simply through their own treacherous neglect of it during the latter
half of the eighteenth century; but that no reasonable attention to
that duty _could_ have kept pace with the scale upon which the claims
of a new manufacturing population had increased. In mere equity we
must admit--not that the British nation had fallen behind its duties,
(though naturally it might have done so under the religious torpor
prevalent at the original era of manufacturing extension,) but that
the duties had outstripped all human power of overtaking them. The
efforts, however, have been prodigious in this direction for many
years. Amongst those applied to Scotland, it had been settled by
Parliament that forty-two new churches should be raised in the
highlands, with an endowment from the government of [pound symbol]120
annually for each incumbent. There were besides more than two hundred
chapels of ease to be founded; and towards this scheme the Scottish
public subscribed largely. The money was intrusted to the clergy.
_That_ was right, but mark what followed. It had been expressly provided
by Parliament--that any district or circumjacent territory, allotted
to such parliamentary churches as the range within which the incumbent
was to exercise his spiritual ministration, should _not_ be separate
parishes for any civil or legal effects. Here surely the intentions
and directions of the legislature were plain enough, and decisive
enough.

How did the Scottish clergy obey them? They erected all these
jurisdictions into _bona fide_ 'parishes,' enjoying the plenary rights
(as to church government) of the other parishes, and distinguished
from them in a merely nominal way as parishes _quoad sacra_. There
were added at once to the presbyteries, which are the organs of the
church power, two hundred and three clerical persons for the chapels
of ease, and forty-two for the highland churches--making a total of