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ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION.

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routine of courts, though in minor cases of sufficient strength, in all matters of an important nature, is feeble and inefficacious. Such a circumstance is owing both to its republican character, and to the want of a regular code, or book of canons. Though presbyterianism has been now long predominant in Scotland, and though there have arisen all kinds of difficulties, and all varieties of cases, little seems to be settled relative to forms or modes of action. This defect is now notorious. At almost every presbyterial, synodal, or sitting of the supreme court, a great portion of time is destroyed in canvassing the propriety in the steps of procedure. Skilful men can therefore protract litigations to any length. A point of form may supersede the most momentous affair. It may be battled from court to court, and protract the discussions to such a length, that both the public and the sensible part of the clergy are nauseated of the case, before its merits can actually be brought forward. Other serious evils exist in the mode of judicial action. One of these, is the apparent unmea. sured liberty of taking protests against decisions, and of carrying appeals. The stranger will perhaps be surprised when we mention, that instances are not uncommon, where ministers, against whom prosecutions are laid, and who are decidedly obnoxious to punishment, appeal from forty to fifty times against the decisions of their presbyteries and synods; and as it would, in all likelihood, occupy the General Assembly a whole day to discuss, and set aside, one appeal, an idea may thence be obtained how inefficacious this species of jurisdiction occasionally is. Independent of such hampering peculiarities, another may be cited, now found to be of a serious nature; this lies in the frequent impossibility of getting private cases printed for distribution among members of court; and except this be done, in all probability, the greater proportion, of members will be carried along by the factitious oratory of a few of the chief speakers, who alone are furnished with manuscript copies of the suits at length. -Whether it arises from these, or other errors with

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HIGH-FLYERS AND MODERATES.

which we are not acquainted, the fact is indisputable, that the kirk, to all appearance, cannot now settle a case of any moment in less than several years; and instances are on record, where ministers have defied the ecclesiastical authority for not less than five, ten, and even eighteen, years. In consequence of this pitiable weakness, a practice, we perceive, has recently come into use, of quashing or hushing up bad cases altoge ther, where such can be done with a good grace.

The jurisdiction of the sectarian courts, which only differ in their constitutions from those of the establishment, in so far as they cannot call in the civil power to enforce their warrants, and can therefore only punish by expulsion from the sect,-is still more lamentably feeble. The elders, who form a component part of the courts, are, in their case, in many instances, uneducated mechanics, or peasants, who, nevertheless, are called upon to decide on the most grave theological questions, in intricate metaphysical points, or the qualifications of students. To expect a judicious and dispassionate administration from such persons, would be as ludicrous as to suppose the settlement of canons by a consistory of church-wardens, vergers, and doorkeepers. The style of conducting business in these courts of the dissenters, would amuse a person accustomed to associate decorum with the routine of judicial procedure. The speeches of members are often vague, windy, and interlarded with the meanest witticisms; as if ridicule, and not sober argument, was the proper weapon to employ in a court of justice. Opponents frequently engage in hot disputes, in defiance of all order. They pour out torrents of abuse on each other; and often a scene of confusion ensues, which the moderator finds it impossible to quell. In all the presbyterian church courts, there are two parties, called the high flyers, the evangelicals, or the saints, and the moderates. Each of these factions has "leadas they are technically named, though, from their power over their brethren, they might, with as much propriety, be called "drivers." These, and

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FORMS OF WORSHIP.

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a few other audacious men, in general bring forward, and engross, the greater part of the discussions.

Judging from a concurrence of circumstances, we are compelled to acknowledge that there is a radical error in the constitution of these courts. In striving to erect a free republican form of government, arbitrary authority has been so far cast away, that its absence has created an evil, not at first adverted to. It has been invariably discovered, that republican governments have been necessitated sooner or later to receive an infusion of arbitrary power, in order to prevent their dissolution; and we are of opinion, that the kirk of Scotland has well nigh arrived at that stage, when it will feel the usual craving for the amalgamation of a firm, and, in some measure a discretionary, executive. It must either strengthen the hands of its moderators, or endow clergy with the character of superintendents, agreeable to the form of church government settled in the time of Knox, but eradicated by Melville; because unless it do so, or take some other equally sure method of consolidating and quickening its forms of process, it will assuredly become every year more and more the object of criticism and disrespect.

