Leading Articles on Various Subjects.
by Hugh Miller.
PREFACE.
The present volume is issued in compliance with the strong solicitations of many, to whose desire deference was due. In selecting the articles, I have been guided mainly by two considerations,--namely, the necessity for reproducing the mature opinion of a great mind, upon great subjects; and for making the selection so varied, as to convey to the reader some idea of the wonderful versatility of the powers which could treat subjects so diverse in their nature with such uniform eloquence and discrimination. I trust that the chapters on Education will prove to be a valuable contribution to the speedy settlement of that question at the present crisis. Those on Sutherlandshire are inserted because they possess a permanent value, in connection with the social and economical history of our country.
Some of the articles are of a personal character, and are introduced, not, certainly, for the purpose of recalling old animosities, but solely to ill.u.s.trate the author"s method of using some of the more formidable figures of speech; while over against these may be set some on purely literary subjects, which show the genial tenderness of his disposition towards those who aspired to serve G.o.d and their generation by giving to the world the fruit of their imagination, their labour, and their leisure.
I have not determined the selection without securing the counsel and approval of men on whose judgment I could rely. It only remains for me to thank them, and in an especial way to thank Mr. D. O. Hill for the portrait which forms the frontispiece. An impersonal reference to a similar portrait taken at the same time will be found at page 184, in the article on "The Calotype."
JOHN DAVIDSON.
_London, March 8, 1870._
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO THOUGHTS ON THE EDUCATIONAL QUESTION.
The following chapters on the Educational Question first appeared as a series of articles in the _Witness_ newspaper. They present, in consequence, a certain amount of digression, and occasional re-statement and explanation, which, had they been published simultaneously, as parts of a whole, they would not have exhibited.
The controversy was vital and active at every stage of their appearance. Statements made and principles laid down in the earlier articles had, from the circ.u.mstance that their truth had been questioned or their soundness challenged, to be re-a.s.serted and maintained in those which followed; and hence some little derangement in the management of the question, for which, however, the interest which must always attach to a real conflict may be found to compensate. That portion of the controversy, however, which arose out of one of the articles of the series, and which some have deemed personal, has been struck out of the published edition of the pamphlet, and retained in but an inconsiderable number of copies, placed in the hands of a few friends. In omitting it where it has been omitted, the writer has acted on the advice of a gentleman for whose judgment he entertains the most thorough respect, and from a desire that the general argument should not be prejudiced by a matter naturally, but not necessarily, connected with it. And in retaining it where it has been retained, he has done so in the full expectation of a time not very distant, when it will be decided that he has neither outraged the ordinary courtesies of controversy, nor taken up a false line of inference or statement; and when the importance of the subject discussed will be regarded as quite considerable enough to make any one earnest, without the necessity of supposing that he had been previously angry.
It is all-important, that on the general question of National Education, the Free Church should take up her position wisely.
Majorities in her courts, however overwhelming, will little avail her, if their findings fail to recommend themselves to the good sense of her people, or are palpably unsuited to the emergencies of the time. A powerful writer of the present age employs, in one of his ill.u.s.trations, the bold figure of a ship"s crew, that, with the difficulties of Cape Horn full before them, content themselves with inst.i.tuting aboard their vessel a const.i.tutional system of voting, and who find delight in contemplating the unanimity which prevails on matters in general, both above decks and below. "But your ship," says Carlyle, "cannot double Cape Horn by its excellent plans of voting: the ship, to get round Cape Horn, will find a set of conditions already voted for, and fixed with adamantine rigour, by the ancient Elemental Powers, who are entirely careless how you vote. If you can by voting, or without voting, ascertain these conditions, and valiantly conform to them, you will get round the Cape: if you cannot, the ruffian Winds will blow you ever back again; the inexorable Icebergs, dumb privy councillors from Chaos, will nudge you with most chaotic admonition; you will be flung half-frozen on the Patagonian cliffs, or jostled into shivers by your iceberg councillors, and will never get round Cape Horn at all." Now there is much meaning couched in this quaint figure, and meaning which the Free Church would do well to ponder. There are many questions on which she could perhaps secure a majority, which yet that majority would utterly fail to carry. On the question of College Extension, for instance, she might be able to vote, if she but selected her elders with some little care, that there should be full staffs of theological professors at Glasgow and Aberdeen. But what would her votes succeed in achieving? Not, a.s.suredly, the doubling of the Cape; but the certainty of shivering her all-important Educational Inst.i.tute on three inexorable icebergs. In the first place, her magnificent metropolitan College, like that huge long boat, famous in story, which Robinson Crusoe was able to build, but wholly unable to launch, would change from being what it now is--a trophy of her liberality and wisdom--into a magnificent monument of her folly. In the second place, she would have to break faith with her existing professors, and to argue, mayhap, when they were becoming thin and seedy, and getting into debt, that she was not morally bound to them for their salaries. And, in the third and last place, she would infallibly secure that, some twenty years hence at furthest, every theological professor of the Free Church should be a pluralist, and able to give to his lectures merely those f.a.g-ends of his time which he could s.n.a.t.c.h from the duties of the pulpit and the care of his flock. And such, in doubling the Cape Horn of the College question, is all that unanimity of voting could secure to the Church; unless, indeed, according to Carlyle, she voted in accordance with the "set of conditions already voted for and fixed by the adamantine powers."
