Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/564

Rh 538 SCOTLAND [CHURCH. the enlightened portion of the community. In 1810 the Christian Instructor began to appear uuder the editorship of Dr Andrew Thomson, a churchman of vigorous intellect and noble character. It was an ably written review, in which the theology of the Haldanes asserted itself in a somewhat dogmatic and confident tone against all unsound- ness and Moderatism, clearly proclaiming that the former things had passed away. The question of pluralities began to be agitated in 1813, and gave rise to a long struggle, in which Dr Chalmers took a notable part, and which terminated in the regulation that a university chair or principalship should not be held along with a parish which was not close to the university seat. The growth of Evangelical sentiment in the church, along with the example of the great missionary societies founded in the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, led to the institution of the various missionary schemes still carried on, and their history forms the chief part of the history of the church for a number of years. The education scheme, having for its object the plant- ing of schools in destitute Highland districts, came into existence in 1824. The foreign mission committee was formed in 1825, at the instance of Dr Inglis, a leader of the Moderate party; and Dr Duff went to India in 1829 as the first missionary of the Church of Scotland. The church extension committee was first appointed in 1828, and in 1834 it was made permanent. The colonial scheme was inaugurated in 1836, and the Jewish mission in 1838, M'Cheyne and Andrew Bonar setting out in the following year as a deputation to inquire into the condition of the Jews in Palestine and Turkey and on the Continent of Church Europe. Of these schemes that of church extension has ezten- most historical importance. It was originally formed to collect information regarding the spiritual wants of the country, and to apply to the Government to build the churches found to be necessary. As the population of Scot- land had doubled since the Reformation, and its distribution had been completely altered in many counties, while the number of parish churches remained unchanged, and meet- ing-houses had only been erected where seceding congrega- tions required them, the need for new churches was very great. The application to Government for aid, however, proved the occasion of a " Voluntary controversy," which raged with great fierceness for many years and has never completely subsided. The union of the Burgher and the Antiburgher bodies in 1820 in the United Secession both having previously come to hold Voluntary principles added to the influence of these principles in the country, while the political excitement of the period disposed men's minds to such discussions. The Government built forty- two churches in the Highlands, providing them with a slender endowment ; and these are still known as parlia- mentary churches. Under Dr Chalmers, however, the church extension committee struck out a new line of action. That great philanthropist had come to see that the church could only reach the masses of the people effectively by greatly increasing the number of her places of worship and abolishing or minimizing seat-rents in the poorer districts. In his powerful defence of establishments against the voluntaries in both Scotland and England, in which his ablest assistants were those who afterwards became, along with him, the leaders of the Free Church, he pleaded that an established church to be effective must divide the country territorially into a large number of small parishes, so that every corner of the land and every person, 'of what- ever class, shall actually enjoy the benefits of the parochial machinery. This "territorial principle" the church has steadily kept in view ever since. With the view of realizing this idea he appealed to the church to provide funds to build a large number of new churches, and personally carried his appeal throughout the country. By 1835 he had collected 65,626 and reported the building of sixty- two churches in connexion with the Establishment. The keenness of the conflict as it approached the crisis of 1843 checked the liberality of the people for this object, but by 1841 305,747 had been collected and 222 churches built. The zealous orthodoxy of the church found at this period several occasions to assert itself. M'Leod Campbell, min- ister of Row, was deposed by the assembly of 1830 for teaching that assurance is of the essence of faith and that Christ died for all men. He has since been recognized as one of the profoundest Scottish theologians of the 19th century, although his deposition has never been removed. The same assembly condemned the doctrine put forth by Edward Irving, that Christ took upon Him the sinful nature of man and was not impeccable, and Irving was deposed five years later by the presbytery of Annan, when the out- burst of supposed miraculous gifts in his church in London had rendered him still more obnoxious to the strict censures of the period. In 1841 Wright of Borthwick was deposed for a series of heretical opinions, which he denied that he held, but which were said to be contained in a series of devotional works of a somewhat mystical order which he had published. The influence of dissent also acted along with the rapidly Disru] rising religious fervour of the age in quickening in the tiou church that sense of a divine mission, and of the right and power to carry out that mission without obstruction from any worldly authority, which belongs to the essential con- sciousness of the Christian church. An agitation against patronage, the ancient root of evil, and the formation of an anti-patronage society, helped in the same direction. The Ten Years' Conflict, which began in 1833 with the passing by the assembly of the Veto and the Chapel Acts, is treated in the article FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. It is not therefore necessary to dwell further in this place on the consequences of those Acts. The assembly of 1843, from which the exodus took place, proceeded to undo the Acts of the church during the preceding nine years. The Veto was not repealed but ignored, as having never had the force of law ; the Strathbogie ministers were recog- nized as if no sentence of deposition had gone forth against them. The protest which the moderator had read before leaving the assembly had been left on the table; and an Act of Separation and deed of demission were received from the ministers of the newly formed Free Church, who were now declared to have severed their connexion with the Church of Scotland. The assembly addressed a pastoral letter to the people of the country, in which, while declin- ing to " admit that the course taken by the seceders was justified by irresistible necessity," they counselled peace and goodwill towards them, and called for the loyal support of the remaining members of the church. Two Acts at once passed through the legislature in answer to the claims put forward by the church. The Scottish Benefices Act of Lord Aberdeen, 1843, gave the people power to state objections personal to a presentee, and bearing on his fitness for the particular charge to which he was presented, and also authorized the presbytery in dealing with the objections to look to the number and character of the objectors. Sir James Graham's Act, 1844, provided for the erection of new parishes, and thus created the legal basis for a scheme under which chapel ministers might become members of church courts. The Disruption left the Church of Scotland in a sadly Dev maimed condition. Of 1203 ministers 451 left her, andjjeni among these were many of her foremost men. A third of ^ her membership is computed to have gone with them. In s j nce Edinburgh many of her churches were nearly empty. The 1842 Gaelic-speaking population of the northern counties com-