of the Church and of the middle classes in the country, and would be followed up, I trust, by such a pure and vigorous administration on the part of our ecclesiastical courts, as to enthrone our beloved Church in the hearts of the general population.

You know the aspect under which I view an act of Parliament when it respects the powers of the Church. Its object is not to convey the powers, but to convey and make sure to us certain temporal benefits in the exercise of those of our powers which it defines. If it do not comprehend all the powers, if at a certain point beneath, its temporalities are made to cease, this is not an interdict on the powers which are beyond-no limit on our powers, but on their own bounty. It is this which makes my conscience appear to be so elastic on the subject of Non-intrusion; while on the subject of independence, I am not sure but I go further than any of you. Paul said, on justification by faith, of those who tried to mitigate the doctrine and encroach upon it, "to whom I gave place, no, not for an hour." I say, of the slightest inroad on the spiritual independence of the Church," to which I give place, no, not by one hair-breadth." The time appears fully come when, by next General Assembly, every refractory licentiate should be deprived, and every refractory minister deposed.

I should like you to learn Sir Frederick Pollock's notion of the change which I propose in the style of ecclesiastical legislation. It would clear away an ambiguity which hangs over the connection between Church and State, securing for us certain benefits, if not to the whole extent of the exercise of these powers, at least up to a certain limit, and leaving us at entire liberty beyond that limit to do all which is competent for a Church of Christ. The full and practical observation of this principle would, by the removal of a flaw, mightily strengthen the cause of religious establishments.

Speaking of Sir Frederick, I value his co-operation chiefly upon one account. You are as well acquainted with styles

of acts of Parliament as he is; but his London and parliamentary experience gives him the advantage of knowing what the things are, and what the forms of expression which would be either most offensive or most conciliatory to the English members. If a man of tact, he will even know how, in the wording of a matter that would revolt them if seen in its nakedness, to put it so that it shall escape the dislike and animadversion of that very sensitive and high-minded assembly of men, who, however enlightened within their own province, are downright ignoramuses in regard to Scottish Presbytery— the object of contempt because of its littleness in their eyes, and with some of keen, even of loathing antipathy, because of its imagined affinity to Puritanism-at once hated religiously from the natural enmity of the heart to the truth, and hated politically from the historical recollections of the seventeenth century, which saw a monarch of England brought to the scaffold.

It is right to say, that notwithstanding the tone of this letter, and though I have written Lord Aberdeen, I have avoided the mention of a single word which can in the least fetter, but will rather facilitate the objects of the deputation. I am, my dear sir, yours truly, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. CCXCV.-TO JOHN HAMILTON, ESQ.

EDINBURGH, 24th March, 1841. MY DEAR SIR-You have prescribed for me a truly arduous, and I fear unprofitable task, and the reiteration of the veriest truism, and that for the conviction of minds in a state of hopeless prejudice, and obstinately shut against the reception of it. There is nothing in common between our Scottish evangelicals and our modern destructives; they are under the operation not only of diverse but of antagonistic influences. The Chartists know this well, and they every where oppose us. They are acting most intelligently for the prosecution of their ulterior objects, and in this respect forming a perfect contrast to the Conservatives, who are at present their coad

jutors, in pulling at the same rope along with them. My belief is that, acting together, they will pull down our Establishment; when the further account will have to be settled between themselves, the infatuated aristocracy will find, when too late, that they have lent a hand to the demolition of the only breakwater which stood between the anarchists and their own order.

These are plain truths, nevertheless I utter them, and that for the purpose of your making them as widely known among your Conservative friends as possible, believing as I do that nothing but plain truths at this time of day will save us. They are now lending themselves to a policy which must alienate from their cause the flower of our Scottish clergy, and in which, if they succeed, they will deprive of all its moral weight that Church whose ministrations were never more efficient and prosperous than at this moment, and which ministrations have ever been on the side of order, and contentment, and loyalty, and the other peaceable fruits of right

eousness.

But perhaps it will avail you more if, instead of spending your strength on such a demonstration, you make it palpable to their understandings that zealous though we are for the principle of a religious Establishment, there are many hundreds of our clergy, and these the best and most influential among them, who are in perfect readiness for a dissolution of the connection between church and state, rather than have an Establishment on the terms which the Court of Session would now prescribe to us.

If this letter be short, it is because I hold the warfare of argument to be now over, and that it is no longer a contest of opposite reasonings, but of opposite wills and opposite determinations. My confidence is no longer in man, but in the righteousness of our cause, and in that, when forsaken by all our earthly friends, there is a God above, who, after the purposes of His wise and holy discipline have been fulfilled, will again visit in mercy the Church of our fathers.

"We are perplexed, but not in despair." I am yours very THOMAS CHALMERS.

truly,

No. CCXCVI.-TO SIR GEORGE SINCLAIR.

BURNTISLAND, 18th August, 1841. DEAR SIR GEORGE-I am very unwilling to believe that we might not obtain the wished-for consummation by the passing of the Duke of Argyle's bill, without incurring the delay necessarily implied in the appointment of a Commission of Inquiry.

At all events, I think the only footing on which the Church can come to an agreement with the state in regard to your proposed suspension of all legal actions by both parties, is, to express her willingness that, whatever the civil consequences might be which follow in the train of her decisions on the conduct of any of her office-bearers, and might in the ordinary course of law prejudicially affect their interests-that these civil consequences may, by an extraordinary act of the Legislature, be remitted in favor of those who should otherwise have suffered from them. The Church, for example, could bear to have their temporalities made over for life to the Strathbogie ministers, and the temporalities of the respective parishes to which they had been presented to the nominees for Auchterarder and Lethendy; but could not, I imagine, without a surrender of the very principle for which she is contending, consent either to recall the sentences already passed on the former delinquents, or to suspend the actions now pending before her own courts against the latter. The difference between the Church and the state is, that the Church can not deviate from the path of her conceived duty in matters ecclesiastical; whereas the state may, on grounds of political expediency, suspend or alter her methods of procedure in the disposal, as seemeth to her good, of things secular. The Church goes all the length she can go when she acquiesces in this unlooked-for stretch and exercise of power.

But for the above consideration I should hail the appoint

ment of a Commission, confident as I am that the fullest inquiry would serve the best for the vindication of the majority of our Church, and that the result would be to soften away many a prejudice, and remove many a misconception, which now obtains on the subject both of their measures and of the spirit and character of the leading members in that bodynay, would demonstrate, not only the perfect innocence, but the Christian, or, which is tantamount to this, the truly conservative patriotism of all their doings.

Neither do I object to any of the names you mention, and hail with particular satisfaction those of the Duke of Argyle, the Marquesses of Bute and Breadalbane, Sir William Raeto which your own ought to be added. But my strong preference is for such an immediate and right settlement as would supersede the necessity of such a Commission; and let me entreat you to consider this as the first and not yet matured view which I have taken of your suggestion. I ever am, my dear Sir George, yours most truly,

THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. CCXCVII.-TO SIR GEORGE SINCLAIR.

BURNTISLAND, 30th September, 1841. MY DEAR SIR GEORGE-You seem not to be aware that I am not a member of the Committee on the Church Question -driven from it, in fact, by the mortifying experience which I had had of the little reliance that was to be placed on the professions of public and parliamentary men.

I could not, therefore, give a direct response to your proposition without the usurpation of a power which in no shape or degree belongs to me. May I beg, therefore, that you will present it to some other member of the committee; and to none could you do it with greater propriety than to Dr. Gordon, our present moderator; and I shall most cordially acquiesce in the arrangement which you propose, should it seem good to him and to his colleagues.

I am not able to comprehend what is meant by a last op