Читать книгу: «Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844», страница 13

Still we wandered on, through a country which had the look of a boundless cemetery. Not a peasant was met; not a sound of human labour, joy or sorrow, reached the ear; not a smoke rose from mansion or cottage; all was still, except when the wind burst in bitter gusts over the plain, or the almost ceaseless rain swelled into sheets, and sent the rivers roaring down before us. If the land had never been inhabited, or had been swept of its inhabitants by an avenging Providence, it could not have been more solitary. I never conceived the idea of the wilderness before. It was the intensity of desolation.

We seemed even to make no progress. We began to think that the scene would never change. But one evening, when the troop had lain down under the shelter of a knoll, my sergeant, a fine Hungarian, whose eyes had been sharpened by hussar service on the Turkish border, aroused me, saying that he had discovered French horse-tracks in advance of us. We were all instantly on the alert, the horse-tracks were found to be numerous, and it was evident that a strong body of the enemy's cavalry had managed to get in between us and the army. It is true that there was a treaty, in which the unmolested movement of the duke was an article. But, it might have been annulled; or the French general might have been inclined to make a daring experiment on our worn-down battalions; or, at all events, it was our business to keep him as far off as we could. We were on horseback immediately. The track led us along the high-road for one or two leagues and then turned off towards a village on a height at some distance. We now paused, and the question was, whether to follow the enemy, or to dismount and try to rest ourselves, and our tired horses, for the night. We had scarcely come to the decision of unloosing girths, when the sky above the village showed a sudden glow; and a confused clamour of voices came upon the wind. Dispatching an orderly to the duke, to inform him of the French movement, we rode towards the village. We found the road in its immediate neighbourhood covered with fugitives; who, however, instead of flying from us with the usual horror of the peasantry, threw themselves beside our stirrups, hung on our bridles, and implored us with every wild gesticulation to hasten to the gates. All that I could learn from the outcries of men, women, and children, was, that their village, or rather town—for we found it of considerable size—had been the quarters of some of the Austrian cavalry, and that the officers had given a ball, to which the leading families had been invited. The ball was charged as a national crime by the democrats in Paris, and a regiment of horse had been sent to punish the unfortunate town.

To attack such a force with fifty worn-out men, was obviously hopeless, and my hulans, brave as they were, hung down their heads; but a fresh concourse came rushing from the gates with even louder outcries than before, and the words, massacre and conflagration, were heard with fearful emphasis. While I pondered for a moment on our want of means, a fine old man, with his white hair stained with blood from a sabre wound in his forehead, clung to my charger's neck, and implored me, by the honour of soldiership, to make but one effort against the revolutionary brigands, as he termed them. "I am a French officer and noble!" he exclaimed—"I have served my king, I have a son in the army of Condé, and now the wretches have seized on my only daughter, my Amalia, and they are carrying her to their accursed guillotine." I could resist no longer; yet I looked round despairingly at my force. "Follow me," said the agonized old man; "one half of the villains are drunk in the cafes already, the other half are busy in that horrid procession to the axe. I shall take you by a private way, and you may fall upon them by surprise. You shall find me, and all who belong to me, sword in hand by your side. Come on; and the God of battles, and protector of the unhappy, will give you victory." He knelt at my feet, with his hands upraised.—"For my child's sake!"—he continued faintly to exclaim—"for my innocent child's sake!" I saw tears fall down some of our bronzed faces, and I had but one word to utter; but that was—"Forward!" We followed our guide swiftly and silently through the narrow streets; and then suddenly emerging into the public square, saw such a sight of terror as never before met my eyes.

SECESSION FROM THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND

A great revolution has taken place in Scotland. A greater has been threatened. Nor is that danger even yet certainly gone by. Upon the accidents of such events as may arise for the next five years, whether fitted or not fitted to revive discussions in which many of the Non-seceders went in various degrees along with the Seceders, depends the final (and, in a strict sense, the very awful) question, What is to be the fate of the Scottish church? Lord Aberdeen's Act is well qualified to tranquillize the agitations of that body; and at an earlier stage, if not intercepted by Lord Melbourne, might have prevented them in part. But Lord Aberdeen has no power to stifle a conflagration once thoroughly kindled. That must depend in a great degree upon the favourable aspect of events yet in the rear.