Nor does the question of Denominational Education, now that there is a national scheme in the field, furnish a more, but, on the contrary, a much less, hopeful subject for mere voting in our church courts, than the question of College Extension. It is _not_ to be carried by ecclesiastical majorities. Some of the most important facts in the "Ten Years" Conflict" have perhaps still to be recorded; and it is one of these, that long after the Non-Intrusion party possessed majorities in the General a.s.sembly, the laity looked on with exceedingly little interest, much possessed by the suspicion that the clergy were battling, not on the popular behalf, but on their own. Even in 1839, after the Auchterarder case had been decided in the House of Lords, the apathy seemed little disturbed; and the writer of these chapters, when engaged in doing his little all to dissipate it, could address a friend in Edinburgh, to whom he forwarded the MS. of a pamphlet thrown into the form of a letter to Lord Brougham, in the following terms:--"The question which at present agitates the Church is a vital one; and unless the people can be roused to take part in it (and they seem strangely uninformed and wofully indifferent as yet), the worst cause must inevitably prevail. They may perhaps listen to one of their own body, who combines the principles of the old with the opinions of the modern Whig, and who, though he feels strongly on the question, has no secular interest involved in it." It was about this time that Dr. George Cook said--and, we have no doubt, said truly--that he could scarce enter an inn or a stage-coach without finding respectable men inveighing against the utter folly of the Non-Intrusionists, and the worse than madness of the church courts. For the opponents of the party were all active and awake at the time, and its incipient friends still indifferent or mistrustful. The history of Church pet.i.tions in Edinburgh during the ten eventful years of the war brings out this fact very significantly in the statistical form. From 1833, the year of the Veto Act, to 1839, the year of the Auchterarder decision, pet.i.tions to Parliament from Edinburgh on behalf of the struggling Church were usually signed by not more than from four to five thousand persons. In 1839 the number rose to six thousand. The people began gradually to awaken, and to trust. Speeches in church courts were found to have comparatively little influence in creating opinion, or ecclesiastical votes in securing confidence; and so there were other means of appealing to the public mind resorted to, mayhap not wholly without effect: for in 1840 the annual Church pet.i.tion from Edinburgh bore attached to it thirteen thousand signatures; and to that of the following year (1841) the very extraordinary number of twenty-five thousand was appended. And, save for the result, general over Scotland, which we find thus indicated by the Church pet.i.tions of Edinburgh, the Disruption, and especially the origination of a Free Church, would have been impossible events. How, we ask, was that result produced? Not, certainly, by the votes of ecclesiastical courts,--for mere votes would never have doubled the Cape Horn of the Church question; but simply through the conviction at length effectually wrought in the public mind, that our ministers were struggling and suffering, not for clerical privileges, but for popular rights,--not for themselves, but for others. And that conviction once firmly entertained, the movement waxed formidable; for elsewhere, as in the metropolis, popular support increased at least fivefold; and the question, previously narrow of base, and very much restricted to one order of men, became broad as the Scottish nation, and deep as the feelings of the Scottish people. But as certainly as the component strands of a cable that have been twisted into strength and coherency by one series of workings, may be untwisted into loose and feeble threads by another, so certainly may the majorities of our church courts, by a reversal of the charm which won for them the element of popular strength, render themselves of small account in the nation.
