THE POSITION OF THE PARTIES. 243 



their position, and the popular intelligence apprehended 

 it ; they said what they would do, and they did it. The 

 morality of all ages the instinct of veracity in the 

 human breast responds to the declaration of Chal- 

 mers, perhaps the noblest which ever came from his 

 lips, that, if the majority in the Church had belied their 

 position and remained in the Establishment, they would 

 have made it a moral nuisance. A Church of Christ 

 which would have perplexed the human sense of truth- 

 fulness, which would have shuffled out of its promises 

 and nestled comfortably into its benefices, which would 

 have given sanctimonious phrases and slippery evasions 

 for plain deeds, would, God wot, have been a moral 

 nuisance. 



Strange to say, this declaration of Chalmers's has not 

 only been misrepresented, but has been turned into 

 something which, while retaining a resemblance to it in 

 sound, is, as nearly as possible, its opposite. It has been 

 alleged that he pronounced the Scottish Establishment, 

 after it was left by the Free Church, a moral nuisance. 

 Happily he had an opportunity, before the Parliamentary 

 Committee on the refusal of sites to Free Church con- 

 gregations, for exposing this malignant falsehood, and 

 stating what he actually said. In point of fact, the 

 mere circumstance that the battle had been bravely and 

 honestly fought on both sides enabled the two sections of 

 the dissevered Church of Scotland to regard each other, 

 though with inevitable irritation, yet with a manly and 

 soldierly respect. Dr Cunningham of Edinburgh and 

 Dr Robertson of Ellon, the foremost clerical athletes in 

 the controversial fray, were in their latter years intimate 

 personal friends. No candid historian of the contest will 

 refuse to admit that the genuine Moderate party, the in- 

 heritors of the policy of Robertson, occupied a position 



