rescript against these colleges, as places of education of the Catholic youth of Ireland. The measure was, and is, however, all-important as throwing the onus of religious exclusiveness on the Catholic portion of society in Ireland; and as a distinct pledge that the imperial government was at last exercising an impartial sway over its subjects of differing faith. The sum proposed for the erection of the three colleges was £100,000; for their maintenance— that is, the salaries of officers, and the prizes for the encouragement of learning--£18,000 per annum. In each college there was to be a principal, with a salary of £1000; and ten or twelve professors, with salaries of £300 a year, Residences were not provided; but the principal of each college would live within the walls; and the modes of residence of the students were to be under safe regulation, under the act. The power of appointment and removal of the professors was to rest with the crown, as was obviously fitting in a case which involved party-feelings to so great an extent. The preparations for these new institutions were immediately begun. It must be left for time to show how they work.

In February of this year, a report was presented by the commissioners of inquiry, sent out in 1843, to investigate the law and practice in respect to the occupation of land in Ireland. Much expectation was excited by the appointment of the Devon commission--as it was called, from the Earl of Devon being at the head of it-and the expectation was kept up by the eagerness of multitudes of persons connected with the proprietorship and occupation of land in Ireland, to give evidence before the commission. They came in crowds to tell what they knew, and thought, and felt; and it was hoped that now, at last, light would be obtained as to what was to be hoped and feared, and what could be done. The information obtained was extensive and valuable; and large practical use might soon have been made of it, in the form of proposed legislation, but that the famine was approaching, which put aside all considerations but how to prevent the whole rural population from dying of hunger. Though the time has not arrived for making use of the disclosures of this report, and though much of it may be actually superseded by the

operations of calamity, it remains a token of solicitude for the regeneration of Ireland on the part of the ministers in office during its preparation.

During the decline of Mr. O'Connell's power, and the rising conflict between his repeal-party and that which was to be headed by Mr. W. Smith O'Brien, while want was becoming aggravated, and famine was approaching, the amount of outrage in Ireland increased so grievously, that ministers introduced a Coercion Bill early in the session of 1846. The bill was framed strictly for the protection of quiet members of society-permitting the viceroy to award compensation to the maimed, and to the families of the murdered, under the attacks at which the measure was aimed. Under it, disturbed districts might be proclaimed, and night-meetings within them prevented. The bill passed the Lords easily, but was vehemently disputed, and at last lost, in the Commons, where party-feeling ran high amidst the final agitation about the corn-laws, and the hopes and fears about the going out of the Peel ministry. It was generally understood that the defeat of ministers on this Coercion Bill-so mild of its class-was occasioned by a combination of parties; and the speeches of Lord G. Bentinck and Mr. Disraeli, universally reprobated for their spirit, were regarded as manifestations of the real reasons of the result. At the moment when the Corn-law Repeal Bill was passing the Lords, the second reading of the government bill for Ireland was refused by a majority of 292 to 219, after a delay of five months, which would have been seriously injurious to the operation of the bill, if it had passed. The division took place on the 26th of June, three days before the announcement of the retirement of the Peel administration-a retirement which might have been rendered necessary by the failure of this measure, if it had not been, as was well known, determined beforehand, as a natural consequence of the carrying of the measure for which Sir R. Peel had returned to power -the repeal of the corn-laws.

We must look further back for the deciding cause of the retirement of the Peel administration. Before the end of 1845, it was clear that the potato-crop in Ireland was likely to be utterly destroyed by blight. Men whose vision

was bounded by political party-spirit endeavoured to persuade others as well as themselves, that the avowed alarm of the cabinet for the food of half a nation was little more than a device to get the corn-laws repealed with the least possible difficulty; but men of more enlightenment and a more simple conscience had faith in the earnestness of the minister, in the reality of his solemnity, in the sincerity of the solicitude which marked his countenance and his voice, and in the truth of the abundant evidence which he laid before parliament of the probable extent of the approaching calamity. It was all too true. The work of preparation for a new age for Ireland was taken out of human hands; and a terrible clearance of the field of Irish soil and society was about to be made for the efforts of future apostles, and the wisdom of future legislators. The virtues of two parties of rulers were not, however, to be in vain. Under them the great truth had appeared that the causes of Irish misery were not political, but social; and both had done what they could to purge out the spirit of religious and political rancour which had hitherto poisoned every public benefit, and aggravated every social woe, of that unhappy country.

CHAPTER IX.