They became strong by advocating, in the Patronage question, popular rights, in opposition to clerical interests: they may and will become weak, if in the Educational one they reverse the process, and advocate clerical interests in opposition to popular rights.
Their country is perishing for lack of a knowledge which they cannot supply. Every seven years--the brief term during which, if a generation fail to be educated, the opportunity of education for ever pa.s.ses away--there are from a hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand of the youth of Scotland added to the adult community in an untaught, uninformed condition. Nor need we say in how frightful a ratio their numbers must increase. The ignorant children of the present will become the improvident and careless parents of the future; and how improvident and careless the corresponding cla.s.s which already exists among us always approves itself to be, let our prisons and workhouses tell. Our country, with all its churches, must inevitably founder among the nations, like a water-logged vessel in a tempest, if this state of matters be permitted to continue. And why permit it to continue? Be it remembered that it is the _national_ schools--those schools which are the people"s own, and are yet withheld from them--and not the schools of the Free Church, which it is the object of the Educational movement to open up and extend. Nor is it proposed to open them up on a new principle. It is an unchallenged fact, that there exists no statutory provision for the teaching of religion _in them_. All that is really wanted is, to transfer them on their present statutory basis from the few to the many,--from Moderate ministers and Episcopalian heritors, to a people essentially sound in the faith--Presbyterian in the proportion of at least _six_ to one, and Evangelical in the proportion of at least _two_ to one. And at no distant day this transference must and will take place, if the ministers of the Free Church do not virtually join their forces to their brethren of the Establishment in behalf of an alleged ecclesiastical privilege nowhere sanctioned in the word of G.o.d.{1}
There is another important item in this question, over which, as already determined by inevitable laws, ecclesiastical votes, however unanimous, can exert no influence or control. They cannot ordain that inadequately paid schoolmasters can be other than inferior educators.
If the remuneration be low, it is impossible by any mere force of majorities to render the teaching high. There is a law already "voted for" in the case, which majorities can no more repeal than they can the law of gravitation. And here we must take the opportunity of stating--for there has been misrepresentation on the point--what our interest in the teachers of Scotland and of the Free Church really is.
Certainly not indifferent to their comfort as men, or to the welfare of their profession, as one of the most important and yet worst remunerated in the community, we frankly confess that we look to something greatly higher than either their comfort or the professional welfare in general. They and their profession are but _means_; and it is to the _end_ that we mainly look,--that end being the right education of the Scottish people, and their consequent elevation in the scale, moral and intellectual. We would deal by the teachers of the country in this matter as we would by the stone-cutters of Edinburgh, were we entrusted with the erection of some such exquisite piece of masonry as the Scott Monument, or that fine building recently completed in St. Andrew Square. Instead of pitching our scale of remuneration at the rate of labourers" wages, we would at once pitch it at the highest rate a.s.signed to the skilled mechanic; and this not in order, primarily at least, that the masons engaged should be comfortable, but in order that they should be masters of their profession, and that their work should be of the completest and most finished kind. For labourers" wages would secure the services of only bungling workmen, and lead to the production of only inferior masonry.
And such is the principle on which we would befriend our poor schoolmasters,--not so much for their own sakes, as for the sake of their work. Further, however, it is surely of importance that, when engaged in teaching religion, they themselves should be enabled, in conformity with one of its injunctions, to "provide things honest in the sight of all men." Nay, of nothing are we more certain, than that the Church has only to exert herself to the extent of the liabilities already incurred to her teachers, in order to be convinced of the absolute necessity which exists for a broad national scheme. Any doubts which she may at present entertain regarding the question of the _necessity_, are, in part at least, effects of her lax views respecting the question of the _liability_, and of her consequent belief that _anything well divided_ is sufficient to discharge it. At the same time, however, it would be perhaps well that at least our better-paid schoolmasters should be made to reflect that the circ.u.mstances of their position are very peculiar; and that should they take a zealous part against what a preponderating majority of the laity of their Church must of necessity come to regard as the cause of their country, their opposition, though utterly uninfluential in the general struggle, may prove thoroughly effectual in injuring themselves. For virtually in the Free Church, as in the British Const.i.tution, it is the "_Commons_" who grant the supplies.
