St. Andrews ! How many reminiscences were recalled to 
 me by this antique city, with its venerable towers and its 
 numerous steeples ! Residing, during my visit to this town, 
 in the house of Sir David Brewster, one of the most eminent 
 scientific men of Scotland, I was so fortunate as to have Dr. 
 Hetherington, the historian of the Scottish Church, for my 
 guide among its antiquities. With what interest did I sur- 
 vey alternately the magnificent ruins of that cathedral, the 
 work of many centuries, which one word from Knox brought 
 down in a single day ; then, at no great distance, upon those 
 enormous perpendicular rocks, at whose foot the waves dash 
 incessantly, the picturesque remains of the castle, whose an- 
 cient walls now serve as a landmark to the mariner; and 
 then, again, those squares where the martyrs shed their 
 blood at the period of the Reformation, and in one of which 
 now stands a temple of the Free Church, on the very spot 
 where three centuries ago a scaffold was erected. How many 
 spirits could I call up, as I walked among these ruins ! 
 
 Previous to the powerful preaching of Knox, the bishop 
 of St. Andrews fled in alarm to Edinburgh, to the Queen 
 Regent, to inform her of the triumph of the Reformation. 
 That princess immediately sent an army against the Lords 
 and the People of the Congregation, who then determined 
 upon resistance. These courageous Scots, animated with 
 the love of Christ, successively entered Perth, Stirling, and 
 Edinburgh. The Roman worship was soon abolished over 
 almost the whole of Scotland; and in July, 1560, a treaty 
 between Mary Stuart { Queen of Scotland the (Regent being 
 now dead), and Elizabeth, Queen of England, stipulated an 
 amnesty, and an early convocation of the Parliament. This
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 179 
 
 Parliament, which met in August, accepted the Confession 
 of Faith, drawn up by Knox and his friends, and definitively 
 abolished the Papal jurisdiction, without however bestowing 
 upon the new church the yoke of the state. Thus, the first 
 fact we meet with in this history is this : the church began 
 in Scotland, by lying under the cross and receiving from the 
 political powers nothing but persecution. In 1560 she be- 
 came, in a manner, national, yet she remained free ; and it 
 was only seven years later that she was erected into a State 
 Church, and became, what is called in Britain, an Establish- 
 ment. 
 
 II. 
 
 A CHURCH AND A QUEEN. 
 
 POPERY being thus abolished in Scotland, the Christian 
 church proceeded to constitute itself, and, on the 20th De- 
 cember, 1560, the first General Assembly was held. It did 
 not meet by the convocation of the Parliament. That im- 
 portant body in the state remained passive in regard to it, 
 and did nothing either for or against it. It was the authority 
 of the church itself, which was set forth alone by this As- 
 sembly. This first great synod had no other origin than the 
 conscience of the evangelized people, than the convocation 
 of Christ. This origin of the Church of Scotland is of 
 great importance to enable us to comprehend the freedom 
 which is her characteristic. 
 
 Knox and his associates had already, as we have seen, 
 drawn up a Confession of Faith ; the Assembly felt the ne- 
 cessity of having an ecclesiastical constitution, and intrusted 
 the work to the same divines. Thus was produced the First 
 Book of Discipline, which may be regarded as the earliest 
 charter of the Church of Scotland ; and which, without being 
 at that time ratified by the queen's council, there being as 
 yet no religious establishment, was signed by most of the 
 councillors of the crown, as members of the church.
 
 180 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 I do not mean to exhibit the Presbyterian system as set- 
 tled by this charter. I will content myself with observing 
 what concerns one of the principles which I have pointed 
 out as essential to Scotland, the liberty of the flocks with 
 respect to the election of pastors. 
 
 The First Book of Discipline, in the 2d section of the 4th 
 chapter, says, 
 
 " It appertaineth to the people, and to every several con- 
 gregation, to elect their minister." In the 4th section : 
 "Altogether this is to be avoided that any man be violently 
 intruded or thrust in upon any congregation ; but this 
 liberty with all care must be reserved to every several 
 church to have their votes and suffrages in the election of 
 ministers." 
 
 Such are the primary rights of the Church of Scotland, 
 beyond all ambiguity and all dispute. And if within our 
 own times there have been conflicts on this subject, we must 
 seek for their source three centuries back. 
 
 In 1565, Queen Mary Stuart, the niece of the Guises, that 
 woman so celebrated for her beauty and her imprudent con- 
 duct, wishing to marry Darnley, attempted to draw closer to 
 the General Assembly, which she was desirous of gaining 
 over. But the queen soon showed that nothing was to be 
 expected from her. She declared that she would remain 
 constant to the Romish faith, and yet maintain within the 
 Presbyterian church her claim of patronage ; that is to say, 
 the privilege of appointing ministers to certain parishes. 
 
 The General Assembly, not daring to resist these preten- 
 sions, replied, that the presentation in certain cases belonged 
 to the patrons, but the definitive appointment belonged to 
 the church ; because if the church had not the right of ac- 
 cepting or of refusing her ministers, the patrons might pre- 
 sent whomsoever they pleased without trial and without 
 examination. From that time many of the nobles opposed 
 the Reformation and the Book of Discipline ; for order and 
 freedom have met with adversaries in all times and in all
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 181 
 
 places. " This system," they exclaimed, " is but a devout 
 imagination, a dream, proceeding no doubt from good inten- 
 tions, but impossible to realize." History has triumphantly 
 answered these empty words. 
 
 This opposition was soon manifested in a General Assem- 
 bly, held in December, 1661. Several lords disputed the 
 legality, or even the possibility of such convention, without 
 the consent and good pleasure of the queen. But the inde- 
 pendence of the church immediately found defenders. Knox, 
 in answer to Maitland of Lethington, the Secretary of State, 
 said, " Take from us the liberty of Assemblies, and you take 
 from us the Gospel !" This is a strong expression ; but 
 Knox justified it by adding, " If the liberty of the church 
 must depend upon the queen's allowance or disallowance, we 
 shall want not only Assemblies, but also the preaching of the 
 Gospel." 
 
 Thus did Knox protest and assert that the church should 
 be independent of the state, and dispense with its permission, 
 because she would not submit to its denial. 
 
 Such was the commencempnt of Presbyterianism in Scot- 
 land. Popery, abolished as a national worship, remained 
 only as the religion of the court, and evangelical Presbyte- 
 rianism was freely, yet powerfully set up. Rome could not 
 behold this state of things without anger, and every thing 
 was soon prepared for a revolution. 
 
 The Council of Trent had lately passed a decree for the 
 extirpation of the Protestant faith ; and the Guises, the uncles 
 of Mary Stuart, had invited their niece to join in the League 
 of Bayonne, formed for that purpose. Mary hesitated not to 
 do so. The excellent Earl of Murray, and most of the Prot- 
 estant lords, had already been exiled. Mary went still far- 
 ther ; she appointed a meeting of Parliament, in which the 
 Romish prelates were to resume their places, and ordered 
 popish altars to be set up in the Cathedral of Edinburgh. 
 The restoration of Popery was about to be accomplished. It 
 was arrested by the hand of God.
 
 182 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 At this time happened one of those remarkable events in 
 which the Almighty permits the wicked to destroy each 
 other, and thereby delivers the righteous. It is one of the 
 scenes most vividly recalled to the recollection of strangers 
 who visit Edinburgh ; and it is worthy of such notice, as vin- 
 dicating in an awful manner the providence of God. While 
 I was going through the ancient palace of Holyrood I went 
 into the apartments of Mary Stuart : I entered her chamber, 
 I stood before her bed ; I stopped in that famous and some- 
 what narrow closet, adjoining the queen's bed-chamber, in 
 which was enacted one of the crimes of that age, perpetrated 
 in the midst and in defiance of the sacred light of the Refor- 
 mation. I cannot avoid giving an account of my impressions 
 as a traveller. 
 
 I was at Holyrood. I placed myself three centuries back 
 (9th March, 1566,) and pictured to myself what was then 
 passing in that tragical cabinet. It is evening, the hour of 
 supper ; the queen is at table : beside her sits an Italian, her 
 private secretary, Rizzio by name, whom the popish princes 
 of the Continent have chosen as the agent of their plots at 
 Edinburgh, and who for some time has enjoyed the intimacy 
 of the queen so closely as to excite the jealousy of Darnley, 
 the prince on Avhom she had bestowed her hand. With the 
 queen and Rizzio are also the Countess of Argyle, and one 
 or two other persons. They are eating, drinking, conversing, 
 jesting, laughing ; they think of nothing but pleasure. On 
 a sudden, Darnley enters, the papist Darnley, and without 
 saluting any one, darts at Rizzio a look of vengeance. Be- 
 hind him stands Lord Ruthven, risen from a sick bed, with 
 pale and ghastly features, and in the background appear 
 armed men. Ruthven, in a hollow voice, orders Rizzio to 
 quit a place of which he is unworthy : the Italian, in alarm, 
 seizes the queen by the skirts of her garment, and implores 
 her protection. Darnley forces him away, and at that mo- 
 ment George Douglas, pulling out the king's own dagger, 
 strikes Rizzio with it. In an instant cries and tears succeed
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 183 
 
 . 
 
 to laughter and to joy. The secretary is dragged away into 
 the outer apartment, and, in spite of the queen's supplica- 
 tions, falls pierced with fifty-six wounds ; his blood flows in 
 streams upon the floor. The marks of it are still visible ; 
 and for these 279 years, nothing, as the guide asserts, has 
 'been able to efface the stains. I believe this fact possible. 
 When the queen heard of his death, " Now," said she, " I 
 will dry my tears, and think of revenge." 
 
 Thenceforward, indeed, revenge became her ruling pas- 
 sion, and she forgot the Presbyterians, to persecute her own 
 husband and Rizzio's assassins. She perceived in Bothwell, 
 a profligate noble of her court, an instrument fitted for her 
 purpose, and within a year the king, her husband, was mur- 
 dered by that miscreant. The queen married for the third 
 time, and married the murderer of her husband. Then did 
 the divine, vengeance, that vengeance which delays, but 
 which surely comes, and of which Elizabeth became the 
 great instrument, begin to burst upon Mary Stuart. I will 
 proceed no farther into that which concerns her. Rizzio, the 
 envoy of the Guises, fell by the orders of the papist Darn- 
 ley ; Darnley fell by the orders of the papist Mary Stuart ; 
 Mary Stuart fell in her turn. " The wicked shall fall by his 
 own wickedness," saith the prophet (Prov. xi. 5.) ; and "the 
 Lord will destroy all the wicked." (Ps. cxlv. 20.) On the 
 Continent, and especially in France, Mary Stuart has been 
 perpetually lauded, and Knox insulted. It should be known 
 what was the character of that queen, with whom the great 
 reformer had to deal, and whose misdeeds he could some- 
 times so courageously rebuke. Before the tribunal of the 
 world, it is often enough to be beautiful to expiate great 
 faults, but this is not sufficient before the tribunal of God.
 
 184 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 / 
 
 III. 
 
 THE TULCHANS. 
 
 MARY STUART had fallen. Immediately there took place 
 throughout Scotland so decided a movement in favor of Pres- 
 byterianism, as to proceed, perhaps, beyond desirable limits. 
 The excellent Earl of Murray, a zealous reformer, being re- 
 called from exile, was placed as regent at the head of the 
 government; the parliament met on the loth of December, 
 1567 ; and it was then that the Reformed Church was recog- 
 nized and established by the state, a triumph similar to that 
 of Christianity, when under Constantine the religion of the 
 crucified One ascended the throne of the Caesars. Alas ! what 
 worldliness and corruption did the church find on the throne 
 of the emperors ! what anguish, what struggles, and what 
 martyrdom did she find around the throne of the Stuarts ! 
 
 Nevertheless, the church, founded in opposition to a tyran- 
 nical hierarchy and a hostile government, had assumed a 
 character of liberty of which she could never be deprived. 
 The Scottish people, ardently devoted to the Reformation, 
 had joyfully embraced the principles of the Presbyterian in- 
 stitutions. Of simple manners, fond of civil liberty, full of 
 affection for the things of God, this generous nation, while 
 \vithstanding the claims of an ambitious clergy, had asserted 
 their right of effecting for themselves all that they judged to 
 be needful. Ecclesiastical discipline prevented the inconve- 
 niences that might have arisen from this participation of the 
 people in the interests of Christianity, since those only who 
 lived a Christian life were permitted to exercise it. Placed 
 at a distance from the Continent, at a distance from Rome, 
 the Scotch, by bestowing the ecclesiastical authority on a 
 body composed of the ministers and elders of the church, 
 believed, and believed rightly, that they were thus adhering 
 to the most ancient Christian traditions, even of Scotland 
 herself.
 
 ,, SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 185 
 
 But now that the state and the church are united (in 1567), 
 will not the church in Scotland, as elsewhere, purchase the 
 favor of the state by concession? By no means. I will 
 quote an instance of this. The seventh chapter of the Act 
 of Parliament, in 1567, asserts in the most positive manner 
 the independence of the church : " It is ordained," it is there 
 said, "that the examination and the admission of ministers 
 shall be only in the power of the kirk." This act adds, that 
 " if the person presented by the patron is refused, the patron 
 may appeal to the synod ; and that if the latter refuse like- 
 wise, the patron may appeal to the General Assembly, by 
 whom the cause being decided, shall take an end as they discern 
 and declare." 
 
 This fundamental law, therefore, establishes that when the 
 supreme ecclesiastical authority has decided, the cause is con- 
 cluded, so that no appeal can be made from the General As- 
 sembly to any civil authority. The final judgment belongs 
 to the ecclesiastical authority. This law was one of the 
 causes which, in 1843, brought about the founding of the 
 Free Church. They were desirous, after three centuries, of 
 remaining faithful to it. 
 
 It is said that the General Assembly cannot reject the 
 presentee, except on the ground of certain faults. We must 
 observe, that there is in the fundamental law no trace of any 
 such restriction. Such distinctions and complicated exam- 
 inations were then unknown. It was the man the minister 
 in his whole character, that the ministers, the elders, and 
 the flocks judged, admitted, or rejected. 
 
 Thus, in 1567, the Reformed Church of Scotland, which had 
 long before existed, was recognized, but not created by the 
 state. It was no act of parliament that brought her into 
 existence : it was from a decree of the court of Heaven, from 
 the will of the Head of the church, that she derived her 
 life. She existed with her doctrine, with her discipline, with 
 her constitution, and with her presbyteries, her synods, and 
 her general assemblies, in greater completeness, perhaps,
 
 186 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 than any other church, when the state adopted her. Far 
 from bringing her into existence, it had long sought to put 
 her to death. 
 
 However, the good regent Murray soon after fell by the 
 hand of an assassin ; and immediately the state, notwith- 
 standing her recent alliance, recommenced her struggle with 
 the church. This is already the fourth revolution since the 
 abolition of Popery ; and it is a most ridiculous one. 
 
 The Romish prelates who had been set aside, had re- 
 tained two-thirds of their revenues. Two-thirds for doing 
 nothing, this was treating them very generously ! Several 
 of them having now died, it was asked, upon whom these 
 two-thirds should devolve ? A custom, then common 
 among the herdsmen of the Highlands, gave the idea, or at 
 least the name, to the practice of which the new regent 
 now availed himself. When the Highland herdsmen wished 
 to have the milk of a cow, from which they had taken her 
 calf, they set before her, if the creature was refractory, a 
 stuffed calf-skin, to which they managed to give some sort 
 of living look, and which they called a Tulchan. The cow 
 thus gave her milk apparently for the Tulchan, in reality for 
 the herdsman. 
 
 Morton, the new regent, did the same. Hamilton, the 
 archbishop of St. Andrews, having died, Morton himself 
 took possession of the revenues of his see ; but as he, being 
 a layman, could not touch the revenues of a church benefice, 
 he made an arrangement with a clergyman, John Douglas, 
 to whom he gave the title of archbishop, reserving the rents 
 for himself, and this plan he soon undertook to apply to all 
 the bishoprics of Scotland. "The bishop," says the his- 
 torian Calderwood, " had the title, but my lord got the 
 milk." The prelates thus appointed, were thenceforward 
 called by the name of Tulchan bishops. 
 
 In this strange proceeding, it was the claim of the civil 
 power to appoint to an ecclesiastical function which most 
 displeased the church. Scotland was moved : all cried out
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 187 
 
 against the encroachments of the civil power ; all felt that it 
 was stretching forth its hand to trouble the pure and living 
 waters which flow from the Rock. Erskine of Dun, a man 
 of a pacific but firm temper, now addressed these words to 
 the regent, which, clearly marking the distinctions existing 
 between the ecclesiastical and the political power, strongly 
 exhibit the essential character of the Church of Scotland : 
 " There is," says he to Morton, "a spiritual jurisdiction 
 and power, which God hath given unto his kirk and to 
 them that bear office therein ; and there is a temporal juris- 
 diction and power, given of God to kings and civil magis- 
 trates. Both the powers are of God, and most agreeing to 
 the fortifying one of the other, if they be right used. But 
 when the corruption of man enters in, confounding the of- 
 fices, usurping to himself what he pleases, nothing regard- 
 ing the good order appointed by God, then confusion fol- 
 lows in all estates. The kirk of God should fortify all law- 
 ful power and authority that pertains to the civil magistrate, 
 because it is the ordinance of God. But if he pass the 
 bounds of his office, and enter within the sanctuary of the 
 Lord, meddling with such things as appertain to the minis- 
 ters of God's kirk, then the servants of God should with- 
 stand his unjust enterprise, for so they are commanded by 
 God." 
 
 Such, from the sixteenth century, have been the princi- 
 ples of the Church of Scotland. Not in vain have they been 
 proclaimed, either at that time or in our own day. The 
 Church beheld a new deliverance arise. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE COURTIERS AND A MINISTER OF GOD. 
 
 IN 15*78, the regent Morton resigned his functions, and 
 James Stuart, (James VI. of Scotland, afterwards James I. 
 of England,) the son of Mary Stuart and Darnley, and then
 
 188 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 only twelve years of age, took, or appeared to take, the reins 
 of government into his own hands. This young king's ac- 
 cession to power was signalized by a more complete develop- 
 ment of Presbyterianism. The General Assembly gave its 
 sanction to the " Second Book of Discipline," intended to 
 complete the first, and called also " The Book of Policy, 
 which has been regarded as the charter of the Church of 
 Scotland. These are the principles established in this essen- 
 tial document : 
 
 " The policy of the kirk is an order or form of spiritual 
 government, which is exercised by the members appointed 
 thereto by the Word of God. 
 
 " This power and policy ecclesiastical is different and dis- 
 tinct in its own nature from that power and policy which is 
 called the civil power. 
 
 " For this power ecclesiastical 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." 
 
 Such are the general principles of this Scottish charter. 
 
 These are the special principles as to the election of pas- 
 tors : 
 
 It is said in the third chapter, sections 4 and 5 : "Elec- 
 tion is the choosing out of a person or persons most able to 
 the office that vaikes (becomes vacant) by the judgment of 
 the eldership, and consent of the congregation. * * * * 
 In the order of election, it is to be eschewed that a person be 
 intruded in any of the offices of the kirk, contrary to the will 
 of the congregation to whom they are appointed, or without 
 the voice of the eldership." 
 
 The twelfth chapter says : " The liberty of the election 
 of persons called to the ecclesiastical functions, and observed 
 without interruption so long as the church was not corrupted 
 by antichrist, we desire to be restored and retained within 
 this realm, so that none be intruded upon any congrega- 
 tion, either by the prince, or any inferior person, without
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 189 
 
 lawful election, and the assent of the people over whom the 
 person is placed." 
 
 The Church of Scotland went even farther than this, and 
 finding herself unable to declare the abolition of patronage, 
 expressed, at least, the wish of doing so : 
 
 " We desire all them that truly fear God, earnestly to con- 
 sider that for sa meikle (forasmuch) as the names of patron- 
 ages and benefices, together with the effect thereof, have 
 flowed from the pope, and corruption of the canon law only, 
 in so far as thereby any person was intruded or placed over 
 kirks having cur am animarum ; and for sa meikle as that 
 manner of proceeding has no ground in the Word of God, but 
 is contrary to the same, and to the said liberty of election, 
 they ought not now to have place in this light of reforma- 
 tion." 
 
 The Book of Policy having been sanctioned by the Gen- 
 eral Assembly, was presented to the king to receive his con- 
 firmation. This prince, or rather his court, demanded an 
 amendment, says Calderwood : he desired, that in the arti- 
 cle against the intrusion of a minister, these words " con- 
 trary to the will of the congregation," should be erased, 
 and the following substituted " if the people have a lawful 
 cause against his life or manners." The church rejected this 
 amendment. She believed, doubtless, that there would al- 
 ways be persons ready to assert that the objection was not 
 valid, and that thus the liberties of the church would be re- 
 duced to nothing. The amendment desired, though not ob- 
 tained, by James, very nearly resembles, in our opinion, that 
 which was recently passed in Lord Aberdeen's bill. How- 
 ever this may be, the evangelical party in the Church of 
 Scotland has always regarded this amendment as a sort of 
 back door, through which might be taken away what is ap- 
 parently given in by the front one. The Book of Policy, up 
 to the present day, must be signed by all ministers. The 
 son of Mary Stuart did not positively accept it ; but the act 
 of 1592, by which the state recognized the church " as it
 
 190 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 then existed," thereby recognized the ordinances by which 
 the church was constituted. Were Henry V., the grandson 
 of Charles X., to declare that he acknowledged France " as 
 she now exists," would he not mean that he acknowledged 
 the charter by which she is governed ? Nay, more ; thjs 
 very act of 1592 quotes several passages of the " Second 
 Book of Discipline." This constitutional book of the Church 
 of Scotland, drawn up in the sixteenth century (in 15Y8), 
 was one of the causes which brought about the great dis- 
 ruption in the nineteenth. There is, perhaps, no church 
 which has preserved its homogeneity so completely as the 
 Church of Scotland. 
 
 The enemies of the church were not long in recognizing 
 each other. The young king had escaped from the guard- 
 ianship of the aged Morton, only to fall under the influence 
 of young nobles, still more dangerous than he. Surrounded, 
 like Rehoboam, with favorites, who had been brought up 
 with him, James was ready to say to his people, " My 
 mother hath chastised you with whips, I will chastise you 
 with scorpions." Great tribulation was preparing for the 
 Church of Scotland. Esme Stuart, whom the king had cre- 
 ated Duke of Lennox, and James Stuart, whom he made 
 Earl of Arran, thenceforward governed that weak prince, and 
 led him into evil by their advice, their example, their com- 
 pliance, and their flattery. Lennox was a papist when he 
 arrived in Scotland from France ; and, although he after- 
 wards took the name of Protestant, no one trusted to his 
 evangelical faith. Arran was a man of licentious character, 
 whose craft and boldness no obstacle could arrest. What 
 evils might not the pious men of Scotland apprehend from 
 such a triumvirate ! It was not long before the encroach- 
 ments of despotism and disorder made their appearance. 
 
 The king had just ratified Craig's Confession of Faith, 
 which became the first national covenant of Scotland, when 
 Boyd, Archbishop of Glasgow, having died, the privy coun- 
 cil granted to the Duke of Lennox, a disguised papist, the
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 191 
 
 revenues of the archbishopric ; but as he was not able to 
 draw them in his own name, he had recourse to a bishop of 
 straw, according to the Tulchan system. 
 
 In vain had the General Assembly, in 1578, abolished all 
 these bishops. " True," said they, " the bishops, but not 
 the archbishops !" Lennox found a minister of Stirling, 
 named Robert Montgomery, a weak, vain, and presumptuous 
 man, who consented to play the mean part of his Tulchan ; 
 and the king imposed this puppet of an archbishop upon 
 the General Assembly. But that body contained men too 
 friendly to liberty, and too inimical to hierarchical abuses, 
 not to protest against this simoniacal introduction of epis- 
 copacy. 
 
 In 1582, the Assembly of the Church of Scotland having 
 met at St. Andrews, and the government understanding 
 what they were about do do, a messenger-at-arms entered 
 the hall and forbade them, under pain of rebellion, to pro- 
 ceed against Montgomery. But after serious deliberation 
 the Assembly declared, that " No man can pretend to eccle- 
 siastical functions, office, promotion, or benefice, by any ab- 
 solute gift, collation, or admission by the civil magistrate or 
 patron ;" and that Montgomery, by accepting an ecclesias- 
 tical function at the hands of the state, had incurred the 
 double penalty of deposition and excommunication. The 
 act of 1582 is still in force in the church. It is thought 
 that in our times it has not been strictly observed.* 
 
 Montgomery, in alarm, appeared before the Assembly, 
 acknowledged that he had offended God and His church, 
 humbled himself before them, and promised to give up the 
 archbishopric. B^it incited by Lennox, who wanted the 
 milk of the cow, he soon after entered with a band of sol- 
 diers into the hall in which the Presbyters of Glasgow had 
 met, and presented an order from the king. The Presbytery 
 refused to comply with this order, which they regarded 
 as null in an ecclesiastical matter, and the moderator was 
 
 * In the cases of Marnoch and Auchterarder.
 
 192 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 dragged from his chair, insulted and beaten, and thrown into 
 prison. Thus did the storm of persecution begin to rage in 
 consequence of the interference of the civil power. 
 
 The question was, whether the passions of men, their 
 avarice and their ambition, ought to rule over the church in 
 the place of Jesus Christ, His word, and His truth. The 
 church stood firm. She attended to this saying, " Abhor 
 that which is evil, cleave to that which is good." The ex- 
 communication of Montgomery was intimated from the pul- 
 pits, and an Extraordinary Assembly having met, drew up 
 an address to the king in these terms : " Your Majesty, by 
 device of some counsellors, is caused to take upon your 
 Grace that spiritual power and authority, which properly 
 belongeth to Christ, as only King and Head of his kirk. 
 The ministry and execution thereof is only given to such as 
 bear office in the ecclesiastical government of the same. So 
 that in your Grace's person some men press to erect- a new 
 popedom, as though your Majesty could not be free king 
 and head of this commonwealth, unless as well the spiritual 
 as the temporal sword be put in your Grace's hand ; unless 
 Christ be bereft of his authority, and the two jurisdictions 
 confounded which God hath divided." 
 
 It now remained to present this spirited address to the 
 king. A deputation, at the head of which was that excel- 
 lent minister Andrew Melville, repaired to Perth, where the 
 king was residing. The court was indignant at the boldness 
 of the Assembly, the two favorites exclaimed loudly against 
 it, and all Avere apprehensive that the ministers would ex- 
 piate their audacity with their lives. " Beware !" they were 
 told, " beware of appearing before the king." Melville re- 
 plied, " I thank God, I am not afraid, nor feeble spirited in 
 the cause and message of Christ. Come what God pleases 
 to send, our commission shall be discharged !" 
 
 Accordingly, notwithstanding all solicitations and all men- 
 aces, the deputies on the following day proceeded to the 
 palace. Did not their Heavenly Master say, " Ye shall be
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 193 
 
 bi ought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testi- 
 mony against them and the Gentiles. But take no thought 
 how or what ye shall speak : for it shall be given you in that 
 same hour what ye shall speak. And fear not them which 
 kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul ; but rather 
 fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." 
 
 The deputies entered, and the king in council (he was then 
 sixteen years of age) received them sitting on his throne, and 
 surrounded with the splendor of his court. Melville went 
 forward, and gravely read the remonstrance. But hardly 
 had he finished, when the Earl of Arran, who was standing 
 near the throne, frowning terribly on all around him, ex- 
 claimed in a threatening voice, " Who dare subscribe these 
 treasonable articles ?" 
 
 " We dare," replied Melville calmly ; and then advancing 
 to the table which was before the king, he took a pen from 
 the hand of the secretary of the council, and signed his name 
 below the articles. The other deputies immediately followed 
 his example. Every one was struck with wonder, and none 
 dared to interrupt them. 
 
 This Christian calmness laid the storm. " A wise man 
 will pacify wrath," saith the Scripture. Arran, overawed, 
 was silent ; Lennox addressed some conciliatory words to the 
 deputies ; the king yielded, Montgomery retired ; and the 
 jurisdiction of the church, in regard to the calling and the 
 deprivation of ministers, was thus sanctioned anew by this 
 very transaction. In the same manner it Avas, in the question 
 of the deposition or suspension of ministers, that the govern- 
 ment interfered during the years preceding the formation of 
 the Free Church. Does, then, the British government, one 
 of the most enlightened, most truly liberal administrations in 
 political matters, believe itself able, in the present day, to 
 achieve what an almost absolute king, surrounded by his 
 favorites, dared not do in the sixteenth century ? We do 
 not answer this question ; we merely propose it. 
 
 The spirited resistance of the church bore its fruits. Soon 
 
 9
 
 194 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 afterwards, a better administration came into power ; Lennox 
 and Arran were removed from the king, and satisfaction was 
 diffused throughout the kingdom. 
 
 V. 
 
 KING JAMES AND PRESBYTERIANI8M. 
 
 THIS did not last long. The young son of Mary Stuart 
 recalled his flatterers; and, in May 1584, he convened a 
 parliament, which met with closed doors, and in which Mont- 
 gomery sat as Archbishop of Glasgow ; and Adamson, a still 
 baser character, as Archbishop of St. Andrews. These two 
 prelates, leagued with the unworthy favorites of James, di- 
 rected the most despotic measures. It was then that those 
 acts were passed, famous in the history of Scotland, and 
 known by the name of the Black Acts, which, as has been 
 said in our own time, even by one of the heads of the mod- 
 erate party, the Dean of Faculty, "annihilated the church, 
 and left her neither liberty nor .independence." These acts 
 decreed that the king and his council were "judges compe- 
 tent in all matters ;" that all judgment, spiritual or temporal, 
 which had not been approved by the king and his parliament, 
 should be of no force ; and that the bishops and ecclesias- 
 tical commissioners appointed by the king, might rule in all 
 that concerns the church. 
 
 The Black Acts set up the state to rule over the church, 
 and, under the state, set up the bishops, who were merely 
 its servile agents ; while, on the contrary, the Second Book 
 of Discipline established for its government General Assem- 
 blies, proceeding from the free choice of the Christian 
 people. 
 
 The struggle then began anew between the servitude of 
 the church and her freedom. 
 
 At first every thing tended towards her servitude. The 
 Black Acts were proclaimed at the market-cross of Edin-
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 195 
 
 burgh. In vain did a few ministers read at the same place, 
 in presence of the people, a protest against a legislation, 
 which was a deathblow to the church : the will of the king, 
 or rather that of Arran, prevailed, and more than twenty 
 ministers were obliged to fly for safety into England. 
 
 But a remedy was produced even by the excess of the evil. 
 The papist princes of the Continent were then taking meas- 
 ures to re-establish the authority of the Pope in Scotland. 
 Philip of Spain sent his famous Armada to bring Great Britain 
 again under the yoke of the Roman pontiff. It was more 
 than suspected that the king's favorites had been cognizant of 
 these perfidious designs. The Protestant spirit awoke with 
 fresh energy ; there was a new movement, a reaction in a 
 purely evangelical direction ; and, on the 22d October, 1589, 
 the king, setting out for Norway, where he was to marry the 
 Princess Anne of Denmark, appointed Robert Bruce, one 
 of the ministers of Edinburgh, an extraordinary member of 
 his privy council, declaring that he trusted to him to pre- 
 serve peace in the country more than to all his nobles. 
 
 In effect, the most perfect tranquillity prevailed through- 
 out the country during the king's absence. This period was 
 for Presbyterianism the most happy of the sixteenth century. 
 On his return, James, delighted with the services rendered 
 to him by the Presbyterian ministers, called a General As- 
 sembly in August 1590, and, whether moved by dissimula- 
 tion, or by a transient fit of enthusiasm, there pronounced 
 that eulogium on the Church of Scotland, which afterwards 
 became so famous : " I thank God that I was born in such 
 a time as the time of the light of the Gospel, to such a place 
 as to be king in such a kirk, the sincerest kirk in the world. 
 The kirk of Geneva," continued he, (he alluded to it as 
 being the most illustrious, and, with Scotland, the purest,) 
 " the kirk of Geneva keepeth Pasch and Yule." (In Scot- 
 land they keep no festivals ; they regard them as remnants 
 of the Romish church, and they will keep nothing but the 
 Sabbath as instituted in the Word of God.) " What have
 
 196 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 they for them '?" resumed James ; " they have no institution. 
 As for our neighbor kirk in England, it is an evil said mass 
 in English, wanting nothing but the liftings. I charge you, 
 my good people, ministers, doctors, elders, nobles, gentle- 
 men, and barons, to stand to your purity, and to exhort the 
 people to do the same ; and I, forsooth, so long as I brook 
 my life and crown, shall maintain the same against all deadly 
 enemies." 
 
 James forgot these words but too soon. In the mean- 
 time, however, they produced their effect, and in 1592, the 
 parliament passed a bill abolishing all " acts contrary to the 
 true religion," which has ever since been regarded as the 
 great charter of the Church of Scotland. 
 
 On the one hand, this act of 1592 ratifies and approves 
 the General Assemblies, as instituted by the church, with 
 the Synods and Presbyteries ; that is to say, the whole sys- 
 tem established by the Second Book of Discipline. 
 
 On the other hand, it declares the Black Acts to be " ex- 
 pired, null, and of none avail ;" and most specially asserts 
 that " they shall in no wise be prejudicial, nor derogate any 
 thing to the privilege that God hath given to the spiritual 
 office-bearers in the kirk, concerning heads of religion, mat- 
 ters of heresy, excommunication, collation, or deprivation of 
 ministers, or any such like essential censures specially ground- 
 ed and having warrant of the Word of God." Thus did the 
 Church of Scotland, in the sixteenth century, lay down prin- 
 ciples which were destined, three centuries after, to meet 
 with such warm advocates. 
 
 VI. 
 
 TWO KINGS AND TWO KINGDOMS. 
 
 THE struggle soon commenced anew. Not only were Jes- 
 uits and priests wandering over Scotland, threatening evil 
 both to church and state ; not only was it asserted that a
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 197 
 
 Spanish fleet was coming over with 30,000 men, who, in con- 
 cert with the partisans of the people in Scotland, were to 
 suppress Protestantism ; but the king himself was beginning 
 to lean towards that side. Desirous of securing his succes- 
 sion to the English throne, he was rapidly declining from 
 Presbyterianism, which he knew to be distasteful beyond the 
 Tweed ; and, being aware that in the states of Elizabeth 
 there existed a powerful Catholic party, he even attempted 
 to conciliate them. Those Scottish lords, therefore, who 
 were inclined to that cause returned home, and the govern- 
 ment was intrusted by the king to eight councillors, called 
 Octavians, from their number, the majority of whom were 
 Roman Catholics, either avowedly or disguised, and whose 
 actions soon justified all the fears of the reformers. Could 
 the church in Scotland resist an attack in which so many in- 
 imical parties were combined ? 
 
 The Commissioners of the General Assembly resolved to 
 send a deputation to the king, to avert the evils with which 
 their country was threatened ; and they appointed, as their 
 speaker, James Melville, Andrew's nephew, on account of his 
 courteous manners, and because he Was in favor with the 
 sovereign. But hardly had he begun his address, when the 
 king sharply interrupted him, and accused the Presbyterian 
 ministers of sedition. James Melville was about to reply in 
 a most submissive manner, when his uncle, seeing that now 
 or never was the time to state broadly the great principles 
 of the church, quitted the subordinate position which he had 
 then taken, and coming forward addressed the king. The 
 monarch ordered him to be silent ; but Andrew, taking him 
 by the sleeve, forced him to listen to these words, which 
 must have rung strangely in James's ears : " Sir, there are 
 two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland : there is Christ 
 Jesus, and his kingdom, the kirk, whose subject King James 
 the Sixth is, and of whose kingdom not a king, nor a head, 
 nor a lord, but a member. And they whom Christ has called 
 and commanded to watch over his kirk, and govern his spir-
 
 198 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 itual kingdom, have sufficient power from him, and author- 
 ity so to do, both together and severally, the which no 
 Christian king or prince should control and discharge, but 
 fortify and assist. We will yield to you your place, and give 
 all due obedience ; but again, I say, you are not the head of the 
 church ; you cannot give us eternal life, and you cannot de- 
 prive us of it. If ye seek both kingdoms, ye shall lose both ; 
 whereas, in cleaving uprightly to God, his true servants 
 should be your friends, and he would compel the rest to give 
 over themselves and serve you." 
 
 Thus spoke Andrew Melville. He had boldly asserted 
 those principles of the liberty of the church, which are the 
 surest guarantees of civil freedom. The king uttered no 
 word of anger, he contested not what he had just heard, 
 and even promised what was demanded of him. This was 
 in 1596. 
 
 But this calm was merely apparent, and bel ind it a terri- 
 ble storm was gathering. A church and a state, whose prin- 
 ciples were so opposite, and which were, nevertheless, 
 united, could only experience fearful convulsions. It was 
 a dangerous situation both for the prince and the ministry. 
 Doubtless, the principles maintained by Melville in his ad- 
 dress to the king, were founded on truth itself; doubtless, 
 he spoke out with a Christian courage which deserves the 
 admiration of posterity. Yet the manner in which Melville 
 apostrophized the prince, " God's silly vassal," is in contra- 
 diction to this Scripture principle, " Honor the king." Our 
 attachment to the independence of the church must not 
 cause us to overlook the faults of those who were then main- 
 taining it. 
 
 James was silent, but vengeance lurked within his heart ; 
 and we shall soon see how the torrent of his anger, for a 
 moment pent up, violently burst forth and spread ruin and 
 desolation over the whole Church of Scotland. 
 
 The sixteenth century closed. I now stop. 
 
 I have but one word to add. Those men were strong,
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 199 
 
 that church was strong. In our days it is easier to find weak 
 men, and a Aveak church. Does the sight of such strength 
 terrify us? It is, indeed, an alarming thing, if courage in- 
 timidates, and if strength overawes us. If I desire strength 
 within a church, it is not so much in its conflicts with the 
 powers of the world. Doubtless, wherever this conflict may 
 arise, Christ demands of his people the same courage. But 
 the great principle of the independence of the two powers, 
 becoming more and more triumphant in Christendom, seems 
 to insure to the people a peace which, in that respect, has 
 often been disturbed : we know something of this in Swit- 
 zerland and in Geneva. But if the church carefully with- 
 draws herself from all collision with the state, has she, 
 therefore, no need of energy ? Should she be strong in war 
 alone, and not be strong in peace ? Did not her Head give 
 her this command : " Preach the Gospel to every creature ?" 
 Is the world converted to Christ ? Does our King possess 
 the gates of the Gentiles ? Not so, and yet there are Chris- 
 tians who are slumbering. Oh ! could we but cease to be 
 feeble men, we, the subjects of the mighty God ! May the 
 love of Christ and of his church be again kindled "within our 
 souls, as in the days of Melville and of Knox, so that this 
 saying of our Head may be fulfilled : " The kingdom of 
 heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force."
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 
 SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. PRELACY OF LAUD. 
 
 First Period. 1600 to 1660. 
 
 1. Utility of History. Maxim of James. Basilicon Doron. King- 
 cjaft. General Assembly gained over. Representation in Parlia- 
 ment. Northern Legion. The king prevails. James, King of Eng- 
 land. Assembly of Aberdeen. Persecution. 2. Welsh, Minister of 
 Ayr. Six Ministers before the Jury. Welsh's Speech. Letter to 
 Lilias Graham. The parting at Leith. Welsh in France. Acts of 
 1610 and 1612. The Five Articles of Perth. Welsh and Louis XIII. 
 Mrs. Welsh and King James. 3. Charles I. Arminianism and Im- 
 morality in Scotland. Prelacy of Laud. The Canons. The Two 
 Parties. The Inquisition. Rutherford in Prison. The Service Book 
 brought into Edinburgh. 4. 23rd July, 1637. The Service Book in- 
 terrupted. Interdict. Agitation. Orders of the King. Complaint 
 against Bishops. Fast. 28th February, 1658. The Covenant signed. 
 Livingstone. The Highlands. Grutli. 5. Hamilton. General As- 
 sembly called. The Bishops accused. The Lord High Commissioner 
 withdraws. Firmness of the Assembly. Second Reformation. The 
 Covenanters. 6. Westminster Assembly. Election of Pastors. Ab- 
 olition of Patronage. Charles II. called. Ireland and Scotland. 
 Resolutionists and Protesters. Ten Years of Peace. Spiritual War- 
 fare. 
 
 I. 
 KING-CRAFT. 
 
 "TAKE heed how ye hear." There are some who will 
 hear nothing but histories, and there are others who will 
 hear nothing but sermons. Some there are whom history 
 shocks and scandalizes ; there are others whom sermons
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 201 
 
 fatigue and weary. To both of these the Word of God 
 says, " Take heed how ye hear." If you will not listen to 
 the instructions of history, you make yourselves to be wiser 
 than God. Open your Bible. What do you find there ? 
 In what manner has it specially pleased God to instruct 
 mankind and the church ? Not entirely by sermons, but very 
 frequently by histories. History forms a great portion both 
 of the Old and of the New Testament. Nay, more ; though, 
 doubtless, there are discourses in the Bible, yet these very 
 discourses are often entirely historical. Take that of St. 
 Stephen, for instance ; take many of St. Paul's. And when 
 Paul, in his Epistle to the Hebrews, would quicken the faith 
 of those whom he addresses, he has recourse to history, and 
 brings successively before their eyes those " elders " who 
 form a "great cloud," and who by faith " obtained a good 
 report." We have not to present to you such accounts as 
 St. Paul ; nevertheless, may the example of those " who' by 
 faith subdued kingdoms and Avrought righteousness," con- 
 firm our hearts in the grace of Jesus Christ. 
 
 " No bishop, no king." This favorite maxim of King 
 James certainly did not mean, that without a bishop the po- 
 litical power of kings could not subsist : he had not forgot- 
 ten that his political power had never been more respected 
 than under the influence of Presbyterianism. But he de- 
 sired to be king in the church as well as in the state, and 
 thought that bishops would be necessary for such an end. 
 He was willing to bestow upon them wealth and honors ; 
 but in return they must acknowledge his spiritual juris- 
 diction. 
 
 We do not agree with King James in this opinion ; we do 
 not see that subjection to civil power should be essential to 
 the episcopal system. This would be doing it a great injus- 
 tice, and besides, the episcopal church of America proves 
 the contrary. 
 
 King James set forth his system in a book which he pub- 
 lished at that time, entitled " Basilicon Doron, Royal Gift, 
 
 9*
 
 202 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 or Instructions of a King to his Son." The royal author 
 maintains in this work, " that the office of a king is of a 
 mixed kind, partly civil and partly ecclesiastical ; that a 
 principal part of his function consists in ruling the church ; 
 that it belongs to him to judge when preachers wander from 
 their text, and that such as refuse to submit to his judgment 
 in such cases ought to be capitally punished ; that no eccle- 
 siastical assemblies ought to be held without his consent ; 
 that no man is more to be hated of a king than a proud pu- 
 ritan ; that parity among ministers is irreconcilable with 
 monarchy, inimical to order, and the mother of confusion ; 
 that episcopacy should be set up, and all who preached 
 against bishops rigorously punished." 
 
 Suchlwas King James's theory : he immediately set about 
 reducing it to practice : and not being able to succeed in 
 this by force, he had recourse to what he himself called 
 " king-craft." 
 
 The ministers of Edinburgh having been banished, or 
 obliged to conceal themselves, James endeavored to obtain a 
 General Assembly, the majority of which should be weak 
 and unprincipled men. One of his chamberlains, Sir Patrick 
 Murray, travelled for this purpose over the northern parts 
 of the kingdom. The king succeeded, and fifty-five ques- 
 tions upon church government having been proposed to the 
 Assembly, were taken into consideration. 
 
 He then advanced another step, and requested the As- 
 sembly to appoint a committee of fourteen of its members, 
 who should be empowered to advise with him upon such 
 questions as might arise : this they granted. James then 
 induced the ecclesiastical council to present a petition to 
 Parliament, demanding that the church should have a voice 
 in the supreme council of the nation. The Parliament ac- 
 ceded to this, and declared that the prelates formed the 
 Third Estate of the kingdom. 
 
