ed, many ladies wait hour after hour with | drapery tends to dispel the chilly feeling a patience which some of the younger members of the Assembly might imitate with considerable advantage. stinct with the memories of Minna and Branda Troil. There was still a little to be seen of the quaint simplicity that makes our ideal of that dear old preacher whose remembrance is embalmed in the beautiful verse of his wayward son: "Remote from towns who ran his godly race, Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change his place." caused by the gray neutral tint in which the walls and roof are painted. As for the appearance of the clergy, we can only Immediately in front of the Throne- say that it is very much like a convocation Gallery, on a slightly-raised platform of an equal number of clergymen on this stands the chair of the Moderator, who side the Tweed. We were disappointed sits with his back towards the Commis- by the absence of almost any of those sioner. He always wears a court-dress quaint, primitive old figures which we had under full canonicals. A large table is expected, and which we believe were placed before the Moderator's chair, at common thirty or forty years ago. In this which sit the clerks of the Church, two age of railway travelling and rapid postal clergymen in canonicals; the Procurator, communication, men have their corners or Attorney-General of the Church, in rubbed off, and are brought (externally at gown and wig; the law-agent or solicitor least) very much to the regulation standof the Church, in a gown; and also a few ard. Still there were a few prim old of the old experienced members of As- figures from far-away nooks of Scotland sembly who have attended for many-from valleys amid the wild Highland years, and who, it must be confessed, ex- hills as yet unreached by cockney foot, ercise an episcopal rule over the proceed- and from the shores of Shetland fiords inings of the house not quite consistent with the idea of Presbyterian purity. Among these, on the opening day, a number of ex-Moderators (the office is held for but one year) are conspicuous by their court-dress and cocked-hats. To the right and left of the Moderator's chair are benches occupied by the members and a few favored friends. In former days, when party ran high, the benches to the right were occupied by the Moderate or Conservative party, and those to the left by the High-flying or Movement party. a few cross-benches, which were occupied by such as belonged to no party; and the bar of the house consists of two cross-benches, a little elevated, "I could easily recognize the inhabitant of a while a commodious seat is reserved for wild and tempestuous region, by his weatherthe reporters for the newspapers. There beaten cheek-bones, his loose locks, and the loud and dissonant notes of his voice, if at any is a large gallery facing the throne, one half of which is allotted to students of the-In seeing him, one thinks of the stunted crops time he chanced to speak even to his neighbor. ology, and the remainder to the public. of oats that lie in patches upon the desolate The seats under this gallery, behind the hills among which his spire rises. Among bar, are occupied by ministers and elders many other inconveniences and annoyances he not members and who have not interest has to contend with, we think also of the lank enough to gain access to the body of the Seceders, which are, it may be supposed, the house. The members' part of the hall natural products of such a soil; and we even will accommodate upwards of six hundred conceive to ourselves with a sympathetic liveliness of imagination, the shapeless, coach-roofed, persons; the entire building about one spireless meeting-house, which they have erected opposite to the insulted windows of his manse. The clergyman of a lower and more genial parish, may equally be distinguished by his own set of peculiarities suitable to his abode. Such as come from good shooting countries, above all from the fine breezy braes and activity of their well-gartered legs-they of the North, are to be known by the tightness are the Evкvηuides of the kirk-and by a knowing cast of the eye, which seems better accustomed to watch the movements of a pointer There are thousand three hundred. A gay scene is presented when the Assembly has fairly met. The place is crowded, for hundreds of clergy are there besides the members; and the sombre colors pervading the body of the house are relieved by the gay dresses and bright uniforms which throng the Throne-Gallery and crop out in several little galleries and corners. The amount of crimson But let us remind our readers of what Lockhart or Wilson wrote nearly fifty years since speaking of the clergy at the Assembly: than to decipher the points of a Hebrew Bible. On the other hand, those accustomed to the pabula lata of flatter grounds are apt to become unwieldy, and