HE fatal die has been cast. On Thursday last the religion of Scotland was disestablished, and a principle recognised in its stead, which has often served to check and modify the religious influences, but which in no age or country ever yet existed as a religion; not but that it has performed an important part, even in Scotland. It has served hitherto to control the Christianity of the Establishment - to dilute it to such a degree, if we may so speak, as to render it bearable to statesmen without God. And now its appointed work seems over. It constituted at best but the drag-chain and the hook - things that have no vocation apart from the chariot. But the time has at length arrived in which the State will bear with but the hook and the drag apart from that which they checked, with but the diluting pabulum apart from that which it diluted; and so a mere negation of Christianity, an antagonistic force to the religious power, has been virtually recognised as exclusively the principle which is to be entrenched in the parish churches of Scotland. The day that witnessed a transaction so momentous, can be a day of no slight mark in modern history. It stands, between two distinct states of things, a signal to Christendom. It holds out its sign to these latter times, that God and the world have drawn off their forces to opposite sides, and that His sore and great battle is soon to begin.
The future can alone adequately develope the more important consequences of the event; - at present we shall merely attempt presenting the reader with a few brief notes of the aspect which it exhibited. The early part of Thursday had its periods of fitful cloud and sunshine, and the tall picturesque tenements of the old town now lay dim and indistinct in shadow, now stood prominently out in the light. There was an unusual throng and bustle in the streets at a comparatively early hour, which increased greatly as the morning wore on towards noon. We marked, in especial, several knots of Moderate clergy hurrying along to the levee, laughing and chatting with a vivacity that reminded one rather of the French than of the Scotch character, and evidently in that state of nervous excitement which, in a certain order of minds, the near approach of some very great event, indeterminate and unappreciable in its bearings, is sure always to occasion.
As the morning wore on, the crowds thickened in the streets, and the military took their places. The principles involved in the anticipated Disruption gave to many a spectator a new association with the long double line of dragoons that stretched adown the High Street, far as the eye could reach, from the venerable Church of St Giles, famous in Scottish story, to the humbler Tron. The light flashed fitfully on their long swords and helmets, and the light scarlet of their uniforms contrasted strongly with the dingier vestments of the masses, in which they seemed as if more than half engulphed. "When the sun glanced out, the eye caught something peculiarly picturesque in the aspect of the Calton Hill, with its imposing masses of precipices, overtopped by towers and monuments, and its intermingling bushes and trees, now green with the soft, delicate foliage of May. Between its upper and under line of rock, a dense living belt of human beings girdled it round, sweeping gradually downwards from shoulder to base, like the sash of his order on the breast of a nobleman. The Commissioner's procession passed, with sound of trumpet and drum, and marked by rather more than the usual splendour. There was much bravery and glitter, satin and embroidery, varnish and gold lace - no lack, in short, of that cheap and vulgar magnificence which can be got up to order by the tailor and upholsterer for carnivals and Lord Mayors' days. But it was felt by the assembled thousands, as the pageant swept past, that the real spectacle of the day was one of a different character.
The morning levee had been marked by an incident of a somewhat extraordinary nature, and which history, though in these days little disposed to mark prodigies and omens, will scarcely fail to record. The crowd in the chamber of presence was very great, and there was, we believe, a considerable degree of confusion and pressure in consequence. Suddenly - whether brushed by some passer-by, jostled rudely aside, or merely affected by the tremor of the floor communicated to the partitioning - a large portrait of William the Third, that had held its place in Holyrood for nearly a century and a-half, dropped heavily from the walls. " There," exclaimed a voice from the crowd, " there goes the Revolution Settlement."
