TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND CRISIS.
MORE than four hundred ordained ministers, with a great part of their own Kirk-sessions and congregations, increased by adherents from the congregations of other clergymen, have separated from the Church of Scotland. A schism of this magnitude could under no circumstances be viewed with indifference or levity. The event is rendered the more impressive by the high and peculiar character of many who take part in the secession : Doctors CHALMERS, Goa- DON, and WELSH, for example, are men of high talents and acquire- ments—men with tastes superior to the mere craving for popu- larity—any thing, indeed, but ecclesiastical demagogues. The manner of their leaving the Church must be allowed even by enemies to have been characterized by quiet dignity. They did not stay to wrangle about forms and technicalities, or to pro- long an irritating and objectless debate. Satisfied that they were a minority, though a strong one, they withdrew from an Assembly in which they could no longer be allowed to act unless by making concessions for which their consciences would have rebuked them. The forms of the Assembly might have enabled them to force a debate upon the opposite party, which would have drawn down upon themselves the applause of the galleries, but could have altered the opinions of no man. Instead of wasting time in such gladiatorial display, they more wisely withdrew, to resume their labours of usefulness in a separate association where they were unembarrassed. One of the most pleasing features of the New Secession is the promptitude with which its members have set themselves to organize their machinery for home and foreign missions, the superintendence of schools, and other works of usefulness and charity. The opening address of their Mode- rator, Dr. CHALMERS, is deeply imbued with the true spirit of a Christian minister ; it bespeaks a sense of the high functions of his office—not to flatter either those in power or the popu- lace, but to maintain towards both the dignified and independent position of a teacher—of one who is wiser, and therefore entitled to deference, but who rests his claims to respect exclusively upon his power to serve. Dr. CHALMERS'S discourse is such a one as LUTHER might have been expected to deliver on a similar occasion. In doing this justice to the members of the New Secession, we are not admitting the correctness of their impression that it was necessary to leave the Church. On the contrary, the whole con- troversy which has terminated in that act has all along appeared to us to be more about forms than substance. One of the least agree- able features of the character of Scotsmen is the pedantry with which they stickle about technicalities and forms : a Scotsman, it has been said, is not contented with having his own will, unless you give it him in his own way. The Nonintrusionists are strongly
marked by this narrow-minded, cavilling spirit. Surely the great aim of the struggles of a Christian people and a Christian teacher ought to be to insure the preaching of the free gospel, the discharge of all Christian duties of piety and mercy. Forms are useful helps, but their importance is subordinate. There has been no glaring abuse of the privileges of patronage, for to that question the whole dispute goes back ; and if there had been, the Church Courts had a remedy in their own hands. They had it in their power to refuse ordination to any presentee, for any cause that was likely to render his ministrations unavailing. They had it in their power to be more cautious and exacting in licensing candidates for the ministry. They have left the Church, therefore, not because it was impossible, under its actual constitution, to as- sert the rights of congregations and insure sound and capable teachers, but because they were not allowed to take the precise means of attaining those ends which were most to their taste.
For this reason, while we gladly bear testimony to the regardless- ness of merely selfish considerations and to the calm dignity which have characterized the secession, it would be unwise to keep out of view that this heroism has been displayed on an occasion which scarcely called for it. In secular affairs this is termed Quixotic. The hero who sets the peace and stability of a state on the hazard for the attainment of a secondary object, may occasion mischief far beyond what his success can compensate. There is generally, too, a good deal of self-deception in the case of such martyrs : the pride of dogmatism in the first place, and the pride of consistency, right or wrong, in the second, are apt to assume the names of better motives.
