The History of the Scottish Church. By the Rev. Thomas
M'Crie, D.D. (Blackie.)—Part of this volume was published, we learn, some years ago, this part embracing the history of the Church of Scotland from the Reformation to the Revolution. The additions that have been made to it carry the story down to the Disruption in 1843. The most interesting portion is that which relates to the causes of the various secessions which have been made from the Reformed Church. The history is significant, especially as throwing light on the probable future of the Establishment, as it is constituted by the legislation of the past Session. We do not, perhaps, need any one to tell us that in things ecclesiastical, as in other things, what is broken cannot be mended, unless it is mended at once. The edges of the fracture are worn away and lose their shape, and if they are brought together again, the adhesive power is lost. A singular instance is furnished by the Seces- sion led by Ebenezer Erskine, minister of Stirling, in 1783. The ques- tion in dispute was an offshoot of the great question of patronage. Erskine, with some followers, protested against an Act of the General Assembly, and were expelled from the Church, the vote of expulsion being carried by the casting-vote of the Moderator. That they should have formed dissenting communities under these circumstances is not surprising, but that when the Assembly of the next year repealed the Act of Expulsion, and when every method of entreaty was used to bring them back, they should have still stood out, can only be accounted for on the principle that divisions are always hard to heal, and Scotch divisions hardest of all. We cannot compliment Dr. M•Crie on his impar- tiality. He has not the faintest idea of doing justice to his adversaries, or of realising the position or point of view of those who differ from him. His estimate of the " moderate " party seems to us particularly unfair, an unfairness which culminates in a passage relating to Dr. Robertson which we shall quote, but shall prefer not to characterise :— "He was impressed with the belief that his death was not far distant. 'Bat,' adds Dugald Stewart, his biographer, 'like his great contemporary, Hume, he contemplated its approach not only without terror, but with cheerfulness and complacency.' Not a word seems to have escaped his lips (else it would surely have been told), indicating the presence of a 'better hope' than Hume could have cherished to cheer the dying hours of the accomplished leader of the Church of Scotland."
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