ANDREW GRAY (Perth)
Memoir by Robert S. Candlish
PREFATORY NOTE.
FIRST, as to the Memoir. I expected, when I undertook the
task, to be able to devote to it the cornparative leisure of the summer and
autumn months. Unfortunately, the necessary materials did not come to hand,
till my vacation was well nigh spent. Hence I have had the most of it to do,
amid the pressure of all my ordinary engagements. This must be my apology for
appearances of haste. I have found the labour very pleasant, as he to whom it
relates was himself very pleasant, to me. My chief difficulty has arisen from a
sort of "embarrassment of richnesses"; the letters preserved by Mr. Gray, as
well as his various scraps and memoranda, being exceedingly numerous. I have
examined them all pretty thoroughly, and have done my best to turn them to
account ; keeping in view, on the one hand, the interest which personal friends
naturally feel in dates md details ; and, on the other hand, the public
questions and events in which Mr. Gray had so large a share. In consequence of
this last consideration the biography may perhaps seem to be too much of the
nature of church history. But to many this may be rather an acceptable feature.
At any I felt that I could scarcely otherwise do justice to Mr. Gray, or to the
church; not to speak of myself.
Next, as to the Sermons. They are published
exactly as I found them, arranged together, and numbered consecutively, from
the first to the nineteenth. Evidently this had been Mr. Gray's own doing. I
discovered, in one of his latest scrap-books, a list of titles of sermons, with
the general heading, "Gospel Contrasts, Comparisons, and Similitudes ;"
shortened in the margin, to "Gospel Contrasts and Parallels. This list
very nearly corresponds, though not in exact order, to the series of discourses
which he left, as I have stated, arranged and numbered, with an evident view,
as I think, to the press. I have placed his general heading at the top of my
title page; and I have put his own titles at the beginning of the discourses.
The discourses are all fully written out; and they are printed, I may say,
verbatim; with the single exception of a page or two at the close of one of
them, which I had to supply from notes.
R. S.C.
Edinburgh 18th December
1861.
MEMOIR.
MR. GRAY was born at Aberdeen on 2d November 1805. He was
the first-born child of his parents, William Gray and Ann Taylor. His father
came from the parish of Foveran, in Aberdeenshire, being the son of a gardener
there, and settled in Aberdeen, as a stocking-maker. His mother came from the
parish of Peterculter, in Aberdeenshire, and was residing with her widowed
mother in Aberdeen, when she was married on 29th January 1805. She, as well as
her husband, was in humble circumstances. But they were both of them eminent
for piety.
By the father's side, Mr. Gray had two uncles; of whom the one
lost his life in St. Domingo, on the occasion of the negro outbreak there in
1794 - his words in his last letter home being ominous of his fate: "We are all
soldiers now; the other was a druggist in Aberdeen. He also died early,
leaving a son and daughter, both still alive; the son being now a medical
graduate of Aberdeen. Mr. Gray's uncles by the mother's side were three in
number. Two settled in business in London, and one in Aberdeen. One of the two
in London died early. The other, Mr. Andrew Taylor, having been very
successful, retired to Tunbridge Wells, where he lived for nearly forty years,
dying at the age of eighty-seven about four years ago. He was a decidedly
Christian man, kind to his relatives, and liberal in every good cause. Mr. Gray
often experienced the benefit of his liberality in the various plans of
religious and philanthropic usefulness which he set on foot. His maternal uncle
in Aberdeen, Mr. Peter Taylor, was also a man of marked Christian devotedness.
He was a keen dissenter, and took a lively interest in the congregational
"cause in Aberdeen.
Mr. Gray's early home was in keeping with his
future character and career in life. His mother was endowed with a large
measure of shrewdness and sagacity; and though tried much with a severe illness
of long duration, was spared to reach her fifty-fourth year, and to see her son
called to his first charge at Woodside in 1831. His father, who lived latterly
in Mr. Gray's house at Perth, and died there in 1846, at the age of
seventy-four, is described as having been, in guilelessness and simplicity, a
perfect child; well meriting the appellation of a Nathanael He was easily
imposed upon, having in his composition much of the "charity which thinketh no
evil. So far he might seem to be but ill adapted to cope with the world
and its ways. But he was remarkable for conscientiousness and uprightness, and
a firm adherence to what he believed to be right. In church matters he was
especially so, and on more than one occasion manifested something of that
tenacity of purpose which marked so conspicuously the temperament of his son.
He was a staunch churchman, warmly attached to the Church of Scotland, although
he viewed with deep grief the defections of which, under the rule of moderate
policy, she had become guilty. In particular he abhorred the yoke of patronage
which that policy sought to rivet, in its utmost severity, on the necks of the
people of Scotland. He was a member of Trinity Chapel. This was one of the
earliest chapels-of-ease, which the dominant party in the presbytery was got
with difficulty to tolerate ; - the population of Aberdeen having so enormously
outgrown the supply of church accommodation in the old place of worship, that a
new one, even in the obnoxious shape of a chapel-of-ease, could not for very
shame be refused. It was a great blessing. For many years it was one of the few
sanctuaries in Aberdeen in which the gospel was really preached.(** At that time, in connexion with the Establishment, the
people who sought to hear evangelical doctrine conld find it only in Gilcomston
Chapel, where the once famous Dr. Kidd ministered; in Trinity Chapel, which was
occupied, first by Mr. Doeg, and then by Mr. Murray; in the East Church, Dr.
Ross's; and in Belimont Street Chapel, Mr. Bryce's. A great change took place
before the Disruption in ls4s, when all the ministers of Aberdeen, without
exception adhered to the popular cause, and joined the Free Church of
Scotand.)
In 1823, it was at last resolved by the authorities
that the town of Aberdeen, which had up to that time been one parish - St.
Nicholas' parish - should be divided into six; and the magistrates proposed to
have one of the chapels-of-ease erected into a parish church. The offer was
first made to Trinity Chapel Many of the members, including the minister, Mr.
Murray, were inclined to entertain it favourably. It held out the prospect of
some important advantages; and although it implied that the chapel, becoming a
church, must be subject to the law of patronage, yet the magistrates, who would
be the patrons, were willing to agree to such terms as might seem consistent
with a large measure of freedom of choice on the part of the congregation. But
a sturdy band of uncompromising anti-patronage men stood out. They were against
the evil thing, root and branch, let it be "buskit ever so fine. Mr.
Gray, senior, was one of the most determined; and at a congregational meeting,
over which the minister presided, he made a speech on the subject. It was a
rare effort with him, and it was short and pithy: "Mr. President, it is the
opinion of certain members of this congregation that we'll be doing as we
are. There was no need of more. The ground of the opposition was well
enough known; the strength of it was abundantly apparent. The proposal then
fell to the ground, for that time, at least. Another congregation got the boon.
It need scarcely he added of so true-blue a Presbyterian, that he was a
zealous member of the Anti-Patronage Society, and its committee, from its
commencement in Aberdeen. He was also an active promoter of the Bible and
Missionary Societies in the town. He was in all this the sort of father that it
was fitting such a man as Mr. Gray should have to train him. - Like the rest of
his family, Andrew was taught to read by his father; sitting beside him while
he was at work - the "A, B, C, with the Shorter Catechism, being, as
usual in those days, his primer. He suffered much in his childhood from a
disorder in his eyes; so much so, that he had to sit in darkness in the house,
and be led along the streets, When he was about seven or eight years old, a
simple operation completely cured the disorder, although, as had been
anticipated, it left him ever after extremely near-sighted.
