CHURCH AFFAIRS IN SCOTLAND.
IT is a trite remark that the Scottish mind cherishes a pecu- liar attachment to a well-marked type of ecclesiastical sympathies and activities. In Scotland, questions about churches and creeds have stirred the popular feeling more deeply, and have affected the course of the national develop- ment with a force more exclusive or supreme, than has been the case almost anywhere else. Sir Walter Scott drew from the life in his representation of donee David Deans, and the race of which David was the pattern has not died out. Alike in crowded city as in lonely shieling far away among the hills and moors, there may be found theological experts of the same antique breed,—men who hold by their traditional convictions with a like pedantic seriousness and rigid grip, who
are ready to defend them with a logic as hard and angular, a subtlety as curious and perverse. The explanation of this phenomenon might not be far to seek, but it is of more interest and consequence to examine at present the causes which, while certain forthwith to galvanise its informing spirit into an ex- traordinary briskness, is certain likewise in no long time to abridge its influence, and to transform its character, if not to end its life. At no period in recent Scottish history has there been a greater flutter and ferment in the theological and ecclesiastical worlds than now exist. Forty years ago the rising questions which engrossed regard were only questions of admin- istration and government. To-day there is an upheaval from a deeper base, and even the purblind begin to see that larger issues are involved. The great event of the Dis- ruption, which Mr. Gladstone declared through the columns of the Quarterly first gave to Scottish Churchmanship an European fame, has largely worn out its effects, save upon the minds of a few elderly sharers in it, who perpetually revert to it with a proud fondness, which may be pardonable, though it is certainly wearisome and somewhat foolish. The spirit of the time has touched younger folks, interesting them in other subjects, prompting a desire to break away from the thrall of mere usage and convention, to reinvestigate what has long been deemed fixed, to essay new modes of explaining truth, even when convinced of what it is, and of whereabouts it lies. All the three great branches of the Presbyterian organisation in Scotland are harassed and made afraid by coming questions of a vital sort. It is so with the Established Church ; within her pale there has been conquered for the principle of comprehension a species of tolerance, but the manner and result of this achievement have been an offence unto many, and it would be a mistake to suppose that trouble upon that score is at an end. It is so with the Free Church ; prid- ing herself upon her superior orthodoxy, she has been prone to denounce the latitudinarianism of her great rival, but she has been suddenly checked in the occupation of throwing stones by having the accusation of living in an open and brittle mansion loudly and persistently levelled at herself. And it is so in connection with the United Presbyterian body ; for within it there has been started all over the country a demand to have the Confession of Faith revised. Aside from all this, the more pronounced politicians among the Dissenters, taking time by the forelock in regard to the next Parliamentary election, are making ready to raise, and vigorously to push, the question of " Disestablishment."
Taking the last subject first, the present writer may state his conviction that the "advanced Liberals" who are pre- paring to essay the task of overturning the Scottish Establish- ment, as an Establishment, have ill-calculated the magnitude of the undertaking. They will find it tougher work by far than what they contemplate or have bargained for. All over the Lowland districts the Established Church is strong, and she is recruiting her strength with a degree of energy which may not in all cases be very wisely directed, though it is unquestionably effective in various ways. All over the Highlands she is miserably weak, so weak that there a close parallel might be found to the worst cases of shepherds without flocks, the revelation of which blasted the Irish Establishment. But what is the just remedy ? To those who mistrust the policy of treating topi- cal ailments by drastic measures, the suggestion propounded some years ago by the experienced man who now edits the Scotsman is certain to recur. Writing in anticipation of the recent Patronage Act, Dr. Wallace thus expressed
himself : —" It seems impossible that, when the High- land counties are looked at, serious questions should
not be raised in Parliament. That over a large dis- trict public revenues should be spent with no better result than that of satisfying 17 per cent. of the population,
in some great counties only 9 per cent., looks sufficiently ill ;
but to transfer the patronage of those revenues to the seven- teen or nine does not promise an improvement. Probably the
idea is more likely to occur that if any transference is to be
made, it should be in the direction of the seventy- three or the eighty-nine, if they will take it But will they take it ? The division-lists of the Free Church Assembly show that on [the abstract principle of] Establishments the Highland clergy are comparatively con- servative. An endowment for the Highlands would enable the
Free Church to augment her stipends in the Lowlands. The principle of sectional Establishment has been already accepted by Scotland. If the Tweed can establish a principle, the same prerogative may reside in the Caledonian Canal." The scheme here adumbrated has won the acceptance of a man who stands in polar opposition to Dr. Wallace as regards many matters of principle and feeling, but who is the most influen- tial ecclesiastic in the Highlands,—Dr. Kennedy, of Dingwall. There is a strong disposition to scout it as chimerical, but various circumstances induce a belief that in the approaching tumult it may be heard of.