 It was now necessary to persuade the General Assembly 
 to accept this apparent favor.
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 203 
 
 Every thing was set to work for that purpose. The eccle- 
 siastical committee wrote a circular to all the ministers, in 
 which they were told, that this representation of the church 
 in Parliament was the only means of obtaining from the 
 state permanent stipends for the ministry. A share in the 
 budget was the bait presented to the church, to induce 
 her to sacrifice her independence. 
 
 Another Assembly was convened. The " Northern Legion," 
 that of Aberdeen, was again recruited, and every means was 
 adopted to bring in, as elders, the nobles who had already 
 voted in Parliament for the measure ; and the king in open- 
 ing the Assembly made a speech, in which he declared that 
 he did not intend to introduce Popish or Anglican bishops. 
 The debates were long and animated. The most pious and 
 able ministers rejected those expectations of wealth, honor, 
 and power, which were coveted by the worldly. Neverthe- 
 less, the motion was adopted in a general form by a majority 
 of ten, but the execution of it was referred to another As- 
 sembly. All, therefore, was not definitively settled. 
 
 The king, determined to obtain his ends, declared that he 
 would allow the ministers to die in poverty, if his wishes 
 were not complied with ; and that he would establish bish- 
 ops by his own authority. On the 20th of March, 1600, a 
 General Assembly met at Montrose. James redoubled his 
 endeavors, and he succeeded. It was, however, decided that 
 the representatives of the Assembly in Parliament should not 
 be called bishops, but commissioners of the church ; that they 
 should not propose any thing to Parliament without the war- 
 rant of the General Assembly; that they should give an 
 account to it, and submit to its censure under pain of excom- 
 munication. But all this was only king-craft. That same 
 year the king nominated three bishops to the sees of Ross, 
 Caithness, and Aberdeen. 
 
 In 1603, Elizabeth of England dying, James VI. of Scot- 
 land was proclaimed king of England, by the title of James I.,
 
 204 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 and the Presbyterian church had, thenceforward, to antici- 
 pate a long period of mourning. 
 
 In 1605 the General Assembly was appointed to meet. 
 Several Presbyteries had already elected their representa- 
 tives ; and nine of them, feeling convinced that, as the bar- 
 riers of ecclesiastical discipline were thrown down, corruption 
 of doctrine would shortly invade the church, sent their depu- 
 ties to Aberdeen, with instructions to constitute the Assem- 
 bly, and then to adjourn until the king should authorize their 
 deliberations. But hardly had the Assembly met when a 
 messenger-at-arms entered, and charged them, in the king's 
 name, to dissolve on paia of rebellion. The Assembly de- 
 clared themselves ready to obey this order, and requested 
 the royal commissioner, according to established custom, to 
 name a day and place for their next meeting to be held. The 
 commissioner refusing to do so, the moderator appointed the 
 last Tuesday of September, and closed the Assembly with 
 prayer. 
 
 The king's anger on learning these proceedings knew no 
 bounds. He sent to Scotland an order to proceed with the 
 utmost rigor against those ministers who had dared to diso- 
 bey him ; and fourteen of the most eminent, among whom 
 was John Welsh, the son-in-law of Knox, were thrown into 
 prison. 
 
 II. 
 
 A FREE MINISTER AND A SERVILE CHURCH. 
 
 WELSH was minister at Ayr, to which place he had been 
 called in 1590. The population of the town were then so 
 degraded, that the inhabitants were often seen fighting in 
 the streets. But the spirit of the Lord soon transformed his 
 flock. Welsh spent whole days praying in the Church of 
 Ayr for his parishioners, wrestling alone with God. His 
 plaid lay always by his bedside, and often in the middle of
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 205 
 
 the night he would rise, wrap himself in this garment, and 
 pour forth his soul before his Master. " I wonder," he used 
 to say, " how a Christian can lie in bed all night and not rise 
 to pray." He generally devoted eight hours a day to calling 
 upon the Lord. To prayer he added activity. Often during 
 the first years of his ministry, when sticks and stones were 
 flying about the streets of Ayr, he would cover his head with 
 a helmet -to defend himself from their blows, and throw him- 
 self among these poor people to separate them. Welsh ex- 
 perienced the truth of the promise, " Blessed are the peace- 
 makers, for they shall be called the children of God." The 
 wolves were changed into lambs, and many of his flock soon 
 exhibited as much piety and devotedness as himself. 
 
 Six of the ministers who had been sent to prison, among 
 whom was Welsh, were brought before the Criminal Court 
 at Linlithgow, as guilty of High Treason. Here these gen- 
 erous Christians boldly confessed before the jury the great 
 principles of the Church of Scotland, the spiritual indepen- 
 dence of the Lord's Church. " As for this matter whereof 
 we are now accused," said Welsh, "and of which ye are to 
 be our judges this day, AVC sgeak unto you the truth in the 
 sight of our God ; that in this point we are thoroughly and 
 fully resolved, that it is the undoubted truth of God, and 
 that it belongs to the crown and kingdom of Jesus Christ ; 
 and we are ready (if so the Lord shall call us and strengthen 
 us) to seal it up with the testimony of our blood. And this 
 our resolution is neither of yesterday nor to-day ; for the 
 twenty-four weeks of our imprisonment might have given us 
 sufficient time and leisure to have thought of its weightiness 
 and gravity ; and howsoever many think it but a thing indif- 
 ferent, yet it is not so in our conscience, but a main and 
 essential point of Christ's kingdom, of whose royal preroga- 
 tives this is one ; that He should be only Sovereign Judge 
 in all the matters belonging to his kingdom, and that in and 
 by his kirk. For as we have our callings and offices of Him 
 only by the kirk, so should we be judged in all the duties
 
 206 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 of our office only by Him in his kirk. And seeing parlia- 
 ments, councils, and all civil judicatories belong only to the 
 royal crown of an earthly king, even so all the meetings, con- 
 ventions, and assemblies of the kirk, which is the kingdom 
 of Christ, belong essentially to his royal authority and to his 
 kingdom." 
 
 Notwithstanding this spirited defence, the six ministers 
 were condemned and thrown into prison, until the king 
 should pass sentence upon them. 
 
 John Welsh was again confined in the dungeons of Black- 
 ness castle. We are acquainted with the sentiments of this 
 noble confessor of Christ while in his prison : he stated them 
 in a letter written to Lilias Graham, which has been pre- 
 served. " Who am I," wrote he from within those walls, 
 " that He should first have so called me, and constituted me 
 a minister of the glad tidings of the Gospel of salvation 
 these years already ; and now, last of all, to be a sufferer for 
 his cause and kingdom ? Now, let it be so, that I have 
 fought my fight, and run my race, and now from henceforth 
 is laid up for me that crown of righteousness which the Lord, 
 the righteous judge, will give, and not to me only, but to all 
 that love his appearance, and are chosen to witness this, that 
 Jesus Christ is the King of Saints, and that his church is a 
 most free kingdom, yea, as free as any kingdom under heav- 
 en. We have been ever waiting with joyfulness to give 
 the last testimony of our blood in confirmation thereof, if it 
 should please our God to be so favorable as to honor us with 
 that dignity ; and it would be the most glorious day and 
 gladdest hour I ever saw. in this life." 
 
 Such, in the prison of Blackness, were the sentiments of 
 this servant of God. It was generally expected that Welsh 
 and his friends would be condemned to death ; but the peo- 
 ple were so earnest in their favor, that James judged it most 
 prudent to sentence them to banishment only. 
 
 At midnight, on the 7th of November, the dungeons in 
 which Welsh and his five colleagues were confined, were
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 207 
 
 thrown open ; guards with lighted torches surrounded them, 
 and led them quickly from their prison to the sea-side. It 
 was two o'clock in the morning, and the scene then presented 
 on the shore of Leith was still more overpowering than that 
 which is recorded in the 21st chapter of the Acts, when 
 Paul, repairing to Jerusalem, was accompanied to the ship 
 by the Christians of Tyre, with their wives and children, and 
 all were kneeling on the ground. 
 
 Notwithstanding the hour of the night, which had been 
 purposely chosen for the prisoners to embark, a great multi- 
 tude had suddenly gathered on the shore, to bid them a last 
 farewell. Welsh uttered an affectionate prayer, and the whole 
 assembly, lighted by a few nickering torches on the sea-side, 
 sang the 23d Psalm, " The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not 
 want." The exiles then left the soil of Scotland, accompa- 
 nied by the tears and the prayers of their brethren. 
 
 Welsh, as we know, came to France, where three months 
 after his arrival he began to preach in French. He was at 
 first pastor at Nerac, afterwards at St. Jean d'Angely. 
 These churches have preserved affecting recollections of his 
 residence there. They still remember how he acted and 
 spoke in the presence of Louis XIII., with the same courage 
 which had inspired him before the agents of James I. His 
 midnight prayers, during his abode in Saintonge, and the 
 wonderful effects they produced, are among the most inter- 
 esting reminiscences of French Protestantism. 
 
 The firmest men being now removed, James advanced 
 rapidly in the establishment of Prelacy. The bishops were 
 appointed constant Moderators of the Synods and Presbyte- 
 ries ; Parliament empowered them to modify the stipends 
 of the ministers, and two Courts of High Commission were 
 created, by means of which the king exercised an absolute 
 power in the church. 
 
 A servile Assembly, held at Glasgow in 1610, delivered 
 up the church to the king and the bishops ; and the Parlia- 
 ment in 1612, when ratifying its acts, declared that the king
 
 208 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 was the only lawful supreme governor of the realm, "as 
 well in matters spiritual and ecclesiastical, as in things tem- 
 poral." 
 
 This act of parliament also established, that in case a min- 
 ister presented by the patron should be refused by the eccle- 
 siastical authority, without sufficient reason, the lords of the 
 session and council, upon a complaint being made to them, 
 should oblige the ecclesiastical authority to admit the minis- 
 ter presented by the patron. This is the same right which 
 has lately been claimed by the civil courts, only that the 
 civil power in our day has gone farther than in the time of 
 King James ; since this act of 1612 respected ministers al- 
 ready in office, while, in our times, the state seeks to oblige 
 the church to admit mere licentiates, or probationers. How- 
 ever, the act of 1612 was itself abolished afterwards by the 
 Revolution settlement. 
 
 A General Assembly, which met at Perth in 1618, sur- 
 rounded with armed men, and threatened with the king's 
 anger, accepted in alarm and terror the Five Articles of 
 Perth ; which established, among other things, Episcopal 
 confirmation, and the obligation of kneeling at the Commun- 
 ion, a practice which the Scotch held in the greatest horror, 
 regarding it as worship paid to the Host. These Five Arti- 
 cles received the sanction of Parliament on the 4th of Au- 
 gust, 1621, a day known in the history of Scotland by the 
 name of Black Saturday. 
 
 It was three or four years after this that John Welsh, who 
 had passed fourteen years in exile, returned to England. His 
 residence in France proves to us that it is no new thing for 
 the Church of Scotland to take a share in the evangelization 
 of the Continent. Welsh was the pastor of St. Jean d'An- 
 gely, when Louis XIII., making war against the Protestants, 
 besieged that town in person. He encouraged the inhabi- 
 tants in their defence, till the king consented to leave them 
 their privileges, and merely demanded to enter the city in a 
 friendly manner. The Scottish minister continued to preach,
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 209 
 
 which so irritated the king, that the Duke d'Epernon was 
 ordered to drag the bold minister from the pulpit, and bring 
 him before Louis. The duke having entered the church, fol- 
 lowed by the guards, Welsh desired room to be made, and 
 invited that nobleman to sit down and hear the Word of the 
 Lord. The duke took a seat, and, when the sermon was fin- 
 ished, ordered Welsh to follow him. "How dare you," 
 asked the king, " preach in this place, since it is against the 
 laws of the kingdom to deliver sermons where I hold my 
 court?" "Sire," replied Welsh, "if you did right, you 
 would come and hear me preach, and make all France hear 
 me likewise : for I preach, that you must be saved by the 
 death and merits of Jesus Christ, and not by your own ; and 
 I declare, that as you are King of France, you are under the 
 authority of no man upon earth. Those priests whom you 
 hear," continued the Scotchman, "subject you to the Pope 
 of Rome, which I will never do." " Well, well," said the 
 king, smiling, "you shall be my minister ;" and dismissed 
 him graciously. 
 
 In 1621, the Avar being renewed, the king took the town, 
 and ordered the captain of his guard to enter and preserve 
 his minister from all danger. Welsh was sent to Rochelle 
 with his family. His French flock being thus dispersed, and 
 his own health much weakened, he was advised to return to 
 breathe his native air. He arrived in London, but notwith- 
 standing the declarations of the physicians, King James would 
 never allow him to return to Scotland. " If he were there," 
 said he, " I could never establish Episcopacy." 
 
 Mrs. Welsh obtained an audience of the king, and en- 
 treated him to save her husband's life, by granting him per- 
 mission to return to his country. " Who was your father ?" 
 asked the king. " Mr. Knox," replied she. " Knox and 
 Welsh !" exclaimed the king ; " the devil never made such a 
 match as that !" " It's right like, sir," she answered ; " for 
 we never asked his advice." 
 
 The daughter of Knox, again urging her request that her
 
 210 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 dying husband might once more breathe his native air, the 
 king told her he would grant it only on condition that she 
 should persuade Welsh to submit to the bishops. " Please 
 your Majesty," replied this heroic woman, taking up her 
 apron by the corners, and holding it out as if to receive the 
 head of her husband, " I would rather kep (receive) his head 
 there." James would not even allow Welsh to preach in 
 London until he learned that he was at the point of death, 
 and then consented in unfeeling mockery. Welsh hastened 
 to embrace this opportunity of once more proclaiming the 
 good tidings of salvation. He preached with great fervor, 
 and two hours after he entered into his everlasting rest. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE KING'S CANOXS AND THE IMPRISONED MINISTERS. 
 
 ON the 27th March, 1625, King James died, and his son, 
 Charles L, who inherited his despotic temper, but was en- 
 dowed with more firmness, had soon recourse to measures 
 destined to awaken the whole nation to energetic resistance. 
 
 These encroachments of power were becoming more and 
 more easy. Orthodox Christians, in general, show them- 
 selves jealous of the independence of the church ; while, on 
 the contrary, Arminians, Arians, and Socinians, think too 
 cheaply of it. Truth, in Scotland, now fell, and with it lib- 
 erty fell also. The young Scottish bishops, and all that was 
 worldly in the church, zealously embraced Arminian errors. 
 Christ being lowered as a King, he must also be lowered as 
 a Priest and as a Prophet. Moreover, morality was declin- 
 ing, and dissipation, profanation of the Lord's Day, vice and 
 profligacy, increased rapidly. 
 
 The moment had now arrived for striking a decisive blow. 
 Charles I., the grandson of Mary Stuart, a descendant of the 
 Guises, visited Scotland in 1633, resolved upon the defini- 
 tive establishment of Prelacy, which, if not under this prince,
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 211 
 
 at least under his son, would, without a Providential inter- 
 vention, have brought about the re-establishment of Popery. 
 It was not mark this well it was not pure Episcopacy, the 
 evangelical Episcopacy of the Thirty-nine Articles, that he 
 desired to establish in Scotland ; it was the semi-popish Pre- 
 lacy of Laud, which has always been as much opposed to 
 the Episcopacy of Latimer and Cranmer, as to the Presbyte- 
 rianism of Melville and Knox. 
 
 Charles I. appointed a bishop of Edinburg ; he then pub- 
 lished, by letters patent, on the 23d of May, 1635, a book 
 called " The Book of Canons," which had been submitted 
 to the approbation of the Archbishop Laud, and which was 
 intended to serve for the government of the church. The 
 first of these canons pronounced excommunication against 
 all who should deny the king's supremacy in ecclesiastical 
 matters. Tt was also decreed, that General Assemblies 
 should be called only by the king's authority ; that no eccle- 
 siastical business should be discussed, except in the bishops' 
 .courts ; that no private meeting or conventicle should be 
 held ; and that no minister in public should use extempo- 
 rary prayer. On hearing these canons, the people of Scot- 
 land were filled with horror, and all recognized in them a 
 stepping-stone to Popery. 
 
 Every thing was marching towards it. The two parties 
 silently prepared for the conflict. The prelates, leaning 
 more and more upon the political power of the state, estab- 
 lished themselves in the Privy Council, the Exchequer, and 
 the Courts of Justice ; while the Christians sought strength 
 in the Word of God and in fervent prayer. Their preachers 
 have been accused of turning the pulpit into a mere political 
 tribune ; but their writings still exist, and in them we find 
 the purest piety. 
 
 Many of them had soon to bear their Master's cross. 
 Each of the bishops, within his own diocese, held Church 
 Courts, before which they cited whomsoever they pleased. 
 "These courts," says Bishop Burnet, "differed little from
 
 212 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 the Inquisition." Among the pious men whom they at- 
 tacked, was Samuel Rutherford, minister of Anwoth. Ris- 
 ing commonly at three o'clock in the morning, Rutherford 
 spent the whole day in reading the Word, in prayer, study, 
 writing, and visiting his flock. Some of his compositions 
 were so powerful that the Bishop of Galloway, in 1630, 
 summoned him before the Court of High Commission, and 
 afterwards caused him to be imprisoned at Aberdeen. 
 Such was his love for his flock, that often when walking 
 about his prison chamber, and standing before the bars of 
 his window, Rutherford envied the lot of the swallows, free 
 to fly to the church of Anwoth. But bis heart was still 
 fuller of the love of Christ ; and thus his prison soon became 
 to him a palace. The Lord hid him in his pavilion in the 
 time of trouble, and lifted up his head above his enemies. 
 (Ps. xxvii. 5, 6.) Often, during his slumbers, his wondering 
 keepers heard him speaking to the Lord. " I know no 
 sweeter way to Heaven," said he to one of his friends, 
 " than the free grace of Christ, and the hard trials of the 
 cross put together in the same life." 
 
 Such were already the sufferings of Christ's servants, 
 when a letter from the king, and an act of the Privy Coun- 
 cil, under the sanction of the General Assembly and the 
 Parliament, ordered that .1 Liturgy, revised by Laud, and 
 modelled by him after the Romish Missal, " as nearly," says 
 Kirkton, " as English can be to Latin," should be intro- 
 duced into the churches of Edinburgh. A murmur of indig- 
 nation arose throughout Scotland ; dark clouds gathered 
 over that ancient country ; and by the cries that were heard 
 from the hills of Caledonia to the shores of the sea, it 
 was evident that a fearful storm was about to burst forth. 
 The illegal act of a king, who claimed to command at his 
 pleasure in the church of Jesus Christ, was about to be an- 
 swered by the spontaneous resistance of a whole people. I 
 do not approve of the manner in which this national energy 
 manifested itself ; but as for the resistance, I dare not con-
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 218 
 
 demn it. It may find its warrant in the charter of Heaven 
 itself. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE COVENANT. 
 
 ON the 23d of July, 1637, the great attempt was to be 
 made at Edinburgh to revolutionize the church by a stroke 
 of state policy. Several prelates had repaired to the capital 
 to sanction and dignify by their presence the introduction 
 of the Missal in disguise. An immense congregation met in 
 the cathedral of St. Giles. A calm and deep sadness, min- 
 gled with indignation and vengeance, rendered this a solemn 
 scene. 
 
 The dean of Edinburgh was to strike the fatal blow. Ar- 
 rayed in his white surplice, which fell in graceful folds from 
 his shoulders down to the knees, the wide sleeves hanging 
 loosely behind, the priest appeared, went up into the pulpit, 
 and began to read the service of the day before a people who 
 could scarcely contain their feelings. He had uttered but a 
 few words, when, suddenly, an old woman, Jenny Geddes by 
 name, rose up, exclaiming, " Villain ! dost thou say mass 
 at my lug ?" And then, remembering perhaps Him who 
 in the temple overthrew the tables of the money-chan- 
 gers, and poured out their money to defend His Father's 
 house (John ii.), this Presbyterian Scotchwoman seized the 
 stool on which she sat, and hurled it, with the energy of her 
 nation, at the Mass Book and the dean's head. 
 
 A fierce tumult immediately burst out, and the church 
 became one scene of confusion. Several persons rushed 
 towards the reading desk. The frightened priest escaped, 
 leaving his sacerdotal ornaments in the hands of the people. 
 In vain did the Bishop of Edinburgh himself endeavor to 
 ascend the pulpit ; the magistrates could hardly protect him, 
 and it required great exertions to save the other prelates.
 
 214 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Such was the fatal storm raised by the illegal intrusions of the 
 state. 
 
 Events like these are to be deplored, and many writers, 
 both English and foreign, have taken advantage of them to 
 attack the Church of Scotland ; but it must not be overlooked 
 that every system runs into some excesses, and if the Church 
 of Scotland has done so in one way, that of England has in 
 another. This reflection ought to teach toleration to the wise 
 of all parties. If the scum of popular passions was then 
 thrown up, we must not forget that it was the mighty hand 
 of God which caused the waters of the deep to rise. 
 
 The astonished and alarmed prelates beheld with conster- 
 nation this impetous outburst of popular fury, which, over- 
 flowing the bounds appointed by God, had even invaded the 
 pulpit, and dashed the Liturgy from their trembling hands. 
 It was the women, it is true, who had, suddenly opposed so 
 energetic a resistance to the ministers of*the absolute will of 
 Charles I. ; but the bishops fancied that they could see hid- 
 den behind their caps and aprons adversaries still more terri- 
 ble, the wrath of the whole nation. Archbishop Spottis- 
 wood, a worthy imitator of the popes of the middle ages, laid 
 the whole town under an interdict, and suspended all public 
 worship even on the holy day of Sunday. This was like 
 Boniface VII. excommunicating Philip the Fair and the 
 kingdom of France. They thought it better that the people 
 should not worship God at all, than worship him without 
 the Missal ! 
 
 The news of what had taken place in Edinburgh spread 
 instantly all over the kingdom, and was everywhere regarded 
 as the trumpet-signal which called upon Presbyterian Scot- 
 land to rise in defence of her liberties. The ministers, so 
 long oppressed by the tyranny of the court and of the pre- 
 lates, as they saw the ardor of the people around them, 
 began to understand that the days of their servitude were 
 drawing to an end. The Privy Council informed the king 
 of the universal discontent caused by the introduction of what
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 215 
 
 was called the Mass Book, and pointed out to him the dan- 
 gers which might ensue, if he persisted in that imprudent 
 course. 
 
 But, says the Hebrew sage, " Better is a poor and a wise 
 child, than an old and foolish king who will no more be ad- 
 monished." (Ec. iv. 13.) Charles replied to this prudent 
 advice by a severe letter, blaming the Privy Council for their 
 weakness, and ordering the Liturgy to be everywhere intro- 
 duced without delay. They endeavored to submit. There 
 was even a bishop who, in order to obey the civil power, 
 shut himself up in his church, barricaded the doors for fear 
 of the people, and there read his Mass Book in triumph to 
 himself. This was quite in the spirit of the Romish tradi- 
 tion. Are there not in popery, private masses at which the 
 priest officiates alone ? 
 
 On hearing of this royal order, the Presbyterians flocked 
 to Edinburgh from all parts of the country. The whole na- 
 tion was awakened from its slumber of forty years. They 
 presented to the Privy Council a formal complaint against 
 the bishops. It was drawn up by the Earl of Loudon and 
 David Dickson. The prelates were therein accused of being 
 the causes of all the commotions of the kingdom ; and the 
 false doctrines, the superstitions, and the idolatry to be found 
 in the canons were pointed out. It was shown, moreover, 
 that this legislation was subversive of the constitution of the 
 church ; and the redress of these grievances, and the re- 
 establishment of the principles of the Reformation, were 
 earnestly demanded. 
 
 The king then issued a proclamation, in which he declared 
 that " the bishops were unjustly accused as being the au- 
 thors of the Service Book and Canons, seeing whatever was 
 done by them in that matter, was by his Majesty's authority 
 and order." 
 
 The Scottish people comprehended the serious nature of 
 their situation. They were required to submit to the arbi- 
 trary power of the state in religious matters ; to bow their
 
 216 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 heads under the disgraceful yoke of the canons and the pre- 
 lates, or to make an open resistance. They could no longer 
 hesitate. 
 
 But, first of all, they remembered that the Lord had said, 
 " If my people shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek 
 my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear 
 from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their 
 land." (2 Chron. vii. 14.) A solemn fast was proclaimed 
 and observed, to confess the sins of the church. And then, 
 gathering into one document the Old Covenant of 1581, 
 which King James himself, the father of the reigning mon- 
 arch, had signed, and all the acts condemnatory of Popery, 
 with an addition applying them to the present circumstances, 
 the Scotch laid hold of these legitimate charters of their na- 
 tion, and presented them before Heaven. 
 
 On the 28th February, 1638, a great crowd filled the 
 Grayfriars Church in Edinburgh, and in the burial-ground 
 60,000 Presbyterians had assembled. Henderson, the min- 
 ister, fervently invoked the Divine blessing on this vast 
 meeting, and the Earl of Loudon stated the motives which 
 had brought them together. Johnstone unrolled the parch- 
 ment, on which these Scottish charters were inscribed, and 
 read them in a clear, calm voice. When he had finished, 
 there was a deep and solemn silence : a few explanations 
 were demanded and given ; then, again, all was still as the 
 grave. 
 
 But the silence was soon broken. An aged man of noble 
 air was seen advancing ; it was the Earl of Sutherland, one 
 of the most considerable of the Scottish barons, whose pos- 
 sessions included all the northern parts of the British Isles. 
 He came forward slowly, and deep emotion was visible in 
 his venerable features. He took up the pen with a trem- 
 bling hand and signed the document. 
 
 A general movement now took place. All the Presbyte- 
 rians within the church pressed forward to the Covenant 
 and subscribed their names. But this was not enough ; a
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 217 
 
 whole nation was waiting : the immense parchment was car- 
 ried into the church-yard, and spread out on a large tomb- 
 stone, to receive on this expressive table the signature of the 
 church. Scotland had never beheld a day like that. The 
 heads of the people then said, as Joshua once did, " As for 
 me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And the people 
 answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the 
 Lord." (Josh. xxiv. 15, 16.) They rushed to the tomb 
 which covered the ashes of one of Caledonia's sons, and on 
 which was spread that charter by which the nation, in sign- 
 ing it, became "witnesses against themselves, that they 
 chose the Lord to serve him." (v. 22.) Some sobbed, 
 some shouted ; some, after their names, added " till death," 
 and others opening a vein, wrote their name with their own 
 blood. There was no confusion, no tumult. After these 
 hours of strong emotion, this immense multitude dispersed 
 quietly, and each one returned to his home in peace. 
 
 On the following day, the parchment, to which it became 
 necessary to add several more sheets, was carried to differ- 
 ent parts of the town, that the inhabitants of the respective 
 districts might affix their signatures. Crowds accompanied 
 it from place to place, shedding tears and imploring the Di- 
 vine blessing on these acts. At the same time a remarkable 
 improvement took place in the life and manners of those 
 who signed. With the exception of one instance of trifling 
 inportance, no injury was anywhere done either to the pre- 
 lates or their partisans. 
 
 The Covenant then began to make the circuit of Scotland. 
 John Livingston was at Lanark, his father's parish, when it 
 was read and sworn to by the minister, elders, and people. 
 Livingston, yet a young minister, having been called upon 
 to preach in the church of Shotts, in the year 1630, on a 
 Comrmxnion day, had passed the whole night, from Sunday 
 to Monday, in prayer. In the morning, standing on a tomb- 
 stone, he preached in the churchyard to a great multitude, 
 on Ezekiel xxxvi. 25, 26, " Then will I sprinkle clean water 
 
 10
 
 218 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 upon you, and ye shall be clean." The pouring out of the 
 Spirit of God was such, that five hundred persons could 
 date their conversion from that day. Soon after, on a sim- 
 ilar occasion, a thousand persons were either converted or 
 remarkably confirmed ; the preceding night having, in like 
 manner, been devoted by the young minister and some pious 
 friends to fervent prayer. The Covenant now arrived at 
 Lanark ; and the servant of the Most High again witnessed 
 those powerful emotions which the Spirit of God had for- 
 merly excited in the church-yards of Shotts and of Holy- 
 wood. Thousands of reformed Christians were standing 
 with their hands uplifted, and tears falling from their eyes, 
 while with one consent they all devoted themselves to the 
 Lord. 
 
 Such scenes might be witnessed everywhere. In the High- 
 lands especially, this Evangelical alliance was joyfully wel- 
 comed. The king and the prelates, with the view of getting 
 rid of the most pious and steadfast ministers Bruce, Ruther- 
 ford, Dickson, and others had banished them to those wild 
 districts ; but by the instructions of these godly ministers, 
 vital Christianity had been widely spread abroad. Rival 
 clans, which had never before met, except in strife, now 
 saluted each other as brethren, and, after signing the Cove- 
 nant, departed in charity and peace. The bishops were 
 thunderstruck. " All that we have been doing these thirty 
 years," exclaimed they, "is thrown down in one day." 
 
 Such was the commencement of that important affair of 
 the Covenant, which a celebrated novelist has represented in 
 so false a light. Such was the Grutli of Scotland, Many 
 circumstances here, indeed, remind us of that solemn moment 
 when Walter Furst, Stauffacher, Melchtal, and their friends, 
 lifted their three fingers to heaven, and swore to save Swit- 
 zerland from the tyranny of the Austrians. We must, never- 
 theless, observe, that Scotland had still greater evils to 
 encounter. It was not only her political liberty which was 
 endangered, it was also those rights of conscience which are
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 219 
 
 held of God alone, and which were then trampled on by 
 worthy pupils of Innocent III., Pius V., Philip of Spain, and 
 Charles IX. of France. And while great popular movements 
 have been too often accompanied with irreligion and hatred 
 of the Gospel, it was only by bowing the knee before God 
 and His Word that the Scotch learned to present a forehead 
 like adamant to the powers of the earth. (Ezek. iii. 9.) 
 Yet, whatever may be the difference, we can never see a 
 people having recourse to arms for the defence of their con- 
 science, and forbear deploring it ; for this can never be done 
 without the mixture of earthly and spiritual things producing 
 lamentable excesses. We say, and repeat with the Apostle : 
 ' We do not war after the flesh ; for the weapons of our 
 warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God." (2 Cor. 
 x. 3, 4.) 
 
 V. 
 
 SECOND REFORMATION. 
 
 THE king, astounded at this great national movement, ap- 
 pointed the Marquis of Hamilton Lord High Commissioner, 
 commanding him to re-establish Prelacy in Scotland, and 
 secretly authorizing him to act any part he might think 
 proper ; and even, should it be necessary, to seem opposed 
 to his views. For this purpose, Charles provided Hamilton 
 beforehand with secret letters of pardon in these terms : 
 " These are, therefore, to assure you, that if need be, here- 
 after to testify to others, that whatsoever ye shall say to 
 them to discover their intentions, ye shall neither be called 
 in question for the same ; nor yet shall it prove in any way 
 prejudicial to you." We see that the king's letters of indul- 
 gence almost exceed those of the pope. 
 
 The majority of the English, and even the nobles, were 
 opposed to the violent measures which the king was about to 
 adopt. The English and the Scottish people do not in this
 
 220 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 appear as rivals, but rather as brethren, enduring, in a greater 
 or less degree, the same evils. It was from the Vatican, the 
 Escurial, and the Louvre, that the tempest was blowing which 
 was so soon to devastate Britain ; and many of the English 
 regarded the wrongs done to the Scotch, as if they had been 
 inflicted on themselves. 
 
 To the perfidious conduct of Charles, the Scotch only 
 offered a legitimate opposition. As soon as the Marquis of 
 Hamilton arrived, they demanded of him a General Assem- 
 bly and a Parliament, for they were willing to proceed con- 
 formably to the constitution both of church and state. The 
 Lord High Commissioner, after much hesitation, decided 
 upon trying that way. He hoped to influence the elections, 
 as James I. had done, to sow disunion in the Assembly, and 
 thus to maintain the royal supremacy in the church. Charles 
 began, like his father, by " king-craft," reserving the sword 
 for a future occasion. 
 
 For twenty years previously there had been no General 
 Assembly in the Church of Scotland ; and for forty years 
 there had not been a pure one. The Presbyterians, deeply 
 moved at beholding once more their ancient institutions, did 
 all in their power to recall the principles which had fallen 
 into oblivion. Whenever the congregations met for prayer, 
 the members were seen exhorting one another to fidelity; 
 and they returned as members of Assembly those ministers, 
 nobles and gentlemen, who were the most able and the most 
 zealous. Hamilton was in consternation at learning this : it 
 was no servile Assembly, like those of Glasgow and Perth, 
 which was now preparing. The Lord High Commissioner 
 would willingly have prorogued this council of the Scottish 
 Church, but he knew it would have been held notwithstand- 
 ing his opposilion. The cup must now be drained. 
 
 On the 21st of November, 1638, the ministers and elders 
 of Scotland met, to advise upon the important affair of the 
 restoration of Presbyterianism. The royal commissioner and 
 the true Presbyterians at last were brought face to face. The
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 221 
 
 latter, aware that the slightest error would be their ruin, 
 acted with remarkable prudence and firmness. That excel- 
 lent minister, Alexander Henderson, the worthy successor of 
 Knox and Melville, was chosen Moderator. 
 
 The Prelates, foreseeing the issue of their debates, sent in 
 a declaration, by which they declined the judicature of the 
 Assembly. But the latter declared, that as the prelates had 
 sent a representative in their name, they had acknowledged 
 it by that very act, and ordered an answer to that effect to 
 be immediately drawn up. 
 
 This was done, and soon after, this formidable indictment 
 was read in presence of the General Assembly, and of the 
 commissioner of Charles I. The prelates were therein ac- 
 cused of having transgressed the limits (caveats) imposed 
 upon them by the king, of having usurped a lordly supre- 
 macy over the church, of teaching heretical doctrines, and of 
 having been personally guilty of irreligious conduct, and 
 even of the grossest immorality. St. Paul, writing to Titus, 
 had. forbidden that men should be chosen bishops who were 
 " soon angry," " given to wine," " accused of riot, or un- 
 ruly." The church accused the bishops of the faults pro- 
 scribed by St. Paul. 
 
 As soon as this paper had been read, the Moderator de- 
 manded of the Assembly whether they found themselves 
 competent to sit in judgment upon that cause. Hamilton, 
 who had listened with confusion to the scandalous enumera- 
 tion of the tyranny, heresies, and vices of the prelates, for- 
 bade any further proceedings, and ordered the Assembly to 
 dissolve. 
 
 What were the Presbyterians to do ? They had received 
 from the mouth of their Master the rule of their conduct. 
 Jesus said, " Render unto Ctesar the things that are Caesar's, 
 and unto God the things that are God's." "All that be- 
 longeth to us we are ready to render unto his majesty," said 
 Henderson ; "our lives, our goods, and our liberties; all all. 
 But what belongs to God, and to the liberties of His house,
 
 222 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 the piety of his majesty will not demand them of us ; and, if 
 he did, we could not sacrifice them. Even if your Grace 
 should leave the Assembly," added Henderson and Lord 
 Loudon, " the Assembly will continue to sit until it has per- 
 formed its duty." 
 
 Hamilton felt great emotion : his voice trembled, his 
 cheeks were pale, and tears fell from his eyes. " I stand," 
 said he, " to the king's prerogative, as supreme judge over 
 all causes civil and ecclesiastical. To him the lords of the 
 clergy have appealed ; and, therefore, I will not suffer their 
 cause to be farther reasoned here." He then desired the 
 Moderator to close the Assembly with prayer. Henderson 
 refused to do so. The Lord High Commissioner then arose, 
 declared the Assembly dissolved, and retired in distress and 
 perplexity, foreseeing the terrible consequences which would 
 ensue to his country. 
 
 This was a solemn moment for the church. The great 
 question was set before her, " To be, or not to be ?" It was 
 to know, whether the authority of an earthly prince was to 
 prevail within her, over the authority of her Eternal King. 
 The royal power had withdrawn. The representative of 
 Charles I., his knights, his councillors, his pages, had left 
 the hall. But was there not present the King of kings, the 
 Lord of lords, who had said, " I am with you always, even 
 unto the end of the world ?" (Matt, xxviii. 20.) 
 
 Henderson and the Presbyterians remained unmoved. In 
 the name of Christ, their Invisible King, and in the name of 
 the law violated by the state, this Assembly, representing 
 the Church of Scotland, declared itself constituted, and 
 competent to judge in all spiritual causes, notwithstanding 
 the absence of the state ; reserving, nevertheless, in order to 
 show submission to the government, all that might entail 
 any civil consequences. 
 
 Then this great Scottish council, proceeding with order 
 and dignity, declared null all those Assemblies from 1606 to 
 1618, by which, in opposition to the constitutions of the
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 223 
 
 c'hurch and the nation, Prelacy had been introduced into 
 Scotland. They condemned the five articles of Perth and 
 the Liturgy. Th~y deposed and excommunicated eight of 
 the bishops, simply deposed four more, and allowed the 
 other two to continue their functions as ordinary ministers. 
 They re-established Presbyteries, Synods, and General As- 
 semblies, and forbade the intrusion of a minister into any 
 parish against the will of the congregation. In short, they 
 firmly settled once mure the great principles of the independ- 
 ence of the church as to the state. " There is," it was stated, 
 "a distinction made between civil and ecclesiastical jurisdic- 
 tion. All is ecclesiastical, and only ecclesiastical, in the one ; 
 and all civil, and only civil, in the other : their very prin- 
 ciples and rules are different. In the one, civil laws are the 
 rule, but in the other, the Word of God is the only rule. 
 They are independent of one another in their own jurisdic- 
 tion ; and, as an Assembly cannot prescribe rules to the Par- 
 liament in civil matters, no more ought the Parliament to 
 prescribe to the Assembly in ecclesiastical." 
 
 It was also settled, that the next General Assembly should 
 meet at Edinburgh on the third Wednesday of July, 1639, 
 in virtue of its own intrinsic powers, whether it should be 
 convened by the king or not. 
 
 On the 20th of December, Henderson, after pronouncing 
 the apostolic benediction, declared that noble General As- 
 sembly dissolved in these remarkable words : " We have 
 now cast down the walls of Jericho : let him that rebuildeth 
 them beware of the curse of Hiel the Bethelite." Hie! the 
 Bethelite was he who attempted to rebuild Jericho, and this 
 was the curse pronounced upon him, and which Henderson 
 applied to those who would rebuild Prelacy in Scotland : 
 "Cursed be the man before the Lord," said Joshua, "that 
 riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho : he shall lay the 
 foundation thereof in his first-born, and in his youngest 
 son shall he set up the gates of it." An awful malediction, 
 which was registered in heaven, and fulfilled by the destruc-
 
 224 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 tion of the Stuarts, from their first-born to the last of their 
 posterity. 
 
 The Assembly of 1638 was perhaps the most important 
 that the Church of Scotland had ever held. Presbyterian- 
 ism was established on its primitive basis. This epoch is, 
 therefore, called in Scottish histor}*, the Second Reformation. 
 
 The Marquis of Hamilton seeing all his efforts unavailing, 
 hastily returned to London, where he found the king inflamed 
 with rage. The English, far from supporting their sovereign 
 against the Scots, recognized the spirit of Popery in Charles's 
 proceedings, and began to fear for themselves. One of those 
 great movements which change the destinies of nations was 
 now in preparation ; and once more was that ancient proph- 
 ecy about to be accomplished " I gave thee a king in mine 
 anger, and took him away in my wrath." (Hosea, xiii. 11.) 
 
 The king resolved to march against all those who had sub- 
 scribed the Covenant ; while the Presbyterians, on their side, 
 took up arms (1639). Their camp at Dunse Law, presented 
 a singular spectacle. In some of the tents the singing of 
 psalms was heard ; from others, prayers were ascending to 
 heaven ; and in others, men were devoutly reading the Scrip- 
 tures. Before the tent of each captain floated a banner with 
 the Scottish colors, bearing the national arms and this motto 
 " For Christ's crown and Covenant." Morning and evening 
 the sound of the trumpet called the regiments to their devo- 
 tions. We shall not describe the political events that ensued ; 
 as it is of the church alone that we would speak. 
 
 VI. 
 
 WAR AND PEACE. 
 
 ONE of the dearest wishes of the Scottish people was to 
 see the same church of Christ in the whole island. With 
 this view, in 1623, the famous Westminster Assembly was 
 held in London, in which were the most eminent men of
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 225 
 
 England and Scotland met together ; and which had for its 
 object to draw up a form of doctrine, of constitution, and of 
 discipline, which should unite all the churches of Great 
 Britain into one body, fitted to glorify the name of Christ, 
 and resist effectually the power of the Papacy. Such was 
 to be the result of the triumph of that Covenant, the signing 
 of which had been commenced upon a tombstone. 
 
 There were three parties in this Assembly, the Episcopa- 
 lians, the Independents, and the Presbyterians, who held a 
 middle course between the former two ; and it was necessary, 
 to a certain extent, to conciliate the views of these three 
 parties. 
 
 The English Presbyterians even differed from those of 
 Scotland ; they'were not disposed to grant full rights to the 
 flocks. The ancient Episcopal influence, the fear of inde- 
 pendent principles, the view of what the church then was 
 very imperfect, it is true, in England occasioned them some 
 scruples in this regard. Nevertheless, it was settled, with 
 respect to the election of ministers, that " the candidate 
 should be sent to the church he was to serve, to preach at 
 three different times, and to converse with the members, that 
 they, may have trial of his gifts for their edification, and that 
 they may have an opportunity of being acquainted with his 
 life and conversation ; then this congregation is to make 
 known their consent or their objections." Although it was 
 stipulated that the flock was to give its consent, the Scottish 
 Assembly, accepting the draft of that of Westminster, ex- 
 pressly reserved all that might infringe upon the rights, 
 either of presbyteries or congregations, as to the calling of 
 ministers. 
 
 The Scottish parliament, which met on the 9th of March, 
 1649, passed an act, important as manifesting the spirit of 
 the church and people. " Patronages and presentations of 
 kirks," it says, "is an evil and bondage under which the 
 Lord's people, and ministers of this land, have long groaned ; 
 it hath no warrant in God's word, but is founded only on 
 10*
 
 226 .HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 the canon law, and is a custom popish, and was brought into 
 the kirk in time of ignorance and superstition ; the same is 
 contrary to the Second Book of Discipline, and unto several 
 acts of General Assemblies ; it is prejudicial to the liberty of 
 the people and planting of kirks, and unto the free calling 
 and entry of ministers into their charges." The act then 
 proceeds to annul " all patronages and presentations, whether 
 belonging to the king or to any laic patron, presbyteries, or 
 others within the kingdom ;" and enacts, that the places of 
 ministers shall be filled " upon the suit and calling, or with 
 the consent of the congregation, on whom none is to be ob- 
 truded against their will." 
 
 In July of the same year, the General Assembly passed 
 another act, by virtue of which, if the majority declared that 
 the presentee did not edify, or that they had not confidence 
 in him, the presbytery and the flock were to have a mutual 
 conference, in order to clear up the matter ; but it nowhere 
 says that the majority, notwithstanding their opposition, 
 should be constrained to admit the minister, a constraint 
 which would have been diametrically opposed to the princi- 
 ples so clearly established by the ecclesiastical law of Scot- 
 land. 
 
 The Scottish parliament sent commissioners to Holland, to 
 negotiate with the young king, Charles II., whose father, 
 Charles I., to the great grief of Scotland, had died on the 
 scaffold. These commissioners found him surrounded by 
 unprincipled and profligate men ; and the parliament was, 
 therefore, thinking of recalling its deputies, when Charles 
 arrived in Scotland, and carelessly signed the fundamental 
 laws of the Covenant, which established the liberties both of 
 church and state. " Sir," said the minister Gillespie, " do 
 not subscribe that declaration ; no, not for the three kingdoms, 
 if you are not satisfied, in your soul and conscience, beyond 
 all hesitation, of its righteousness." " Mr. Gillespie, Mr. Gil- 
 lespie," replied the king, " I am satisfied, I am satisfied, and 
 therefore will subscribe." And he did so. But his political
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 227 
 
 and religious opinions, and his corrupt heart, his licentious 
 conduct, and hatred of all that was most pious in Scotland 
 were in flagrant opposition to his oaths. By replacing on 
 the throne a Stuart still more despotic, and, above all, more 
 depraved than either his father or his grandfather had been, 
 did not Scotland expose herself to greater dangers ? Might 
 not the Covenant be destroyed, the Word of God sealed, 
 Presbyterianism abolished, and Prelacy restored ? . . . . 
 
