A FEW SERIOUS WORDS ON A SERIOUS QUESTION TO THE
ELECTORS OF EDINBURGH.
IT would be difficult to explain fully to an Englishman the nature and tendency of the Church controversy now waging in Scotland; and to expect to inspire him with an interest in it would be idle. Neverdadess, on account of the game which the leading Scotch Whigs are ihotit to play with the sanction of their masters here at head-quarters, it is desirable that an attempt should be made to convey to the English public a general notion of the question at issue. Ignorance and disregard on the part of English Members may enable :Ministers to smuggle a job through the ensuing session of Parliament, which will materially injure the cause of public morality and free opinion in Scotland.
The objects of the party in the Church Courts of Scotland, of which Dr. CismsiEas- is the most prominent champion, when translated out of the vernacular into plain English, are simply these. The Church of Scotland, that is the Clergy, claim to be supported by the State—to be paid out of the public purse. On the other hand, the Clergy are vigorously striving to emancipate themselves from any secular interference except in this matter of payment. Of course no person can be appointed to a cure of souls who has not been tested and licensed by the Church courts. But the Chary demand more control over the appointments to the ministry. They ask to have restrictions imposed on the exer- cise of the right of patronage, which are tantamount to its abroga- tion. And they ask this not in favour of popular election,
which they vehemently repudiate. They ask to have it con: ceded to the heads of families in full communion with the Church, to impose a veto upon the ordination of any pre- sentee of a patron who shall be disagreeable to them, with- out assigning reasons. Now it so happens, that partly owing to Dissent, and partly owing to diffidence and lukewarmness, the num- ber of individuals falling under this category in each parish IR extremely limited.* It is moreover in the power of the local Church Court in each parish, (the minister, and elders nominated by the minister, and holding their appointments during his pleasure,) to limit them still further by withholding church privileges from those who displease them. We have known the sacrament withheld from parishioners for offences quite as venial as differing in opinion from the clergyman. The Veto, contended for by Dr. CHALMERS and his colleagues, is a veto to be exercised by the clergy. The clergy of the Church of Scotland, not contented with having it in their power to select the individuals from among whom parish- ministers are to be selected, claim the power of determining what individuals are to be appointed to each specific cure of souls. The
ff i majority in the General Assembly are striving to e ect n the
Church of Scotland the same entire withdrawal of the clergy from lay influence that HILDEBRAND effected in the Church of Rome. The same men who are making this ambitious movement are calling at the same time for "additional endowments." They ex- plain this claim to mean, a grant from the public purse sufficient to maintain a clergyman for every two thousand persons in Scot- land. In their speeches and pamphlets they avow that the object of these new levies is to " put down Dissent." Dr. CHALMERS, in his recent appeal to the Dignitaries and Ecclesiastics of the Church of England, takes credit to himself and friends fbr having "fought side by side with the Conservatives and Churchmen" the South of the Tweed, in resistance to unsectarian education, for the upholding of the sinecure Church in Ireland, and for additional grants to the Established Churches throughout the country. The system of domiciliary interference practised by the Scottish clergy is unbearable even to natives, if they have resided any time out of Scotland.
From these facts it must be sufficiently apparent, that the Church
of Scotland, surpassed by no church in the efficacy of its local and central organization, is seeking to concentrate all power in the hands of the clergy, and to increase the numbers of these clergy to an extent that will enable them to bring their personal influence to bear upon every fireside. It is equally clear that this gathering up of the reins of discipline in clerical hands—this in- crease of the number of functionaries—has in view the putting down of any edtication but such as shall be calculated to make men the tame and willing thralls of the Kirk. We hear oft the "Republican institutions" of the Kirk of Scotland : it is a republic in which only the clergy have the full right of citizenship. We hear of the representation of the laity in its Church Courts by lay elders: but these office-bearers, appointed by the clergy, and holding office during their pleasure, are tolerated only so long as they do not counteract their masters. We hear of the poverty of the Kirk : the individual clergy are contented with moderate stipends, but the aggregate of the Church is grasping. Poverty in a priest is the reverse of a guarantee for the true Christian graces. The worst portion of the Romish priesthood is to be found among the mendi- cant orders ; and the small incomes of the Scottish clergy have kept that Church one great mendicant order. The half-learned spiritual despot, grafted on the boor, is the worst nuisance in so- ciety.
Now, if there is one profession to which more than another the
Whigs are tied, it is that of regard for " civil and religious liberty." The cause advocated by CHALMERS and Co. is palpably hostile to "civil and religious liberty." It would concentrate an undue power in the hands of the priesthood. It would employ this power in polluting education at the fountain-bead—by perverting that healthy discipline meant to limn the young mind to the free exercise of all its faculties, into a slavish system of drilling to prepare tools for priests. If there be one body of men to whose strenuous support and long forbearance the present Ministry arc more indebted than another, it is to the Dissenters. And yet there is strong reason to fear that (in so far at least as Scotland is concerned) they are pre- pared to bid for a little longer continuance in office by sacrificing the rights of Dissenters—the rights of every free citizen—to the vulgar tyranny of the Scottish Churchmen.