Meantime these great disturbances are not understood in England; and chiefly on the differences between the two nations as to the language of their several churches and law courts. The process of ordination and induction is totally different under the different ecclesiastical administrations of the two kingdoms. And the church courts of Scotland do not exist in England. We write, therefore, with an express view to the better information of England proper. And, with this purpose, we shall lead the discussion through four capital questions:—

I. What is it that has been done by the moving party?

II. How was it done? By what agencies and influence?

III. What were the immediate results of these acts?

IV. What are the remote results yet to be apprehended?

I. First, then, WHAT is it that has been done?

Up to the month of May in 1834, the fathers and brothers of the "Kirk" were in harmony as great as humanity can hope to see. Since May 1834, the church has been a fierce crater of volcanic agencies, throwing out of her bosom one-third of her children; and these children are no sooner born into their earthly atmosphere, than they turn, with unnatural passions, to the destruction of their brethren. What can be the grounds upon which an acharnement so deadly has arisen?

It will read to the ears of a stranger almost as an experiment upon his credulity, if we tell the simple truth. Being incredible, however, it is not the less true; and, being monstrous it will yet be recorded in history, that the Scottish church has split into mortal feuds upon two points absolutely without interest to the nation: 1st, Upon a demand for creating clergymen by a new process; 2dly, Upon a demand for Papal latitude of jurisdiction. Even the order of succession in these things is not without meaning. Had the second demand stood first, it would have seemed possible that the two demands might have grown up independently, and so far conscientiously. But, according to the realities of the case, this is not possible, the second demand grew out of the first. The interest of the Seceders, as locked up in their earliest requisition, was that which prompted their second. Almost every body was contented with the existing mode of creating the pastoral relation. Search through Christendom, lengthways and breadthways, there was not a public usage, an institution, an economy, which more profoundly slept in the sunshine of divine favour or of civil prosperity, than the peculiar mode authorized and practised in Scotland of appointing to every parish its several pastor. Here and there an ultra-Presbyterian spirit might prompt a murmur against it. But the wise and intelligent approved; and those who had the appropriate—that is, the religious interest—confessed that it was practically successful. From whom, then, came the attempt to change? Why, from those only who had an alien interest, an indirect interest, an interest of ambition in its subversion. As matters stood in the spring of 1834, the patron of each benefice, acting under the severest restraints—restraints which (if the church courts did their duty) left no room or possibility for an unfit man to creep in, nominated the incumbent. In a spiritual sense, the church had all power: by refusing, first of all, to "license" unqualified persons; secondly, by refusing to "admit" out of these licensed persons such as might have become warped from the proper standard of pastoral fitness, the church had a negative voice, all-potential in the creation of clergymen; the church could exclude whom she pleased. But this contented her not. Simply to shut out was an ungracious office, though mighty for the interests of orthodoxy through the land. The children of this world, who became the agitators of the church, clamoured for something more. They desired for the church that she should become a lady patroness; that she should give as well as take away; that she should wield a sceptre, courted for its bounties, and not merely feared for its austerities. Yet how should this be accomplished? Openly to translate upon the church the present power of patrons—that were too revolutionary, that would have exposed its own object. For the present, therefore, let this device prevail—let the power nominally be transferred to congregations; let this be done upon the plea that each congregation understands best what mode of ministrations tends to its own edification. There lies the semblance of a Christian plea; the congregation, it is said, has become anxious for itself; the church has become anxious for the congregation. And then, if the translation should be effected, the church has already devised a means for appropriating the power which she has unsettled; for she limits this power to the communicants at the sacramental table. Now, in Scotland, though not in England, the character of communicant is notoriously created or suspended by the clergyman of each parish; so that, by the briefest of circuits, the church causes the power to revolve into her own hands.

