icy coldness, may, indeed, return in their erratic orbits, but their light can never be so steady as to make them guides either to the

Church or State.

What, then, have we to fear? Only division in our own ranks. And yet, with so much experience as we have lately had of the teaching of God's Spirit as a Spirit of unity, we should want faith, if we allowed fear to occupy our hearts. Still let us be watchful. Government may, notwithstanding all their declarations, take up the matter in some way or other. They may offer a commission of inquiry; but let it be clearly understood that such a measure will not delay our progress for a moment, unless along with it there is a stop put to the civil actions now pending until the inquiry is completed. But it is much more probable that a bill might be brought in, even going so far as to legalise the positive call instead of the Veto. Of course even this would not permit us to remain in connection with the State, unless there were coupled with it a measure securing our spiritual jurisdiction. Nor do we believe that any who have signed the Resolutions of the Convocation would dream of accepting any such half measure. What! can it be supposed that the claim to regulate all our procedure according to the mind and will of Christ, and that alone, contended for by our fathers as more precious than life itself, and thought to be secured by the Revolution Settlement-that this claim should be surrendered now-and surrendered it is if a half measure is accepted. An honest man might take a bill settling the question of jurisdiction, and leaving in confusion the question of non-intrusion, but we cannot conceive how any honest man could accept a settlement on the basis of nonintrusion, which should leave our jurisdiction prostrate at the feet of the Civil Court.

Suppose, however, that a bill, such as would enable us conscientiously to maintain our connection with the State were pending in Parliament when next General Assembly should meet, then the disruption might be postponed. We might be inclined to pause before incurring the responsibility of severing the connection between Church and State, while there is any prospect of maintaining it on scriptural principles. Our enemies will very probably pursue the course of holding out such a bill as a lure for a time, and then crushing it when the next General Assembly is past. No doubt this will be a great evil, for if the disruption is to take place, far better that it should occur when we have summer before us for the important work which will remain to be done, even with all our previous preparations. And, besides, a handle will be afforded to our enemies for denouncing us as insincere, and some even of our friends may look coldly upon us. Still the path of duty must be followed through evil report as well as through good

report. We must commit our way unto the Lord, knowing that he will bring it to pass, and that he will bring forth our righteousness as the light, and our judgment as the noon-day.

What, then, are our prospects in next General Assembly? We have no hesitation in saying, from the calculations we have made, that if next General Assembly were to consist of the same members as the last (and we have no reason to believe that it will be more unfavourably constituted), there would be a majority of at least 23 to 46 votes in favour of a separation of the Church from the State. If this be correct, we should be relieved from some very thorny questions. For example, were the majority of the Assembly to declare their adherence to the principles of Non-intrusion and spiritual independence, while at the same time they would not vote for a dissolution of the connection between Church and State, those who have signed the resolutions of the Convocation would be placed in difficult circumstances. Of course we would feel bound to give up our emoluments derived from the State, but it might be a question whether we would be guiltless of the sin of schism if we seceded from the Church, simply because of a difference of opinion in regard to the propriety of maintaining our connection with the State? We might indeed retain our places in the Church Courts till we were thrust out, but such a course presents very alarming difficulties. We trust, however, that by securing a majority in next General Assembly, we shall be enabled to go out of our connection with the State, should such a step be necessary, by an act of the Church itself, and not as a minority seceding at once from the Church and from the State.

Since 1833, every Assembly has been looked forward to with increasing intensity of interest. But undoubtedly it is to the Assembly of 1843, that we may look forward as the most momentous, and in point of interest, far surpassing its predecessors. No exertion must be spared to send to that Assembly the ablest, the godliest, the choicest men, whether ministers or elders, that the Church contains. Scotland expects this. Christendom expects this. The enemy dreads this. And generations yet unborn will upbraid our memory, if, in the last hour of conflict, through feelings of delicacy, or courtesy, or timidity, we ignobly sounded a retreat, and left the adversary in the quiet possession of a field that hitherto had been fought so well.

ART. VI.-1. Correspondence between the Right Rev. C. H. Terrot, and the Rev. D. T. K. Drummond.

2. Reasons for withdrawing from the Scottish Episcopal Church. By the REV. D. T. K. DRUMMOND.

3. Resignation of the Rev. D. T. K. Drummond. Resolutions on the above case, agreed upon at a meeting of the Clergy of the Episcopal Church belonging to the Diocese of Edinburgh, 1st November 1842.

We owe our readers an apology for the silence we have hitherto maintained, in regard to the case referred to in the pamphlets we have placed at the head of this notice. We have not been, however, without a reason, satisfactory enough to ourselves, for such silence. We had entertained the hope that the Clergy of Edinburgh,' as, with the characteristic modesty of their sect, they have called themselves, or that some of their friends for them, would deem it proper to defend their conduct, the conduct of their prelates, and the principles of their sect, as these have been so painfully presented before the public in this case under consideration; and as impartial judges we wished that both parties should be fully heard before we pronounced judgment. These gentlemen, however, seem to regard it enough for them to lodge an accusation against a former brother, and fancy that a dignified silence,' as of course they will call it, is a sufficient answer to all that Mr Drummond has said in selfdefence. We know, however, that others have viewed their conduct in a very different light, and with these, we must confess, we coincide. Such, however, is our desire to give them not only all justice, but all leniency too, that we shall afford them some months longer before we enter fully into the merits of the case. At present we purpose only to give a short sketch of its history, to prepare our readers for our future exposures.

