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Here, then, was the machinery by which the faction worked. They drew that power from Scotland rekindled into a temper of religious anxiety, which they never could have drawn from Scotland lying torpid, as she had lain through the eighteenth century. The new machinery (created by Parliament in order to meet the wishes of the Scottish nation), the money of that nation, the awakened zeal of that nation; all these were employed, honorably in one sense, that is, not turned aside into private channels for purposes of individuals, but factiously in the result, as being for the benefit of a faction; honorably as regarded the open mode of applying such influence–a mode which did not shrink from exposure; but most dishonorably, in so far as privileges, which had been conceded altogether for a spiritual object, were abusively transferred to the furtherance of a temporal intrigue. Such were the methods by which the new-born ambition of the clergy moved; and that ambition had become active, simply because it had suddenly seemed to become practicable. The presbyteries, as being the effectual electoral bodies, are really the main springs of the ecclesiastical administration. To govern them, was in effect to govern the church. A new scheme for extending religion, had opened a new avenue to this control over the presbyteries. That opening was notoriously unlawful. But not the less the church faction precipitated themselves ardently upon it; and but for the faithfulness of the civil courts, they would never have been dislodged from what they had so suddenly acquired. Such was the extraordinary leap taken by the Scottish clergy, into a power, of which, hitherto, they had never enjoyed a fraction. It was a movement per saltum, beyond all that history has recorded. At cock-crow they had no power at all; when the sun went down, they had gained (if they could have held) a papal supremacy. And a thing not less memorably strange is, that even yet the ambitious leaders were not disturbed; what they had gained was viewed by the public as a collateral gain, indirectly adhering to a higher object, but forming no part at all of what the clergy had sought. It required the scrutiny of law courts to unmask and decompose their true object The obstinacy of the defence betrayed the real animus of the attempt. It was an attempt which, in connection with the Veto Act (supposing that to have prospered), would have laid the whole power of the church at their feet. What the law had distributed amongst three powers, patron, parish, and presbyter, would have been concentrated in themselves. The quoad sacra parishes would have riveted their majorities in the presbyteries; and the presbyteries, under the real action of the Veto, would have appointed nearly every incumbent in Scotland. And this is the answer to the question, when treated merely in outline–How were these things done? The religion of the times had created new machineries for propagating a new religious influence. These fell into the hands of the clergy; and the temptation to abuse these advantages led them into revolution.

III. Having now stated WHAT was done, as well as HOW it was done, let us estimate the CONSEQUENCES of these acts; under this present, or third section, reviewing the immediate consequences which have taken effect already, and under the next section anticipating the more remote consequences yet to be expected.

In the spring of 1834, as we have sufficiently explained, the General Assembly ventured on the fatal attempt to revolutionize the church, and (as a preliminary towards that) on the attempt to revolutionize the property of patronage. There lay the extravagance of the attempt; its short-sightedness, if they did not see its civil tendencies; its audacity, if they did. It was one revolution marching to its object through another; it was a vote, which, if at all sustained, must entail a long inheritance of contests with the whole civil polity of Scotland.