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The Disruption.

SECOND PAPER, BY C. H. SPURGEON.

AST month we saw the birth of the Free Church of Scotland in the marching out of the brave protesting ministers. Immediately, these brethren held their first assembly, and banded themselves together to maintain the crown-rights of King Jesus. They acted with decision and promptitude, defying the consequences which they plainly foresaw. It was not to be all marching through sympathetic crowds, and carrying resolutions by enthusiastic assemblies: they were in for real war, and they found it to be no child's play.

The seceding ministers were, of course, giving up their salaries by the act and deed which constituted them the Free Church. This, to men with wives and children, was no small matter; and to those who were much advanced in life it must have caused a double pang. Voluntarily renouncing a sure income, they went forth trusting in a voluntary principle which as yet they had never seen in exercise. Their people, so far from having been educated in giving, had been under the blighting influence of the State-pay system, and therefore no very cheering prospect presented itself to those who were in future to depend upon the free-will offerings of their congregations. In some cases they could not even be sure that they would have congregations at all, for their parishioners might elect to remain in the old kirk. All turned out well: the people followed their brave pastors, and aroused themselves to a noble effort of liberality; but this might have been otherwise, and therefore many a Disruption minister had to march forth with his brethren facing the probability of absolute poverty. Consciences nowadays are made of softer material, and of a stuff which will stretch indefinitely, and therefore we can scarcely hope to meet with many who could suffer the loss of all things for Christ's sake; but it does us good to think that, within our lifetime, there have been faithful men upon the earth, who were counted worthy to suffer for Christ's name's sake.

It

Quitting the manse was the first actual trial of the minister. was his house, the home of his family, the place of his study; in many cases, his life-long abode. The garden and the glebe must be left also, and the good man and his good wife must go forth. But whither? There was the rub. In many villages no house was vacant, nor even a part of a house; in many others, cottages and hovels were the best shelters that could be produced; and, worst of all, in a large number of instances the great landlords forbade their tenants sheltering these men of God. Eviction was threatened if the Free Church minister was harboured. Thus the minister was obliged to live miles away from his flock, and to trudge the weary distance as often as he preached or visited. Doubtless many died through cold and exposure, and others were injured for life through the suffering caused by the narrow, damp, and windy dwellings with which they were obliged to content themselves. Take two instances as narrated in the admirable volume before us.

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Dr. Guthrie thus described the lodging of Mr. Baird, of Cockburns

"Annals of the Disruption: with Extracts from the Narratives of Ministers who left the Scottish Establishment in 1843." By the Rev. Thomas Brown, F.R.S.E. Macniven and Wallace, 132, Princes Street, Edinburgh. Price five shillings.

path :-"I went out last winter, and found him in a mean cottage, consisting of two rooms-a but and a ben-with a cellar-like closet below, and a garret above. Night came on, and I asked where I was to sleep. He showed me a closet. The walls were damp, no fire could be put in it. I looked horrified at the place, but there was no better. Now,' said I, 'Mr. Baird, where are you to sleep?' Come,' said he, and I will show you.' So he climbed a sort of trap-stair, and got up to the garret, and there was the minister's study, with a chair, a table, and a flock-bed. A few inches above were the slates of the roof, without any covering, and as white with hoar frost within as they were white with snow without. When he came down the next morning, after a sleepless night, I asked him how he had been, and he told me that he had never closed an eye from the cold. His very breath on the blankets was frozen as hard as the ice outside. I say that man lies in a martyr's grave."

The

Mr. Campbell, the minister of Berriedale, in Caithness, relates his experience: "We suffered much hardship as a congregation. We could not get sites for our church and manse for eleven years. teacher and myself lived in a most miserable place. The people did not dare to receive us into their houses. The teacher, therefore, put a temporary roof upon the ruin of an old cottage. In that miserable place we lived for seven years. If there was heavy rain during the night, there was a pool of water before my bed to welcome my rising in the morning. If there was high wind, the ashes were blown up in my face. The wind had free course under the foundation, the house having been built upon a heap of stones. It was so damp and cold that I had to wear my great-coat at the fire-side. I felt by degrees that my life was in danger. My feet began to swell much from the dampness of the place. I walked about a great deal to prevent

my getting worse, if possible."

It would be painful to quote more of the numerous instances recorded by the chronicler. It was unavoidable that, upon a sudden turn-out from their manses, the ministers should be put to considerable inconvenience. Houses are not built in a day; neither do they stand empty, waiting for Disruption ministers. But, in many cases, the owners of the land were tyrannical and cruel; they thought to drive away the Free Church minister by refusing him a lodging, or a plot of land whereon to build one. It is over now, and therefore let the cruelty be forgotten; but the patience, which bore that offence so bravely for Christ's sake, deserves to be had in remembrance from generation to generation.

The congregations were necessarily called upon to share with their ministers. The parish church was no longer theirs; the nominee of the State usurped the place of their pastor. In many instances they turned out in a body. At a pew-letting, not a single seat was taken except those which belonged to the old folk in the aisles, and these were taken in the sense of being taken up and carried away. But where could they meet? A barn was a very luxurious provision; a stable, a shed, a ruined house, would each one suffice for a season; tents were erected, and wooden buildings hurried up. One of the Established party enquired of a Free Churchman, "How are ye getting on with your wooden kirks?" When the laugh caused by the question had

subsided, he had this for his answer, " Oh, very well; but how are you getting on with your wooden ministers?" When edifices sprang up in a night or two, and the whole of the work was done free of charge, as was the case in some instances, one could not expect any very elegant structure to be the result. But what mattered? The gospel was preached, the people crowded to hear it, and the Lord himself was in the midst of the throng.