to think that the best sport is to catch hold of wheaten sheaves, which do not run away from them like the hares or moor-fowl. The clergymen of the cities and towns, again, we recognized by the superior ease of their air -by the comparative smoothness of their faces, which are used to more regular shaving, to say nothing of umbrellas, and the want of long rides in wind and frost, but most of all by the more urbane style of their vestures. Their coats, waistcoats, and breeches do not present the same picturesque diversities of antediluvian outline they have none of those portentous depths of flap, none of those huge horny buttons of black paper, no well-hoarded rich satin or silk waistcoats, with Queen Elizabeth taperings downward none of those close-kissing boots, with their dirk-like sharpness of toe, or those huge shoes of neat's-hide, on which the light of Day and Martin has never deigned to beam. Their hats, in like manner, are fashioned in some tolerable conformity with the fashion of the day-not indulging in any of those lawless twists, prospective, retrospective, introspective, and extraspective, under which the tresses of the country brethren may be seen streaming like meteors to the troubled air."* Among the clerical members of Assembly are ministers of all ages, from the venerable patriarch, with his white hair thinned by many years of care and toil, to the stripling ordained six months since, and still proud of the bravery of his clerical waistcoat, long frock-coat, white stock, and lavender gloves. It was to us we confess it, an affecting sight to look at so many of those men whose faithful labors in their simple spheres of duty have mainly tended, under the blessing of God, to ly tended, under the blessing of God, to keep Scotland in its present position as a moral and religious country. Looking at them, we felt that there was little ground for fear as to the non-sufficiency of Presbyterian orders. The orders of the men who have done and are doing so much good are recognized by the Almighty And as we beheld that great array almost without exception of most decent appear ance, and very many among it with the bearing of high-bred gentlemen, we could not but think how many cares and anxieties must have at one time or another found their home in the hearts of men who are expected to maintain the appearance of gentlemen, and to be foremost in all works of Christian charity, on incomes * Peter's Letters, vol. iii. pp. 22-24. varying from a hundred and fifty to four or five hundred pounds a year. The best livings of the Scotch Church do not exceed a thousand a year, and the number of these may be counted upon the fingers. The average value of the Scotch benifices Our readers may is about £240 a year. imagine the life of struggle and self-denial which must be led by men who have to maintain and educate a family on such a pittance. Yet, from the discipline of their pious homes, the sons of the clergy of the Scotch Kirk have gone forth to hold with honor the first places in the country. The manse has given the Scottish bar and bench their most distinguished members, the army its most gallant generals, the East-India Company its chairman, Britain her most eloquent historian, the woolsack its most brilliant occupant, England her Lord Chief-Justice, and Turkey (we lament to write it) her grand vizier. The Moderator The Assembly being met, the Moderator rises in his place, and begins its proceedings with prayer. He then addresses the Assembly, thanks its members for their kindness during his term of office, and proposes some one for his successor in the chair. The ex-Moderators, at a meeting for the purpose, have selected the almost invariably agrees unanimously in individual thus proposed, and the Assembly their recommendation. must be a Doctor of Divinity; and the main things looked to in his selection are, that he should be a clergyman of many years' standing, of very high character, of great good sense and good temper, of some acquaintance with the business of church courts, of polished manners and dignified appearance. Occasionally a perdeficient in many or all of these respects; son is jobbed into the office who is quite but this very rarely happens. We were extremely pleased by the entire demeanor of Dr. Crombie, Minister of historic Scone, who was Moderator of the recent Assembly. Indeed, he appeared to us the ideal of what the president of such a court should be calm, dignified, self-possessed, kindly, and gentleman-like. Having been elected, the new Moderator is introduced full court-dress and canonicals. It is by the officials of the court, arrayed in perhaps an indication of the prelatic tendency of many of the most influential members of the Scotch Church, that even the Moderator of the General Assembly hardly ever appears in the hideous old Geneva cloak, but almost invariably in the English doctor's gown. The