on the part of the Free Church, with all its best traditions comparatively fresh, to initiate and conduct a disestablishment campaign. Its very origin had to be explained away, and many were alive whose vivid recollection of the past would not permit them to be imposed upon by any sophistry. Such casuistry as it seemed necessary to employ was not, indeed, of a formidable nature. Two or three devoted amateurs with a smattering of law and divinity had been puzzling their brains over "get over Newman, and eagerly caught at the precious doctrine of "development' 'development" as applicable to the situation in which their denomination found itself. By its opportune assistance they proved that the disestablishment principle was "implicit" in the documents which repudiated it, and the conclusion was triumphantly established that when Dr Chalmers declared "We are not voluntaries," he meant that "we are." Such transparent and childish insincerities merely provoke a smile, but there was another feature in the movement which aroused intense indignation. promising venture. The Free Church had before it a career of unostentatious usefulness, but at one man's bidding it turned aside to meddle and intrigue in politics. The history of the disestablishment agitation in Scotland, when it comes to be written, will contain many interesting scenes and one or two dramatic episodes. For the master-spirit of the Free Church was brought into contact with another master-spirit compact of the same material, and the efforts of the one to subdue, or, rather, to "get round," the other, form an admirable theme for whoso delights to trace the tortuous workings of some human minds. The historian will, in particular, record a great public meeting where it was confidently expected that Mr Gladstone would unequivocally pronounce for disestablishment. His platform was thronged by eager ecclesiastics, who hung on his every word. But Mr Gladstone had been imbued by his intimate advisers with a wholesome sense of the strength of the Church of Scotland in the country. He could afford to run no risks, and, in place of the unambiguous declaration sought for, he contented himself with those familiar pledges about a full and fair reference to the people of Scotland on the Church question which he was afterwards so characteristically to betray. Consternation fell upon his clerical bodyguard, and it is even said that the great wirepuller testified to his disappointment by a flood of tears. It required no little effrontery Had the hostility of the Free Church leader to the Kirk been frank and open, the resentment he inspired would have been comparatively feeble. But, more suo, he must needs attempt to disguise his enmity in unotuous professions of regard. He sought, forsooth, but to relieve the Church of Scotland of her fetters, and to increase her capacity for her noble work. Never was fox so lovingly entreated to submit to the amputation of its tail. Above all, a glowing picture was drawn of the future state of the Church when freed from the cramping and intolerable bondage of endowments. The spiritual blessings which would infallibly flow from loss of patrimony were enlarged upon with sanctimonious eloquence, and the invitation to come and be stripped was enforced with expressions of nauseating affection. And now, lo and behold! the biter is bit; the engineer is hoist with his own petard. Destruction has come upon him at unawares; his net that he hath hid hath caught himself; and into that very destruction hath he fallen. Disendowment has ceased to be the parent of all moral good, and has become in a moment a spoiling of the Lord's people! What the ultimate upshot of the present state of matters may be it would be hazardous to predict, and it is fortunate that a breathing-space has been allowed in which parties may arrange their ideas and endeavour to concert a satisfactory accommodation. There are a few hot-heads, we believe, in the United Free Church, who, while willing to submit to the arbitrament of Cæsar if he had decided in their favour, are disposed to decline his jurisdiction now that he has decided against them, and to resist the carrying out of his decrees, if not unto blood, at least unto newspaper notoriety. We can scarcely think that so undignified a course will be adopted. Yet we are compelled to own that the official or quasi-official utterances of the United Free Church leaders afford little or no hope that a really sane and statesmanlike view of the position is likely to be taken. Manifestoes and speeches alike continue to be pitched in that strain of acrid and domineering self-righteousness, compared with which the tone of a Papal allocution or an Imperial rescript seems almost a model of self-abnegation and diffidence. Reflection, let us hope, will bring wisdom and the spirit of reasonableness in its train, though it is high time for the moderate and sensible laity to bestir themselves and to make their voices heard in the councils of the denomination. Two things, however, seem tolerably plain. One is, that no satisfactory solution can be achieved without the intervention of the legislature. That in itself is so much clear gain, for it should save some misunderstanding and a good deal of most objectionable cant in the future if the seal and superscription of Cæsar are manifestly impressed for the whole world to see upon the charter of the dissenting body which is to be called into existence to administer and enjoy the endowments recently in dispute. The second obvious point is, that the Established Church, wiser herein than the successor of St Augustine, must in the meanwhile hold herself strictly aloof from the communings of parties. It is the "redders" who notoriously come worst out of a fray, and it would be well if even the amiable banalities customary at church bazaars were for this summer prætermitted, and a scrupulous silence observed on the topic of the hour. Much in the satisfactory adjustment of ecclesiastical affairs in Scotland will depend upon the judicious attitude of the Establishment; and a nervous eagerness for the consolidation of "our national-Presbyterianism"-a not very inspiring and a singularly barren idealmay lead in the long-run to nothing better than a magnified sectarianism, No reconstruction of the national Church is worth the trouble of thinking about which does not make a serious and honest effort to secure the inclusion within its visible borders of the remnant thrust out, against the will of