We subjoin the paper on the Educational Question, addressed by Dr.
Chalmers to the Hon. Mr. Fox Maule, as it first appeared in the _Witness_. The reader will see that there is direct reference made to it in the following pages, and will find it better suited to repay careful study and frequent perusal than perhaps any other doc.u.ment on the subject ever written:--
"It were the best state of things, that we had a Parliament sufficiently theological to discriminate between the right and the wrong in religion, and to encourage or endow accordingly.
But failing this, it seems to us the next best thing, that in any public measure for helping on the education of the people, Government were to abstain from introducing the element of religion at all into their part of the scheme; and this not because they held the matter to be insignificant,--the contrary might be strongly expressed in the preamble of their Act,--but on the ground that, in the present divided state of the Christian world, they would take no cognizance of, just because they would attempt no control over, the religion of applicants for aid,--leaving this matter entire to the parties who had to do with the erection and management of the schools which they had been called upon to a.s.sist. A grant by the State upon this footing might be regarded as being appropriately and exclusively the expression of their value for a good secular education.
"The confinement for the time being of any Government measure for schools to this object we hold to be an imputation, not so much on the present state of our Legislature, as on the present state of the Christian world, now broken up into sects and parties innumerable, and seemingly incapable of any effort for so healing these wretched divisions as to present the rulers of our country with aught like such a clear and unequivocal majority in favour of what is good and true, as might at once determine them to fix upon and to espouse it.
"It is this which has encompa.s.sed the Government with difficulties, from which we can see no other method of extrication than the one which we have ventured to suggest. And as there seems no reason why, because of these unresolved differences, a public measure for the health of all--for the recreation of all--for the economic advancement of all--should be held in abeyance, there seems as little reason why, because of these differences, a public measure for raising the general intelligence of all should be held in abeyance. Let the men therefore of all Churches and all denominations alike hail such a measure, whether as carried into effect by a good education in letters or in any of the sciences; and, meanwhile, in these very seminaries let that education in religion which the Legislature abstains from providing for, be provided for as freely and as amply as they will by those who have undertaken the charge of them.
"We should hope, as the result of such a scheme, for a most wholesome rivalship on the part of many in the great aim of rearing on the basis of their respective systems a moral and Christian population, well taught in the principles and doctrines of the gospel, along with being well taught in the lessons of ordinary scholarship. Although no attempt should be made to regulate or to enforce the lessons of religion in the inner hall of legislation, this will not prevent, but rather stimulate, to a greater earnestness in the contest between truth and falsehood--between light and darkness--in the outer field of society; nor will the result of such a contest in favour of what is right and good be at all the more unlikely, that the families of the land have been raised by the helping hand of the State to a higher platform than before, whether as respects their health, or their physical comfort, or their economic condition, or, last of all, their place in the scale of intelligence and learning.
"Religion would, under such a system, be the immediate product, not of legislation, but of the Christian philanthropic zeal which obtained throughout society at large. But it is well when what legislation does for the fulfilment of its object tends not to the impediment, but rather, we apprehend, to the furtherance, of those greater and higher objects which are in the contemplation of those whose desires are chiefly set on the immortal wellbeing of man.
"On the basis of these general views, I have two remarks to offer regarding the Government scheme of education.
"1. I should not require a certificate of satisfaction with the religious progress of the scholars from the managers of the schools, in order to their receiving the Government aid. Such a certificate from Unitarians or Catholics implies the direct sanction or countenance by Government to their respective creeds, and the responsibility, not of _allowing_, but, more than this, of _requiring_, that these shall be taught to the children who attend. A bare allowance is but a general toleration; but a requirement involves in it all the mischief, and, I would add, the guilt, of an indiscriminate endowment for truth and error.
"2. I would suffer parents or natural guardians to select what parts of the education they wanted for their children. I would not force arithmetic upon them, if all they wanted was reading and writing; and as little would I force the Catechism, or any part of the religious instruction that was given in the school, if all they wanted was a secular education. That the managers of the Church of England schools shall have the power to impose their own Catechism upon the children of Dissenters, and, still more, to compel their attendance on church, I regard as among the worst parts of the scheme.