6

It appears, then, that Mr Drummond, some years ago, spent some weeks in a small fishing village not very far from Montrose. There being no church in the village, Mr Drummond, with his habitual anxiety for the salvation of sinners, employed the Sabbath he spent there in preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ. There was, however, no clerk to read the responses in the liturgy. Not a single prayer-book, we apprehend, could be found in the village: indeed, we very much question whether any of the fishermen had ever seen one. They had all, indeed, heard of a prayer-book, and not a few of them, we conceive, could have told of the part it had enacted in a certain awkward scene which had once happened in St Giles, Edinburgh-a scene which Scotsmen are not likely soon to forget, and which Scottish Prelatists of all men ought to be the last

many

to recall to the national recollection. Had Mr Drummond attempted to introduce the prayer-book, we do not suppose that any creepies' would have been put in requisition to testify our national regards towards liturgies; but we are thoroughly satisfied the whole audience would have left the house. We do not believe that of our people participate in the feelings of some of their ancestors, of whom it is told that if they had committed a sin during the week, they thought it an ample atonement if they insulted the curate on the next Sunday; but we have no doubt whatever that they dislike the Prayer-book, and will be at no loss for ways and means to testify their dislike. Or, even suppose that Mr Drummond had brought with him, from Edinburgh, a cart-load of Prayer-books, and put one into the hands of each of his auditors, let the reader, if he can, imagine the scene that would have followed. Not one of the fishermen could find out the proper prayers, or the occasional services, nor could they know how, according to the rubrics, they ought to stand at the 'gospel,' and sit at the epistle,' or kneel at the confession, or at which particular part of the creed they ought to make an inclination, or at what distance they ought to follow the priest, and keep proper time in the responses. Indeed we cannot divest our minds of the conviction that had even Dr Moir, or any other liturgical martinet, witnessed the exhibition, he would find it necessary to have recourse to some economic' reason for delaying the reading of the liturgy until the villagers had been drilled into the necessary discipline for enacting their respective parts.

6

Mr Drummond had too much Christian feeling, and, let us add, too much good sense, in these circumstances, to insist upon the use of the Prayer-book. He had learned, from the New Testament, that when Paul preached to the fishermen of Melita, and the purple-dyers of Philippi, or the philosophers of Athens, he employed no liturgy. Besides, there was no canon in the Scottish Prelatic code that made it imperative upon him to employ it. He there prayed from the fulness of his own heart, and in a style, we have no doubt, for which no written form can be a substitute, and preached, we have as little doubt, with the blessing of that God who is a Spirit, and must be worshipped in spirit and in truth. No sooner did the bishop of the diocese' hear of this most uncanonical act—this unrubrical procedure-than he lodged a complaint against Mr Drummond before his proper diocesan.' Mr Drummond, however, explained his proceedings to the satisfaction of Dr Walker, who appears, with all his high prelatic feelings, to have been a man of sense. Defeated in this attempt, and aware that there was no law by which Mr Drummond could be punished, his Prelatic adversaries got a general Synod assembled to supply this lack.

6

·

In apostolic times, the presbyters or elders sat in General Councils, side by side with the apostles (Acts xv.) Such was also the practice in the councils of the primitive church. Our meek and humble-minded Scottish prelates however these soi disant successors of the apostles, must not degrade themselves to the humility of apostles, and accordingly, imitating an Anglican Parliament, they have divided their synods into two chambers or houses; the upper of which they constitute themselves, and the lower comprises representatives of the lower clergy.'

There had existed in the Scottish Prelatic code at the time when Mr Drummond officiated in the Forfarshire village, a canon which required that the Prayer-book should, in certain circumstances, be read in public worship. This canon the lower house were anxious to repeal, or at all events to relax. The upper house, however, were determined to make it more stringent; and after a conference of the two houses, they succeeded in getting a canon passed, which, especially as they might be disposed to interpret and apply it, might render it necessary to read the Prayer-book in every species of divine worship.

Mr Drummond was ignorant of the passing of this canon; and were we not aware of the ignorance of prelatic ministers in regard to matters that pertain to the discipline and government of the Church, we might feel inclined to censure his ignorance on such a point. He therefore continued, as had been his custom, for ten years to conduct a week-day evening lecture, in a hall hired for the purpose, without ever seeing it necessary to employ the liturgy. We have no doubt that Mr Drummond differs widely from us in his estimation of the Anglican Prayer-book; but he must have felt what every man of pious feelings has felt before him, that set forms of prayer, however admirably, in his estimation, adapted for Sabbath church services, are not, and cannot be suited to such weekday ministrations. Indeed, we might hazard the whole liturgical controversy on the comparative efficacy of Mr Drummond's Sabbath and week-day's devotional exercises. These week-day services appear to have been greatly blessed of God to the conversion of sinners, and the edification of saints. But what are such results to a genuine Laudean prelate in comparison with canonical conformity? Indeed, the more visible the blessing, the more aggravated the guilt of nonconformity, inasmuch as it illustrates that canons and liturgies are not essential to salvation.

Mr Drummond, thus ignorant of the existence of the canon referred to, continued to conduct his week-day lecture as he had been accustomed to do for the ten preceding years, when all at once, without one note of warning having been given,-without one word