the strange scene. The services were closed on the Monday with a thanksgiving sermon from Gen. xviii. 19. On Tuesday I left by the mail for Aberdeen. It was blowing a hurricane (we had reason to be thankful that we had had a quiet Sunday), and I recollect that we had to walk the horses very carefully across the long bridge at Inverury, lest we should be blown over."*

It was a strange time in Scotland, when for many months the attention of the whole country was fixed on those seven parishes. A continuous supply of interdicts went down from Edinburgh; they were served on each minister as he arrived -so soon as his name could be ascertained-and invariably, without the least hesitation, they were broken. A state of things such as this was deeply to be regretted-was, indeed, without parallel among a law-abiding and loyal people like those of Scotland since the old persecuting times. But the same vital questions were again being stirred, the old fire was rising. The Civil Court had at last fairly "overshot the mark-it was Erastian over-much." Broken interdicts were shown as common things all over the country, and the remarkable circumstance was, that, notwithstanding the distinct threat of imprisonment held out by the Court, neither the private parties nor the legal authorities ever ventured to put that threatened penalty in force.

Connected with this case, however, there were other and far more serious matters in reserve. At first, it seemed as if the seven ministers had intended to observe their ordination vows. On being suspended, they ceased the exercise of their ministry. But soon there came a change-they presented a formal application to the Civil Court, asking the secular judges to take off the spiritual sentence, and restore them to the exercise of their sacred functions. And this the Court actually professed to do by a formal decree. It was one of the startling decisions of that strange time when the civil judges assumed the power of restoring the sacred functions which the only competent spiritual authorities had taken away. But the grave ecclesiastical offence was not that the judges gave such a decision, but that the Church's own sons, her ordained ministers, should have asked a Civil Court to exercise the power of the keys, so as to set aside * Dis. Mss. L

and overbear the spiritual authority which the Church holds from Christ. Had this been submitted to, it is obvious that all spiritual authority was laid prostrate at the feet of the Court of Session. The seven ministers, accordingly, for this offence, were put on trial. Slowly and reluctantly their case was gone into by the Church, as may be seen at various stages of the procedure. Every effort was made to prevail on them, as brethren, to withdraw from a position so false. The case was most painful in itself, and in the results to which it pointed. But, ultimately, all efforts to ward off the final issue were unavailing, and in the Assembly of 1841 they were deposed from the office of the ministry.

There is only one more of these leading cases requiring briefly to be noticed that of Stewarton, which arose in 1840, though not decided till January, 1843. It had much to do with forcing on the Disruption.

The parish of Stewarton, in Ayrshire, was extensive and populous, and the Presbytery, anxious for the spiritual welfare of the people, proposed to have a portion of it attached quoad sacra to a Chapel of Ease, and put under the charge of an additional minister and kirk-session.

Six years before, the precedents in her own

Church, following many unchallenged history, had raised such chapels into quoad sacra parishes, leaving all civil interests connected with the old parochial arrangements unaffected, the only result being that the ministers were rendered truly Presbyterian, were put on a par with their brethren in Church Courts, and had kirk-sessions to aid them in their pastoral work. The immediate effect of the act had been very great. Nearly 200 churches at once rose over the land, not only in populous cities, but in extensive country districts, as at Latheron already referred to, where a parish with thirty miles of sea-board, and 320 square miles of area, instead of its one parish church, had five fully-equipped charges, each with its own minister, kirk-session, and school. It was blessed work for the great Master, into which Dr. Chalmers, Mr. M'Cheyne, and many men of kindred spirit had thrown their whole heart.

But on this field also the Church was now to be assailed,

and once more the Court of Session was called in to deal the blow. Certain heritors of Stewarton applied for an interdict. It could not be shown that any civil interests were infringed on; the Church had been careful to leave these where she found them. No civil law, not even the formidable Patronage Act of Queen Anne, had been touched. The whole action of the Church was confined to making more efficient provision for having her spiritual work carried out. But in spite of this fact, and of the masterly argument and protest of Lord Moncreiff, the interdict was granted. At a blow, more than 200 ordained Presbyterian ministers were stripped of one-half their sacred functions, more than 200 kirk-sessions were extinguished, and this was done by civil judges sitting in a secular court. Without any allegation that a single Act of Parliament had been infringed on, the Lords of Session wrested from the Church the power of administering in such matters the spiritual affairs belonging to her as a Church of Christ.