In the present instance, however, there does not appear to be any ground for serious alarm. Many who revere the Church of Scot- land, for the eminent success with which it has discharged the duties of a great national teacher, apprehend, we are well aware, that the secession of so many valuable members may be but a prelude to its dissolution. This fear arises from an inadequate knowledge of the extent to which the forms and doctrines of the Kirk have occupied the national mind in Scotland. With a few exceptions, the Dis- senters of that country differ from the Establishment by shades so slight as to be barely perceptible to strangers. At different pericds, the Cameronians, the United Secession, and the Relief, have with-
drawn from the communion of the Established Church ; but they retain all its doctrinal standards and forms of ecclesiastical govern- ment and discipline. Their avowed reasons for separating have uniformly been alleged laxity in the Church's adherence to these forms and standards. They profess to be more devoted to the Kirk's principles than the Kirk herself. Other Dissenters are not nu- merous in Scotland, and even they seem apt to catch the Presby- terian contagion of thesoil. The Episcopalian Church at one time had nearly adopted something very much resembling a lay elder- ship ; and the Congregationalists in Scotland have formed a union which appears to differ from a Synod or Presbytery in little more than the name. The people of Scotland, without the church as within it, are Calvinists. Even those of a sceptical turn of mind retain the ascetic, self-denying principles of the sect. The people of Scotland are Presbyterians. They prefer a ritual formless, simple, and severe, in which the doctrinal sermon is made the main Object, and the devotional exercises a secondary considera- tion. They prefer a church-government in which the laity take part as well as the clergy and they insist that this government shall provide for the establishment of elementary schools, in order to insure that the people shall worship with understanding. The Scottish public is religious, but its religion is of the intellect and the will : it is homely, logical, ascetic. The Kirk of Scotland has not so much created this turn of mind as been created by it. The mould in which Scottish opinion has been cast would receive no other church than that which is at present established; and even those impatient spirits who fret at the constraint of a legal church have been unable to strike out any thing materially different from it. Those opinions and institutions—created by the national charac- ter of Scotsmen, but reacting upon it, strengthening and bringing out its peculiarities in bolder relief—have made Scotsmen what they are, and have in Scotland an ascendancy which extends far beyond the limits of the Church ; they were powerful before the Church was established, and would retain their power were she to be disestablished tomorrow.
But it will not come to this. The New Secession looks at pre- sent more powerful than it really is. The grounds upon which the Cameronians and the members of the United Secession and Re- lief Churches left the Establishment were broad and palpable to the most vulgar apprehension : the reasons for withdrawing avowed by the present Secession are too narrow to take hold on the gene- ral public. Men can take part in a contest between " patronage" and " no-patronage," who turn aside with impatience from the question whether the patron shall have a real or merely a nomi- nal right of presentation. The masses will continue to be divided between the Establishment and the Voluntary principle; they are incapable of entering into or caring for the nice dis- tinctions of the Nonintrusionists. The ranks of the Established Church will be thinned by secession to a less extent than at first appears. Of the four hundred who have withdrawn, a majority are quoad sacra ministers, whose position in the Establishment was uncertain and precarious. The New Seces- sion is not likely to continue united to its present numeri- cal amount. The emphasis with which Dr. CHALMERS, in his opening address, dwelt upon the dangers of mob-sycophancy, was prompted by a conviction that some at least of his associates required the warning. And the explanation of part of the address, which he offered next day, shows that umbrage had been taken by those at whom he pointed, and that they were a party strong enough to require gentle treatment. A portion of the New Secession will
fly off and become incorporated with the Voluntaries, and a portion get frightened and fall back upon the Old Church. The more fiery spirits will be followed by the excitable portion of the public, which we are told " cheered" the Marchioness of BREADALBANE on Sun- day last as she was proceeding to a Nonintrusion place of worship ; and the real Nonintrusion ministers will be left to the tranquil re- pose of their highly respectable, rather narrow-minded, and con- siderably exclusive congregations.
The Nonintrusion Secession will be one of those sects of whom all men speak well, partly because its members are really respect- able, partly because they are not strong enough to excite jeal- ousy or enmity. It will be an addition to the already sufficiently numerous nuances of Calvinistical Presbyterianism in Scotland, and
nothing more. Its influence, beyond the limited circle of its own adherents, will be felt chiefly in the emulation which its energetic and steady discharge of the functions of a church will kindle in the members of the Establishment.
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