the clergy, the fraud, the fraudulent purpose, and the
fraudulent machinery, would have stood out in gross proportions too
palpably revealed. In this dilemma the reverend agitators devised a second
scheme. It was a scheme bearing triple harvests; for, at one and the same
time, it furnished the motive which gave a constructive coherency and
meaning to the original purpose, it threw a solemn shadow over the rank
worldliness of that purpose, and it opened a diffusive tendency towards
other purposes of the same nature, as yet undeveloped. The device was this:
in Scotland, as in England, the total process by which a parish clergyman
is created, subdivides itself into several successive acts. The initial
act belongs to the patron of the benefice: he must "_present_"; that is,
he notifies the fact of his having conferred the benefice upon A B, to a
public body which officially takes cognizance of this act; and that body
is, not the particular parish concerned, but the presbytery of the
district in which the parish is seated. Thus far the steps, merely legal,
of the proceedings, were too definite to be easily disturbed. These steps
are sustained by Lord Aberdeen as realities, and even by the
Non-intrusionists were tolerated as formalities.

But at this point commence other steps not so rigorously defined by law or
usage, nor so absolutely within one uniform interpretation of their value.
In practice they had long sunk into forms. But ancient forms easily lend
themselves to a revivification by meanings and applications, new or old,
under the galvanism of democratic forces. The disturbers of the church,
passing by the act of "presentation" as an obstacle too formidable to be
separately attacked on its own account, made their stand upon one of the
two acts which lie next in succession. It is the regular routine, that the
presbytery, having been warned of the patron's appointment, and having
"received" (in technical language) the presentee--that is, having formally
recognised him in that character--next appoint a day on which he is to
preach before the congregation. This sermon, together with the prayers by
which it is accompanied, constitute the probationary act according to some
views; but, according to the general theory, simply the inaugural act by
which the new pastor places himself officially before his future
parishioners. Decorum, and the sense of proportion, seem to require that
to every commencement of a very weighty relati