For a short
time he resided with his uncle, Mr. Peter Taylor; and while there, attended his
first school - the Town's English School, Drum's Lane, then taught by Mr.
Gilbert Falconer; - whose son, the late Forbes Falconer, Professor of Oriental
Languages in University College, London, was afterwards a fellow-student of Mr.
Gray's at college. In his uncle's house he imbibed a strong taste for reading,
which his uncle's library seems to have exercised and stimulated. But he did
not remain long with his uncle. If he had, that good man's zeal for dissent
might have led to his nephew being one of several whom his influence drew to
the ministry among the Independents.
Upon his return to his father's house,
Andrew was sent, along with his younger brother, to a school in Long Acre, kept
by Mr. John Paterson. Mr. Paterson was a neighbour of the Grays, living, in
fact, in the same tenement; and he was thus enabled to bestow much pains on
their tuition, in private as well as at school.* * Mr.
Paterson was a devoted Christian; a strong Old Light Anti- burgher; and as
such, a stern protester against the defections of the Church of Scotland. And
yet, strange to say, one of this man's occupations was the preparation, for
pay, of the Presbyterial exercises of young men, candidates for the ministry,
in that Church! It is to be hoped that, like Othello's, that occupation is now
gone. Mr. Paterson at all events, was a faithful teacher. It seems that he
found difficulty in getting the young Grays to study Latin - it was so hard.
The difficulty was overcome, in the case of Andrew, by his impatience of being
in the same class with a girl, and his ambition to occupy a more manly
place,
Under him,Andrew made such progress in Latin, as well as
in English, that at the competition for the bursaries in Marischal College, in
November 1820, he succeeded in gaining the second bursary of £8 or
£9 a-year. This was a small sum, but taken along with certain exemptions
as to fees, which it secured, it was to one in his circumstances a material
help. On the strength of it, he was able to enter college.
This brief
record of Mr. Gray's earliest days may be closed with the testimony borne by
those who knew him then, to his remarkable truthfulness and sense of justice,
as well as to the determined spirit of self-assertion and self-defence which he
had occasion to manifest in meeting the taunts and threats, if not the
violence, of companions apt to presume on the bodily infirmity that got him the
name of "blindy. That he profited also by the religious influences amid
which he grew up, is sufficiently attested generally, although details are not
given. The first book which he bought with money that he could call his own was
the "Pilgrim's Progress; - a poor enough copy, but much prized.
At
Marischal College, Mr. Gray passed through the usual four years' course of
literary and philosophical study, required by the church as preliminary to the
study of theology; and at the close, in 1824, he took with credit the degree of
A.M. "He had the reputation of a first-rate scholar when at college " - so Dr
Cruikshank, Professor of Mathematics, writes; and his progress was signalised
by several high marks of honour. He took an interest in chemistry and natural
science, but was especially devoted to mental and moral philosophy. In that
department he so distinguished himself as to carry off the Rector's Prize at
the end of his fourth session.
Like many of our Scottish youth at college,
he had to maintain himself, in whole or in part, by private teaching, in summer
as well as in winter. His brief vacations, in June and July, were more than
once spent in the manse of Rosskeen, in Ross-shire, with Mr. and Mrs. Carment,
to both of whom he used to express him.- self as having been thus laid under
the deepest obligations. Mrs. Carment on one occasion nursed him through a very
severe illness; and between her husband, then a minister of old standing, and
the youthful student, an intimacy then began which soon ripened into the
closest and most confidential friendship.
The influence of that remarkable
man is very apparent in Mr. Gray's first grappling with the public questions of
his day. In frequent contact with so shrewd, quaint, and original a mind as Mr.
Carment's, as well as in the practice of the College Debating Society, in which
he took an earnest part, Mr. Gray might seem to be well rehearsing the sort of
part which he was to be afterwards called to play in the drama of life.
Having taken his degree at Aberdeen, Mr. Gray apparently contemplated a
change of residence. In July 1824, he sent in, through an influential friend,
an application for the situation of teacher of mathematics in Heriot's
Hospital. This, if he had succeeded, would have led of course to his studying
theology in Edinburgh. He continued, however, in his native city, being still
dependent for his support on his own exertions. During his attendance in the
Divinity Hall, he was engaged in private teaching; and he had also several more
permanent appointments. He taught the parish school of Cluny, Aberdeenshire,
for some considerable time, as substitute for the master.
He was himself
the master of the Seaman's School, Aberdeen; his management of which is said to
have been characteristic. Without fuss or effort, he maintained perfect
discipline; and although he had often rough enough customers to deal with, -
especially in the evenings, when big fellows of sailors came to learn
navigation in the intervals of their voyages, - he had the rudest of them
thoroughly under the control of his mere word and look. Failing health
occasioned his resignation of that appointment. But he afterwards taught
successfully in Mr. Thomas Meston's academy, and continued, it is believed, to
do so until about the time when he was a candidate for his first ministerial
charge.
Mr. Gray's theological course in Marischal College (1824 - 1828)
does not require particular notice. One of his fellow-students, well entitled
to speak on both of the points which he notices, says of him generally: "Mr.
Gray was well known among us all as a man of the highest logical power. But he
was also well known among us as a man of transparent personal piety and
devotedness. I remember one or two of us meeting under his worthy father's
humble roof, in a garret room there, for prayer. But details have now escaped
my memory. Another recalls his first meeting with him in a debating
society, when Mr. Gray, as essayist for the night, had to stand the brunt of a
fierce attack for thrusting religion into a literary discussion, as well as for
the narrowness of his religious ideas. The same friend adds that "Mr. Gray
was known as a steady champion of evangelical orthodoxy in the Hall and of the
evangelical party in church politics, and that he played an important part in
the change which about that time took place in the character of the Aberdeen
Hall.
It had long been remarkable for the prevalence of Moderate
opinions, in theology and church politics, among the students; but the tide was
now turned, and the evangelical party was in the clear ascendant, not so much
in numbers as in talent. The true men, feeling this, took their position, and
their opponents quailed before them. Mr. Gray's indomitable spirit appeared
conspicuous in the movement. One instance is remembered; and as it is really
creditable to all the parties concerned, it may be, at this distance of time,
mentioned without indelicacy. When the son of one of the professors, and
the most influential among them, applied for admission to a theological
society, Mr. Gray strained every nerve to induce the members to reject him -
his conduct being notoriously and flagrantly inconsistent with his standing as
a student of divinity. The applicant was rejected accordingly. "It was,
as his friend asserts, "a very noble act on the part of Mr. Gray, and tended to
add to his weight in the Hall, and the just influence of the principles which
could prompt it. Nor was it done without personal risk. It brought upon
him, as one of the prime movers in the business, the wrath of the young man's
father, at whose hands Mr. Gray experienced for a time not a little of what was
very like persecution. But he had his reward, and the young man "took a noble
revenge. One day, at a subsequent period, when Mr. Gray had preached in
the National Scots Church, Regent Square, London, his old fellow-student, who
had abandoned the profession of theology for that of medicine, came into the
vestry after service, and "warmly thanked Mr. Gray for his noble consistency;
acknowledging that he knew himself to be unfit for a Theological Society and
Divinity Hall, and that he now honoured the man who had kept him out, for what
he had done.
While still a student, Mr. Gray began to show an active
interest in the public questions then beginning to agitate the Church and the
country. Early in the second session of his attendance in the Divinity Hall, he
sent an able letter to an Aberdeen paper (21st December 1825) in defence of the
Anti-Patronage Society, and he had an article in the Christian Instructor
(November 1825) on the rights of chapel-of-ease ministers. In the Assembly of
that year, his friend, Mr. Carment, had almost single-handed supported an
overture on that subject. It got little or no countenance from any quarter. Mr.
