getting rid of Dr. Duff. He was warned that "a body of ruffians of the baser sort" had been hired to assault him, and entreated not to expose himself by going out at night, and never to return home by the same road by which he had gone.

All this was full of encouragement. None of those things moved him. The mission work was at last telling. A blessing was on it; and very thankfully was this fact acknowledged by one of his colleagues, Mr. Mackay, at the Inverness Assembly in 1845. There were, he said, twenty-two native Christians in Calcutta, the fruits of their mission, now forming the nucleus of a native Christian Church. I do not, he added, wish to attach undue weight to it, but "surely it is a striking fact, and, I trust, a token for good, that of the twenty-two now in Calcutta no less than eighteen have been added to the Church since the Disruption." God had blessed to them that momentous event. Friends had been raised up; good men of other denominations joined them; funds [local] had poured in to tenfold their usual amount. Their adherence had drawn on them the favourable notice of the Church at home, and won for them a warm interest in their prayers. "And to this outpouring of prayer on our behalf I do not hesitate to ascribe, under God, the success which has lately attended us."‡

While the field was thus widening and becoming more prosperous abroad, it was an anxious question how the Church at home could bear the burden. Numerous poor congregations all over Scotland were oppressed by money difficulties. The demands on all sides were unexampled. How in the midst of such a struggle could increasing funds be looked for to meet their increasing liabilities? The result fairly took men by surprise.

To show the state of the facts, perhaps the best way will be to take what was done for all missionary objects during the six years before the Disruption, while the Church was yet unbroken, and compare it with the six years of the Free Church after the Disruption.§

* Life, ii. 69.

+ Ass. Proc., Inverness, p. 26. Within two years the sum raised in Bengal was upwards of £6000.Ibid. p. 27. § Assembly Proceedings, 1849, p. 18.

In the Established Church, while yet unbroken, there was contributed for all the missionary schemes

In the Free Church, after the Disruption, there was contributed for missionary schemes

Annual Average in United Church, before the Disruption, £16,359 in Free Church, after the Disruption, . 40,469

It was impossible to avoid the feeling that God had touched the hearts of His people. It was a surprise to themselves to see what they were able to do; and both the missionaries abroad and the Church at home might well thank God and take courage.

XXXVI. PLEDGES UNFULFILLED.

IN contrast to the unanimous adherence of the Missionaries we must now allude to those ministers in Scotland who, after publicly pledging themselves, failed in the day of trial.* Their conduct requires to be noticed because of the keen feeling which it excited at the time, and because the favour which many of them received within the Establishment seriously affected the relation of the two Churches to each other.

When the Convocation met in November, 1842, the first step taken, was to pass resolutions laying down the conditions absolutely necessary, if the Church was to continue in connection with the State.

Upwards of 500 ministers voted for, or signed, these resolutions; and, of these, there were 61 who, after Government refused their terms, still kept their places in the Establishment.

There was a second and stronger series of resolutions signed by 474, in which they distinctly pledged themselves, in express terms before the public, to resign their livings; and, of these, there were 29 who, when put to the proof, forgot their pledges and retained their parishes.

It would have been marvellous if nothing of the kind had occurred. In an assembly of so many hundreds, there were sure to be some timid men who were not able to face the danger when it actually came. Some were known to be in debt, and creditors bore hard on them; some were in feeble health—one especially, in the West, was sinking into the grave.+

* In this section, for obvious reasons, no names will be given nor authorities quoted through which the names can be traced.

+ There were cases, however, as we have seen, in which this did not shake their resolution. An additional example may here be

Even when there were no such difficulties, the trial in itself, as many could tell, was severe. Dr. Guthrie gives us a glimpse of two cases which he met with immediately before the Disruption: "A minister in a certain district of country said to me-'You think there is no chance of a settlement.' 'No,' said I, 'we are as certain of being out as that the sun will rise to-morrow.' I was struck by something like a groan, which came from the very heart of the mother of the family. They had had many trials; there had been cradles and coffins in that home. There was not a flower, or a shrub, or a tree, but was dear to them. Some of them were planted by the hands of those who were in their graves. That woman's heart was like

to break."

"In another locality there was a venerable mother who had gone to the place 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. This venerable woman was above eighty years of age. Yes, and I never felt more disposed to give up my work [advocating the cause of the Disruption] than in that house. I could contemplate the children being driven from their home, but when I looked upon that venerable widow and mother, with the snows and sorrows of eighty years upon her head, and saw her anxiety about two things-viz., that Lord Aberdeen should bring in a bill to settle the question, but her anxiety, at the same time, that if he did not bring in a satisfactory measure, her son should do his duty, I could not but feel that it was something like a cruel work to tear out such a venerable treeto tear her away from the house that was dearest to her upon earth."*

Another example refers to a later period, but is hardly less striking. "I remember," said Dr. Guthrie," passing a manse on a moonlight night with a minister who had left it for the cause of truth. No light shone from the house, and no smoke rose.

แ

given :-The Rev. D. Davidson, of Broughty-Ferry, after years of failing health, died, 25th August, 1843; one of his last acts being the appending of his name to the Deed of Demission."-Parker Mss.

* Memoir of Dr. Guthrie, ii. p. 70.

'Oh! my friend, it was 'Ah, yes!' he replied;

Pointing to it in the moonlight, I said, a noble thing to leave that manse.' '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, and when I had to take water to 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, I bless God for the grace which was given me; but may He in His mercy grant that such a night I may never see again.'

Surely, in the view of those and similar cases, every one must feel how little cause there is, without discrimination, to judge severely those men whose faith was not equal to such a trial.

Sometimes the results were deeply to be regretted on account of the men themselves. "The Rev. Mr. was minister of - a member of the Convocation, and pledged to all that had been agreed to in that great assemblage. A man of amiable character, who had always followed with those who fought in our great battle, he was generally held in high esteem. Under what influence no one was able to say, but fail us, when the crash came, poor did. All who knew him mourned over it, chiefly for his own sake. He never was to his old friends or to society what he had been. It was said to have affected his health. However that might be, he did not long survive our Disruption. We all believed that a happier man he would have been had he continued with us. Some men there were, at the era of the catastrophe, whose defection was not less-perhaps was more-inconsistent and blameworthy than that of this man of quiet spirit; but these men were made of grosser material than he, and could withstand without shrinking, as he could not, the silent contempt of what some might call a harshly-judging world."

It was the latter more obtrusive class whose conduct and bearing were felt by the public to be offensive. The remark* Memoir of Dr. Guthrie, ii. p. 85.