"The above observations, it will be seen, meet any questions which might be put in regard to the applicability of the scheme to Scotland, or in regard to the use of the Douay version in Roman Catholic schools.
"I cannot conclude without expressing my despair of any great or general good being effected in the way of Christianizing our population, but through the medium of a Government themselves Christian, and endowing the true religion, which I hold to be their imperative duty, not because it is the religion of the many, but because it is true.
"The scheme on which I have now ventured to offer these few observations I should like to be adopted, not because it is absolutely the best, but only the best in existing circ.u.mstances.
"The endowment of the Catholic religion by the State I should deprecate, as being ruinous to the country in all its interests.
Still I do not look for the general Christianity of the people, but through the medium of the Christianity of their rulers. This is a lesson taught _historically_ in Scripture, by what we read there of the influence which the personal character of the Jewish monarchs had on the moral and religious state of their subjects; it is taught _experimentally_, by the impotence, now fully established, of the Voluntary principle; and last, and most decisive of all, it is taught _prophetically_ in the book of Revelation, when told that then will the kingdoms of the earth (_Basileiai_, or governing powers) become the kingdoms of our Lord Jesus Christ, or the Governments of the earth become Christian Governments.
(Signed) "THOMAS CHALMERS."
{1} Some of the reasonings of both the Established and Free Church courts on this matter would be amusing were they not so sad. "Feed my lambs," said our Saviour, after His resurrection, to Peter; and again twice over, "Feed my sheep." Now, let us suppose some zealous clergyman setting himself, on the strength of the latter injunction here, to inst.i.tute a new order of preachers. As barbers frequently amuse their employers with gossip, when divesting them of their beards or tr.i.m.m.i.n.g their heads, and have opportunities of addressing their fellow-men which are not possessed by the other mechanical professions, the zealous clergyman determines on converting them into preachers, and sets up a Normal School, in order that they may be taught the art of composing short sermons, which they are to deliver when shaving their customers, and longer ones, which they are to address to them when cutting their hair. And in course of time the expounding barbers are sent abroad to operate on the minds and chins of the community. "There is no mention made of any such order of prelectors," says a stubborn layman, "in my New Testament;" "Nor yet in mine," says another. "Sheer Atheism,--Deism at the very least!" exclaims the zealous clergyman. "Until Christianity was fairly established in the world, there was no such thing as shaving at all; the Jews don"t shave yet: besides, does not every decent Church member shave before going to church? And as for the authority, how read you the text, "Feed my sheep!"" "Weighty argument that about the shaving," say the laymen; "but really the text seems to be stretched just a little too far. The commission is given to Peter; but it confers on Peter no authority whatever to commission the barbers. Nay, our grand objection to the pseudo-successors of Peter is, that they corrupted the Church after this very manner, by commissioning the non-commissioned, until they filled the groaning land with cardinals, bishops, and abbots, monks and nuns,--
"Eremites and friars, White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery.""
Now, be it remembered that we are far from placing the Church-employed schoolmaster on the level of the parson-employed barber of our ill.u.s.tration. _Rationally_ considered, they are very different orders indeed; but so far as _direct_ Scripture is concerned, they stand, we contend, on exactly the same ground.
The laity would do well in this controversy to arm themselves with the New Testament, and, if their opponents be very intolerant, to hand them the volume, and request them to turn up their authority. And, of course, if the intolerance be very great, the authority must be very direct. Mere arguings on the subject would but serve to show that it has no actual existence.
When the commission of a captain or lieutenant is legitimately demanded, it is at once produced; but were one to demand the commission of a sergeant or boatswain"s mate, the man could at best only reason about it.
THOUGHTS ON THE EDUCATIONAL QUESTION.
CHAPTER FIRST.
Disputes regarding the meaning embodied by Chalmers in his Educational Doc.u.ment--Narrative suited to throw some light on the subject--Consideration of the Doc.u.ment itself--Testimony respecting it of the Hon. Mr. Fox Maule.
