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Hawke's Bay Herald, 25 April 1877, Page 1

to obtain absolute religious equality. This movement lias acquired increased intensity.; and if the Free Church as a body Bhould be induced to sanction it, the Scotch have before them a time of agitation hardly less exciting than that which, thirty-five years ago, stirred popular feelings to its depths. Jealousy of a powerful organization, and the hope of union between two closely allied denominations, afford very .strong motives for undertaking even a severe and bitter contest. Any one asked to defend on abstract grounds the position of the Scotch Church soon finds that his task is an extremely difficult one . But practical considerations are of far more importance than abstract grounds. The clergy as a class represent the best side of the national character. Without including many groat scholars, they are men of considerable general culture, and in the most remote Highland parishes encourage the love for education by which even the peasantry have for centuries been honcmrably distinguished. Fanaticism of all kinds they severely discountenance ; and, imlike the United Presbyterian and Free Church clergy, who dwell mainly on the metaphysical aspects of theology, they prefer a strictly practical to an argumentative style of preaching. . They associate freely with the laity, and f exercise over the poor an influence to which their rivals can lay no claim, for men who must trust solely to voluntary contributions for support necessarily address themselves to the middle rather than to the humbler classes of society. It may be said that if the Church were disestablished these advantages would remain ; but this is very improbable. Like its competitors it would, if cut adrift from the State, have to strive for popularity, < and thus it would lose its present calmness and dignity. Probably in the end the three Presbyterian communions would * "unite ; and in that case intellectual energy would be sapped, while the clergy would inevitably tend to assume a role ill suited to the spirit of the modern world. There is, however, another reason why we should regret to see the Scotch Church disestablished ; and it is this which will chiefly weigh with those who are as anxious to promote intellectual as political freedom. As we pointed out in commenting on a heresy case which has recently disturbed the rer>ose of the Free Church, there are many symptoms that the ancient creed of Scotland is losing its hold on the best part of the population. The extent to which the old dismal idea of " the feab- . bath " has been modified would alone indicate a striking change ; but on far more fundamental questions the intelligence of the nation has been thoroughly aroused ; and among the clergy of all the Churches there is a powerful and growing party which no longer finds the Westminster Confession an adequate expression of its beliefs. This movement is partly due to the influences which are silently transforming the convictions of all Christendom ; but it has been accelerated by the fact that large numbers of Scotch stxidents, after passing through their own universities, now go for a time to Germany, where they come in contact not only with freer modes of life, but with speculations and researches which strike at the root of positive theology. On then- return, while continuing to use the familiar phrases of the Confession, they give them wholly new meanings and application ; and in many instances they notoriously reject as untenable propositions at one time universally deemed essential to orthodoxy. If we judge these teachers from a strictly logical stand-point, it must be confessed that their position is not satisfactoiy. As in England, the Broad Church party in Scotland either goes too far or it does not go far enough. It resigns premises without resigning conclusions which are not at all less opposed to reason than others which it denounces as incredible. But this inconsistency at least indicates the existence of intellectual life among them, and although there are signs of intellectual life in all the Presbyterian Churches, there is only one in which there is room for a considerable degree of free movement, and that one is the Established Church. In the Churches independent of the State cases of heresy are tried by ecclesiastical courts alone ; in the State Church there is an appeal from the ecclesiastical courts to the impartial judgments of lay tribunals. Hence, although even the Established Church will make life unpleasant to any one who openly wanders too far from the ordinary . lines, it shrinks much more than the other bodies from repressing individual opinion. It endeavours by comprehensives to justify its claim to a national character. This fact is well-known to the Free Church clergy ; and it may be added to the other causes we have mentioned for the desire j they at present manifest to agitate for j disestablishment. The circumstance which stirs their anger, however, is the very j circumstance which in the eyes of a different class gives the Scotch Church more than half its strength. If the Scotch Church were in the position held by the English Church in Ireland before its disestablishment, these arguments would be without fox-ce. But, instead of being a " badge of conquest,'' it is the most characteristic of national in- ; and the probability is that its are not only more numerous than those of any one of its rivals, but include an absolute majority of the population. If we except the clergy and the more ardent among the laity of the other Churches, it excites no active dislike among any class of Scotchmen. The people as a whole, whether they belong to it or not, regard it with interest, because of its association with all that is most stirring in their history during the last three centuries.