his true repose his highest earthly enjoyment-in that exalted and unwearied Christian benevolence, of which his whole life has been so bright a pattern. His high determination seems to be, to die at the post which he had so long adorned; that, if it were possible, no idle hour should intervene between the labours of the faithful servant and his entrance on the joy of the Lord." And, never was anticipation more fully verified. For, the very last business of an earthly kind that occupied his attention was connected with his duties as Treasurer to the Society; and, while "the blessing of many who were ready to perish" continued to descend and rest on him till death, it has followed him abundantly into the joys of the redeemed beyond death and the grave. During his last illness-as he who has prepared this memorial can, along with not a few other tenderly attached friends who had the privilege of visiting him, delightingly testify-his exercise was truly that of a deeply humble, yet hopefully rejoicing Christian. For many years, he had laboured under a most acute, and at times even excruciating malady, yet a murmur of impatience was never heard from his lips, though he might occasionally express something like a fear, lest his faith should fail and his patience wear out. But the grace which he was ever imploring, was divinely vouchsafed to him in his time of need, so that his patience of faith was sustained to the end. Even when, from exhaustion of bodily strength or the recurrence of most agonizing pain, scarcely able to speak so as to be understood, still enough was articulate to make it perfectly known to the faithful attendants and inquiring visitants who watched over, or stood around his bed of suffering, that he was either engaged in earnest prayer, or regaling his mind with the precious promises and blissful hopes of the Gospel. Ever and anon, also, so long as his powers of speech remained, would he whisperingly say to one or other of them," Christ is mine and I am his. is my beloved and my friend. Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. He is all my salvation and all my desire. Yet a little while, and He that shall come, will come, and will not tarry." At length, on the morning of the 25th November 1837,* he gently "fell asleep" in the Lord, entering on the rest that remains for the people of God; and doubtless was immediately received into the celestial city, with the acclaiming welcome from the Lamb in the midst of the throne "Come, thou blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for thee from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungered, and thou gavest me meat; I was thirsty, and thou gavest me drink; I was a stranger, and thou tookest me in: naked, and thou clothedst me: I was sick, and thou visitedst me: I was in prison, and thou camest unto me. Verily I say unto thee, inasmuch as thou hast done it unto one of the least of these my children, thou hast done it unto me." CHRISTIAN TREASURY. He Christ our Substitute.-You have read of certain venomous animals which expire the moment that they have deposited their sting and its mortal poison in the body of their victim; and thus there ensues a double death, the death of the sufferer and the death also of the assailant. And certain it is, that on the cross of our Saviour there was just such a catastrophe. Then did our Saviour pour out his soul under the weight and agony of these inflictions that were laid on him by the law; but there also did the law expend all its power It may not be uninteresting to mention that this was but a few hours after the close of the Annual Meeting, for which Mr Plenderleath had, with his usual accuracy, prepared the whole accounts for that year; and that special prayers were then offered up in his behalf, in the near prospect of his being speedily called away from this to a better world. as a judge and an avenger over those who believe in the Saviour.-REV. DR CHALMERS on Romans. around us in the world and survey the busy scenes of A false Estimate of the World. When we look human life; when we contemplate the ardour and eagerness, and insatiable thirst of acquiring and possessing, by which men are animated-when we consider the self-denial of ease and comfort, which they practise in the pursuit, the sultry suns which they endure, the perils of the deep which they encounter; when we think of the infected air which they breathe, "the pestilence which walketh in darkness, and the destruction that wasteth at noon day," to which they expose themselves, periling life itself in the pursuit of gain : or when we mark the anxious care and plodding toil, and abstinence, even from the necessary food and raicircumstances, the same end is pursued,-we can be ment, and refreshment of sleep, by which, in humbler at no loss to ascertain the estimate that is generally taken of earthly good. And, oh! is it not a false estimate? If worldly wealth could take away, and keep away pain, and repel disease, and give security against the shafts of death; and if, in addition to all could it be more eagerly, and more intensely, and more this, it could purchase an immortality of beatitude, habitually pursued?-Nay, is that immortality of beatitude, which is actually proposed to us, and in the reality, and certainty, and unspeakable glory of which, half so great ?