A SCOTTISH ECCLESIASTIC.* TILE subject of this memoir was a
conspicuous figure amid the group of really notable men under whose leadership there was waged that protracted struggle with the Courts of Law and with Parliament which culminated in the disruption of the Scottish Church, and who then addressed themselves, with a success which has been the marvel of Christendom, to the organisation of a fully-equipped rival over against the residuary Establishment. Like all his other associates, he was dwarfed by comparison with the massive personality of Chalmers, whose loftiness of aim, breadth of view, and general amplitude of soul were as un- approachable by your "extraordinary ordinary men" (to use a phrase of Canning's which is full of meaning) as were his majestic simplicity, his ever-fresh enthusiasm, the inten- sity of his devotion to the object e he prized, and that har- moniously forceful combination of mind, character, and pur- pose which enabled him to away his fellows with an irresistible might. Yet among those other emaciates, though some were more prominent and noisy than Buchanan, none were reorf; influ- ntial, none more deservedly trusted. He had not the versatile and strenuous activity of' Candlish. The learning of Cunningham as strange to him, nor could he wield the commanding logic by which that master of dialectic was accustomed to hew down his adversaries. Guthrie's fun he could enjoy, but it was only Guthrie's benevolence he could emulate. Still, for wisdom in
ouncil and skill in negotiation he had no superior during all the "ten years' conflict" of which he became the historian, while it is an open secret that his administrative capabilities, as displayed in the superintendence for more than five-and-twenty years of the Sustentation Fund—that expedient contrived by Chalmers for giving to the clergymen who left the rich pastures of Establish- * Lip of Dr. Robert Buchanan: an Ecclesiastical Biography. By the Rev. Norman L. Walker. London Nelson and Cone.
ment for the bleak wolds of Dissent, something of the security and independence that belong to the members of a State.. endowed and State-protected Church—provoked the admiration and the inquiries of so competent a judge as Mr. Gladstone. In truth, Buchanan had in fair measure many of the endowments that fit one for eminence in statesmanship or diplomacy. He had a fine presence and a dignified bearing. To strangerfl, he appeared frigid and reserved. It was true of him, as of Washington, that few even of his companions would have ventured to lay their hands on his shoulder. Yet he had what Shakespeare calls "a fond and true conceit of god-like amity." In general society he could unbend with ease, while in the quickness and ardour of familiar converse he seemed a man endowed with new powers, rather than with an enhanced dexterity in wielding those by which he impressed the world at large. His style of public ad- dress was marked by a deliberate stateliness of elocution that suited well the smooth and equable succession of his limpid sentences,—
" Strong without rage, without o'orflowing full,"
which, whether directed to exposition or argument, never left any one in doubt as to his meaning. Alike as a debater and a tacti- cian be possessed an imperturbable coolness and clearness of judg- ment, in conjunction with a rare ingenuity. For the best part of thirty years, Candlish and he were the two most influential men of their denomination. United by a fast friendship, they stood out in remarkable contrast,—the one all fire and impulse, the other distinguished by wariness and method ; the one now vehement and declamatory, and anon abstruse and super-subtle, the other always conciliatory, persuasive, and lucid ; the one more analyti- cal, discriminating, and quick to conceive things in detail, the other more sagacious, comprehensive, and general in his views ; the one better fitted to shine in a particular plot, the other with talents adapted to a great and wise drama. The life of such a man deserved to be written. It is a pity it was not written after a more interesting fashion than in this volume. Mr. Walker, who seems to hold a retainer from the Free Church as a literary man-of-all-work, does occasionally show some degree of anima- tion, and it is obvious that he means throughout to be fair. Yet his narrative is cumbrous and fatiguing, while he often displays the feelings of a partisan under the guise of a religionist, and has obviously failed to make the best of available materials. His book is deficient in life and portraiture, and thus it lacks the quality by which, alone the recital of the well-worn chapter in recent Scottish history wherewith it deals could be made attrac- tive to readers beyond the pale.
Buchanan was born in 1802. At the age of twenty-five he was ordained to the pastoral charge of a parish near his native place. Three years later he was transferred to that of Salton, once held by Bishop Burnet, who, along with other benefactions designed for its behoof, left an excellent library for the use of its incumbent. In three years more he was shifted to Glasgow, where he found his true sphere of labour, remaining from 1834 till 1875 the most influential clergyman, with the exception of Norman Macleod, in the west of Scotland. His first great speech in the General Assembly was on the subject of education, when be appeared as the substitute of the well-known Dr. Baird, the Principal of Edin- burgh University. A little later, he was appointed a member of a deputation appointed to press upon the Whig Administration the claims of the Scottish Church to an extended parochial organi- sation. The extracts from his diary given as illustrative of how the deputies sped on this errand are vivid and spirited, Ile de- scribes men and events in a flowing and easy style, with keen observation, and a relish for personal traits which gives a spice of pungency to the narrative. Nothing could be better in its way than his account of Lord Melbourne's behaviour. Of course the Dissenters, who were then in high feather, not having recovered from the excitement of the Reform-Bill time, were hostile to any fresh application of national funds for Established-Church purposes. The line taken by Ministers was to do nothing and to concede nothing, unless the means could be got from unexhausted tithes. Lord Melbourne told the deputies so, with a characteristically easy distinctness. It was a great disappoint- ment to them. In vain they tried to get the decision altered. At a second interview they succeeded only in stirring the insouciant Premier to something like unpoliteness. To their intense disgust, they found his table strewn with pamphlets, which had obviously been read, against their cause. Their mortification was intensified by the manner in whieh he put aside an eloquent appeal on behalf of "truth and godliness" by the exclamation, "Oh yes, that's what every establishment and sect says ; " and closed the interview by the remark, "Why, you won't be any worse, at any
rate ; you may not be any better, but, hang it, you won't be any worse." Naturally they fared better with the Tories. Buchanan was particularly delighted with the cordiality of their reception by the Duke of Wellington, and was much impressed likewise by the knowledge and sympathy evinced on the part of a modest and thoughtful-looking man of twenty-seven, then looked to as their future leader,—Mr. Gladstone. The good opinion, it is interesting to know, was reciprocated.
