170 EDITOR. 



self-respect with which Scotchmen looked upon their 

 clergy as not forced on them by the will of man, but 

 sent by God to bless them, and called by themselves to 

 minister to them in spiritual things, he believed to affect, 

 in the closest and most penetrating way, the happiness 

 and well-being of ten thousand Scottish homes. He 

 denied with scorn the allegation that the Church of 

 Scotland gave up, at the time of the union with Eng- 

 land, her cherished independence. The burst of elo- 

 quent enthusiasm with which Chalmers asserted, in his 

 celebrated London lectures in defence of Church estab- 

 lishments, the spiritual independence of the Scottish 

 Church expressed his clear conviction. ' It should 

 never be forgotten/ said Chalmers, 'that, in things 

 ecclesiastical, the highest power of our Church is 

 amenable to no higher power on earth for its decisions. 

 It can exclude, it can deprive, it can depose at pleasure. 

 External force might make an obnoxious individual the 

 holder of a benefice ; but there is no external force in 

 these realms that could make him a minister of the 

 Church of Scotland. There is nothing which the State 

 can do to our independent and indestructible Church, 

 but strip her of its temporalities. Nee tamen consume- 

 batur ; she would remain a Church notwithstanding, 

 as strong as ever in the props of her own moral and in- 

 herent greatness. And though shrivelled in all her 

 dimensions by the moral injury inflicted on many thou- 

 sands of families, she would be at least as strong as ever 

 in the reverence of her country's population. She was 

 as much a Church in her days of suffering, as in her 

 days of outward security and triumph, when a wan- 

 dering outcast, with nothing but the mountain breezes 

 to play around her, and nought but the caves of the 

 earth to shelter her, as now, when admitted to the 

 bowers of an establishment. The magistrate might 



