Memoir of the Chisholm

PROMOTES EDUCATION, &C. 85
Bill, in the Session of 1833, — especially the
memorable 147th clause, which contained a
provision for applying part of the funds of
the Church to purposes not ecclesiastical, and
which, to the great wrath and confusion of
the enemies of the Church, was afterwards
abandoned by Ministers in the House of
Commons, — could not but have led his mind
to a careful examination of the grounds upon
which such a measure was to be justified or
condemned. It was to him no new process of
inquiry ; the chief points connected with it
had long been familiar to his mind ; and the
review which he was now compelled to take
of them, — the comparison of them which he
carefully made with the opinions advanced by
the foremost champions on either side in both
Houses of Parliament, — all led him to rest
more firmly than ever in the conviction, that,
the spiritual instruction of its subjects being
a paramount obligation in a Christian state,
it was not lawful to alienate, for any other
purposes than those which bore directly upon
that great work, the temporal possessions of
the Church, " of which the State was not the