WANTED A CLERK: AN ADVERTISEMENT. A MERCANTILE house in the City Clever fellows, no doubt, in their way, Who'd be glad such a berth to enjoy, And jump at such capital pay! The duties of this situation Are light, and the salary's great; Of very distinguished address, French, German, Italian, and Spanish, He must write with correctness and ease; The hours of attendance are easy He can come in the morning at eight, When he'll get out to tea about seven, At accounts he must equal young Bidder, The books he will have to post daily- Must perform before five-if he can ; What he cannot get through in the day, For which they won't ask him to pay! (All these are knocked off with a dash). Some ten or twelve others there may be Could post up the books ev'ry night. And to save him from fits of the vapours, Every day its amusement will bring In making out sundry odd papers. There are contracts to make out for buyers,- To spinners for cotton in bales; Price-currents of all the home markets To accounts-current when they're required; And a monthly report must be made Of th' affairs of the house-if desired. There is one thing, moreover, essential — For not less than 30007. The salary now we'll declare, SIXTY POUNDS! for the first year or two; But that isn't all. If he's clever, Can complain,-if he do, he's a beast! Address F. A. G., to the care of Mr. THUMBSCREW, the binder, Paul's-chain. But anonymous letters beware of; And state these particulars plain,— If you e'er had a dad or a mother, MORAL. Oh! ye merchants of wealth and condition, To a citizen-merchant or broker, PARTIES IN THE KIRK. WITH A NOTE to sir robERT PEEL FROM OLIVER YORKE, ESQ. THE issues foreseen and predicted by the most intelligent of the Scottish clergy, and by the ablest organs of public sentiment, are now in progress of full evolution. A schism is on the eve of outbreak. The extreme men, actuated by principles which appear to themselves sacred and fixed, have carried things to that extent of lordship over the heritage of God, that their opponents-if we may not call them rather their victims-have made an appeal to the legislature of their country to declare-not which is the Church of Christ, for no civil tribunal can do so, but which of the two parties into which the Kirk is split constitutes the just exponent of the Church as by law established. Had the majority pursued milder measures toward their ecclesiastically erring brethren of Strathbogie,―manifested a spirit of conciliation, or shewn any tendency to cease to ride rough-shod over all that opposed their ultra views, an adjustment might have been possible. But now every day adds to the impossibility of adjustment, and to the certainty of a schism. We deeply regret it. But before next General Assembly, an eleventh hour intervenes. Let the majority lay aside such wild and unreasonable spirits as Messrs. Candlish and Cunninghame, who embroil and entangle the already intricate elements, and take as representatives Drs. Gordon and Macfarlane, men of high principle and holy purpose, however overborne at present, and look fairly in the face their position and prospects. Let the other side have recourse to Dr. Cook, Dr. Hill, Principal Macfarlane, Dr. M'Leod, Dr. Brunton, and, above all, Dr. Muir, whose enlightened position, taken up at the beginning of the controversy, stands forth now in most attractive relief; and let these meet and solemnly ask themselves, Is not an establishment without the Veto infinitely preferable to the harassing and miserable provision of the Voluntary system? Are they warranted in denuding the establishment of some of its holiest clergy, for the sake of a wild whim? They owe it to their successors not to injure that venerable Church which was given them as a trust. They owe it to their Master not to mar an engine of incalculable good. They entered that Church when there was no Non-intrusion dispute; and if conscience allowed them to enter, surely, unless conscience be very much changed, it must allow them to continue in it. But they say, they entered it with the hope of gaining their principle in time; and may they not remain in it with the same hope? It is as easy to wrench it from the state as from the Moderates. We suggest these things in a spirit of unfeigned friendship, from an ardent desire not to see "the Philistines rejoice, and the uncircumcised triumph." We must say the dominant party display a most unhappy spirit. The language of their leaders is unchristian; much of it, apparently, transferred from the speeches of O'Connell. Nothing, we are convinced, will more satisfy Sir Robert Peel of the utter impolicy and impropriety of conceding their sweeping demands, than the language of the most prominent speakers at the late " commission," and at the last meeting in the West Church, Edinburgh. We proceed to give a few classified extracts from the speeches of the several leaders; and after our readers have perused them, we will solemnly ask, Are these men fit rulers of a church? are they in a state to be trusted with greater power? CHARITY TOWARD BRETHREN. Now, we know what they are wanting; and