new Moderator takes the chair, and offers a short prayer for Divine guidance in the deliberations upon which the house is to enter. Then, having first asked the permission of the Assembly, he turns to the Commissioner, and expresses the satisfaction of the court at his presence, the affection of the Church to the Throne, and the hope entertained by the court that all its proceedings may be conducted with such propriety as may warrant his Grace in reporting favorably of them to his royal mistress. The Commissioner then briefly addresses the Assembly. We should mention that the style employed both by Moderator and Commissioner in addressing the Assembly is, "Right Reverend and Right Honorable." The Commissioner in his speech expresses the attachment of the monarch to the Church of Scotland, and the resolution of the monarch, under all circumstances, to maintain the rights and privileges of the Church. He also expresses his personal sense of the honor done him in being appointed to his high office, and his desire to do all he can for the comfort of the Assembly during its sittings. All the members of the Assembly stand during the Commissioner's address, and likewise while a letter from the sovereign is read, expressive of confidence in the Assembly's wisdom, and dismissing it to its business with a prayer for the Divine blessing. The ceremonial of opening being thus ended, the Assembly proceeds to do the work before it. There is always a great deal to do, and not much time to do it in, the period for which the court is allowed to sit being fixed by law. The Assembly always begins on a Thursday, and must end upon the Monday week after. The sittings usually commence every day at eleven A.M., and continue till five or six P.M.; they are resumed in the evening at eight, and last till one, three, five, and six in the morning. The evening sittings (or sederunts, as they are called) are generally the judicial ones, as counsel can attend more conveniently then, the courts of law not being open. The evidence in all cases of charges against clerical delinquents has been taken by the presbytery, and is printed, a copy being given to each member of the Assembly. By this and other requirements, we understand the General Assembly is rendered a fearfully on expensive court of justice for the luckless suitors. Two barristers are heard for each party; and, in addressing a court consisting of nearly four hundred judges, it may be supposed that counsel venture flights and appeals to the feelings which would never do before the cool-headed and unexcitable old gentlemen who sit on the bench of the Court of Session a few hundred yards off. Jeffrey, Cockburn, and Peter Robertson in past days made their most brilliant appearances at the bar of the General Assembly. On an occasion when Jeffrey was defending a clergyman who had been proved to have been once intoxicated, and whom it was proposed for that offense to deprive of his benefice, the consummate tact of the advocate for once failed him. He could not grapple with the evidence against his client, so he took the other tack, and maintained that having been drunk on a single occasion was no such unpardonable crime. "Is there one member of Assembly," he said, "who will dare to say that he himself has never been so ?” A tremendous burst of disapprobation from all parts of the house pulled Jeffrey up: we do not know what became of his delinquent client, Of late years, Mr. Cook and Mr. Logan, two advocates of high standing in their profession, have been the leaders of the Assembly bar. Counsel having been heard, the parties are removed, and the Assembly proceeds to consider its verdict and sentence. Nothing can be conceived worse in theory than four hundred jurymen and a like number of judges, considerably excited by the speeches they have heard, not accustomed to weigh evidence, and constituting a court from which there is no appeal. In practice, however, the thing is found to work well enough. Among the lay members of Assembly are many lawyers of great experiencesometimes several of the judges; and a few of the older legal and clerical members virtually decide the questions both of guilty or not guilty, and of what the sentence shall be. Of late years, the tendency of the Assembly has been to extreme severity. One or two instances of drunkenness will insure deposition from the ministry, which implies deprivation of the benefice and total ruin. Impropriety (impurity) of language and conduct on a single occasion, lately led to deposition. A minister was deposed four years since for poaching: all that was proved was the years has operated as a salutary warning. Delinquents among the Scotch clergy are hardly ever to be met with, and the late Assembly was a maiden one, there being no charge against any minister. snaring of a single hare. A minister once came to an evening sederunt in a state of intoxication: he was placed at the bar, and deposed on the instant.