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deposition or deprivation of the status of a Free Church minister. Here too, therefore, Mr Macmillan has a patrimonial right to vindicate.

There was only another point in the argument which appears to us to require special consideration. We refer to the plea of pactum illicitum. It was urged, on the part of the Assembly, that this plea had no application to the cases, because all that the Formulas of the Church had done was to withdraw from the review of the Court all matters or procedure connected with the management of the association's affairs. It was answered, that there was no such withdrawal in the contractno such element as an unconditional exclusion of such questions from the remedial consideration of the Court, but that, even had there been such, it must have been held pro non scripto, as involving the abandonment of a right of which a subject of this realm can no more denude himself than of his status of legitimacy. An exceptional repeal of an organic principle in favour of a person or company, must be stated, pleaded, and proved. It is not a fact which a judge can be called upon to assume upon the averment of a defender, merely because he claims the character of a minister. It cannot be doubtful that no man can make an effectual submission to allow his character to be traduced and his property plundered. But even though such a submission had been made by Mr Macmillan, and the Assembly were to be held to be in the position of arbiters, it is perfectly obvious that they would have been still amenable to the legal disabilities to which all arbiters are subjected, and bound to hear parties before pronouncing their award on the merits of the question submitted to them. As no arbiter would be competent to determine whether a man or woman is or is not married, even although in an antinuptial contract a provision had been inserted to the effect that he could, neither could the Assembly, in their alleged arbitrational character, competently determine whether Mr Macmillan was or was not entitled to the benefit of the laws of his country, even although it could be shown that a blind and unconditional submission had, to that extent, been exacted from him. We throw entirely out of account the (of itself sufficient) objection, that no one ever heard of an arbitration to upwards of three hundred persons where there neither is, nor could possibly be, a delectus personarum. There is another view of this plea, we shall merely glance at. It may be held to resolve itself into this. This case, alleging injustice, has been already decided, for the verdict of the Assembly, in all questions with Mr Macmillan, establishes the fact that there has been no injustice committed. This verdict Mr Macmillan bound himself to accept and maintain inviolate. But to such an argument the answer is transparent. It is this. The questions in contention have not been, and cannot go before the Assembly, and as there is no other tribunal but the Court of Session to which resort can now be had, they are competently taken there.

We have now commented upon the present aspect of these cases, and upon the last opus magnum of the great necromancer of the Free Assembly. The amorphous structure he attempted to raise has tum

bled crumbling among his feet. What else could he have expected? He might as well have endeavoured to reintroduce the Ptolemaic system in astronomy, as the old slavery of Popish routine in this Protestant age. There can never again be two co-ordinate allegiances in the governmental sphere in this country-one to the state and another to the church. The world has already had a sufficient trial of two supreme wills, and has found the system unworkable. Yet this is the pons asinorum to which the Doctor has led his too-confiding followers, and towards which he and they are lustily calling upon dissenters to advance. A crisis has come upon them rather soon. Their boasted distinctive principle has ripened suddenly to its fruit. The beautiful garment of their apple of Sodom has been rent in twain, and we discover only putrescence and poison. They claimed enormous power -disclaimed all responsibility-and christened their monstrous bantling, "toleration." The scope of their principle may be best tested by what we know of its operation. There is a Japanese custom of marrying females by blackening their teeth-the Free Assembly divorce a minister from their communion by blackening his character, and, after a sham trial, seizing upon his income, and turning him adrift upon the world to starve. They tell us that this procedure, if we could only understand it, is evidence of the perfection of their Christian discipleship and regard for their erring brother. It may be so, but really it is very hard to see how any such conduct could result from an observance of the doctrines of Jesus, or the yearnings of fraternal love. The statement is rather nebulous, so much so, that we are persuaded no other telescope but their own, would enable us to analyse it with satisfaction.

We have hitherto almost entirely abstained from referring to the charge against the minister of Cardross which supplied the pretext for the procedure Dr Candlish is so hopelessly striving to defend. One word upon it ere we conclude. There are certain things which are in their own nature improbable-some which are unnatural. The inherent likelihood of an occurrence, must necessarily affect the amount of evidence necessary to create in the mind a conviction of its actuality. The charge against Mr Macmillan is, that he, an old minister of the gospel, of blameless reputation for a long life, assaulted, with criminal intent, a married woman, the wife of a member of his own congregation. Was such an allegation probable? Is it not rather a fair and unavoidable presumption that, in a person who has attained the age of Mr Macmillan, the passions have long subsided? And is not this presumption enormously strengthened, when the facts are added that he was a minister of the gospel, and had been, during his long life, a laborious student? And when we add the consideration that the Presbytery, who resided in the neighbourhood and themselves examined the witnesses for the prosecution and defence, were convinced that that portion of the libel was indeed a libel, without a fragment of foundation in probability, does it not seem "passing strange" that the Free Assembly, with their inferior knowledge and opportunity, should have arrived at the antithetic extreme of this con

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clusion? So, at least, it appears to us. So, we think, it must appear to every unprejudiced mind. The charge is, in its nature, monstrously improbable, and unusually cogent proof would be required to redargue this presumption. But had the Assembly any such evidence to deal with? Not at all. On the contrary, we hesitate not to aver that, in the absence of a foregone and interested conclusion, they would have arrived, without a moment's dubiety, at a strong conviction of the innocence of their victim.

Most earnestly do we rejoice to know that Dr Candlish's day-dream of impunity, in the exercise of so abominable an excess of power, is well-nigh at an end. The day is past when the complaint for one injustice could be punished by the perpretation of another more flagrant, if possible, than the first. The pretence of conscience or "right divine" will no longer avail. No one is called upon by the voice of God, speaking, either through that inward monitor or from the pages of his written word, to slander and starve his brother without a cause. "The bruised reed He will not break." Can it be torn into fragments in His sacred name without affording a proof of hypocrisy and guilt, which he that readeth cannot fail to understand? Let the Doctor and his friends retrace their steps if they wish to avoid the fate of Haman, and erect a scaffold from which their misdeeds shall be suspended in the page of history, before the gaze of a wondering posterity. Let them appropriate the advice, ere it be too late, of one higher than man, "agree with thine adversary quickly whilst thou art in the way, lest he deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison."

ECCLESIASTICAL INTELLIGENCE.

Clerical Presentation.-Lord Saltoun has been pleased to present the Rev. P. M'Laren, of Newark parish, Port Glasgow, to the church and parish of Fraserburgh.

Ordination.-The Established Presbytery of St Andrews, according to appointment, met at Strathkinness, on the 13th inst., for the purpose of ordaining the Rev. David Stewart to the pastoral charge of the new parish. The Rev. Mr Foggo, of St Monans, acted as Moderator, and the Rev. Mr Hill, of St Andrews, conducted the ordination services.

Died, at 25 Ainslie Place, on the 2d inst., the Rev. James Robertson, D.D., Professor of Divinity and Church History, in his 58th year. Friends will please accept of this intimation.

END OF THIRTIETH VOLUME

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