 The Scotch have often been blamed for recalling Charles 
 II. ; neither can I justify this step, which exposed the three 
 kingdoms to the encroachments of despotism, popery, and 
 immorality. But we should understand the meaning of this 
 transaction. The more decided the Scotch were in denying 
 all supremacy to the throne in spiritual things, the more 
 they thought themselves bound to render a loyal obedience 
 in civil and political matters. The very readiness with 
 which they threw themselves into the arms of a young and 
 profligate despot, shows that the great principle of church 
 independence proceeded from no revolutionary spirit ; but, 
 on the contrary, from an unlimited and exclusive subjection 
 to the lawful King of the church, to the Lord and Saviour 
 Jesus Christ. The Scotch carried their loyalty to an ex- 
 treme in the spheres both of church and state. Happily, it 
 is impossible to be too faithful to Him who is the King of 
 kings, and to whom pertains the dominion of spirits. 
 
 The same thing may be seen in our own days. While 
 Ireland, for whose sake the British government is apparently 
 sacrificing the ancient constitution of Britain, is, notwith- 
 standing in a state of permanent revolt, and can never raise 
 itself from a condition of wretchedness, the causes of which 
 are to be sought in popery itself, and not in any political ar- 
 rangements ; Scotland, on the contrary, whom the same gov- 
 ernment has treated with a denial of justice which might 
 have caused a whole people to revolt, has never raised an 
 arm ; no, not a finger ; and has exhibited the astonishing 
 spectacle of an entire nation, which, while agitating, pray-
 
 228 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 ing, struggling for its most sacred rights trampled under 
 foot by the powers of the world, has yet remained in order, 
 in submission, and in peace. These are enigmas of which 
 the Gospel alone furnishes the key. 
 
 While Scotland was thus imprudently rushing into the 
 arms of Charles II., God was still watching over her. De- 
 liverance was to come from the camp of her neighbors! 
 Hardly had Charles, with perfidious hand, signed the Cove- 
 nant, when the sounds of approaching war were heard, and 
 the republican army of England, under the command of 
 Cromwell, drew near to Edinburgh. 
 
 The Scottish army was defeated by Oliver on the 3rd 
 September, 1650, near Dunbar. 
 
 It was necessary to repair this check. Two resolutions 
 were passed at Perth, in December, by virtue of which all 
 the Scotch might be called to arms, even those who hated 
 the liberties of the church, and were desirous of favoring 
 the despotism of the Stuarts, the Malignants as they were 
 termed. The strict Presbyterians protested against these 
 resolutions ; and thenceforward, in Scotland, those were 
 called Resolutionists, who, although pious men, (Leighton 
 was among their number,) were in favor of the mixture, and 
 for measures seemingly in accordance with the wisdom of 
 the world ; and Protesters, those who added to their piety, 
 unshaken principles and great decision of character. 
 
 Charles was again obliged to fly to the Continent ; and 
 Cromwell, the conqueror of Scotland, intrusted the pious 
 minister, Gillespie, and some of his colleagues, with the 
 direction of church affairs. 
 
 It was then that Scotland reaped the benefits of the Cove- 
 nant. Piety and freedom reigned throughout the kingdom. 
 The Scots, who anticipated still more fearful struggles, re- 
 newed their strength in communion with the Lord, and took 
 courage in his Almighty power. Then followed ten of those 
 years which God grants to his people when He is about to 
 call them to greater conflicts. Blessed is the people let us
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 229 
 
 bear this in mind ! blessed is the people of God, when they 
 profit by such hours of grace, when peace neither enfeebles 
 nor corrupts them ; and when at the moment of war they 
 are to be found having their loins girt about with truth, and 
 having on the breastplate of righteousness ! (Ephes. vi. 14.) 
 During the rule of the Protector, Scotland enjoyed a pro- 
 found peace. All the vitality of the kingdom seemed to 
 flow into the church. " I verily believe," says the historian 
 Kirkton, " there were more souls converted to Christ in that 
 short period of time than in any other season since the Ref- 
 ormation, though of triple its duration." 
 
 But Cromwell was dead ; intrigues were again commenced 
 both in Scotland and England for the recall of Charles II. ; 
 and on the 29th of May, 1660, that unhappy prince entered 
 London in triumph, bringing with him for that Scotland 
 which had first so loyally welcomed him, nothing but ruin 
 and desolation. 
 
 I here conclude the first period of the struggles of the 
 Church of Scotland during the seventeenth century, an 
 epoch, signalized by important political events, by campaigns 
 and battles. These I have almost entirely passed over in 
 silence, because I have been especially desirous of recalling 
 what may be instructive to the Church of God. 
 
 There were in Scotland fighting men, but there was a still 
 greater number of praying, loving, long-suffering men. This 
 is the victory for which the church of our time is called upon 
 to fight. 
 
 On emerging from the middle ages, political and spiritual 
 matters were so mixed up together, that it was sometimes 
 impossible not to defend heavenly things with earthly weap- 
 ons. But for the last three centuries, whatever may be said, 
 a great purification, a great separation, has taken place. 
 See, in Scotld itself, the Free Church of our day ! her 
 rights are infringed in the eyes of her adherents ; and yet 
 they have not fought; they have sacrificed, prayed, and 
 suffered.
 
 230 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 This is the spiritual warfare we are called upon to wage. 
 But who are those among us who profit by the lessons of his- 
 tory ? Where are they who, like Rutherford, love the salu- 
 tary mixture of grace with the most bitter trials ? who rise 
 at midnight to pray for hours like John Welsh ? who, like 
 him, rush between fighting men to make peace ? and who, 
 like Livingston, have seen in one day, five hundred or a thou- 
 sand turned to God by their zeal and faithfulness ? Where 
 are they who know, as these men did, that Jesus reigns ; 
 that His kingdom is in this world the greatest of realities ; 
 that there is no other whom we must obey ; and that -we 
 should be ready, rather than bow the head under a foreign 
 yoke, to go even into prison or to banishment ? 
 
 Oh ! how little are we. Alas ! our faith is often a pic- 
 tured Christianity, but no reality. We must profit by the 
 lessons of history. God has set before us things which, as 
 St. Paul says, are ensamples unto us. " Take heed how ye 
 hear."
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 
 SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. PRELACY OF LAUD. 
 
 Second Period. 1660 to 1700. 
 
 1. Individualism and Catholicism. Babylonish Captivity. 23d August 
 1660. Middleton and his Parliament. Martyrdom of Argyle. Of 
 Guthrie. Of Govun. 2. Act of 1662. The Four Prelates. Order 
 to the Ministers. Journey and Banquets. Act of Glasgow. Reso- 
 lution of the Ministers. The last Sunday. John Welsh. Blackad- 
 der. Peden. 3. Delay granted. The Curates. Their Arrival. 
 Horse and Foot. Before and After. Co-operation of the Curates 
 and the Garrisons. Soldier-judges. A Military Expedition. 4. Mid- 
 dleton dismissed. Drag-net Act. High Commission Court. Pent- 
 land. Execution of M'Kail. First Indulgence. Act of 1669. Sec- 
 ond Indulgence and Blair. Retirement of Leighton. 5. Presbyterian 
 Conventicles. Cameron. The Duke of York. Spreul. Scarcity 
 of the Word. Excommunication by Cargill. The Duke of Rothes. 
 6. Testimony of Marion Harvey. Death of Cargill. The Killing 
 Time. Declaration of 1684. The Sea and Margaret Wilson. John 
 Brown and Claverhouse. General Persecution. 7. Designs of 
 James II. Peden 's Wanderings. Act of Toleration. The last Mar- 
 tyr. The Pope's Godson. " Revolution of 1688. Restoration of Pres- 
 byterianism and Abolition of Patronage. Communion of Saints. 
 New Period and New Arms. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE FIRST MARTYRS. 
 
 THERE are in Christianity two essential elements : the first 
 is individualism ; the second is universalism. 
 
 The most important of these is individualism. It is in- 
 dispensable that the individual, that you and I should be
 
 232 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Christians. I must address myself to obtain Christ and his 
 Spirit as if there were nothing but Him and me in the 
 world. 
 
 The second is universalism, which I should call Catholi- 
 cism, if that word had not obtained a very different accepta- 
 tion. It is necessary that the individual having become a 
 Christian by the operation of the Holy Spirit should enter 
 into the communion of saints, knowing that " we are many 
 members, but one body." 
 
 Protestantism has more especially imposed on herself the 
 work of individualism, while Popery, neglecting the individ- 
 ual point of view of Christianity appeared (though falsely) 
 to cultivate more carefully the universal and catholic side. 
 
 If we, as Protestants, are the true individualists, we ought 
 also to be the true catholics. And if this side of Christianity 
 is too much neglected among us, it is the duty of the minis- 
 ter of the Word to bring it more powerfully before the mind. 
 No, there is not here merely one soul, and there another re- 
 deemed by the blood of the Lamb. There is an assembly 
 of souls ; there is a church. There are not many members 
 merely, there is one body. 
 
 In continuing to lay before you some portions of the 
 church's history, one of my objects is, with God's assistance, 
 to render more vivid among us the idea of Christian com- 
 munity. I do not think we can be edified in speaking merely 
 of the work of Christian individualism. We must never cease 
 to remember that we are only different members placed under 
 the same head, a Head which is in heaven ; and the history 
 of those who have faithfully realized this notion must surely 
 afford us salutary edification. 
 
 The second captivity of the Scottish church is about to 
 commence, lasting from 1660 to 1688, that is for twenty- 
 eight years. Twenty-eight years are usually assigned to the 
 former, from 1610 to 1638; but thirty-eight may well be 
 allowed for ft. These two dismal periods were those of the 
 captivity of the church under the rule of the state, by means
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 233 
 
 of Laud's Prelacy ; and Scotland has good reason for calling 
 this time of mourning and suffering the Babylonish captivity. 
 
 Never, perhaps, has any church been called upon to main- 
 tain a more desperate conflict against state supremacy. The 
 civil power was about to take up those weapons with which 
 it hoped to subdue the church, and such weapons, we must 
 remember, as have not been exclusively confined to the sev- 
 enteenth century. Breaking into houses, violence, blows, in- 
 terdiction of worship, scattering of families, imprisonment, 
 fines, scourging, torture, banishment, drowning, the sword 
 and the gallows, none of these were to be spared by those 
 Pharaohs who would crush the people of God, whether in 
 Egypt, in Scotland, in Switzerland, or elsewhere. 
 
 Were there even no other pages of Scottish history but 
 those to which we have now to turn, we could understand 
 why that country should consider the liberty of the church 
 as the ark of the Lord, the keeping of which has been in- 
 trusted to her ; and why, as soon as the state annihilates that 
 liberty, the church exclaims in anguish, " Ichabod ! the glory 
 is departed from Israel, for the ark of God is taken !" 
 
 On the 23d August, 1660, ten ministers and two elders 
 were joining in prayer at a house in Edinburgh, belonging to 
 Robert Simpson. Scotland was apprehensive of the storm 
 about to burst upon her, and these pious men proposed pre- 
 senting to King Charles II. an humble address, congratulat- 
 ing him on his restoration, reminding him of the covenant 
 with the Lord which he had signed, and praying that his 
 reign might be like those of David, Solomon, and Jehosha- 
 phat. They intended sending round this address for the sig- 
 nature of their brethren ; but on a sudden a party of soldiers 
 entered, seized their papers,, and conveyed them all to prison, 
 which one of them, James Guthrie, never left but for the 
 scaffold. " The enemy shall come in like a flood, but the 
 Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him." (Isa. 
 
 lix. 19.) 
 
 The Earl of Middleton, a soldier of fortune, a coarse and
 
 234 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 haughty man, had been placed by Charles as Lord High 
 Commissioner, at the head of the Scottish government. He 
 immediately called a parliament, of which the majority was 
 composed of Malignants, that is, " lovers of pleasure more 
 than lovers of God," (2 Tim. iii. 4,) and opposed to the inde- 
 pendence of the church. Bishop Burnet states that "those 
 about the Earl of Middleton often continued drinking through 
 the whole night till the next morning, and they came to par- 
 liament reeling " Given up to debauchery during the night, 
 they devoted themselves to despotism during thy day. 
 
 This parliament repealed and rescinded all the acts passed 
 since 1633, that is to say, it annihilated the liberties of the 
 state and of the church. A new act then announced his 
 majesty's intention of establishing the church in a manner 
 " most suitable to monarchical government." 
 
 But this was not enough. The enemies of the church are 
 at all times like each other. When King Herod saw the 
 assemblies of the disciples prospering, not only at Jerusalem 
 but at Caesarea, did he not "stretch forth his hand to vex 
 certain of them, and kill James the brother of John, and 
 proceed further to take Peter also ?" Charles would do like 
 Herod. He would strike at the Covenanters, who welcomed 
 him at the time of his exile, and by terrible blows teach the 
 Christian people to bow down their heads, or else to die. 
 
 At the head of the Presbyterian party was the Marquis of 
 Argyle, the most illustrious of the Scottish nobles, who in 
 1650 had taken the principal part in the young king's coro- 
 nation. Charles II. disliked him, not only because he was 
 unalterably faithful to the cause of the Presbyterian church, 
 but also because he had sometimes rebuked him for his licen- 
 tious behavior ; and because, having broken the promise he 
 had made of marrying this nobleman's daughter, the king 
 hated the father whom he had thus offended. Argyle was 
 condemned to death. On hearing his sentence, this pious 
 Scotchman arose and said : " I had the honor to set the 
 crown upon the king's head, and now he hastens me to a
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 235 
 
 better crown than his own." The love of God filled his soul 
 with heavenly joy. When the Marchioness and some of his 
 friends exclaimed against the cruelty of his adversaries : 
 " Forbear," he cried, "forbear! they may shut me in where 
 they please, but they cannot shut out God from me." The 
 Marquis foresaw that a fearful storm was about to burst 
 upon Scotland ; he therefore said to some of the ministers 
 who were imprisoned with him : " Mind that I tell it you : 
 you who are ministers will either suffer much or sin much." 
 Holy words, which ministers at all times would do well to 
 lay to heart ! Argyle was naturally of a timid disposition, 
 but God bestowed upon him great courage. On the day of 
 his death, having dined with several ministers, he retired to 
 his closet to seek Jesus his King. When he returned to the 
 room : " What cheer, my lord ? " asked the minister, Hutch- 
 inson. " Good cheer, sir, he replied : " The Lord hath again 
 confirmed and said to me from heaven, ' Son, be of good 
 cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee.' " When taking leave of 
 his friends to go to the scaffold, he said to them : " I could 
 die like a Roman, but choose rather to die as a Christian." 
 He said to the multitude : God hath laid engagements upon 
 Scotland ; we are tied by covenant to religion and reforma- 
 tion. It is the duty of every Christian to be loyal, yet I 
 think the order of things is to be observed. Religion must 
 not be the cockboat, but the ship ; God must have what is 
 His, as well as Caesar what is his." The Marquis then prayed 
 fervently, and bent his head to the axe of the executioner. 
 
 But this was not sufficient. Charles, like Herod, must 
 begin with more than one illustrious head. James Guthrie, 
 minister of Stirling, was prosecuted for refusing to acknowl- 
 edge the king's competency to judge in church matters, and 
 condemned to die the death of a traitor. " My Lord," said 
 he to his judge, when this was announced to him, " my con- 
 science I cannot submit ; but this crazy body and mortal 
 flesh I do submit, to do with it whatsoever you will." 
 
 On the day of his execution, Guthrie, full of serenity and
 
 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 joy, addressed the people from the scaffold. " Jesus Christ," 
 said he, " is my light and my life, my righteousness, my 
 strength, and my salvation, and all my desire ; Him, oh ! 
 Him, I do with all the strength of my soul commend unto 
 you ! Bless him, my soul ! Now let thy servant depart 
 in peace, since mine eyes have seen thy salvation." When 
 a napkin was thrown over his face at the fatal moment, he 
 boldly raised it and exclaimed, " The covenants, the cove- 
 nants shall yet be Scotland's reviving !" 
 
 At the foot of the scaffold stood a soldier, Captain Govan, 
 sentenced to die at the same time as Guthrie. When the 
 martyr had been hanged, the captain's turn came. " It 
 pleased the Lord," said he, " in the fourteenth year of my 
 age to manifest his love to me, and now it is about twenty- 
 four years since, all which time I professed the truth which 
 I suffer for, and bear testimony to at this day. I am not 
 afraid of the cross, it is sweet ; otherwise, how durst I look 
 upon the corpse of him who hangs there with courage, and 
 smile upon those sticks and that gibbet as the gates of 
 Heaven. I die confident in the faith of the prophets and 
 apostles, bearing my testimony to the Gospel as it is now 
 preached by an honest ministry. I bear witness with my 
 blood to the persecuted government of this church in Gen- 
 eral Assemblies, Synods, and Presbyteries." Then drawing 
 a ring from his finger, he gave it to one of his friends who 
 stood beside him on the scaffold, saying : " Take it to my 
 wife, and tell her, ' He died in humble confidence, and found 
 the cross of Christ sweet.' " To some one bidding him 
 " Look up to Christ," he answered : " He looketh down and 
 smileth upon me." When the cord was put round his neck, 
 he said : " Now I am near my last, and I desire to reflect on 
 no man : I would only acquaint you of one thing. The 
 Commissioner and I went out to the fields together for one 
 cause ; I have now the cord about my neck, and he is pro- 
 moted to be his Majesty's Commissioner ; yet, for a thou- 
 sand worlds, I would not change lots with him ; praise and
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 237 
 
 glory be to Christ forever !" He gave the signal and died. 
 He was indeed a valiant captain. " He that ruleth his spirit 
 is better than he that taketh a city." 
 
 Other martyrs now followed to the scaffold these three 
 men, the most illustrious of nobles, the most fervent of 
 pastors, and the most courageous of soldiers. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE DISRUPTION. 
 
 THESE horrible executions were as the exordium by which 
 it was proposed to introduce the abolition of the freedom 
 of the church. Due warning having thus been given, an 
 act was passed, in 1662, for the restoration of the govern- 
 ment of the church by archbishops and bishops. This act 
 had at least the merit of sincerity. It declared that " the 
 ordering and disposal of the external government of the 
 church doth properly belong to his majesty, as an inherent 
 right of the crown, by virtue of his royal prerogative and 
 supremacy in ecclesiastical causes." It was not intimated 
 by this act, that the church was mistaken in asserting her 
 independence ; that her claims were new, unheard-of, or 
 monstrous : on the contrary, it acknowledged acts of parlia- 
 ment by which the sole and only power and jurisdiction 
 -within this church doth stand in the church, and in the Gen- 
 eral, Provincial, and Presbyterial Assemblies and Kirk Ses- 
 sions." But this organization was rescinded and annulled, 
 and archbishops and bishops substituted, who were " to be 
 accountable to his majesty for their administrations." 
 
 The theory being thus settled by the right of the strong- 
 est, it was necessary to put it in practice, and for this pur- 
 pose to set up bishops. Four men went from Scotland to seek 
 ordination in London for the successors of Laud. These 
 were Sharp, a cunning, deceitful, and ambitious man, who 
 had been the prime mover of these alarming invasions ; Fair-
 
 238 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 foul, alike vain and facetious ; Hamilton, a weak and unprin- 
 cipled person ; and Robert Leighton, one of the most amiable 
 and pious of men, the author of that admirable Commentary on 
 the First Epistle of St. Peter, which will edify the church to 
 the end of time. It was doubtless hoped that so Christian a 
 man would bring ovei* many minds to the system of Charles 
 II. In all periods, one of the stratagems of the enemies of 
 the Gospel has been to attach to their party some pious and 
 respected individual, whom they use as a bait to draw sim- 
 ple souls within their snares. Yet another reflection pre- 
 sents itself, which we will not keep back. If Leighton was 
 to be found in such ranks, it must be acknowledged that in 
 the most detestable systems and under the most shameful 
 yoke, some candid Christian souls may yet be found. 
 
 They began by ordaining, as deacons and priests, those of 
 the four candidates who had only received presbyterian ordi- 
 nation, which they would not recognize ; then all four were 
 consecrated bishops, and, after the fashion of Charles II., 
 the day was concluded with a feast, which shocked Leigh- 
 ton's pious feelings. After this, getting into the same coach, 
 the four new prelates set out for Berwick. There Leighton, 
 tired of the conversation of his brethren, and ashamed of 
 their society, left them, and proceeded alone to Edinburgh, 
 unwilling to submit to the degradation of the pompous entry 
 which the rulers had prepared. It was not in such a man- 
 ner that his Master had entered Jerusalem. Thus, the coach 
 of Prelacy wanted one of its four wheels, and the only good 
 one, when it paraded the streets of the Scottish metropolis. 
 This was enough to make a man forebode that, though it 
 now seemed to be going on pretty smoothly, it would upset 
 before long. Just then it only seemed necessary to whip up 
 the horses smartly ; and this the parliament and the privy 
 council hastened to do. 
 
 There were at length prelates in Scotland ; but there were 
 also ministers many pious presbyterian ministers deter- 
 mined to receive from the state no ecclesiastical constitution ;
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 239 
 
 more especially no constitution against their conscience and 
 the laws of their church. A collision between the bishops 
 and the ministers became inevitable ; the question was only 
 to which side the victory would incline. 
 
 The state proceeded with all speed ; and an Act was 
 passed commanding every minister to repair punctually to 
 the diocesan assemblies in which the bishops, whose number 
 had now been increased to ten, were to preside ; and declar- 
 ing seditious all assemblies held by those ministers who 
 would not submit to the prelates. All free meetings for 
 worship or prayer were prohibited in Scotland. Such, in 
 the seventeenth century, was the tyranny of Charles II. 
 
 Among Charles's courtiers was the Earl of Lauderdale, a 
 deserter from presbyterianism and from liberty. This noble- 
 man was growing more and more in the king's favor, and 
 threatened to ruin his rival, Middleton. The latter resolved 
 to ward off the blow by redoubling his zeal for enslaving the 
 church. He, therefore, undertook a journey into the west- 
 ern counties, and entered Glasgow attended by nobles, offi- 
 cers, mace-bearers, trumpets, and drums. He was every- 
 where received with almost kingly honors. The Word of 
 God declares that " a man that transgresseth by wine is a 
 proud man." (Hab. ii. 5.) It forbids bishops, and even 
 deacons, to be given to excess in wine. Nevertheless, during 
 this tour, which was intended to establish the prelatic rule, 
 these sacred commands were quite forgotten. " Such who 
 entertained the commissioner best," says an historian, " had 
 their dining-room, their drinking-room, and sleeping-room, 
 to which the guests were carried when they had lost their 
 senses." " Woe unto them," saith the prophet, " that con- 
 tinue until night, till wine inflame them !" It was amidst 
 such disgraceful revelry that the ruin of the church was 
 planned. 
 
 Middleton, however, had to hear the grievous murmurs 
 of Fairfoul, archbishop of Glasgow. " Notwithstanding the 
 act of parliament," he complained, " not one of the young
 
 240 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 ministers entered since 1649 has owned me as a bishop, or 
 attended my diocesan courts. I have only the hatred which 
 attends that office in Scotland, and none of the power. 
 Your grace, therefore, behooves to fall upon some other and 
 more effectual methods, otherwise the new-made bishops 
 will be mere ciphers." " Propose what you like," said Mid- 
 dleton, " 1 will heartily fall in with it." " Let then the 
 council," suggested the prelate, " agree upon an act and 
 proclamation, peremptorily banishing all these ministers 
 from their houses, parishes, and respective presbyteries, be- 
 twixt this and the 1st of November next, if they come not 
 in to receive collation and admission from their bishop : 
 and I assure your Grace, that there will not be ten in the 
 diocese who will stand out, and lose their stipend for this 
 cause." Thus spoke the hireling, imagining that all the 
 pastors of Christ's flock were like himself. 
 
 The council immediately assembled at Glasgow, on the 
 1st of October. All the members, except one, Sir James 
 Lockhart, " were so drunk that day," says the English his- 
 torian Burnet, " that they were not capable of considering 
 any thing that was laid before them." This assembly was 
 therefpre termed " the drunken meeting." In vain did 
 Lockhart affirm that the act demanded by. the archbishop 
 would throw the whole country into disorder and desolation ; 
 nothing is so headstrong and blind as the man who under- 
 takes to persecute the church of God. The act was passed. 
 The council not only struck at the pastors, but also decreed, 
 that whosoever came to hear them, should be punished as 
 frequenters of unlawful conventicles. 
 
 A great number of ministers, amounting to nearly four 
 hundred, thus saw themselves placed in the alternative of 
 either submitting, as to spiritual things, to the decrees of 
 the Lord High Commissioner and his council, or of sacrific- 
 ing their cures, their parishes, perhaps their only means of 
 subsistence, and of removing themselves and their families, 
 in the month of November, with hearts filled with sadness,
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. . 241 
 
 and empty purses, in search of some refuge from the severity 
 of the king and of the winter. They were grave men, of en- 
 ergetic temper, whose very appearance commanded respect. 
 They had always been known to be occupied in visiting their 
 parishes, in speaking and praying with their people, and 
 bringing them to a knowledge of the Scriptures. Their min- 
 istry had been so blessed, that cottagers and servants might 
 everywhere be met with, able to lead worship, to read and 
 explain the Word, and to pray extempore with great fervor. 
 These servants of God did not hesitate. Thus also, in early 
 times, in the city of Antioch, an attempt was made to sub- 
 ject the faithful to forms and ordinances contrary to the free 
 Gospel of Christ. And though even an apostle, Peter him- 
 self, was among those who attempted to bring the Christians 
 under an unlawful yoke, they, with Paul at their head, with- 
 stood him to the face. The Scottish Presbyterians did the 
 same. They could not recognize in the state the claims it as- 
 serted ; they could not, consistently Avith their consciences, 
 take the oath of canonical obedience to the bishops. They 
 declared that they were willing to obey the law, and quitted 
 all they held dearest in the world. '' You-demand either our 
 consciences or our lives," said they ; " take, then, our lives, 
 our consciences are enough for us." 
 
 This had not been expected : it had been thought that but 
 few would be foolish enough to sacrifice their livings for the 
 sake of their faith ; and now an immense breach was made in 
 the church, and unheard-of troubles were threatening it. 
 Accordingly, when Middleton received this news at the pal- 
 ace of Holyrood, he burst into a dreadful rage, and not know- 
 ing that the just live by faith, exclaimed with blasphemous 
 oaths, " What will these mad fellows do ?" 
 
 It was the last Sunday of October, 1662, a dreary and dis- 
 mal day, in which nature herself seemed to sympathize with 
 the sorrow of all hearts. " There was never so sad a Sab- 
 bath in Scotland;" says an historian. All the ejected minis- 
 ters that day preached their farewell sermon to their flocks. 
 
 11
 
 242 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 In many places, the people were unable to control their feel- 
 ings, they wept, sobbed, and cried ; so that it might have 
 been taken for the lamentations of a town stormed and sacked 
 by an enemy, or the bitterness felt at the death of a first- 
 born. (Zach. xii. 10.) 
 
 This desolation began in the west, but it soon spread to 
 the south and the centre of Scotland, so that a great extent 
 of country was suddenly deprived of comforter, guide, and 
 worship, and left in complete spiritual destitution. 
 
 The ministers quitted their much-loved flocks, and most of 
 them repaired northwards, to the Highlands beyond the Tay, 
 exposing themselves, with their wives and children, to all the 
 inclemency of a Scottish winter. Their parishioners long 
 followed them with their prayers ; and when, at last, they 
 lost sight of them, they gazed mournfully on those sacred 
 walls which alone remained to them, now no longer echoing 
 to the Word of God. 
 
 How many affecting scenes were taking place in the manses 
 of Scotland ! Among the pastors was the grandson of John 
 Welsh, called John Welsh, after him. At the time of the 
 ejection he was minister of Irongray. Maxwell was sent to 
 apprehend him. The whole parish came together ; men, 
 women, and children clung to him, and followed him to the 
 water of Cluden. Welsh, after prayer, mounted his horse, 
 amidst the sobs and tears of the multitude, and rode quickly 
 away, but many of his people ran after him, rending the air 
 with bitter lamentations. 
 
 John Blackadder, of the ancient family of Tulliallan, was 
 minister at Troqueer, near Dumfries. His church was situat- 
 ed on an eminence on the banks of the Nith, commanding an 
 extensive and varied prospect. The minister had risen early 
 to seek communion with the Lord. The atmosphere was 
 heavy and lowering, and a thick fog covered the face of the 
 earth like a gray mantle. Blackadder was pacing his garden 
 with slow and pensive steps: his musings were often dis- 
 turbed by the sound of the morning bells ringing from the
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 243 
 
 neighboring parishes. Those sacred accents, which had so 
 often joyfully summoned the faithful to preaching and to 
 prayer, seemed to be tolling the funeral knell of their expir- 
 ing liberties, and reminded Blackadder and his brethren that 
 they were to prepare to bid a sorrowful farewell to their 
 flocks. He retired to his study, to seek strength for the ap- 
 proaching solemnity. He preached ; and, after the sermon, 
 his parishioners expressed their determination to risk their 
 lives in his defence ; but he conjured them not to give their 
 enemies occasion to triumph over them. He spent the fol- 
 lowing week in visiting and comforting his hearers, and left 
 them on the Saturday, being unable to pass another Sunday 
 among them. The next day the soldiers arrived. One of 
 his sons, then a child, has related with great simplicity what 
 then took place. " A party of the king's guard of horse 
 came from Dumfries to Troqueer, to search for and appre- 
 hend my father, but found him not, for what occasion I know 
 not : perhaps, because he h.ad overstayed the appointed day 
 which had been fixed for him to remove with his numerous 
 family of little children, ten miles from the parish. So soon 
 as the party entered the close, and came into the house, curs- 
 ing and swearing, we that were children were frightened out 
 of our little wits and ran up stairs : and when I heard them 
 roaring in the room below, like so many breathing devils, I 
 had the childish curiosity to get down upon my belly, and 
 peep through a hole in the floor above them for to see what 
 monsters of creatures they were ; and it seems they were 
 monsters indeed for cruelty ; for one of them, perceiving 
 what I was doing, immediately drew his sword and thrust it 
 up where I was peeping, so that the mark of the point was 
 scarce an inch from the hole, though, no thanks to the mur- 
 dering ruffian, who designed to run it up through my eye. 
 Immediately after we were forced to pack up, bag and bag- 
 gage, and remove to Glencairn, ten miles from Troqueer. 
 We, who were the children, were put into cadger's creels, 
 where one of '-us cried out, coming through Dumfries, ' I'm
 
 244 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 banisht, I'm banisht!' One happened to ask, 'Who has 
 banisht ye, my bairn ? he answered, ' Bite-the-sheep has 
 banisht me.' That was the name the child applied to the 
 bishop." 
 
 Alexander Peden had been for three years minister of 
 Newluce. On the day of his solemn departure he preached 
 in the afternoon upon these words : " And now, brethren, I 
 commend you to God, and to the word of his grace." (Acts, 
 xx. 32.) All his hearers were in tears, when he announced 
 to them that they would never see his face again in the flesh. 
 He continued speaking until night. He then left the pulpit, 
 shut it, and, striking on t the door three heavy blows, he said 
 thrice : " I arrest thee in the name of my Master ; and may- 
 est thou never be opened but by those who enter through 
 Him, who is the true door, as I have done." In fact, none 
 of the curates (as they called the successors of the ejected 
 pastors), or of the indulged ministers, ever entered this 
 pulpit ; it remained closed, according to Peden's words, till 
 the Revolution of 1688, when a faithful Presbyterian reop- 
 ened it. 
 
 III. 
 
 CURATES AND GARRISONS. 
 
 ON the 23rd of December the council of state assembled 
 with the president, Middleton, at their head. Sensible of 
 the mistake they had committed, the council consented to 
 farther delay, and continued the ministers who were forced 
 to quit their parishes to the 1st of February, that they 
 might re-enter the national church, and submit to the rule 
 of the bishops. Notwithstanding this adroit manoeuvre, the 
 ejections were multiplied, and a still greater number of 
 churches were left without pastors. 
 
 This was a sore deprivation to a country so pious as Scot- 
 land, and the hatred of the people against the bishops who
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 245 
 
 had caused this spiritual famine, was greatly increased. The 
 faithful sought how they might supply the places of those 
 beloved pastors. There were, in the country, a few old 
 ministers, whose ordination had taken place at the time when 
 bishops were established in Scotland, and who, having thus 
 obtained episcopal sanction, had not been required to present 
 themselves before the new bishops, and had, therefore, re- 
 tained their places. Many of these were pious men. People 
 came from distances of twenty miles to hear them. Many also 
 of the ejected ministers were still within reach of their pa- 
 rishioners, who flocked to attend their family worship in such 
 numbers, that it was generally requisite to leave the house 
 and assemble in the open air. 
 
 It became necessary however to- replace the ejected minis- 
 ters. " There was a sort of invitation," says the English 
 bishop, Burnet, " sent over the kingdom, like a hue-and-cry, 
 to all persons to accept of benefices. The livings were gen- 
 erally well endowed, and the parsonage-houses were well built, 
 and in good repair. Therefore," continues the bishop, who 
 certainly is a witness not to be doubted, " this drew many 
 worthless persons thither, who had little learning, less piety, 
 and no sort of discretion. The new incumbents, who were 
 put in the place of the ejected preachers, were generally very 
 mean and despicable in all respects. They were the worst 
 preachers I ever heard ; they were ignorant to a reproach ; 
 and many of them were openly vicious. They were a dis- 
 grace to their orders and the sacred functions ; and, indeed, 
 were the dregs and refuse of the northern part. Those of 
 them who rose above contempt or scandal, were men of such 
 violent tempers, that they were as much hated as the others 
 were despised." Such is the picture, certainly no flattering 
 one, drawn by Bishop Burnet ! 
 
 These ministers were generally young men from the High- 
 lands, who had scarcely studied divinity a year ; and who, 
 having nothing to live upon, rushed into the vacant benefices, 
 as a shepherd upon the sheep ; " but only to shear them,"
 
 246 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 says another historian. " Jeroboam," said the Scotch, who 
 were well acquainted with the Bible, " Jeroboam and his sons 
 having cast off the Levites, ordained himself priests for the 
 devils, and for the calves which he had made." (2 Chron. 
 xi. 15.) So many of them came down from the wild parts 
 of Scotland, that a gentleman of that country began to curse 
 the Presbyterian ministers heartily ; " for," said he, " since 
 they have been turned out, we cannot have a lad to keep our 
 cows." These new ministers were called curates." 
 
 The arrival of the curates in the deserted parishes, occa- 
 sioned scenes still more deplorable than those of the depar- 
 ture of the ministers. In many places they were received 
 with tears and entreaties to go away. In others they were 
 welcomed with reasoning and argument that struck them 
 dumb. Sometimes, also, less patient people had recourse to 
 threats and insults. In some places the tongue of the bell 
 was taken away, that the parishioners might have an excuse 
 for not going to church ; in others, they barricaded the doors, 
 so that the curate was forced to climb in at the window. 
 "He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold," said 
 some concerning them, " but climbeth up some other way, 
 the same is a thief and a robber." (John, x. 1.) On the 
 other hand, the worldly and dissolute of the place, if there 
 were any such, welcomed the curates gladly, and invited them 
 to drink with them ; and they frequently became intoxica- 
 ted in these orgies. This excited so much indignation, that 
 some hot-headed people, and particularly a number of women 
 (who were always among the most zealous of the Presbyte- 
 rians), proceeded, in several places, to oppose the entrance 
 of the curates by force. But, says Wodrow : " Such who 
 were really serious, mourned in secret, as doves in the val- 
 leys." 
 
 These receptions gave occasion to severe prosecutions. 
 Many were sentenced to heavy fines, to be scourged or ban- 
 ished to America. At the same time, the privy council, 
 which had been taking lessons from Rome, decreed, that
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 247 
 
 when a bishop was to settle a curate in a parish where the 
 people were refractory, the bishop and the curate should be 
 accompanied with a hundred horsemen and two hundred foot, 
 of his majesty's guards, to settle by force the pastor of the 
 state ; that the said horse and foot should live at free quar- 
 ters in the parish ; or that the parishioners should pay them 
 thirty shillings (Scotch) for each horseman, and twelve for 
 each footman per diem ; and that these garrisons should sup- 
 press by force all free meetings held by the faithful. This 
 was done, in 1G63, at Irongray, where Welsh had been min- 
 ister. Perhaps it was from this that Louis XIV. borrowed 
 the model of his dragonnades. In the present day it is not 
 the regular opposition of dragoons that is brought into use, 
 but popular tumult and violence. This, they say, is the age 
 of progress.* 
 
 But notwithstanding this coersion, the people, who were 
 better acquainted with the Bible than their ignorant curates, 
 refused to hear the hirelings imposed upon their consciences 
 by the power of the state. Meetings in the open air became 
 more and more frequent. All who were religious, and even 
 respectable, throughout Scotland, were in favor of the ban- 
 ished ministers. I pause for a moment to exhibit two pic- 
 tures ; one may be entitled Before, the other, After. 
 
 This is the picture presented by an historian of Scotland 
 before the state undertook the government of the church. 
 "Every parish in Scotland had a minister, every village a 
 school, every family, and, in most places, every person, had 
 a Bible. Most part of ministers did preach thrice a week, 
 and lecture once, to say nothing of catechizing and other 
 pastoral duties. A minister could not be easy himself with- 
 out some seals of his ministry in the souls of his people, of 
 which there were in this period not a few. One might have 
 lived a good while in many congregations, and rode through 
 much of Scotland, without hearing an oath. You could 
 
 * Alluding to what has been going on in the Canton de Vaud since 
 the disruption of 1845.
 
 248 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 scarce have lodged in a house where God was not worshipped 
 by singing, reading the Word, and prayer ; and the public 
 houses were ready to complain their trade was broke, every 
 body now was become so sober." 
 
 Now look upon the other picture, the companion to this, 
 representing the church as administered by Charles II. 
 " Sometimes in the streets of Edinburgh or Glasgow, coarse 
 oaths were heard ; this was from the curates. Instances 
 were sadly common of their staggering in the streets and 
 wallowing in the gutters, even in their canonical habits ; and 
 this was conformable to Bishop Wishart's preaching publicly, 
 ' that he was not to be reckoned as a drunkard who was now 
 and then overtaken with wine or strong liquor, but he only 
 who made a trade of following after strong liquor.' The vile 
 practices of these people cannot be mentioned, and one of 
 them was executed for murder." 
 
 At the same time the lowest of the populace employed 
 themselves in hunting out, not only the conventicles, but 
 even families celebrating domestic worship, and disturbed 
 them by hootings and insults. Women and old men were 
 cruelly beaten, and dragged either to prison or to the church, 
 which was the same thing to them ; and hundreds of poor 
 households were dispersed, and reduced to the most fright- 
 ful misery. 
 
 Nevertheless, the curates gave proofs of devotedness and 
 zeal ; not, it is true, to their Lord in heaven, but to their 
 own master, Charles II. They made out a list' of the mem- 
 bers of their congregation, not that they might visit them 
 this was no business of theirs, but to facilitate the work of 
 his Majesty's guards. On Sunday, after a very short and 
 spiritless sermon had been delivered, the list was read from 
 the pulpit, and the names of the absent were marked with a 
 cross. The soldiers then made a pastoral visitation, quar- 
 tered themselves in the houses, and imposed fines on the 
 inhabitants without listening to any excuse. It sometimes 
 happened that poor people, who did attend the church, were
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 249 
 
 punished because those who had previously occupied their 
 lodgings were marked as absent in the curate's list. " It 
 was our predecessors," said they. " No matter ! what is 
 written is written." i 
 
 Matters were quickly dispatched. The curate accused 
 whomsoever he pleased to any of the officers, sometimes to a 
 mere private. The soldier acted as judge, heard no witness, 
 pronounced the sentence, and then executed it, managing to 
 put a good round sum in his own pocket. These men, like 
 the locusts of Egypt, covered the face of the country, and 
 devoured its substance. 
 
 Sometimes, on the Sunday morning, a great noise would 
 be heard in the village public house ; it proceeded from the 
 soldiers, drinking and carousing round the tables. In this 
 village, some good old minister might be living, who, for rea- 
 sons I have already mentioned, had been allowed to remain 
 at his post without humbling himself to the bishop. Thither 
 the faithful crowded from all quarters, and the church would 
 be filled, which greatly enraged the bishops and their hire- 
 lings. All at once the soldiers would rise from table with 
 great tumult, take up their arms, and run to the church door, 
 a sentinel having come to inform them that the service was 
 nearly over. These satellites would then carefully guard all 
 the outlets, and make the congregation pass one by one, like 
 sheep to be counted. " Do you belong to this parish ?" 
 asked they of each individual, and insisted on an answer 
 upon oath. All who did not belong to the parish were fined, 
 and robbed of all they had about them. If these poor 
 Scotchmen had no money, " Give me your Bible," cried the 
 soldiers ; or else they would take the men's hats and coats, 
 and the women's caps and plaids. The military party then 
 returned to their quarters, laden with spoil, laughing and 
 blaspheming, as if they had been pillaging a town taken by 
 storm. 
 
 Sometimes the soldiers did not wait for the end of the ser- 
 vice. One party would stand at one door of the church, and 
 11*
 
 250 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 another at the other ; a third then entered, interrupted the 
 worship, and sometimes took to prison all who were not 
 parishioners. This they would term a good haul of the drag- 
 net. v 
 
 IV. 
 
 TYRANNY AND INDULGENCES. 
 
 AT the sight of all these atrocities, a cry of indignation 
 arose so loud, that it even reached England. Lord Lauder- 
 dale profited by this opportunity to ruin his rival, Middleton, 
 who had presided over these tyrannical scenes. The king 
 having ordered the suspension of the fines, the avaricious 
 Middleton for some time kept back his Majesty's proclama- 
 tion. Lauderdale therefore accused him to Charles of hav- 
 ing violated the royal prerogative. Middleton hastily re- 
 paired to London : his end was approaching ; the never-fail- 
 ing punishment of Heaven was about to fall upon him. An 
 old country-woman, seeing him pass by at Coldstream, cried 
 out to him : " Go thy way, go thy way ! I tell thee thou shalt 
 never return." Middleton, however, went forward, and the 
 king sent him to Tangier, where he soon after died. 
 
 The management of affairs was then intrusted to Lauder- 
 dale. He appointed to the Presidency of the Council Lord 
 Tweeddale, whose son had married his daughter, and who 
 exerted a somewhat conciliatory influence ; #nd the Earl 
 of Rothes was named Lord High Commissioner. But the 
 Church of Scotland did not gain by this. The new govern- 
 ment passed an act, sentencing whosoever should absent 
 himself from the official worship to a fine equal to a quarter 
 of his income, besides corporal punishment, as should be 
 thought fit. This act was called " The Bishop's Drag-net." 
 But the persecution of the church was not yet severe enough 
 in the eyes of Archbishop Sharp. He thought the privy 
 council was deficient in zeal in the suppression of Presbyte-
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 251 
 
 rianism, and would have had that sect persecuted to the 
 death. He therefore obtained from the king, in 1664, the 
 re-erection of the Court of High Commission, to which all 
 causes, ecclesiastical and civil, were to be referred, and, in 
 particular, the judgment of the ejected ministers who dared 
 preach, and of the faithful who dared listen to them. The 
 curates became the agents and spies of this inquisitorial tri- 
 bunal, and Sharp himself attended to the proper working of 
 the machine. The soldiers undertook to lead the parish- 
 ioners one by one to church, as galley slaves are driven to 
 hard labor, and all were declared guilty of sedition who 
 should give relief to an ejected minister, were he even dying 
 with want. It was a saying of the Archbishop of Glasgow, 
 "The only way to be taken with these fanatics," (such was 
 the name bestowed upon them in the proclamations) "is to 
 starve them out !"* 
 
 They soon went even farther than this. On the 13th of 
 November, 1666, four countrymen, who were seeking to avoid 
 the tyranny of this inquisition, were taking refreshments in 
 the village of Darly in Galloway, when they were informed 
 that some soldiers were cruelly maltreating an old man, 
 with the intention of making him pay a ruinous fine. They 
 hastened to the place, and found the victim lying on the 
 ground, bound hand and foot, and the soldiers employed in 
 taking off his clothes, in order to execute the horrible threat 
 they had uttered of stretching him naked on a red-hot grid- 
 iron. At this hideous spectacle, the countrymen uttered a 
 cry, and the soldiers threw themselves on them sword in 
 hand : the troopers were disarmed, and one of their number 
 was wounded. Knowing the danger which menaced these 
 generous men, the people of the neigborhood rose in arms, 
 and others soon joined them. But this sudden flame was 
 speedily quenched in torrents of blood on the Pentland 
 hills. 
 
