Art. VI.-ROBERT CANDLISH AND THE DISRUPTION OF 1843.

1. A Century of Scottish History. By Sir Henry Craik. Two vols. Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1901.

2. Scotland's Battles for Spiritual Independence. By Hector Macpherson. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1905. 3. Ten Years of the Church of Scotland. By James Bryce, D.D. Two vols. Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1850. 4. The Ten Years' Conflict. By Robert Buchanan, D.D. Two vols. Glasgow: Blackie, 1849.

5. Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Thomas Chalmers, D.D. By Rev. W. Hanna, LL.D. Four vols. Edinburgh Constable, 1851-2.

6. Memorials of Robert Smith Candlish, D.D. By William Wilson, D.D. Edinburgh: Black, 1880.

7. A Faithful Churchman: Memoir of James Robertson. By A. H. Charteris, D.D. London: Black, 1897.

THE bitterness, not to say the ferocity, of the Disruption controversy is familiar to every one who knows the religious life of Scotland. There are, however, many signs that this animosity, so inexplicable to the English mind, is on the eve of disappearance. The generation which fills the churches to-day does not understand, or, if it does understand, does not value, the causes of division. That the fires of the Disruption are still smouldering, was revealed in the Free Church case and the Lords' decision. But the feelings which that decision aroused were very different from those that marked the period of the Disruption. If here and there a veteran may be found who imagines that the slogan which thrilled his youth can stir his grandchildren, it is abundantly clear that in a very short period it will be possible to study the great battle of the Moderates and the Evangelicals as dispassionately as the equally fierce strife between Resolutioners and Protesters in an earlier period.

The popular account of the Disruption is eminently suitable for the writer of a novel with a purpose.' It is as accurate as an account drawn chiefly from platform speeches and partisan pamphlets might be expected to be. The Disruption cannot be explained save as the culmination of a century of Church history.

the result of influences liable to be forgotten; and it is not a sufficient description to speak of it as an outburst of righteous anger against a palpable iniquity.

The most eloquent speeches of that epoch were those of Chalmers; and, as Chalmers is the greatest figure in Scotland in the early nineteenth century, it is usually supposed that the Disruption was the result of his leadership. But, though the adhesion of Chalmers to the Disruption Church was one source of popular support, and though the Free Church has been often called the Church of Chalmers, it is probably more correct to trace its inception to Robert Candlish. Chalmers 'went out' in 1843 with a heavy heart. The reader of the life of Candlish is aware of an uneasy suspicion that he was bent upon the organisation of a new church. Yet Candlish must not be dismissed as a mere adventurer. He was himself the product of forces against which Chalmers was always inclined to protest. Though he regarded himself as an Evangelical, Chalmers remained to the end of his days a Moderate at heart. Candlish threw himself unreservedly into the cause of the Evangelical party.

As a personality, Candlish cannot claim the interest which Chalmers arouses. Perhaps this is due to his biographer, who, in his anxiety to give the public utterances of his hero, almost forgets to let us see the man. In his day, Candlish must have been a man of strong and impressive character. While a mere stripling, he was judged worthy to occupy the pulpit adorned by the great Andrew Thomson. That this was not due to an outburst of enthusiasm among a people not prone to emotionalism, is shown by the further fact that in 1843 Candlish became the founder of Free St George's, a church whose position in Scotland is unique. In the Disruption controversies he leapt to the front, when only a few years over thirty, and revealed himself as the possessor of the strongest will, the stoutest heart, the most passionate nature of all those who went out.' If it is correct to speak of the Free Church as the work of Candlish, then he deserves some notice. For he must be accounted the author either of the greatest of Scotland's blessings, or of the most disastrous of her calamities; and he is to be judged as one whose actions determined the course of Scottish religion for at least a century.

The details of the Disruption controversy need not be referred to in this article. Those who are curious may unravel a very tangled skein by reading one or two of the histories or biographies which cover the period. In a ponderous work, Dr Bryce gives the Moderate version. Dr Buchanan states the Evangelical case. His narrative is sufficiently judged when we observe that, from beginning to end, he does not once mention the name of Hugh Miller. Now, if the Free Church commanded any popular enthusiasm, it was due less to Chalmers or to Candlish than to Miller. In the Witness' Miller at once interpreted and instructed the mind of the laity. It is a sufficient condemnation of Buchanan's book to note his neglect of Candlish's greatest ally.

