Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

CHURCH.] SCOTLAND 537
had shown that if they acted in this way their nominee,
while legally minister of the parish, could not claim the
stipend. To the risk of such sacrifices the church, led by
the Moderate party, refused to expose herself. By the new
policy inaugurated by Dr Robertson, which led to the second
secession, the assembly compelled presbyteries to give effect
to presentations, and in a long series of disputed settlements
the “call,” though still held essential to a settlement, was
less and less regarded, until it was declared that it was not
necessary, and that the church courts were bound to induct
any qualified presentee. The substitution of the word “con¬
currence” for “call” about 1764 indicates the subsidiary
and ornamental light in which the assent of the parishioners
was now to be regarded. The church could have given more
weight to the wishes of the people; she professed to regard
patronage as a grievance, and the annual instructions of the
assembly to the commission (the committee representing the
assembly till its next meeting) enjoined that body to take
advantage of any opportunity which might arise for getting
rid of the grievance of patronage, an injunction which was
not discontinued till 1784. It is not likely that any change
in the law could have been obtained at this period, and dis¬
regard of the law might have led to an exhausting struggle
with the state, as was actually the case at a later period.
Still it was in the power of the church to give more weight
than she did to the feelings of the people; and her working
of the patronage system drove large numbers from the
Establishment. A melancholy catalogue of forced settle¬
ments marks the annals of the church from 1749 to 1780,
and wherever an unpopular presentee was settled the people
quietly left the Establishment and erected a meeting-house.
In 1763 there was a great debate in the assembly on the pro¬
gress of schism, in which the popular party laid the whole
blame at the door of the Moderates, while the Moderates
rejoined that patronage and Moderatism had made the
church the dignified and powerful institution she had
come to be. In 1764 the number of meeting-houses was
120, and in 1773 it had risen to 190. Nor was a conciliatory
attitude taken up towards the seceders. The ministers of
the Relief desired to remain connected with the Establish¬
ment, but were not suffered to do so. Those ministers
who resigned their parishes to accept calls to Relief con¬
gregations, in places where forced settlements had taken
place, and who might have been and claimed to be recog¬
nized as still ministers of the church, were deposed and
forbidden to look for any ministerial communion with the
clergy of the Establishment. Such was the policy of the
Moderate ascendency, or of Principal Robertson’s adminis¬
tration, on this vital subject. It had the merit of success
in so far as it completely established itself in the church.
The presbyteries ceased to disregard presentations, and lay
patronage came to be regarded as part of the order of things.
But the growth of dissent steadily continued and excited
alarm from time to time; and it may be questioned whether
the peace of the church was not purchased at too high a
price. The Moderate period is justly regarded as in some
respects the most brilliant in the history of the church.
Her clergy included many distinguished Scotsmen, of whom
an account is given under their respective names. See
Reid (Thomas), Campbell (George), Ferguson (Adam),
Home (John), Blair (Hugh), Robertson (William), and
Erskine (John). The labours of these men were not
mainly in theology; in religion the age was one not of
advance but of rest; they gained for the church a great
and widespread respect and influence.
Another salient feature of the Moderate policy was the
consolidation of discipline. It is frequently asserted that
discipline was lax at this period and that ministers of
scandalous lives were allowed to continue in their charges.
It cannot, however, be shown that the leaders of the church
at this time sought to procure the miscarriage of justice
in dealing with such cases. That some offenders were
acquitted on technical grounds is true; it was insisted
that in dealing with the character and status of their
members the church courts should proceed in as formal
and punctilious a manner as civil tribunals and should
recognize the same laws of evidence, in fact, that the
same securities should exist in the church as in the state
for individual rights and liberties.
The religious state of the Highlands, to which at the Re¬
period of the Union the Reformation had only very par- ligious
tially penetrated, occupied the attention of the church dur- con(li'
ing the whole of the 18th century. In 1725 the gift called High”
the “royal bounty” was first granted,—a subsidy amounting lands,
at first to £1000 per annum, increased in George IV.’s reign
to £2000, and continued to the present day; its original
object was to assist the reclamation of the Highlands from
Roman Catholicism by means of catechists and teachers.
The Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge, incor¬
porated in 1709, with a view partly to the wants of the
Highlands, worked in concert with the Church of Scotland,
setting up schools in remote and destitute localities, while
the church promoted various schemes for the dissemination
of the Scriptures in Gaelic and the encouragement of Gaelic
students. In consequence of these efforts Roman Catho¬
licism now lingers only in a few islands and glens on the
west coast. In these labours as well as in other directions
the church was sadly hampered by poverty. The need of an
increase in the number of parishes was urgently felt, and,
though chapels began to be built about 1796, they were pro¬
vided only in wealthy places by local voluntary liberality ;
for the supply of the necessities of poor outlying districts no
one as yet looked to any agency but the state. In every part
of the country many of the ministers were miserably poor ;
there were many stipends, even of important parishes, not
exceeding £40 a year; and it was not till after many debates
in the assembly and appeals to the Government that an Act
was obtained in 1810 which made up the poorer livings to
£150 a year by a grant from the public exchequer. The
churches and manses were frequently of the most miserable
description, if not falling to decay.
With the close of the 18th century a great change passed
over the spirit of the church. The new activity which
sprang up everywhere after the French Revolution pro¬
duced in Scotland a revival of Evangelicalism which has
not yet spent its force. Moderatism had cultivated the
ministers too fast for the people, and the church had
become to a large extent more of a dignified ruler than a
spiritual mother. About this time the brothers Robert
and James Haldane devoted themselves to the work of pro- The Hal-
moting Evangelical Christianity, James making missionary danes.
journeys throughout Scotland and founding Sunday schools;
and in 1798 the eccentric preacher Rowland Hill visited
Scotland at their request. In the journals of these evan¬
gelists dark pictures are drawn of the religious state of the
country, though their censorious tone detracts greatly from
their value; but there is no doubt that the efforts of the
Haldanes brought about or coincided with a quickening
of the religious spirit of Scotland. The assembly of 1799
passed an Act forbidding the admission to the pulpits of
laymen or of ministers of other churches, and issued a
manifesto on Sunday schools. These Acts helped greatly to
discredit the Moderate party, of whose spirit they were the
outcome; and that party further injured their standing
in the country by attacking Leslie, afterwards Sir John
Leslie, on frivolous grounds,—a phrase he had used about
Hume’s view of causation—when he applied for the chair of
mathematics in Edinburgh. In this dispute, which made
a great sensation in the country, the popular party success¬
fully defended Leslie, and thus obtained the sympathy of
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