III. What were the _immediate results_ of these acts?

IV. What are the _remote results_ yet to be apprehended?

I. First, then, WHAT _is it that has been done?_ Up to the month of
May in 1834, the fathers and brothers of the 'Kirk' were in harmony
as great as humanity can hope to see. Since May, 1834, the church has
been a fierce crater of volcanic agencies, throwing out of her bosom
one-third of her children; and these children are no sooner born into
their earthly atmosphere, than they turn, with unnatural passions, to
the destruction of their brethren. What can be the grounds upon which
an _acharnement_ so deadly has arisen?

It will read to the ears of a stranger almost as an experiment upon
his credulity, if we tell the simple truth. Being incredible, however,
it is not the less true; and, being monstrous, it will yet be recorded
in history, that the Scottish church has split into mortal feuds upon
two points absolutely without interest to the nation; first, upon a
demand for creating clergymen by a new process; secondly, upon a demand
for Papal latitude of jurisdiction. Even the order of succession in
these things is not without meaning. Had the second demand stood first,
it would have seemed possible that the two demands might have grown
up independently, and so far conscientiously. But, according to the
realities of the case, this is _not_ possible; the second demand grew
_out_ of the first. The interest of the Seceders, as locked up in their
earliest requisition, was that which prompted their second. Almost
everybody was contented with the existing mode of creating the pastoral
relation. Search through Christendom, lengthways and breadthways, there
was not a public usage, an institution, an economy, which more
profoundly slept in the sunshine of divine favor or of civil prosperity,