THE PATRONAGE ACT. 183 



intrigue, hiding treason to the House of Brunswick under 

 very genuine hatred of the Presbyterian clergy, by which 

 it was carried through Parliament, the opposition offered 

 to it during the earlier part of last century by those 

 members and ministers of the Church of Scotland Avho 

 incarnated her ancient spirit, its effect in driving into in- 

 voluntary exile her most earnest pastors and most pious ad- 

 herents, are demonstrated and enforced with extraordinary 

 vigour. But there is one thing Hugh Miller does not 

 assert in his Letter to Lord Brougham, and the omis- 

 sion is of importance. He does not say that the British 

 Legislature, in restoring to the patrons of benefices in 

 the Church of Scotland those rights of patronage which 

 the Church, in the plenitude of her power, had swept 

 away, did not mean to transfer to the patrons what the 

 Church had conferred on the people. In order to do 

 justice to the majority of the judges of the Court of Ses- 

 sion, and to the Moderate party in the Church of Scot- 

 land, we are bound to admit that the rational interpreta- 

 tion of a law restoring patronage is that it conferred 

 upon the patrons real power, and that, by implication, it 

 disallowed, what the Church was ready to agree to, an 

 assignment of the income of the parish to the patron's 

 minister, and the appointment of another minister, ap- 

 proved of by the people and the Presbytery, to be its pas- 

 tor. In making this admission, we do not invalidate the 

 main argument of the Evangelical majority; but we set the 

 matter in its true historical light ; and we render it in- 

 telligible that men of eminent ability, men whom it 

 would be unpardonable, except in the actual heat and 

 dust of the struggle, to describe in any other way than 

 as upright and honourable, pronounced the claims of 

 the Church indefensible. The argument of the Evan- 

 gelical majority rested inexpugnably on this position, 