* In a 'amnions parish in the North of Scotland, where the presentee was vetoed not long ago, the number of heads of families in full communion was ten.
t. In his appeal to the Dignitaries of the Anglican Church, the Doctor says— the spoliation of the Irish Establishment," (i. e. the pruning it with a view to save it from being; upset as the sister establishment was in Scotland) ; " on the topic of the entire and unmutilated Bible in every National School," (the clergy of the Church of Scotland having set the example of using Scrip- ture selections as school-books); "on the control and guardianship of the Church over our seminaries of learning," (i. e. the exclusion of members of the Doctor's Church from Oxford and Cambridge) ; "on the vast importance to the best interests of society of maintaining, or rather extending the ecclesi- astical endowments of other days ; on these and an other kindred objects we have fought side by side with the Churchmen and Conservatives of England." In the conclusion of his epistle, the Doctor, after informing his dignified readers, (whom it would appear he does not think so conversant with the Bible as they ought to be,) that, "in Scripture, a church is represented by the figure of a candlestick," he adds—" Our candlesticks differ in form." After perusing the quotation we have mode, the reader may be tempted to think that they also differ in substance ; and that, whereas the Church of England nay, on account of its wealth, be aptly designated a golden candlestick, the Kirk of Scotland is for its effrontery eminently entitled to be called a brazen one. A rumour is abroad, and gaining strength, that the Lord Advo- cate has been instructed to prepare a bill intended to give the sanction of law to that VetO Act of the General Assembly which has brought the Civil and Ecclesiastical Courts of Scotland into hostile collision. Two circumstances give a colour to this rumour. It is boastfully announced that some of the most prominent Whig agitators arc to figure at an impending "Non-Intrusion" meeting t in Edinburgh. And the Marquis of BREADALBANE has sent a letter to a similar meeting lately held at Perth, declaring in favour of the Veto law, and has allowed himself to be made President of a " Non- Intrusion Society" established there. Among the Whigs favour- able to this policy of truckling to the " wild men," are named the Member for the County of Edinburgh, Mr. W. GIBSON CRAIG, and her Majesty's Secretary at War, the would-be Member for the city of Edinburgh, Mr. THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULA Y.
Eventually this supererogation of Whig infamy could not do us much harm. The Kirk by its success would cut from below its feet the ground on which it at present stands. Young ambition would kick away its mounting ladder too soon. This, however, is not our present theme : our purpose is to remind the Liberal—the really Liberal electors of Edinburgh—that Mr. 'MACAULAY is not yet their Member. Let them believe or disbelieve the treachery imputed to the Whigs; but let them; since the suspicion has been hinted, inquire into it while it is yet time. The illiberal portion (in Church matters) of the Whig party in Edinburgh is a very small fraction. It never was worth being conciliated ; least Of all is it worth being conciliated at so exorbitant a price. If the friends of unsectarian education—of free thought—do not fight their battle on their own ground in Edinburgh, they may rest assured that none of our pococurante English Members will take the trouble, and that the Irish Janissaries will not be allowed to do so. They must take Mr. MAcatmAr into their own hands, and exact front him an explicit declaration of his own views on the question, and the views of that Cabinet of which he is a member. No equivocation must be allowed: he must stand com- mitted either as an upholder of priesteraft or a friend of unsec- turian education. If he affect the mystery of the Minister, he ought to be told that the very secrecy and and reserve which fit him so admirably for Cabinet Councils disqualify him for striking the frank bargain, which alone can be enduring between confiding constituents and a high-minded representative. Will the much- professing Voluntaries of Edinburgh allow their Representative to equivocate on this vital topic ? Will Mr. SIMPSON and the friends of education allow a shadow of doubt to rest upon his intentions? Will the city in which PLAYFAIR and STEWART, when Church and State played their pranks unchecked, fought the battle of free opinion, (in the LESLIE cause,) shamefully abandon the field now that free opinion and the free utterance of that opinion have made such progress ?
I Since the above was written, we have seen an account of the meeting, held OR Tuesday last, in the Assembly Rooms; the Marquis of BREADALBANE in the chair; and among the gentlemen who attended it, were Sir PATRICK MAxwr.r.r. of Springkell, Messrs. ROBERT BELL, JAMES MONCRIEFF, JOHN SHAW STEWART, A. C. RITCHIE, J. T. GORDON, and D. APLAGRAN: Mr. JOIIN SHAW STEWART moved one of the resolutions.
§ Time Edialmr0 amrant of Monday last asserted, that " at a recent meet- ing with some Members of Parliament, the General Assembly's Committee admitted that the Veto Act must be repealed." In the close of the same para- graph the assertion is qualified into " We hear that the Committee disclaimed the wish of reintroducing in that form the veto." The Committee issued a contradiction, of the Courant's paragraph the same evening—" The Committee deeni it necessary authoritatively to state that the account in question is totally at variance with the Act." They add, that " they refrain from publishing the particulars of what may have passed at the emyhtential interviews with which they have been titvoured by influential Aleinbers of Parliament." Whether the anonymous paragraph-writer or the " authoritative " Committee come nearer the truth, is a matter of no consequence. On the main points they do not differ—that there have been " confidential interviews" between the Commit- teemen and " influential Members of Parliament ;" and that the " influential Members" only object to the veto "iii that form." If there be either com- mon sense or common honesty among the Liberal electors of Edinburgh, they will at least insist upon knowing every thing that passed at these "confidential interviews" with " influential Members " before they have any thing to say to Mr. MAcAurav.
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