It is considered that any regular explanation of the forms of worship of the Scotch presbyterians would be supererogatory; inasmuch as all, strangers not excepted, must be acquainted with them. The public service consists of only a certain arrangement of (studied) extempore prayers, reading chapters of the scriptures, a sermon, and the singing of psalms, in which every devotional attitude is discarded, and in which the congregation take no part, except in the singing. The kirk only dispenses one of the sacraments, namely, baptism, in private, when required. Why it does not administer the other also in private houses in exigent cases, it defies us to explain, and we crave to be enlightened on such a subject. The apostolic rite of confirmation is not used. The sacrament of the holy communion is dispensed usually twice a year. A fast, or a day of

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DRESS OF THE CLERGY.

A list of all the

humiliation and prayer, as it is termed, is kept, and the churches opened on the previous Thursdays. These are the only close holidays in Scotland, sanctioned by the kirk, but all the public offices also keep the English holidays, and the University of Edinburgh now very considerately keeps Good Friday, which is a practice it cannot well avoid, as a number of its professors are Episcopalians. Each parish selects its own sacramental occasion with consent of presbyteries. fast Thursdays will be found in the Almanack. A preparation sermon is preached on the Saturday afternoon before, and a thanksgiving sermon on the Monday forenoon after, the sacrament Sunday, at which times business is also suspended. In cities, these holidays are now days of mischief and debauchery as much as anything else, and it would be a real benefit to society were they abolished, or modified to the extent of not being interruptions to business. All the clergy in the establishment wear black gowns and bands when in the pulpit. We observe that most of the dissenting clergy now use the same official dress,-a custom which would have been denounced as sinful to the last degree, by the Erskines, but above all by the covenanters, and which, to say the least of it, is very inconsistent with profession. The Scottish clergy do not wear in common any peculiar garments, except that they are black,-a colour, by the way, having no " scripture warrant.' A few of the metropolitan clergy are beginning to sidle into the fashion of wearing shovel-shaped hats, in imitation of those used by the clergy in England. It is gratifying to notice such symptoms of the abrogation of prejudices, which must be abandoned sooner or later; but we have to tell these daring individuals, that they run the chance of incurring a premunire, for that the turning up of the beaver behind has a suspicious look, and may, by many, be construed into a wish to introduce other Episcopal usages.

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RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS CONTINUED.

MODE OF PAYING THE CLERGY OF THE ESTABLISHED KIRK. SEATS IN CHURCHES.

Of the various peculiar Scottish institutions noticed in this volume, some of which, for their excellence, certainly deserve to be held up as a pattern to the English, few are so worthy of praise or imitation as that now to be mentioned. We here refer to the mode adopted to pay the stipends of the clergy of the established kirk. It is a fact no less remarkable than true, that in the aggregate, the Scottish kirk derives ast great a proportion of revenue from the country as the church of England, yet so excellently is the system organized in exacting the levies from the community, that we venture to assert, that hundreds and thousands of the Scotch are of opinion that the kirk costs them nothing; and at least, so covertly are the payments made, that the subject is one which never attracts the slightest attention.

If it be conceded that there must of necessity be an established church, the proper way to support such a corporation is by endowed lands, which then become as much the property of the clergy as the estates of the nobility are theirs. This practice of setting apart lands for the clergy was invariably resorted to before the reformation; but besides being supported by lands so appropriated, the secular clergy in these times were empowered by an old Judaic usage, to draw the tenths of the produce of the soil. In all this, the people suf

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