In many instances there were no halls, or barns, or even hovels to be had, and the people must needs meet in the open-air. In summer-time this is pleasant enough, when it does not rain; but in Scotland, we should feel pretty safe in guessing, concerning any particular day, that there would be a mist, so like to rain, that no English person would be able to see the difference between it and a shower. But then the winter came on,—and it is winter in those northern regions; and it is hard to stand in the open, and hear the gospel when the preacher is frost-bitten, and you yourself are stiff with cold. Of course, the great lords and the little lairds in numerous cases refused sites for building churches. When sites could be procured, the erection of the church was hindered by the refusal of the great ones of the earth to sell either stone, lime, sand, or timber for a Dissenting meeting-house. This drove the people to all manner of shifts: they took to the road-side, to the sea-shore, to woods, and to hill-sides. Very picturesque were such assemblies; but when the rain descended in torrents, and the snow fell, and covered every one, it must have been not only unpleasant, but injurious to health. Think of a congregation wet to the skin, and a minister so benumbed that, at the close of the service, he could not get off the stone on which he was standing till he was helped down! To be driven from their position by the rising tide, or to have the preacher's voice drowned by the roaring wind, was no uncommon experience.

A specially good instance of the stern unconquerable temper of our Scotch brethren occurred at Wanlockhead, where the Duke of Buccleuch reigned supreme, and would have none of your Free Churches. Petitions for a site were met with refusals, or were even left unanswered. "Up among these wild hills, 1,500 feet above the sea, the wind even in summer blows chill and keen, while in winter," as one of the witnesses states, "it has occasionally been found impossible for a human being to stand for an hour exposed in the open air. The plan, therefore, was a simple one: deny the people ground on which to build; let the minister get no site for a manse; and that terrible climate will do the rest. The people must go back to the pews they had left, and the Free Church would be driven from the glen. If men reasoned thus, they should have known their countrymen better. Two miles beyond the head of the valley in which the village stands, lies the Pass of Enterkin, with its memories of the time when the shepherds of these hills rose for the rescue of their covenanting brethren, and met and overthrew the dragoons of Claverhouse. Not far off, over the mountains, was the battle-field of Airs Moss, where Cameron laid down his life; and under the thatched roofs of Wanlockhead there still lived a race of humble, intelligent, God-fearing men, ready, if called on, to let the world see that the national manhood of Scotland, and the earnest spiritual life of former generations, were not yet dead."

"The conducting of Sabbath services was the great difficulty. Sometimes the congregation met on the bare hill-side, sometimes in one of the valleys, changing the locality, so as to escape, as far as possible, the fury of the blast, though no change could free them from the cold, benumbing wind, and the frequent showers of rain and snow. Mr. Graham Spiers tells of a day when he was present, in the beginning of March, 1846. Dr. Candlish preached in the small ravine near the village. The wooden erection, which served for a pulpit, was placed in the bottom of the hollow, and the people sat, most of them, on stones upon the side of the hill, and some of them round the minister on chairs which they had brought. It was a very wet and boisterous day. The service lasted about an hour and three-quarters. I was quite wet through; and I suppose every other person must have been the same.' During the following month, Dr. Guthrie was in Dumfries, on his celebrated manse-building tour, and went to show his sympathy. He was struck with the appearance of the place a very high, stormy, inhospitable locality. Describing the service, he said, 'I preached on the open hill, down in a sort of hollow, and the people were ranged on the side of the mountain. It was a swampy place, and I wished to have some protection between my feet and the wet ground. I saw some fine planks of wood lying close by, and I wondered why the people did not take them, and use them. In place of that, they went to a house, and brought an old door. After service, they said that the planks belonged to the Duke of Buccleuch, and they would not touch them, in case any offence should be taken. The people were standing on the wet grass, and there were showers lashing on occasionally during service-what they call hill-showers-and they were exposed to the storm and rain."" Five years this kind of thing was endured, but deliverance came for the sixth winter. A people who can persevere in this fashion are more than a match for dukes. Such trials were abundant in the western isles, where petty proprietors ruled with iron rod, as it would seem they are apt enough to do now. The cry of the crofters this day rises to heaven. Something may be said on both sides of the question; but it would be better if somewhat were done for the peasantry who are left so abjectly at the will of their masters. The people seldom struggle unsuccessfully the apparently weak turn out in the long run to be stronger than the strong. In the Free Church struggle, the mighty ones were in due time bowed as rushes bow before the wind. A nation moved by deep religious conviction is not to be controlled by the wealthy and the worldly: it makes light of sacrifice and suffering, and holds on its course victoriously.

We need not further tell how the Lord poured on his people the spirit of liberality; how manses and churches were built; and how that grand Sustentation Fund was instituted, by which the most obscure minister of the Free Church is provided for in comfort. God bless the church whose early history was so heroic.

We again commend to our readers the work from which our illustration is taken. We are anxious that the book should be extensively read, that a firm spirit of adherence to truth and principle may be revived in our land.