 * The same expression has been also used in our own day, in an of- 
 ficial document of the Canton de Vaud.
 
 252 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 A few of the Scottish nobles now began to grow weary of 
 these horrors, and to lift up the voice of humanity. An 
 order from the king commanded the army to be disbanded, 
 with the exception of the guards. The bishops and the 
 curates were in consternation ; and Burnet, archbishop of 
 Glasgow, (whom we must not confound with the English 
 historian,) exclaimed : "Alas! now that the army is dis- 
 banded, the Gospel will go out of my diocese." 
 
 Among the preachers who were then persecuted was 
 Hugh M'Kail, a young man of amiable character, handsome 
 person, distinguished talents, and holy life. He was a 
 preacher when the 400 pastors were expelled from then- 
 livings ; and in preaching he had said, that the church, per- 
 secuted in all ages, had always found among its enemies a 
 " Pharaoh on the throne, a Haman in the state, and a Judas 
 in the church." Archbishop Sharp, having heard of this 
 sermon, doubted not that he was the Judas himself, and im- 
 mediately dispatched a party of soldiers to seize M'Kail ; 
 but the latter fled to Holland, where he remained four years. 
 Returning to Scotland in 1665, and finding affairs worse 
 than he had left them, he led a quiet and retired life in his 
 father's house. There, far from the world, he wandered 
 among the hills, the lonely pastures, and the peaceful val- 
 leys ; and alone, under the canopy of heaven, wept and 
 prayed for his unhappy country. Soon after, the peasantry 
 having taken up arms, as before mentioned, in defence of 
 Presbyterianism, he joined them ; but being of a weak con- 
 stitution, he was unable to endure the fatigue, and soon left 
 them to return to his solitude. He was on his way home, 
 when he was seized by some dragoons at Braid Craigs, and 
 brought to Edinburgh. He was there accused of rebellion ; 
 and the council, with the view of extorting information which 
 the free minister was unable to give, sent for the executioner, 
 and announced to the prisoner that he was to undergo the 
 horrible torture of the boot. M'Kail persisting in his state- 
 ment, the executioner placed the young preacher's leg in
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 253 
 
 this hideous instrument, which was a square wooden box, 
 with movable plates inside. He then inserted a wedge be- 
 tween the frame and the plates, which he proceeded to drive 
 in with a mallet, so as to produce the most excruciating pain. 
 The members of the council who, sitting in their chairs, were 
 coolly watching the horrid spectacle, again summoned M'Kail 
 to make the disclosures they required. It was in vain. Again 
 the heavy mallet descended, and blow after blow followed ; 
 the agony became every moment more insupportable, but 
 the heroic martyr still possessed his soul in patience. His 
 flesh was crushed, even to the bone. " If all the joints of 
 my body were in as great torture as that poor leg, I protest 
 before God," said M'Kail, " that I can say no more." The 
 blows recommenced, the bone itself was crushed, the 
 martyr fainted ; he was carried back to prison, and soon af- 
 ter sentenced to death. 
 
 On the evening before his execution, after supper, the 
 preacher began to read the 16th Psalm : " The Lord him- 
 self is the portion of my inheritance, and my cup." "If 
 there is any thing I regret leaving in this world," said he, "it 
 is the reading of the Scriptures." He then said to those 
 around him, who were lamenting his death at so early an 
 age : " My sufferings will do more harm to the prelates, and 
 serve more to the edifying of the people of God, than I 
 could do if I were a minister for twenty years." His life 
 was in Christ, and for him to die was gain^ This faithful 
 servant of God ascended the ladder to the scaffold, remark- 
 ing with serenity : " Each step in this ladder is a degree 
 nearer heaven." The crowd was enormous : every street, 
 every window was filled with sympathizing spectators. 
 Hearing the sobs of the people, he said : " Your work is 
 not to weep, but to pray ; and, that ye may know what the 
 ground of my encouragement in this work is, I shall read to 
 you the last chapter of the Bible." He then read the 
 twenty-second chapter of Revelations, and added, " Here 
 you see the glory that is to be revealed to me ; a pure river
 
 254 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 of the water of Nfe, the throne of God ancUof the Lamb, 
 his servants that serve Him and that see his face ; here is 
 my access to my glory and reward. 
 
 After the executioner had put the rope about his neck, 
 M'Kail said : " And now I leave off to speak any more to 
 creatures, and begin my intercourse Avith God, which shall 
 never be broken off. Farewell, father and mother, friends 
 and relations ; farewell meat and drink ; farewell sun, moon, 
 and stars ! Welcome God and Father ; welcome sweet Jesus 
 Christ, the Mediator of the new Covenant ; welcome blessed 
 Spirit of grace, the God of all consolation ; welcome glory, 
 welcome eternal life, and welcome death !" The soul of the 
 martry was caught up to heaven, the 22d of December, 1666. 
 There is in the words of this sufferer an admirable mixture 
 of the human and divine. When he bids farewell to nature, 
 to his father, to his mother, we seem to hear a hero of an- 
 tiquity ; but when he hails Jesus, and the everlasting glory, 
 we soon recognize the disciple of Christ. We know of no 
 death in which these two elements are so beautifully united. 
 
 Executions such as these pleaded powerfully in favor of 
 the church and of liberty. In this martyr was fulfilled the 
 promise of the Word : " Inasmuch as ye are partakers of 
 Christ's sufferings, happy are ye, for the spirit of glory and 
 of God resteth upon you" (1 Peter, iv. 14.) ; and the perse- 
 cutors themselves were for an instant alarmed. 
 
 Politicians then perceived that some concessions must be 
 made, and that they must endeavor thereby to rend asunder 
 the Presbyterian cause. On the 15th of July, 1669, Tweed- 
 dale presented to the council a letter from the king, which 
 was afterwards called the " The First Indulgence." This let- 
 ter decreed that the privy-council should point out a certain 
 number of the ejected ministers, " whose conduct had been 
 peaceable and orderly," to resume their former places, or, if 
 they were occupied, to be settled in others ; that if they 
 would submit to the collation of the bishop, they should also 
 receive the stipend of the parish, but if they would not, they
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 255 
 
 should only have the manse and glebe ; -provided always, 
 that they would attend the diocesan meetings held by the 
 prelates. 
 
 This was a concession : and accordingly the cruel Sharp 
 hastened to console his friends by saying : " Never fear ; I 
 will make this measure a bone of contention to the Presby- 
 terians." 
 
 Ten of the ejected ministers were comprehended in the 
 first indulgence, which was afterwards extended to forty-two. 
 All made a sort of protestation against the royal supremacy 
 in ecclesiastical matters, but this precaution proved insuffi- 
 cient. These ministers, who were of the weakest, alleged, as 
 their motive for accepting the indulgence, the advantages of 
 peace, and the liberty they would enjoy of preaching the 
 Gospel. But the result of the measure was to enfeeble and 
 abase the church. 
 
 This advantage being gained, they quickly obtained an- 
 other. A parliament, which met on the 16th of November, 
 1669, passed an act, legalizing the power of the state over 
 the church (the Cesaropapia) in the most unlimited manner. 
 Burnet thinks that Lauderdale, knowing the papistical opin- 
 ions of the Duke of York, caused this statue to be enacted, 
 in order that the last of the Stuarts, when he should come 
 to the throne, might establish Popery by a single decree. 
 The parliament declared : " That his Majesty hath the su- 
 preme authority and supremacy over all persons, and in all 
 causes ecclesiastical ; and that by virtue thereof, the order- 
 ing and disposal of the external government and policy of 
 the Church doth properly belong to his Majesty ; and his 
 successors may settle, enact, and emit such constitutions, 
 acts, and orders, concerning the administration of the exter- 
 nal government of the Church, and the persons employed in 
 the same, and concerning all ecclesiastical meetings, and 
 matters to be proposed and determined therein, as they in 
 their royal wisdom shall see fit." This act was the first
 
 256 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 which was annulled in 1690, at the Revolution, as being in- 
 compatible with the settlement of chureh government. 
 
 The pious but short-sighted Archbishop Leighton, who 
 still occupied the same place, willing to bring the Presbyte- 
 rians to Episcopacy by gentle means, obtained, in 1672, a 
 second indulgence ; by virtue of which some of the ejected 
 ministers were called upon to serve in a certain parish, with- 
 out caring for the opinions of the flock in the elections. 
 "My Lord Chancellor," said Blair, taking from his hands 
 the paper which presented him with a call of this kind, " I 
 cannot be so uncivil as to refuse a paper offered me by your 
 lordships ; but," he added, as he let it fall, " I can receive 
 no instructions from you for regulating the exercise of my 
 ministry ; for if I should receive instructions from you, I 
 should be your ambassador, not the ambassador of Christ." 
 The courageous minister was sent to prison, where he soon 
 after died. 
 
 The pious Leighton himself, who had always hoped and 
 expected a more Christian conduct from the state, seeing, on 
 the contrary, that things were going on from bad to worse, 
 gave in his resignation, and retired to a peaceful retreat in 
 England, where he died 1084. Good men may for a time 
 be liable to great mistakes ; but the day will at last arrive, 
 when they will understand that it is impossible any longer 
 to be associated with despotism and impiety. " Be not un- 
 equally yoked together with unbelievers : what concord hath 
 Christ with Belial?" (2 Cor. vi. 14, 15.) 
 
 V. 
 
 THE FAINTING OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 THE Presbyterians, steadfast to their faith, and refusing to 
 connect themselves with the acts of the government and the 
 prelates, often assembled in the fields. Lauderdale waged 
 an incessant warfare against these conventicles, letting loose
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 257 
 
 upon them the Highlanders, whom he had brought down 
 from their mountains, or raising in other quarters a formidable 
 army, which he paid with the money of the Presbyterians 
 themselves. These meetings, therefore, became less fre- 
 quent, but also more numerously attended, and more alarm- 
 ing. In order to hold them, a strong position was taken 
 up, sentinels were posted in the vicinity to watch the move- 
 ments of the enemy, and give the signal for flight, or, if that 
 was impossible, of open resistance. Sometimes the people 
 met in a narrow and solitary valley, sometimes oil a wild 
 morass; sometimes by day, sometimes by night. Thus there 
 were in the free open air, as afterwards in the deserts of 
 Languedoc, solemn communions and times of refreshing ; 
 discourses which the ministers delivered with so much ar- 
 dor that it seemed as if their lips had been touched with a 
 live coal from the altar (Isaiah, vi. 6.) ; and great multitudes 
 experiencing the deepest contrition. 
 
 " We offered to the Lord the sacrifice of thanksgiving," 
 says a minister who often assisted at these solemnities, " and 
 sang with a joyful voice to the Rock of our salvation." On 
 a sudden, the sentinels who were keeping guard upon the 
 surrounding heights would give a note of alarm ; the singing 
 ceased, the minister descended from the stone which had 
 served him for a pulpit, and the people dispersed, " wander- 
 ing in deserts, in mountains, and in dens and caves of the 
 earth, being destitute, afflicted, tormented." (Heb. xi. 37, 38.) 
 
 Soon after the general ejection, a curate had been settled 
 at Falkland. This man had, as precentor and schoolmaster, 
 a native of the place, named Richard Cameron. The latter 
 began to attend the field-meetings of the ejected ministers : 
 he was converted, and left all for the sake of Christ. He fled 
 to Holland, and after studying for some time was ordained to 
 the holy ministry. The Low-Countries were, during the per- 
 secution of the latter part of the seventeenth century, what 
 Geneva had been in the days of Knox, the home and ref- 
 uge of the children of God. After his ordination, Cameron
 
 258 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 returned to Scotland, and immediately associated himself 
 with the strictest Presbyterians (to whom he gave his name), 
 and who distinguished themselves by censuring the conduct 
 of those who, by compliance, seemed to authorize the tyr- 
 anny of the persecutors. Cameron and his friends boldly 
 declared that they disowned all authority which opposed it- 
 self to the Word of God ; and, in particular, that they would 
 not acknowledge the usurpations of the king, who assumed 
 ecclesiastical supremacy, attacked the only lawful dominion 
 of Jesus Christ and his Word, and oppressed His subjects. 
 
 Cameron was blessed in his ministry. He always preached 
 as if he was never sure of preaching again. On the 22d of 
 July, 1681, happening to be at a place in Ayrshire, called 
 Aird's Moss, he was informed that a party of soldiers were 
 approaching, and that neither he nor his friends could escape. 
 The Presbyterians therefore prepared for resistance. Cam- 
 eron uttered a short prayer, in which he thrice repeated this 
 simple and pious expression, " Lord, spare the green, and 
 take the ripe !" He beheld the Lord of the harvest approach- 
 ing with his sickle in his hand, preparing to reap the corn ; 
 and entreated him to cut down those ears only which were 
 ready to be carried into the heavenly garner. When he had 
 ended his prayer, Cameron said to his brother, " Come, and 
 let us fight it to the last ; for this is the day that I have 
 longed for, and the death I have prayed for, to die fighting 
 against the Lord's avowed enemies ; and this is the day we 
 will get the crown." At that moment the royal troops 
 charged the Presbyterians, and Cameron and his brother fell 
 side by side. The enemy were desirous of taking this dreaded 
 minister prisoner, in order to deliver him up to an ignomin- 
 ious death, but they were disappointed. To make amends 
 for this, the dragoons cut off Cameron's head and hands, and 
 carried them to Edinburgh on the point of a halbert. This 
 minister's father was then in prison for the cause of the Gos- 
 pel. They carried to his dungeon these sad proofs of his 
 son's death, and cruelly asked if he knew them. The old
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 259 
 
 man took them respectfully, kissed them, and bathing them 
 with his tears, exclaimed, " I know them, I know them : 
 they are my son's, my dear son's. Good is the will of the 
 Lord, who cannot wrong me nor mine !" These remains of 
 Cameron were exposed on one of the city gates, the hands 
 placed near the head, and the fingers pointing towards 
 heaven in the attitude of prayer. His headless body was 
 thrown into a grave at Aird's Moss, on a verdant hill, where 
 a plain monumental stone points out the martyr's burial- 
 place. He had experienced the truth of that saying ad- 
 dressed by the Master to an imprudent disciple, who, like 
 Cameron, desired to take up the sword : " All they that take 
 the sword shall perish with the sword." (Matt. xxvi. 52.) 
 
 All was now tending towards popery. The Duke of York, 
 heir presumptive to the crown, had for some years discon- 
 tinued communicating at the Lord's Supper, even when 
 bishops administered it : he required the Mass. It was 
 also becoming more and more customary in England, to re- 
 gard the abjuration of the Gospel, and submission to the 
 Pope, as the proper and fashionable mode of dying. In 1673 
 the Duke of York married the Princess of Modena, a mem- 
 ber of a family devoted to Rome. It was already reported 
 that the Pope had, by a bull, appointed the future bishops 
 of Britain. Papists filled the court. The agitation aug- 
 mented day by day among the people. " One would have 
 thought," observes a contemporary, " that a dreadful comet 
 had appeared in the sky." 
 
 These things must be borne in mind in order to understand 
 the nature of the terrible struggles then going on in Scot- 
 land. Although the State and Prelacy were apparently the 
 only oppressors, Popery was hidden behind them. 
 
 The resistance to Popery had become so vigorous in Eng- 
 land, that it was thought desirable to send the Duke of York 
 for a time to a distance from London. This prince, who 
 afterwards reigned by the title of James II., arrived in Scot- 
 land in 1681, the year of Cameron's death, and undertook
 
 260 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 the management of public affairs. It was then plainly shown 
 what treatment James had in reserve for England, if he had 
 been allowed to go on as he pleased. His influence in Scot- 
 land was marked by increased severity against the evangel- 
 ical Christians. One of these, a layman named Spreul, Avas 
 accused before the council over which the prince presided, 
 and frankly confessed his opinions. No sort of calumny was 
 spared at that time against the reformed Christians ; and a 
 novelist of great celebrity, who has shown, in his writings, 
 that he was a stranger to the Christian spirit, has in our own 
 day echoed these groundless charges. The justification 
 which Spreul pronounced in the presence of the royal duke 
 may be considered as the justification of all his brethren. 
 " Whereas I am sadly accused to your lordships, as if I were 
 a man of king-killing principles, I declare I would kill no 
 man whatsoever, but upon self-defence, which the law of 
 God and of nature allows. I own the free preaching of the 
 Gospel, whether in the fields or houses, seeing it is written, 
 ' Without faith it is impossible to please God, and faith com- 
 eth by hearing.' I also own Jesus Christ as the only Head 
 of his church, and King of saints, and disown all others pre- 
 tending thereto." 
 
 Spreul did still more : he retorted the accusation of regi- 
 cide principles upon those who had made them. As the Duke 
 of York rose from his throne and said to him, with a frown, 
 " Sir, would you kill the king ?" the astonished Christian 
 paused a moment ; and then turning towards the Chancellor 
 (he was fearful of offending the Roman Catholic prince, by 
 addressing this answer to him), he replied ; " My lord, I 
 bless God I am no Papist. I loathe and abhor all those 
 Jesuitical, bloody, and murdering principles : neither my pa- 
 rents, nor the ministers I heard, ever taught me such princi- 
 ples." Spreul was condemned to the torture of the boot. 
 When this instrument was applied most of the nobles and 
 judges present retired, that they might not witness it. This 
 was not the case with the Duke of York, who remained, and
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 261 
 
 watched his victim's agonies with cruel eyes. The English 
 bishop, Burnet, says, " he looked on all the while with un- 
 moved indifference, and with an attention as if he had been 
 to look upon some curious experiment."* 
 
 These cruelties were not without effect. There was a 
 great dearth throughout Scotland. " The Word of the Lord 
 was rare in those days." (1 Sam. iii. 1.) The dragoons 
 scoured the country, and the faithful, " of whom the world 
 was not worthy," were wandering in the deserts. 
 
 After the death of Cameron, Donald Cargill was for some 
 time almost the only minister who dared preach in the fields. 
 " The blood-stained banner," says an historian, " which fell 
 from Cameron's dying hand, was caught up and borne aloft 
 by Cargill with unshrinking resolution." He preached boldly 
 to his countrymen Jesus Christ crucified. Perhaps he went 
 too far. Persecution generally excites the persecuted ; and 
 the persecutors and the worldly-minded then coldly and 
 meanly reproach them with their excitement. Cargill, the 
 only representative of the Scottish Presbyterianism, as if he 
 himself had been a whole synod, a whole general assembly, 
 filled with horror at the persecutions of his people and his 
 faith, at a field-preaching at Torwood, in Stirlingshire (Sep- 
 tember 1680), solemnly pronounced sentence of excommuni- 
 cation against the king, his brother, the Papist Duke of York, 
 and five of the chief lords who oppressed Scotland, among 
 whom was the Duke of Rothes. This sentence, after all, 
 signified but little. The king and his brother cared not for 
 the Presbyterian communion, and greatly preferred that of 
 the Pope. Yet, however exaggerated Cargill's proceedings 
 may have been, we cannot help acknowledging in them great 
 courage and fidelity. 
 
 He had spoken out. As a " watchman of the house of 
 
 Israel," he had " warned the wicked from his evil way," 
 
 (Ezek. iii. 18.) ; and it was not wholly in vain. The Duke 
 
 of Rothes, one of the excommunicated, having fallen danger- 
 
 * Burnet's Own Times, ii. p. 424.
 
 262 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 ously ill a few months afterwards, sent for some Presbyterian 
 ministers. The Word pronounced in the Avilderness of Stir- 
 lingshire, like that which was uttered in the wilderness of 
 Judea by the prophet in the raiment of camel's hair, with the 
 leathern girdle, weighed upon the consciences of the rulers of 
 the people. " We all thought little of what that man did in 
 excommunicating us," said the dying duke, "but I find that 
 sentence binding upon me now, and it will, I fear, bind me 
 to all eternity." One of the evangelical ministers, moved 
 with compassion for the sinner, who had so long, as Lord 
 High Commissioner, been at the head of the persecution of 
 his people, then declared to the agonized and terrified duke, 
 the expiation of the blood of the Lamb, " which cleanseth 
 from all sin," and fervently prayed for repentance and faith 
 for the dying nobleman. In the adjoining room were sev- 
 eral lords and bishops. Hearing the voice of prayer, they 
 broke off their conversation, and there was a moment of 
 silence. They were astonished : " That is a Presbyterian 
 minister praying," said one of the noblemen ; and then, turn- 
 ing to the bishops, he added : " there is not one of you can 
 pray as they do, though the welfare of a man's soul should 
 depend upon it." " We banish these men from us," said 
 the Duke of Hamilton, " and yet, when dying, we call for 
 them." Happy is the persecutor and blasphemer who, like 
 the royal commissioner, calls for the Word of God ; or, 
 rather, whom the Word of God seeks out, were it even at the 
 eleventh hour ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE KILLING TIME. 
 
 No king ever had ministers and servants so ready to sa- 
 crifice their lives for him, as Jesus Christ had, at that time, 
 in Scotland. No crown was ever so steadfastly upheld by 
 its subjects.
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 263 
 
 The persecution was not confined to the ministers only, 
 but extended also to their hearers, and even to women. 
 Two young persons, Isabel Alison and Marion Harvie, were 
 accused of having been present at Cargill's field preachings. 
 Marion was a young girl of twenty. " At fourteen or fif- 
 teen," she said to her judge, " I was a hearer of the curates, 
 and then I was a blasphemer, and a chapter of the Bible 
 was a burden to me." " I bless God, Isabel," she remarked 
 to her friend, " that He has given me life that I may lay it 
 down for his name's sake. If I could live a thousand years 
 by forsaking the truths of the Gqspel, I would not give up 
 one." When led to the scaffold, these two Christian maid- 
 ens sang the 23d Psalm, ' The Lord is my Shepherd ;" and 
 the 84th 
 
 " How lovely is thy dwelling place, 
 
 O Lord of Hosts, to me ; 
 My very heart and flesh cry out, 
 O living God, for thee !'' 
 
 When about to be executed, Marion Harvie, wishing to 
 testify what was the faith for which she was to lay down 
 her life the doctrine of the true Head of the church ex- 
 claimed : " I am brought hither this day for having con- 
 fessed, as I still do, that Jesus Christ is the King of Sion, 
 and the Head of his people !" After this she died, on the 
 26th of January, 1681. Thus did country girls in Scotland 
 feel themselves called upon to maintain the same truth as 
 the doctors and leaders of the flocks. 
 
 A more noted victim was now to fall by this persecution. 
 Cargill, hunted from place to place, was still preaching in 
 the most secluded districts. For this purpose he often had 
 to take long and painful journeys. One Sunday, having 
 walked all the morning to reach the place where the people 
 were to assemble at Tinto Hill, he arrived fatigued, thirsty, 
 and almost fainting. An old man, coming from the crowd, 
 offered him, in his blue bonnet, a little cold water from a
 
 264 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 neighboring spring. The minister drank it, and, without 
 any other refreshment, preached the whole day. On the 
 10th of July he proclaimed the Gospel at Dunsyre Common, 
 and slept at Covington Mill. But his enemies were on the 
 watch v At daybreak a troop of dragoons surrounded the 
 mill, seized the preacher, and carried him to Edinburgh, 
 where, being led before the council, he was condemned to 
 death. "I am," said he, "a Christian, a Protestant, a 
 Presbyterian ; and I die testifying against Popery, Prelacy, 
 Erastianism, and all manner of defection from the truth of 
 God." When led to thescaffold, he approached the cord 
 by which he was to be hanged, and declared that he went 
 up the ladder with less fear and perturbation of mind than 
 ever he entered the pulpit to preach the Word of God to 
 sinners. " I am no more terrified at death, nor afraid of 
 hell, because of sin, than if I had never had sin ; for all my 
 sins are freely pardoned and washed away, through the 
 precious blood and intercession of Jesus Christ." Sweet 
 Christian words ! It was on the 27th of July, 1681, that 
 he sealed with his blood the testimony he had borne to 
 Jesus, the only King of the Church. 
 
 Cargill was no more. There was now no one left who 
 preached in the fields. " The wise men had rejected the 
 Word of the Lord," (Jer. viii. 9.) The persecution there- 
 fore ceased for a while, but in 1684 began the sanguinary 
 period called, in Scotland, "the killing time;" and, in 1685, 
 the Papist, James II., having succeeded his brother Charles, 
 the desolation of the people of God increased yet more and 
 more. They were hunted like wild beasts among moors, 
 mountains, and rugged rocks. In vain they passed the 
 night, lying on wild heaths, under the vault of heaven, or 
 cooped up in the natural caverns among the rocks ; no re- 
 treat was sufficiently secure, sufficiently retired, to shelter 
 them from the cruel search of their enemies. Everywhere 
 they encountered spies, betrayers, and murderers. The enemy 
 said, as once did Pharaoh, " I will pursue, I will overtake, I
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 265 
 
 will divide the spoil ; my lust shall be satisfied upon them ; 
 I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them." (Exod. 
 xv. 9.) 
 
 Driven to the utmost extremity, these unhappy people 
 raised a cry of distress. " Did not the Lord," thought they, 
 " blow with his wind against the enemies of his chosen ones, 
 and they sank as lead in the mighty waters ?" On the 18th 
 October, 1684, they posted up in many of the market-places 
 of Scotland a solemn declaration, recounting their sufferings, 
 and expressing their abhorrence of the principle by which it 
 was thought right to put to death those who differed in opin- 
 ion from their murderers ; and declaring, that for the sake 
 of their own defence, they reputed as enemies, and would 
 pursue as such, whosoever should proceed against them, es- 
 pecially as spies and informers. 
 
 The curates and their vile emissaries then relented a little 
 in their proceedings ; but the privy council, incensed to the 
 last degree, passed on the 22d of November, " The Bloody 
 Act," by virtue of which, whosoever would not disown this 
 daclaration should immediately be put to death. 
 
 The persecution then raged more violently than ever. One 
 day, two women, Margaret M'Lauchlan, a widow of sixty- 
 three, and Margaret Wilson, a girl of eighteen, were praying 
 together at Wigton, in Galloway. Margaret Wilson, her 
 brother Thomas, aged sixteen, and her sister Agnes, aged 
 thirteen, had been obliged to leave their father's farm to 
 avoid submission to the prelates, and had concealed them- 
 selves for some time in the moors. They had left these 
 wilds, and taken refuge with the widow M'Lauchlan, when 
 they were apprehended while committing the crime of pray- 
 ing. The old woman and the young girl were tried and con- 
 demned to death, and for their execution a torture of a spe- 
 cial kind was chosen. Near Blednock, two large stakes were 
 driven into the sea, a few paces from the shore ; and at low 
 water the two women we:? 'led to them, care being taken to 
 place the young girl higher than the widow, that she might 
 
 12
 
 266 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 perish the last, and thus witness the death of her aged friend. 
 When this was done, the soldiers stood on the shore, care- 
 lessly leaning on their halberts, and surrounded by a great 
 crowd of people, waiting until the rising tide, that new exe- 
 cutioner of the vengeance of the prelates and the privy 
 council, should slowly ingulf these sainted victims. Soon, 
 indeed, did the waves roll onwards, and, in the sight of the 
 young girl, they slowly but inevitably rose and covered the 
 body of the Christian widow. One after another they covered 
 her limbs, her bosom, her neck, her lips. By this means it was 
 intended to terrify Margaret Wilson, and subdue her. But, 
 looking serenely upon her venerable friend, she exclaimed, 
 " What do I see but Christ in one of his members, wrestling 
 there ? Think you that we are the sufferers ? No : it is 
 Christ in us ; for He sends none a warfare on their own 
 charges." The Christian maiden thus continued praying and 
 witnessing for Christ, while the cold and cruel waves were 
 rising round her own body. She then began to sing the 
 25th Psalm, " To thee I lift my soul, O Lord ;" and after- 
 wards part of the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Ro- 
 mans, "Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's 
 elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemn- 
 eth ? It is Christ that died ;" and some verses following. 
 She thus continued speaking until the ocean covered her 
 head and choked her utterance. Her torturers then ran to- 
 wards her, and, while she was yet breathing, cut the cords, 
 and drew the young Scoth girl from the waves. They laid 
 her on the shore, and waited till she was restored to con- 
 sciousness. On being asked if she would not pray for the 
 king, she replied : " I wish the salvation of all men, and the 
 damnation of none." " Dear Margaret," cried one of the 
 spectators with emotion, " only sa) 7 , God save the king !" 
 She answered calmly, as one who neither wished for life nor 
 feared death : " God save him, if He will, for it is his salva- 
 tion I desire." Her relations and friends, in a transport of 
 joy, turned quickly to Major Windram, who superintended
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 267 
 
 the execution, " Oh, Sir, she has said it, she has said it !" 
 But the major required her to take the abjuration oath, in 
 which the papist, James II., was to be acknowledged as 
 the head of the church. Firm in her faith, she replied : 
 " I will not. I am one of Christ's children. Let me go ! " 
 The soldiers again threw her into the sea, where she per- 
 ished, and entered, at last, into the rest that remaineth to 
 the people of God. 
 
 But this was not the end. Persecution sought out the 
 most sober Christians. At Priesthill, in Ayrshire, lived a 
 plain and pious man, John Brown by name, who earned his 
 living by the occupation of a carrier. Although he had 
 never openly resisted the state, he was hated by the prelatic 
 party, on account of his attachment to evangelical princi- 
 ples. His solitary cottage had sometimes sheltered a perse- 
 cuted minister ; he did not attend the service of the curates ; 
 and on Sunday evening he would assemble a few children to 
 instruct them in the knowledge of the Bible. This school, 
 in that lonely part of Scotland, was the first of the Sunday 
 schools in Britain, and perhaps in the evangelical world. 
 Brown had preceded Raikes. 
 
 Claverhouse, whom Walter Scott has transformed into a 
 hero, but who in history is nothing but a man of violence 
 and a persecutor, seeing the fidelity of this Christian, vowed 
 his destruction. On the 1st of May, 1685, Brown having 
 just celebrated domestic worship, between six and seven in 
 the morning, was on his way to work, when three troops of 
 dragoons came galloping towards him, with Claverhouse at 
 their head. They brought him back to his house, saying to 
 him : " Go to your prayers, for you shall immediately die." 
 He knelt down upon the heath, and prayed aloud with so 
 much fervor that the soldiers were quite affected. Thrice 
 did the impatient Claverhouse interrupt him, saying : " I gave 
 you time to pray, and ye have begun to preach." During 
 this interval, Brown's wife, hearing a noise, had come out of 
 her cottage, carrying an infant in her arms, and a little girl,
 
 268 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 frightened at the sight of the soldiers, clinging to her gown. 
 " Take good night of your wife and children," said Claver- 
 house. Turning to his wife, he said : " Now, Isabel, the 
 day is come that I told you would come, when I spake first 
 to you of marrying me." " Indeed, John," she answered, 
 " in this cause I am willing to part with you." Brown then 
 kissed his wife and children, and Claverhouse commanded 
 his troopers to fire. But the martyr's prayers had touched 
 the hard hearts of the soldiers of the papist James : they re- 
 fused to act the part of executioners, to which, however, they 
 were well accustomed. Walter Scott's hero, enraged at 
 this, took a pistol from his saddle-bow, and at once shot 
 dead the disciple of Jesus. Then turning to her whom he 
 had just made a widow, he said, in a tone of mockery : 
 " What thinkest thou of thy husband now, woman ?" Isabel 
 replied, " I ever thought much of him, and more now than 
 ever." Claverhouse set spurs to his horse, and the horror- 
 struck dragoons galloped off after him, leaving Isabel alone 
 with the corpse. She laid her infant on the ground, gath- 
 ered the scattered brains of her beloved husband, and taking 
 the handkerchief from her neck, bound up the head, which 
 had been shattered to pieces by the Jacobite's pistol. Then 
 laying out his lifeless body, she covered it with her plaid, 
 and sat down beside it, with her baby on her lap ; and 
 clasping in her arms the little girl, who filled the air with her 
 cries, she herself burst into tears. On that desert spot, there 
 was not a neighbor, not a friend to assuage the widow's 
 sorrows. Amidst this desolation of the wild heath and of 
 death, she had none with her but her God ; but He was a 
 present God, and his might gave strength to her heart. 
 
 Claverhouse, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter 
 against the disciples of the Lord," (Acts ix. 1,) overran other 
 countries. Persecution was raging everywhere. If the sol- 
 diers found a man reading the Word in the fields : " Thou 
 art a rebel," said they : " thou art reading the Bible !" and 
 thereupon they killed him. They threatened little children
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 269 
 
 that they woulH roast them alive, to make them tell where 
 their parents were concealed. Four hundred and ninety- 
 eight Christians thus perished without form of law. Eigh- 
 teen hundred had to endure torture of different kinds. Seven- 
 teen hundred were banished. Great numbers were sent to the 
 colonies as slaves, and two hundred of these were drowned. 
 But nothing could subdue the fortitude of the martyrs. One 
 of them, who was shot in the fields, exclaimed : " If I had as 
 many lives as hairs on my head, I would willingly suffer as 
 many deaths for the sake of Christ and his cause." " They 
 were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might 
 obtain a better resurrection ; and others had trial of cruel 
 mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and im- 
 prisonment : they wandered about, destitute, afflicted, tor- 
 mented. Yet they ran with patience the race set before 
 them, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of their 
 faith." (Heb. xi. 35, 36 ; xii. 1, 2.) 
 
 The king thought that the country was now prepared for 
 the change he had in view. Regarding the Presbyterian 
 Church as the greatest obstacle to the restoration of Popery, 
 he had directed every effort against it. He imagined, that 
 when once Episcopacy was set up in the place of Presbyte- 
 rianism, both bishops and church would willingly submit to 
 the Pope. He was mistaken, at least in England. The 
 majority of the English Episcopalians were good Protestants, 
 determined to resist Rome and her hierarchy. 
 
 James II., nevertheless, was advancing, step by step, to- 
 wards Popery. He exempted the Papists from the Test, 
 which was still required from the Presbyterians. He abol- 
 ished the penalties and disabilities to which the partisans of 
 the Pope had been subjected, (an act which from another 
 prince would have had quite a different meaning,) and ut- 
 tered in parliament a eulogium on their loyalty, and other 
 virtues. 
 
 At the same time (this was in 1686) the revocation of the 
 edict of Nantes was taking place in France, and filling all the
 
 270 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Protestants of Europe with horror at the Papacy. Amidst 
 these agitations, on the 21st of August, the king, in a letter 
 addressed to the privy-council of Scotland, ordered the Popish 
 worship to be set up in the chapel of Holyrood, and ap- 
 pointed the chaplains who were to perform it. 
 
 All now seemed prepared for the work of darkness in- 
 tended by the pontifical sectarian then seated on the throne 
 of Elizabeth. Most of the witnesses for the truth had dis- 
 appeared. The sword, the gallows, torture, hardships, exile, 
 and the call of God, had swept them from the land. There 
 now remained but a few lights, glimmering here and there 
 through the darkness, which the hand of death was about to 
 quench forever. 
 
 The friend of Cameron, that Alexander Peden, who at New 
 Glenluce had shut his pulpit, was still alive. After leaving 
 his church, the pulpit of which remained closed, he had 
 wandered over the wilds of Scotland, but without preaching. 
 From time to time his mouth gave utterance to some mys- 
 terious and significant sentences only, which led to his pas- 
 sing for a prophet with many. "Pray much," said he to 
 those who entreated him to preach, " it is only a praying 
 people that will weather the storm. Fearful days are coming 
 on Scotland, and my heart fails me when I think of the judg- 
 ments about to fall on those hirelings whose words kill the 
 soul. O Scotland, Scotland ! must it be that some of thy 
 ministers should consent to take the crown from Christ's 
 head ?" 
 
 One day Peden went to Aird's Moss ; he climbed the hil- 
 lock on which stood the grave of his friend Richard Came- 
 ron ; and, exhausted by his sufferings, sat down beside the 
 tomb, clasped his hands over the stone, raised his tearful eyes 
 to heaven, and exclamed repeatedly : " that I were with 
 thee, Richard !" He groaned, " earnestly desiring to be 
 clothed upon with his house which is from heaven." (2 Cor. 
 v. 2.) After long wandering from place to place, Peden, 
 feeling the time approaching when his " earthly tabernacle
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 271 
 
 should be dissolved," and he should be transported to "a 
 house eternal in the heavens," returned to his brother's house 
 in his native village, where he caused a cave to be dug, the 
 opening to which was concealed by a thick bush. There he 
 dwelt in prayer and holy meditation. The enemy came many 
 times to seek for him in order to put him to death, and searched 
 the house in vain. " When I am dead," said he, mournfully, 
 " bury me at Aird's Moss, beside Richard, that I may find 
 rest in his grave, for I have had none in my life. However, 
 wheresoever you bury me, I shall rise again." Soon after, he 
 expired, in 1686, the same year in which the Popish worship 
 was set up in the capital by order of the king. Peden, who 
 had closed his own pulpit against error, was not fated to be- 
 hold it invading the ancient palace of Scotland. 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 GREAT events were now rapidly hurrying on, and liberty 
 was soon to be restored to the people of God. The perfidi- 
 ous James granted a general toleration, for the twofold pur- 
 pose of favoring the Papists, and of seeing the Protestant 
 sects devour one another, as he hoped they would, that he 
 might afterwards build up the Church of Rome upon their 
 ruins. The Presbyterian ministers took advantage of this 
 edict to gather together their dispersed congregations. But 
 another cruel blow remained to be struck. 
 
 Some of the ministers had refused to accept the royal am- 
 nesty. Among these were James Renwick, who was appre- 
 hended ut Edinburgh on the 1st of February, 1688. His 
 youth (he was only twenty-six years of age), the simplicity 
 of his manners, the beauty of his person, and the candor of 
 his answers, excited in his favor the compassion and respect 
 even of his judges ; he was, nevertheless, condemned to death. 
 When asked if he desired any delay, he answered, " It is all
 
 272 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 one to me ; if it be prolonged it is welcome : rny Master's 
 time is the best." On the 17th of February he was led to 
 the scaffold. He was forbidden to pray or to address the 
 people ; but refusing to submit to this order, he had hardly 
 opened his mouth when the beating of drums drowned his 
 voice. His friends listening attentively, caught a few words 
 from his lips, which have been handed down to us. " I die," 
 said he, "owning the Word of God as the only rule of faith. 
 I leave my testimony against Popery, Prelacy, and Erastian- 
 ism ; and particularly against all encroachments upon Christ's 
 rights, the Prince of the kings of the earth, who alone must 
 bear the glory of ruling His own kingdom." The martyr 
 was now ordered to ascend the ladder : he did so, saying, 
 Lord, I die in the faith that thou wilt not leave Scotland, but 
 that thou wilt make the blood of thy witnesses to be the 
 seed of thy church. Lord, come quickly !" 
 
 In truth, at the very moment that Renwick was resigning 
 his soul to God deliverance was nigh. The pistol of the 
 dragoon was to fall from his cruel hand, the cord of the hang- 
 man to be broken ; the waves of the sea were no longer to 
 serve as the executioners of the wrath of man, and the moun- 
 tains of Scotland, instead of echoing to cries of anguish, 
 were to burst forth into the voice of singing. The Lord was 
 about to appear and bring salvation. 
 
 On the 10th of June, 1688, the queen, who had borne no chil- 
 dren, gave birth to a prince, an event which filled the Papists 
 with joy, and the Protestants with alarm. The crown, which 
 should have descended to Mary, eldest daughter of James, 
 and wife of the Stadtholder, William Prince of Orange-Nas- 
 sau, the head of the Protestant cause in Europe, was there- 
 fore to devolve upon the son of the papistical Stuart. The 
 child was baptized with great pomp, and had for his god- 
 father the Pope ! This was full of meaning. The Pope, 
 in the opinion of James, ought to be the godfather of all 
 England. 
 
 But on the 5th of November, 1688, William of Orange,
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 273 
 
 whom the people had invoked as their liberator, arrived on 
 the coast of Devonshire, the English colors flying from his 
 mast-head, with this inscription : " The Protestant Religion, 
 and Liberties of England ;" and beneath it the motto of the 
 Nassaus : " Je maintiendrai." 
 
 Meanwhile the proclamations of the English leaders de- 
 manded the maintenance of Protestantism and a free parlia- 
 ment ; calling James a tyrant, and, as such, to be opposed 
 with all lawful resistance. 
 
 On the evening of the 9th, the queen fled in disguise with 
 the young prince, his nurse, and two other persons ; and 
 crossed the Thames in an open boat, exposed to cold, wind, 
 and rain, and fearing every moment to be discovered, before 
 she could reach the ship which was to convey her to France. 
 
 On the llth, the king also fled, throwing the great seal of 
 the kingdom into the river ; and the Pope's nuncio also es- 
 caped, disguised as a footman, sitting on the coach-box of a 
 foreign ambassador. James, unfortunately arrested by some 
 fishermen, just as he was on the point of leaving the Eng- 
 lish coast, was brought back to London, whence he was 
 transferred to Rochester. Finding the garden door which 
 led to the river purposely left open, he again fled at mid- 
 night, on the 23d of December. He landed, after a stormy 
 passage, which lasted two days, at Ambleteuse, in France, 
 and hastened to the royal castle of St. Germains, near Paris, 
 to throw himself into the arms of the persecutor of the 
 French Protestants. This was the end of the power which 
 had intended to re-establish in Great Britain the odious yoke 
 of the Papacy. 
 
 The throne, declared vacant by the parliament, was given 
 to William and Mary. Scotland assented to this resolution, 
 by a declaration in April, 1689, which at the same time abol- 
 ished Prelacy as the cause of the grievances of the country. 
 On the 25th of April, 1690, the Scottish parliament, after 
 annulling the act which ascribed supremacy to the king in 
 ecclesiastical matters, restored to their long destitute flocks 
 
 12*
 
 274 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 those Presbyterian ministers who were still alive, and who 
 had been driven from them ever since the 1st of January, 
 1661. The Westminster Confession was ratified soon after- 
 wards, and the Presbyterian constitution declared to be the 
 government of the Church of Christ in Scotland, as being 
 agreeable to the Word of God, and most conducive to the 
 advancement of true piety and godliness, and the establishing 
 of peace." 
 
 They went even further ; and this act is particularly wor- 
 thy of notice, as enabling us to understand the history of 
 the present. On the 19th of July, 1690, the parliament 
 again annulled patronage, which had already been abolished 
 in. 1649, as illegal and contrary to the Word of God and to 
 the liberties of the church. The highest authority of the na- 
 tion annihilated that privilege which had always been odious 
 to the Scottish people, the privilege of the landlords to 
 present ministers to the vacant churches. It declared the 
 nomination of the pastors to belong to the elders and the 
 Protestant heritors of the parish, who are to propose the 
 person to the whole congregation ; and added that the latter, 
 in case of refusal, should state their reasons to the presby- 
 tery. A compensation was assigned to the patrons. At 
 length, on the 16th of October, 1690, after an illegal inter- 
 ruption of nearly forty years, the General Assembly was con- 
 vened. 
 
 The Church of Scotland was now once more in possession 
 of all those liberties for which she had so long groaned, and 
 a period of peace and prosperity, of independence and life, 
 was opening before her. " The Lord shall judge among the 
 nations, and shall rebuke many people : and they shall beat 
 their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning 
 hooks : nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither 
 shall they learn war any more. house of Jacob, come ye, 
 and let us walk in the light of the Lord." (Isaiah, ii. 4, 5.) 
 