* The feeling of the Assembly has for some time been that the purity of the Church must be Another matter besides clerical offences maintained, no matter by what severity: which comes before the Assembly as a and during the sittings of 1853, we under- court of justice, is the case of Disputed stand, that no fewer than seven ministers Settlements. When a man is presented were deposed, for offenses, none of which by the patron to a living in Scotland, the would have led to more than temporary cen- presentation by no means amounts (as in sure and suspension in this country. What- this country) to his virtual appointment ever clerical offender is brought before the to the cure. On being presented, the preAssembly in its present temper, may in- sentee (as he is called) has to preach on deed get justice, but will find no mercy. two days before his future congregation; We feel, indeed, that the facility with and all the parishioners are then invited which the severest penalties may be im- to say whether they have any objection to posed by the court of the Scotch Kirk may receive him as their minister. Should obbe abused to cruelty and mob-law; but we jections be made which the church courts cannot but wish that the Church of Eng- think sufficient, the presentee is excluded land were at least invested with an equal from the living. And the Assembly has power of cutting off her scandalous sons, at various times decided that objections though she might perhaps be more gentle of a very fanciful kind will suffice. Being in the use of it. It is most distressing to an uninteresting and unimpressive preacher find it laid down in a recent case, that no-not having a powerful or pleasing voice, wickedness short of felony can lead to per- not 'exhibiting that earnestness calculated manent deprivation; while habitual drunk- to win the souls of his hearers.'-using enness, profanity, and obscenity are deem-language which was flowery, oratorical, ed sufficiently punished by the suspension of a year or two. When the sentence of deposition has been agreed to, the Moderator calls on some venerable member of the Assembly to offer a prayer. This is done with great solemnity; and then, all present standing, the Moderator reads the sentence, which is always in the same words: "In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Great Head of the Church; and by authority of this General Assembly; I depose M- from the office of the holy ministry within this church: prohibiting and discharging him from perform ing the duties of the same, or any part thereof." Although these words are unhappily too familiar to the members of the General Assembly, they are never heard but with a feeling of great awe. And it is pleasing to think that the ultra severity of the last ten *Our readers may not be aware that by the Scotch common law, any offender caught in the very act of guilt may be punished without any formality or delay. Gabriel, who was seen by hundreds of people to murder his two pupils at Edinburgh, on a Sunday, about half a century ago, was executed by order of the magistrates within an hour after the crime was committed. See the Preface to the Noctes Ambros., vol. i., pp. 10, 11. and redundant.'-not being likely, from the prejudice of the people or otherwise, to be a useful minister in that particular parish, have been held as sufficient reasons for excluding the nominee of the patron from the benefice. In brief, if the people of any parish do not wish to have any particular person inducted as their minister, they have only to say that they dislike him so much that it is impossible his preaching can benefit them; and if this objection appear to be made bonâ fide it will be quite enough. The people of Scotland have, in all conscience, amply sufficient to say in the choice of their clergymen. There was just one case of an opposed settlement at the late Assembly; we give a few specimens of the objections offered. "That when the presentee preached to the people in obedience to the appointment of the presbytery, his discourses were not such as they could well understand. His style of preaching was not fitted for such a congregation as that which worshipped at F- nor was his language adapted to the capacity of its members. Such phrases as the moral activities of our nature;' 'our spirit nature;' 'repentance was a constant work of our moral activities;' were not suited to the circumstances and conditions of the people, nor fitted to advance their spiritual welfare. His ideas were so overlaid with fine words, as to render his meaning obscure and uncertain. That he appeared more anxious to display his powers of oratory, than to impress on his audience such solemn truths as it was his duty to enforce. judging from them, we should suppose that the fact is, that the patron had presented his man without