Gray, in fact, was from the first the main originator, as he was all along the
most indefatigable promoter, of the movement which issued in the Chapel Act of
1834. His article in the Instructor was probably the first clear and bold
assertion of the principle that pastors of congregations were, by their
ordination, entitled to rule as well as teach in the church; from which it
followed that the prevailing practice of refusing to chapel ministers seats in
church courts, was unconstitutional and indefensible.
The matter soon began
to take practical shape; and Mr. Gray was still the prime mover. In 1828, he
drew up a petition to the General Assembly of that year, which was signed by
parties connected with chapels-of-ease in Aberdeen, praying that their
ministers should be acknowledged to have the right of holding kirk-sessions in
their congregations, and sitting in the superior church judicatories. The
rejection of that petition did not discourage its supporters. For, in the
following year, 1829, Mr. Gray again exerted himself to have a similar
application made; the circular and draft of petition being this year also
prepared by him; and the minister of Rosskeen being again .the advocate of the
measure in the Assembly. Both parties in the Assembly - Dr. Inglis proposing
and Dr. Thomson seconding the motion - concurred in refusing the prayer of the
petition. This procedure was substantially repeated in the Assembly 1830; and
thereafter the question seems to have been in abeyance till it was re-opened in
1833, mainly through the persevering zeal of Mr. Gray, who by that time had
become a chapel-of-ease minister himself. It is curious, however, to notice how
early and how keenly he took up the cause, when he was simply a student of
divinity, and could have no idea of ever having any personal interest of his
own in its advocacy.
Mr. Gray was licensed as a preacher of the Gospel by
the presbytery of Aberdeen, on 25th June 1829. He preached his first sermon in
the South Church of that city, from the text Colossians ii. 14. Thereafter, he
used to officiate frequently in the churches of Aberdeen, and in other places;
as in Edinburgh, for Dr. Andrew Thomson of St. George's, by whom his services
were highly commended, and in whom he found a warm friend. He was brought into
connection with that eminent man by occasional contributions, about this time,
to the Christian Instructor. His signature was a characteristic one, - "An Old
Light Presbyterian, of the Established Church. he had warmly espoused
also Dr. Thomson's side in the Apocryphal controversy. It was chiefly by him
that an elaborate statement was drawn up in 1828, in name of the Aberdeen Bible
Society, ably vindicating the cause of pure Bible circulation, and exposing the
policy of the opposite party.** The friend already
quoted gives this account of the affair: - The sad Apocryphal
controversy brought Dr. Andrew Thomson, among other places, to Aberdeen, where
he held a large audience rivetted for no less than the almost incredible space
of six hours and a half, with certain brief pauses only, which gave both him
and them breath and refreshment. An Aberdeen Bible Society was at once formed,
to be in connection with the new Edinburgh one, dissevered from the British and
Foreign. Dr. Thomson lived with my eldest brother, who, with Mr. Andrew Gray
and myself, resolved that a Statement' of our own should be prepared,
submitted to our Committee, and if approved, published, for the information and
direction of the friends of pure Bible circulation in the North of Scotland. By
common Consent, the task of drafting it was devolved on Mr.
Gray.
But he did not subscribe to all Dr. Thomson's
views. He felt keenly on the subject of Catholic Emancipation, and was actively
engaged in the agitation against that measure. He published a strong pamphlet
in 1829, "taking to task the Protestant supporters of Popery. Apart from
the question of Emancipation, it was a good exposure of the false charity,
apologising for Popish errors, which had been manifested by influential persons
in Aberdeen. It had a large sale. Already Mr. Gray was known as a champion in
the Romish controversy. While he was a preacher, he held the appointment of
Lecturer on Popery to the Aberdeen Reformation Society, and delivered lectures,
once a fortnight, on alternate Wednesdays, to crowded audiences.
His
reputation, at the same time, as a faithful and eloquent evangelical preacher,
was increasing and extending, and led to his being chosen, by the Managers of
the newly erected Chapel of Ease at Woodside, a suburb of Aberdeen, to be one
of a leet of three candidates, to be presented to the subscribers, who were
entitled, under the constitution, to elect the first minister. Mt Gray was
elected by a considerable majority over the other two, on 23d September 1830.
These proceedings having become matter of dispute in the Church Courts, on the
ground of certain alleged violations of the constitution, the case was in
suspense till the Assembly of 1831. Mr. Gray's election was then confirmed.
In the interval, while the question was undecided, Mr. Gray was invited to
preach in Regent Square Church, London, then vacant by the deposition of Edward
Irving, with a view to his being brought under the notice of the congregation,
as one well fitted to be their pastor, in the difficult, and painful
circumstances in which they were placed. But he felt himself bound to the
people who first called him; and his lot accordingly continued to be cast in
his native land.
The opposition to Mr. Gray's settlement, however, was not
put down by the Assembly's decision. There was still a determination, on the
part of some of the minority, who were much in the moderate interest, to stand
out against him. - 'The Presbytery, in the usual form, moderated in a call to
Mr. Gray on 3d August 1831, and, found that "the call was subscribed by a very
respectable number of seatholders. But a charge was brought forward by
certain parties to the effect that on the afternoon of 8th August 1830, when
preaching as a candidate, Mr. Gray had advocated "the doctrine of the
peccabiity of Jesus Christ. Mr. Gray, it is understood, delivered the
obnoxious discourse, exactly as he had preached it in the Woodside Chapel,
before the Presbytery, in the presence of Professors and learned Doctors,
including Dr. Mearns, Dr. Forbes, and others, by no means favourable to his
evangelical views. The complainers, who, when they heard of his being about to
preach before such judges, were beginning to exult, were somewhat disappointed
by the issue. Dr. Forbes, their great friend, speaking, it was believed, for,
his brethren as well as himself, pronounced the discourse to be, not only an
orthodox, but a masterly production, and its author to be an honour to the
University and the Church. In the end, the Presbytery overruled the charge, on
the ground of misapprehension by the parties of what Mr. Gray was affirming.
They found him quite sound in doctrine, in all his discourses and exercises
before them.
Mr. Gray was ordained and admitted to Woodside Chapel on 1st
September 1831.
The district of Woodside presented the very field of labour
for such a man to cultivate, in the first fresh vigour of his days. It was
fallow ground, rough and thorny; and he was the sort of workman to break it up.
Lying about two miles and a half north from Aberdeen, it embraced three
villages, with a joint population, at that time, of nearly four thousand souls.
