force to what must
often operate as a conflicting claim? "A call," which carries with it any
legal force, annihilates patronage. Patronage would thus be exercised only
on sufferance. Do we mean then, that a "call" should sink into a pure
fiction of ceremony, like the English _conge-d'elire_ addressed to a dean
and chapter, calling on them to elect a bishop, when all the world knows
that already the see has been filled by a nomination from the crown? Not
at all; a _moral_ weight will still attach to the "call," though no legal
coercion: and, what is chiefly important, all those _doubts_ be removed by
express legislation, which could not but arise between a practice pointing
sometimes in one direction, and sometimes in another, between legal
decisions again upholding one view, whilst something very like legal
prescription was occasionally pleaded for the other. Behold the evil of
written laws not rigorously in harmony with that sort of customary law
founded upon vague tradition or irregular practice. And here, by the way,
arises the place for explaining to the reader that irreconcilable dispute
amongst Parliamentary lawyers as to the question whether Lord Aberdeen's
bill were _enactory_, that is, created a new law, or _declaratory_, that
is, simply expounded an old one. If enactory, then why did the House of
Lords give judgment against those who allowed weight to the "call?" That
might need altering; _that_ might be highly inexpedient; but if it
required a new law to make it illegal, how could those parties be held in
the wrong previously to the new act of legislation? On the other hand, if
declaratory, then show us any old law which made the "call" illegal. The
fact is--that no man can decide whether the act established a new law, or
merely expounded an old one. And the reason why he cannot--is this: the
practice, the usage, which often is the law, had grown up variously during
the troubles of the seventeenth century. In many places political reasons
had dictated that the elders should nominate the incumbent. But the
ancient practice had authorized patronage: by the act of Queen Anne (10th
chap.) it was even formally restored; and yet the patron in known
instances was said to have waived his right in deference to the "call."
But why? Did he do so, in courteous compliance with the parish, as a party
whose _reasonable_ wishes ought, for the sake of all parties, to meet with
attention? Or did he do so, in humble submission to