—And when in some few cases it is, how we profess so firmly to believe, pursued with an ardour is the pursuit treated by the children of this world? Is it not by many of them, at least, held up to scorn pellation, as fanaticism, as enthusiasm, as bigotry, or and derision, and loaded with every opprobrious apabsolute foolishness and fatuity, or whatever else there may be that is utterly contemptible, vile, and revolting? I entreat the reader to reflect on this simple, but awfully rant; and to consider its origin, and reflect on its conaffecting matter of fact, of which no man can be ignosequences. Does the Bible, or can the Bible speak too strongly of the deep rooted corruption, of the spiritual blindness, and of the deep and deadly moral disease of the being, who can exhibit such characters? affairs of life, we should have all the grave formalities any thing analogous to this exhibited in the ordinary of a judicial tribunal, and the scrupulous investigation of legal evidence, as to matters of fact; and when the matters of fact were once established, the verdict would be speedy and unanimous. No man would hesitate for a moment to find the person that was capable of such lunacy, or fatuity. REV. DR CORMACK. (Barzillai conduct in the affairs of life, chargeable with idiocy, the Gileadite.) Were Labour in Christ's cause.—It is a beautiful part of the divine administration, in accordance with the analogy of God's other Works, that our personal happiness, as well as our moral improvement, is dependent, in some degree, on the efforts which we make to benefit others. Realize more and more your obligations to redeeming mercy, and the transcendent relation in which the love of Christ has placed you to created intelligence, and you will become conscious of the honour and dignity conferred upon you in being engaged in a work to which all the events of time are subservient, and the consummation of which will constitute the perfection of this world's glory and happiness.-Memoirs of Mrs Wilson. Published by JOHN JOHNSTONE, 2, Hunter Square, Edinburgh; J. R. MACNAIR, & Co., 19, Glassford Street, Glasgow; JAMES NISBET & Co., HAMILTON, ADAMS, & Co., and R. GROOMBRIDGE, London; W. CURRY, Junr. & Co., Dublin; and W. M'COMB, Belfast; and sold by the Booksellers and Local Agents in all the Towns and Parishes of Scotland; and in the principal Towns in England and Ireland. Subscribers will have their copies delivered at their Residences. THE SCOTTISH CHRISTIAN HERALD, CONDUCTED UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF MINISTERS AND MEMBERS OF THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. JAMES VI. AND THE PRESBYTERIAN MINISTERS. the city were delivered to him by a young boy, emerging from a splendid figure of the globe, which opened as his Majesty approached. Four beautiful damsels, representing the four cardinal virtues, each addressed him in a short speech; while another lady, personating Religion, invited him to enter the Church, where he heard a discourse. Thereafter, Bacchus, seated on a puncheon, crowned with garlands, welcomed the king to his own town; wine was liberally distributed to the poor; musicians, stationed at different places, greeted him with the melody of their viols; and, finally, amidst the sound of trumpets, and the shouts of the people, his Majesty proceeded to the Abbey. IMPOLITIC as Morton's administration was, it was 17th October 1579, he made a sort of triumphal not nearly so bad as that which succeeded. A entry into Edinburgh, when he was received by party of discontented nobles having gained access the inhabitants with every demonstration of loyalty. to the young king, persuaded him to assume the Entering at the West Port, the houses in the government into his own hands: Morton resigned, streets through which he passed were covered and in 1578 James VI. ascended the throne, in with tapestry; and various allegorical devices, in the twelfth year of his age. This young prince the quaint style of the times, were contrived to had been well brought up under the superintend-give eclat to the procession. The silver keys of ence of the Countess of Mar, and the celebrated George Buchanan, who early instilled into his mind the elements of learning, and the principles of religion. It must be owned that Buchanan was not exactly the man fitted to inspire his royal pupil with favourable ideas of Presbytery. He had become recluse and testy in his old age; and the impression which he left on the mind of James, may be gathered from what the king used long after to say of one of his old English courtiers, "That man makes me always tremble at his approach, he minds me so of my old pedagogue." Buchanan, on his part, seems to have entertained a very low opinion of the mental capacity of his pupil; for on being reproached for making the king a pedant, he is said to have replied, that it was the best he could make of him." Unfortunately, at the commencement of his reign, he fell into the hands of two unprincipled courtiers, the one a Frenchman, whom he made the Duke of Lennox, and the other one, Captain Stewart, a notorious profligate, who afterwards became Earl of Arran. These men, besides polluting his morals, filled his head with the most extravagant notions of kingly power, and the strongest prejudices against the Scottish Church, the strict discipline of which, for obvious reasons, was peculiarly obnoxious to persons of such characters. To the impressions then made on the vain and weak mind of James, we may trace all the troubles which distracted his rule in Scotland. The reign of James, however, may be said to have had an auspicious commencement. On the No. 15. APRIL 13, 1839.