The people, employed chiefly in two large manufactories, for cotton and flax,
on the Don side, - though a considerable number of the men worked in the great
granite quarries in the neighbourhood, - had been for years in good steady
employment, and were generally well off as regards their worldly condition. But
there was great destitution of the means of grace. The parish church of Old
Macbar, which is the Old Cathedral of Old Aberdeen, was a mile and a half
distant; and the services there were not attractive. A small chapel, originally
intended for occasional evening service by preachers of all denominations, but
latterly appropriated by the Congregationalists, was of use to a few; and some
of the older and better disposed of the inhabitants frequented the rare places
of worship in Aberdeen in which the Gospel was preached. Among the general body
of the people, however, great indifference to spiritual things prevailed. There
had been recently, before the erection of Woodside Chapel of Ease, some little
stir, chiefly in consequence of an Anti-patronage movement; and it was this
partly that led to the chapel being built. The contest about the election of
the first minister was fitted to keep alive the excitement; and Mr. Gray,
happily, was the one of all the candidates most likely to follow it up to good
results, and make it serve the cause of vital and personal godliness.(* * By appointment of thc Presbytery, the Chapel, after it was
opened, and before a minister was settled, had for a time the benefit of the
services of Mr. John Duncan, (Rabbi) now the Rev. Dr. Duncan, Professor of
Hebrew in the New College, Edinburgh. This was a circumstance highly favourable
to the awakening of an interest in Divine things. Dr. Duncan was even then
distinguished for the deep thought, the racy originality, and the searching
insight into the mind of the Spirit, which have since been so noticeable in his
pulpit ministrations, and theological disquisitions. He could not fail to be a
useful precursor to one, between whom and himself, as kindred and congenial
spirits, he closest intimacy subsisted.)
His first sermon was
characteristic. On the day of his settlement, he had been admonished by the
presiding minister, a well known Moderate Doctor, to avoid the monotony of
continual harping on a few doctrinal topics, and rather, by way of variety, to
discourse upon the virtues and moral duties one by one, according to the
approved moderate method. On the following Sabbath, having been introduced to
his congregation in the forenoon by his friend Mr. Carment, he took occasion,
in the afternoon, preaching on 1 Corinthians i. 23, 24, to enlarge uppn the
vast reach and compass of the Apostle's glorious theme, its power on earth, and
its charm even for heaven; closing with the quaint remark, that those who found
it wearisome on earth, would be inclined, if suffered to enter heaven, to
exclaim, "Oh the dull monotony of this place! I wish I were out! His
Sabbath ministrations, thus begun, very soon told upon the people.
They
were especially attractive to the young. Without any parade of intellect or
learning, they had the effect of quickening the mental faculties of his hearers
in a remarkable degree, as well as touching their consciences and hearts. Many
a young man got his first start in thinking from Mr. Gray's early sermons. He
was indefatigable as a worker. At first, and indeed all throughout, he had
considerable opposition to encounter, chiefly from the efforts of a few
influential parties, who disliked his zealous ways. As the old minister of
Bosskeen said to him, by way of encouragement, it showed that he had been
coming up upon the Devil, or "he wadna hae been kicking at him sae.
But very soon he gathered round him a staunch body of effective coadjutors.
He had a large Sabbath-school in his church, and the teachers in it became his
allies in every good work. Hundreds of children, formerly neglected, attended;
and "never, says one who used to help, "have I seen a finer sight than
this school when met in the large church, which was dotted all over with
classes, above and below, with the young minister moving about from class to
class, and encouraging teachers and scholars with his kind and hearty
smile. One portion, says the same person, "of the
Sabbath-school exercises was going over one or both of the services of the day.
Mr. Gray's sermons were peculiarly fitted for such an exercise being always so
clear that the youngest of the scholars could get a hold of them. Often have I
been astonished to see one of his masterly discourses fairly mastered by young
boys and girls, and the ideas so rooted and fixed in their minds that it would
have been impossible for them ever, to be erased. Indeed this, in my opinion,
was one of Mr. Gray's excellences, that he could, and did, imprint himself upon
the minds of his hearers. "In the Sabbath-school, he says again,
"there was great interest. It was new in the place; and it was conducted
with such an amount of life that it was felt to be a pleasure to be there; and
not only for the children, but I have seen hundreds of the parents gathered
around the classes, listening with interest as the teachers and scholars went
over their lessons; especially when the sermons of the day were under review.
Many have told me how much they benefitted by hearing the sermon thus gone over
again, and how easy it was for a teacher to go through this part of the lesson.
The subject handled, though in one view exhausted, so that little more could be
said about it, was yet handled in so suggestive a manner that I have often
wished to occupy the whole evening with it. The writer, somewhat
shrewdly, adds, "How different we used to find it when some other men occupied
the pulpit for the day; when we had either to attempt to make a sermon - I
mean, supply it for the class - or pass it over altogether. I often thought it
a fine test of the quality of a discourse, when put through this ordeal.
Mr. Gray set himself to complete the ecclesiastical establishment at
Woodside; and although the raising of large funds for such objects was not so
well understood then as now, he succeeded in having a commodious hall added to
his church, for prayer-meetings and other similar purposes; in erecting a large
day-school; and finally, in procuring a suitable manse. So thoroughly did he do
the business, in his short incumbency of five years, that his active successor
had scarcely any occasion to add to it; and to this hour, the church, school,
and manse at Woodside, secured now to the Free Church, stand very much as its
first minister left them.
Nor was it only the "outer things of the
house of God that he attended to. He wrought a decided moral change in the
district. He fairly stirred the minds of men in it. They had been, as a
community, wholly taken up with the drudgery of their daily tasks, and the
doubtful recreations that relieved it. But they were now observed, on all
hands, to manifest an entirely new interest in religious matters generally, and
especially in the various works which their pastor was carrying on. He soon
thoroughly gained the affections of the people; especially of the young, many
of whom were attached to him by the strongest tie as the instrument of their
awakening to spiritual life.
As one instance out of many, proving what a
hold he had of their hearts, a simple incident may be noticed. Some years after
his removal to another charge, Mr. Gray was returning from a visit to the north
on the Church's business, and had occasion to pass through Woodside. It was
late in the evening, indeed almost dark; but as he wished to make a call in the
village, he left the coach, intending to walk to Aberdeen. He was seen entering
the house, which, in a few minutes, was surrounded by a great crowd of young
people, all anxious to see his face and hear his voice again. He waited only to
have a cup of tea, being in haste to have his walk to Aberdeen over. When he
came out, he was pressed upon by the throng; and there being an open field
before the house, he walked into it, the crowd still pressing him so that he
could not speak to, or shake hands with, every one of them. "I think I see him
yet, says the friend who was with him. "He walked down to the middle of
the field, and seemed unable to speak. But, throwing off his hat, and lifting
his hands and eyes to heaven, he prayed. Soon were the young ones about him
subdued to tears; and several of the group have told me since, that they never
forgot that prayer in the field, when they thought the very stars in heaven
were interested in it. We walked together to Aberdeen; and we were more than
half way on our journey before he could resume the subject about which we had
been talking, when he made his call in the village.
Mr. Gray began a
course of Lectures on John's Gospel: and these, as well as his other sermons,
drew hearers frequently from Aberdeen, in addition to those from his own
neighbourhood. Considerable discussion was the consequence, and in some
quarters considerable hostility. Accustomed to the style of preaching which Mr.
Gray had been advised, at his ordination, to adopt, there were not a few who
disliked the style which, in spite of that advice, he actually did adopt. The
cry of heresy was not, indeed, raised again seriously. But it was not allowed
to drop altogether. The prejudice against him in certain quarters continued
unabated.
Certainly Mr. Gray was not the man to conciliate in any special
manner the leaders, lay or clerical, of the moderate party in Aberdeen. Even
before he obtained a seat in the church courts, he was a troubler of their
peace. On all public questions, he was on the popular or reforming side. In
particular, he kept up the agitation in which he had taken part while yet a
student, on the question of the rights of Chapel of Ease ministers - a question
now, of course, become of double urgency in his eyes, in consequence of his own
ecclesiastical standing being involved in it.
