in heritors or patrons, who might appoint any minister they
wished, without consulting the congregation. Needless to say, as a
free-born American citizen, and never having had a heritor in the
family, my blood easily boiled at the recital of such tyranny. In 1834
the Church had passed a law of its own, it seems, ordaining that no
presentee to a parish should be admitted, if opposed by the majority
of the male communicants. That would have been well enough could the
State have been made to agree, though I should have gone further,
personally, and allowed the female communicants to have some voice in
the matter.

The Friar took me into a particularly chilly historic corner, and,
leaning against a damp stone pillar, painted the scene in St. Andrew's
when the Assembly met in the presence of a great body of spectators,
while a vast throng gathered without, breathlessly awaiting the
result. No one believed that any large number of ministers would
relinquish livings and stipends and cast their bread upon the waters
for what many thought a "fantastic principle." Yet when the Moderator
left his place, after reading a formal protest signed by one hundred
and twenty ministers and seventy-two elders, he was followed first by
Dr. Chalmers, and then by four hundred and seventy men, who marched in
a body to Tanfield Hall, where they formed themselves into the General
Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland. When Lord Jeffrey was told of
it an hour later, he exclaimed, "Thank God for Scotland! There is not
another country on earth where such a deed could be done!" And the
Friar reminded me proudly of Macaulay's saying that the Scots had made
sacrifices for the sake of religious opinion for which there was no
parallel in the annals of England. On the next Sunday after these
remarkable scenes in Edinburgh there were heart-breaking farewells, so
the Friar said, in many village parishes, when the minister, in
dismissing his congregation, told them that he had ceased to belong to
the Established Church and would neither preach nor pray in that
pulpit again; that he had joined the Free Protesting Church of
Scotland, and, God willing, would speak the next Sabbath morning at
the manse door to as many as cared to follow him. "What affecting
leave-takings there must have been!" the Friar exclaimed. "When my
grandfather left his church that May morning, only fifteen members
remained behind, and he could hear the more courageous say to the
timid