For hours before the meeting of the Assembly, the galleries of St Andrew's, with the space behind, railed off for the accommodation of office-bearers not members, were crowded to suffocation, and a vast assemblage still continued to besiege the doors. The galleries from below had the "overbellying" appearance in front, described by Blair, and seemed as if filled up to the roof behind. Immediately after noon, the Moderate members began to drop in one by one, and to take their places on the Moderator's right, while the opposite benches remained well-nigh empty. What seemed most fitted to catch the eye of a stranger was the rosy appearance of the men, and their rounded contour of face and feature. Moderatism in the present day is evidently not injuring its complexion by the composition of "Histories of Scotland," like that of Robertson, or by prosecuting such "Inquiries into the Human Mind," as those instituted by Reid. We were reminded, in glancing over the benches, of a bed of full-blown peony-roses glistening after a shower; and could one have but substituted among them the monk's frock for the modern dress-coat, and given to each crown the shaven tonsure, not only would they have passed admirably for a conclave of monks met to determine some weighty point of abbey income or right of forestry, but for a conclave of one determinate age - that easily-circumstanced middle age, in which the days of vigil and maceration being over, and the disturbing doctrines of the Reformation not yet aroused from out of their long sleep, the Churchman had little else to do than just amuse himself with concerns of the chase and the cellar, the larder and the dormitory. The benches on the left began slowly to fill; and on the entrance of every more distinguished member, a burst of recognition and welcome shook the gallery. Their antagonists had been all permitted to take their places in ominous silence. The music of the pageant was heard outside; the Moderator entered, attired in his gown; and ere the appearance of the Lord High Commissioner, preceded by his pages and mace-bearer, and attended by the Lord Provost, the Lord Advocate, and the Solicitor-General, the Evangelical benches had filled as densely as those of their opponents; and the cross benches, appropriated in perilous times like the present to a middle party, careful always to pitch their principles below the suffering point, were also fully occupied. Never before was there seen so crowded a General Assembly; the number of members had been increased beyond all precedent by the double returns, and almost every member was in his place. The Moderator opened the proceedings by a deeply impressive prayer; but though the silence within was complete, a Babel of tumultuary sounds outside, and at the closed doors, expressive of the intense anxiety of the excluded multitude, had the effect of rendering him scarcely audible in the more distant parts of the building.
The Moderator, Dr Welsh, rose and addressed the House in a few impressive sentences. There had been an infringement, he said, on the constitution of the Church, an infringement so great that they could not constitute its General Assembly without a violation of the union between Church and State, as now authoritatively defined and declared. He was therefore compelled, he added, to protest against proceeding further; and unfolding a document which he held in his hand, he read, in a slow and emphatic manner, the Protest of the Church. For the first few seconds the extreme anxiety to hear defeated its object - the universal, Hush, hush, occasioned considerably more noise than it allayed; but the momentary confusion was succeeded by the most unbroken silence, and the reading went on till the impressive close of the document, when he laid it down on the table of the House, and solemnly departed. He was followed, at a pace's distance, by Dr Chalmers; Dr Gordon and Dr Patrick M'Farlan immediately succeeded; and then the numerous sitters on the thickly occupied benches behind filed after them, in a long unbroken line, which for several minutes together continued to thread the passage to the eastern door, till at length only a blank space remained. As the well-known faces and forms of some of the ablest and most eminent men that ever adorned the Church of Scotland glided along the current, to disappear from the Courts of the State institution for ever, there rose a cheer from the galleries, and an impatient cry of "Out, out," from the ministers and elders not members of the Assembly, now engaged in sallying forth to join with them, from the railed area behind. The cheers subsided, choked in not a few instances in tears. The occasion was by far too solemn for the commoner manifestations of either censure or approval. It excited feelings that lay too deep for expression. There was a marked peculiarity in the appearance of their opponents, a blank, restless, pivot-like turning of head from the fast emptying benches to one another's faces, but they uttered no word, not even in whispers. At length, when the last of the withdrawing party had disappeared, there ran from bench lo bench a hurried, broken whispering - "How many?" "how many?" "A hundred and fifty?" "No"; "yes." " Four hundred ?" "No"; - and then for a moment all was still again. The scene that followed we deemed one of the most striking of the day. The empty vacated benches stretched away from the Moderator's seat, in the centre of the building, to the distant wall. There suddenly glided into the front rows a small party of blighted-looking men, that, contrasted with the well-known forms of our Chalmerses and Gordons, Candlishes and Cunninghams, M'Farlans, Brewsters, and Dunlops, reminded one of the thin and blasted corn-ears of Pharaoh's vision, and, like them, too, seemed typical of a time of famine and destitution. Who are these? was the general query; but no one seemed to know. At length the significant whisper ran along the house, "The Forty." There was a grin of mingled contempt and compassion visible on many a broad Moderate face, and a too audible titter shook the gallery. There seemed a degree of incongruity in the sight, that partook highly of the ludicrous. For our own part, we were so carried away by a vagrant association, and so missed Ali Kaba, the oil kettle, and the forty jars, as to forget for a time that, at the doors of these unfortunate men, lies the ruin of the Scottish Establishment. The aspect of the Assembly sank when it had in some degree recovered itself, into that expression of tame and flat commonplace, which it must be henceforth content to bear, until roused happily into short-lived activity by the sharp paroxysms of approaching destruction.
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