even if they draw back and have recourse to silence, and other arts, we have got the warning which is not to be forgot, and which is to us a warrant to go and raise the country on the subject, and it will be our fault if we do not take the hint. (Great cheering.) And should they propose to remain tranquil now, we may remain tranquil so far as proceedings against them are concerned; but we would be foolish and traitors to our cause if we remain tranquil so far as the people in this country is concerned. Let the struggle be prolonged as it may, we are forewarned; we know the tender mercies of these men towards us, and towards the people of Marnoch; and it will be our own faults if we do not make the country ring, and ask the country, Is it your pleasure that you should be kept subject to the tender mercies of these men?" CHRISTIAN MEEKNESS. "Sir, we refuse to go out of the Church, unless we are driven out, and for another reason beside those I have stated, because the minority would remain behind us. It would be some alleviation of the evil if they came out along with us. Why do I say so? Out of malice? No, but because I hold an Erastian Establishment to be worse than none at all. (Cheers.) It is our bounden duty to use every effort that, if we be driven out, they shall be driven out too. It is our bounden duty to bear this testimony, that the Church ought to be established on the principles which we are contending for, or that there should be no establishment in the land at all. We are bound to testify to this in the ears of the rulers of this nation, and to give them fair warning, that if they compel us to take up a position out of the Church, by making it so Erastian that we cannot remain in it, they will rouse up a number of new enemies in the ranks of those who are seeking the downfal of religious establishments. If establishments are not based on sound principles, they had better not exist at all. It is a fearful result for any calm statesman to contemplate,- to drive us into a position, which, however much we would dislike, we could not possibly avoid taking, it is a fearful contemplation that we should be driven to take up a position in opposition to the religious establishments of the land. A statesman will pause before he commits so great an error as this-to send out of the Establishment those men who will, in such an event, be called on to bear themselves contrary to the interests of the Establish ment they are forced to leave behind." 1 CORINTHIANS, XIII. "When this is considered, perhaps it will be seen that it is not loyalty, after all, that is the moving spring in their present opposition,-that it is another principle, namely, the love of power, which used to signalise the party now struggling so hard to gain the ascendancy. It is the power of perpetuating Marnoch settlements that our friends seek to acquire, by establishing this principle of theirs as a principle of the Church of Scotland. It is the power to put into the Church their own friends, the sons and nephews of ministers that have in. fluence, the sons of factors of the aristocracy and the patrons of the land, whether qualified or not for the sacred func tions; it is the power of working the Church in the good old easy plan, never minding the number of sermons that a minister preaches, nor his visiting the sick, nor the number of catechisings that he holds, but attending more to the number of acres on his glebe, and the number of chalders in his stipend. (Great applause.) This love of power is the principle that will explain." MAJORITY CEASE TO BE TORIES, AND "What the Reform-bill did then amongst the Voluntaries, the Tory majo rity is doing now amongst the Moderates. (Cheering and laughter). It has thrown the Moderates off their guard, and raised their hopes so high that they have come out with all that is in their heart, and we know the worst of it, by the blessing of Providence, to take effectual measures to defeat them." NEW LIGHT TO THE MODERATES. "This, then, is the doctrine of our Moderate friends,- that the civil courts have rule over the highest and most spiritual things. They have declared the preaching of the gospel to affect temporal rights. Some of the Moderates scarcely shrink from maintaining that the government of the Church in its own matters affects temporal rights in another way. In the barony parish of Glasgow, which contains one hundred and fifty thousands of souls, they would have them all handed over to the care of Dr. Black, and insist on him visiting them all, and insist that all of them have a right to visit him, and all on the ground that to make any alteration in such a state of things would affect temporal rights. This doctrine of theirs proceeds on the supposition that it is lawful for the Church to make the decisions of civil courts the rule of her conduct in exercising her discipline and government, and this is what our friends the Moderates are calling on us to admit. When the Auchterarder case was decided in the House of Lords, what motion did they submit? Was it that the Veto-law is contrary to the will of God, and