were spoken, the great leader had gone to his rest; but many examples of the happy change he expected, soon showed themelves.

One thing which helped forward this result was the tone of

se farewell sermons-the parting words in which the outgoing ministers had taken leave of their people. How this was done the reader has already seen; but additional examples may here be given from the feelings expressed by Mr. Sym, of Edinburgh, and his friend, Mr. Craig, of Sprouston. While urging his hearers solemnly to consider what faithfulness to Christ required, Mr. Sym went on to say: "There are some among you from whom I expect to be separated, and for whom I cherish a profound respect and most affectionate esteem. . . . Examine narrowly the grounds of your conduct. 'Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.' 'Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind;' for 'whatsoever is not of faith is sin.' If we must separate, let us at least part in peace, not in anger; for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God-not in the exercise of supercilious pride or intolerant bigotry, but in the exercise of an enlarged charity, with mutual regret and with mutual desires for each other's welfare.” *

In similar terms Mr. Craig took leave of those who remained in the Establishment :-" I have but one request to make-viz., that you would call to mind and lay to heart the truths of the Gospel which it has been my privilege from Sabbath to Sabbath to make known to you. You have my sincere wishes and prayers for your spiritual and temporal wellbeing; and let me assure you that I will not soon forget the uniform kindness, and forbearance, and respect which I have experienced at your hands."

When ministers thus publicly left their churches with the law of kindness on their lips, the hostility of their opponents might well be disarmed. In private, also, efforts were made to retain the goodwill of former friends.

A fine instance of this occurred at Collessie, in Fife. Mr. M'Farlan, minister of the parish (afterwards Dr. M'Farlan, of * Memoir of Rev. J. Sym, p. 80.

XXXIII, PREJUDICES REMOVED.

It is right to record some of those cases in which the hostility of adversaries was changed into a feeling of cordial goodwill.

'Be it remembered to their praise," says Dr. Guthrie, "that the two great statesmen [Lord Aberdeen and Sir James Graham,] who were made tools of by a miserable party on this side of the border, did confess-the one publicly, on the floor of the House of Commons, and the other, to my knowledge, privately-that the one act of their lives which they looked back on with the deepest regret was the part they had been led to play." Alluding to Dr. Guthrie's statement, Mr. Murray Dunlop, M.P., said publicly at Carlisle (26th September, 1862): "I think it right to confirm that statement by repeating what Sir J. Graham said to myself. About a year or two before his death he said, in a very earnest tone and manner: 'I have never ceased to deplore the part I took in your Scotch Church affairs.'"*

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This change was what Dr. Chalmers confidently expected: "I believe the upper classes very honestly thought very ill of us. They looked on us as so many Radicals and revolutionaries; and I have heard some of the higher classes for whom I have the greatest respect associate the Disruption with the idea of a coming revolution. I have myself heard them speak so; but I believe that the experience of our being a far more harmless generation than they had any conception of previously, has gone a considerable way to mitigate that feeling, and I trust that the mitigation will go on." +

Within three weeks of the time when these kindly words * Life of Dr. Guthrie, ii. p. 66.

+ Report on Sites, iii. p. 136, q. 6436.

were spoken, the great leader had gone to his rest; but many examples of the happy change he expected, soon showed themselves.

One thing which helped forward this result was the tone of those farewell sermons-the parting words in which the outgoing ministers had taken leave of their people. How this was done the reader has already seen; but additional examples may here be given from the feelings expressed by Mr. Sym, of Edinburgh, and his friend, Mr. Craig, of Sprouston. While urging his hearers solemnly to consider what faithfulness to Christ required, Mr. Sym went on to say: "There are some among you from whom I expect to be separated, and for whom I cherish a profound respect and most affectionate esteem. . . . Examine narrowly the grounds of your conduct. 'Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.' 'Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind;' for 'whatsoever is not of faith is sin.' If we must separate, let us at least part in peace, not in anger; for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God-not in the exercise of supercilious pride or intolerant bigotry, but in the exercise of an enlarged charity, with mutual regret and with mutual desires for each other's welfare.” *

...

