Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/188

136 to the scandal and astonishment of all Scotland, and with a daring which I believe themselves would have shrunk from at the outset of their headlong career, they put forth their unlicensed hands on the dread work of ordination; and as if in solemn mockery of the Church's most venerable forms, asked of the unhappy man who knelt before them, if he promised 'to submit himself humbly and willingly, in the spirit of meekness, unto the admonitions of the brethren of the Presbytery, and to be subject to them and all other Presbyteries and superior judicatories of this Church;' and got back from him an affirmative response, along with the declaration that 'zeal for the honour of God, love to Jesus Christ, and desire of saving souls, were his great motives and chief inducements to enter into the functions of the holy ministry, and not worldly designs and interests. The proposal for their deposition was carried by a majority of ninety-seven out of three hundred and forty-seven members, notwithstanding the opposition of the moderate party, and the sentence was pronounced accordingly. But only the day after the Assembly was astounded by being served with an interdict, charging them to desist from carrying their sentence into effect! After this deed of hardihood, the deposed ministers retired to their parishes, and continued their public duties in defiance of the Assembly's award, while they were encouraged in their contumacy by several of their moderate brethern, who assisted them in the celebration of the Lord's Supper. A resolution was passed that these abettors of the deposed ministers should be censured; but Dr. Cook and his party opposed the measure, on the plea that it would perpetuate the divisions now prevalent in the Church. It was thus made a question, not of the Church against the State for the aggressions of the latter against the former, but merely of the evangelical party against the moderates; and upon this footing the moderates were resolved to place it before the legislature, and ascertain to which of the parties the countenance and support of the State was to be given. In this form the result would be certain, for the State would love its own. A disruption was inevitable, and it was equally certain that the evangelical portion of the Church would not be recognized by the State as the established Church of Scotland. This was so distinctly foreseen, that meetings had already been held to deliberate in what manner the Church was to be supported after it should be disestablished. Upon this difficult question Dr. Chalmers had already bestowed profound attention, and been rewarded with the most animating hopes; so that in a letter to Sir George Sinclair he thus writes: "I have been studying a good deal the economy of our non-Erastian church when severed from the State and its endowments—an event which I would do much to avert, but which, if inevitable, we ought to be prepared for. I do not participate in your fears of an extinction even for our most remote parishes. And the noble resolution of the town ministers, to share equally with their country brethren, from a common fund raised for the general behoof of the ejected ministers, has greatly brightened my anticipations of a great and glorious result, should the Government cast us off."

This casting-off became every day more certain. The Court of Session was now the umpire in every case of ecclesiastical rule; so that vetoed preachers and suspended ministers could carry their case before the civil tribunal, with the almost certain hope that the sentence of the church court would be reversed. Thus it was in the case of Culsalmond, in the Presbytery of Garioch. A preacher was, presented whom the parishioners refused to receive as their minister; but the Presbytery, animated by the example of their brethren of Strathbogie, forthwith