How the decision was received may be seen from the speech of Dr. Chalmers, when immediately afterwards, addressing the Commission of Assembly, he exclaimed, "It is not on one point, but on all that we are assailed. . . . The ancient wall of circumvallation that has protected us in former days has all been broken down."*

...

And not less decisive was the language of Dr. Begg, who was prepared to accept the judgment in the Stewarton case as of itself enough to drive the evangelical majority out of the Establishment "This judgment is deserving of the most solemn and serious consideration of the Church, as one of the most violent attempts which has yet been made to overturn the foundations of our Church. Our foundation principle is Presbyterianism— that all our ministers are equal-that every minister is bound to rule as well as teach-and it appears to me that the Civil Courts have no more right to subvert that principle than they have to overturn the whole constitution of the Church; or rather, this is the constitution which the Civil Courts are now attempting to overturn.

Witness Newspaper, 1st February, 1843.

"But whatever the Government may do or not do, we have a plain and clear course of duty to follow-to stand upon our Presbyterian principles and say, If you drive these men out of the Church you will drive us also. We will go with them. They shall not be separated from us, nor will we allow the Civil Courts to separate those whom Christ has united, or to separate rule from teaching in Christ's house. There is a formidable prospect as well before the Church as before the kingdom of Scotland. Our leaving the Establishment I reckon to be a very insignificant matter as compared with what is to come after."

While a struggle such as this was going on, the feelings of both parties, as might have been expected, began to get embittered. Hard sayings came from the bench, little in keeping with the usual judicial calmness of the place; while on the other side bold words were fearlessly spoken, according to the use and wont of Scottish Churchmen since the days of Knox. Obviously, things were getting dangerous, and if the conflict went on in this fashion, the most disastrous results must be looked for.

It was the fear of this that had led to certain private attempts, so early as 1840 and 1841, to come to a common understanding. On the one hand, Lord Aberdeen and Mr. Hope, Dean of Faculty, and on the other, Dr. Chalmers and Dr. Candlish, sought to reach some common ground on which the controversy might be arranged. The direct result was unfortunate, and yet, when these negotiations ceased, the Church was not without reasons for thankfulness, both because of what had been escaped from, and what had been gained.

There had been great danger of a compromise. The Veto law was to be repealed, and to this the friends of the Church would have willingly agreed, provided some other plan could have been found for securing the standing of the Christian people, and skilful lawyers and statesmen were exercising all their ingenuity in devising a way in which the Veto law was really * Witness, 28th January, 1843.

to be set aside, and yet the object of it substantially gained. The problem was found to be insoluble, and in the opinion of many it was well. Under all the specious appearances of agreement, there lay a real antagonism of principle-Erastianism against Spiritual Independence-and in the end it was surely best that such questions should be dealt with frankly and honestly, apart from all appearance of evasion.

And there was one other reason for thankfulness. In after days, when the great breach had actually taken place, the leading men who guided the counsels of the Church had the satisfaction of thinking that the most sincere desire had been manifested to go as far as, in honour, they could-to the extreme limit indeed -in the way of fair and reasonable concession to the views of their opponents. Even at the time the negotiations had one beneficial result. The favourite cry against the Church, which her adversaries were never tired of repeating, was that the whole movement was due to clerical ambition. The Church was merely grasping at power for herself. Mr. Hope, the Dean of Faculty, had made that the great theme of a bulky pamphlet, and year after year the secular press had kept incessantly ringing the changes on priestly love of power. It turned out that the measure which Lord Aberdeen pressed on their acceptance was designed to take the power from the people and give it to the Church. This, in the face of the country, she distinctly refused, insisting that her Christian people should have their rights fully preserved. In some quarters this announcement seems to have been received with surprise, more especially in the House of Peers, where some even of those opposed to the Church could not withhold a tribute of respect to her for the course which she had followed.

There is no need to dwell on the cases which began rapidly to multiply towards the close of the conflict. Hardly any step could be taken by the Church in which she was not obstructed by some interdict. When a minister was about to be deposed for theft, on the ground of a sentence acquiesced in by himself, an interdict came from the Court of Session to prevent his deposition. When a Presbytery was about to try a minister