The dispute as to Subscription comes closer to the quick. It has been waged with more or less of decision and earnest- ness during a score of years past. Unquestionably, through- out all that period there has existed a growing conviction that things are not as they ought to be. A sense of strain and dis- comfort has constantly been waxing more formidable and more keen. Of course the usual expedients for allaying such anxieties have been applied. The tendency among those who are content has been to relapse into the comfortable persuasion that when one subscribes any of the formula) which binds him to the acceptance of the Westminster symbol, the act implies no more than a general acquiescence and belief in the document as a whole. But the terms of these formulae, as maintained by the several Churches, are inconsistent with this easy-going credence. They are all exceedingly precise and stringent. They have nothing of the vague indefiniteness that belongs to a general subscription. They bind the subscriber hard and fast to the acceptance of each specific doctrine set forth. True it is, the United Presbyterians make an exception that he is not " re- quired to approve of anything which teaches, or is supposed to teach, compulsory or persecuting and intolerant principles in religion," and that the Free Church tries to attain the same end by a denial that the document, properly interpreted, con- tains any expression of such principles. This, however, applies to only one of the thirty-three chapters, and touches no more than a fringe of the main subject. Apart from that mere fringe, every subscriber gives his assent and consent to the doctrines of the Confession in all their amplitude and in all their minuteness, as regards what is most recondite as well as what is plainly simple, without distinction between cardinal verities and elaborate deductions from them. The weight and irk- someness of this grievous burden have been acknowledged by some of the most grave and eminent men in all the Presby- terian Churches. A shorter and simpler form of creed would be welcomed by an overwhelming majority of their ablest and most trusted divines. The right to make a revision has always been stoutly maintained by those who would certainly be the most chary of its exercise. In the circumstances, it is unfortunate that the management of the case should have been usurped by rash, feeble, and discredited hands. It is not alone the interests and desires of Scottish Presbyterian- ism in all its sections that have to be considered. The relations of Presbytery at home with the Churches on the Continent, in America, and in Australia, that hold by the same organisation and beliefs, have also to be taken into account. Surely the affair is one that deserves heed from the approaching Pan-Presbyterian Council to be held in Edinburgh, the design of which is to show that Presbyterianism is the largest Protestant denomination in the world, and is pervaded by an unrivalled unanimity in the apprehension and statement of essential dogma. But we search the programme in vain for any intimation that a question so distinct and vital will be mooted or be allowed an introduction, and the conclu- sion is suggested that the contemplated gathering will resemble its- Pan-Anglican predecessor, by resolving itself into a vain and an empty demonstration.
Worse than all, at least in the estimation of many who are chiefly interested, is the agitation that has arisen within the Free Church. It is bad enough, no doubt, to disparage or assail the Confession, but to hint one word against the accepted idea of Biblical authority is to menace the founda- tions of the faith. This a Hebrew Professor at Aberdeen has dared to do (all unwitting of the storm he would raise about his ears), in sundry articles contributed by him to the new issue of the " Encyclopaedia Britannica." Calmly viewed, the "head and front of his offending" has no great extent. In a paper upon "The Canticles " he refuses that mystic and allegorical style of interpretation which finds the rarest and most refined spiritual meanings in Solomon's Song, a style that might be exerted with equal profit and success upon Shake- speare's Sonnets. In a paper upon the Bible he avows an opinion that the Book of Deuteronomy is very much a rtfaci- mento of the laws promulgated by Moses in the wilderness, a species of codification and re-enactment, prepared under the restored monarchy. Observe, he is careful to distinguish between its authorship and its inspiration. In the fullest and most unreserved manner he expresses his persuasion of its authentic and authoritative character. Scholars know that there is much in the style, the idiom, and the allusions of the book to suggest and sustain his conjecture, as also that divines of unquestioned ortho- doxy have admitted the existence within limits of room for a difference of opinion upon the point. It is the view of the ablest and wisest men in the Free Church that Mr. Smith has not transgressed those limits, however incautiously he may have approached their verge. But the great mass of Free- Church adherents reject this charitable notion, and persist in raising such a hue-and-cry as will render their next General Assembly one of the most momentous in their history. It is pitiful, yet it will be useful. One is startled to find good men still trying to balance their faith in God's living truth on some small point of theological opinion, which can be reached only after special and learned investigation. It is still more painful to witness them setting at defiance the common rules of his- toric and literary criticism, as if they could thus fetter inquiry or suppress its results. When will they learn that the truth is greater than our hold upon it, greater than the evidence for it we can state ; that it shines like the sun at noon, being made visible by its own light ; and yet that if we desire a true theory of the sun-spots, there is nothing for it but to play the astronomer, with reverence and humility, it is true, yet with what patience and penetration we best may.
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