Page:Sketches of the History of the Church of Scotland.djvu/43

 have generally accepted this as a lesson and a guide for Gospel times, as a sanction for the principle of Church Establishments. They forget, also, that Christendom, so soon as it emerged from the Catacombs and pagan persecution, accepted that intimation of the Divine will, and has, with rare and late exceptions, continuously acted upon it. The exceptions, I may remark, have been the result of the successful assertion of democratical principles, as in the American States, and the work of sympathisers with those principles nearer home. The hideous spectacle of democratical, atheistic France, where Christianity is not only disestablished, but barely tolerated, it is sufficient only to point to as a solemn warning.

Most Churchmen, I hope and believe, accept the principles of religious Establishments, where the kings are the nursing fathers of the Church, and their queens the nursing mothers. When the parties to the compact are each careful to perform their respective duties, and not to infringe, the one upon the province of the other, then the Truth is defended; Religion flourishes, is repected as the law of the land, and is dignified in the sight of all beholders; and the State is sanctified and blessed, and God is glorified; and the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of God and of His Christ.

May our daily and diligent work, as Scottish Churchmen, be to rebuild the waste places of Zion; to rear and train afresh the imperishable vine, a slip of which S.Columba and his fellow-missionaries planted in our Scottish soil; but which the wild boar out of the wood had all-but rooted up, and the wild beast of the field devoured. And let our prayers go up for our dear Mother, the Church of Scotland, esto perpetua, till the Second Advent dawns:, and her King comes back to claim His own from the stewards or His mysteries.

Printed by ., Johnston Terrace, Edinburgh,