-1d. ] In the following year, the king gave a proof of his attachment to the Protestant cause, highly gratifying to his people, and calculated to confirm their attachment to his person, as well as to the religion of the country-we refer to the National Covenant. Before the Reformation, several bonds or covenants had been entered into by the Protestant nobility, gentry, and others, in which they pledged themselves to defend and support the true religion against its enemies; and to the confederation thus solemnly cemented may be traced much of the success which attended their struggles against Popery. The same practice had been previously adopted, with the happiest effects, by the Protestant princes of Germany, and the Protestant Church of France. In Scotland, however, where the Protestant had become the established religion, this solemnity assumed the peculiar form [SECOND SERIES. VOL. I. of a national deed; and our ancestors were natur- | Lennox offered the bishopric to several ministers, ally led, by similarity of circumstances, to imitate on condition of their making over to him its the covenants of ancient Israel, when king, priests, revenues by a private bargain, and contenting and people, sware mutual allegiance to the true themselves with an annual pension. The offer God. In following this practice, they considered was at last accepted by Robert Montgomery, themselves justified by the light of nature and the minister of Stirling, a man, says Dr Robertson, obligations of the moral law, as well as by the "vain, feeble, presumptuous, and more apt to have precepts, the promises, and the examples of Holy alienated the people from an order already beloved, Scripture. than to reconcile them to one which was the ob keen altercation took place between the Court and the General Assembly. firm a sentence of suspension against Montgomery, when he ran out, and a messenger-at-arms appeared who charged the Moderator and Assembly under the pain of rebellion and putting of them to the horn, if they should direct any summons against him, or in any way trouble him in his ministry for aspiring to the bishopric of Glasgow. The Assembly did not hesitate a moment on the course they should pursue. Montgomery was summoned to their bar to answer, among other offences, for having procured the charging of the Assembly with the king's letters; and not having compeared, he was laid under the awful sentence of excommunication. The immediate occasion of the National Cove-ject of their hatred." The consequence was that a nant was a dread, too well-founded-a dread from which Scotland was never entirely delivered till the period of the Revolution-of the re-introduc- At length, in 1582, matters were brought to a tion of Popery. It was well known that the Earl crisis. The king having written a letter in favour of Arran was an emissary of the house of Guise, of Montgomery, the Assembly which met that and had been sent over to this country to prevail year answered it "discreetly and wisely, yet standon the young king to embrace the Roman Ca-ing to their poynt," and were proceeding to contholic faith. Foreseeing that James would succeed to the throne of England on the death of Elizabeth, the crafty politicians of Rome, ever watching to regain their ascendency in that kingdom, easily saw the advantage of making a conquest of the Scottish monarch. The Pope himself sent him several flattering letters; Jesuits and seminary priests were sent into the country in disguise, and letters from Rome were intercepted, granting a dispensation to Roman Catholics to profess the Protestant faith for a time, provided they preserved an inward attachment to their own religion, and embraced every opportunity of advancing the Papal interests. Such a fearful and unprincipled conspiracy against true religion and civil liberty, so dangerous at all times in a country divided in religious sentiment, demanded a counter-combination, equally strict and solemn, and led to the formation of the National Covenant of Scotland. It was drawn up at the king's request, by his chaplain, John Craig, and consisted of an abjuration, in the most solemn and explicit terms, of the various articles of the Popish system, and an engagement to adhere to and defend the reformed doctrine and discipline of the Reformed Church in Scotland. The Covenanters farther pledged themselves, under the same oath, "to defend his Majesty's person and authority with our goods, bodies, and lives, in the defence of Christ's evangell, liberties of our country, ministration of justice, and punishment of iniquity, against all enemies within the realm or without." This bond, which was at first called "the King's Confession," was sworn and subscribed by the king and his household for an example to others, on the 28th of January 1581, and afterwards, in consequence of an order in council, and an act of the General Assembly, it was cheerfully subscribed by all ranks of persons through the kingdom; the ministers zealously promoting the subscription of it in their respective parishes. This solemn transaction had a powerful influence in quieting the public mind, and rivetting the attachment of the nation to the Protestant faith; but it did not prevent the royal favourites from prosecuting their obnoxious measures. On the death of Boyd, the nominal Archbishop of Glasgow, The Presbytery of Glasgow having met to carry this judgment into effect, Montgomery entered the place in which they were assembled, with the magistrates and an armed force, to stop their procedure. The Moderator, refusing to obey the mandate, was forcibly pulled from his chair by the provost, who tore his beard, struck out one of his teeth by a blow on the face, and committed him to the tolbooth. In spite of this, however, the Presbytery continued sitting, and remitted the case to the Presbytery of Edinburgh, who appointed Mr John Davidson, who had now returned to Scotland, and was settled at Liberton, to excommunicate Montgomery. The Court stormed and threatened, but the intrepid young minister, whom Lennox used to call un petit diable, (a little devil,) boldly