One of the most important controversies which has arisen within the pale of the Romish Church--that between the Jansenists and Jesuits--was made to hinge for many years on a case of disputed meaning in the writings of a certain deceased author. There were five doctrines of a well-defined character which, the Jesuits said, were to be found in the works of Cornelius Jansenius, umquhile Bishop of Ypres, but which, the Jansenists a.s.serted, were not to be found in anything Jansenius had ever written. And in the attempt to decide this simple question of fact, as Pascal calls it, the School of the Sorbonne and the Court of the Inquisition were completely baffled; and zealous Roman Catholics heard without conviction the verdict of councils, and failed to acquiesce in the judgment of even the Pope.
We have been reminded oftener than once of this singular controversy, by the late discussions which have arisen in our church courts regarding the meaning embodied by Chalmers in that posthumous doc.u.ment on the Educational question, which is destined, we hold, to settle the whole controversy. At first we regarded it as matter of wonder that such discussions should have arisen; for we had held that there was really little room for difference respecting the meaning of Chalmers,--a man whose nature it was to deal with broad truths, not with little distinctions; and who had always the will, and certainly did not lack the ability, of making himself thoroughly understood. We have since thought, however, that as there is nothing which has once occurred that may not occur again, what happened to the writings of Jansenius might well happen to one of the writings of Chalmers; and further, that from certain conversations which we had held with the ill.u.s.trious deceased a few months before his death, on the subject of his paper, and from certain facts in our possession regarding his views, we had spectacles through which to look at the doc.u.ment in question, and a key to his meaning, which most of the disputants wanted. The time has at length come when these helps to the right understanding of so great an authority should be no longer withheld from the public. We shall betray no confidence; and should we be compelled to speak somewhat more in the first person, and of ourselves, than may seem quite accordant with good taste, our readers will, we trust, suffer us to remind them that we do not commit the fault very often, or very offensively, and that the present employment of the personal p.r.o.noun, just a little modified by the editorial _we_, seems inevitably incident to the special line of statement on which we propose to enter.
During the greater part of the years 1845 and 1846, the Editor of the _Witness_ was set aside from his professional labours by a protracted illness, in part at least an effect of the perhaps too a.s.siduous prosecution of these labours at a previous period. He had to cease per force even from taking a very fixed view of what the Church was doing or purposing; and when, early in January 1847, he returned, after a long and dreary period of rustication, in improved health to Edinburgh, he at least possessed the advantage--much prized by artists and authors in their respective walks--of being able to look over the length and breadth of his subject with a _fresh_ eye. And, in doing so, there was one special circ.u.mstance in the survey suited to excite some alarm. We found that in all the various schemes of the Free Church, with but one exception, its extensively spread membership and its more active leaders were thoroughly at one; but that in that exceptional scheme they were not at all at one. They were at one in their views respecting the ecclesiastical character of ministers, elders, and church courts, and of the absolute necessity which exists that these, and these only, should possess the spiritual key. Further, they were wholly at one in recognising the command of our adorable Saviour to preach the gospel to all nations, as of perpetual obligation on the Churches. But regarding what we shall term, without taking an undue liberty with the language, the pedagogical teaching of religion, they differed _in toto_. Practically, and to all intents and purposes, the schoolmaster, in the eye of the membership of our Church, and of the other Scottish Churches, was simply a layman, the proper business of whose profession was the communication of secular learning. And as in choosing their tailors and shoemakers the people selected for themselves the craftsmen who made the best and handsomest shoes and clothes, so, in selecting a schoolmaster for their children, they were sure always to select the teacher who was found to turn out the best scholars.{2} All other things equal, they would have preferred a serious, devout schoolmaster to one who was not serious nor devout, just as, _coeteris paribus_, they would have preferred a serious shoemaker or tailor to a non-religious maker of shoes or clothes; but religious character was not permitted to stand as a compensatory item for professional skill; nay, men who might be almost content to put up with a botched coat or a botched pair of shoes for the sake of the good man who spoiled them, were particularly careful not to botch, on any account whatever, the education of their children. In a country in which there was more importance attached than in perhaps any other in the world to the religious teaching of the minister, there was so little importance attached to the religious teaching of the schoolmaster, that, when weighed against even a slight modic.u.m of secular qualification, it was found to have no sensible weight. And with this great practical fact some of our leading men seemed to be so little acquainted, that they were going on with the machinery of their educational scheme, on a scale at least co-extensive with the Free Church, as if, like that Church--all-potent in her spiritual character--it had a moving power in the affections of the people competent to speed it on. And it was the great discrepancy with regard to this scheme which existed between the feelings of the people and the antic.i.p.ations of some of our leading men, clerical and lay, that excited our alarm. Unless that discrepancy be removed, we said--unless the antic.i.p.ations of the men engaged in the laying down of this scheme be sobered to the level of the feelings of the lay membership of our Church, or, _vice versa_, the feelings of the lay membership of our Church be raised to the level of the antic.i.p.ations of our leaders--bankruptcy will be the infallible result. From the contributions of our laymen can the scheme alone derive its support; and if our leaders lay it down on a large scale, and our laymen contribute on a small one, alas for its solvency! Such were our views, and such our inferences, on this occasion; and to Thomas Chalmers, at once our wisest and our humblest man--patient to hear, and sagacious to see--we determined on communicating them.