a truly wise and tolerant monarch, in 1690. How much that remnant, how much the nation, has suffered by its extrusion, it would be difficult to exaggerate. We have purposely abstained from discussing in detail the questions raised in the Free Church cases and decided by the judgment of the House of Lords. But there is one matter on which, in conclusion, a word ought to be said. It appears to be regretted in some quarters that the effect of the decision is to tie the Free Church down more closely than before to the terms of the Westminster Confession which she voluntarily imposed on herself. The Establishment is doubtless sufficiently bound already by Act of Parliament, though the judgment may come as a wholesome reminder to some in the ranks of its ministry of what they have subscribed. For our own part, we rejoice that this should be so. Not that we regard that Confession as by any means an ideal document of its kind. It is too long, too complicated, and too argumentative. But it possesses one feature of transcendent value and importance at the present time. Doctrine apart, it contains, in common with the Larger Catechism, an emphatic and unhesitating assertion of the historical facts on which Christianity, as a religious system, is based. (Westminster Confession, cap. viii. §§ 2-4; Larger Catechism, qq. 36-56.) So confident and unequivocal a statement of these truths may seem to Dr Rainy and his followers "thoroughly ungodly." They apparently hug the delusion that the foundations can be removed without impairing the stability of the superstructure. But when the facts go, Christianity will go with them. It is with them that the modern latitudinarian is playing fast and loose; it is round them that the battle of the Christian faith is now raging. And no creed or confession should be lightly abandoned (even in the hopes of obtaining a better) in which these fundamental facts are set forth in so explicit and unmistakable a manner as they are in the standards of the Church of Scotland. Printed by William Blackwood and Sons. In all national histories there comes a period of complete unsettlement, a blind groping in the dark after wayward gods, when a people seems to have lost all corporate feeling, and falls an easy prey to faction and political heresy. It appears as a rule after some violent breach in national traditions, before the land has accepted the inevitable and set herself to work out for herself a new salvation. Such a period was the seventeenth century for Scotland. The old days of isolation, with their turbulent nobles, easygoing Church, and precarious burgher life, had perished with the Union of the Crowns. ScotScotland became a neglected appendage to her southern neighbour, and, having lost her national pride, proceeded to make herself the battleground of a dozen selfish parties and a thousand VOL. CLXXVI.—NO. MLXVIII. The day crazy superstitions. was still far distant when, the last fight of the Middle Ages having been fought at Culloden, she should undertake seriously and patiently the task of progress. It is not an attractive epoch for the historian. Incomprehensible, like all seasons of religious war, it yet rarely blossoms into the romance which attends other times of stress and struggle. A very few heroic careers relieve the sad record of disloyalty and intolerance. But it is not so much the hero whose absence we deplore, it is the ordinary man man of decent wisdom and intelligible ethics. In the crowd of plotters, bigots, and fanatics we long for the sight of a little common integrity. If it is a dull period for the reader, it is a reader, it is a perplexing subject for the historian. There 2 F 1 are long memories in the north, and echoes of old controversy still linger, so that the historian may find himself in conflict with historical opinions held with all the vigour which we are wont to associate with the most controversial points in contemporary politics. A man must be a colourless being indeed to rouse no opposition with a history of seventeenthcentury Scotland. Mr Lang has chosen the courageous part, and has written a most candid chronicle, in which he makes no secret of his sympathies. Once upon a time, as he quotes from Malory, Sir Percival, riding through a forest, came upon a lion fighting with a serpent. He drew his sword to help the lion, "for it seemed to him the more natural beast of the twain." Mr Lang's sympathies are with the lion of Stuart despotism, as against the more subtle tyranny of Kirk and Covenant. Partisan history, provided the historian be honest with his authorities, is to our mind the more trustworthy form, for if the reader be aware of a bias he can allow for it, and is not misled by partiality cloaked under an air of judicial detachment. It is also incomparably the better manner for literary value, for without it we are apt to miss that enthusiasm and sense of drama which can raise history at times to epic rank. Mr Lang's work is always alive; his subject is not a mosaic of forgotten authorities but a living, moving drama, in which he takes sides gallantly, and affects the reader with his own eager interest. His immense industry, it is true, is apt to reveal itself in a multitude of details, which, joined to & staccato style, somewhat blinds the reader to the march of events. He is apt, also, to fall into a trick of trivial quotation, and his humour, while a charming companion in dusty places, is sometimes out of season when the story nears the pitch of tragedy. But this is only to say that Mr Lang has chosen to tell his tale in his own way, and if it is not the orthodox way, we have every cause to be grateful for the fresh individuality which it implies. Much as he owes to Mr Gardiner's wise guidance, he surpasses him in accuracy and width of research, and in acute insight into the tangled psychology of the epoch. For only a Scot can come within measurable distance of understanding those strange wars of catchwords whose echoes still ring in our modern ears. The spirit and methods of the middle ages were still strong in the land. The Kirk aimed at a theocracy, the nobles at an oligarchy, and the dirk and the ambuscade were still, as they had been of old, the only serious form of constitutional opposition. Toleration for another man's opinion, instead of being regarded as a civic duty and per se a religious act, was the most obnoxious of 1 A History of Scotland from the Roman Occupation, vol. iii. By Andrew Lang. Edinburgh: William Blackwood & Sons. |