RESULTS OF THE DISRUPTION. 249 



tion, could say nothing more sternly sad of the State- 

 Church of Scotland than that she had become a ' State- 

 institution/ The difference between the Oxford doctor 

 and the Free Church champion was this, that, whereas 

 Anglican Bishops have since Henry VIII. 's time ordained 

 vice regis, in the person of the king, thus recognizing the 

 sovereign as sole fountain of spiritual authority for the 

 establishment, the Scottish layman could point to the 

 Treaty of Union, expressly exempting the Church of 

 Scotland from the spiritual supremacy vested in the Eng- 

 lish Crown, and guaranteeing to her all those rights and 

 privileges which a century and a half of terrible con- 

 tending had secured her. 



The importance of this distinction became evident in 

 the sequel. Dr Newman left the Anglican Church more 

 conspicuously a ' mere national institution ' than before : 

 the Free Church won not only her own battle, but the 

 battle of the Scottish Establishment also. The dust of 

 the conflict having cleared away, the men of character 

 and power in the State-Church of Scotland, the Macleods, 

 the Cairds, the Tullochs, and men of like stamp, took 

 up the position of the old Presbyterian fathers, claim- 

 ing spiritual independence for the Church, and doing 

 their best to secure for congregations the election of 

 their ministers. Nay more, the Court of Session has, 

 by a recent decision, treated the right of the Church to 

 exercise spiritual discipline in the suspension and depos- 

 ition of ministers as unquestionable. Whether the law 

 lords would have been thus generous, if the Established 

 Church of Scotland had not become so modest, unassum- 

 ing, and inoffensive that a wigged gentleman might safe- 

 ly pat her on the head, were perhaps an ungracious 

 subject of inquiry. 



That an event shall become of world-historical 