pronounced the sentence before a large auditory, and it was intimated on the succeeding Sabbath in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and many of the adjoining Churches. As an illustration of the disrepute into which the Episcopal office had fallen in Scotland, and of the respect paid in those days to a sentence of the ecclesiastical courts, we may mention that when Montgomery shortly afterwards came to Edinburgh, the inhabitants, as soon as they heard that he was in town, rose up as one man and demanded that he should be expelled. Lennox attempted to shield him from the popular fury, by issuing a proclamation that all men should accept of him as a good Christian and a true subject. But the Frenchman knew not the temper of the people he had to deal with. They insisted that the excom municated bishop should no longer pollute the town with his presence, and waited for his coming out of the council-room, in which he had sought refuge, the men armed with sticks, and the women with missiles of every description; so that Montgomery was glad to crave the convoy of the provost out of town by a back passage called the Kirk Wynd. In making his way through this narrow defile, he was discovered and pursued by the mob, with cries of "Aha, false thief! mainsworn thief!" and taking to his heels, narrowly escaped, at the expense of two or three buffets on the neck, when in the act of getting out at the wicket gate of the Potterrow. It is said that King James, who was fond of all sorts of diversion, even at the expense of his friends, when he heard of this rude demonstration of public feeling, "lay down on the Inch of Perth, and laughed his fill, saying that Montgomery was a seditious loun.” In the meantime, Melville was not idle. In a sermon preached at the opening of the General Assembly, he inveighed against those who had introduced what he called the bludie gullie of absolute power into the country, and who sought to erect a new popedom in the person of the king. Adverting to the designs of the Popish powers, "this," he exclaimed, "will be called meddling with civil affairs; but these things tend to the wreck of religion, and therefore I rehearse them." Being afterwards employed with others to present a bold remonstrance to the King and Council from the Assembly on this subject, he displayed a spirit which reminds us of the first Reformer. Arran, looking round with a threatening countenance, exclaimed, "Who dare subscribe these treasonable articles ?" "WE DARE," replied Melville, and advancing to the table, he took the pen from the clerk and subscribed. In these contendings the ministers had hitherto received no support from the nobility; but in 1582, a few noblemen, disgusted with the conduct of Lennox and Arran, forcibly took possession of the king's person, with the view of delivering him and the country from their disgraceful influence. This enterprise, which is known in history by the name of the Raid of Ruthven, was ill-planned, and soon issued in the restoration of the unworthy favourites, in the banishment of the lords who engaged in it, and in troublesome consequences to the Church. The king never forgave the attempt, which he ascribed to the influence of the ministers, and which thus served to prejudice him still more than ever against the discipline of the Church. It does not appear that the ministers had any share in the plot, but candour requires us to state that they imprudently involved themselves in trouble by passing an Act of Assembly approving of it. The consequences were, that in February 1584, Melville was summoned before the Privy Council to answer for certain treasonable speeches he was alleged to have uttered in a sermon, and finding that Arran was determined to send him to the Castle of Blackness, which was then the Bastile of Scotland, he yielded to the importunities of his friends, and escaped from the storm by retreating to Berwick. In May following, the Parliament overturned the liberties of the Church, by ordaining that no ecclesiastical assembly should be held without the king's consent, that none were to presume to say a word, privately or publicly, against the proceedings of his majesty's council, and that all ministers were to acknowledge the bishops as their ecclesiastical superiors. Suspecting that the ministers would publicly condemn these acts, which the people called the black acts, orders were sent to the provost and baillies to apprehend James Lawson and Walter Balcanqubal, ministers of Edinburgh, in the event of their doing so, and pull them by violence out of the pulpit. This, however, did not deter them from denouncing the Acts from the pulpit on the following Sabbath, and on Monday morning, when they were proclaimed at the cross, they publicly protested against them, with all due formalities, in the name of the Church of Scotland. Orders were immediately issued for their apprehension, but they saved themselves by a timely flight, and, with upwards of twenty other ministers who followed their example, took refuge in England. You may be surprised to hear of the liberties then used by Presbyterian ministers and may be disposed to blame them, perhaps, for introducing secular matters into their ministrations. They may on some occasions have gone too far, but not to mention other considerations, it ought to be remembered that, at the period of which we speak, the pulpit was almost the only organ by which, in the absence of a free press, public opinion was or could be expressed; and the ecclesiastical courts were the only assemblies in the nation which possessed any thing like liberty or independence. It was the preachers who first taught the people to express an opinion on the conduct