expect to strike the best compromise between virtue and vice—whose love of popularity and servile disposition, they think, will lead him rather to disguise the asperities of religion, and to connive at their laxity of morals, than to labour, "in season and out of season," to convince them of sin. It is in such a parish as this that the Veto, will be most generally and most unscrupulously exercised, by men who, from obtuseness of moral perception, and the absence of religious habits and feelings, are least of all qualified to judge of the fitness of a minister, even if they were disposed to enquire and consider what is conducive to their own present and eternal welfare. The unacceptableness, therefore, of a presentee, may in certain cases be the very best evidence of his fitness to minister to the people who steadfastly reject him. But here let us speak in the language of one who treats the subject with the dignity and the candour of a true philosopher:—[1]
"Acceptableness is not a quality in the presentee at all, either absolutely, as connected with the duties of a pastor in general, or relatively, as regards the discharge of those duties in the particular parish to which he is presented. He may be perfectly able for the performance of those duties in the most efficient and edifying way—he may be peculiarly suited to that congregation, and yet he may be very unacceptable—perhaps on that very account the more unacceptable. When the Apostles first preached at Ephesus they were by no means acceptable; and it was not a majority of the male heads of families there who objected. We are told that the whole city rose and rushed into the theatre, threatening them with personal violence. If an apostle had preached one hundred years ago in some parishes on the coast of Orkney or Shetland against plundering wrecks, or if he had preached fifty years ago in any one of half the parishes in the north of Scotland against illicit distillation, he would probably have experienced a similar reception. Paul afterwards became very popular at Ephesus; and we know that many presentees, who were settled in Scotland with the assistance of a troop of dragoons, became useful ministers, and obtained the love and veneration of their parishioners. Acceptableness per se is a matter not within the province of collation at all, though collators may enquire whether the want of it has arisen from a good and sufficient cause."
Acceptableness, therefore, is an element in the choice of a minister which, even if it could be recognised and given effect to in all cases without difficulty, is not in itself a thing so absolutely desirable, or so necessary as some men have chosen to assume.
But the "act and regulations" for carrying out the principle of the Veto, are, in our opinion, productive of much direct and immediate evil to the people themselves. We cannot pause at present to describe or illustrate the animosities and heart-burnings, the wranglings, and the struggle for personal power and influence, between the factions in a parish who severally support two rival candidates for the office of the ministry. We need not picture the pernicious moral effects of such a contest—effects which cannot fail long to survive the contest itself, necessarily rendering the successful competitor, even after his induction, an object of hostility or jealousy to the defeated minority of his parishioners. The General Assembly have themselves assumed that the Veto may be exercised improperly, that the persons dissenting may be "actuated by factious and malicious motives;" and it would be idle for us to argue, because it cannot be disputed, that the malicious exercise of this petty tyranny must be productive of the most demoralizing influence on the hearts of the people. It may be said, indeed, that the right of dissent is confined to communicants, and that this affords a security against the abuse of the right. But such is not the opinion of the General Assembly, who think it necessary to provide against the operation of "factious and malicious motives" among this very class. He must be a partial and inattentive observer of human nature, who puts his faith in such a check as this. The enfranchisement of communicants exclusively, may lead some men to the communion table from a desire for power, who would never have appeared there from better motives; but it is too much to expect of the common people, that the mere circumstance of having joined in the celebration of the Sacrament should render them
- ↑ Lord Corehouse in Robertson's Auchterarder Case, vol. ii. p. 229.
