Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/563

Rh CHURCH.] SCOTLAND 537 had shown that if they acted in this way their nominee, while legally minister of the parish, could not claim the stipend. To the risk of such sacrifices the church, led by the Moderate party, refused to expose herself. By the new policy inaugurated by Dr Robertson, which led to the second secession, the assembly compelled presbyteries to give effect to presentations, and in a long series of disputed settlements the "call," though still held essential to a settlement, was less and less regarded, until it was declared that it was not necessary, and that the church courts were bound to induct any qualified presentee. The substitution of the word "con- currence" for " call " about 1764 indicates the subsidiary and ornamental light in which the assent of the parishioners was now to be regarded. The church could have given more weight to the wishes of the people ; she professed to regard patronage as a grievance, and the annual instructions of the assembly to the commission (the committee representing the assembly till its next meeting) enjoined that body to take advantage of any opportunity which might arise for getting rid of the grievance of patronage, an injunction which was not discontinued till 1784. It is not likely that any change in the law could have been obtained at this period, and dis- regard of the law might have led to an exhausting struggle with the state, as was actually the case at a later period. Still it was in the power of the church to give more weight than she did to the feelings of the people ; and her working of the patronage system drove large numbers from the Establishment. A melancholy catalogue of forced settle- ments marks the annals of the church from 1749 to 1780, and wherever an unpopular presentee was settled the people quietly left the Establishment and erected a meeting-house. In 1763 there was a great debate in the assembly on the pro- gress of schism, in which the popular party laid the whole blame at the door of the Moderates, while the Moderates rejoined that patronage and Moderatism had made the church the dignified and powerful institution she had come to be. In 1764 the number of meeting-houses was 120, and in 1773 it had risen to 190. Nor was a conciliatory attitude taken up towards the seceders. The ministers of the Relief desired to remain connected with the Establish- ment, but were not suffered to do so. Those ministers who resigned their parishes to accept calls to Relief con- gregations, in places where forced settlements had taken place, and who might have been and claimed to be recog- nized as still ministers of the church, were deposed and forbidden to look for any ministerial communion with the clergy of the Establishment. Such was the policy of the Moderate ascendency, or of Principal Robertson's adminis- tration, on this vital subject. It had the merit of success in so far as it completely established itself in the church. The presbyteries ceased to disregard presentations, and lay patronage came to be regarded as part of the order of things. But the growth of dissent steadily continued and excited alarm from time to time ; and it may be questioned whether the peace of the church was not purchased at too high a price. The Moderate period is justly regarded as in some respects the most brilliant in the history of the church. Her clergy included many distinguished Scotsmen, of whom an account is given under their respective names. See REID (Thomas), CAMPBELL (George), FERGUSON (Adam), HOME (John), BLAIR (Hugh), ROBERTSON (William), and ERSKINE (John). The labours of these men were not mainly in theology ; in religion the age was one not of advance but of rest ; they gained for the church a great and widespread respect and influence. Another salient feature of the Moderate policy was the consolidation of discipline. It is frequently asserted that discipline was lax at this period and that ministers of scandalous lives were allowed to continue in their charges. It cannot, however, be shown that the leaders of the church at this time sought to procure the miscarriage of justice in dealing with such cases. That some offenders were acquitted on technical grounds is true; it was insisted that in dealing with the character and status of their members the church courts should proceed in as formal and punctilious a manner as civil tribunals and should recognize the same laws of evidence, in fact, that the same securities should exist in the church as in the state for individual rights and liberties. The religious state of the Highlands, to which at the Re- period of the Union the Reformation had only very par- ligious tially penetrated, occupied the attention of the church dur- c. ondi " ing the whole of the 18th century. In 1725 the gift called ^7 the "royal bounty" was first granted, a subsidy amounting lands, at first to 1000 per annum, increased in George IV. 's reign to 2000, and continued to the present day ; its original object was to assist the reclamation of the Highlands from Roman Catholicism by means of catechists and teachers. The Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge, incor- porated in 1709, with a view partly to the wants of the Highlands, worked in concert with the Church of Scotland, setting up schools in remote and destitute localities, while the church promoted various schemes for the dissemination of the Scriptures in Gaelic and the encouragement of Gaelic students. In consequence of these efforts Roman Catho- licism now lingers only in a few islands and glens on the west coast. In these labours as well as in other directions the church was sadly hampered by poverty. The need of an increase in the number of parishes was urgently felt, and, though chapels began to be built about 1796, they were pro- vided only in wealthy places by local voluntary liberality ; for the supply of the necessities of poor outlying districts no one as yet looked to any agency but the state. In every part of the country many of the ministers were miserably poor ; there were many stipends, even of important parishes, not exceeding 40 a year; and it was not till after many debates in the assembly and appeals to the Government that an Act was obtained in 1810 which made up the poorer livings to 150 a year by a grant from the public exchequer. The churches and manses were frequently of the most miserable description, if not falling to decay. With the close of the 18th century a great change passed over the spirit of the church. The new activity which sprang up everywhere after the French Revolution pro- duced in Scotland a revival of Evangelicalism which has not yet spent its force. Moderatism had cultivated the ministers too fast for the people, and the church had become to a large extent more of a dignified ruler than a spiritual mother. About this time the brothers Robert and James Haldane devoted themselves to the work of pro- The Hal- moting Evangelical Christianity, James making missionary danes. journeys throughout Scotland and founding Sunday schools ; and in 1798 the eccentric preacher Rowland Hill visited Scotland at their request. In the journals of these evan- gelists dark pictures are drawn of the religious state of the country, though their censorious tone detracts greatly from their value ; but there is no doubt that the efforts of the Haldanes brought about or coincided with a quickening of the religious spirit of Scotland. The assembly of 1799 passed an Act forbidding the admission to the pulpits of laymen or of ministers of other churches, and issued a manifesto on Sunday schools. These Acts helped greatly to discredit the Moderate party, of whose spirit they were the outcome; and that party further injured their standing in the country by attacking Leslie, afterwards Sir John Leslie, on frivolous grounds, a phrase he had used about Hume's view of causation when he applied for the chair of mathematics in Edinburgh. In this dispute, which made a great sensation in the country, the popular party success- fully defended Leslie, and thus obtained the sympathy of XXL 68