That was the first change—a change full of Jacobinism; and for which to be published was to be denounced. It was necessary, therefore, to place this Jacobin change upon a basis privileged from attack. How should that be done? The object was to create a new clerical power; to shift the election of clergymen from the lay hands in which law and usage had lodged it; and, under a plausible mask of making the election popular, circuitously to make it ecclesiastical. Yet, if the existing patrons of church benefices should see themselves suddenly denuded of their rights, and within a year or two should see these rights settling determinately into the hands of the clergy, the fraud, the fraudulent purpose, and the fraudulent machinery, would have stood out in gross proportions too palpably revealed. In this dilemma the reverend agitators devised a second scheme. It was a scheme bearing triple harvests; for, at one and the same time, it furnished the motive which gave a constructive coherency and meaning to the original purpose, it threw a solemn shadow over the rank worldliness of that purpose, and it opened a diffusive tendency towards other purposes of the same nature, as yet undeveloped. The device was this: in Scotland, as in England, the total process by which a parish clergyman is created, subdivides itself into several successive acts. The initial act belongs to the patron of the benefice: he must "present"; that is, he notifies the fact of his having conferred the benefice upon A B, to a public body which officially takes cognizance of this act; and that body is, not the particular parish concerned, but the presbytery of the district in which the parish is seated. Thus far the steps, merely legal, of the proceedings, were too definite to be easily disturbed. These steps are sustained by Lord Aberdeen as realities, and even by the Non-intrusionists were tolerated as formalities.

But at this point commence other steps not so rigorously defined by law or usage, nor so absolutely within one uniform interpretation of their value. In practice they had long sunk into forms. But ancient forms easily lend themselves to a revivification by meanings and applications, new or old, under the galvanism of democratic forces. The disturbers of the church, passing by the act of "presentation" as an obstacle too formidable to be separately attacked on its own account, made their stand upon one of the two acts which lie next in succession. It is the regular routine, that the presbytery, having been warned of the patron's appointment, and having "received" (in technical language) the presentee—that is, having formally recognised him in that character—next appoint a day on which he is to preach before the congregation. This sermon, together with the prayers by which it is accompanied, constitute the probationary act according to some views; but, according to the general theory, simply the inaugural act by which the new pastor places himself officially before his future parishioners. Decorum, and the sense of proportion, seem to require that to every commencement of a very weighty relation, imposing new duties, there should be a corresponding and ceremonial entrance. The new pastor, until this public introduction, could not be legitimately assumed for known to the parishioners. And accordingly at this point it was—viz. subsequently to his authentic publication, as we may call it—that, in the case of any grievous scandal known to the parish as outstanding against him, arose the proper opportunity furnished by the church for lodging the accusation, and for investigating it before the church court. In default, however, of any grave objection to the presentee, he was next summoned by the presbytery to what really was a probationary act at their bar; viz. an examination of his theological sufficiency. But in this it could not be expected that he should fail, because he must previously have satisfied the requisitions of the church in his original examination for a license to preach. Once dismissed with credit from this bar, he was now beyond all further probation whatsoever; in technical phrase, he was entitled to "admission." Such were the steps, according to their orderly succession, by which a man consummated the pastoral tie with any particular parish. And all of these steps, subsequent to the "reception" and inaugural preaching, were now summarily characterised by the revolutionists as "spiritual;" for the sake of sequestering them into their own hands. As to the initiatory act of presentation, that might be secular, and to be dealt with by a secular law. But the rest were acts which belonged not to a kingdom of this world. "These," with a new-born scrupulosity never heard of until the revolution of 1834, clamoured for new casuistries; "these," said the agitators, "we cannot consent any longer to leave in their state of collapse as mere inert or ceremonial forms. They must be revivified. By all means, let the patron present as heretofore. But the acts of 'examination' and 'admission,' together with power of altogether refusing to enter upon either, under a protest against the candidate from a clear majority of the parishioners—these are acts falling within the spiritual jurisdiction of the church. And these powers we must, for the future, see exercised according to spiritual views."

