HUGH MILLER 89 



against the true interests of the Church during the 

 Ten Years' Conflict. 



But the tide was to turn. Years of dissatisfaction 

 had at last produced the inevitable reaction, and in 

 1834 the General Assembly had bowed to the storm 

 and passed the Veto Act. Then were discovered the 

 evils of co-ordinate jurisdictions, the mistake committed 

 in 1690 and 1707 by which no provision had been 

 made for a line of clear demarcation between the 

 ecclesiastical and civil courts, and the blunder com- 

 mitted in intrusting great questions affecting Scotland 

 to the judgments of aliens in political sympathies. The 

 tone of many a decision of the House of Lords was to 

 make people think upon Seafield's brutal jest about 

 'the end of an auld sang/ and Belhaven's trumpet- 

 warning about the risks to the 'National Church 

 founded on a rock, secured by a claim of right, de- 

 scending into a plain upon a level with Jews and 

 Papists.' There were limits even to the loyalty of the 

 most faithful, and for ten weary years the conflict 

 between the courts was to run its course. In 1842 the 

 Church had instructed its Lord High Commissioner to 

 lay before Her Majesty a series of resolutions by which 

 it was hoped that a rupture could be averted. On the 

 1 8th of May 1843 the Commissioner for the Crown was 

 the Marquis of Bute, and after the levee in Holyrood 

 Palace, the retiring Moderator, Dr. Welsh, preached in 

 St. Giles, and in St. Andrew's Church the Assembly 

 the last Assembly of the real Church of Scotland met. 



