Front matter (continued 4)

It is an interesting question—if Chalmers had been alive at the present day, what would he have thought of the position of the different branches of the Scottish church, and what counsel would he have given to them on the subject of union?

To answer these questions we must bear two things in mind: first, that he held the recent treatment of the church by the civil courts, and virtually by the state itself, to be destructive of her liberty and her life, insomuch that it had become an absolute necessity to abandon connection with the state; but, second, that he held the state bound to contribute to the support of the church, and the Free Church bound to return to her old connection, provided the liberty should be restored and practically secured of which she had been unrighteously deprived.

Would he, then, have held that liberty to be now restored, and the way to an honourable, safe, and beneficial alliance reopened? We doubt it. He would certainly have seen that, in point of fact, the Established Church now enjoys a degree of liberty that enables her to discharge the ordinary functions of a Christian church without obstruction, and in particular to continue with great success that very enterprise of church extension for which he thought that she would be able to do nothing. But he could not have failed to see that this liberty was an indirect fruit of the Disruption, and that it was quietly conceded to the Established Church in order that she might stand practically on the same platform of liberty with the nonconformist churches, and especially her great rival the Free Church. He would have found no concession of principle, no acknowledgment by the state or by the civil courts of an essential difference between a Christian church and a civil corporation, and no acknowledgment that the church, as the creation of Christ, enjoyed privileges from Him independent of any state. He would have found no repudiation of the dictum of the then Lord President that the Established Church had no jurisdiction whatever in the country except what had been conferred by the state; and he would have found no security that if a new collision should occur between church and state, between the worldly and the spiritual power, the state would repudiate her old principles and policy.

Further, the contention of Chalmers in his London lectures and in his latest deliverance (see p. 148) always was, that the state ought to support religion, not merely because people wished it, but because the religion was true. Would he, then, have found in the members of the present Parliament any such value for revealed truth, as such, as would have given him confidence in them as its guardians? A Parliament that numbered Agnostics, Jews, Roman Catholics, Unitarians, and what not among its members—how could such a body be a nursing-father or a nursing-mother to the Christian church? Such a Parliament could not safely be intrusted with its guardianship. It was a very different condition of things when the Scottish church allied itself to the Scottish Parliament, all or nearly all being members of the church. Nor could he have found any cause for believing that at any future time, within reasonable distance, the nursing of the church could be safely committed to parliamentary hands.

But what then? There were three great Presbyterian churches in Scotland, with much of their resources wasted through division, but capable, by reasonable arrangements, of so combining their forces that his grand object—the bringing of all Scotland under the influence of Christian teaching—might at the least be greatly advanced. We can hardly conceive of any other advice that Chalmers would have given than that the vinculum of state-connection should be severed, and all the three churches should unite, and rouse themselves for one great, sustained, imperial effort to turn the country into the garden of the Lord. But what of the endowments? It is just as difficult for us to conceive that he would have been in favour of alienating them to secular purposes. No, he would have said, that is not necessary, and should not be; keep them for their original purpose, and place them under some public management, so that every congregation of the united body may have a share of them, if it please. This was certainly his feeling in a somewhat parallel case. In 1833, when the Irish Church Reform Bill was under discussion, Chalmers wrote to his sister, Mrs. Morton, 'I am relieved by the bill, the only flaw in it (although that may be one of deadly mischief) being the secularisation of the sum which they expect from the sale of church lands.'⁶ We can readily conceive how the great soul of Chalmers would have expanded once more, and his face beamed as the hope arose anew, that even yet his beloved country might realise his magnificent ideal, and, by God's blessing on the labours of a united church, its waste and desolate places might yet blossom as the rose.

No doubt, Chalmers died a disappointed man, so far as his great scheme for the good of his country was concerned. He failed, and yet he did not fail.

'If he strained too wide,

It was not to take honour, but give help;

The gesture was heroic. If his hand

Accomplished nothing—(well, it is not proved)

That empty hand thrown impotently out

Were sooner caught, I think, by One in heaven

Than many a hand that reaped a harvest in,

And keeps the scythe glow on it.'

We love the man for his noble aims and heroic efforts; and our love and admiration are only touched with a tenderer feeling, in that, when he failed, he did not abate one jot of heart or hope for his church and country, but left behind him his West Port experiment as a monument of what was possible, and an encouragement to all future generations to continue to cherish what had proved for him—a hope unfulfilled.