THE ESTABLISHMENT PRINCIPLE. 247 



had meditated profoundly on the position which the pro- 

 testing Church would occupy, and the course she ought to 

 pursue. Loving the Church of Scotland with passionate 

 attachment, his grand anxiety was that the Free Church 

 should be, in all respects save that of formal alliance 

 with the State, the old Scottish Church. He dwelt 

 earnestly on the necessity of separating her cause from 

 that of political party, and letting it be known that she 

 was to do the work neither of Whigs, Tories, nor 

 Radicals. The strength of her foundation was to be 

 the personal godliness of the Scottish people, and she 

 was to seek no other basis. The counsel of Hugh Mil- 

 ler to the Church on this point was as wise as it was 

 pious, and there can be no doubt that it contributed 

 largely to secure for him that confidence of the devout, 

 quiet, solid-minded laymen of the Church, which con- 

 stituted a power rendering him independent of every 

 political section as well as of its clerical partisans. ' There 

 is a call in Providence,' he said, ' to the Church, that she 

 dissipate not her powers in the political field/ 



At great length, also, he insisted upon the importance 

 of Free Church maintenance of ' the Establishment prin- 

 ciple.' He looked upon that principle as an integral part 

 of the British Constitution, and his reverence for the 

 Constitution was such as would have been sympathized 

 with by Burke or by Johnson rather than by modern 

 Whigs. ' It would be as impossible,' he said finely, 

 ' for mere politicians to build up such a Constitution by 

 contract, as it would be for them to build up an oak, the 

 growth of a thousand summers.' And in the Constitu- 

 tion he believed that ' the Establishment principle ' was 

 embodied, whereas ' the Voluntary principle ' was not. 

 The testimony of the Church of Scotland had, he de- 

 clared, been ' for the Headship of Christ, not only over 