consulting the village grocer or apothecary, and so these dignitaries have stirred up their fellows against the luckless presentee. We take it from the objection as to turning somersets and rolling on the grass, that he must be a geneal good-natured fellow; and we heartily wish him a speedy settlement elsewhere than among the self-sufficient, pragmatical, One thing is plain, their 'bluid is up' against him, and he had better, for the sake of all parties, say good-bye to them. "That the objectors not only did not receive any spiritual advantage from his prayers and discourses, but also firmly and conscientiously believe that his prayers and discourses are not such as to benefit this parish and congregation. He appeared to pray as if from memory, and in prayer made repeated stops as from failure of memory; and on the Sunday he altogether forgot to pray for the congregation and people. "That while the presentee resided in a neigh-pig-headed folks of that highland parish. boring parish, from May, 1854, to April, 1855, he showed no zeal for the private exercises of religion, nor did he hold family worship while there; he frequently indulged in light and frivolous conversations, and in occupations unbecoming a minister of the gospel; in making somersaults, and tumbling about like a clown. He often appeared excited, was irregular and late in his hours, often coming home when the rest of the people were in bed. That he permitted in his presence, without rebuke, the use of unbecoming language, and entered into unbecoming familiarities with those beneath him in his position as a minister. That in the month of March, 1855, he indulged in the use of unbecoming language, in the presence of one minister, in refering so acted as to make the minister first referred to ashamed of him. That at a presbytery meeting in April, 1856, his conduct was so strange and unbecoming a minister, that it became the subject of unfavorable remark, and it was even hinted that it arose from drink. That his preaching was so unacceptable to the people of F ence to another, and in the course of the morn that when preaching there to about a hundred of the people, they dispersed while he was preaching, leaving about twenty hearers, who only remained because they were ashamed to go away. That the feeling of the parish is so strong against the presentee, that his settlement will will not only be hurtful to the spiritual welfare and edification of the people, but certain to cause a disruption of the congregation," The General Assembly found these objections relevant; that is, that if sustained by evidence they are enough to exclude the presentee; and the case was sent down to the presbytery to go to proof. What the result may be we know not. We have no difficulty in picturing to ourselves the kind of people from whom such objections must have proceeded: lank, lanthorn-jawed, high cheek-boned fellows, dense in stupidity, impregnable in self-conceit, dogged in obstinacy, inveterate in enmity, with all the venom of the wasp and all the impracticability of the donkey. We know nothing of the case, save what may be learned from the printed papers respecting it; but We heard a story told on the benches of the Assembly which is worth repeating. The people of a certain parish objected to the minister presented to them, on the ground that his sermons were so dry that there was no listening to them. Mr. Chis able counsel, somewhat injudiciously took up the ground that the word dry as applied to a sermon is unintelligible. 'I know the meaning,' he said' ' of a dry stick or a dry stone, but a dry sermon-I really have not the least idea what it means.' It sometimes happens that when a decision of a presbytery is appealed from, the presbytery, instead of employing counsel, instruct some of their own number to appear at the Assembly bar in support of their decision; and on this occasion Mr. G real though eccentric genius, rose to reply a popular preacher, and a man of to Mr. C But He at once fixed on the weak point in Mr. C- -'s argument, and by various quotations from standard authors, showed that the word dry, as applied to a discourse, was perfectly intelligible and abundantly suggestive. who,' said Mr. G, with great emphasis, who is this gentleman who tells us he does not know what is meant by a dry sermon? I understand his name is Cthat he was born at St. Andrew's, and spent the greater part of his early life there. Brought up at St. Andrew's, and not know the meaning of a dry sermon! Hoohh!!' -; No types can express the howl of contempt with which Mr. G― concluded his speech, or the shouts of laughter which followed. Every one knew that St. Andrew's had long been the head-quarters of the Moderate party, and of the very dullest and heaviest preachers of that rather heavy party; and Mr. C's own nearest relatives, who were eminent among the Moderate leaders, were proverbially un |