ower: by refusing, first of all, to "_license_" unqualified persons;
secondly, by refusing to "_admit_" out of these licensed persons such as
might have become warped from the proper standard of pastoral fitness, the
church had a negative voice, all-potential in the creation of clergymen;
the church could exclude whom she pleased. But this contented her not.
Simply to shut out was an ungracious office, though mighty for the
interests of orthodoxy through the land. The children of this world, who
became the agitators of the church, clamoured for something more. They
desired for the church that she should become a lady patroness; that she
should give as well as take away; that she should wield a sceptre, courted
for its bounties, and not merely feared for its austerities. Yet how
should this be accomplished? Openly to translate upon the church the
present power of patrons--_that_ were too revolutionary, that would have
exposed its own object. For the present, therefore, let this device
prevail--let the power nominally be transferred to congregations; let this
be done upon the plea that each congregation understands best what mode of
ministrations tends to its own edification. There lies the semblance of a
Christian plea; the congregation, it is said, has become anxious for
itself; the church has become anxious for the congregation. And then, if
the translation should be effected, the church has already devised a means
for appropriating the power which she has unsettled; for she limits this
power to the communicants at the sacramental table. Now, in Scotland,
though not in England, the character of communicant is notoriously created
or suspended by the clergyman of each parish; so that, by the briefest of
circuits, the church causes the power to revolve into her own hands.

That was the first change--a change full of Jacobinism; and for which to
be published was to be denounced. It was necessary, therefore, to place
this Jacobin change upon a basis privileged from attack. How should _that_
be done? The object was to create a new clerical power; to shift the
election of clergymen from the lay hands in which law and usage had lodged
it; and, under a plausible mask of making the election popular,
circuitously to make it ecclesiastical. Yet, if the existing patrons of
church benefices should see themselves suddenly denuded of their rights,
and within a year or two should see these rights settling determinately
into the hands of