This movement on the part of the Church contributed power- fully towards two important effects. It prompted what is known in Scotland as the Voluntary controversy, and it coloured the struggle for "spiritual independence." In both Buchanan took his share. Though never so violent in language as some of his colleagues, he denounced "the Voluntary system" on the same` grounds as they adopted,—as inimical to the improvement of society, as striking at the foundation of God's moral government so far as regards bodies politic, as therefore atheistic in character and tendency. There can be no doubt, even Mr. Walker admits, that he was then instinct with a too lofty consciousness of the dignity belonging to him as the member of a great and recognised corporation in correspondence with the State. Certainly, the idea that in a short time he would be prepared to join against that corporation-the very men whom he denounced, would then have been scouted by him as more extravagant than midsummer madness. How that came about is told here with commendable brevity. The new thing in the tale is the account given by Buchanan himself of how he toiled and travailed here in London to get a favourable lodgment in the minds of statesmen for his anti-Erastian ideas. He failed simply because they could not under- stand his cherished theory. When he talked of "a kingdom of Christ independent of the civil magistrate," the more secular of them asked,—Would you have State-pay and refuse State-control? the more religious,—Are the kingdom of Christ and ecclesiastical domination convertible terms ? while both conspired in rejecting his claims, The only sympathy he found for his idea was among extreme High Churchmen, who looked on himself and his church with contemptuous pity. As the readers of the Spectator know, we think this scepticism and repugnance had their justification. The English Church, upon the whole, has had no reason to complain of the Royal supremacy. Historically, its mainten- ance involves a truth and right which have never wanted un- conscious witnesses in the past, while its misconception is closely allied to many important problems in our day. It draws the student's sympathies to William as against Anselm, to Henry as against Becket, while .but for it we should not have had cause to rejoice in that tolerant comprehension which has been established against rival factions in our own time. Castigatque audit qua is a com- plaint to which even good and honest priests sitting in judgment upon those from whom they differ must ever be exposed, while lay jurisdiction, administered under proper checks, can never be
in- jurious to truth or justice. Still, it must be admitted that con- trary ideas are deeply engrained in the Scottish mind ; that they were embodied under statutory guarantees in living institutions ; that while their concession in the case of a Church, rich, aristo- cratic, and puffed up with undefined pretensions, might well pro- voke a dread of spiritual despotism, there was small hazard of the sort in the case of a Church with no free revenues at command, from which the aristocracy has severed itself, wherein lay " elders ' have a preponderating authority, and where an explicit renuncia- tion has been made of any desire to meddle with what, in Scottish phrase, is called "the temporalities ;" and that it was (as Lord Aberdeen and Sir James Graham long afterwards admitted to Buchanan that it had been) an unfortunate and ill-judged thing to come down upon a people among whom preaching is the chief thing in worship with a peremptory declaration, "You must take the clergyman we send you," so insisting upon that position as to rend in twain a Church that, animated by a revived energy, was doing very noble work.
In much of Buchanan's activity subsequent to the Disruption we find little that is interesting. It was largely expended upon what was petty and provincial. True it is that the alchemy of his nature went far to transmute mere dogmatic and sectarian controversies into discussions on vivifying and elevating truths. Yet there are only three outstanding things by which he will be remembered, even among his countrymen. One is the statesman- like ability and skill with which he administered the Sustenta- tion Fund, for the support of the unendowed clergy, so managing it that churches have been planted and sustained in the most destitute localities ; and that in the face of a constantly-growing number of participants, the minimum revenue assured to each is now £200 a year, wealthy congregations of course supplement-
ing this sum by two or three times its amount. Another is the success with which he prosecuted home mission work in his old Glasgow parish, which comprises the most densely- populated part of the city, where the inhabitants are also the most degraded. Starting there in 1849 with a mission- hall, a school, and a savings-bank, there have grown from these humble beginnings some eighteen flourishing congregations, while from the district originally marked off there have been drawn about 10,000 adults to the membership of the Church, of whom one-half had never entered a place of worship till they were sought out by the agents employed for that purpose. Finally, his unsuccessful negotiations for amalgamating all the unendowed Presbyterians of Scotland deserve not to be forgotten. He was foiled in this dearest object of his later life by an appeal to the principles he advocated in his earlier days, and unquestionably, however desirable may be the object he aimed at, apart from some of the uses he contemplated, his opponents within his own Church were able to convict him of inconsiatency. Had success been achieved, those principles, to which he once gave an ex- aggerated value, would have been buried in the same grave with the corruptions of the Establishment he had renounced. It is a possible thing that the temporary frustration to which his scheme was subjected may lead to a grander union and reconstruction than he dreamt of. While this is so, his management of the Sustenfa- tion Fund will stand as a fiscal pattern for all unendowed Churches, even as his management of the Wynd Mission will form a model and incentive as respects the reclamation of our home heathenism. The volume before us may be consulted with advantage by all interested in such subjects, though we cannot but fear that it will be oftener referred to than read, and must regret that it lets us see so little of the private worth that lay behind the public life of this good and able man.
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