It was mainly at his instance
that a movement was again made in 1833, of a much more decided and effective
character than any former one. In concert with the other ministers of Chapels
of Ease in Aberdeen and its vicinity, five in number, he had a memorial
presented to the Presbytery, on 27th March, 1833, which the Presbytery agreed
to transmit to the ensuing General Assembly. He exerted himself vigorously, by
correspondence and otherwise, to get similar measures adopted in other
Presbyteries: and the result was that now, for the first time, the Assembly was
obliged to look the question fairly in the face.
The Chapel ministers, as a
body with one or two remarkable exceptions, were held to be at the Assembly's
bar, demanding a recognition of their right, as having been competently
ordained to the pastoral office, to rule as well as to teach in the Church.
With some difficulty, upon a motion in the House, carried by a majority of
twenty, they were allowed to be heard by counsel.(* *
The opposition to this just motion was significant. At this very Assembly, a
few days before, the ministers of the parliamentary churches in the Highlands
had been heard by counsel, as a matter of course, and without a whisper of
objection. They were asking the very same thing that the chapel ministers were
asking; to have kirk-sessions, and to be allowed to sit in church courts. And
they got it. The Assembly at once conceded their claim to the full. With the
single exception of Dr. George Cook, the Moderate leaders all seem to have held
that the Assembly had power to do this, at its own hand, without any civil
sanction. Certainly the Act of Parliament erecting these churches gave no such
power. It might rather be supposed to have an opposite effect, since it very
expressly defined the conditions of their institution. Still it was held that
the Church had in herself power to do for the ministers of parliamentary
churches what she could not do, without the State's permission, for the
ministers of Chapels of Ease. When the struggle came, it turned out that Dr.
Cook was right. The civil courts admitted no distinction between the two cases.
The admission of ministers of parliamentary churches was declared to be equally
illegal with that of Chapel of Ease ministers; and in obedience to the civil
courts, both alike were excluded. The reason for the distinction made in 1833
is obvious. The Moderate party expected benefit from the one class of
ministers, and damage from the other. The popular party made no difference
between the two.)Their advocate was Alexander Dunlop. His whole
heart was in the cause. He had been in close correspondence with Mr Gray and
his friends, advising with them in all the preliminary steps that had been
taken. His speech, which was afterwards published separately as a pamphlet,
went thoroughly into the merits of the question, constitutional as well as
scriptural, and may be held to have virtually settled it.
The debate vhich
followed ended in a very narrow division; the numbers being 106 to 102. Dr.
Cook's motion, approving of the object, and appointing a committee, was thus
carried against an amendment, expressly recognising the church's power in the
matter. The amendment was proposed by the late Sir James Gibson Craig, who, in
supporting it, used these memorable words - as memorable now as then: "If the
General Assembly of the Church of Scotland cannot determine whom it shall admit
to, and whom it shall exclude from, its church courts, it is of no use that it
sit at all
This result was encouraging, and gave a fresh stimulus to
the agitation. Accordingly, before the next meeting of Assembly, while Dr.
Cook's Committee were deliberating, the chapel ministers and their friends were
actively organising. In church courts, and through the press, the controversy
was keen. Mr. Gray was the chief agitator. He carried on an extensive
correspondence in all quarters. And he published a pamphlet under the title of
- Letter to Dr. Cook, by the minister of a Chapel of Ease " - in which
he entered fully into the law and constitution of the church applicable to the
question, and met the arguments of the two classes of opponents with whom he
had to deal
For now, besides the old moderates, who, like Dr. Cook, doubted
or denied the church's power, as established by the State, to do the thing
sought, without the State's intervention, - a small but influential portion of
the evangelical body were maintaining the necessity, - or at least the extreme
desirableness, - of endowments being got for the chapels, before they were
placed on the footing of churches. This, was Dr. Chalmers' opinion; which he
urged, with characteristic force, in a pamphlet published with a view to the
Assembly. The same view was held by the ministers of the three chapels in the
parish of St. Cuthbert's, Edinburgh.
These ministers, accordingly, appeared
in support of their view at the bar of the Assembly, 1834 ; - setting
themselves thus apparently in opposition to their brethren, the other chapel
ministers throughout the country. For they also appeared at the Assembly's bar,
by their representatives. And they chose the right men; Andrew Gray, of
Woodside, Aberdeen, and Charles J. Brown, of Anderston, Glasgow; both chapel
ministers at the time, but both soon after translated to Parochial charges.
The case was argued with consummate ability from the bar. And thereafter,
in the House itself, a motion in favour of the claims of the chapel ministers
was carried by a majority of 153 to 150.
To this result, which took both
sides not a little by surprise, two causes very much contributed. The
corninittee named by the Assembly of 1833 had brought up a report, prepared
chiefly by Dr. Cunningham, and adopted, as it would appear, without a division,
which very elaborately and powerfully vindicated the claims of the chapel
ministers. It is one of the ablest papers which its author has written, And in
the debate, the telling speech of Mr. Dunlop, who was not now an advocate at
the bar of the House, but himself a member, made it all but impossible for any
one who held true presbyterian principles, on the subject of ministerial parity
and the pastoral office, to refuse a measure which simply put all the ministers
of congregations throughout the church on their just footing of scriptural
equality.
The Assembly, as a matter of course, passed an act, in terms of
the motion which had been carried. It was simply a Declaratory Act. It declared
the ministers of Chapels of Ease to be members of church courts equally with
other ministers; and it made provision for their congregations having
kirk-sessions formed, in the usual manner, and also for their having districts
assigned to them, as parishes, quoad spiritualia.
Thus the object of
Mr. Gray's early and continued exertions was accomplished. So far as the church
was concerned, it was accomplished thoroughly. An attempt, indeed, was made,
first in the inferior courts, and then in the Assembly of 1835, to unsettle the
question again. The pretence was that the Assembly of 1834 had passed the Act
without consulting presbyteries, according to the Barrier Act But the attempt
was easily and conclusively put down. It was felt that within the Church no
distinction could be made between the Parliamentary churhes and Chapels of
Ease, and that if a declaratory act was enough for the one, it must be held
sufficient for the other. The Assembly of 1835, accoplingly, confirmed the
decision of 1834. And in 1836, so thoroughly was the settlement accepted by all
parties as final, that on the suggestion of the moderates themselves, Dr.
Norman Macleod, of Glasgow, one of their number, and then the minister of a
quoad sacra church, - or what used to be called a Chapel of Ease, - was
unanimously elected Moderator of the General Assembly, and took the chair in
that capacity, solely in virtue of the Church's Act in 1834.
So the matter
stood till the question was raised in the civil courts, in connection with the
wider question of the church's independent jurisdiction. Then Mr. Gray was
again summoned to defend what was to no inconsiderable extent his own work - a
work in which he always felt it to be one of his best distinctions to have lent
from the beginning to the end a helping hand* * Mr.
Gray has left a volume containing all the proceedings in this matter, from his
own letter in the Christian Instructor, in 1825, down to the election of Dr.
Macleod as Moderator in 1836. Reports from newspapers are carefully pasted in,
together with reports of committees, memorials, circulars, and other documents.
The Assembly debates, Mr. Dunlop's speeches, Dr. Chalmers' pamphlet, Dr.
Clason's, and his own, form part of the collection. The whole is carefully
arranged in chronological order; and there are prefixed a printed titlepage,
and a printed table of contents. The volume is bound as a book. It is a very
interesting record. And according to his understood 4lesire, it will be
deposited, with other similar collections, in the Free Church College Library,
Aberdeen.