Church Patronage in Scotland-The Veto Law-The Auchterarder Case-The Strathbogie Case-Position of the Church Party-Lord Aberdeen's Bill-The General Assembly-Its Memorial-Reply of Government-Quoad Sacra Ministers-Petition of the Assembly -Failure-Preparations for Secession-The Secession-Counter Proceedings-Act of Separation-Spirit of the Movement-The Keligious World in England--Troubles in the Church-OxfordTractarian Secession-Death of Dr. Arnold-Death of Sydney Smith —Augmentation of Clergy-Colonial Bishoprics-Consolidation of Sees Struggles of Government and Church-Dissenters' Chapels Bill-Relief to Jews.

THE ecclesiastical disturbances, whose beginnings have been noticed, were by this time becoming of the gravest import. Scotland was affording as complete an exemplification as the world has seen of the perplexities attendant

on an alliance between the Church and the State. At the date before us, events were occurring which tested the merits of a scheme concocted by Harley, Bolingbroke, and Swift, in the palace of Queen Anne. By an act of 1711, the power of free choice, the liberum arbitrium, as to the appointment of pastors in the Scotch Church, was taken from the church-courts, by subjecting the power of the presbytery to the interpretation, and even control, of the civil courts. The minority of the General Assembly of that time approved of the act, which fulfilled their idea of the connection of Church and State. The majority protested against it, from year to year; but the protest, being of no avail, at length became little more than a form. The leading men of the time, the philosophers and men of letters, who represented Scotland to English eyes, were not earnest Churchmen-not earnest about religion at all; and the arrangement of 1711 suited their views very well, as being moderate, decorous, and tending to peace. They did not see what was going on, wherever a pastor whom the flock did not like was forced upon them. In a multitude of parishes, the patron nominated the minister; if the presbytery found him unexceptionable in life, literature, and doctrine,' they were then obliged to appoint him, however unacceptable he might be to the flock. There were many ways in which a minister, with whose 'life, literature, and doctrine' no fault could be found, might be unfit for the care of a particular parish. He might have a weak voice, or too much scholarship for a rustic congregation, or he might have town ways and ideas, or he might not speak Gaelic where the people understood little English. In such cases, the people would turn to the Voluntaries, and become Dissenters. We have before seen how dissent abounded in Scotland at the period of the Melbourne ministry, and how virulently the High-Churchmen of the Kirk regarded the Voluntaries, who claimed to be, and were, considerably more than half the nation. In 1834, an effort had been made to recover the power which had been taken from the Church by the act of 1711; and apparently it succeeded. But the power of the State was not to be cast out from the Church so easily as at first appeared; and the Church found itself compelled to advance,

or assert new claims. In the quarrel about these, the Establishment was rent in twain, and the Church of Scotland became a warning and a sign of the fate of all churches which have made the effort to maintain at once an alliance with the state and the principles of the Reformation.

The progress of dissent was so rapid after 1820 that the earnest members of the Kirk took it much to heart. Wherever they turned, in hope of bringing back the Voluntaries to the Church, they were met by the objection that the people preferred choosing their own pastors to having them nominated, in a compulsory way, by a lay-patron, who might or might not, according to his temper, listen to any objections on the part of his flock to his nominee. The earnest Churchmen saw that this lay-patronage must be got rid of; and petitions for its abolition so poured in upon parliament, that a select committee of the Commons was appointed in 1834 to consider the subject. The same agitation wrought in another direction-giving a large majority of non-intrusion members to the General Assembly, in which they had hitherto been the minority. While the committee of the Commons was sitting, the General Assembly passed an enactment, containing a declaration and a rule. The declaration was, that it was a 'fundamental law' of the Church that no pastor should be intruded on any congregation, contrary to the will of the people; and a rule was prescribed, by which the will of the people might be ascertained and manifested. A veto

on the nomination was afforded to them. This is the celebrated Veto Act. Those who passed it professed to believe it to be perfectly compatible with the act of 1711; it was also declared to be so by the law-officers of the crown, and emphatically praised by the lord chancellor, who pronounced it to be in every respect more desirable than any other course that could have been taken.' For five years, the Veto Act worked so well that it is no wonder if those who devised and passed it supposed that the matter was settled, and that the Church had indeed recovered her powers. When the minority in the Assembly saw how acceptable a body of ministers-250 in the five years-was settled under this act, they first learned to approve it, and then to avow their approbation. The tendency to dissent