Lady Victoria Campbell

FROM DEATH UNTO LIFE 45
In the Church I must enrol myself voluntarily,
and enter on a quite new circle of duties, and
privileges with which no man can meddle, unless
in the prosecution of them I hurt or injure my
neighbour. If the Church as a body, that is, the
believing Christians associated together, are to be
Christ's witnesses and servants, they must take
heed to be free and disentangled, and out of free
and willing gifts Christ's service should be upheld.
" The Lord loveth a cheerful giver."
In these words the vehement spirit looks back with
the calmer insight that the years had brought her.
It is possible to wonder whether the Disruption
would ever have taken place had the Church of
Scotland been at the time a living and progressive
force. A decade before it had " slain the prophets,"
in the persecution of Edward Irving and Camp-
bell of Row. Had its own life died out in the effort
to silence Truth, and had its members to sutler from
all the sin of schism in order to find Evangelistic
fervour ?
There were more forces of upheaval at work than
those which met the eye, and the blind folly of the
Government was but the instrument in letting loose a
spirit which was to quicken and leaven both Churches.
The Pope and the ministers of the Established
Church were alike anathema to Lady Emma, and it
was amusing to watch the conflict between the
unquenchable and fiery zeal of the sectarian and that
same ardent spirit in its works of warm-hearted love