than the peculiar mode authorized and practised in Scotland of
appointing to every parish its several pastor. Here and there an
ultra-Presbyterian spirit might prompt a murmur against it. But the
wise and intelligent approved; and those who had the appropriate--that
is, the religious interest--confessed that it was practically successful.
From whom, then, came the attempt to change? Why, from those only who
had an alien interest, an indirect interest, an interest of ambition
in its subversion. As matters stood in the spring of 1834, the patron
of each benefice, acting under the severest restraints--restraints which
(if the church courts did their duty) left no room or possibility for
an unfit man to creep in--nominated the incumbent. In a spiritual sense,
the church had all power: by refusing, first of all, to '_license_'
unqualified persons; secondly, by refusing to '_admit_' out of these
licensed persons such as might have become warped from the proper standard
of pastoral fitness, the church had a negative voice, all-potential in
the creation of clergymen; the church could exclude whom she pleased.
But this contented her not. Simply to shut out was an ungracious office,
though mighty for the interests of orthodoxy through the land. The
children of this world, who became the agitators of the church, clamored
for something more. They desired for the church that she should become a
lady patroness; that she should give as well as take away; that she should
wield a sceptre, courted for its bounties, and not merely feared for its
austerities. Yet how should this be accomplished? Openly to translate
upon the church the present power of patrons--_that_ were too
revolutionary, that would have exposed its own object. For the present,
therefore, let this device prevail--let the power nominally be
transferred to congregations: let this be done upon the plea that each
congregation understands best what mode of ministrations tends to its
own edification. There lies the semblance of a Christian plea; the
congregation, it is said, has become anxious for itself; the church