Here, then, suddenly emerged a perfect ratification for their own previous revolutionary doctrine upon the creation of parish clergymen. This new scruple was, in relation to former scruples, a perfect linch-pin for locking their machinery into cohesion. For vainly would they have sought to defeat the patron's right of presenting, unless through this sudden pause and interdict imposed upon the latter acts in the process of induction, under the pretext that these were acts competent only to a spiritual jurisdiction. This plea, by its tendency, rounded and secured all that they had yet advanced in the way of claim. But, at the same tine, though indispensable negatively, positively it stretched so much further than any necessity or interest inherent in their present innovations, that not improbably they faltered and shrank back at first from the immeasurable field of consequences upon which it opened. Thy would willingly have accepted less. But, unfortunately, it sometimes happens, that, to gain as much as is needful in one direction, you must take a great deal more than you wish for in another. Any principle, which could carry them over the immediate difficulty, would, by mere necessity, carry them incalculably beyond it. For if every act bearing in any one direction a spiritual aspect, showing at any angle a relation to spiritual things, is therefore to be held spiritual in a sense excluding the interference of the civil power, there falls to the ground at once the whole fabric of civil authority in any independent form. Accordingly, we are satisfied that the claim to a spiritual jurisdiction, in collision with the claims of the state, would not probably have offered itself to the ambition of the agitators, otherwise than as a measure ancillary to their earlier pretension of appointing virtually all parish clergymen. The one claim was found to be the integration or sine quâ non complement of the other. In order to sustain the power of appointment in their own courts, it was necessary that they should defeat the patron's power; and, in order to defeat the patron's power, ranging itself (as sooner or later it would) under the law of the Land, it was necessary that they should decline that struggle, by attempting to take the question out of all secular jurisdictions whatever.

In this way grew up that twofold revolution which has been convulsing the Scottish church since 1834; first, the audacious attempt to disturb the settled mode of appointing the parish clergy, through a silent robbery perpetrated on the crown and great landed aristocracy, secondly, and in prosecution of that primary purpose, the far more frantic attempt to renew in a practical shape the old disputes so often agitating the forum of Christendom, as to the bounds of civil and spiritual power.

In our rehearsal of the stages through which the process of induction ordinarily travels, we have purposely omitted one possible interlude or parenthesis in the series; not as wishing to conceal it, but for the very opposite reason. It is right to withdraw from a representative account of any transaction such varieties of the routine as occur but seldom: in this way they are more pointedly exposed. Now, having made that explanation, we go on to inform the Southern reader—than an old traditionary usage has prevailed in Scotland, but not systematically or uniformly, of sending to the presentee, through the presbytery, what is designated a "call", subscribed by members of the parish congregation. This call is simply an invitation to the office of their pastor. It arose in the disorders of the seventeenth century; but in practice it is generally admitted to have sunk into a mere formality throughout the eighteenth century; and the very position which it holds in the succession of steps, not usually coming forward until after the presentation has been notified, (supposing that it comes forward at all,) compels us to regard it in that light. Apparently it bears the same relation to the patron's act as the Address of the two Houses to the Speech from the Throne: it is rather a courteous echo to the personal compliment involved in the presentation, than capable of being regarded as any original act of invitation. And yet, in defiance of that notorious fact, some people go so far as to assert, that a call is not good unless where it is subscribed by a clear majority of the congregation. This is amusing. We have already explained that, except as a liberal courtesy, the very idea of a call destined to be inoperative, is and must be moonshine. Yet between two moonshines, some people, it seems, can tell which is the denser. We have all heard of Barmecide banquets, where, out of tureens filled to the brim with—nothing, the fortunate guest was helped to vast messes of—air. For a hungry guest to take this tantalization in good part, was the sure way to win the esteem of the noble Barmecide. But the Barmecide himself would hardly approve of a duel turning upon a comparison between two of his tureens, question being—which had been the fuller, or of two nihilities which had been seasoned the more judiciously. Yet this in effect is the reasoning of those who say that a call, signed by fifty-one persons out of a hundred, is more valid than another signed only by twenty-six, or by nobody; it being in the mean time fully understood that neither is valid in the least possible degree. But if the "call" was a Barmecide call, there was another act open to the congregation which was not so.