 In looking back to the commencement of the period we 
 have now surveyed, no one can have failed to remark, that
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 275 
 
 certain points of resemblance are to be found between the 
 Scottish struggles \ve have just recounted, and those other 
 struggles which have taken place, and which are still in prog- 
 ress on the shores of our fair lake of Geneva. I will not 
 enlarge upon this subject. I acknowledge the conflicts of 
 Scotland to have been more sanguinary, more terrible, and 
 more illustrious through the faith of her martyrs. They 
 took place in the seventeenth century, not in the nineteenth. 
 
 I will only indicate one point of resemblance between the 
 struggles of Scotland and those of Vaud. In both we do 
 not behold individual combats, but one great warfare of the 
 persecuted church against her oppressors. Both churches 
 look up to the King of all his people. It is the sovereignty 
 of Christ which both have set up, against the illegal en- 
 croachments of the civil power. At the feet of Jesus, their 
 King, our brethren of 1662, as well as our brethren of 1845, 
 laid down the sacrifice of their livings, of their parishes, and 
 sometimes even of the whole means which they possessed of 
 feeding their little ones. 
 
 Thus, then, in the hour of suffering, the Church feels her 
 unity, and worships the kingship of her Head. But will she 
 feel this unity, will she worship this kingship only in dis- 
 tress ? Must the wicked deprive us of the Word of God ; 
 must they drive the ministers from their pulpits, and shut 
 the church doors against the faithful, to enable them to per- 
 ceive that they are one body, and in order that the feeling of 
 brotherhood which unites all together, and joins all to the 
 Head, should be living and present in every heart ? 
 
 Although the rod of God has not yet dispersed us, let us 
 remember that the Christian church is truly one body ; that 
 in the fellowship of the saints lay the prosperity of the 
 Primitive Church ; and that it alone can cause our own to 
 flourish. Let us be members organically united to one an- 
 other under the same head, and let the communion we cel- 
 ebrate in our assemblies be no hypocritical ceremony. Let 
 the church be not a mere school in which a doctor instructs ;
 
 276 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 but, also, a true society of disciples : and let the new mem- 
 bers of the church feel, when they confess their faith, that 
 they are entering a living and eternal community. 
 
 Never, perhaps, has the doctrine of a sole and living 
 church, the doctrine of a single and heavenly head to which 
 all members must belong, been more powerfully realized 
 than in Scotland during the years of her sad tribulations. 
 There men died for Jesus, the only Head and King of the 
 church, as in other times and in other countries they died 
 for Jesus, the only God, the only Sacrifice, and the only 
 Intercessor. 
 
 Doubtless, we do not mean to justify all that the Scottish 
 Presbyterians did to maintain or to regain religious freedom. 
 We must remember what was said at Geneva, by one of our 
 doctors, in a thesis maintained in the eighteenth century, 
 when a Roman Catholic brought forward the accusation of 
 the death of Servetus. " That," he replied, " was one of 
 the remnants of Popery." Though, as to the doctrine, the 
 Reformation, at its first step, rejected the whole of Popery ; 
 it might, nevertheless, with regard to certain points of ec- 
 clesiastical policy, not have so clear and so quick an eye. 
 These are matters on which we become enlightened by de- 
 grees. 
 
 But we have now entered on a new period, in which I 
 firmly believe that Evangelical Christianity is to be prop- 
 agated, and even defended, by spiritual weapons alone. 
 Scotland in 1833 and 1843 did not combat like the Scotland 
 of 1660 and 1688. She deprecated every idea of resistance 
 and revolution. No more scaffolds, no more battles ! We 
 shall have no more really religious wars ; and should there 
 yet be struggles called by that name, religion will only be 
 the pretext, while state-policy will be the real motive. This 
 is the case in Switzerland. 
 
 In this new period the weapons of Evangelical Christians 
 must be purely spiritual, and thus " mighty through God." 
 " Old things are passed away ; behold, all things are become
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 277 
 
 new." It is not only men and warriors who are to wrestle 
 in this new conflict ; it is the women, the children, the aged. 
 To all, whosoever you may be, Scotland has set an example. 
 
 In the Christian warfare the weakest may take part, for it 
 is not with men alone that the believer 6ghts, even when it 
 is with men that he has to deal. " We wrestle not against 
 flesh and blood," says St. Paul ; " but against principalities, 
 against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this 
 world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." Now, 
 it is not by the sword, or by the scaffold, that such enemies 
 are to be overcome. "This is the victory that bvercometh 
 the world, even our faith." When faith, truth, and charity, 
 do not combat, the conflict is but a human uproar : the field 
 of battle is the kingdom of darkness. When the Christian 
 wrestles, it is of little consequence whether he obtain the 
 victory over men ; there is no real victory unless he triumph 
 over the powers of hell. The true battles of Scotland were 
 not those in which standards, muskets, and swords were to 
 be seen ; they were those faithful confesssions, those cour- 
 ageous and Christian deaths of which we have quoted a few 
 examples. By these were the oppressors brought down. 
 
 My brethren, be ye also ready. Think not that because 
 we live in other times, because we possess religious liberty, 
 we are not called upon to combat like the generous witnesses 
 of whom we have spoken. May this cloud of witnesses which 
 we have caused to pass before your view, not leave you idle 
 and fruitless ! We summon you boldly to a battle, and this 
 battle is an every- day conflict, although there are some pe- 
 riods in which it becomes more fearful. May the weapons 
 of the Christian be always at hand ; always at your side ; 
 nay, always within your hearts ! You know Saint Paul's 
 arsenal (Eph. vi.) ; fly to that store-house, and provide your- 
 selves with arms. 
 
 May " your loins be girt about with truth" that moral 
 truth, that sincerity, that simplicity of intention which faith 
 in Christ creates in the heart, and which is the true adorn-
 
 278 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 ment of the believer ! May you " have on the breastplate 
 of righteousness" that righteousness which proceeds from 
 faith, and in which the Christian is invulnerable ; for it is a 
 righteousness proceeding, not from the sentiments of his 
 own heart, but from the grace of God, who is greater than 
 our hearts. Have " your feet shod with the preparation of 
 the Gospel of peace;" for to wrestle against darkness we 
 must possess the courage which comes from the good tid- 
 ings of our own peace with God. He who is still under con- 
 demnation, who is still lying in darkness, cannot wrestle 
 with the powers of darkness, for he is their bondman. But 
 whosoever is carried into the kingdom of the Son, finds, in 
 peace with God, all the strength which he needs to prevail 
 against hell ; of this we have just seen many examples. Let 
 us add to all these weapons, the " shield of faith" in the 
 promises of God, so fit to cover us; "the helmet of the as- 
 surance of salvation ;" " the Word," which is more pow- 
 erful than a two-edged sword ; and, above all things, 
 " prayer." 
 
 Such is the armor of the Christian, according to St. Paul, 
 and I lay it before you. These arms are better than those 
 Cameron held in his hand when he died. Honor be to 
 those men of old time ! but let us discern our new times, 
 and the call of God to the present generation. Alas ! it is 
 not conflicts, not wrestlings that are now wanting. There 
 are such in the nineteeenth century, as in the seventeenth, 
 and as in the first. What is wanting is fidelity is victory. 
 May faith, may triumph never fail us more ! I speak of the 
 triumph of faith ; of that triumph which is obtained even 
 when all human hopes are disappointed. 
 
 But does not the result which God bestowed upon the 
 struggles of Scotland, remind us that He is sometimes 
 pleased to bestow other results and other deliverances ? 
 What a manifestation of God's power, was that rapid fall of 
 James II., and that arrival of William on the shores of Brit- 
 ain, with these words upon his banner, " The Protestant
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 279 
 
 religion and liberties of England !" Let us with united 
 hearts boldly resist the present efforts of Popery and infidel- 
 ity, and the tyranny of powerful men. Let us not be afraid 
 because we are weak. Most wonderful is the power of little 
 things in the kingdom of nature and in the kingdom of 
 grace. An insect almost too minute for observation con- 
 structs those coral reefs of the Southern Ocean, against 
 which the heedless vessel strikes and is lost, and those 
 islands where the wearied mariner seeks a refuge from the 
 storm. A Christian gentleman of France* has recently 
 called to recollection an ancient Swiss coin, representing a 
 man leaning on a long two-handed sword, with the device 
 DEUS PROVIDEBIT. " Admirable emblem !" adds this pious 
 nobleman ; " man is armed for the combat, and God will 
 provide !" To throw away the sword, and wait for God 
 alone, is to neglect one of the conditions of victory. To for- 
 get God, and reckon upon one's own sword alone, is to 
 neglect the other condition of success. Let us obliterate 
 neither the armed man nor the device. Let us grasp the 
 sword of the Spirit, and fight our best ; and let us implore 
 that blessing without which all human efforts are vain. God 
 will provide. " Say among the nations, the Lord reigneth : 
 the Lord reigneth, let the people tremble ; the Lord reign- 
 eth, let the earth rejoice." 
 
 * Count Agenor de Gasparin.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 
 EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES. 
 
 Patronage. 1700 to 1843. 
 
 I. Awakening and Sleep. Union of England and Scotland. Funda- 
 mental Condition. The Jacobites and the Pretender. The Jacobites 
 restore Patronage. Alarm of Scotland. An old Iniquity. 2. World- 
 liness and Arminianism in the Church. Protesting for Seventy-two 
 Years. Moderatism. Ebenezer Erskine. Robertson and his Times. 
 Thomas Gillespie. Military Intrusions. Nigg. A solemn Appeal. 
 Unitarianism enters the Church. 3. Transition. French Revolu- 
 tion. Missions. The Chalmers' Period begins. His First Motion 
 in 1833. Increase of Evangelical Ministers. The Veto in 1834. 
 Two Solutions. A Falsehood in the Church. Another Way. Suf- 
 ferings of the Church. Pastoral Relationship. Argument of Chal- 
 mers. An Ignorant Christian. Politicians at first favor the Veto. 
 Its Effects. 4. A strong Opposition formed. Auchterarder and Mr. 
 Young. An Enormity. Marnoch and Mr. Edwards. Dr. Cand- 
 lish's Motion. The Sword drawn. Revivals. Edwards settled at 
 Marnoch. The Congregation withdraws. Feelings of Scotland. 
 5. Dr. Buchanan's Motion. Petitions. Decision of the Moderate 
 Party. iJ5th August. Diplomatic Negotiations. Chalmers against 
 the Encroachments of the Civil Courts. Claim of Rights. A Church 
 in one Day. 6. Decision of the House of Lords. Scotland prepares. 
 Convocation of the 17th November. Address to the People of Scot- 
 land. Answer of the Government Its Mistake. Appeal of Chal- 
 mers. Reply of the People. Decision of the Commons. 7. Dilemma. 
 18th May 1843. Concourse of People. St. Andrews. The Protest. 
 The Exodus. Deputations. 8. The Procession. Cannon Mills. 
 Chalmers, first Moderator of the Free Church. Deed of Demission. 
 Ministers leave their Manses and Churches. Vital Preaching. Sites, 
 or the Wilderness. Efforts of the Christian People. Six Hundred 
 Churches. Benmore and the Free Church. No Recoil.
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 281 
 
 I. 
 
 UNION AND PATRONAGE. 
 
 IT is after the most painful fatigues, and the most strenu- 
 ous exertion, that sleep generally overcomes a man ; and 
 even so, after the most laborious struggles, does the church 
 lie most exposed to the danger of slumber. A revival is 
 generally followed by a lethargy, and a great elevation by a 
 great fall. 
 
 After the first three centuries, scarcely were the flames 
 of persecution extinguished, and the children of God no 
 longer exposed to confess their faith by the sacrifice of their 
 blood, when the church, exchanging the swords and scaffolds 
 of Trajan and Aurelius for the soft seats and sumptuous 
 couches of Constantine and his successors, fell into a deep 
 slumber. 
 
 The mighty revival of the Reformation was likewise fol- 
 lowed by the torpor of a scholastic and deadening theology. 
 The awakening of Pietism and Spener in Germany, at the 
 end of the seventeenth century, gave place to a rationalism 
 which threatened to be for the church the sleep of the tomb. 
 Will it not be the same with the deliverance which, as we 
 have seen, was granted by God to Scotland ? Will it not 
 become a stone of offence in her way, against which she will 
 stumble and fall ? 
 
 On the 8th of March, 1702, on the death of King William, 
 Queen Anne, the second daughter of James II., succeeded. 
 The victories of Marlborough have shed glory on her reign, 
 and she was, at Utrecht, the arbitress of Europe. But her 
 most memorable act was the Union of England and Scot- 
 land, thus forming one parliament. To the preparation of 
 this Union, the government, soon after her accession, be- 
 stowed their utmost attention. Under some real advan- 
 tages, great dangers lay concealed. Scotland was Presby-
 
 282 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 terian, England Episcopal ; the weaker of the two kingdoms 
 might be apprehensive of seeing her ecclesiastical principles 
 misunderstood by the stronger. An act therefore passed, as 
 the basis of the Treaty of Union, by virtue of which (these 
 are the very words) " The true Protestant religion, as 
 presently professed within this kingdom, with the worship, 
 discipline, and government of this church, should be effec- 
 tually and unalterably secured. Her Majesty expressly pro- 
 vides and declares, that they shall remain and continue un- 
 alterable, and that the said Presbyterian government shall 
 be the only government of the church within the kingdom 
 of Scotland ; and it is hereby statuted and ordained, that 
 this Act of Parliament, with the establishment therein con- 
 tained, shall be held in all time coming as a fundamental 
 and essential condition of any treaty or union to be con- 
 cluded betwixt the two kingdoms WITHOUT ANY ALTERATION 
 
 THEREOF, OR DEROGATION THERETO, IN ANY SORT FOR EVER." 
 
 This was the tenor of the Act of Union of the 16th Jan- 
 uary, 1707. It is worthy of our attention, that we may 
 rightly understand the present times. It was most clearly 
 and categorically settled, that the united parliament of Eng- 
 land and Scotland should make no change whatever in the 
 constitution of the Scottish Church ; so that any infringe- 
 ment of the fundamental act of the Union of the two king- 
 doms might be regarded as virtually implying the dissolution 
 of this great national treaty. The Union was completed 
 upon this clearly defined basis, and, thenceforw-ard, one and 
 the same parliament represented the two nations. Thus it 
 seemed to have put the Church of Scotland in immutable 
 and irrevocable possession of her liberties. But what are 
 all human guarantees ? Scarcely had five years passed 
 away, when the ecclesiastical government of Scotland un- 
 derwent an important change, and the treaty of Union was 
 seriously infringed. At this very time, at the distance of 
 more than a century, Scotland is still troubled and agitated 
 by this violation of her treaty with England. We proceed
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 283 
 
 to describe the way in which the lamentable event was 
 brought about. 
 
 There existed in Scotland a powerful Jacobite party, all 
 the members of which were attached to the Stuarts; but 
 some of them were also attached to Episcopacy, and others 
 to Popery. All were full of hatred to the Evangelical Pres- 
 byterian Church, and desired its overthrow, regarding it as 
 the bulwark of civil and religious liberty. This party, which 
 also existed in England, came into power during the reign of 
 Queen Anne, and formed a ministry which included Sir 
 Simon Harcourt, the famous infidel Bolingbroke, and the 
 Duke of Hamilton, the chief of the Scottish Jacobites. The 
 object of this ministry was to procure that the Pretender, -the 
 Chevalier St. George, godson of the Pope, and brother to the 
 queen, who, ever since 1701, had been recognized by Louis 
 XIV. of France as King of England, by the title of James 
 III., should be acknowledged as the successor of Anne, to 
 the exclusion of the Protestant branch of the family, the head 
 of which was now the Princess Sophia, Duchess of Hanover. 
 This Papist party was powerfully supported from abroad. 
 The Pretender, closely allied to the Pope, received from him 
 subsidies, prayers, and indulgences in favor of those who 
 would either pray or act pr the success of his cause. Queen 
 Anne herself was desirous that her brother, the Popish Pre- 
 tender, should be her successor, rather than the Protestant 
 Princess of Hanover, and did all in her power to that effect. 
 
 The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Scot- 
 land saw the state of affairs in its true light, and perceiving 
 the dangers that now threatened the faith, ordered, that in 
 the public prayers the name of the Princess Sophia should 
 be placed immediately after the queen's, as her rightful suc- 
 cessor. 
 
 The Jacobite or Popish party, desirous of clearing their 
 way, now attempted to weaken the Church of Scotland. By 
 thus degrading that illustrious bulwark of truth and freedom, 
 the Papists or Jacobites hoped, besides the immediate ad-
 
 284 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 vantages that they would deriv r e, to create in Scotland a 
 spirit of discontent against England, which would render it 
 more easy for the Pretender to win the Scottish throne, and 
 make it a stepping-stone to that of England. In fact, it has 
 always been through Scotland that the different Pretenders, 
 Charles II., the Chevalier St. George, and the Duke of 
 Albany, have endeavored to repossess themselves of Great 
 Britain. The Jacobite party saw no better way of accom- 
 plishing this than to restore Patronage, which had been 
 solemnly abolished by the Revolution of 1688. The restora- 
 tion of Patronage was, therefore, a work of Papistical ten- 
 dency, conceived and executed by the friends of the Pre- 
 tender. These are the expressions of a distinguished member 
 of the Jacobite party in England, (formerly a bishop.) in a 
 letter addressed by him to another Episcopalian in Scotland, 
 and which, at the time of the disruption in 1843, was laid 
 before the House of Commons. After showing that the aim 
 of the party should be the re-establishment of Prelacy, and 
 adding that the Act of Union renders this object difficult to 
 attain, the author proceeds : " The matter must first be 
 sounded at a distance ; and a just computation of our strength, 
 and some previous settlement made, such as restoring of 
 patronage, and the granting of indulgences, with liberty to 
 possess churches and benefices ; and this will undoubtedly 
 make way for an entire re-establishment of the ancient apos- 
 tolic order of bishops ; for our queen, having right, as patron, 
 to a great many churches, she will still prefer those of our 
 persuasion to others, and the rest of laical patrons, partly 
 through interest, and to please her Majesty, will follow her 
 example." 
 
 This calculation could not fail of being realized. In fact, 
 according to a late enumeration, out of 972 parishes, the 
 crown has the patronage of 302, the privy council 60, and 
 different landholders 587. There remained only 24 for dif- 
 ferent colleges or heads of families, more or less unbiassed by 
 aristocratical or episcopal influence.
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 285 
 
 The Jacobite party immediately set to work. As the Act 
 of Union stipulated that the Church of Scotland should retain 
 all her institutions, after the purely Scottish parliament had 
 been dissolved, and an Anglo-Scottish parliament had suc- 
 ceeded it in London ; it was a necessary consequence that 
 the united parliament had no power, as we have seen, to 
 change one iota in the constitution of the Scottish Church ; 
 and that if such a change had been proposed, it would have 
 been requisite again to convene the Scottish parliament at 
 Edinburgh, which body alone had the right of deciding in 
 concert with the General Assembly. Yet the contrary 
 course was adopted. 
 
 The son of one of the former patrons of the Church of 
 Scotland, (Mr. Murray, son of Lord Stormont,) proposed in 
 the House of Commons, on the 13th of March, 1712, the 
 restoration of church patronage in Scotland, and on the 7th 
 of April the bill passed. 
 
 All Scotland was in consternation, and the most animated 
 speeches were delivered north of the Tweed. Every one, 
 even those who were unmoved by the political and ecclesias- 
 tical prepossessions of the times, regarded patronage with 
 suspicion. Most of the patrons at the present day belong to 
 the Episcopal Church, as many of them belonged to it at that 
 period. Now to cause the ministers of one church to be ap- 
 pointed by men belonging to another, is certainly one of the 
 greatest ecclesiastical absurdities that can be imagined. For 
 the sake of consistency, they should have settled that, in Eng- 
 land, for instance, the bishops of the Anglican Church should 
 be appointed by the Pope. Besides this, the Scotch could 
 never forget that it was by shedding the blood of their gen- 
 erous martyrs that the attempt had been made to set up the 
 church of Archbishop Laud in the midst of them, to the 
 members of which they were now to consign the nomination 
 of their pastors. " Patronage," said most of them, " is noth- 
 ing but a tool of the government to bring this nation to 
 Popery."
 
 286 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Scotland, in alarm, hastily sent to London three deputies 
 Carstares, Blackwell, and Baillie to oppose in the House 
 of Lords that fatal measure, which had been already agreed 
 upon in the Commons. But notwithstanding their protesta- 
 tions, the bill passed the Upper House on the 12th of April, 
 and on the 22d was presented for the royal assent. What 
 would Queen Anne do ? 
 
 It was an immoral act which the queen of England was 
 then required to perform. The two nations had just been 
 united by a solemn treaty, and before the ink had time to 
 dry, the ministers destroyed the parchment in their sove- 
 reign's presence. What did they propose but the repeal of 
 the Treaty of Union, the annihilation of the Revolution Settle- 
 ment, the abolition of her own right to the empire ? 
 
 All these considerations were of no avail. " It only con- 
 cerns a few Puritans," they told the queen. Besides this, 
 other important objects were to be attained. The queen 
 gave her assent. 
 
 But this act, in reality a most revolutionary one, was merely 
 a beginning. The Jacobite and Popish party were preparing 
 other bills, one of which was to abolish the General Assem- 
 blies of the church ; another to force the presentee on the 
 flocks without leaving the latter even the form or appear- 
 ance of a call ; and a third to restore their revenues to the 
 bishops. 
 
 The death of Queen Anne, and the accession of the House 
 of Hanover, delivered the church, with the help of God, from 
 these fresh attacks. Bolingbroke saved himself by flight, 
 and went to hide his infidelity and his fatal designs in France. 
 Yet the introduction of patronage was sufficient. It was an 
 infraction not only of the Presbyterian system, but of public 
 faith. England, at this very hour, is moved at the violation 
 of another treaty committed on the banks of the Vistula, near 
 Poland and Gallicia. But she would do well to be moved 
 at this annihilation of the most solemn statutes which has 
 been committed, not by others, but by herself, not fifteen
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 287 
 
 hundred miles from London, but in that very metropolis. It 
 is true that more than a century has elapsed since the deed 
 was done ; but an old iniquity is still more flagrant than a new- 
 one ; it is increased every year by the injustice which refuses 
 to redress it. Such injustice is a crevice in the armor of a 
 people ; in spite of all they do, this defect becomes more and 
 more apparent, neutralizing every movement. Sooner or 
 later the consequences will be seen. " They have sown the 
 wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind," says Hosea, (viii. 
 
 II. 
 
 ROBERTSON S PERIOD AND MODERATISM. 
 
 AFTER such a violation of the treaty, we might have ex- 
 pected from Scotland a legal, Christian, and energetic resist- 
 ance. But the former days were passed away. At the pe- 
 riod of the Revolution of 1688, the Presbyterian Church had 
 received within her three hundred of the prelatic, worldly, 
 and persecuting curates of Charles and James II., who had 
 thus formed a party averse to evangelical piety, sound doc- 
 trine, and ecclesiastical liberty, and always ready to concur 
 in political intrigues. There were, besides, other causes. 
 After the struggles that Scotland had undergone from 1660 
 to 1688, the whole country experienced a reaction similar to 
 that which takes place in the human frame after violent ex- 
 ertion. The Arian and Arminian doctrines, elaborated in 
 Holland and England, found among this people a well-pre- 
 pared soil. In the opinion of many, the Gospel was no 
 longer a work of expiation and of regeneration accomplished 
 by Jesus Christ ; it was transformed into " a milder dispen- 
 sation," a Neonomianism, without either grandeur or strength. 
 The patrons naturally preferred these Arminian clergymen 
 to the evangelical ministers, finding, among the former, men 
 more compliant, more indifferent, and more accommodating
 
 283 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 as to the moral law. Thus laxity in the essential doctrines 
 of Christianity went along with laxity as to the liberties of 
 the church, and the two qualifications united, thenceforward 
 formed the distinctive characteristics of what afterwards re- 
 ceived the name of Moderatism. Every period has its pe- 
 culiar danger. After having had to sustain in the sixteenth 
 century the hateful and perfidious struggle against Popery, 
 and in the seventeenth the violent and cruel one against Pre- 
 lacy, the Church of Scotland was now to be enfeebled in the 
 eighteenth by the enervating and lethargic vapors of Patron- 
 age and Moderatism. 
 
 Yet the truly evangelical did not yield ; and when they be- 
 held Patronage introduced by the illegal act of Queen Anne, 
 they rose against this restoration of a system odious to the 
 whole people of Scotland. The General Assembly itself 
 protested. Queen Anne being dead, the Church of Scot- 
 land renewed her protest in 1715, before George I., and in 
 1717 sent a deputation- to London to obtain the repeal of 
 that act. The petition was read, but Parliament dissolved 
 without paying attention to it. Similar protests were re- 
 peated year after year by the General Assembly, till 1784, 
 a period which was that of youth with some of ourselves. 
 The revocation of the act of Queen Anne was the Delenda 
 Carthago of Scotland. "What!" said they, "would you 
 deprive Christians, a free people, of all interest in the choice 
 of those to whom they intrust the care of their souls ? Would 
 you give up this right to unconcerned patrons, who often do 
 not even reside in the parish, and would themselves devolve 
 it upon others ?" But what did that signify to men who 
 were strangers to the Gospel ? They took great care, indeed, 
 of the prosperity of the church ! At last the church felt 
 little concern in it herself. In 1784, moderate opinions 
 were decidedly prevalent on this subject, and the protest was 
 laid aside. 
 
 Scotland submitted to this unlawful act. In the begin- 
 ning of the eighteenth century her fatal slumber had com-
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 289 
 
 menced. The church had been losing her senses by degrees, 
 and the mephitic vapors of Moderatism, ascending to her 
 head, had deprived her of the consciousness of her own ex- 
 istence. This lethargic influonce had increased from year to 
 year, and she fell into a long and deep sleep. 
 
 During the first ten years of the union of the two king, 
 doms, the feelings of grievance which this violation of na- 
 tional compacts had excited, were so strong, that no patron 
 dared avail himself of the right of presentation which the 
 Act of Queen Anne had bestowed on him. But by degrees, 
 especially after 17.35, the time when the Moderates obtained 
 a decisive influence in the direction of the church, the call 
 of ministers by the congregation became nothing more than 
 a form a mere compliment paid to the pastor by his flock ; 
 and the liberties of the Church of Scotland, which had cost 
 so much precious blood, were about to be overwhelmed by 
 the stagnant waters of Moderatism. 
 
 Yet a few generous voices still made themselves heard. 
 The spirit of early times the spirit of Knox, of Melvill, of 
 Welsh was not yet extinct. Thus, when a dead calm falls 
 upon the sea, destroying all life and motion, light airs from 
 time to time gently swell the sails of the ship, until at last 
 every movement of the air ceases, and the disheartened sail- 
 ors can no longer work the vessel. In like manner, a few 
 vivifying breezes still came, from time to time, to reanimate 
 Scotland, lying still and motionless in the dead calm of the 
 Moderate party. 
 
 Ebenezer Erskine, minister of Stirling, was one of the first 
 witnesses for God who preached against the growing corrup- 
 tions of the church. This took place in 1732. He was sum- 
 moned to the bar of the Assembly, to be rebuked by the 
 Moderator ; but, feeling convinced that he had acted con- 
 formably to the laws of the church, he protested against the 
 citation, and three of his colleagues joined him in so doing. 
 All four, after being deprived, formed themselves into a dis- 
 tinct presbytery. This was the first secession, which now 
 13
 
 290 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 numbers 400 congregations. " The seed fallen into good 
 ground brings forth fruit, some a hundred, some sixty, some 
 thirty fold," saith the Lord. Here each grain has brought 
 forth a hundred. 
 
 Ten years afterwards a great religious revival manifested 
 itself in different parts of Scotland. There were almost 
 every day numerous assemblies at Cambuslang, Kilsyth, and 
 elsewhere. A vast number of souls were converted. But 
 this passing gleam of heavenly sunshine soon vanished, and 
 the sky was again covered with thick clouds. 
 
 God usually decrees that when great things are to be ac- 
 complished, either for good or evil, some man should appear, 
 who influences and rules the whole period. This now hap- 
 pened. An illustrious writer, William Robertson, the histo- 
 rian of Charles V., now took his place at the head of Scot- 
 tish Moderatism. Of irreproachable moral conduct, and 
 commanding genius, he undertook to oblige the flocks every- 
 where to receive the presentee of the patron. During his 
 reign (this is not too strong a word), which lasted nearly 
 thirty years, Robertson showed himself in the government 
 of the church, as he did also in his remarkable writings, to 
 be a stranger to the internal wants of the people of God, 
 and to the life of faith. 
 
 He attached himself to the political, social, and psycholog- 
 ical points of view, and was, in these respects, an incom- 
 parable historian ; but far from exhibiting to his readers, even 
 in the history of the Reformation, the power of the Divine 
 Word, and the might of evangelical faith far from setting 
 in its true light the necessity of faithful churches developing 
 themselves conformably to the doctrines and the life of grace ; 
 he does not even appear aware of the existence of such things, 
 and they remain to him a terra incognita. There was unity 
 in Robertson : the writer and the Moderator were one and 
 the same individual ; and it might be said of him in both 
 characters, as Luther said of Erasmus, " In him the human
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 291 
 
 predominates over the divine."* Caring little for conscience 
 or for individual convictions, and holding with a firm grasp 
 the yoke of patronage, under which he would cause all Scot- 
 land to pass, he said to every one : " Bow the head or go 
 out !" 
 
 The first instance of this tyranny occurred in 1752. One 
 Richardson, presented by the patron of Inverkeithing, was 
 rejected by the parishioners. The General Assembly or- 
 dered him to be settled in spite of their objections ; but Mr. 
 Thomas Gillespie, one of the ministers appointed to proceed 
 to his settlement, refused to do so. In consequence of this 
 Mr. Gillespie was deprived. " I rejoice," said the venerable 
 man, meekly, on hearing his sentence, " I rejoice that to 
 me it is given, in behalf of Christ, not only to believe in 
 Him, but also to suffer for His sake." This act brought 
 about the second secession, known by the name of the Relief, 
 which now numbers 114 churches. The two secessions this 
 year (1847) united themselves into one Scottish Presbyterian 
 Chureh. 
 
 Thenceforward, intrusions become more and more frequent, 
 and often the clergymen appointed by the General Assem- 
 bly to ordain a pastor were seen to arrive at a village with a 
 military escort, which was to lend them assistance. Then, 
 as in the time of the Stuarts, the soldiers settled the minis- 
 ter ; and this was what they called " the Moderate system." 
 May God preserve his church from such moderation ! 
 "Wasting and destruction are in their paths!" (Isaiah, 
 lix. 7.) 
 
 At Nigg, in Ross-shire, John Balfour, a faithful pastor, 
 had long led his flock to the "good Shepherd who laid down 
 His life for the sheep." On his death, the parishioners, 
 knowing that the conduct of the minister presented to them 
 was not in accordance with the Gospel, refused to call him. 
 But on the day of ordination, four members of the pres- 
 bytery, who were Moderates, (the others kept at a distance,) 
 * Humana prevalent in eo plus quam divina.
 
 292 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 proceeded to the church to settle the presentee. The church 
 was empty, not a single parishioner appeared ; when sud- 
 denly, in one of the galleries, a pious and energetic Scotch- 
 man showed himself, and, turning to the four astonished 
 commissioners, exclaimed : " If you settle a man to the walls 
 of the kirk, the blood of the parish of Nigg will be required 
 of you." It was in vain ; the wall system prevailed : what 
 they cared for was not the living stones of the spiritual house ; 
 it was merely the benches, the bricks, and plaster. A min- 
 ister was given to the walls of this church, and the pious 
 parishioners never more entered it. 
 
 A Mr. Thomson was presented by the patron to the parish 
 of St. Ninians. Six hundred heads of families, sixty heri- 
 tors, and all the elders of the parish, except one, opposed 
 him. The struggle lasted seven years. At length, the 
 General Assembly, in 1773, ordered the presbytery to pro- 
 ceed to the ordination. An immense crowd filled the church ; 
 but instead of the usual questions, the presiding minister, 
 alarmed at the work he was to perform, addressed to the 
 presentee this affecting and solemn appeal: "I conjure you 
 by the mercies of God, for the sake of the great number 
 of souls of St. Ninians, by that peace of mind which you 
 would wish in a dying hour, and that awful and impartial 
 account which, in a little, you must give to God of your 
 own soul, and the souls of this parish, at the tribunal of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, give it up." There was a profound 
 silence. At length the miserable Thomson said dryly, " Sir, 
 proceed to obey your superiors." The ordination followed ; 
 but the souls of Christians were stirred within them, and 
 many cried out, in distress : " O God ! when wilt thou 
 break the yoke of our burden, the staff of our shoulder, and 
 the rod of our oppressor ?" (Isaiah, ix. 4.) 
 
 It was all in vain. The reign of Moderatism became more 
 and more absolute. Robertson himself was soon outdone, 
 and after having destroyed the liberties of the church, men 
 were found willing to abolish the doctrines of the Word of
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 293 
 
 God. Several ministers who preached Unitarian doctrines 
 demanded of the General Assembly the abolition of the 
 Westminster Confession of Faith. Robertson desired it to 
 be maintained ; but being unwilling to engage in this new 
 struggle, as we are told by Sir Henry Moncrieff, one of his 
 most intimate friends, he retired. This happened in 1780; 
 he was then only fifty-nine years old, and his faculties 
 retained their full vigor. 
 
 The ecclesiastical influence of Robertson was perpetuated 
 even after his withdrawal. He died in 1793 ; and the peri- 
 od to which he has given his name thus came to a close in 
 the days of the convulsions, the murders, and the destruc- 
 tions of the French Revolution. This is worthy of observa- 
 tion. 
 
 Evangelical Christianity had almost expired in Scotland, 
 and absolutism, error, and lethargy had subdued the free 
 and living country of Melvill and of Knox. 
 
 Then commenced a period of transition, which separates 
 the dismal times ' of Robertson from the glorious epoch of 
 Chalmers. 
 
 III. 
 
 CHALMERS PERIOD AND THE VETO. 
 
 THE horrors of the French Revolution, spreading terror in 
 all directions, awakened, in many hearts, the consciousness 
 of the crime they had committed in abandoning the Gospel 
 of the grace of God. Though Scotland had never deviated 
 from the faith so far as had been done on the Continent, and 
 especially in France, she yet accepted, as addressed to her- 
 self, that awful voice of the Lord, which then, as Hosea says, 
 "roared like a lion." (Hosea, xi. 10.) 
 
 The whole of Great Britain experienced a shock from 
 heaven, which, in many places, caused the living waters of 
 faith to gush forth anew. Christian Missions were the prin-
 
 294 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 cipal channels in which these fresh springs of truth and life 
 were now to flow. 
 
 Robertson had buried the Church of Scotland : Chalmers 
 raised her from the dead. Or rather the power of darkness 
 had prevailed under the illustrious name of the historian of 
 Scotland and of Charles V. ; the power from on high was 
 made effectual under the illustrious name of the great theo- 
 logian, the great philosopher, the- great philanthropist of the 
 nineteenth century. 
 
 Chalmers did not stand alone; there were many other 
 Christians who also set their hands to the work. Some were 
 even engaged in it before him, both within and without the 
 Church. The names of Andrew Thomson and of Thomas 
 M'Crie must here take precedence of others ; yet the princi- 
 pal place belongs to Chalmers. The converson of a great 
 number of students and young ministers was owing, under 
 God, to the instructions and writings of this divine. His 
 influence is of quite a different nature from Robertson's. 
 The latter presided immediately in the church courts, and 
 held in his own grasp the reins of administration : Chalmers 
 might also have done this ; but he is,* perhaps, in a less de- 
 gree than Robertson, a man of ecclesiastical government ; 
 he is pre-eminently a man of thought, of instruction, of 
 preaching, and of Christian activity. In his study, in his 
 Divinity Hall, in the pulpit, in literary societies, and among 
 the poor of his people, still more than in committees and de- 
 bates, are the scenes of his labors to be sought. However 
 this may be, it is worthy of notice, that it was the two most 
 eminent literary men of Scotland, who presided over two 
 such contrary periods through which the Church of Scotland 
 has successively passed. We can only add, that to live in 
 the period of Chalmers, and yet remain attached to the tra- 
 ditions of that of Robertson, is a most singular and revolting 
 anachronism. 
 
 * I leave the present tense. All this was written some months before 
 the death of Chalmers. Blessed be his name !
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 295 
 
 Evangelism having rapidly grown up, Moderatism, in like 
 manner, declined. Dr. Duff, the first missionary sent by a 
 national Protestant Church, had left Scotland, to carry into 
 India the light of the Gospel. The Reform Bill, in 1832, 
 commenced a new era, the influence of which was to be felt 
 even in church matters. The number of ministers and elders 
 who were attached to the Gospel was every year increasing. 
 All seemed ready. 
 
 It was then that Chalmers stepped forward. He com- 
 menced the re-construction of the ecclesiastical edifice by the 
 same means through which its ruin had been begun. He 
 demanded in the General Assembly of 1833, that the dissent 
 of a majority of the male heads of families, resident in the 
 parish and communicants, should be of conclusive effect in 
 setting aside the presentee. This motion was negatived by 
 a majority of only twelve votes ; but even, at that time, most 
 of the ministers were in favor of the veto of the parish. 
 
 One circumstance which seemed to extenuate the evils of 
 patronage increased the number of those ministers who voted 
 in an evangelical direction. Frequently, of late years, the 
 patrons had presented pious ministers to their parishes. 
 These patrons had different motives for so doing. They 
 knew that such men would possess the confidence of the 
 people in a high degree ; that under their influence public 
 order and morality would be better maintained ; and that 
 even temporal prosperity would thereby result both to their 
 tenants and to their estates. Besides, the Reform Bill, by 
 increasing the number of electors, might make it desirable 
 for the patrons (at least this is the opinion of well-informed 
 persons) to appoint to their parishes ministers who enjoyed 
 the confidence of the people, and who might therefore be 
 able to give their landlords an effectual support. Therefore, 
 although evangelical ministers were still looked upon with 
 some degree of suspicion, on account of their known attach- 
 ment to the liberties of the church, the patrons imagined 
 that when once these young preachers were well settled in
 
 296 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 a good parish and in a comfortable manse, they would be- 
 come more temperate ; and not be willing, for the sake of a 
 few trivial exaggerations, to endanger their prospects, and 
 those of their families. Tt appeared afterwards that they 
 were mistaken. 
 
 That Chalmers's motion should have been rejected the first 
 time by the General Assembly, is not to be wondered at. 
 It is not unusual in England to see a measure earned trium- 
 phantly at last, after having been rejected for ten, fifteen, or 
 twenty years. The Slavery question, the Corn Law bill, and 
 many others, have proved this. They set to work again the 
 following year ; and this time, it was not on a minister, but on 
 an elder, Lord Moncrieff, one of the first lawyers of Scotland, 
 that the important motion of the Veto devolved. It was 
 passed on the 27th of May, 1834, by a majority of forty-six. 
 
 This is the famous Veto Act, by virtue of which the Gen- 
 eral Assembly declares, " That it is a fundamental law of this 
 Church, that no pastor shall be intruded on any congregation 
 contrary to the will of the people ; and in order that this 
 principle may be carried into full effect, the General Assem- 
 bly, with the consent of a majority of the Presbyteries of 
 this Church, do declare, enact, and ordain, that it shall be 
 an instruction to Presbyteries, that if, at the moderating in 
 a call to a vacant pastoral charge, the major part of the 
 male heads of families, members of the vacant congregation, 
 and in full communion with the Church, shall disapprove of 
 the person in whose favor the call is proposed to be mode- 
 rated, in such cases, disapproval shall be deemed sufficient 
 ground for the Presbytery rejecting such a person, and that 
 he shall be rejected accordingly, and due notice thereof forth- 
 with given to all concerned. And further declare, that no 
 person shall be held to be entitled to disapprove as aforesaid, 
 who shall refuse, if required, solemnly to declare, in presence 
 of the Presbytery, that he is actuated by no factious or ma- 
 licious motive, but solely, by a conscientious regard to the 
 spiritual interest of himself or the congregation."
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 297 
 
 This important act became, if not the cause, at least the 
 occasion, of the creation of the Free Church. It is therefore 
 worth while pausing for a moment to consider it. 
 
 To form a just estimate of the subject, it is requisite to go 
 back to 1712, to the famous act of Queen Anne. From 17 12 
 to 1784, that is, during seventy- two years, the national 
 Church of Scotland had protested against the Bill which, in 
 contradiction to the Treaty of Union, re-established Patron- 
 age. Subsequently, in 1784, under the influence of the phi- 
 losophy of the eighteenth century, the protest had been dis- 
 continued. But now, in 1833, the parishioners, flocks, pres- 
 byteries, and General Assemblies have been restored to life. 
 Could the church keep silence ? could she do less than had 
 been done up to 1784 by a cold Moderatism? Could the 
 period of Chalmers yield in fidelity to the period of Robert- 
 son ? Such a supposition would have been contrary to the 
 plainest common sense. 
 
 There were before the church two ways of repairing the 
 mischief done to her constitution by the Jacobite ministry 
 of Queen Anne, either to abolish the act of 1712, or to 
 accept the act, at the same time seeking to correct its per- 
 nicious effects. The former way was more decisive, more 
 hostile ; the latter milder and more conciliatory. Now, the 
 Moderate church of the eighteenth century, had demanded 
 the decisive solution ; the Evangelical Church of the nine- 
 teenth chose the conciliatory way ; and yet the vital period 
 of Chalmers has been accused of having required even less 
 than the lifeless period of Robertson ! 
 
 This Act of Queen Anne stood in the midst of the church, 
 as a rock, on which, year after year, the treasure ship of 
 Scotland struck and was wrecked. The Veto Act, passed in 
 1834, had, for its object, to raise a barrier round the reef to 
 prevent such disasters in future. 
 
 The prejudices and passions of the world would not per- 
 rait this. The act, instead of preventing, as was intended, 
 these multiplied disasters, occasioned an immense one.
 
 298 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Nevertheless, the shipwrecked have had no cause to com- 
 plain. The yawning gulf of the Maelstrom has not swal- 
 lowed them up ; but, on the contrary, their misfortune has 
 opened to them the ports of a new world, resplendent with 
 liberty, light, and peace. 
 
 The right of the flock to call their pastor still subsisted in 
 Scotland ; only it had become a mere form, and sometimes 
 even a falsehood. All that the Veto Act proposed to do, 
 was to make this legal call of the flock a reality, by remov- 
 ing a falsehood which, to the shame of the church, was often 
 repeated within her. In fact, the minister, presented by the 
 patron, was called by the flock according to the following 
 form : 
 
 " We, the Heritors, Elders, Heads of Families and Parish- 
 ioners of the Parish of within the bounds of the 
 
 Presbytery of and County of , taking into 
 
 consideration the present destitute state of the said Parish, 
 
 through the death of our late pastor, the Rev. , 
 
 being satisfied with the learning, abilities, and other good 
 qualifications of you, Mr. , Preacher of the Gos- 
 pel, and having heard you preach to our satisfaction and 
 
 edification, do hereby invite and call you, the said Mr. 
 
 , to take charge and oversight of this Parish, and to 
 
 come and labor among us in the work of the Gospel min- 
 istry ; hereby promising to you all due respect and encour- 
 agement in the Lord. We likewise entreat the Reverend 
 
 Presbytery of to approve and concur with this our 
 
 most cordial call ; and to use all the proper means for mak- 
 ing the same effectual, by your ordination and settlement 
 among us, as soon as the steps necessary thereto will admit. 
 In witness whereof we subscribe these presents, at the 
 Church of on the day of , years." 
 
 Now, supposing that, as sometimes happened, there were in 
 the parish six hundred elders and communicants against this 
 minister, and in his favor only one member, the publican of 
 the place for example ; the result would be, that the form
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 299 
 
 of a call, which, instead of saying, " I, the publican of such 
 a place call you," should say, " We, the Heritors, Elders, 
 &c. call you," would, officially, and in a sacred matter, utter 
 a falsehood. The Veto was meant to put a stop to this im- 
 morality ; for it is not by immoralities and untruths that the 
 church of the living and true God is to be governed. 
 