He had kindly visited the writer, to congratulate him in his dwelling on his return to comparative health and strength; and after a long and serious conversation, in which he urged the importance of maintaining the _Witness_ in honest independency, uninfluenced by cliques and parties, whether secular or ecclesiastical, the prospects of the Free Church educational scheme were briefly discussed. He was evidently struck by the view which we communicated, and received it in far other than that parliamentary style which can politely set aside, with some soothing half-compliment, the suggestions that run counter to a favourite course of policy already lined out and determined upon. In the discrepancy which we pointed out to him he recognised a fact of the practical kind, which rarely fail to influence the affairs upon which they bear; and in accordance with his character--for no man could be more thoroughly convinced that free discussion never hurts a good cause, and that second thoughts are always wiser than first ones--he expressed a wish to see the educational question brought at once to the columns of the _Witness_, and probed to its bottom. We could not, however, see at that time how the thing was to be introduced in a practical form, and preferred waiting on for an opportunity, which in the course of events soon occurred. The Government came forward with its proposal of educational grants, and the question was raised--certainly not by the writer of these chapters--whether or no the Free Church could conscientiously avail herself of these. It was promptly decided by some few of our leading men, clerical and lay, that she could not; and we saw in the decision, unless carried by appeal to our country ministers and the people, and by them reversed, the introduction of a further element of certain dissolution in our educational scheme.
The status of the schoolmaster had been made so exceedingly ecclesiastical, and his profession so very spiritual, that the money of that Government of the country whose right and duty it is to educate its people, was regarded as too vile and base a thing to be applied to his support. There were even rumours afloat that our schoolmasters were on the eve of being _ordained_. We trust, however, that the report was a false one, or, at worst, that the men who employed the word had made a slip in their English, and for the time at least had forgot its meaning. _Ordination_ means that special act which gives status and standing within the ecclesiastical province. It implies the enjoined use of that spiritual key which is entrusted by Christ to His Church, that it may be employed just as _He_ directs, and in no other way. The Presbyterian Church has as much right to inst.i.tute prelates as to ordain pedagogues. "Remember," said an ancient Scottish worthy, in "lifting up his protestation" in troublous times, "that the Lord has fashioned His Kirk by the uncounterfeited work of His own new creation; or, as the prophet speaketh, "hath made us, and not we ourselves;" and that we must not presume to fashion a new portraiture of a Kirk, and a _new form of divine service, which G.o.d in His word hath not before allowed_; seeing that, were we to extend our authority further than the calling we have of G.o.d doth permit--as, namely, if we should (as G.o.d forbid!) authorize the authority of bishops--we should bring into the Kirk of G.o.d the ordinance of man." If men are to depart from the "law and the testimony," we hold that the especial mode of their departure may be very much a matter of taste, and would, for our own part, prefer bishops and cardinals to poor dominies of the gospel, somewhat out at the elbows.{3} The fine linen and the purple, the cope and the stole, would at least have the effect of giving that sort of pleasant relief to the widespread sable of our a.s.semblies which they possessed of yore, ere they for ever lost the gay uniform of the Lord High Commissioner, the gold lace of his dragoon officers, and the glitter of his pages in silver and scarlet. "We are two of the humblest servants of Mother Church," said the Prior and his companion to Wamba, the jester of Rotherwood. "Two of the humblest servants of Mother Church!" repeated Wamba; "I should rather like to see her seneschals, her chief butlers, and her other princ.i.p.al domestics."