By the Assembly's Act, 1834, Mr. Gray became a member
of the Presbytery of Aberdeen, and in that capacity he began to take an active
and leading part in the management of its affairs, and in the public questions
that came before it. His power and value as a counsellor and debater were
acknowledged by all his brethren ; - .-so much so indeed that when he was
leaving them, on his translation to Perth, even those who were most commonly
opposed to him expressed much regret, and paid a warm compliment to his high
talent, and his uniformly straightforward, honest, and honourable conduct.
In his congregation, the Act entitled him to have a district assigned to him
for pastoral superintendence, and a session formed of elders chosen by the
people. In both of these objects, he was sadly thwarted, and harrassed by the
vexatious petty tyranny of some of the "millocracy in the neighbourhood.
They happened to have the control of a private bridge over the river Don, and
also to be the masters of a considerable number of operatives employed in their
manufactory. By the former of these powers, they were able to coerce Mr. Gray,
and the Presbytery of Aberdeen, and the Commission of Assembly, in fixing the
bounds of the proposed quoad sacra parish of Woodside ; - obliging them
to leave out a village properly fitting into it, and much needing to share in
the benefit, because the inhabitants, excluded from the private bridge on
Sundays, must have gone four or five miles round to get to church. By the
latter, they were able to interpose a veto, when some of their workmen or
overseers of the better class were elected elders, by threatening them with
dismissal from employment if they should presume to accept office. Some of
those elected were willing to accept office, even in the face of the unworthy
menace. But Mr. Gray dissuaded them, and deemed it better to postpone the whole
affair until men's minds were cooler ; - working on, meanwhile, as he best
could, with the aid of his noble band of Sabbath-school teachers, and such of
the elders of the original parish of Old Machar, as had been associated with
him under the old Chapel of Ease system, before the Act 1834 was passed.
But these things, much as they were fitted to weaken his hands, and chafe
his spirit, did not materially hinder his work. He was daily rising in
reputation, and was in the very midst of growing influence and usefulness, in
the pulpit, among his flock, and in his parish, as well as in the presbytery,
and among the community generally, when he was summoned to another sphere of
labour, in the beginning of the year 1836. While he was minister of Woodside,
Mr. Gray was married, on 23d July, 1834, to Barbara, second daughter of Mr.
Alexander Cooper, manufacturer, Grandholm, Aberdeen - a worthy Christian man,
and one of the elders connected with the congregation. Mrs. Gray proved to him
a true helper, both in his ministerial work, and in his manifold private
trials. She survives him, after having been his patient and tender nurse in his
long illness. They never had any family.
The part which Mr.Gray took in the
"Chapel Question, and especially his speech at the bar of the Assembly,
1834, gained for him immediately a very high reputation. This was increased by
a lecture delivered in Edinburgh, and afterwards published, as one of a series
of lectures on the Voluntary controversy, in which leading ministers took a
part. These things naturally led to his being prominently in the view of
several influential congregations, and made it obvious that his promotion could
not long be deferred. (* The lecture was delivered on
30th April, 1835; and was published immediately after, under the title,
"Lecture on the means of promoting a retnrn to the Parochial Economy of the
Church of Scotland, and on the true character and highest dignity of that
church, as the church of the people, the church of the poor. It went
through several editions, and was highly prized. It was very much in the line
of one of his favourite and most powerful arguments in the "chapel
question. For he was accustomed to plead for the Chapels of Ease being
put on the footing of parochial churches, çuoad sacra, not only on the
ground of their ministers being entitled to the same right of ruling in the
church as the parochial clergy, but even still more on the ground that the
people would be better cared for and provided for, by the parochial system,
with all its advantages, being carried out in the districts in which the
chapels were placed.
The most affecting and telling part of his remarkable
speech at the bar of the Assembly, in 1834, was upon that topic. It is in
itself so noble an appeal, and it is so characteristic of the man, that it may
not be improper to give here a specimen of it: - "Our object, then, is not
adverse to the parochial system. We are ready to erect, and to work it, if you
will only give us the power. The materials are all at hand; and we wait with
anxiety for your flat. At the risk of being thought egotistical, I will mention
that I am stationed in a manufacturing district, whose population exceeds 5,000
souls, and is rapidly increasing. We have a Sabbath-school in the chapel,
attended by nearly 500 young persons connected with the congregation, and
taught by nineteen teachers, among whom are the most influential, and
enlightened, and attached friends of the Church of Scotland residing in the
place. But I wish to go beyond the congregation, and, as far as possible, to
diffuse religion throughout the locality. We have many hundreds of heathens who
never go to a place of worship. These I am desirous to bring within the pale of
Christianity. Drunkenness and Sabbath profanation prevail to a fearful extent.
On these I would fain impose some check. But how is this to be done! It can
only be through the labours of a numerous and an indefatigable eldership. The
ministerial visitations of such a district, unless followed up everywhere by
the much more frequent, and the regular periodical calls, as well as hy the
constant superintendence of an elder, would do nothing.
But I cannot
appoint elders. I have Sabbath-school teachers, as many as are necessary, and I
would have elders too in abundance, were I possessed of the powers of a parish
minister. What, then, is the obstacle in the way of the parochial system at
Woodside? Is it the lack of an endowment? True it is, an endowment would he
acceptable enough, as the stipend is not by any means too large; but fifty
endowments would not make me either more able or more willing than I now am to
carry on our parochial operations. Our chapel is large, and our seats are
cheap; and what we need is a numerous and active eldership, who, headed by the
minister, may go into the streets and lanes, and compel them to come in. The
chapel minister has his station in that part of your ecclesiastical territory,
which is overrun by the profane and the revolutionary, by the enemies of
religion, and of the Established Church. You have
put him there to defend the cause of truth, to resist the encroachments of a
spreading infidelity, and to fight for his country's most sacred institutions.
But consider the disadvantages to which he has been subjected. There he
stands in front of the foe, like a general who has no officers to his army; or
like a general whose army is ill-officered, and the officers of which are not
under his command, but receive their orders from the general of another army
twenty miles off! In the face of a well disciplined, and, in all respects,
properly appointed enemy, stands he, surrounded by a crowd, the greater part of
whom know not wherefore they are come together! The opponents, whether they
assume the form of a political union, or of a dissenting congregation, are
always organised, so as to act with the concentration of an individual, while
they have the force of a multitude. But the numbers by which he is attended are
of little use, because he is denied the power to unite, and combine, and direct
them.
But our deliberate and solemn conviction is, that it will he for the
good of the church in every respect, if our congregations and ourselves obtain
forthwith our constitutional status. We are persuaded that the chnrch will
thereby be strengthened, her influence extended, the support of the people more
generally secured, and her connexion with the State perpetuated, as well as
made more prolific of endowment, than it has been, heretofore; and, if it were
possible for us to unveil the feelings and motives which are at work within our
breasts, the House would see that it is more on public than on private grounds
that we nrgo our claims: and that it is more from affection to our venerated
church, from a deep anxiety for her prosperity, and from a desire for the
disappointment and utter confusion of her enemies, than from a concern about
our personal interests or respectability, that we have this day come to crave
that all the powers and privileges of the pastoral office may be bestowed upon
us.
The congregation of the West Church, Perth, became
vacant in December, 1835. On the recommendation of the elders, - and after a
deputation of their own number, sent to Woodside to hear Mr. Gray, had reported
favourably of his preaching, - the congregation united in a cordial and earnest
request to the Town Council to exercise their right of patronage in his favour.
This accordingly was done. And Mr. Gray, having preached on two Sabbaths, in
terms of the Veto Law then in force, and having thereafter received a call
numerously signed by the whole people, was inducted as one of the ministers of
Perth, on 14th July, 1836.