In similar terms Mr. Craig took leave of those who remained in the Establishment :-"I have but one request to make-viz., that you would call to mind and lay to heart the truths of the Gospel which it has been my privilege from Sabbath to Sabbath to make known to you. You have my sincere wishes and prayers for your spiritual and temporal wellbeing; and let me assure you that I will not soon forget the uniform kindness, and forbearance, and respect which I have experienced at your hands."

When ministers thus publicly left their churches with the law of kindness on their lips, the hostility of their opponents might well be disarmed. In private, also, efforts were made to retain the goodwill of former friends.

A fine instance of this occurred at Collessie, in Fife. Mr. M'Farlan, minister of the parish (afterwards Dr. M'Farlan, of * Memoir of Rev. J. Sym, p. 80.

Dalkeith), had rendered effective service during the Ten Years' Conflict, and had been honoured by an interdict. He was conspicuous, for example, on that day already referred to, when the Presbytery of Cupar met in the church at Flisk, and Dr. Anderson, in presiding at the induction of Mr. Taylor, took advantage of his position to make an attack on the evangelical majority of the Church of Scotland under cover of a charge to the newly-settled minister. The address, Mr. Taylor states, gave rise to an animated discussion. "Mr. M Farlan, of Collessie, but since removed to Dalkeith, to our Presbytery's loss, a man of clear mind and ready words, asked the people to remain; and animadverting with merited severity upon the Doctor's address, moved that the term 'suitable,' with which the clerk in his blundering haste had characterised the address, be omitted."*

Ready thus to take his part in debate, and to suffer when the time came, he knew at the same time what was due to the courtesies of life. The patron of the parish-a resident heritor, who had been uniformly kind, to whom, indeed, he owed his appointment-had shown signs of dissatisfaction, and Dr. McFarlan wrote him a letter, which deserves to be given in full:

"MANSE OF COLLESSIE, May, 1843.

"DEAR SIR,-You have already received, I have no doubt, official notice of the vacancy in the parish of Collessie, and the cause of that vacancy. I think it, however, only an expression of due respect to you as the patron of that parish, and by whom I have been so much obliged, to communicate with you directly on the subject. I shall not trouble you by an attempt to detail the reasons that have influenced me, along with so many of my brethren in the ministry, to resign my connection with the Establishment. Suffice it to say, that we are acting on a clear, deep, and conscientious conviction that the Established Church of Scotland, as defined by recent decisions of the Civil Courts decisions virtually approved and ratified by the Legislature of the country-convert it into a kind of institution which we did not understand it to be when we became ministers of that

* Disr. Mss. xxxvii. p. 8.

Church; and that the only course that remained for us, as honest men and ministers of the Gospel, was to retire from an Establishment, the constitution of which, as so explained, we could no longer approve. Allow me, however, to say that I do not on that account feel the less indebted to you, as patron of the parish of Collessie, for the very handsome and disinterested manner in which you presented me to that charge. You acted, I believe, on public grounds alone, with exclusive reference to the interests of the parish in making that appointment, and I can only desire that during the period of my incumbency I had, by the blessing of God, been enabled more fully to justify your choice. You will believe me, that it is not any want of gratitude to you, or any feeling of dissatisfaction with a situation in every respect so very desirable, that influenced me in coming to the resolution I have taken. So far from it, the greatest sacrifice I have ever been called upon to make is that which I have made in resigning my place as a minister of the Establishment. Nothing but a deep sense of duty could have induced, or indeed would have warranted, our taking the step we have done. The course we have felt ourselves bound to adopt you may not think was called for, you may not approve. But you will allow me to express a hope that those mutual feelings of personal respect and goodwill which should universally prevail, will not be extinguished, or even diminished, by the distressing circumstances which, in the course of a wise but inscrutable providence, have been permitted to arise."

The desire thus shown by the ministers to remove prejudice and restore kindly feeling met its reward.

Sometimes the response came at once. At St. Cyrus, where the farewell sermon was preached by the Rev. A. Keith, jun., assistant and successor to his father, the well-known Dr. Keith, one of the heritors, Mr. Straiton of Kirkside, an adherent of the Establishment, gave a signal proof of personal regard. That Sabbath afternoon he sent a letter expressed in strong terms of respectful kindness, and enclosing a contribution of £30 in aid of the Free Church of St. Cyrus.

Another of these marked examples occurred at Callander, in the case of Mr. Donald M'Laren, who is described as a