For the English reader must now understand, that over and above the passive and less invidious mode of discountenancing or forbearing to countenance a presentee, by withdrawing from the direct "call" upon him, usage has sanctioned another and stronger sort of protest; one which takes the shape of distinct and clamorous objections. We are speaking of the routine in this place, according to the course which it did travel or could travel under that law and that practice which furnished the pleas for complaint. Now, it was upon these "objections," as may well be supposed, that the main battle arose. Simply to want the "call," being a mere zero, could not much lay hold upon public feeling. It was a case not fitted for effect. You cannot bring a blank privation strongly before the public eye. "The 'call' did not take place last week;" well, perhaps it will take place next week. Or again, if it should never take place, perhaps it may be religious carelessness on the part of the parish. Many parishes notoriously feel no interest in their pastor, except as a quiet member of their community. Consequently, in two of three cases that might occur, there was nothing to excite the public: the parish had either agreed with the patron, or had not noticeably dissented. But in the third case of positive "objections," which (in order to justify themselves as not frivolous and vexatious) were urged with peculiar emphasis, the attention of all men was arrested. Newspapers reverberated the fact: sympathetic groans arose: the patron was an oppressor: the parish was under persecution: and the poor clergyman, whose case was the most to be pitied, as being in a measure endowed with a lasting fund of dislike, had the mortification to find, over and above this resistance from within, that he bore the name of "intruder" from without. He was supposed by the fiction of the case to be in league with his patron for the persecution of a godly parish; whilst in reality the godly parish was persecuting him, and hallooing the world ab extra to join in the hunt.

In such cases of pretended objections to men who have not been tried, we need scarcely tell the reader, that usually they are mere cabals and worldly intrigues. It is next to impossible that any parish or congregation should sincerely agree in their opinion of a clergyman. What one man likes in such cases, another man detests. Mr A., with an ardent nature, and something of a histrionic turn, doats upon a fine rhetorical display. Mr B., with more simplicity of taste, pronounces this little better than theatrical ostentation. Mr C. requires a good deal of critical scholarship. Mr D. quarrels with this as unsuitable to a rustic congregation. Mrs X., who is "under concern" for sin, demands a searching and (as she expresses it) a "faithful" style of dealing with consciences. Mrs Y., an aristocratic lady, who cannot bear to be mixed up in any common charge together with low people, abominates such words as "sin," and wills that the parson should confine his "observations" to the "shocking demoralization of the lower orders."

Now, having stated the practice of Scottish induction, as it was formerly sustained in its first stage by law, in its second stage by usage, let us finish that part of the subject by reporting the existing practice as regulated in all its stages by law. What law? The law as laid down in Lord Aberdeen's late Act of Parliament. This statement should, historically speaking, have found itself under our third head, as being one amongst the consequences immediately following the final rupture. But it is better placed at this point; because it closes the whole review of that topic; and because it reflects light upon the former practice—the practice which led to the whole mutinous tumult: every alteration forcing more keenly upon the reader's attention what had been the previous custom, and in what respect it was held by any man to be a grievance.

This Act, then, of Lord Aberdeen's, removes all legal effect from the "call." Common sense required that. For what was to be done with patronage? Was it to be sustained, or was it not? If not, then why quarrel with the Non-intrusionists? Why suffer a schism to take place in the church? Give legal effect to the "call," and the original cause of quarrel is gone. For, with respect to the opponents of the Non-intrusionists, they would bow to the law. On the other hand, if patronage is to be sustained, then why allow of any lingering or doubtful force to what must often operate as a conflicting claim? "A call," which carries with it any legal force, annihilates patronage. Patronage would thus be exercised only on sufferance. Do we mean then, that a "call" should sink into a pure fiction of ceremony, like the English congé-d'élire addressed to a dean and chapter, calling on them to elect a bishop, when all the world knows that already the see has been filled by a nomination from the crown? Not at all; a moral weight will still attach to the "call," though no legal coercion: and, what is chiefly important, all those doubts be removed by express legislation, which could not but arise between a practice pointing sometimes in one direction, and sometimes in another, between legal decisions again upholding one view, whilst something very like legal prescription was occasionally pleaded for the other. Behold the evil of written laws not rigorously in harmony with that sort of customary law founded upon vague tradition or irregular practice. And here, by the way, arises the place for explaining to the reader that irreconcilable dispute amongst Parliamentary lawyers as to the question whether Lord Aberdeen's bill were enactory, that is, created a new law, or declaratory, that is, simply expounded an old one. If enactory, then why did the House of Lords give judgment against those who allowed weight to the "call?" That might need altering; that might be highly inexpedient; but if it required a new law to make it illegal, how could those parties be held in the wrong previously to the new act of legislation? On the other hand, if declaratory, then show us any old law which made the "call" illegal. The fact is—that no man can decide whether the act established a new law, or merely expounded an old one. And the reason why he cannot—is this: the practice, the usage, which often is the law, had grown up variously during the troubles of the seventeenth century. In many places political reasons had dictated that the elders should nominate the incumbent. But the ancient practice had authorized patronage: by the act of Queen Anne (10th chap.) it was even formally restored; and yet the patron in known instances was said to have waived his right in deference to the "call." But why? Did he do so, in courteous compliance with the parish, as a party whose reasonable wishes ought, for the sake of all parties, to meet with attention? Or did he do so, in humble submission to the parish, as having by their majorities a legal right to the presentation? There lay the question. The presumptions from antiquity were all against the call. The more modern practice had occasionally been for it. Now, we all know how many colourable claims of right are created by prescription. What was the exact force of the "call," no man could say. In like manner, the exact character and limit of allowable objections had been ill-defined in practice, and rested more on a vague tradition than on any settled rule. This also made it hard to say whether Lord Aberdeen's Act were enactory or declaratory, a predicament, however, which equally affects all statutes for removing doubts.

