hough he may attempt some improvements for
the public good, yet will he adjust his innovations as much as
possible to the ancient fabric, and preserve entire the chief
pillars and supports of the institution.'

It ought, we hold, to be regarded as another law of the Fund, that the
means taken to increase it should be means exclusively fitted to lead
the givers to think of their _duties_, not of their _rights_. The
Sustentation Fund is not the result of a tax properly so called, but
an accumulation of freewill offerings rendered to the Church by men
who in this matter are responsible to God only. What the Church receives
on these terms she can divide; but what the givers do not place at her
disposal--what, on the contrary, they reserve for quite another
purpose--she cannot lay hold of and distribute. It is not hers, but
theirs; and the attempt to appropriate it might be very fatal. Hence
the danger of the question regarding the appropriation for general
purposes of supplements, which was mooted two years ago, but which was
so promptly put down by the good sense of the Church. It would have led
men to contend for their rights, and, in the struggle, to forget their
duties; and the battle would have been a losing one for the Fund. We
regard it as another law, that the distribution of the sustentation
money entrusted to the Church should be a distribution, not
discretionary, but fixed by definite enactment. A discretionary
licence of distribution, extended to some central board or committee,
even though under the general review of the Church, could not be other
than imminently dangerous, because opposed in spirit to the very
principle of Presbytery. And if Presbytery and the Sustentation Fund
come into collision in the Free Church of Scotland, it is not
difficult to say which of the two would go down. It has been shrewdly
remarked by Hume, that in monarchies there is room for discretionary
power--the laws under a great and wise prince may in some cases be
softened, or partially suspended, and carried into full effect in
others; but republics admit of no such discretionary authority--the
laws in them must in every instance be thoroughly executed, or set
aside altogether. Every act of discretionary authority is treason
against the constitution. And so is it with Presbytery. Give to a
central board or committee the power of sitting in judgment on the
circumstances of ministers of their body, and of apportioning to one
some thi