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The Disruption is often described as the result of a quarrel about the election of ministers. The particular apostasy which the Free Church flung off in such anger is said to be the unscriptural and unpresbyterian system of patronage. In this statement there is at once truth and error. Scotland never acquiesced kindly in the system which allows a landed proprietor or a corporation to impose a minister upon a parish without any reference to the wishes of the people. Sir Henry Craik, in his 'Century of Scottish History,' has shown how the Act of 1712, which instituted patronage, was justified by the political exigencies of the moment. But political exigencies could not make patronage congenial to a Presbyterian Church. Presbytery bases its system on the principle that the people may be trusted and ought to be trusted, and that the responsibility of their judgment should not be lightened by any parental supervision. It cannot sympathise with the logical fallacy that a spiritual call mediated through the people is ipso facto a call from below' rather than from above,' and that the promise of power from 'on high' has any reference to the grades of social or hierarchical rank. Presbytery has recognised the rights of the laity in the institution of the eldership; and a polity, which admits the laity to its courts in equal numbers with the clergy, is not likely to view patronage with much favour.

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As a matter of fact, patronage had worked badly. The 'lairds' of Scotland have never shown great sympathy with the National Church, and the records of the courts

in the eighteenth century are full of disputed settlements. An impetus to popular feeling was given by the Reform Bill of 1832; and the natural desire for rights in the Church, similar to those which had been secured in the State, was fostered actively by a new commercial class, which was anxious to try conclusions with the aristocracy. When such a feeling was strong in the country, a body so sensitive to public opinion as the General Assembly could not long avoid dealing with it. Andrew Thomson had often fulminated against patronage. The party which afterwards built the Free Church were his disciples. Yet it is not accurate to describe their measures as aimed directly against patronage. The Veto Act of 1834 was not so much an attack upon patronage as an attempt to buttress it in face of a popular agitation. Dr Chalmers, who introduced the Bill, was to the end of his days suspicious of the populace. But, ere the critical period arrived, the abolition of patronage had become a war-cry, and secured for the Free Church a popular support which could not have been gained by the cause that appealed most strongly to the clergy.

Patronage was an occasion rather than a cause. They are nearer to the truth who say that the root of the strife is to be found in the problem of spiritual independence. In his little book on the subject, Mr Macpherson has sought to prove, what to a Scottish reader requires no proof, that all the controversies of the Reformed Church in Scotland have raged round this matter. It is not unusual to represent the Church of Scotland as delighting in 'heresy-hunting.' As a matter of fact, the cases of heresy in Scotland have not been very numerous. Among all the secessions and subdivisions which have marked the course of the Church in Scotland, only one, and that a secession of little moment, has been definitely traceable to a theological dispute. The rival organisations in Scotland do not represent contradictory versions of the Christian religion, but only different views as to the content of the phrase 'spiritual independence.' The contention of the Church of Scotland has always been that the Church must be regarded as in possession of a life of its own. It is not a department of State, nor is it on the same footing as a club, a friendly society, or a

joint-stock company. Mr Macpherson has laboured to maintain, what neither Established Churchmen nor Free Churchmen will deny, that spiritual independence is essential, and that establishment is only accidental. His error lies in conceiving that the particular interpretation of spiritual independence put forward by the Evangelical party at the Disruption is the only possible application of the principle. With the principle the Moderates had no quarrel. Their complaint was that the Evangelicals were reading into the term a meaning which it could hardly bear.

The saying concerning the old priest and the new presbyter contains more truth than is always perceived. There is a High-church Presbyterianism which combines with its love of evangelical doctrine a conception of the clerical office and an assertion of the authority of the Church as lofty as Ultramontane or Tractarian could desire. Its greatest exponent was Andrew Melville, the Scottish Hildebrand; and the principles for which he fought are nowhere more clearly put than in his famous words::

'There are two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland. There is King James, the head of this Commonwealth; and there is Christ Jesus, the King of the Church, whose subject James VI is, and of whose kingdom he is not a king, nor a lord, nor a head, but a member.'

The history of the Church of Scotland is a commentary on these words; and the effort of the ecclesiastical statesmen of Scotland has been to translate them into constitutional forms.

The difficulty arises in the debatable land. The strongest High-churchman will confess the supremacy of the State in matters of property; but what has he to say when the particular property in dispute happens to be in the form of stipends or church buildings, or when the spiritual interests over which the Church is sovereign affect the relation of citizens to houses and incomes? The case arose of the settlement of a clergyman in a parish. The Evangelicals offered an apparently simple solution. Let the State give at its pleasure the emoluments and the social status of a parish minister; but let it not dare to say who shall have the cure of souls.