On the following Sabbath he began his ministry
in the West Church, with a sermon. on Acts x. 29, "I ask, therefore, for what
intent ye have sent for me? The impression made on his first coming among
his new flock for the most part was highly favourable. Some, it is said,
thought him rather rough in his style, and a few left the church, not relishing
his rugged manner. But their places were soon supplied by others, who were
attracted by his vigorous, strongly evangelical and evangelistic preaching, and
his force and manliness of character. Most of his hearers were from the first
much taken with the great firmness and force of mind which he showed; and the
congregation, which had been a good and flourishing one under his predecessor,
the Rev. Samuel Kennedy, continued to be of about the same size, until the era
of the Disruption drew near, when it became much larger than ever it had been
before. It is believed, moreover, upon good grounds, that there was very soon a
considerable change in the character of the congregation. An interest was
manifested in religious matters generally, and in home ecclesiastical matters
in particular, which at an early period began to be very marked. This might no
doubt be partly ascribed to the stirring times then running their course. But
there can be no question that it was mainly the effect of the enthusiasm and
zeal of the minister.
In public matters, and in the affairs of the Church,
Mr. Gray's removal to Perth contributed not a little to his being brought more
prominently forward, both for action and for counsel. His position as a city
minister gave him new standing and influence; and his comparative vicinity to
the eastern and western capitals of the country, led to a closer intercourse
and intimacy with his brethren at head-quarters, on whom naturally and
necessarily a large share of that sort of work was devolved. Already, as has
been seen, while resident in Aberdeen, he had taken a leading part, especially
in the Chapel question; and he had been called to assist in Edinburgh as a
speaker and lecturer, in the Voluntary controversy, which was then at its
height.
At Perth he continued to show his usual zeal in the cause of
Establishments, as well as in the movement for additional endowments set on
foot by Dr. Chalmers, and in the proceedings of the Royal Commission for
inquiring into the religious destitution in Scotland which that movement
occasioned. There is preserved among his papers a full collection of documents
relating to what he calls "The Stonywood controversy ;" a somewhat keen
correspondence between him and a dissenting brother, arising out of the
evidence which he gave before the Commissioners on the subject of his late
charge at Aberdeen. On various occasions, he distinguished himself as a
defender of Established Church principles and institutions, against the attacks
which were then vigorously made on them in all the three kingdoms. Within the
Church, in his place as a member of presbytery, he was the strenuous advocate
of all measures of reform. While he was always a staunch anti-patronage man, he
stood by the Veto law through all the trials it had to sustain. And he
earnestly promoted the efforts made to place the eldership on a purer footing,
both in congregations and in the General Assembly, by requiring the consent' of
the people to their election, and by excluding from the supreme court those who
held the office only nominally, and to serve a purpose.
But it was when the
"ten years' conflict became critical, that Mr. Gray became conspicuous as
one of the ablest expounders and defenders of the Church's principles. His
pamphlet or treatise, "The Present Conflict", may be said to have become the
text-book of the controversy. It was prepared in the spring of 1839, and issued
about the time of the meeting of Assembly in that year. The previous Assembly,
1838, had passed, on the motion of Dr. Buchanan (Glasgow), the memorable
declaration of Independence. With reference to the Auchterarder case, then on
its way for final decision, in its first form, to the House of Lords, the
emphatic note of warning was sounded. It was declared that the Church, while
acknowledging the right of the civil courts to dispose of all questions of
property or of civil interest arising out of her proceedings, must maintain ber
own exclusive jurisdiction in matters spiritual. This declaration was rendered
necessary by the shape which the Auchterarder case had taken in the Court of
Session. That Court was not content with the exercise of its unchallenged power
over the temporalities of the Church's establishment, - a power enabling it to
give or withhold the stipends, glebes, and manses at its pleasure. A majority
of the judges held that it was entitled to control directly the action of the
Church, and to issue orders and interdicts in matters purely spiritual, such as
the conferring of the pastoral office and the dispensing of ordinances. The
plea was that the Church, by being established, virtually surrendered some of
her original independence, and must be held bound to obey the instructions of
the State, given through the ordinary civil tribunals, even when she was
discharging her own proper functions within her own proper province. This plea
Mr. Gray set himself to examine in the light, not only of abstract principle,
but of the actual history and constitution of the Church of Scotland; and he
did his work very thoroughly.
In fact, he produced a treatise which, while
valuable as a contribution to the pending controversy, was still more valuable
as fitted to be an enduring record of the consummate wisdom and care with which
our ancestors discriminated between things civil and things sacred; so as to
lay a sure foundation for that religious liberty which modern worshippers of a
universal State supremacy, either cannot understand, or will not tolerate.
Of the countless crowd of pamphlets and speeches that kept the press going
in these eventful times for Scotland, Mr. Gray's is one of the few that will
now bear more than a cursory perusal It will always be studied by those who
wish to master the ecclesiastical polity of the Scottish Reformation. Its facts
and reasonings have never been seriously called in question.
It was
circulated widely everywhere; it was constantly quoted and referred to by the
leading speakers and writers on the side of the Church's independence; and
their opponents utterly failed in all attempts to impugn it. It may be truly
said, indeed, to have been all but admitted, on all hands, that Mr. Gray had
made good the main point in his argument; and that, considered in themselves,
the three parliamentary settlements of the Church's liberty, in 1567, 1592, and
1688, with the ratification contained in the Treaty of Union, fully vindicated
all that the Church claimed in l,838, when she sought to be allowed to act upon
her own conviction of duty, by refusing to intrude ministers upon reclaiming
congregations, without being exposed to the risk of any civil interference,
beyond what might be implied in the undoubted right of the civil courts to
dispose of all the temporalities of her benefices. It was mainly on the Act of
Queen Anne, restoring patronage, passed after the Union, and in violation of
its terms, that the judges and lawyers opposed to the Church, as well as their
clerical and lay admirers, depended, as giving a turn in their favour to all
the old usages and enactments. That, and the mere general clap-trap that came
to be in vogue, about State pay implying State control, may be said to have
mainly decided our great question in the courts of law, in the country, and in
Parliament. The historical deductions and constitutional arguments of Mr. Gray
and other authorities in the controversy, stand to this hour untouched. They
may one day, perhaps, become noticeable for practical purposes again.* * Some specimens may be given of the manner in which Mr.
Gray's Treatise used to he appealed to in the course of the controversy. Let
the folloning suffice: - "Mr. Gray was, we believe, among the first writers, if
not indeed the very first, who came forward on the side of the Church in the
present controversy; and for nothing did we more admire his pamphlet than for
the judgment it displayed in taking up the proper ground at so early a period.
Not a single outjet or barbican did he erect that has since been
deserted. - Hugh Miller in Witness Newspaper, March 14, 1840. "For an
account of the constitutian of the Church of Scotland, as recognised by the
State, see a very able pamphlet l,y the Rev. Andrew Gray of Perth, titled,
The Present Conflict between the Civil and Ecclesiastical Courts
Examined.' " - Answer to the Dean of Faculty by A. Dunlop, Roy., Adrocate, p.
47. Second Edition. "You never refer to Mr. Gray's admirable pamphlet on the
present conflict between the civil and ecclesiastical courts. You must have
felt that the pamphlet was one which you could not answer, and therefore you
have wisely refrained frons referring to its existence. - Rev. Mr. (Dr.)