 It would, no doubt, have been better for the church, if, 
 instead of passing the Veto Act, she had simply decreed 
 that the call of the flock could only be valid when signed 
 by the majority of the elders and communicants. This mode 
 would have been more unfavorable to the patrons than the 
 Veto ; for it is more easy to find people who will abstain 
 than those who will come forward to oppose. But the form 
 would then have been more natural, and the morality of the 
 measure more evident to all. I know not the reasons which 
 prevented it from being adopted. I can only add that both 
 measures the one I have pointed out, and that which was 
 followed come precisely to the same thing, and the one as 
 well as the other would have been rejected by the patrons. 
 The church, according to my proposition, would have had 
 the form more completely in her favor ; but I do not think 
 that in such a case the form would have prevailed over the 
 reality. 
 
 The state in which the church then was, is sufficient to 
 prove the necessity of re-establishing the truth within her. 
 Such had been the sufferings of the flocks under the influ- 
 ence of the Act of Queen Anne, that, in a country so little 
 inclined to dissent as Scotland, six hundred new congrega- 
 tions had formed themselves without the pale of the church ; 
 while the latter, notwithstanding a considerable increase of 
 population, onry numbered sixty new ones ; and even these 
 sixty were due to the evangelical life which afterwards pro- 
 duced the Free Church. It was evident that the church was 
 in a state of suffering, and it was necessary to use some means 
 to infuse new vigor into her enfeebled frame, 
 
 If we examine into the nature of the relations which ought
 
 300 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 to exist between a pastor and his flock, we shall more clearly 
 recognize the necessity for a law like that we are now con- 
 sidering. 
 
 The pastoral relationship is, with the Scotch, of a spiritual 
 nature, based upon the feeling of a mutual contract agree- 
 able to the Most High. If a congregation may not refuse 
 the preacher presented to them, except by stating under dif- 
 ferent heads the motives of their dissent, the legality of which' 
 the superior courts are afterwards to judge, it would be as 
 if, when a conjugal union was to be formed it should be re- 
 required, not that the parties be agreed, and have a mutual 
 affection for each other, but merely that their interests should 
 coincide, and that there should be no legal obstacle to their 
 marriage. Must a girl prove to her father or guardian, by 
 depositions taken under her hand, that her proposed husband 
 is vicious, in debt, or obnoxious to the law ? Would it not 
 be sufficient for her to state her conviction that this man could 
 not make her happy ? To establish a truly cordial relation- 
 ship between the minister and his flock ought to be the desire 
 and the aim of the church. " Not for that we have dominion 
 over your faith," says St. Paul, " but are helpers of your 
 joy." (2 Cor. i. 24.) 
 
 Will all this be considered visionary ? Shall we throw 
 away a vital religion, which proposes, above all things, to 
 satisfy the requirements of the heart, and substitute for it a 
 religion of forms, of clergy, of tribunals, and of political 
 courts ? God forbid ! 
 
 If there is any thing which, in my opinion, shows to what a 
 degree of spirituality God has raised the Church of Scotland, 
 it is this intimacy which she requires between the pastor and 
 his flock. There is not a Christian, nay, not*even a philos- 
 opher, who ought not to be filled with admiration at this 
 profound and true understanding of the most sacred of all 
 relationships. And this is the venerable sentiment which 
 the tribunals would trample under foot. Shall we tear the 
 Breath from the virgin's brow ?
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 301 
 
 The adversaries of the church required that the flock 
 should categorically state the motives for their refusal, and 
 called upon the higher church courts to decide for or against 
 these motives. Thus, the right of refusal was misplaced ; 
 the decision was taken from the flock, and given to these 
 church courts. A right which I possess, under the condi- 
 tion that in every case the exercise of this right should de- 
 pend upon another, is no right at all ; it is a mere shadow. 
 
 Besides, a presentee may not be immoral, he may not be 
 ignorant, he may not be an infidel, and he may even be 
 strictly orthodox, without possessing vital godliness, without 
 being converted, and consequently without the power either 
 to convert or to edify others. Now, it was only on the three 
 first points that the parishioners were to be heard. It was 
 not to ascertain whether the presentee had " passed from 
 death unto life," as the Scripture says (1 John iii. 14). This 
 is a matter which eludes judicial appreciation, and, yet, for 
 poor Christians, it is one of vital import. 
 
 The great theologian of Scotland rose against these claims 
 of the friends of Patronage. " The Christian people," said 
 Chalmers, " may not be able to state their objection, save in 
 a very general way ; and far less be able to plead and to 
 vindicate it at the bar of a Presbytery ; and yet the objec- 
 tion be a most substantial one notwithstanding, and such as 
 ought, both in all Christian reason, and Christian expediency, 
 to set aside the presentation. 
 
 " I will not speak of the moral barrier that is created to 
 the usefulness of a minister by the mere general dislike 
 of a people for this may give way to experience of his 
 worth. But there is another dislike than to the person of a 
 minister; a dislike to his preaching, which may not be 
 groundless, even though the people be wholly incapable of 
 themselves arguing or justifying the grounds of it. Such is 
 the adaptation of Scripture to the state of humanity, that 
 even the most illiterate might perceive it most intelligently 
 and soundly. Yet when required to give the reasons of his
 
 302 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 objections to a minister at the bar of his Presbytery, all the 
 poor man can say for himself might be, that he does not 
 preach the Gospel ; or that, in his sermon, there is no food 
 for his soul. ' / was an hungered and you gave me no meat.' 
 It was denying the adaptation of Christianity to human na- 
 ture, to deny that this is a case which may be often and le- 
 gitimately realized. With a perfect independence on the 
 conceits and the follies, and the wayward extravagance of 
 the humors of the populace, I have, nevertheless, the pro- 
 foundest respect for all those manifestations of the popular 
 feeling, which are founded on an accordancy between the felt 
 state of human nature and the subject matter of the Gospel ; 
 and, more especially, when their demand is for those truths 
 which are of chief prominency in the Bible. But in very 
 proportion to my sympathy, and my depth of veneration for 
 the Christian appetency of such cottage patriots, would be 
 the painfulness I should feel when the cross-questionings of 
 a court of review were brought to bear upon them ; and the 
 men bamboozled and bereft of utterance by the reasonings 
 which they could not re-argue, or, perhaps, the ridicule 
 which they could not withstand, were left to the untold 
 agony of their own hearts because within the establish- 
 ment which they loved, they could not find, in its Sabbath 
 ministrations, or week-day services, the doctrine that was 
 dear to them. 
 
 " To overbear such men," exclaimed the Scottish divine, 
 whom all Europe looked upon with respect, " is the high- 
 way to put an extinguisher on the Christianity of our land, 
 the Christianity of our ploughmen, our artisans, our men of 
 handicraft and of hard labor : yet not the Christianity theirs 
 of deceitful imagination, or of implicit deference to author- 
 ity ; but the Christianity of deep, I will add, of rational be- 
 lief, firmly and profoundly seated in the principles of our 
 moral nature, and nobly accredited by the virtues of our 
 well-conditioned peasantry. In the older time of Presby- 
 tery, that time of Scriptural Christianity in our pulpits,
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 303 
 
 and of psalmody in our cottages, these men grew and mul- 
 tiplied in the land; and, though derided in the heartless 
 literature, and discountenanced and disowned in the heart- 
 less politics of other days, it is their remnant which acts as 
 a preserving salt among our people, and which constitutes 
 the real strength and glory of the Scottish nation." 
 
 An anecdote related by Chalmers in the General Assem- 
 bly of 1840, will illustrate this idea more forcibly. "Au 
 illiterate female," said he, " in humble life, applied for ad- 
 mission to the sacrament ; but at the customary examina- 
 tion, could not frame one articulate reply to a single ques- 
 tion that was put to her. It was in vain to ask her of the 
 offices or mediation of Christ, or of the purposes of His 
 death. Not one word could be drawn out of her ; and yet 
 there was a certain air of intelligent seriousness, the mani- 
 festations of right and appropriate feeling a heart and a 
 tenderness indicated, not by one syllable of utterance, but 
 by the natural signs of emotion which fitly responded to the 
 topics of the clergyman, whether she was spoken to of the 
 sin that condemned, or of the Saviour who atoned for her. 
 Still, as she could make no distinct reply to any of his 
 questions, he refused to enroll her as a communicant ; when 
 she, on retiring, called out, in the fulness of her heart, ' I 
 cannot speak for Him, but I could die for Him !' The min- 
 ister, overpowered, handed to her a sacramental token ; and 
 with good reason, although not a reason fell in utterance 
 from her. And so, too, with the collective mind of many a 
 rustic congregation, that thinks aright, and feels aright, with- 
 out one propounded reason, which, if put into a record could 
 adequately represent the whole truth of sentiment that 
 kindles in their bosoms, and lights up there a clearness of 
 perception, as well as sensibility, which, however beyond 
 the reach of their expression, is of one analysis, gives all the 
 authority of justice to their collective voice. To confine the 
 Presbytery to the reason of these men, and debar us from
 
 304 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 all the conclusions grounded on direct sympathy with the 
 men themselves, were to do them the grossest injustice." 
 
 Thus spoke Chalmers. I do not think that the most sa- 
 cred interests of the church have ever been defended with 
 more admirable eloquence, and more triumphant evidence. 
 
 Yet a question presented itself : Should not the Veto Act, 
 passed by the General Assembly, have been approved by 
 Parliament, in order to render it legal ? 
 
 That the Parliament ought to have sanctioned it, does not, 
 in my opinion, admit of a doubt. The Parliament ought, 
 even now, to do a great deal more ; it ought to repeal the 
 illegal Act of Queen Anne, and thus abolish patronage. 
 This is required from it by the fajth of the treaties on which 
 the Union of Scotland and England is based. 
 
 It is, therefore, evident, that as the legislative body ought 
 to have done more, it was still more incumbent upon it to do 
 less. 
 
 The Parliament ought eagerly to have seized the proffered 
 opportunity of redressing the unlawful acts of its despotic 
 predecessors in the stormy periods of Jacobitism. Every 
 thing seemed to indicate that this would be the course of 
 the civil power. 
 
 In fact, Lord Moncrieff, who moved the Veto Act in the 
 General Assembly, and who was, as we have already seen, 
 one of the highest legal authorities of the Church of Scot- 
 land, had proposed this act, as being " entirely within the 
 powers of the church." The Assembly had also the advice 
 of her own Advocate, and other distinguished lawyers 
 among her members. She had, besides, in her favor the 
 Lord Advocate of Scotland, the celebrated Lord Jeffrey, in- 
 trusted by the crown with the defence of its judicial rights. 
 Lastly, she possessed the approbation of the Lord High 
 Commissioner, sent by His Majesty, to be present as his 
 representative at the debates of the General Assembly. 
 
 Nay more, Parliament appeared to incline in favor of the 
 Veto. Lord Brougham, who was then Chancellor, said, on
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 305 
 
 the 23rd of July, 1834, when presenting to the House the 
 petition for the Abolition of Patronage : " The recent Act 
 passed in the Assembly (the Veto Act) will go a great way 
 in smoothing the path to a satisfactory conclusion. It would 
 have been premature of the legislature to adopt any meas- 
 ures without the acquiescence of that important, body. It 
 is most satisfactory to my mind, that they have taken up 
 the question in the spirit they have done ; and that the re- 
 sult of their deliberations has been, the adoption of those im- 
 portant resolutions which have passed in their last session." 
 
 The defenders of the rights of the church did not come 
 forward rashly. They had cautiously felt their way, and 
 were supported by the most respectable authorities. 
 
 But supposing that Parliament should refuse to sanction 
 the Veto, would the act, in that case, remain legal ? 
 
 I have some doubts on this matter. The Christian must 
 be subject to the government de facto, even when that gov- 
 ernment has not right on its side. J therefore think, that 
 what really did happen in 1843 was the only solution pos- 
 sible ; and that the church could not maintain her Veto in 
 spite of the state, otherwise than by renouncing all alliance 
 with that state. 
 
 The Veto Act, from 1833 to 1843, marked the end of the 
 reign of Moderatism in the Church of Scotland, and the 
 commencement of that of evangelical principles. Thus, 
 precisely a century after the first secession in 1733 had pro- 
 claimed the necessity of a reformation of ecclesiastical gov- 
 ernment, the ancient principles of Scottish Presbyterianism 
 were reinstated in the church. 
 
 The kindly effects of the Veto were not long in displaying 
 themselves ; and they were manifold. That class of divinity 
 students, so numerous everywhere, and who had hitherto 
 been so in Scotland young men without piety and without 
 a call who devoted themselves to the ministry as to a 
 business by which they were to gain a living, almost entirely 
 disappeared ; and pious and devoted pastors, men of faith
 
 306 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 and men of prayer, as in the early times, rapidly increased 
 within the church. Other blessings also crowned this work. 
 Thirty congregations, which had seceded from the church, 
 returned to her bosom. At the same time, though during 
 the hundred years previous to the Veto, only sixty-three 
 churches had been built in Scotland by voluntary contribu- 
 tions, two hundred were erected during the nine years which 
 elapsed between the passing of the Veto and the disruption 
 of 1843. Thus, before the Veto, there had been but little 
 more than half a church in a year, and afterwards more than 
 twenty-two in the same time. Even in the very year follow- 
 ing the Veto from 1834 to 1835 sixty-four new churches 
 were seen to rise ; that is, in a single year, one church more 
 than under the influence of patronage during a whole cen- 
 tury. But immediately after this, a powerful opposition was 
 formed against the church. 
 
 IV. 
 
 AUCHTERARDER AND MARNOCH. 
 
 THE opposition included, both in Scotland and in England, 
 a considerable number of honorable men, to whose public 
 characters we are happy to pay the tribute of merited respect. 
 
 There were politicians who, with minds pre-occupied above 
 all things with the state, and its prerogatives, were afraid of 
 the independence of the church, and desired to establish the 
 ecclesiastical supremacy of the government. 
 
 There were lawyers, who, by the very forms into which 
 their minds had been moulded by their professional studies, 
 were unprepared to conceive a purely spiritual question ; 
 who exaggerated, without being aware of it, the jurisdiction 
 of the civil courts : and claimed to bring before them those 
 cases which, by the constitutions both of church and state, 
 ought not to be subjected to their government. 
 
 There were patrons, who believed themselves possessed of
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 307 
 
 incontestable rights to the appointment of ministers, and 
 who were unwilling to be deprived of them by the church. 
 
 But if we may believe the prevailing sentiment in Scot- 
 land, there was yet a fourth class, which was one of the 
 most influential. There were men opposed to the Gospel. 
 Perceiving that the Veto Act, which they had at first re- 
 garded merely as a liberal measure, would favor the pre- 
 eminence of evangelical principles in Scotland, these men 
 turned against it. The resurrection of the ancient Presby- 
 terianism, with its faith, its vitality, its decision, its strict 
 morality, its Christian Avorks, and its independence, alarmed 
 the world. Life has always terrified the dead. 
 
 It was thought necessary to get rid of some of the most 
 pious and decided leaders of the movement. Finding that 
 there was too much animation and strength in the body of 
 the church, it was determined, as one of our Swiss govern- 
 ments (Vaud) has lately done, to give that body an effectual 
 bleeding ; to open a vein, and draw from it its richest blood. 
 
 These various opposing parties set immediately to work. 
 Let us mark their first steps. 
 
 On the 14th October, 1834, the parish of Auchterarder 
 being vacant, Lord Kinnoull presented to it, as pastor, Mr. 
 Robert Young, and the flock was required to meet for mod- 
 erating in the call. This parish contained three thousand 
 one hundred and eighty-two souls. When the time arrived 
 for signing the call, three individuals of the three thousand 
 one hundred and eighty-two came forward. Three individ- 
 uals ! one of these was his lordship's factor, who did not 
 reside in the parish ; the other two were householders in the 
 place, Michael Tod, and Peter Clerk. But at the same time, 
 two hundred and eighty heads of families, almost the whole 
 of the communicants, for the number on the roll was three 
 hundred and thirty, signed an act by which they disapproved 
 of the presentee, whom they did not consider fit for their 
 edification. I will not speak of the individual personally ; 
 he is still living ; besides, I am unacquainted with him, ex-
 
 308 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 cept by sight. One day, as I was crossing the bridge of 
 Perth, in company with an Elder of the Established Church, 
 Mr. Young was passing also : he pointed him out to me, 
 saying, "There is the man who was the first occasion of all 
 our troubles." My friend even stopped a moment, and ex- 
 changed a few words with him. My knowledge of him is 
 confined to this. 
 
 This matter was brought, in succession, before the Pres- 
 bytery, the Synod, and the General Assembly. All these 
 ecclesiastical bodies decided in favor of the flock. Lord 
 Kinnoull and Mr. Young then appealed to the Court of Ses- 
 sion; and this body, which, by the decisions of 1571, several 
 times recognized by themselves, particularly in 1749 in the 
 case of Dunse, had no right to interfere in cases of election, 
 calling, or admission of ministers to ecclesiastical functions, 
 this civil court decided, by eight votes against five, that the 
 rejection of the presentee on the ground of the dissent of the 
 people was illegal, and ordered the Presbytery to alter their 
 resolution, and to ordain the presentee. 
 
 I do not think that in any of the Protestant churches of the 
 Continent a single minister could be found, (unless, perhaps, 
 among the most decided Rationalists and Unitarians,) who 
 would consent to ordain a minister for the sake of obedience 
 to a magistrate's command. I have seen some ministers well 
 known for an attachment, perhaps even exaggerated, to the 
 principles of nationality, disclaim the idea with abhorrence. 
 It is an enormity unheard of even in England. More sym- 
 pathy might have been expected from the bench of bishops, 
 at the idea of this enormity, which has been attempted in 
 Scotland alone. No bishop would ordain a minister by order 
 of a civil court. What also renders this act still more strik- 
 ing is the circumstance, that the only country of Christen- 
 dom in which these unreasonable encroachments of the" rulers 
 have taken place, is the very one in which the principles of 
 the liberty of the church have been most fully developed. 
 
 Her whole history most clearly exhibits, that if the church
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 309 
 
 is not the mistress of the state, yet neither is she the servant. 
 Scotland shed her most precious blood in the course of the 
 seventeenth century for the defence of her spiritual independ- 
 ence. She could not now abandon it. And if there were 
 still worldly people, insensible either to the doctrine of evan- 
 gelical freedom or to the memory of their fathers, yet at least 
 they should have remembered that these very principles 
 formed the basis of the Treaty of Union between England 
 and Scotland. 
 
 Another fact soon presented itself. The minister of the 
 parish of Marnoch had been obliged, on account of his age 
 and infirmities, to employ an assistant, Mr. John Edwards, 
 who, during the three years that he officiated in that capac- 
 ity, made himself so much disliked by the parishioners, that 
 the old pastor, yielding to the general desire, removed him. 
 The minister being now dead, the patron, Lord Fife, presented 
 this same Mr. Edwards, on the 27th of September, 1837, and 
 a day was appointed for moderating in the call. But when 
 the time came for signing it, all the parishioners sat still; 
 and only one came forward, the innkeeper of Aberchirder. 
 At the same time the six elders who formed the session, and 
 two hundred and fifty -four heads of families, out of two 
 hundred and ninety-three, declared they could not call this 
 preacher. The ministry of a man who had already officiated 
 for three years in the parish, and who was then desired by no 
 one but the innkeeper, could not certainly conduce to the 
 edification of souls ; the patron, therefore, wisely withdrew 
 the presentee. But, wonderful to relate, the Presbytery of 
 Strathbogie, to which Marnoch belonged, and the majority 
 .of which was composed of men devoted to Moderatism, re- 
 solved to support Mr. Edwards. The superior church autho- 
 rities, the Synod, and the General Assembly, decided, on the 
 contrary, in favor of the flock. 
 
 Another candidate, Mr. Henry, was now presented by the 
 patron ; but Mr. Edwards, determined upon maintaining what 
 he called his rights, applied to the civil courts. The Court
 
 810 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 of Session decided in his favor ; and the Presbytery, without 
 regard to the superior authority of the church, to which they 
 owed obedience, resolved to settle Mr. Edwards as minister 
 of Marnoch. 
 
 It was then that Dr. Candlish, a minister in the vigor of 
 his age, of vital piety and unconquerable courage, endowed 
 with prompt and just understanding, and with manly and 
 powerful eloquence, arose in the Commission of the General 
 Assembly, and proposed an energetic measure, yet conform- 
 able to the law. He demanded the suspension of the seven 
 disobedient members of the Presbytery of Strathbogie. This 
 motion was carried by one hundred and twenty-one against 
 fourteen. 
 
 The strife had now commenced between the civil and the 
 ecclesiastical courts, and a mighty struggle ensued between 
 these two powers, which was not, it is true, to bring in its 
 train either drowning or the gibbet, but which was destined 
 to end in the divorce and entire separation of the two powers. 
 This solution is at least worth the other. 
 
 The suspended ministers, astonished and irritated at this 
 bold measure of their ecclesiastical superiors, again had re- 
 course to the civil courts, and the latter forbade the sentence 
 of the Assembly to be intimated in the churches, church- 
 yards, or school-houses, and interdicted any other ministers 
 than the seven recusants from preaching in their churches. 
 The church recognized the rights of the civil power over the 
 public buildings, but intimated its sentence in the open air ; 
 and the ministers sent to supply the place of those whom the 
 Assembly had suspended, preached the Gospel in places in- 
 dependent of the state. 
 
 This firmness of the General Assembly excited still more 
 the anger of the world, and reproaches and accusations were 
 uttered against it on all sides ; but, says the Word of God, 
 " If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are 
 ye : for the Spirit of Glory and of God resteth upon you." 
 (1 Peter, iv. 14.) This promise was wonderfully realized. A
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 311 
 
 remarkable outpouring of the Holy Spirit took place at that 
 time, and there was in Scotland a religious revival, such as 
 had not been witnessed for more than a century. At Kil- 
 sjth, Dundee, Perth, Blairgowrie, Jedburgh, Kelso ; in 
 Ross-shire, Sotherlandshire, and other places, multitudes of 
 sinners forsook their evil ways, and the backsliding members 
 of the church returned to their first love. Even in the par- 
 ishes of the suspended ministers, the substitutes sent by the 
 General Assembly, who preached in barns, in tents, and in 
 the fields, often saw the auditory affected to tears. The Gos- 
 pel thus penetrated into the very strongholds of Moderatism. 
 " Our soul was cleaving to the dust, but Thou hast quick- 
 ened us according to thy word." (Psalm cxix. 26.) 
 
 The delay granted by the General Assembly to the seven 
 ministers of Strathbogie, to submit themselves to their au- 
 thority, having been ineffectual, a formal indictment was 
 served upon them, for having demanded and received from a 
 civil court the power of exercising the sacred functions ; 
 though that power had been taken from them by a spiritual 
 court, the only lawful authority in such matters, according to 
 the Confession of Faith, which they themselves had sworn to. 
 This accusation was carried at two different times ; the first 
 by one hundred and ninety-one to sixty-six, and the second, 
 three months later, by ninety-one to fifteen. 
 
 The seven suspended ministers yet hesitated to take the 
 last step, and ordain Mr. Edwards as minister at Marnoch. 
 He, however, determined to go on to the end, and brought 
 an action against the Presbytery, demanding, if they refused 
 to induct him, the sum of l 1,000 for damages and expenses. 
 The court did not hesitate to sanction these proceedings by 
 its justly revered authority, and ordered the Presbytery to 
 induct Mr. Edwards. The civil courts thus annihilated the 
 distinction which for three centuries had been established 
 between spiritual and secular matters ; they took into their 
 own hands " the power of the keys," which the Confession 
 of Faith denies to the civil magistrate. Nothing similar to
 
 312 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 this had been seen in Scotland, except during the disastrous 
 times of Charles II. All was now prepared for carrying out 
 their decision. 
 
 On the 20th of January, 1841, so great a quantity of snow 
 had fallen that the country was completely covered, and the 
 roads rendered almost impassable. Yet the next day, not- 
 withstanding the severity of the weather, a considerable 
 crowd, consisting of about two thousand persons, repaired 
 to Marnoch from all the adjacent places. The parishioners 
 filled the body of the church, but the galleries and the ap- 
 proaches were filled with strangers. The seven suspended 
 ministers, accompanied by Mr. Edwards, entered the build- 
 ing ; and a strange scene now commenced in the sanctuary 
 of the living God. The legal agent of the parishioners hav- 
 ing asked the suspended ministers whether they were sent by 
 the General Assembly, the supreme authority of the church ; 
 they refused to answer, and declared that they intended to 
 proceed in their functions in the name of the law. Then the 
 voice of the parish was heard in a clear, serious, solemn 
 manner. A protest, signed by four hundred and fifty com- 
 municants, was read in the name of the elders, heads of fam- 
 ilies, and other church members of Marnoch, wherein they 
 declared the interference of the civil courts in spiritual things 
 illegal ; disclaimed the jurisdiction of the seven ministers 
 suspended from ecclesiastical functions by the highest au- 
 thority of the church ; and declared themselves ready to 
 prove, before any lawful Presbytery, their objections to the 
 life and doctrine of Mr. Edwards. " You and Mr. Edwards," 
 said the poor parishioners of Marnoch, in conclusion, to the 
 Presbytery " you drive us from this house in which we and 
 our fathers have so often met, and in which we would gladly 
 have assembled ourselves together till the day of our death. 
 We leave this meeting ; but our hearts remain attached to 
 the church of our fathers." 
 
 After these words the whole flock arose. There were aged 
 men with heads white as the snow which then covered the
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 313 
 
 hills ; men in the prime of life, full of decision and energy ; 
 youths, just entering into manhood, who had, as yet, sat but 
 once or twice at the table of the Lord. All arose as one 
 man. In the pews lay their Bibles and Psalm-books, many 
 of which had already served more than one generation, and 
 had never for a century left the place where they were now 
 lying. Every parishioner took up his Bible and Psalm-book, 
 and all in a body quitted the temple of their fathers, leaving 
 the seven ministers to ordain to the walls the presentee, 
 whose only partisan, the innkeeper, had not even made his 
 appearance. The building remained in the possession of 
 Edwards ; but without the flock, without their Bibles. An 
 enemy had made forcible entry into the citadel ; but the gar- 
 rison, overpowered, yet not conquered, had evacuated it with 
 their arms and baggage, and the bare walls alone remained. 
 The people continued leaving the building. All were sad, 
 many shed tears. These pious men were seen crossing the 
 snow-covered fields slowly and mournfully, wrapt in their 
 plaids, with their Bibles under their arms, and looking back, 
 from time to time, to the house of their prayers and their 
 praises. After the congregation had departed, the strangers 
 who surrounded the church rushed in, and some, indignant 
 at the wrong done to their countrymen, caused a little con- 
 fusion. As soon as order was restored, the usual questions 
 were put to Edwards : " Are not zeal for the honor of God, 
 love to Jesus Christ, and desire for saving souls your great 
 motives and chief inducements to enter into the office of the 
 holy ministry, and not worldly designs and interests ?" He 
 answered audibly, " Yes." At this reply a shudder of awe 
 and horror a deep and solemn feeling pervaded the As- 
 sembly. The act of ordination was then completed, by or- 
 der of a civil court, and without the presence of a single 
 parishioner. After this, the seven suspended ministers with- 
 drew amidst the hisses of the crowd ; and the new-made 
 pastor walked out surrounded by policemen. 
 
 14
 
 314 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 The Marnocli intrusion* caused great sensation throughout 
 Scotland, and Christians everywhere gave proofs of their 
 brotherly love to this poor but faithful flock. The summer 
 following, a new and pretty church, built by the contribu- 
 tions of their brethren, rose upon those hills ; to which the 
 parishioners, driven from their former temple, could carry 
 their dear old Bibles and Psalm-books, and again sing, as 
 their fathers had done, the praises of the thrice Holy God, 
 who is in all times the refuge and the salvation of His people. 
 
 V. 
 
 THE THIRD REFORMATION. 
 
 WHILE these events were passing, the church, and the 
 General Assembly which represented her, remained firmly 
 attached to the principles of her fathers. At the meeting 
 of Assembly in 1838, the decisions of the civil courts were 
 laid before them. The ministers and elders who had repaired 
 to their posts, were all fully sensible of the importance of the 
 crisis. " It now remains to be seen," said they, " whether 
 the civil courts are the rulers of the church, or the ministers 
 and elders, to whom Christ, according to our Confession, has 
 intrusted its government. Shall we be less free than the 
 bishops of the English Church, of whom no one dares to ask 
 an account of their reasons for refusing to ordain any presen- 
 tee ? We will give up all, our churches, our manses, our 
 glebes, our stipends, rather than acknowledge the encroach- 
 ments by which a worldly power intends to trample under 
 foot the inheritance of our fathers." 
 
 So spoke these noble Scotchmen. A minister of Glasgow, 
 Dr. Buchanan, proposed the following resolution : " The 
 General Assembly, 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 will 
 * It has been called in Scotland " the Marnoch crime."
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 315 
 
 ever give and inculcate implicit obedience to their decisions 
 in such matters, do resolve, that, as is declared in the Con- 
 fession of Faith of this National Established Church : ' The 
 Lord Jesus Christ, as King and Head of the Church, hath 
 therein appointed a government in the hand of Church offi- 
 cers, distinct from the civil magistrate ;' and that, in all mat- 
 ters touching the doctrine, government and discipline of the 
 church, her judicatories possess an exclusive jurisdiction, 
 founded on the Word of God, 'which power ecclesiastical 
 flows immediately from God and the Mediator, and is spirit- 
 ual, not having a temporal head on earth, but only Christ, 
 the only spiritual King and Governor of his Church.' And 
 they do farther resolve, that this spiritual jurisdiction, and 
 the sole Headship of the Lord Jesus Christ, on which it de- 
 pends, they will assert, and at all hazards defend by the help 
 and blessing of God." , 
 
 Thus Scotland beheld the fulfilment of this promise : " He 
 shall turn the heart of the children to their fathers," (Mai. iv. 
 6.) ; and the church, again taking her stand upon that ancient 
 Rock, once defended by her martyrs, prepared to await with 
 faith and courage the shock of the winds, the floods, and the 
 tempest. 
 
 This resolution passed by a majority of forty-one. 
 
 The national enthusiasm in this serious struggle was still 
 increasing. The people, both in towns and in the country, 
 especially in the Highlands, were zealous for the cause of 
 independence, but most of the nobility were in favor of pat- 
 ronage. The Marquis of Breadalbane was then almost alone 
 in following the generous footsteps of the ancient Earls of 
 Loudon and Sutherland. Petitions signed by 260,000 of 
 the most pious of Scotland's sons, demanded the maintenance 
 of the constitution of the church of their fathers. Few were 
 indifferent, all were either for or against it, and the ferment 
 was general. 
 
 The Moderate party then displayed a decision which they 
 had never shown since the time of Robertson. They thought
 
 316 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 the moment was now at hand for recovering their former 
 dominion. The Assembly having in 1 840 rejected a bill of 
 a distinguished statesman, Lord Aberdeen, which in their 
 opinion was calculated to legalize the attempts of the civil 
 courts, and having in 1841, in their Commission, decided 
 upon addressing a remonstrance to the ministers who sup- 
 ported the suspended clergymen of Strathbogie in their dis- 
 obedience ; the Moderate party determined upon taking the 
 necessary steps to ascertain from the government whether 
 they themselves should not be considered as constituting the 
 church, and therefore alone entitled to the privileges and 
 emoluments conferred by the laws. 
 
 Thus the minority proposed to drive out the majority. 
 The Moderates claimed to set themselves in the place of the 
 Evangelicals. 
 
 Upon this an extraordinary meeting of the Commission of 
 the General Assembly was convened. On the 25th August 
 1841, a great concourse was gathered at Edinburgh. From 
 the mountains of the north, from the plains of the south, from 
 the east and from the west of Scotland, they had come at no 
 other call than that of the church's danger. Nothing like it 
 had been seen since that memorable day when the Covenant 
 was signed in the Grayfriars' church-yard. The Commission 
 resolved upon maintaining inviolate the independence of the 
 church, or of perishing in its defence ; and on the evening 
 of the same day, one of the most spacious buildings of Edin- 
 burgh, the West Church, was filled with an immense crowd. 
 Twelve hundred ministers and elders were in the nave, and 
 the double galleries of the edifice were filled with a multi- 
 tude of Christian men and women, determined upon follow- 
 ing the Lord wheresoever He should call them. A venera- 
 ble, grave, and wise minister, of heartfelt piety, one of whom 
 many said, " We do not well understand the question, but 
 wherever that disciple of Jesus goes we will follow," Dr. 
 Gordon, presided at this meeting. Dr. Candlish gave way 
 to the energy of his feelings, and drew along with him the
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 317 
 
 whole auditory, trembling and glowing at his burning words. 
 A deputation from the Irish Presbyterians announced to their 
 brethren of Scotland that the sons of Erin were ready to aid 
 them with their sympathy and their prayers ; and the Scotch- 
 men settled in the fertile fields of England declared that the 
 church of their fathers would find them faithful in the hour 
 of peril. When this solemn meeting was concluded, three 
 thousand Christians rose with a spontaneous impulse, and 
 sang with one heart, " Our feet shall stand in thy gates, 
 Jerusalem !" and the rest of the 122d Psalm. 
 
 The adverse party then redoubled their efforts, and set 
 such new springs in motion as are generally found effectual. 
 The government endeavored by diplomatic negotiations to 
 induce the majority of the Assembly to coincide with their 
 views ; and the political press asserted that the ministry 
 were ready to give up the independence of the church pro- 
 vided they might secure their emoluments. These reports 
 filled Scotland with alarm. " Can it be possible," it was 
 said, "that the servants of the Word of God should be 
 caught in the nets of a crafty policy ?" There were, it is 
 true, some few who were caught, and in them they remained. 
 But the church soon learned that she might expect totally 
 different resolutions from those faithful and courageous min- 
 isters whose names will stand in the annals of Christianity 
 as a crown of glory for Scotland. 
 
 The General Assembly met in 1842, and Dr. Welsh was 
 Moderator. One step yet remained to be taken to memo- 
 rialize the Queen ; and upon this they decided. 
 
 After a motion respecting patronage, proposed by Dr. 
 Cunningham, Mr. Dunlop, an elder of the church, and an 
 eminent lawyer, presented a " declaration against the uncon- 
 stitutional encroachments of the civil courts," signed by one 
 hundred and fifty members of the Assembly. This remark- 
 able document having been read amid deep silence, Dr. Chal- 
 mers, who had risen in 1833, in the first Assembly which 
 had claimed the rights of the church, arose once more in that
 
 318 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 last meeting which was to terminate the existence of Evan- 
 gelical predominance in the National Church of Scotland, 
 and moved that the declaration be adopted. " It is no ques- 
 tion," said he, with that noble and powerful eloquence which 
 characterizes him, " it is no mere question of individual or 
 party wrangling, but a great constitutional question concern- 
 ing the respective jurisdictions of two distinct and yet co-ordi- 
 nate powers, each of them independent and supreme within 
 its own sphere. With what formidable evils are we not in- 
 evitably threatened, if the Parliament allows the civil courts 
 to pergist in their encroachments on the constitutional juris- 
 dictions of the church, and to grant orders in spiritual mat- 
 ters which conscience is compelled to reject, and to employ 
 the argument of physical force, as if violence was to be set 
 up in the place of right. Such arguments have been already 
 employed," continued the orator, " but they may be taken 
 up by men who have the strength of millions of the ungodly 
 and sinners upon their side, and poured forth in some wide- 
 spread war of turbulence and disorder over the face of our 
 commonwealth." 
 
 Chalmers well knew, that when once religious liberty is 
 trampled under foot, all other liberties are endangered. The 
 motion was adopted by a majority of one hundred and 
 thirty-one, and the Moderator delivered to the Lord High 
 Commissioner, the respected Marquis of Bute, the Church's 
 Claim of Rights, requesting him to present it to her Maj- 
 esty. A separate address was also presented to Queen Vic- 
 toria, praying her to take measures towards the abolition of 
 Patronage. 
 
 The Assembly of 1842 thus commenced in Scotland the 
 Third Reformation. 
 
 I will here mention a circumstance of trifling importance, 
 but which may be considered as an example of that decision 
 of character to be found in Scotland, which may, perhaps, 
 be sought for in vain elsewhere. A minister, deposed by 
 the Assembly, being in possession of the parish church of
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 319 
 
 X 
 
 Rhynie, on the morning of the 13th of June, the whole 
 people of the place assembled before daybreak, at a spot 
 Avhich a generous Christian had given them, whereon to 
 build another church. The opposite party had threatened 
 them with an interdict, which, if produced the next day, or 
 even that evening, might have prevented them from building 
 their church. The permission of the General Assembly for 
 the erection of the chapel had just arrived. All immediately 
 set to work. The masons, builders, and carpenters of Sol- 
 omon and Hiram (1 Kings, v.) never displayed such activity 
 on Mount Zion, as that little band of poor and obscure Scot- 
 tish Christians in erecting their humble chapel. They had 
 already prepared timber, and quarried stone from the neigh- 
 boring mountains. Laborers, masons, and carpenters, 
 worked with willing hands ; and, thanks to their vigorous 
 efforts, before the evening of the same day, a spacious and 
 commodious edifice was ready to receive the worshippers of 
 the living God. A church was built in one day ! 
 
 This was a symbol. When God's own time should arrive, 
 the Free Church of Scotland, raised by the faith of a whole 
 people, would also be set up in a day. " Behold the day ; 
 behold it is come." (Ezek. vii. 10.) 
 
 All, indeed, now tended towards this. On the first week 
 of July, in the mountains, vallevs. villages, and towns of 
 
 / ' O * 
 
 Scotland, crowded meetings were held in different places. 
 Clear and eloquent addresses enlightened the public mind 
 upon the principles which the General Assembly had re- 
 cently professed ; men's consciences were convinced, and 
 enthusiastic applause manifested the adherence of the peo- 
 ple. There was a great excitement in Scotland ; an excite- 
 ment of a legitimate character, which, far from infringing 
 the laws, claimed, as a right, the execution of the most 
 solemn treaties.
 
 320 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 VI. 
 
 STRUGGLES OF THE CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 AN important event now responded mournfully to this 
 national movement, and hurried the church towards her 
 complete enfranchisement. The House of Lords was to pro- 
 nounce a final decision between the civil courts and the Gen- 
 eral Assembly. The anxious looks of Scotland were fixed 
 upon the proceedings of this tribunal. There was little hope. 
 On the one hand, how was it to be expected that a court, 
 the majority of which was composed of English and Irish 
 lords, should comprehend a Scottish question, which seemed 
 difficult even to many of the Scotch themselves ? Yet, on 
 the other hand, might it not be hoped that these powerful 
 lords, whose judgments ought to be formed on so elevated a 
 standard, would rise above those clouds which obscure the 
 sight of men who look from below ? Would not this high 
 court remember the illegal act passed by its predecessors in 
 1712, and endeavor to make amends for it? 
 
 It was not the case of Marnoch and Strathbogie but that 
 of Auchterarder and Mr. Young, which was then brought 
 before the House of Lords. The Presbytery, the majority 
 of which was composed of evangelical ministers and elders, 
 had refused to ordain Mr. Young, who was objected to by 
 almost all the communicants of the parish ; but that church 
 court had, at the same time, awarded the fruits of the bene- 
 fice to the lord patron. Nevertheless, Mr. Young brought 
 an action for damages against the ministers and elders of the 
 Presbytery, for having refused him, notwithstanding the de- 
 cision of the civil courts, that ordination of which the Word 
 of God says, "Lay hands suddenly on no man." (1 Tim. 
 v. 22.) 
 
 The House of Lords, and especially the Lord Chancellor 
 and Lord Brougham, whose opinions were changed in regard
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 321 
 
 to the Veto, decided, that for refusing to perform an act 
 which should be the most unrestrained of any that can exist, 
 the consecration of a minister to the service of God, the 
 Presbytery might be liable to an action for damages. 
 
 On hearing this strange decision, the friends of the in- 
 dependence of the church were filled with consternation. 
 " What," said they, " an assembly of ministers and elders 
 may be condemned for refusing to perform a purely spiritual 
 act, and may be fined for obeying the dictates of their con- 
 science ! All ecclesiastical government and discipline are 
 thus at once laid prostrate. Nay, there can be no longer 
 any ecclesiastical courts ; for the very essence of a court is 
 its liberty to decide according to its own convictions." 
 
 From that moment it became evident to every sound judg- 
 ment that the Church of Scotland must break off all connec- 
 tion with the state. " Nothing now remains for us," said 
 they, " but to protest against these unconstitutional invasions, 
 and to retire, leaving to Him, who is the Prince of the kings 
 of the earth, to vindicate His cause in His own time." 
 
 They must now be prepared for the event. The Lord was 
 coming in his mighty power. His angel was to visit every 
 manse, and every house in Scotland, so that there should be 
 a great cry throughout the land. It was not in the still 
 small voice that the Lord was to be heard, but in a great 
 and strong wind that rent the mountains (1 Kings, xix. 11.) 
 Scotland was to prepare to meet her God. (Amos, iv. 12.) 
 
 In the month of October, thirty-two of the oldest minis- 
 ters of this noble church, sent an address to those ministers 
 who took the deepest interest in her liberties, inviting them 
 to meet at Edinburgh on the 17th November. A spirit of 
 prayer and supplication was diffused throughout Scotland. 
 Never, perhaps, had there been in the country of John Welsh, 
 that man of prayer, such fervent and general devotion as 
 during the week preceding the Convocation. " Not only," 
 it was said, " are the liberties of the church at stake, but the 
 very existence of evangelical religion." Therefore, when 
 
 14*
 
 322 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 these ministers had left their parishes, their flocks still con- 
 tinued their meetings for prayer. Even in the country vil- 
 lages, venerable patriarchs were to be found, who remember- 
 ing that Christ has made his people a nation of priests, called 
 publicly on the name of the Lord. " The whole multitude 
 of the people were praying;" (Luke, i. 12.) crying "with a 
 loud and bitter cry." (Est. iv. 1.) 
 
 The Convocation met on the morning of the 17th of 
 December, in St. George's Church, where Dr. Chalmers 
 preached on these impressive words : " Unto the upright, 
 there ariseth light in darkness." (Psalm, cxii. 4.) On the 
 evening of the same day, the deliberations, also presided 
 over by Chalmers, commenced in another church. About 
 five hundred ministers were present. All agreed in acknowl- 
 edging, that the decisions of the civil courts were subver- 
 sive of the constitution of the church, and would shortly lead 
 to its destruction, unless a remedy could be found to prevent 
 so great an evil. 
 
 But what was the remedy to be? In this, opinions were 
 divided. 
 
 Some, considering that the British constitution had guar- 
 anteed the independence of the church, were desirous that 
 this constitution should be defended, and that the church 
 should retain her position as an establishment, until the state 
 should be compelled to change its policy by the just indig- 
 nation of the people. 
 
 But the leaders of the movement Chalmers, Candlish, 
 and Cunningham showed that this course would confound 
 civil and spiritual duties ; that the church was not answer- 
 able for the integrity of the civil constitution, and, conse- 
 quently, could not take upon herself to defend it ; and that 
 by doing so, she would infallibly produce collisions, tumults, 
 and, perhaps, even revolutions. 
 
 Renouncing, therefore those political means of resistance, 
 which had signalized the Scotland of former ages, these 
 Christian men demanded that the church should decide upon
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 323 
 
 maintaining her own independence ; and, if necessary for 
 that purpose, should relinquish her union with the state, 
 and all the temporal advantages the pastors received from 
 government. The. Convocation, which opened on the 17th 
 November, was not concluded till the 24th. Several minis- 
 ters had been obliged to return to their homes before the 
 end of the meetings, nevertheless three hundred and fifty 
 pastors signed the resolutions. 
 
 These seven days of the Convocation were a season of 
 great spiritual refreshing. A remarkable unity, a continued 
 spirit of faith and of prayer, characterized this Assembly. 
 All felt that their heavenly King, according to His promise, 
 was truly in the midst of them. 
 