The "call," then, we consider as no longer recognised by law. But did Lord Aberdeen by that change establish the right of the patron as an unconditional right? By no means. He made it strictly a conditional right. The presentee is now a candidate, and no more. He has the most important vote in his favour, it is true: but that vote may still be set aside, though still only with the effect of compelling the patron to a new choice. "Calls" are no longer doubtful in their meaning, but "objections" have a fair field laid open to then. All reasonable objections are to be weighed. But who is to judge whether they are reasonable? The presbytery of the district. And now pursue the action of the law, and see how little ground it leaves upon which to hang a complaint. Every body's rights are secured. Whatever be the event, first of all the presentee cannot complain, if he is rejected only for proved insufficiency. He is put on his trial as to these points only: 1. Is he orthodox? 2. Is he of good moral reputation? 3. Is he sufficiently learned? And note this, (which in fact Sir James Graham remarked in his official letter to the Assembly,) strictly speaking, he ought not to be under challenge as respects the third point; for it is your own fault, the fault of your own licensing courts (the presbyteries,) if he is not qualified so far. You should not have created him a licentiate, should not have given him a license to preach, as must have been done in an earlier stage of his progress, if he were not learned enough. Once learned, a man is learned for life. As to the other points, he may change; and therefore it is that an examination is requisite. But how can he complain, if he is found by an impartial court of venerable men objectionable on any score? If it were possible, however, that he should be wronged, he has his appeal. Secondly, how can the patron complain? His case is the same as his presentee's case; his injuries the same; his relief the same. Besides, if his man is rejected, it is not the parish man that takes his place. No; but a second man of his own choice: and, if again he chooses amiss, who is to blame for that? Thirdly, can the congregation complain? They have a general interest in their spiritual guide. But as to the preference for oratory—for loud or musical voice—for peculiar views in religion—these things are special: they interest but an exceedingly small minority in any parish; and, what is worse, that which pleases one is often offensive to another. There are cases in which a parish would reject a man for being a married man: some of the parish have unmarried daughters. But this case clearly belongs to the small minority; and we have little doubt that, where the objections lay "for cause not shown," it was often for this cause. Fourthly, can the church complain? Her interest is represented, 1, not by the presentee; 2, not by the patron; 3, not by the congregation; but 4, by the presbytery. And, whatever the presbytery say, that is supported. Speaking either for the patron, for the presentee, for the congregation, or for themselves as conservators of the church, that court is heard; what more would they have? And thus in turn every interest is protected. Now the point to be remarked is—that each party in turn has a separate influence. But on any other plan, giving to one party out of the four an absolute or unconditional power, no matter which of the four it be—all the rest have none at all. Lord Aberdeen has reconciled the rights of patrons for the first time with those of all other parties interested. Nobody has more than a conditional power. Every body has that. And the patron, as necessity requires, if property is to be protected, has in all circumstances the reversionary power.