therefore the Church, in obedience to Christ its head, was bound to repeal that law? No; but they said, there has been a decision in the House of Lords, by two learned lawyers (they did not say they were great divines), therefore we call on you to find whether you are convinced that this law is contrary to this decision The point that they take up is, or no. that it is contrary to the decision of the civil court. The ratio decidendi that they give is, that it is inconsistent with the decision in the House of Lords; and on that ground we call on you to reverse your steps, and make the decisions of the civil courts the rule of the Church's procedure in her own discipline and conduct." en These are but short specimens of the tone so unhappily greeted at these meetings with what is called " thusiastic applause." There were reiterated menaces, intended to convince Sir Robert Peel that if he acquiesce not in demands which must deteriorate the Church, and infringe the statute laws of the realm-demands dormant for a century, and resuscitated only in 1834-blown into prominence by violent agitation, and overwhelming by their froth all solemn and sober proposals-they will virtually join cause with the anti-British party in Ireland, the Radical party in Scotland, and the political Dissenters of England. Such a temper is unworthy of a Christian clergy. It must pain to the very heart all pious and peaceable men; and never can sober and sensible parishioners listen on the Sabbath with any profit to preachers whose judgments are so warped by party, and whose hearts are so engrossed with a sort of ferocious crusade. We do not think that this unmeasured language is the real expression of the sober sentiments of any of that party. They are breathing a heated atmosphere, - their brains are whirled round in a continuous vortex; and if our heads are clear enough thus to discriminate, let our hearts be charitable enough to make every just allowance. The fruits of such violence appear daily; multitudes are seceding from the establishment of Scotland, among whom is one of the presbytery of Edinburgh, and joining the Episcopal communion; thousands are becoming Dissenters; and we fear Popery and Infidelity rejoice at a spectacle which thins the professors of the truth, and swells their own ranks. What rendered the scene at the last meeting of the commission peculiarly sad was the apparent fact that the few opponents of these violent measures were either silenced or overwhelmed with storms of hissing. The only speech which was listened VOL. XXIV. NO. CXLIV. to was Dr. Brunton's, which was made at the commencement of the meeting; a speech fraught with piety, good sense, and a moderation worthy of the man. It ought to have been the key-note to all that followed. But it had few dispassionate hearers, and, like the voice of St. Paul in the theatre of Ephesus, it was drowned amid the uproar of the shout "Great is the Veto of the Non-intrusionists!" "If the ministers of Strathbogie had obeyed the commands of the Church, throwing the responsibility of their conduct upon the Church, I am convinced the Church would have exerted herself to the uttermost to save them from personal harm, and the legislature would have seen the necessity of finding a cure for the evil, and for preventing a British subject from ever again being placed in that position. But though I feel it my duty to obey the Church, it does not follow that I am to concur in all her proceedings. I have felt it my duty and my privilege to enter my dissent against the sentence upon the Strathbogie ministers. I thought the Church was more wrong in that case than were the ministers of Strathbogie,-wrong in the cruel and merciless sentence they passed; and still farther wrong in enacting that source of all their troubles, the Veto act. By passing that act, and by afterwards vehemently maintaining it, it appears to me that they have given rise to all their present difficulties. The Church maintains at present two separate positions, that of a Church of Christ and an established Church. Our fathers, guided by the great Head of the Church, framed its doctrines in accordance with the revealed will of God; they had framed the government and discipline of the Church in accordance with the mind of Christ; but then they were also an established Church. The government of the country, in performing a momentous duty to its subjects, looked round upon the various sections of the Christian Church, and chose our church for the spiritual improvement of the people, and bestowed upon us the privileges and immunities of an established Church. But we did not then cease to be a Christian Church. (Hear.) God forbid! our spiritual functions and privileges were still preserved entire. Though our doctrines and our mode of government are recorded in acts of parliament, they did not originate there; they were recorded there merely as a description of the doctrines and government of the party to whom the state agreed at first to grant immunities, and to whom they were to be continued as long as that description remained appli Y Y |