 Besides the Resolutions, the Convocation agreed upon "A 
 Memorial to the Government," and " An Address to the 
 People of Scotland." This address was soon sent from 
 Edinburgh into every parish, and never perhaps has a more 
 solemn appeal been laid before a nation. The former 
 struggles which we have recounted ; with the testimonies 
 of Knox, Melvill, Welsh, Erskine, and of so many more con- 
 fessors, were eloquently recalled. 
 
 " The Church of Scotland," said these ministers, " has 
 been honored to contend not more for the doctrine of the 
 Redeemer's cross than for the honor of His Crown ; and this 
 constitutes her peculiar distinction amongst the churches 
 of the Reformation." [These words contain an important 
 truth.] 
 
 " What are the passages in your national history," they 
 afterwards continue, " which you read with the most thrill- 
 ing interest, and which you would wish to be engraven on 
 the minds of your children ? What are the scenes in your 
 land of mountain and flood, on which you gaze with feel- 
 ings too deep for utterance ? Are they not the passages 
 which record the faithful contendings of your forefathers for 
 a pure Gospel and a free church ? are they not the scenes 
 where many of them lie buried as martyrs in the cause of
 
 324 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 civil and religious freedom ? They won by their blood the 
 privileges which you are called to maintain by your efforts 
 and prayers ; and would you willingly have it said by pos- 
 terity, that you relinquished without a struggle the birth- 
 right of your children, or, that in the calm and sunshine 
 of outward prosperity, you suffered that noble vessel to go 
 down which was reared in the tempest and rocked by the 
 hurricane ?" 
 
 Thus did the ministers of the Convocation address their 
 people. What Scottish heart coiild remain unmoved ? 
 
 Yet, though the House of Lords had decided, the voice 
 of the government still remained to be heard. Would it 
 not weigh more justly the great constitutional rights on 
 which they were to decide ? 
 
 It happened otherwise. The government, after receiving 
 the memorial of the last Commission, returned an answer 
 which annihilated all the hopes of the church : an answer, 
 polite most certainly though imprudent, in which, combining 
 what the Commission had purposely kept separate, "The 
 Claim of Rights," regarding the spiritual independence of 
 the church as guaranteed by the constitution, and the " Ad- 
 dress " concerning Patronage, the British minister declared 
 that he was obliged to reject both petitions, in order to de- 
 fend the privileges of the patrons. At the same time, he 
 accused the church of attacking the rights of the state, 
 whereas the General Assembly was justly conscious of hav- 
 ing triumphantly refuted so unfounded an accusation. 
 
 Perhaps, however, this misunderstanding of the govern- 
 ment might have been expected. The English ministry, ac- 
 customed to the forms of the Episcopal Church, in which 
 the flocks have no voice, influenced by the speeches of the 
 Scottish nobles and patrons, who were both judges and par- 
 ties in the cause, and finding as much difficulty in putting 
 themselves in the place of those beyond the Tweed, as of 
 those beyond St. George's Channel, could scarcely avoid 
 mistakes. Besides this, the crown, ever since the act of
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 325 
 
 Queen Anne, had set far too high a value upon the right of 
 nominating the ministers of more than three hundred par- 
 ishes, and could not understand, that to secure the attach- 
 ment of a people like the Scotch, it would be much the 
 better way to allow them a share in church matters, and thus 
 encourage the development of Christianity, than by reserv- 
 ing the right of appointing to a benefice some insignificant 
 person recommended by a noble lord. 
 
 The adversaries of the Scottish movement likewise repre- 
 sented it in London as an affair of little importance, for the 
 sake of which it was not worth while to sacrifice advantages 
 they valued so highly. All this may explain how such a 
 distinguished statesman as Sir James Graham could commit 
 so great a fault. It is the greatest with which the Peel 
 ministry can be reproached ; but it is, at the same time, one 
 of those of which the victim may say : " Ye thought evil 
 against me ; but God meant it unto good." (Gen. 1. 20.) 
 
 According to the English ministry, (and this is even yet 
 the judgment of many good men in England,) the church 
 having infringed the law by the Veto Act, the encroach- 
 ments of the civil courts that ensued, were simply a neces- 
 sary and a natural re-action against the usurpations of the 
 church. Here, in fact, lay the difficulty of the affair ; and 
 with some little intelligence, which certainly was not want- 
 ing, and a little patience, it might have been easily unrav- 
 elled. But it appears that instead of taking the trouble to 
 until the knot, the government preferred having recourse to 
 the sword of Alexander. Even supposing the veto to be an 
 act opposed to the constitution of the United Kingdom, 
 which we do not think it was, the English government might 
 have declined to recognize it, or might have demanded some 
 modification : the church had declared her willingness to do 
 so, and had stated this in her " Address to the people of 
 Scotland." The government might even have required the 
 withdrawal of the act ; many of the most eminent men of 
 the church would have agreed to do so in a spirit of concil-
 
 326 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 iation, at the same time without sacrificing the principle 
 itself. Yet while acting in this manner towards the church, 
 the government should at the same time have declared that 
 the Court of Session, first by inducing the ministers to con- 
 tinue their functions, after having been suspended or de- 
 prived by the highest authority of the church ; and secondly, 
 by forbidding an ecclesiastical court, under pain of civil pun- 
 ishments, to lay hands on certain probationers, had done 
 what no Scottish tribunal had ever been or could ever be al- 
 lowed to do. By thus tolerating such usurpations in the 
 civil courts, and throwing all the blame on the church, and 
 none on the Court of Session, the government exhibited a 
 partiality much to be regretted, and really made use of two 
 weights and two measures ; giving Scotland reason to fear, 
 that they had determined upon the destruction of those 
 spiritual rights for which their fathers had striven for so 
 many centuries ; and that the final aim of the cabinet of St. 
 James's was to overthrow the independence of the Church 
 of Scotland, and bury it forever in the crypts of the Home 
 Office. 
 
 The Commission of the General Assembly again met, and 
 at the same time decided upon an answer to the Govern- 
 ment, and a petition to the House of Commons, the only 
 one of the three powers which had not yet declared itself. 
 In a most eloquent speech, Chalmers asserted that the evan- 
 gelical body must inevitably be driven from the establish- 
 ment, and should consequently prepare without delay for 
 this serious event. " Come when it may," said he, " Scot- 
 land must not be taken by surprise, and laid helpless and 
 hopeless at the feet of her enemies. Scotland must become 
 an experimental garden, covered witli churches and with 
 schools." 
 
 This appeal of the venerable patriarch of Scotland was 
 well responded to. Numerous meetings of elders, in concert 
 with the evangelical ministers, founded a provisional com- 
 mittee to provide for the approaching crisis. Every thing
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 327 
 
 was prepared for the support of the pastors, and the erection 
 of churches ; and deputations were sent throughout the 
 country, commissioned to explain to the people the great 
 principles, for the defence of which the bark of the church 
 was about to launch into a dangerous sea, and to sustain 
 the terrible collision of the vessel of the state. The response 
 of the people was instantaneous, and the deputations were 
 everywhere enthusiastically welcomed. " The martyr spirit 
 is yet alive in Scotland," said the deputies on their return ; 
 " Scotland's heart is still as sound as ever." 
 
 Associations, formed all over the kingdom, entered into 
 correspondence with the Provisional Committee at Edin- 
 burgh. This committee issued weekly communications, 
 copies of which were sent to the Provisional Associations, 
 to the number of one hundred and fifty thousand. This 
 mighty activity is one of the finest features of the Scottish 
 character. 
 
 . The House of Commons had not yet decided, and the 
 cause of Scottish liberty was to find within its walls several 
 zealous and eloquent defenders. The son of one of the 
 Scottish peers, the Honorable Fox Maule, now Secretary- 
 at-War, having presented to the House the petition of the 
 Commission, clearly stated the question on the 7th of 
 March, and the motion was eloquently defended by Mr. 
 Rutherford, Mr. P. M. Stuart, and Mr. Campbell, of Monzie. 
 An English member, who has now succeeded Sir James 
 Graham in the Home Department, Sir George Grey, sup- 
 ported it with generosity and calmness. But it was opposed 
 by Sir James Graham and Sir Robert Peel. Of the Scottish 
 members of the House, there were twenty-five for the mo- 
 tion, and only twelve against it. Scotland was thus in favor 
 of the liberties of the Presbyterian Church ; but the English 
 and Irish formed a majority, who voted in a contrary direc- 
 tion. The motion was rejected, by 211 against 76. 
 
 So voted the House of Commons. All was now over. 
 The three powers had decided. All human tribunals had
 
 328 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 now closed their ears against the complaint of the Church. 
 Every thing seemed to say to her, like the prophet, " Set thy 
 house in order, for thou shalt die." (Isaiah, xxxviii.) But 
 there remained a refuge for the people of God within her. 
 There remained for them an appeal to the heavenly tribunal, 
 to the judgment-seat of Him who " killeth and maketh 
 alive ; who bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up." 
 (1 Samuel, ii. 6.) 
 
 From this time all hearts were raised to heaven, and all 
 eyes were turned to the General Assembly, which was to 
 meet in the month of May ; and the government party made 
 every effort, in order that members, favorable to the decis- 
 ions of the civil courts, should form a majority in it. The 
 motive of such endeavors is evident. If the evangelical 
 party should be the stronger in the Assembly, the church 
 would then, by the decision of her highest authority, for- 
 mally renounce her union with the state, and the Moderates 
 would be obliged to create a new church, which they wished 
 by all means to avoid. The party opposed to ecclesiastical 
 independence obtained their desired object, not, however, it 
 would appear, without some illegal encroachments. There 
 were also a few ministers who, when the time of trial came, 
 were offended. When the trumpet called to battle, the 
 courage of several cooled, and their hearts turned aside from 
 the conflict. 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE DISRUPTION. 
 
 A GREAT dilemma was now set before the ministers and 
 members of the Church of Scotland. " Should the church 
 sink at once into a mere secular institution, the creature and 
 servant of the state ; or should she retain her God-given 
 principles in all their holy and free integrity, and resign that 
 position and those emoluments which could no longer be re- 
 tained without dishonor ?" It was thought by many worldly
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 329 
 
 people, that most of those who had spoken so loudly for the 
 independence of the church, would fail at the last moment. 
 The hour was approaching when the question would be re- 
 solved. 
 
 On Monday, the 15th of May, only three days before the 
 opening of the Assembly, a great number of ministers and 
 elders repaired to Edinburgh, to consult upon their final 
 measures. Lord Aberdeen had endeavored to avert the 
 coming storm, by proposals, against which Dr. Gordon, and 
 Mr. Campbell, of Monzie, a member of parliament, declared 
 themselves in the preparatory meeting, with much serious- 
 ness and energy. It was finally settled, that as soon as the 
 General Assembly should meet, the evangelical body should 
 protest, and then retire to form themselves into a distinct 
 Assembly. Mr. Dunlop was intrusted with the drawing up 
 of the protest. Thus these evangelical Christians of Scot- 
 land prepared to do what had been done three hundred and 
 fourteen years before, by their illustrious predecessors in the 
 famous diet of Spire. New Protestants were to show them- 
 selves in the church, and take their place in history, though 
 on a less elevated platform, beside the elector of Saxony, 
 the landgrave of Hesse, the deputy Sturm, and the prince 
 of Anhalt. " The thing that hath been, it is that which 
 shall be ; and that which is done, is that which shall be 
 done : and there is no new thing under the sun." (Eccl. i. 9.) 
 
 The 18th of May arrived. A bright sun was shining in 
 the generally cloudy sky of Scotland, and announced a love- 
 ly day of spring. The great and the noble, magistrates and 
 ministers, elders and humble Christians, men and women 
 drawn together, some by fervent love for the church of their 
 fathers, and others by mere curiosity, thronged in animated 
 crowds the streets of the ancient capital. Holyrood, where 
 all the year a dreary silence and a majestic void prevail, opened 
 its gates, its courts, its anti-chambers, and its royal saloons. 
 At last the Lord High Commissioner of her Majesty came 
 forth with great pomp, and advanced slowly at the head of a
 
 330 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 long procession to the cathedral of St. Giles'. There Dr. 
 Welsh, the Moderator of the preceding Assembly, delivered 
 an eloquent discourse on that text so full of meaning, " Let 
 every one be fully persuaded in his own mind." (Rom. xiv. 5.) 
 
 The service over, the Lord High Commissioner and all his 
 suite again entered the royal carriages, and all proceeded to- 
 wards St. Andrew's Church, where the General Assembly 
 was to sit. 
 
 The grandest spectacle that ever Scotland beheld was now 
 preparing. The church was to take leave of the state. The 
 two societies were to give each other the bill of divorcement. 
 The multitude, everywhere eager after excitement, but which 
 then in Edinburgh was in a great measure agitated by the 
 noblest feelings, crowded and jostled each other in the streets 
 between the two churches of St. Giles' and St. Andrew's. 
 A considerable body of policemen could with difficulty open 
 a passage through the crowd for the Queen's representative. 
 At length the brilliant possession passed along, and then 
 those sons of Scotland, who had looked with almost an indif- 
 ferent eye upon this splendor, were thrilled on beholding the 
 humble representatives of the oppressed church, advancing 
 on foot, anxious, yet grave and determined, preparing to bear 
 testimony before the great ones of the nation, and as it were, 
 in the presence of the whole Church of Christ. This frail 
 bark, which contained a few poor but faithful disciples, but 
 where Christ " was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on 
 a pillow," (Mark, iv. 38.) moved onward through the multi- 
 tude, and the agitated waves having opened for its passage, 
 immediately closed behind it. 
 
 From an early hour in the morning, the galleries of St. 
 Andrew's Church were filled with a crowd of spectators, who 
 had passed many weary hours in expectation. Suddenly, a 
 noise and bustle without announced that the moment was at 
 hand. The measured tramp of slowly advancing steeds, the 
 sounds of martial music, the cheers of the people, heralded 
 the arrival of the Queen's representative. He entered, and
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 331 
 
 took his seat on the throne, surrounded by his pages and 
 officers. 
 
 The members of Assembly entered after him and took their 
 places in the body of the church, some on the right hand, 
 others on the left. On the Evangelical side, there were se- 
 rious looks, grave faces, and that awed and solemn counte- 
 nance which characterizes men engaged in a sacred and per- 
 ilous work. On the side of the Moderates, an embarrassed 
 and foreboding look was to be observed, with the conscious- 
 ness that the victory now to be won would prove, in reality, 
 a great defeat to the church. The Moderator, David Welsh, 
 whom God has now taken to his heavenly home, opened the 
 meeting with a fervent prayer. 
 
 Then a. pause ensued no one spoke ; no one stirred. All 
 was silent and motionless. Thousands of anxious hearts 
 were waiting in expectation, and every man seemed to hold 
 his breath, as in fear of losing one of the words that were 
 now to be uttered in this sacred place, and to decide the des- 
 tiny of the Church of God. 
 
 The Moderator then took up the Protest which had been 
 prepared, and gravely pronounced the following words, 
 amidst the most profound and solemn silence : 
 
 " According to the usual form of procedure, this is the 
 time for making up the roll ; but in consequence of certain 
 proceedings affecting our rights and privileges, proceedings 
 which have been sanctioned by Her Majesty's government 
 "and by the legislature of the country, and more especially in 
 respect that there has been an infringement on the liberties 
 of our constitution, so that we could not now constitute this 
 Court without a violation of the terms of the union between 
 Church and State in this land, as now authoritatively de- 
 clared, I must protest against our proceeding further. The 
 reasons that have led me to this conclusion are fully set forth 
 in the document which I hold in my hand, and which, with 
 permission of the House, I shall now proceed to read." He 
 then read the protest.
 
 332 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 " We, the undersigned ministers and elders, chosen as 
 Commissioners to the General Assembly of the Church of 
 Scotland, indicted to meet this day, but precluded from hold- 
 ing the said Assembly by reason of the circumstances here- 
 inafter set forth, in consequence of which a Free Assembly 
 of the Church of Scotland, in accordance with the laws and 
 constitutions of the said Church, cannot at this time be 
 holden 
 
 " Considering that the legislature, by their rejection of the 
 Claim of Right adopted by the last General Assembly of the 
 said Church, and their refusal to give redress and protection 
 against the jurisdiction assumed, and the coercion of late 
 repeatedly attempted to be exercised over the Courts of the 
 Church in matters spiritual by the Civil Courts, have rec- 
 ognized and fixed the conditions of the Church Establish- 
 ment, as henceforward to subsist in Scotland, to be such as 
 these have been pronounced and declared by the said Civil 
 Courts in their several recent decisions, in regard to matters 
 spiritual and ecclesiastical, whereby it has been held, inter 
 alia, 
 
 " 1st, That the Courts of the Church by law established, 
 and members thereof, are liable to be coerced by the Civil 
 Courts in the exercise of their spiritual functions, and, in par- 
 ticular, in the admission to the office of the holy ministry, 
 and the constitution of the pastoral relation, and that they 
 are subject to be compelled to intrude ministers on reclaim- 
 ing congregations in opposition to the fundamental principles 
 of the Church, and their views of the Word of God, and to 
 the liberties of Christ's people. 
 
 " 2d, That the said Civil Courts have power to interfere 
 with and interdict the preaching of the Gospel and admin- 
 istration of ordinances as authorized and enjoined by the 
 Church Courts of the Establishment. 
 
 " 3d, That the said Civil Courts have power to suspend 
 spiritual censures pronounced by the Church Courts of the 
 Establishment against ministers and probationers of the
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 333 
 
 Church, and to interdict their execution as to spiritual ef- 
 fects, functions, and privileges. 
 
 " 4th, That the said Civil Courts have power to reduce 
 and set aside the sentences of the Church Courts of the 
 Establishment, deposing ministers from the office of the 
 holy ministry, and depriving probationers of their license to 
 preach the Gospel, with reference to the spiritual status, 
 functions, and privileges of such ministers and probationers 
 restoring them to the spiritual office and status of which 
 the church courts had deprived them. 
 
 " oth, That the said Civil Courts have power to deter- 
 mine on the right to sit as members of the supreme and 
 other judicatories of the church by law established, and to 
 issue interdicts against sitting and voting therein, irrespec- 
 tive of the judgment and determination of the said judica- 
 tories. 
 
 " 6th, That the said Civil Courts have power to super- 
 sede the majority of a Church Court of the Establishment, 
 in regard to the exercise of its spiritual functions as a 
 Church Court, and to authorize the minority to exercise the 
 said functions, in opposition to the Court itself, and to the 
 superior judicatories of the Establishment. 
 
 " 7th, That the said Civil Courts have power to stay pro- 
 cesses of discipline pending before Courts of the Church by 
 law established, and to interdict such Courts from proceed- 
 ing therein. 
 
 " 8th, That no pastor of a congregation can be admitted 
 into the Church Courts of the Establishment, and allowed 
 to rule, as well as to teach, agreeably to the institution of 
 the office by the Head of the Church, nor to sit in any of the 
 judicatories of the Church, inferior or supreme and that no 
 additional provision can be made for the exercise of spiritual 
 discipline among the members of the Church, though not 
 affecting any patrimonial interests, and no alteration intro- 
 duced in the state of pastoral superintendence and spiritual 
 discipline in any parish, without the sanction of a Civil Court.
 
 334 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 " All which jurisdiction and power on the part of the said 
 Civil Courts severally above specified, whatever proceeding 
 may have given occasion to its exercise, is, in our opinion, 
 in itself, inconsistent with Christian liberty, and with the 
 authority which the Head of the Church hath conferred on 
 the Church alone. 
 
 " And further considering, that a General Assembly, 
 composed, in accordance with the laws and fundamental 
 principles of the Church, in part of commissioners themselves 
 admitted without the sanction of the Civil Court, or chosen 
 by Presbyteries composed in part of members not having 
 that sanction, cannot be constituted as an Assembly of the 
 Establishment without disregarding the law and the legal 
 conditions of the same as now fixed and declared ; 
 
 " And further considering, that such commissioners as 
 aforesaid would, as members of an Assembly of the Estab- 
 lishment, be liable to be interdicted from exercising their 
 functions, and to be subject to civil coercion at the instance 
 of any individual having interest who might apply to the 
 Civil Courts for that purpose ; 
 
 " And considering further, that civil coercion has already 
 been in divers instances applied for and used, whereby cer- 
 tain commissioners returned to the Assembly this day ap- 
 pointed to have been holden, have been interdicted from 
 claiming their seats, and from sitting and voting therein ; and 
 certain Presbyteries have been, by interdicts directed against 
 their members, prevented from freely choosing commission- 
 ers to the said Assembly, whereby the freedom of such As- 
 sembly, and the liberty of election thereto, has been forcibly 
 obstructed and taken away ; 
 
 " And further considering, that, in these circumstances, a 
 free Assembly of the Church of Scotland, by law established, 
 cannot at this time be holden, and that an Assembly, in ac- 
 cordance with the fundamental principles of the Church can- 
 not be constituted in connection with the State without vio- 
 lating the conditions which must now, since the rejection by
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 335 
 
 the legislature of the Church's Claim of Right, be held to be 
 the conditions of the Establishment ; 
 
 " And considering that, while heretofore, as members of 
 church judicatories ratified by law and recognized by the 
 constitution of the kingdom, we held ourselves entitled and 
 bound to exercise and maintain the jurisdiction vested in 
 these judicatories with the sanction of the constitution, not- 
 withstanding the decrees as to matters spiritual and ecclesi- 
 astical of the Civil Courts, because we could not see that 
 the State had required submission thereto as a condition of 
 the Establishment, but, on the contrary, were satisfied that 
 the State, by the acts of the Parliament of Scotland, forever 
 and unalterably secured to this nation by the Treaty of Union, 
 had repudiated any power in the Civil Courts to pronounce 
 such decrees, we are now constrained to acknowledge it to 
 be the mind and will of the State, as recently declared, that 
 such submission should and does form a condition of the 
 Establishment, and of the possession of the benefits thereof ; 
 and that as we cannot, without committing what we believe 
 to be sin in opposition to God's law in disregard of the 
 honor and authority of Christ's crown, and in violation of 
 our own solemn vows, comply with this condition, we cannot 
 in conscience continue connected with, and retain the bene- 
 fits of an establishment to which such condition is attached. 
 
 " We, therefore, the ministers and elders foresaid, on this, 
 the first occasion since the rejection by the legislature of the 
 Church's Claim of Right, when the commissioners chosen 
 from throughout the bounds of the Church to the General 
 Assembly, appointed to have been this day holden, are con- 
 vened together, do protest, that the conditions foresaid, while 
 we deem them contrary to and subversive of the settlement 
 of church government effected at the Revolution, and sol- 
 emnly guaranteed by the Act of Security and Treaty of 
 Union, are also at variance with God's Word, in opposition 
 to the doctrines and fundamental principles of the Church 
 of Scotland, inconsistent with the freedom essential to the
 
 336 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 right constitution of the Church of Christ, and incompatible 
 with the government which He, as the Head of the Church, 
 hath therein appointed distinct from the civil magistrate. 
 
 " And we further protest, that any Assembly constituted 
 in submission to the conditions now declared to be law, and 
 under the civil coercion which has been brought to bear on 
 
 O 
 
 the election of commissioners to the Assembly this day ap- 
 pointed to have been holden, and on the commissioners 
 chosen thereto, is not and shall not be deemed a lawful and 
 free Assembly of the Church of Scotland, according to the 
 original and fundamental principles thereof; and that the 
 Claim, Declaration, and Protest of the General Assembly 
 which convened at Edinburgh hi May 1842, as the act of a 
 free and lawful Assembly of the said Church, shall be holden 
 as setting forth the true constitution of the said Church, 
 and that the said Claim, along with the laws of the Church 
 now subsisting, shall in nowise be affected by whatsoever 
 acts and proceedings of any Assembly constituted under the 
 conditions now declared to be the law, and in submission to 
 the coercion now imposed on the Establishment. 
 
 " And, finally, while firmly asserting the right and duty 
 of the civil magistrate to maintain and support an establish- 
 ment of religion in accordance with God's Word, and reserv- 
 ing to ourselves and our successors to strive by all lawful 
 means, as opportunity shall in God's good providence be 
 offered, to secure the performance of this duty agreeably to 
 the Scriptures, and in implement of the statutes of the king- 
 dom of Scotland, and the obligations of the Treaty of Union 
 as understood by us and our ancestors, but acknowledging 
 that we do not hold ourselves at liberty to retain the benefits 
 of the Establishment, while we cannot comply with the con- 
 ditions now to be deemed thereto attached we protest, that 
 in the circumstances in which we are placed, it is and shall 
 be lawful for us, and such other commissioners chosen to the 
 Assembly appointed to have been this day holden, as may 
 concur with us, to withdraw to a separate place of meeting,
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 337 
 
 for the purpose of taking steps for ourselves and all who ad- 
 here to us maintaining with us the Confession of Faith and 
 standards of the Church of Scotland, as heretofore under- 
 stood for separating in an orderly way from the Establish- 
 ment ; and thereupon adopting such measures as may be 
 competent to us in humble dependence on God's grace and 
 the aid of the Holy Spirit, for the advancement of His glory, 
 the extension of the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour, and the 
 administration of the affairs of Christ's house, according to 
 His Holy Word ; and we do now, for the purpose foresaid, 
 withdraw accordingly, humbly and solemnly acknowledging 
 the hand of the Lord in the things which have come upon 
 us, because of our manifold sins, and the sins of this Church 
 and nation ; but, at the same time, with an assured convic- 
 tion, that we are not responsible for any consequences that 
 may follow from this our enforced separation from an Estab- 
 lishment which we loved and prized through interference 
 with conscience, the dishonor done to Christ's crown, and 
 the rejection of His sole and supreme authority as King in 
 His Church." 
 
 The reading of the Protest was listened to in deep silence. 
 When the Moderator had finished he left his chair, laid the 
 document on the table of the Assembly, and bowing respect- 
 fully to the throne on which sat the representative of Her 
 Majesty, gravely withdrew, and left the church. Minister 
 after minister, elder after elder, all that was most eminent 
 in the Church of Scotland for piety, for zeal, and for talent, 
 now calmly rose and followed the Moderator, till all the 
 benches occupied by the Evangelical members, to the left of 
 the throne, were entirely empty. The Lord High Commis- 
 sioner, whose noble heart was full of affection for the Church 
 of Scotland, his attendants, and the whole of the Moderate 
 party, gazed upon the spectacle with astonishment and fear. 
 The government had been assured that there were not thirty, 
 not even fifteen of the members of Assembly who would 
 leave the Establishment ; and now, row was added to row ; 
 
 15
 
 338 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS . 
 
 a hundred, two, three hundred, and yet more, arose, and de- 
 parted. The spectators in the galleries, filled with the deepest 
 sympathy, could hardly suppress their deep-drawn sighs and 
 enthusiastic cheers of admiration. 
 
 The Exodus of the Church of Scotland was accomplishing, 
 the march of her leaders towards the door of the temple 
 was advancing ; an angel of God, though invisible, was mov- 
 ing before them. They had been required to rivet the 
 chains forged by illegal resolutions. They burst those dis- 
 graceful fetters, they threw them at the foot of the throne ; 
 and poor, but free, they left those walls wherein their fathers 
 had so hardily fought in the cause of liberty, and which 
 powerful men were attmepting to change into a -house of 
 bondage. 
 
 On the outside of the church, the crowd was in a state of 
 eager expectation. The excited people were only separated 
 by a wall from the important scene now transacting within, 
 and yet could know nothing of what was going on. Many 
 thought that at the last hour some tardy measure of justice, 
 granted by the government, would put an end to the differ- 
 ence. Others thought, that at the decisive moment, the 
 hearts of the servants of the Church would fail them, and 
 that they would remain, as it were, nailed to their seats. 
 "Are they coming out?" asked some. "They will come:" 
 " They will not come :" " Not seven will come out." 
 Hardly were these words spoken, when the door opened, and 
 the fathers of the Church of Scotland appeared before the 
 multitude of their brethren. " Here they come ! here they 
 come !" was shouted on all sides. The work was done. The 
 Church is free. " Our soul is escaped, as a bird out of the 
 snare of the fowler ; the snare is broken, and we are escaped." 
 (Psalm cxxiv.) 
 
 Hands, hats, and handkerchiefs, were waving in the air. 
 Not only in the street, the stairs, the doors and the win- 
 dows, but even on the roofs of the houses these signs of en- 
 thusiasm were exhibited. Wherever a foot could stand,
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 339 
 
 wherever a hand could cling, was some son of Scotland and 
 the Church, saluting with acclamations her noble defenders. 
 The whole people were in a state of unprecedented excite- 
 ment. A shout, not loud and piercing, but a shout half- 
 suppressed by deep emotion, a shout proceeding from the 
 depths of the heart, resounded in the streets of the metrop- 
 olis. 
 
 The ministers and elders, forming a long procession, and 
 followed by a vast multitude, prepared to descend the hill 
 to constitute a new Assembly. But they were not alone in 
 taking that direction. Deputations from the Presbyterian 
 churches of America, Ireland, and England, and from the 
 Scottish seceders, had come, according to custom, to present 
 to the Assembly their fraternal salutations. These deputa- 
 tions had to examine which of the two Assemblies repre- 
 sented the Church of Scotland. All of them, without hesi- 
 tation, turned from the national pomp of St. Andrew's, and 
 followed the humble footsteps of the Protesting Church. 
 The Irish Presbyterians themselves, though supported by 
 the English government, were not held back by the fear of 
 seeing their Regium Donum imperilled. This is a witness 
 from without which has never been retracted. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE FREE CHURCH. 
 
 THE procession moved onward. It descended that long 
 and spacious street which, from the heights of the New Town, 
 leads' down to the valley wherein flows the water of Leith. 
 The immense concourse that filled the street was so closely 
 wedged together, that it seemed impossible for the ministers 
 to make way through it. There were neither policemen nor 
 soldiers to force a passage ; but another more powerful, more 
 sublime agent, a feeling of respect, o'f admiration and of 
 love, was at hand to move these masses. As if by an in-
 
 340 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 stantaneous impulse, the crowd opened on the right and on 
 the left, and formed in the middle of the street a long lane, 
 down which four ministers could walk abreast. And be- 
 tween these double rows of the sons and daughters of Cale- 
 donia, animated with the strongest emotion, with Welsh at 
 the head, the only one arrayed in the Geneva gown, the 
 venerable defenders of the independence of the Church of 
 Christ walked calmly and steadily down the beautiful decliv- 
 ity, on whose summit the State sat enthroned. 
 
 The vast and plain Hall of Tanfield, the Cannon Mills, in 
 which, two years afterwards, I myself saw the General As- 
 sembly, had been prepared for the Protesters. More than 
 three thousand Christians were awaiting them there. Welsh 
 opened the meeting with a solemn prayer, in which he gave 
 thanks to God for the strength afforded by His spirit to His 
 servants in the hour of trial. During this prayer, sobs were 
 audible, and the most manly faces were bathed in tears. 
 When it ended, the whole multitude stood up to sing the 
 praises of the Lord ; the first hymn of the Free Church arose 
 to heaven, and the Angel of the Covenant offered it before 
 the throne of God (Rev. viii. 3.) 
 
 On the motion of Dr. Welsh, Dr. Chalmers was chosen by 
 acclamation the first Moderator of the Free Protesting Church 
 of Scotland. Chalmers, in his opening speech, recalled the 
 principles on which the step then taken had been founded. 
 The Assembly received as members all the ministers who had 
 signed the Protest, and an elder from each parish. Every 
 thing was then prepared for signing the Deed of Demission. 
 
 This act was read in the Assembly on Wednesday, the 
 23d of May. All other business was suspended, that every 
 heart might be solemnly devoted to the Lord. The roll was 
 then called. The ministers and elders arose by tens, moved 
 to the platform behind the Moderator's chair, and there, with 
 steady hearts and hands, signed the act by which, for the 
 cause of Christ, they renounced all their worldly goods, and 
 their position in society. Many of them sacrificed all they
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 341 
 
 had, even all their living. The amount of the revenue was 
 more than a hundred thousand pounds ; which these brethren 
 joyfully relinquished for the sake of Him who has said, 
 " Every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, 
 or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my 
 name's sake, shall receive an hundred-fold, and shall inherit 
 everlasting life." (Matt. xix. 29.) No one swerved; young 
 and old alike traced with a determined hand the few strokes 
 which signed away their all. The execution of this act oc- 
 cupied five hours, and during that time, the Assembly re- 
 mained in silent emotion, watching with respect the devoted- 
 ness of its leaders. Four hundred and seventy-four ministers 
 resigned their benefices, either then, or shortly afterwards ; 
 about two thousand elders adhered to the act ; both numbers 
 united, formed the majority of the office-bearers of the 
 Church. The majority of the Church members, in full com- 
 munion, was also ranged on the side of liberty. 
 
 Such was the disruption and the creation of the Free 
 Church. 
 
 But the sacrifice then accomplished in the Hall of Tanfield 
 was not the greatest. The ministers had to return to the 
 mountains, to the plains, even to the remotest shores of 
 Scotland, to bring their wives and children from their homes. 
 The hour was at hand when Jesus was to say in every manse : 
 " If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and 
 take up his cross, and follow me." (Matt. xvi. 24.) Hun- 
 dreds in Scotland were then fulfilling this Christian duty, 
 and, taking the cross upon their shoulders, were ready to 
 exclaim, " Lord, here am I." How many scenes were then 
 enacting enough to break the hardest heart ! 
 
 In a certain part of the country, two ministers were con- 
 versing a short time before the disruption. " Do you think 
 there is no chance of a settlement ?" said the minister of the 
 place to his friend. " We are as certain of being out, as that 
 the sun will rise to-morrow," replied the other. A groan 
 was heard : it came from the very heart of the mother of the
 
 342 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 family ; they had had many trials in their day ; there had 
 been cradles and coffins in their home, and the place was en- 
 deared to the mother by many associations ; there was not a 
 flower, or a shrub, or a tree, that was not dear to her some 
 of them were planted by the hands of those who were in 
 their graves, and that poor woman's heart was like to burst. 
 But grace was mightier than nature, and when the day of 
 trial arrived, she came forth as readily as her husband, al- 
 though it was breaking her very heartstrings to leave a home 
 where she had expected to breathe her last, and to be laid in 
 the church-yard, among the ashes of her children. 
 
 In another instance, there was a venerable mother in Christ, 
 who had gone to the place in the days of her youth, when 
 it was a wilderness, but who with her husband had turned 
 it into an Eden. Her husband had died there. Her son was 
 now the minister. That venerable widow and mother, like 
 Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, had seen the snows and sor- 
 rows of eighty years accumulate upon her head, and like an 
 aged tree which has fixed its roots deeply in the soil, she 
 was attached to this home of her youth by the dearest affec- 
 tions. All her anxieties, her prayers to God, were for two 
 things : either that the church should come to a right settle- 
 ment with the state ; or, if that should fail, that then her 
 son should do his duty. The disruption came ; all was to be 
 given up, and this venerable Mother in Israel was the first to 
 go forth ; and she found in her new home, by the blessing of 
 Christ, more health and happiness than she had enjoyed for 
 a long time before. 
 
 Some time ago, a minister was walking by moonlight with 
 another, Mr. Guthrie, who is restoring manses to the serv- 
 ants of God throughout Scotland. The two companions 
 were passing before the beloved home which the former of 
 them had left for the cause of truth. No light shone from 
 the house, and no smoke rose above the roof. Pointing to 
 it in the moonlight, Mr. Guthrie said, " Oh, my friend, it was 
 a noble thing to leave that house." " Ah yes," he replied,
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 343 
 
 " it was a noble thing ; but for all that it was a bitter thing. 
 I shall never forget the night I left that house till I am laid 
 in the grave. When I saw my wife and children go forth 
 in the gloaming, when I saw them for the last time leave our 
 own door, and when in the dark I was left alone, with none 
 but my God in that house, and when I had to take water and 
 quench the fire on my own hearth, and put out the candle in 
 my own house, and turn the key against myself, and my 
 wife, and my little ones that night God, in his mercy, grant 
 that such a night I may never see again ! it was a noble 
 thing to leave the manse, and I bless God for the grace which 
 was given to me ; but for all that, it was a cruel and bitter 
 night to me." 
 
 In another place, in the Highlands, when the last evening 
 had arrived, a poor minister placed his wife and children in 
 a rough cart, and walking behind them, began to cross the 
 mountains. A heavy snow storm was then raging on that 
 elevated spot. The mountain was white, although it was 
 summer time, and the sky was dark. This poor family went 
 on amidst the driving snow and cutting wind. " We knew 
 not where to find a place to dwell in," said the minister ; 
 " but never did I know so much of the peace of God as I 
 did that night. Thus are fulfilled the Saviour's precious 
 promises : ' The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.' " 
 
 The ministers, thus obliged to leave their manses and their 
 churches, were not idle. On the first Sunday after the As- 
 sembly these faithful Servants of the Word of God were 
 preaching everywhere in halls, in barns, or in the fields, to 
 great multitudes, who listened with eagerness to their words. 
 The prayers and discourses were filled with a renewed spir- 
 ituality. The Comforter Himself taught his people. Never, 
 perhaps, had the Gospel been so powerfully proclaimed in 
 Scotland, to so many hearers hungering for the Word of 
 Life. From Sabbath to Sabbath, nay, even from day to day, 
 the faithful met together, the ministers preached, and Jesus 
 Christ was glorified.
 
 344 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 How can we refuse a just tribute of admiration to the 
 constitution and government of Britain, which thus protected 
 in their full extent the liberties of the exiled ministers, and 
 of their congregations ? Yet, alas ! in many places the ill- 
 will of the landlords has taken the place of the ill-will of 
 the government. While the flag of modern freedom has 
 been hoisted on the palace of Victoria, the old and faded 
 colors of feudal despotism still hang, though tattered and 
 drooping, over the ancient turrets of some lordly mansions. 
 At Canobie, the Free Christians, driven by the landlord from 
 a waste land, where they had at first assembled, removed to 
 the high road, and turned it into a church. At Wanlock- 
 head, the congregation consisting of two hundred and seven- 
 ty-four communicants, met in a wild ravine, amid rugged 
 mountains, five hundred yards from the village. At Toro- 
 say, in the island of Mull, a gravel pit served for a temple. 
 At Duthill, in which there were a thousand adherents of the 
 Free Church, they met in a wood of Scotch firs, situated in 
 a hollow. And not only at the first moment, but up to this 
 very hour, even during the last severe and tempestuous win- 
 ter, women, children, and aged men of the above-mentioned 
 churches, and many others besides, have had no other shelter 
 than the arch of heaven. " Pray that your flight may not be 
 in winter," said Jesus : yet, one season after another, the 
 same distresses have afflicted our brethren, and that, not un- 
 der the mild sky of Palestine, but in the icy atmosphere of 
 Caledonia : and the days are not yet shortened. In many 
 places they preached on the sands of the shore, in the place 
 left free by the retiring tide, and which belongs to no one but 
 the ocean, for once, more kind and generous than man. In 
 another place, in a deep gully, where the cliff's are some 
 hundred feet high, a hollow has been closed in from the sea 
 by a barrier of rocks, down a precipice, where Claverhouse 
 himself would not have sought his victims; and there, a 
 minister with his congregation has raised his voice to Heaven 
 during two years. The waves of the Atlantic, roaring around
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 345 
 
 them, have afforded them a shelter which their haughty 
 landlords, reclining softly in their London palaces, have 
 dared to deny them. For the Elect's sake, May the Lord 
 shorten these days ! (Mark, xiii. 20.) 
 
 The ministers were often but little better lodged during 
 the week, than their flocks were at the hour of worship dur- 
 ing the Lord's Day. One minister and his family were so 
 straitened for accommodation, that when they would unite 
 in their family devotions, they had not even room to kneel in 
 their miserable dwelling. Some ministers live in places as 
 damp as cellars, where a candle will not burn. One is ob- 
 liged to sit all day with his great-coat on ; another sees the 
 curtains of his bed shake at night, like the sails of a ship in 
 a storm. A third took refuge in a house open to every wind 
 of heaven. On getting up one morning, he wondered to 
 find it more comfortable than usual ; and looking up, he dis- 
 covered that a heavy shower of snow had fallen, and stopped 
 up all the crevices of the roof. The Lord thus makes the 
 snow his minister to shelter his servants. 
 
 Yet though the bush was burning it was not consumed. 
 Nee tamen consumebatur. While these things were in prog- 
 ress, immense efforts were making by the evangelical peo- 
 ple of Scotland. True, it might be said, " not many mighty, 
 not many noble," were among them. (1 Cor. i. 26.) Farm- 
 ers, artisans, shop-keepers, and small proprietors, all of them 
 living by labor, and obliged to use great economy these, 
 with a few rich merchants, and two or three noblemen, form 
 the Free Church of Scotland. Nevertheless, churches were 
 built throughout the land, with the assistance of some foreign 
 brethren, particularly from America ; and after a time, six 
 hundred of these pretty Free Churches, which everywhere 
 arrest the attention of a stranger in Scotland, always pleas- 
 ing, and yet modest in their aspect, arose as monuments of the 
 freedom and piety of her people. During the first year, the 
 contributions paid into the hands of the treasurer, amounted 
 to 41 8,71 9Z. The total sum gathered during the first three 
 
 11*
 
 346 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 years was 1,001,4792. 17s., besides considerable sums col- 
 lected for local purposes. Never perhaps was more mightily 
 fulfilled these words of the Lord : " Thou shalt have delight in 
 the Almighty, and thou shalt have plenty of silver" (Job, xxii. 
 23.) ; and "There is no end of thy treasures." (Isaiah, ii. 7.) 
 
 In the month of March last, the number of congregations 
 and associations adhering to the Free Church amounted to 
 eight hundred and twenty-three ; that is a considerable in- 
 crease, but there were one hundred and sixty-nine who had 
 no minister. Happily, however, the number of Divinity 
 students at the Free College is sufficient speedily to supply 
 these vacancies. 
 
 'Notwithstanding her own necessities, the Free Church 
 does not confine herself to Scotland. She sends her mis- 
 sionaries to distant lands, to the heathen of the Ganges, to 
 the Jews of Europe and of Palestine, and ministers to the 
 numerous colonies of Britain. Nay, more, one of her first 
 cares has been to fraternize with the Evangelical churches 
 of all countries ; and we know with what generosity, not- 
 withstanding her poverty, and her own wants, she has 
 stretched forth a helping hand towards the evangelization of 
 continental Europe. 
 
 Here we stop giving thanks to the King of Sion for this 
 work which His wisdom and His love have accomplished in 
 Scotland ; and praying Him to grant, that the Word of faith, 
 of life, and of liberty, which He has so abundantly shed, and 
 which He has commissioned this Church to diffuse over the 
 world, may become one of those streams which " issue out 
 from under the threshold of the House of the Lord," and of 
 which the Holy Spirit says, that "all whithersoever the 
 waters shall come, shall live." (Ezek. xlvii. ] . 9.) 
 
 One day, a few months since, in the north of Scotland, a 
 traveller was at the foot of Benmore Assynt, near the lake 
 of Assynt, which stretches its waters for fourteen miles 
 among the most romantic mountains. The traveller was 
 contemplating the castle of M'Leod, whose ancient walls rise
 
 SCOTTISH STRUGGLES. 347 
 
 close by the side of the lake. " There," said he, "is the 
 place where the Marquis of Montrose, an old renegade and 
 apostate, met with a renegade's fate ! He betrayed the cause 
 of truth, and was himself betrayed into the hands of those 
 who executed him in Edinburgh." But another building at- 
 tracted his attention still more ; the parish church, over- 
 shadowed by two trees which grew in the church-yard, and 
 were the only ones he had seen in two or three days' travel- 
 ling." He asked some persons who were standing by, how 
 many people attended the church ? The reply was, " The 
 minister attends, and his wife attends, and two or three ser- 
 vants, and the parochial schoolmaster." " You do not 
 mean to say that these are all ?" said he. " Why," was the 
 answer, " there is not a body not a body not a body 
 more !" In fact, the whole congregation had joined the Free 
 Church. The traveller then went into the church-yard, but 
 there was no sign of a road into the church ; it was all over- 
 grown with grass. On looking through the window, he saw 
 the seats and pews all covered with dust ; nowhere could he 
 perceive the marks of human hands, except in the pulpit and 
 the minister's seat. " I saw it with my own eyes," said he. 
 " All this congregation had left the walls where their fathers 
 worshipped, rather than not be steadfast in their struggles 
 and their trials." Then the traveller, (Mr. Guthrie,) raising 
 his eyes to the mountains that lifted up their lofty heads far 
 above him, exclaimed, " How vain is the expectation of our 
 enemies : never will they succeed in breaking down the Free 
 Church ! She will stand there, as firm as her own naked 
 mountains ; and that powerful lord who is master of this 
 country, from the one sea to the other, may as soon remove 
 Benmore Assynt, as he will weaken the attachment of our 
 people to our cause and to freedom !" 
 
