stayed within the Church, and endeavoured to turn the tide, then so strongly set in favour of moderatism, into an evangelical channel. Whether this could have been accomplished by some astute tacticians we do not presume to say. But it could not, we think, have been well effected by the fathers of the Secession-men obviously rather evangelical teachers than ecclesiastical leaders. The reluctance of the seceders to return to the bosom of mother church has also, we think, been too harshly dealt with. The Church of Scotland of that day is judged too favourably if judged in the light of the spasmodic efforts made to induce Erskine and his coadjutors to retrace their steps.

In the history of the next twenty years we shall find the amplest material for the corroboration of this opinion. At the close of that period, moderatism has found its true chief. William Robertson, of Gladsmuir, afterwards known as Principal Robertson, inaugurated his accession to the post of leadership by the direction of proceedings issuing in the deposition of the Rev. Thomas Gillespie of Carnock, founder of that branch of the Secession long known as the Relief Church. The manifesto of the moderate party which this case drew forth, (drawn up by Robertson,) seems almost identical in its principles with the principles of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. That a modern sceptic should garnish his philosophy with the maxims of a heathen moralist is

not wonderful; but that any Christian minister should have been found virtually asserting "the state is the highest ethics," was surely passing strange. For more than a quarter of a century did Robertson guide the policy of the Scottish Church. When he resigned the reins so long held with so firm a hand, a party had arisen in the Church (his own special friends) demanding that subscription to the Confession of Faith should. henceforth be discontinued.

Dr. Hill of St. Andrews, successor of Robertson in the leadership of the Church, pursued the Robertsonian policy; going even a step further than his predecessor. That wary leader had, while supporting to the utmost the rights of patrons, always preserved the form of a call in deference to the traditions of the Church. Hill, bringing a narrower and severer logic to the consideration of the question, seeing, as no doubt Robertson also saw, that patronage and a call were virtually destructive of each other, proposed that the call be abolished. The counsel was not exactly followed, but the fact of it having been given shows the desolate and dangerous coast on which the church was rapidly drifting. Amidst the general unfaithfulness, a bold and energetic voice—the voice of Dr. Thomas Hardy-is heard, honestly declaring that the experience of seventy years, and the revolt of one hundred thousand of her people, are proofs that absolute patronage is irreconcilable with the genius of presbytery.

What a man so honest and so able as Hardy might have done for the church, had life been given him, we cannot tell; as it was, he had little more than time to lift the trumpet to his mouth, and to sound this jarring and dolorous blast in the ears of the moderates of his day, ere death summoned him from the church militant to the church triumphant. At this epoch moderatism may be considered to have fully developed itself as a system within the Church of Scotland. How far it had deflected from the doctrines and the spirit of the Reformers may be learned from two facts,-its leading lights had been the friends of Hume-their followers were the tools of Dundas.

CHAPTER IX.

NON-INTRUSION.

SINGULARLY enough, to the pecuniary difficulties of the Edinburgh Town Council does Scotland owe it, that the dreary and leaden reign of moderatism was first broken. In 1810, Dr. Andrew Thomson was brought to Edinburgh; in 1814, he became minister of St. George's. His popularity was unbounded; he filled the coffers of the Town Council, and he destroyed the prestige of the moderates, who up to that hour had numbered in their ranks the leading intellect of the Church. This tribune of the people clothed himself with a threefold power; from the pulpit, the platform, and the press he assailed, with all the energy of his intensely-earnest nature, whatever opposed itself to the purity of God's truth, or the freedom of God's children. Five years after Thomson is settled in Edinburgh, Chalmers is settled in Kilmany-like stars in the horizon, one by one the evangelical leaders of the Scottish Church are appearing. From Kilmany Chalmers went to Glasgow; from Glasgow to St. Andrews; from St.

Andrews to Edinburgh. In Edinburgh, he was surrounded with a group of coadjutors worthy of himself, of whom he was the central figure. The "voluntary controversy," the elements of which had been gathering for nearly half a century, now burst forth over Scotland with the fury of a tornado. Soon the leading men, alike of the Establishment and Dissent, were drawn into its vortex. A spirit of the most rigorous inquiry and investigation was abroad, searching, as with a lighted candle, the corruptions, real or supposed, of the Scottish Church. In the pictures which the leading voluntary agitators drew of the Kirk of Scotland, her sons scorned to recognize their mother; denouncing their representations as caricatures, but conscious of the power they wielded over the popular mind. Dr. Chalmers,―irritated that the popular feeling threatened to leave the evangelical party

"Like some gallant bark,

Well built and tall, which angry tides have left
To rot and moulder in the winds and rains
Of heaven,"

-exclaimed, "The Voluntaries have taken the platform, we must follow them there." They did follow them. The voluntary controversy merged in the non-intrusion controversy. The leaders of the evangelical section of the Scottish Church carried into her courts the sentiments to which they had given utterance from the