found the entire sum little enough for unavoidable expenses, but that, to promote peace and harmony in the Congregation, he was willing to contribute to its funds whatever sum any two respectable men, mutually chosen, might adjudge to be equitable, to enable the Committee to fulfil their contract. This proposal was rejected by the deputation, who insisted that the Minister should sustain the whole amount of the deficiency in the stipend. It was then proposed, by the Presbytery, that one of its members should preach to the Congregation on a particular Sabbath, and take up a collection in aid of the funds of the house; but to this it was replied, that they would not raise ten shillings by such an expedient, and further, that if the Presbytery ruled it, that the Congregation should be held responsible in any way, or to any extent, for the sum of £80 per annum, originally promised under a most solemn engagement; that the one half of the stipend-payers would, at once, leave the meeting-house, although it was, at the same time, admitted, that three-pence additional from each head of a family, would have enabled them to have kept faith with their Minister, and maintained their own integrity and honour. The Presbytery, as might be naturally expected, under such extraordinary circumstances, seemed much at a loss to determine what to recommend. They knew that the law and justice of the case were on the side of their aggrieved brother, and, in our humble opinion, they should have issued it accordingly, and left any evil consequences to rest on the heads of those unworthy Presbyterians, who actually boasted of their determination to violate a solemn contract, made at a time when mutual obligations of the most sacred nature are laid on both Pastor and people. In not doing this, they may have been guilty of a dereliction of duty; but we are unwilling to sit in judgment upon those who knew all the local and peculiar difficulties of the question, and, therefore, hesitated, no doubt from the best and purest motives, in perhaps driving, by their decision, a number of contumacious individuals from the communion of our church. At length the Minister, to avoid litigation, and to terminate the disgraceful pursuit, agreed to take whatever the house might produce, at the present assessment of the pews. Now, be it observed, that, by this arrangement, the collector, clerk, and sexton, are to be paid their full salaries; while the Minister, who is merely an assistant, and, consequently, has never received the Royal Endowment, with a rising family and with the habits of a gentleman, is to be virtually defrauded of a portion of the yearly salary, which his

Congregation bound themselves to pay. We stop not here to inquire whether the whole sum, if regularly paid to the uttermost farthing, be indeed the offering in righteousness, which a Christian people, amounting to more than 300 families, should present to the Lord, for the inestimable blessing of gospel ordinances dispensed zealously among them: it is enough for our argument to shew, that a paltry voluntary contribution of £80 per annum, cannot be wrung without strife and contention, from even a comparatively wealthy and respectable Congregagation.

The Minister of whom we speak is well known to his brethren, as one of the most conscientious and painfully laborious Pastors in our church; foremost in every honourable duty and noble enterprise, open-hearted and liberal, a bishop of the true Apostolic stamp, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, apt to teach; yet have his feelings been lacerated, and the sanctity of his character outraged by the voluntary penuriousness of an ungrateful people. For three-pence a family, he might have gone to and fro among his flock, dispensing Christ's ordinances in much edification and love, without a blush of shame upon his cheek, or a cloud of sorrow upon his brow; but, sooner than part with this contemptible three-pence, they would insult a faithful Minister, leave the Sanctuary of their fathers, and the bosom of their Mother Church. Shame upon the men who could endure the thought of selling their birth-right, purchased at the expense of the blood of the Lamb, and of the blessed martyrs to his truth, for not even so much as the price of a mess of savoury pottage. It cannot fairly be objected, that, in this instance, the endowment impaired the liberality of the people; for the active Incumbent was solely dependant upon the free will contributions of his flock, who gladly enjoyed his labours, and have often boasted of his efficient and acceptable services, and yet would make no sacrifice, however small, to fulfil their own sworn engagement, and to rescue their Minister from the anxiety and grief which must oppress every honourable man at the prospect of being unable to meet, punctually, his just debts and demands.

We fear that the above is not a single instance of the unkindness and tyranny exercised by Congregations towards their Ministers in pecuniary matters, for there is no right apprehension, among our people in general, of what is due to the clerical

prehension and of what is absolutely necessary to

the maintenance of its dignity and influence.