of their rulers ; and the Assemblies of the Church set the earliest example of a firm and regular opposition to the arbitrary measures of the Court. But they stood upon higher ground still; for we distinctly maintain that on no occasion did the ministers of Scotland denounce from the pulpit the acts of government, unless when these acts infringed, directly or indirectly, on the liberties of the Church and the prerogatives of the King of Zion; and when they did so, it was from no contempt of royal authority, but from conscientious obedience to that higher Power by whom kings reign and princes decree justice. In fact, the Assembly about this time passed an act prohibiting the use of rash and irreverent speeches in the pulpit against his majesty, and actually deposed one of their number for having been guilty of this offence. But you will wonder less at the liberties which the ministers took with the king, when you know what liberties the king took with the ministers. There was nothing that pleased James better than a disputation with the clergy. Having been in Edinburgh a little before this time, he attended worship in the High Church. Balcanquhal ad vanced something to show that ministers had as great authority as bishops; upon which James, who prided himself on his skill in divinity, and thought he could handle a text better than any divine in his kingdom, rose up from his seat, and interrupting the preacher," Mr Walter," said he, "what Scripture have ye for that assertion? I am sure ye have no Scripture so to alledge." The preacher said he would show his majesty that he had Scripture sufficient. "If ye prove that by Scripture," said the king, "I will give ye my kingdom;" adding that it was the practice of the preachers to busy themselves about such causes in the pulpit, but he "knew their intent well ynouche," and would look after them. This interlude continued upwards of a quarter of an hour, after which the king sat down and patiently heard out the sermon. James was equally free with the ministers in private. He was particularly fond of the society of Mr David Fergusson of Dunfermline, who is described as "a man both merrie and wise," and with whose ready wit the monarch often amused himself when he stayed at that place. "Mr David," said the king to him one day, "why may not I have bishops here in Scotland, as well as they have in England?" "Yes, Sir," replied Fergusson in his jocular way, "ye may have bishops here, but ye must remember to make us all equal, make us all bishops; for if ye set up ten or twelve louns over honest men's heads, to knock us doune, and give them more thousands than honest men have hundreds or scores, we will never all be content. We are all Paul's bishops, Christ's bishops-had us as we are." With a profane oath the king exclaimed, "Ye would be all alyke, and ye cannot abyde any to be over you." "Sir," the minister replied, " Ban not." Mr Fer often to forewarn his brethren that if the king should ever come to the English throne he would not rest till he had introduced episcopacy into the Church of Scotland; and he lived to see his prediction realized. IRELAND, AN UNCULTIVATED GARDEN. There is a similar story told of James, which presents him in a still more ridiculous light. Patrick Adamson, who had been made nominal Arch-gusson, who was as shrewd as humorous, used bishop of St. Andrews, had gone up to England on pretence of business, and obtained episcopal consecration there in a clandestine manner. On his return to Scotland, however, he found the zeal of the Assembly and the people running so high against the order, that he durst not openly avow his episcopal character. While in this predicament, the king brought him from St. Andrews to Edinburgh to preach before him in the High Church, and accompanied him with his own guard to the church to protect him from the people. On entering the church, his majesty, finding the pulpit pre-occupied by Mr John Cowper, one of the ordinary ministers, who was just beginning to officiate, cried out, "Mr John Cowper, I will not have you preach this day; I command you to go downe out of the pulpit, and let the Bishop of St. Andrews come up and preach to me." "Please your majesty," said Cowper, "this is the day appointed to me to preach, and if it were your majesty's pleasure, I would fain supply the place myself." By this time the king perceived from the surprise and commotion of the people, that he had unwittingly let out the secret of Adamson's dignity, and correcting himself, he replied, "I will not hear you at this time; I command you to go down, and let Maister Patrick Adamson come up and preach this day." "I shall obey, Sir," said Cowper, coming down from the pulpit. But the whole assembly was now in uproar and confusion. The bishop, surrounded with the king's body guard, mounted the pulpit, and was seen bowing with great reverence to his Majesty, but not a word could be heard for the outcries and lamentations of the people, who kept running out and rushing into the church, creating the most extraordinary noise, in the midst of which the king, coming still lower down with his titles, cried out with his usual oath, "What ails the people that they will not tarie to hear a man preach!"* Row's listorie, p. 80. Prynne's Antipathie of Lordly Prelacie to Regal Monarchy, p. 333. following just remarks, on the present state of the Green Isle.] Ireland is such a spot as I have faithfully described; for what I have written is unadorned fact. Ireland is a garden, where what was originally good has run to rampant mischief, only bearing abundant tokens that it needs but to be pruned and trained to become again most innocently lovely. Ireland is a garden, where |