Cunningham's Letter to the Dean of Faculty, p. 18. On this subject (viz., the
constitutional jurisdiction of the Church of Scotland), see the pamphlet of the
Rev. Andrew Gray of Perth, which contains a complete, aud, we think, an
unanswerable demonstration. In the necessarily brief and general notices that
we bestow on this part of the subject, we are glad that we have it in our power
to make this reference to one of the most masterly and conclusive reasonings
that ever issued from the press; which the Dean must have known, and which
makes it all the more surprising that he has not made so much as one allusion
to the existence of it. - Dr. Chalmers' Remarks on the Dean of Faculty's
Letter to the Lord Chancellor, p.40. "For a full exhibition of the manner in
which the Church of Scotland maintained her ground, I beg to refer your
Lordship to an admirable pamphlet by the Rev. Mr. Gray, one of the ministers of
Perth, entitled The Present Conflict.' " - Rev. Mr. (Sir H. W.)
Moncrieff's Letter to Lord Melbourne, p. 84.
It is not necessary
to dwell on the progress and issue of the struggle. Dr. Buchanan's "Ten Years'
Conflict,' and Dr. Hanna's "Life of Dr. Chalmers, are accessible to all.
Nor is it intended to narrate particularly Mr. Gray's share in it. Before the
General Assembly met in 1839, the adverse judgment of the Court of Session in
the Auchterardcr case had been affirmed by the House of Lords. The Assembly
accepted the judgment and acquiesced in it, as determining that the Church, in
rejecting a presentee on the ground of his being unacceptable to the people,
must be held, in the view of the civil courts, to have acted illegally; and
that consequently she must run the risk of their disposing of the benefice, in
such a case, adeording to their own opinion of the law, and without respect to
her spiritual procedure. In this way, it might come to pass that the benefice
might go in one direction and the cure of souls in another. The Assembly of
1839 regarded that as a serious evil; and resolved to aim at the removal of it,
by procuring an Act of Parliament giving civil effect to the Church's law
against intrusion. The Assembly also took precautions to avoid further
collision and complication in the meantime, and to prevent any new case
arising; in the hope that all parties might be willing to pause, and allow time
for a satisfactory adjustment. It was, however, clearly enough avowed, on the
one hand, that the Church would continue to reject unacceptable presentees;
and, on the other hand, that she could not recognise the judgment of the civil
court as binding upon her in matters spiritual or as going a hair's-breadth
beyond the mere disposal of the temporalities. No such interval of virtual
suspense as the Assembly craved was granted. On the contrary, the enemy pressed
forward the war, until it soon became plainly war to the knife. The
Auchterarder case was urged on a step further in the Court of Session. The
judges were asked to interpret and apply the judgment already got, as implying
a right to control the Church directly, by civil process, to be enforced by
pains and penalties, in the spiritual act of admitting a man to the pastoral
office. And they did so.
It was the assertion of this right by the Court of
Session, and the confirmation of it by the House of Lords in 1842, that brought
the contest to a crisis.
In point of fact, the right in question had been
assumed and exercised already, as if it was established, in various processes
before the Scottish judges. Ministers disobeying their ecclesiastical
superiors, were sustained in their disobedience by the civil courts. Suspended
and deposed by the Church, they had the sentences of suspension and deposition
reduced by the civil courts. Interdicts against preaching and dispensing the
sacraments in particular districts became so common, and were so coolly
disregarded with impunity, that men began to feel alarm lest the civil
authority should come into contempt, even in its own province, by being thus
impotently paraded in a province wholly out of its reach.
Thus the conflict
grew more and more embarrassed; extrication was evidently becoming more and
more hopeless; when the second Auchterarder judgment of the House of Lords made
it plain, as already indicated, that all these assumptions, on the part of the
judges, of direct authority over the Church in matters spiritual, would be
sustained as legal in the court of last resort; and that it must be broadly
held to be the condition of the Church's establishment that she is subject to
the civil courts, and bound under a civil obligation to take directions from
them, in the discharge of her own proper functions as a Church, determining who
shall be her ministers and who shall be her members.
Singularly enough,
towards the close of the struggle, Mr Gray found himself once more in contact
with his old friend, the "chapel question. And some noteworthy "passages
of arms are still remembered, turning upon the Church's act admitting
ministers of chapels of ease, with their elders, into the church courts.
It
was a great object with the moderates, then in a minority, to have these
ministers and elders, who usually voted on the popular side, thrust out of the
courts again. They were well contented therefore to have it declared by the
Court of Session, that the chapel act of the Assembly 1834, was illegal and
incompetent, and ultra vires. They did not, indeed, themselves directly
move in the matter, in the first instance. They could scarcely do so. For -
with the single exception of Dr George Cook, who had consistently objected, on
this ground of incompetency, both to the chapel act of 1834, and to the
analogous act of 1833, respecting the parliamentary ministers in the Highlands
- the Moderate party generally seemed to be satisfied that the Church had not
gone beyond her province in either case. But when that point was mooted from a
quarter outside of the Church, and when the Lords of Session came to an adverse
decision upon it, these churchmen were found ready, with all alacrity, not only
to acquiesce in the decision, but officiously to urge its practical application
to the uttermost. The decision was to this effect : - that the church had no
power to say to one of her own ministers that he should take the spiritual
oversight of souls within a defined district adjoining his church, - or to say
that he should be held entitled to rule as well as to teach, - without the
express sanction of the civil court. That is now the law to which the
Established Church consented at the Disruption. While the judges were in course
of making it the law, the church, true to her principle of spiritual
independence, was prepared to resist to the last. But before that second
question could be carried to the House of Lords, the crisis had come upon the
first.
In the prospect of the Assembly 1843, both of the contending parties
in the church clearly saw this. The Evangelical or Popular party, then in the
majority, had come to the conclusion that it was not their duty to prolong the
contest. The Supreme Civil Court, the House of Lords, had finally decided, in
the second Auchterarder judgment (1842), that it was entitled, not only to
declare the law or condition of the church's establishment, to the effect of
disposing of the temporalities, according to its own view, but also to compel
the church, by civil power, and civil pains and penalties, to accommodate her
procedure to that view, in her own spiritual actings ; - in the trial and
ordination of ministers, and in the forming of the pastoral tie. The church had
solemnly applied to the Government and the Legislature, asking inquiry with a
view to her relief, and had been decidedly refused redress. In these
circumstances, the only fair and legitimate conclusion seemed to be this: that
the State held, and meant to hold, the terms of the church's establishment to
be such as the church had declared that she could not conscientiously submit
to; and that, since undoubtedly the State alone has the right and power to
determine whether the church is to be established or not, - and on what
conditions, - the church had really no alternative but to relinquish her
position of affiance with the State, and maintain her liberty apart. Under this
conviction, the . Evangelical majority had come to be of opinion that the
Assembly of 1843 would probably be the occasion of their conclusive separation
from the State.
But it soon appeared that that Assembly was not to be
allowed to meet as a free and constitutional Assembly at all The Moderate
minority precipitated the impending schism. The presbyteries in which ministers
and elders of chapels of ease, or, as they were now called, quoad sacra
churches, had seats, were about to elect their commissioners to represent them
in the Assembly. In some, as in the Presbytery of Glasgow, in which this class
of ministers and elders was numerous, the Moderates refused to sit along with
them; so that two Presbyteries met, each claiming to be the Presbytery of
Glasgow, - the one by the decree of the Court of Session, the other by the
constitution of the Church, under Christ, her only Head, - and each choosing
its own representatives to the Assembly. This of course implied that there must
be two Assemblies. But this was not all. In the Presbytery of Perth, an
interdict was asked .......
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