The assertion, then, that the Royal Endowment has paralysed

or lessened the liberality of Presbyterian Congregations, is false and absurd, and is calculated greatly to mislead the public mind, at the present juncture. From the records of several Presbyteries, as well as from the testimony of many old and respectable members of our church, it can be proved, that when the Regium Donum did not reach one-third of its present amount, the same complaints were again and again made against our people, for their unfeeling indifference to the wants and necessities of their Ministers. It is true, that such wrongs were rather felt than spoken, and were never converted into a source of profitable traffic with the prejudices or passions of mankind; nor has the Presbyterian ministry ever sunk so low, as to send an Embassy to other lands, to procure for themselves the luxuries of life, when their own flocks denied them, in some instances, its very necessaries; but, whilst they have sorrowed, in secret, over the base ingratitude of many of their spiritual children, they have, in a spirit of manly fortitude, endured, without repining, poverty and contempt from the great ones of the earth. Is it right, however, that such a state of things should be permitted to continue, to the disgrace of Presbyterianism, and the scandal of the church of Christ? If we wish to encourage a learned, respectable, and working Ministry, let them be paid well, and up to the amount of their services and pastoral duties. It is a mistake to suppose, that a decent and comfortable independence will make men lazy or inefficient; for, if the godly discipline of our church, in her Synods and Presbyteries, be rightly enforced, it will check and remove all such disorders from the body of the faithful, and from the city of our solemnities, Where an endowment from the State involves no compromise of principle, and implies no subserviency to the ruling powers, except that of loyal and affectionate attachment to the Constitution of our country, there can, we think, be no moral wrong in the church accepting of the offered boon as an acknowledgment from the powers that be, that righteousness exalteth a nation, and that without the strong tie of Religion, all social obligations are slight and fragile. If, indeed, any earthly government should presume to interfere with the prerogatives of the King who reigns in Zion, and by patronage or civil legislation in sacred things to forge fetters for the consciences of his subjects, then do we hold the church bound, by the solemn oath of its covenant with God, to break off the alliance, and to stand or fall in defence of its blood-bought privileges, and to walk erect in the liberty of the new creation of Christ Jesus. But, surely, such extreme cases are not to be brought

cry

within the compass of the present argument, for there is no infringement of the rights of conscience pleaded as a reason for the surrender of Religious Endowments by the Presbyterian Church in this kingdom. She has, it may be hoped, conquered her adversaries, ungirded her armour, and sat down in peace under the shade of the Vine, of God's right hand planting. Were her revenues doubled by the favour of either King or Parliament, they would not be commensurate with the crying wants of her own children, and the territory of ignorance and superstition under her ministrations. She is at this mo. ment sadly crippled in her energies, for want of sufficient means to supply her own people with Christian Ordinances; and were it not for the endowment granted by the Government to her infant Congregations, there is many a dark place in our land, where the darkness would be impenetrable, and many a poor outcast from the fold of the Gospel still wandering in error, far from home. Yet the is raised and re-echoed by many well-disposed persons-Let the Regium Donum be removed, and our people will feel some sympathy and interest in the support of their Ministers. Now, what is the Regium Donum but so many pounds, shillings and pence; and is this sufficient to enable our Ministers, with their scanty stipends, which, in some cases, do not amount to the wages of a labouring man, in the year, to give themselves wholly to the work of the Ministry, according to the Apostolic injunction, instead of becoming, from dire necessity, farmers, or shopkeepers, or schoolmasters, in their respective parishes? How many noble spirits have sunk into incurable despondency, when they looked upon their families, and knew they must be one day respectable paupers, and then looked round upon large and wealthy Congregations, and saw how niggardly was doled out to them that pittance, which, were the church in a right state, it would not offer to one of the least and most inefficient of its office-bearers. There are Congregations in the Synod of Ulster, consisting of more than 200 families, the great majority of whom are landholders, and in comfortable circumstances, which pay, irregu larly, their Ministers £12 per annum; and yet these men can sit down at the Sacramental table, or present their children for baptism, and never for a moment imagine, that they are un worthy of these privileges, for robbing the Sanctuary and heritage of God, by withholding from their spiritual teachers that equitable support, which they have an absolute right to demand and to receive.

Will it be creditated, that, in some country parishes in the

North, there are to be found even Elders who pay 6s. 8d., o 10s., yearly, to the support of the Gospel in the church, one of whose sacred offices they sustain, but whose Ministers they treat with neglect and irreverence, by defrauding them of the wages due to faithful labourers in the vineyard of Christ. We have heard some such men talk of the evils and mischiefs of the Royal Bounty, and wish for its removal, when their own souls were so contracted by avarice, that they would not spare of their abundance a few shillings to the c cause of Missions. Such individuals might rejoice to have a Minister in their power, to starve him at their sovereign pleasure, unless he bent submissively to their caprices, or lent himself to a party, that he might receive the hard earned wages of an ungodly compliance with the prejudices of the ignorant and the unbelieving. In former days, the independence of our church was threatened by the strong arm of civil despotism: in the present day, were our endowments withdrawn, it would be threatened, and, we fear, for a season overwhelmed, by the still stronger and more resistless arm of democratic tyranny. As we battled successfully against the former, let us not shrink from a conhomot test with the latter.

In these days of violent political excitement, not a single question which party may choose to select as its favourite warcry, could come before Synod for debate and judgment, that would not form a topic, in all our Congregations, for discontent or division. Then woe unto the Minister who should dare to think for himself, as a conscientious man, responsible only to God and the church, for the free expression of his thoughts and opinions, unless we suppose what has been found impracticable, that he and his people, like two watches, should go in all matters exactly alike, without any perceptible difference. Our conclusion, then, is, that our mixed and balanced ecclesiastical, like our civil, constitution, is the best for all practical purposes, for protecting our people from the artifices of an hungry and cunning Priesthood on the one hand, and for elevating our Clergy from that state of abject dependence, where virtue and integrity cease to flourish amid the urgent wants of a needy house and family, "Give me neither poverty nor riches, should be the inspired motto of our church, in its temporal concerns, for penury ties the hands and breaks the hearts of its victims, whilst wealth often engendereth vice and folly.ra-rapy trods al basis, got to gviaulox We demand neither power nor worldly influence, except for the purpose of doing good to the souls of men, and for re