 We accept the omen. It is not the flock of Assynt alone 
 that stands as firm as Benmore ; it is the whole Free Church 
 of Scotland ; the whole Assembly and Church of the First- 
 born, spread over the wide world itself. Benmore may trem-
 
 348 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 ble ; the Alps themselves may quake ; and our own Mont 
 Blanc, removed by the Mighty Hand which one day shall 
 shake both the Heavens and the Earth, may bow its colossal 
 head, and fall into our lake ; " The mountains shall depart, 
 and the hills be removed ; but my kindness shall not depart 
 from thee ; neither shall the covenant of my peace be re- 
 moved, saith the Lord, that hath mercy on thee." 
 
 But if there are promises of God, man also has his duties. 
 The Church of Scotland has lately given proofs of mighty 
 energy. Fidelity to her Divine Chief, fidelity to her forefa- 
 thers and to her martyrs, unshaken faith, Christian life, ar- 
 dent charity, unbounded generosity, incessant activity, such 
 is the example which a few humble sons of Scotland have 
 lately set to the Christian world ; and their example has al- 
 ready found imitators in our own country, in Vaud. But 
 watchfulness is never more necessary than on the day suc- 
 ceeding a victory. We all know 1 what is meant by the recoil 
 of artillery. The gun that has the heaviest charge, and 
 sends its bullet to the greatest distance, is the piece that will 
 recoil the most. A great forward movement is usually fol- 
 lowed by one in a contrary direction. " That is nothing," 
 recently exclaimed a Frenchman,* eminent in the church ; 
 " that is nothing, provided we imitate the artillery-men, 
 restore the cannons to their place, and load and fire again." 
 
 In speaking of Scotland we have already said : " A re- 
 vival is generally followed by a lethargy, and a great eleva- 
 tion by a great fall." Much still remains to be done by the 
 Christians of the Free Church. We desire to see all Scotland 
 that noble country united as one heart to combat under 
 the standard of Christ and of the fathers. But this is not 
 all. The cause of the liberty, and purity, and life of the 
 church must make the tour of the globe, and be everywhere 
 established. Let us all, then, gather courage, perseverance, 
 and strength ! Let there be no recoil no shrinking back ! 
 * M. Ie Comte Agenor de Gasparin.
 
 APPENDIX, 
 
 Note A. 
 
 CONTRIBUTION TO THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF THE 
 NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 PROTESTANTISM IN THE GERMAN PROVINCES OF RUSSIA. 
 
 FEW events in the contemporary history of the chuch ap- 
 pear to me of greater interest than the struggle at present 
 going on between the Protestant churches in Russia, and 
 that Oriental giant, the power of the Greek church and of 
 the Autocrat, which threatens to overwhelm them. Not- 
 withstanding the indifference (this is the mildest term I can 
 use) with which a former communication of mine, on the 
 subject of these churches, has been received in England ; 
 these events are of such a nature, appealing to the heart of 
 every evangelical Christian, that I think it my duty to recur 
 to them. I will first repeat the letter I wrote in 1846, to 
 the president of the Evangelical Alliance, and afterwards 
 add more circumstantial details. 
 
 Letter to Sir Culling Eardley Smith, Bart* 
 
 " Sir Culling, 
 
 ****** 
 
 " The Duchies of Livonia, Courland, and Esthonia, were 
 subdued by the Russians towards the commencement of the 
 
 * This letter, written in French, was translated into English, with 
 a trifling error, which has been here corrected. It appeared in several 
 periodicals.
 
 350 APPENDIX. 
 
 last century, after a most bloody war, in the course of which 
 all the cities were destroyed, with the exception of Riga, 
 Pernau, and Revel. A treaty made in 1710, secured to them 
 the Evangelical religion, according to the Augsburg Confes- 
 sion, as the only religion of the country ; and further treaties 
 between Sweden (to whom these duchies formerly belonged) 
 and Russia, such as that of Nystaedt in 1721, and of Aboer 
 in 1743, moreover declared, that the church was to be pre- 
 served, such as it then existed. Any other mode of wor- 
 ship, excepting in the private houses of the foreign ambas- 
 sadors, with closed doors, was illegal ; and the children of 
 mixed marriages were brought up Protestants. During the 
 time of Peter the Great, these treaties were observed. Un- 
 der the reign of the Empresses Elizabeth and Catherine II., 
 they began to be neglected ; and in 1794, a ukase, issued in 
 1721, with respect to the Swedish prisoners of war who 
 were carried to Siberia, was applied to these provinces ; by 
 virtue of which the children of mixed marriages were obliged 
 to be brought up in the Greek religion. 
 
 " But under the present emperor, the violation of the 
 treaties has made immense progress ; and, instead of the 
 Conservative principles which one might have expected to 
 predominate in that government, the most Radical and even 
 Revolutionary principles seem to prevail, little as such could 
 be expected from an emperor of Russia. 
 
 "In 1837 or 1838, a Greek bishop was fixed at Riga, 
 where there had never yet been one. For a short time he 
 remained inactive ; but soon his emissaries were sent round 
 the country to labor for converts. 
 
 "In 1841, while these provinces suffered under a severe 
 famine, the poor people were assured, that if they became 
 converts to the Greek religion they should be removed into 
 a fertile district in the south of Russia, where they should 
 be exempted from taxes, and from military service. They 
 came to Riga in crowds, from the wish to be removed into 
 these districts : the movement extended throughout the
 
 PROTESTANTISM IN RUSSIA. 351 
 
 greater part of Livonia : the peasants refused to work ; and 
 the excitement rose to such a pitch, that military force was 
 obliged to be called in to restore tranquillity. The Greek 
 bishop and his clergy, the authors of these troubles, were 
 removed indeed from Riga, but were promoted to places of 
 greater importance. The bishop's successor at first con- 
 ducted himself peaceably ; only the Russian Catechism and 
 Liturgy was translated into the language of the country. 
 (Esthonian and Lithuanian.) 
 
 " In 1845, a Russian, named Michaelof, steward to a noble 
 of the country, having committed a considerable robbery, 
 and being discovered, hanged himself to avoid the public 
 punishment of his crime. He was found, recovered, and 
 sent to St. Petersburg in order to be proceeded against. 
 As he understood the language of Lithuania, it was thought 
 he might be useful in the country : the prosecution was 
 withdrawn ; they made him a Russian priest, and sent him 
 back to Lithuania, where he became, under the direction of 
 the bishop, the principal agent in the conversions. They 
 renewed the same promises made some years before. While 
 the first time none of the peasants had become Greeks, they 
 hastened now to anoint all that presented themselves ; hav- 
 ing made them sign petitions in the Russian language, which 
 they could not understand in which they thought they 
 were asking the protection of the bishop for their temporal 
 interests, but where, in fact, they made them seek to be 
 united to the Greek Church. 
 
 "In February, 1845, a Greek church was established at 
 Riga for the proselytes, where the service was held in the 
 forenoon, according to the Greek rites, in the language of 
 the country ; in the afternoon, the service was according to 
 the form of worship of the Moravian Brethren, to whom the 
 converts were before attached. Michaelof was the priest of 
 this church. At first each proselyte was richly rewarded ; 
 now the rate is thirty copeks (about one shilling). Michaelof 
 traversed the country, provided with money to anoint with-
 
 352 APPENDIX. 
 
 out delay all those who wished it ; at the same time, a Ger- 
 man called Burger, attached to the governor-general, trav- 
 ersed other districts to excite the same movement. It is re- 
 ported that the Greek agents were provided with a magic 
 lantern, by means of which they showed them gigantic 
 cows and sheep, telling them that such were the animals of 
 the country promised to them. The images, vases, and sa- 
 cerdotal ornaments required in the Russian worship, were 
 conveyed in a car ; and the governor-general ordered that 
 each proprietor should give the best place he was able to 
 celebrate the Greek worship : they there fixed their pictures, 
 &c., and anointed all who presented themselves. The Greek 
 clergy recognize Protestant baptism, but they complete it by 
 unction. By means of this roving church, as it has been 
 called, sometimes even 300 men have been anointed in one 
 day. 
 
 "They say to the peasants (and prove to them, by quoting 
 Daniel xi. 38, 39., and xii. 1.), that the German Protestants 
 were rent from the ancient Christian faith, and had fallen 
 under the power of Antichrist, and that the Greek priest 
 Michaelof was the great prince Michael, spoken of in Daniel 
 xii., who fights for his people; and that those only, who 
 cause themselves to be inscribed in Michaelof 's book, would 
 be delivered from the power of Antichrist. 
 
 " At Dorpat, and in the neighborhood, thousands thus pre- 
 sented themselves to the Greek priest ; several amongst them 
 being drunk, he sent to Petersburg to inquire what he ought 
 to do in such a case ; one of the members of the Senate, at- 
 tached to the department of foreign worship, (' des cultes 
 etrangers,') answered, that these people must be accepted, in 
 whatever state they presented themselves. 
 
 "The movement was almost exclusively confined to the 
 men the women were opposed to it. They pulled off the 
 crosses that had been hung round their husbands' necks, 
 trampled the images under foot, and would not allow their 
 new-born infants to be baptized. All the children of the
 
 PROTESTANTISM IN RUSSIA. 353 
 
 converts, under seven, are considered as belonging to the 
 Greek Church ; the converts are taught to make the sign of 
 the cross ; they are instructed in some outward practices ; 
 but religious instruction, in the right sense, is not thought of. 
 At the time of their conversion, they make them sign a dec- 
 laration in the Russian language, by which they declare that 
 it is not for temporal interests that they have changed their 
 religion. 
 
 " Those who have become Greeks by anointing are defini- 
 tively lost to Protestantism : whoever sought to bring back 
 a man who had been attached to the Greek Church by an- 
 ointing would encounter the most severe trouble. 
 
 " The Greek religion, which had been interdicted in these 
 provinces by treaty, is now publicly called ' the ruling relig- 
 ion ;' and the Lutheran religion, which was alone to be pro- 
 fessed, is now only called a tolerated church. 
 
 " The latest journals announce, that the efforts continue for 
 converting the Protestants of these countries. A member of 
 the Russian Senate, who has distinguished himself in the 
 labors undertaken to re-unite the Roman Catholics to the 
 Greek Church, said, if he had only a ' carte blanche,' he 
 would undertake, in three years, to re-unite to the Greek re- 
 ligion all the inhabitants of the three provinces of Livonia, 
 Courland, and Esthonia. Up to this time they have labored 
 principally in the first of these (which is the largest) with a 
 view to convert it. 
 
 " The three provinces contained, in 1831, 1,500,000 inhab- 
 itants ; since that time the population has greatly increased. 
 
 " No doubt a voice must be raised against these efforts ; 
 but Protestant ministers are forbidden to speak of the dif- 
 ferences of Confessions, or to strengthen their parishioners 
 beforehand against adhering to the Greek Church. The 
 Russians themselves are agitated by these conversions : 
 some peasants of the governments of Witebok and Pleskow, 
 although already Greeks, have asked to be registered, so
 
 354 APPENDIX. 
 
 that they might belong, they said, ' to the new religion, by 
 which lands are obtained.' 
 
 "A few of the proselytes evince a bitter repentance, and 
 have asked the Governor-general's permission to return to 
 their religion : he has sought to calm them, without granting 
 their request, which, in fact, would be impossible, as I have 
 said ; other proselytes show great obduracy and contempt : 
 ' all religions are alike indifferent to us ; and if we have that 
 of the Emperor, he will know well how to protect us and give 
 us the lands of the nobles.' 
 
 "Unfortunately, the Protestants themselves have faults 
 to reproach themselves with. We must distinguish three 
 classes of persons in this country : 
 
 " 1st, The country people or peasants, who are natives of 
 the country, and speak Esthonian and Lettois ; 2d, The no- 
 bility, who are of German origin, who speak German, and 
 are descended from the Teutonic Knights who conquered 
 the country seven or eight centuries ago ; 3rd, The Mora- 
 vian Brethren, who came into these provinces about a cen- 
 tury ago, and at a time when faith was nearly extinguished 
 there, as it was throughout the whole Continent. They re- 
 vived piety there, and acquired numerous adherents, the 
 greatest number of whom are to be found among the original 
 inhabitants of the country. It is reckoned that 40,000 Li- 
 vonians are members of the Moravian Society." 
 
 " The Lutheran pastors, vexed by seeing the greatest part 
 of their flocks joining the Moravian meetings, caused the 
 peasants to be forbidden to attend these meetings. The 
 Government and the Greek clergy fomented this division 
 between the Lutherans and Moravians : they then profited 
 by it ; and the Bishop of Riga was delighted to permit, in 
 his new church, meetings which were everywhere else pro- 
 hibited. The result was, that people attached to the Mora- 
 vians, (who are the most pious in the country,) went to be 
 registered, in order that they might become Greeks ; and 
 their example has had a great influence upon their fellow-
 
 PROTESTANTISM IN RUSSIA. 355 
 
 citizens. The influence of the Marovians has been good, as 
 relates to the pious sentiments of the heart ; but it appears 
 that they have taught their adherents to attach little im- 
 portance to outward forms of the church, so that these have 
 passed easily from the Protestant to the Greek form. 
 
 " The people are thus irritated at the same time against 
 their lords and against their pastors, both of whom are Ger- 
 mans. They look upon the former as opposed to their tem- 
 poral interests, and to the latter as opposed to their spiritual 
 interests ; and blindly throw themselves into the arms of the 
 Russians and Greek clergy. 
 
 " The nobility and the pastors begin to feel their duties ; 
 several amongst them have done so for a long time ; but the 
 actual tribulation appears to have opened the eyes of those 
 who, until the present moment, had them closed. They seek 
 to be reconciled to the people, and to do them good ; they 
 would wish to keep them in the Evangelical faith, but it is 
 to be feared it is too late. 
 
 " Pious Christians in these countries and they are pretty 
 numerous are greatly afflicted ; they cry to God ; they 
 meet for prayer ; they ask their brethren to intercede for 
 them at the throne of grace ; but they are persuaded that 
 they can in no other way help them. 
 
 " These are the most faithful subjects of the Russian em- 
 pire ; when there were revolutions in Russia, they were or- 
 derly and quiet, knowing that God requires obedience to the 
 higher powers ; and they would, therefore, now fear any 
 proceeding, that could call in question their loyalty and obe- 
 dience to their sovereign. 
 
 " The only object of this letter, is, to beg of you to com- 
 municate to the brethren assembled in London, the dangers 
 which threaten to uproot three of the most ancient Protes- 
 tant Churches of Europe ; and to commend this object to 
 the prayers of all. I know not whether you will be able to 
 do more. 
 
 " MERLE D'AUBIGNE."
 
 356 APPENDIX. 
 
 The limits of a letter did not permit me, in writing to my 
 honorable friend, Sir Culling Eardley, to enter further into 
 particulars. I intend to do so in this place. But wishing to 
 remain an impartial historian, I content myself with quoting 
 some most credible documents upon which my statements 
 are founded. This narrative will, therefore, be composed 
 essentially of extracts : its authenticity will thus be unques- 
 tionable, and it perhaps may not lose in interest by this cir- 
 cumstance. 
 
 In speaking of impartiality, I do not mean to say that I 
 am undecided in this contest between the Greeks and the 
 Lutherans, between the Russians and the Livonians. All my 
 sympathy is with the latter. But there is another struggle 
 besides, that between the Moravians and the Lutherans, 
 and in this it is more difficult to decide. In some respects 
 I lean towards the Moravians. They have hi their favor two 
 causes very dear to me, those of piety, and of freedom. 
 But we must render unto every one his due. There is also 
 much to be said in favor of the Lutherans ; and at this time, 
 when the Protestant Church of Livonia is engaged in so ter- 
 rible a conflict with an antagonist so powerful, who can re- 
 fuse to her this just tribute of respect, compassion, and love ? 
 
 THE LUTHERANS AND THE MORAVIANS. 
 
 THE community of Hernhutt has exercised its Christian 
 activity in the Germanic duchies of Russia ever since the 
 earliest times of its formation. A dead orthodoxy was then 
 reigning there, and the Moravian Brethren (whom the church 
 of Christ has always reckoned among her most valuable wit- 
 nesses) sought to win souls to the Saviour. Christian David 
 first visited the Duchies in 1729. Nitchmann went thither 
 in 1731, and the excellent Count Zinzendorf, that disciple of
 
 PROTESTANTISM IN RUSSIA. 357 
 
 Christ, in whom the features of St. Paul and St. John were 
 blended together, repaired to Revel in 1736. 
 
 The Lutheran Church soon opposed the work of the Breth- 
 ren; and in 1744 an act of Consistory was decreed, forbid- 
 ding the Moravian laborers from being received into a church 
 without the permission of the Consistory. This, however, 
 could not impede the Moravians, since, conformably to their 
 principles, they were only to offer themselves to the national 
 ministers, as assistants in bringing souls to Christ, carefully 
 abstaining from any infringement of ecclesiastical order. 
 
 Nevertheless, difficulties soon presented themselves. We 
 will here quote a report made to the Synod of Linden, on 
 the 12th June, 1845, by one of the most respected min- 
 isters of that country. But we will previously communicate 
 a few remarks, which were sent to us in a private letter, in 
 reference, to this valuable document : " This report," says 
 a Livonian correspondent, " has been communicated to the 
 elders of the United Brethren, and they have received it with 
 all the charity and impartiality which was to be expected 
 from true disciples of Christ. They have not given utterance 
 to the least contradiction, to the slightest blame ; but they 
 assert, that they well understand that the interference of a 
 third party in the care of souls must be most painful to a 
 faithful pastor ; adding, that they would not themselves wil- 
 lingly be placed in the situation of such a pastor, and man- 
 ifesting the desire of seeing a good understanding restored 
 between the Moravians and the Lutherans." 
 
 We* now come to what is said on the Lutheran and Mora- 
 vian discussions in the official Report made to the Synod of 
 Linden : 
 
 " The National Church has reason to complain that the 
 (Moravian) Brethren have overstepped the limits prescribed 
 to them ; that they have established an ecclesiastical and 
 isolated agency of their own, and have thus brought about a 
 pernicious separatism. The National Church may have cause 
 to reproach herself for having, by her dead orthodoxy, and
 
 358 APPENDIX. 
 
 afterwards by her decided rationalism and worldly indiffer- 
 ence, occasioned this state of things. Yet, since the life- 
 giving breath of God, more than ten years ago, awoke her 
 from her slumber, she could no longer keep silence on this 
 subject."* 
 
 An interference of the civil power seems to have had some 
 influence over the circumstances in question. "In 1817, the 
 emperor granted a letter of privilege (Frey Brief) to the Mo- 
 ravian Church for Livonia and Esthonia. By this act the 
 Protestant Church beheld her unity endangered. In fact, 
 this church had hitherto been as one, independent in all es- 
 sential matters of the heterodox (Greek) power of the state. 
 Now, the church of the Brethren (which doubtless belongs 
 to the Evangelical Church) was entirely separated, in her 
 administration and her representation, from the Evangelical 
 Church of the country, and placed directly under the protec- 
 tion of a civil and heterodox ministry. This heterodox state 
 soon found it to be its interest to put in practice, with re- 
 spect to these two branches of the same same tree, the maxim, 
 Divide et impera. The Lord has sent such judgments upon 
 the Evangelical Church in order to save the one that may be 
 enabled still to continue such. His judgments against Ju- 
 dah and Israel were according to the decrees of his right- 
 eousness, but also according to those of his grace."f We 
 will only add, that if the Moravians were desirous of the 
 privilege which the state then granted them, they probably 
 were so on account of the difficulties thrown, in their way by 
 the Lutheran Church. . 
 
 Between 1830 and 1834, a new life began in the churches 
 of Livonia. " Amidst the judgments that weighed her down, 
 the church was reviving according to the ancient adage, 
 Ecclesia pressa, ecclesm victrix. The Lord had raised up 
 within her faithful servants, preachers of his gracious coun- 
 
 * Report made to the Synod of Linden, 12th June, 1845. 
 f Letter of a Pilgrim to the Heavenly Canaan (Eines Mitpilgers ins 
 Himmlische Canaan).
 
 PROTESTANTISM IN RUSSIA. 359 
 
 sels. But a new generation of pastors having entered into 
 office, found the mass of the people lying in ignorance, indif- 
 ferent as to salvation, like scattered and wandering sheep. 
 Only a small number of them were anxious as to their eter- 
 nal salvation ; but these Christians, attached to the directors 
 and the deacons of the Moravian Brethren generally, consid- 
 ered the pastors of the Evangelical Church (without making 
 much distinction among them) as unbelievers, who filled the 
 ministerial office only for the sake of providing for their tem- 
 poral wants."* 
 
 We return to the Report of the Synod of Linden ; 
 "The Moravian deacons, instead of seeking kindly inter- 
 course with the Livonian pastors, rather avoided them ; and 
 latterly, it was precisely with the most evangelical of the 
 Lutheran ministers that they were on the worst terms ; while 
 they were on a very friendly footing with those of the pas- 
 tors who were still imbued with the spirit of the last cen- 
 tury. It cannot be denied that many of the Moravian labor- 
 ers possessed extensive knowledge, and even valuable gifts ; 
 but the church cannot approve of some of their views. ' We 
 are the good seed,' said they ; ' those who are not Moravians 
 are the tares. Hernhutt is the true church, the city set on 
 a hill, the church of the first-born ; the Lutheran and the 
 other churches form the church of this world.' "f 
 
 An ever-increasing opposition was thus formed by the 
 Lutherans against the Moravians, and it must be owned, 
 this opposition frequently proceeded from feelings very con- 
 trary to the Gospel. They falsely confounded the religion 
 of the Moravians with pietism and mysticism j they called all 
 truly evangelical Christians Moravians or Hernhutters. The 
 Lutherans often acted quite otherwise than St. Paul ; they 
 took counsel of flesh and blood. They desired to forbid the 
 free assemblies of the faithful, the free prayers of Christian 
 
 * Letter of a Pilgrim to the Heavenly Canaan (Eines Mitpilgers in- 
 Himmlische Canaan). 
 
 f Report to the Synod of Linden.
 
 360 APPENDIX. 
 
 people, the industry of the Moravian laborers. Thus the 
 Lutheran Church exhibited another instance of that intoler- 
 ance to which a predominant church is so easily prone. In 
 this, every evangelical Christian will not hesitate to side with 
 the Moravians, and to plead their cause, which was that of 
 liberty and piety. 
 
 . II. 
 
 THE CONVERSIONS TO THE GREEK CHURCH. 
 
 THE Livonian Church was punished for her intolerance ; 
 for soon afterwards conversions to the Greek Church were 
 commenced within her pale. 
 
 " There were at Riga among the Lettes* several Mora- 
 vians, who had come thither to work at their trades, .or in 
 manufactories. The Moravian deacon, Neumann, presided 
 at their meetings ; but these people were discontented, be- 
 cause every thing was not done according to the usual man- 
 ner. They consequently applied to the Lutheran ministers 
 of the town. One of these, the Pastor Frey, allowed them 
 meetings, which he either conducted himself, or caused to 
 be conducted ; but learning that the proceedings of one of 
 these meetings had not been according to his wish, he put a 
 stop to them. These people then addressed themselves to 
 the Greek bishop, at the instigation, it appears, of two men, 
 Charles Ernst, and Peter Ballohd, the latter of whom had 
 formerly been a Moravian Evangelist laborer. The men 
 who went to the bishop related in triumph to the deacon, 
 Neumann, that the bishop had received them very cour- 
 teously ; that he had asked for their books, which he had re- 
 turned some time after, saying, that they were very good 
 
 * It is well known that the Lettes form the mass of the population 
 in Lithuania, in Esthonia, in Courland, in Semi-Galle, especially in the 
 country parts. They belong to the Lithuanian race. The Lettish lan- 
 guage has two principal dialects, the pure Lettish and the Semi-Gall.
 
 PROTESTANTISM IN RUSSIA. 361 
 
 ones, and he had permitted them to hold their assemblies 
 on Sundays, at the same hour as the churches. It is even 
 added, that he gave them a paper, which they were to show 
 in case the police should be inclined to disturb them. At 
 the sight of this paper, it was said, ' the director of the 
 jDolice would take off his hat.' "* 
 
 Such was the first phasis of these events ; now comes the 
 second. 
 
 " About the end of February, or the beginning of March, 
 (1845), a report was all at once noised through the town 
 (Riga) that a petition for the founding of a Greek Lettish 
 church had been presented. On further inquiries, this much 
 was afterwards ascertained on the subject : A Lettish pe- 
 tition, signed by eleven Lettes, had been transmitted to the 
 bishop, to the following purport. The petitioners desired 
 to come over to the 'Orthodox church (pareisitiz ziga), on 
 condition that a separate church should be assigned to them, 
 and a separate service in the Lettish language ; that Ballohd 
 should be given them as Mahzitais (pastor), and Charles 
 Ernst, as director of the church ; that they should be al- 
 lowed to use their Lettish hymns, &c. This petition was 
 translated into Russian by the bishop's secretary, and the 
 petitioners were requested to allow their signatures to be 
 legalized by the police. It was ascertained, that besides the 
 eleven subscribers, about an equal number of Lettes had 
 appeared before the police ; that one of them, being spokes- 
 man, had complained of the Lutheran pastors of the town, 
 stating, that they would not allow them liberty as to their 
 faith, and adding, that many others (three hundred, accord- 
 ing to some accounts) had the same intentions as them- 
 selves."f 
 
 The report laid before the Synod of Linden, 12th June, 
 
 * Memorial of Professor Ulmann. We must not confound him with 
 the Dr. Ullmann of Heidelberg, mentioned elsewhere. The one now 
 spoken of was a professor in a Russian university. 
 
 f Professor Ulmann's Memorial. 
 16
 
 362 APPENDIX. 
 
 1845, contains exactly the same facts. It is unnecessary to 
 repeat them. 
 
 It must here be observed, that according to the documents 
 now before us, the people who, in the German duchies of 
 Russia, are attached to the Moravians, may be arranged un- 
 der three categories. One of these documents has the fol- 
 lowing statement respecting this : " The church of the 
 Brethren does not, in these duchies, form distinct commu- 
 nities, as at Hernhutt, Neuwied, &c. The Brethren are in 
 Diaspora (dispersion) ; they are members of the predomi- 
 nant church, and attend worship with it. But they have 
 besides meetings among themselves in the different parishes, 
 conducted by directors or readers, who are themselves un- 
 der the rule of the deacons of the church of the Brethren. 
 These meetings are of two kinds, the larger or public, and 
 the smaller or select. All who desire to be edified may at- 
 tend the larger meetings. But as to the smaller ones, those 
 only are admitted who, after a formal reception, have become 
 members of the Church of the Brethren in Diaspora. Those 
 who have long attended the larger assemblies, and who are 
 recommended by the directors, may apply for membership. 
 Nevertheless, they are received only when the lot has decid- 
 ed in their favor. This custom has been vigorously attacked 
 by the Protestant Church. Yet we must distinguish from 
 these church members, (these brethren in Diaspora,} those 
 who inhabit places where there is a Moravian church, such 
 as Hernhutt and Neuwied, in Germany, and Sarepta, in 
 Russia. These latter are the Hernhutters properly so called. 
 With the exception of the Moravian deacons sent to Livonia, 
 by the Conference of the Elders, we find in these duchies 
 but few Moravians of this description."* 
 
 The same document contains the following information, as 
 to the fact of the petition. 
 
 " The eleven Lettes who applied to the Greek Bishop of 
 Riga, in order to remove from the Evangelical to the Greek 
 
 * Letter of a Pilgrim to the Heavenly Canaan.
 
 PROTESTANTISM IN RUSSIA. 363 
 
 Church, were inhabitants of Riga. They were men who had 
 at least frequently attended the public assemblies of the 
 Church of the Brethren. As to the question whether they 
 had been formally admitted Members of the Church of the 
 Brethren in Diaspora, this cannot be ascertained with regard 
 to every individual, as there exists no official list of the 
 members. But in the official deeds (in officiellen Schreiben*) 
 they are designated as Members in Diaspora. The motive 
 which these eleven Lettes state officially as the reason of 
 their conversion, strengthens the supposition, that they were 
 all members of the Church of the Brethren in Diaspora : 
 for they complain, in their petition, that the Lutheran pas- 
 tors of Riga prevented them from holding their meetings 
 among themselves, 'after the manner of the Church of the 
 Brethren ;' and if they wished to enter within the pale of 
 the Church, it was because an impostor of the Greek Con- 
 fession, a man convicted of theft, Michaelof, had told them 
 that in the Greek Church, they would be allowed their 
 meetings in the Lettish language, after the manner of the 
 Church of the Brethren."! 
 
 The work of proselytism by the Greek Church extended 
 more and more. We continue our extracts : 
 
 " The proselytism of the bishop, particularly by means of 
 Charles Ernst, still continued. This latter was indefatiga- 
 ble : he visited people, and induced them to give in their 
 names, as being desirous of obtaining from the bishop the 
 liberty of holding their Hernhutt assemblies. When any 
 
 one consented to this, his name was subscribed 
 
 We are certainly informed, that forty Lettes received the 
 unction on the 29th of April, in the bishop's chapel. Pre- 
 vious to Easter, a Russian church, that of the Cemetery of 
 Riga, had been assigned to the Lettes. In this church there 
 
 * The author probably means the acts of the government, or of the 
 Greek Church, where the converts are not individually, but collectively 
 mentioned. 
 
 f Letter of a Pilgrim.
 
 364 APPENDIX. 
 
 was a Greco-Lettish worship, and Moravian meetings, and 
 people were summoned to both kinds of assemblies in the 
 same manner. The author of this memorial, and other per- 
 sons worthy of credence, are themselves cognizant of the 
 fact. Michaelof, having become a Greek priest, conducted 
 the Greek worship according to the Greek liturgy, in the 
 Lettish language. In the same place, Ballohd presided over 
 the Moravian meetings, in which they sang, and read ser- 
 mons taken from Lutheran books ; and in this manner were 
 the people attracted and led astray. On Easter Sunday, at 
 the afternoon service, the bishop attended a meeting of this 
 kind. He walked through the Assembly, remained for a 
 quarter of an hour behind the Iconostas, and again walked 
 through the Assembly ; his hands were kissed, and he gave 
 the blessing."* 
 
 We will follow this account no further. Every one knows 
 that the conversions from Protestantism to the Greek Church 
 have since made considerable progress. It is enough to have 
 seen their commencement. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE SYNOD, OR PEACE. 
 
 IT can be doubted by no one, that these conversions have 
 caused great sorrow to the worthy elders of Hernhutt, and 
 all other pious and enlightened Moravians. It is sufficient 
 to be acquainted with the living Christianity of these breth- 
 ren, to be certain that no one, either within the Russian 
 duchies, or elsewhere, would be more grieved than they 
 were, to see Protestants leaving the Scriptural worship, in 
 order to go over to the adoration of legends and pictures. 
 We are even convinced, (though the documents we have be- 
 fore us say nothing of the fact,) that the conversions which 
 are now taking place are especially, if not exclusively, among 
 * Memorial of Professor Ulmann.
 
 PROTESTANTISM IN RUSSIA. 365 
 
 those Protestants who are in no way belonging to the Mora- 
 vian church. But it is easy to understand, that the facts 
 stated in the documents we have quoted, must have ren- 
 dered the intercourse between the ministers of the National 
 Church and the Moravian Brethren more unpleasant than 
 ever to both. 
 
 To consider what was to be done with regard to this 
 matter, was one of the objects of the Synod which assembled 
 at Linden, the 12th June, 1845. There existed among many 
 of the Lutherans a very decided feeling, that the best way 
 would be " to break connection entirely with the agents of 
 the community of the Brethren, and to establish in the Lu- 
 theran parishes services of a nature calculated to satisfy the 
 adherents of the Moravians."* 
 
 But though there were some St. Peters among them, there 
 were also some St. Johns. The pious author of the Report 
 we have often quoted, who was a member of this Synod, ad- 
 vanced a very different opinion. This is what he says : 
 "Never can I give my vote, that the Brethren should be 
 requested to withdraw themselves, by saying to them, ' De- 
 part from us.' It is unlikely, very unlikely, that the Breth- 
 ren will go away; and were they even to do so, it is 
 doubtful whether peace would be thus restored to the church. 
 It is doubtful whether each one of our pastors possesses the 
 gifts, the prudence, and the charity requisite to conduct these 
 meetings, and to satisfy those who frequent them, after the 
 German laborers have withdrawn. It is doubtful whether 
 the departure of the Moravian Brethren may not bring about 
 a directly opposite result to that which is desired, and en- 
 gender a separatism which it will be still more difficult to 
 destroy."! 
 
 This pious minister then proceeds to examine the means to 
 be adopted ; and what he says on this subject is too beauti- 
 ful, too well calculated to display the spirit which animates 
 
 * Memorial of Professor Ulmann. 
 
 f Report made to the Synod of Linden.
 
 366 APPENDIX. 
 
 many of the leaders of the Lutheran Church in Livonia, and 
 too worthy of being imitated in other countries, for us not to 
 feel great pleasure in quoting it. 
 
 " What is then to be done ?" he says to the Synod. 
 " This, in my opinion, is the first thigg we have to do ; a 
 thing which is absolutely necessary, and which cannot fail of 
 being a most powerful means. It is that we, the preachers 
 and ministers of the work of reconciliation, should preach 
 Christ with living power, not only by our words, but also by 
 our behavior ; and that we should devote ourselves to the 
 salvation of every soul committed to us, with more love and 
 faithfulness than we have hitherto done. When has sepa- 
 ratism been overcome in any other way, than by the pure 
 preaching of the Cross, by the vivifying proclamation of the 
 Gospel, by ardent love to the Lord, and to every one of the 
 souls that he has redeemed at so great a ransom, and by faithful 
 labor in the Lord's vineyard ? Preach in your pulpits Jesus 
 Christ as the savor of life unto life. (2 Cor. ii 16.) Preach 
 Christ out of the abundance of a heart which has learned to 
 know him as a Saviour ; and thus will you drive away all 
 deceitful spirits ; you will scatter all the assemblies of a false 
 ' worship ; you will empty the conventicles and fill your 
 churches. Love each soul in your parish according to the 
 Lord's will, and that love will bring down the walls of sep- 
 aratism. If, in your parish, there are no Hernhutters, cause 
 Presbyterian institutions to be set up within them, such as 
 the church ought to possess in her normal state. Bestow on 
 your congregations, by Bible and Missionary meetings, and 
 by pastoral visits to the cottage of each of our peasants, 
 bestow on them in this way, as much, nay, even more than 
 the Moravians have to offer to their adherents. This is what 
 one of our brethren has undertaken to do for some years 
 past, and he has reaped abundant blessings for his flock, and 
 immeasurable comfort to his own heart. Labor both in your 
 study, and in the sacred house of God, whether for the sci- 
 entific cultivation of your own minds, or for the practical ful-
 
 PROTESTANTISM IN RUSSIA. 367 
 
 filment of your functions ; whether for the great work of the 
 church, or for the salvation of a single soul. Labor on ! 
 But never work without prayer, without fervently calling 
 upon the name of Jesus, Never let time be wanting for 
 this occupation. Luther could manage to find three hours 
 a-day for this holy work. Pray, read, unite yourselves 
 more and more closely with the Word of God. Never act, 
 never combat, without taking hold by faith of the sword of 
 the Spirit. Drive the Pope out of your own hearts ; and 
 before you pretend to overcome that false spirituality which" 
 is itself nothing but an overweening pride, first become hum- 
 ble yourselves. Bear with wisdom and with mildness the 
 faults of the sickly and the weak. Never exaggerate the 
 claims of your ministry ; and when you have to deal with 
 Moravian laborers, never present yourselves before them as 
 adversaries, or even as superiors commissioned to inspect 
 them, but as friends and brethren, who agree with them in 
 essential things. Never keep yourselves, your wives, and 
 your children at a distance from the members of your con- 
 gregations ; never stand aloof upon the haughty footing of 
 your noble birth,* but live among them as friends, as fa- 
 thers. Be upon the same scale close beside them ; stand 
 before the cottages of our peasantry. Open to the meanest 
 of your parishioners your own door, your own heart, your 
 own purse. Thus the former love of the flocks towards 
 their pastors will revive, even among the Hernhutters. 
 They will no longer call you Pasaules Mahzitaji, that is to 
 say, preachers of the world ; still less will they regard you 
 as Pasauligi, that is to say, worldly men. They will behold 
 .you as their faithful, their beloved, their venerated shep- 
 herds, teachers, and fathers ! In truth, if, after an expe- 
 rience of twenty -four years, I were called upon to answer 
 
 * It is well known that the common people of the German duchies 
 of Russia are descended from the original inhabitants of the country 
 formerly conquered by the Teutonic knights, and are distinguished by 
 language and otherwise from the descendants of the knights.
 
 368 t APPENDIX. 
 
 this question, ' What has been wanting to the church '?' I 
 should be obliged to answer with bitter tears of repentance, 
 ' What has been wanting, has been above all things myself ! 
 my own charity, my own faithfulness, my own vitality !' "* 
 
 So spoke in the Synod of Linden that venerable Livonian 
 minister. 
 
 This discourse is one of the finest pages in the annals of 
 the church. History will preserve it. I esteem myself 
 happy in having been called upon to make it known to my 
 brethren. Were there even nothing else in this note, I should 
 not have written it in vain. I am sure that the Holy Spirit 
 will re-echo these noble accents in the hearts of many of his 
 servants. 
 
 This godly minister did not stop here. He laid before 
 the Synod the rule of conduct which the ministers of the 
 National Church should pursue, in order to co-operate peace- 
 ably with the Moravian laborers in the advancement of the 
 kingdom of God within the church. These regulations dis- 
 play admirable wisdom. There are twelve of them. For 
 the sake of brevity I will mention only one, the eleventh : 
 " The pastor should regularly, at least once a year, hold a 
 conference with the Moravian deacon and elder who labor 
 among his flock. Not only would they thus endeavor, mu- 
 tually, to keep up and strengthen a good understanding 
 between them ; but the pastor would also receive the neces- 
 sary information, in the advancement of the work of the 
 Brethren."! 
 
 This plan has not been unavailing. Thenceforward the 
 pastors and the Moravian laborers have proceeded with 
 more harmony in the work of God. 
 
 This was possible ; for the evangelical ministers of Livo- 
 nia, and the Christians who are among the lay nobility, and 
 who are still more numerous, would join themselves to the 
 successors of Zinzendorf and Spangenberg. They have the 
 same God ; the same salvation, the same Holy Spirit. Un- 
 * Report made to the Synod of Linden. f Ibid.
 
 PROTESTANTISM IN RUSSIA. 369 
 
 fortunately, besides the Evangelical party, there has latterly 
 been formed a High Church party, that threatens, it is re- 
 ported, " to repay the Moravian laborers with interest for 
 the annoyances which, for some years past, they have caused 
 to the church." May God remove these new contentions from 
 that poor country ! 
 
 I will conclude this note, by quoting the fervent wishes 
 expressed in Livonia, by one of the lay members, who is 
 placed in a most elevated station in that country and in that 
 church. " May the Lord have mercy on his church, and 
 not punish her according to her iniquity, but look upon her 
 through the merits of Him who became her surety upon the 
 cross, and for the sake of the holy name of Jesus, grant her 
 forgiveness ! May He, in all places, inspire the members of 
 his Church Universal to offer up fervent prayers for suffer- 
 ing brethren ; for wherever one member suffers, the whole 
 body suffers with it. May He bless you a thousandfold with 
 the fulness of his Spirit, and the abundance of his peace, O 
 man beloved, and thus make you amends for all the strug- 
 gles and the troubles you have had to endure for the sake 
 of a sick member of his body, the Evangelical Church of Li- 
 vonia. May He, in his grace, grant me one day to see your 
 face ; and if not on this earth, may it be, at least, before the 
 throne of the Lamb that has been slain for you and for me !" 
 
 I therefore once more lift up my voice to make known to 
 my brethren of England, of Scotland, and of America, that 
 Church of Livonia whose leaders are descended from those 
 valiant knights who devoted themselves, in the Middle 
 Ages, to provide for the relief of sick or wounded Cru- 
 saders, and to defend against the attacks of the Saracens all 
 those poor Christians who went to bow the knee on the hills 
 of Jerusalem.* Their children now know better things: 
 they have heard the voice of Jesus, saying unto them, " Ye 
 shall no longer, neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusa- 
 lem, worship the Father. God is a Spirit, and they that 
 
 * The Teutonic Knights, 
 16*
 
 370 APPENDIX. 
 
 worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." 
 (John, iv. 21. 24.) I therefore say, once again, to my fel- 
 low-Christians : You have brethren who are groaning in 
 distress, who claim your prayers, who need your sympathy. 
 Will you not hearken to them ? Once before, I have stated 
 these things. The Evangelical Alliance for Christian Union 
 has held many meetings, has made many speeches, organ- 
 izations and regulations ; but I do not know that they have 
 paid attention to what has been told them of the sufferings 
 and the tears of their brethren. What will an Evangelical 
 Alliance do, if it loves not the suffering members of Jesus 
 Christ, and shows this love in some way ? I am not only a 
 friend to the Evangelical Alliance, I am also a member and 
 a defender of it ; but it is precisely on account of the respect 
 I bear it, that I demand of it to become what it ought to 
 be, and to fulfil its commission. " My little children, let us 
 not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in 
 truth." (1 John, iii. 18.) 
 
 I hope that the voice I have now raised will not be alto- 
 gether raised in vain. Even if no more positive demonstra- 
 tions take place, I hope, at least, that some of my readers 
 will hold out a brotherly hand to that respected minister of 
 the Synod of Linden, whose eloquent and Christian discourse 
 we have now heard, and to all the brethren and sisters around 
 him. I hope that many prayers will be offered up in private 
 in behalf of this suffering church, and that she will thereby be 
 comforted and strengthened, through the power of the Holy 
 Ghost. 
 
 I had previously suggested a respectful petition to the 
 Emperor of Russia, and a fraternal address to the churches 
 of Livonia. The former of these communications may be of 
 no avail ; but the latter would no doubt prove a balm to 
 those bruised hearts. 
 
 I have stated these facts in their naked truth. I have 
 quoted the documents themselves. I have allowed those to 
 speak who have a rightful interest in the matter. I may
 
 PROTESTANTISM IN RUSSIA. 371 
 
 now keep silence, and this shall be my last word on the 
 subject. 
 
 Some, even of the godly, may occasionally forget this evan- 
 gelical precept : " Prove all things : hold fast that which is 
 good." (1 Thess. v. 21.) They may, without sufficient exam- 
 ination, decide in favor of erroneous accounts. I have had 
 some experience of it. But no matter. Error is error not- 
 withstanding, and truth is truth. There is the voice of his- 
 tory ; a voice sincere, solemn, and holy ; and to this voice 
 does victory belong. Excuses and prejudices all pass away. 
 But the voice of history still remains, because it is the voice 
 of truth. We have advanced nothing rashly : what we have 
 asserted we can prove ; and we hope always to be able to 
 say with Saint Paul, We speak all things to you in truth. 
 (2 Cor. vii. 14.) 
 
 THE END.
 
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 THE GENIUS OF SCOTLAND, 
 
 SKETCHES OF SCOTTISH SCENERY, LITERATURE 
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 JESSY ALLAN, THE LAME GIRL. 
 
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 CHARLIE SEYMOURj 
 
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 THE FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 
 
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 LIFE OF REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
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