POLITICS AND RELIGION IN SCOTLAND.* To the writing of books

on the history of Scotland there is no end ; yet there was room for a work like this, which, while treating of the period when Presbytery and Episcopacy were struggling for supremacy, and dealing with "the potency of the national spirit, the relations of Church and State, the growth of sentiments and opinions, the rise and conflict of parties, and the character and influence of leading men," endeavours to do all this from neither the ultra-Episcopal nor the ultra-Presbyterian point of view. The idea of there having been all through the storm and stress of Scottish theological and ecclesiastical struggles a sort of third, or moderate, party, which almost without knowing the fact held the balance between the two sets of extremists, and finally triumphed, though after a somewhat irregular fashion, in 1688, is a rather fascinating one; it fascinated such minds as that of the late Dean Stanley. The difficulty, however, is to get other than phantom battalions to make this army. No doubt there are known to fame the Moderates, whose best-known leader was Robertson the historian. But although the first of them as an ecclesiastical politician—not as a theologian or as an indifferentist in theology—the " Cardinal" Carstares whose counsels induced William of Orange not to reim- pose Episcopacy upon Scotland, deserved the characteri- sation involved in the historical adjective, the same thing cannot be said of certain of his successors, in- cluding Robertson himself, who, as the "Riding Com- mittees " by which tkey endeavoured to thrust Patronage upon an unwilling people demonstrated, could be as im- moderate in the exercise of power as " persecutors " even of the Lauderdale type. Nor is it indeed of the Moderates in the familiar ecclesiastical sense that Mr. Mathieson treats at all in his book ; even Carstares can hardly be said to be of account in it. It is something far older and less tangible that he is in search of. It .s thus that he brings that something on the scene :—

• Politics and Religion: a Study in Scottish History from the Beforination to the Revolution. By William Law Natliieson. Glasgow; James HaoLehose and Bons. [215.1 "The mass of the clergy,at all events when no question of throw in their lot allegiance was at stake, were more disposed to unreservedly with the Scottish people than to contend for prin- ciples of organisation with the civil power; and the continuity of the national Church is thus to be looked for in a deeper current of thought and feeling than that which was affected by mere eccle- siastical disputes. I have tried to trace the origin and progress of this moderate tradition—the tradition, whatever its faults, of patriotism, humanity, and culture—as well as of those volcanic elements which so often shook the Church to its foundation, and

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which in the colder atmosphere of a later day were to crystallise into the various forms of modern dissent."

And it is with what Mr. Mathieson regards as the triumph of this " moderate tradition " that his book closes :—

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"All secessions since the Revolution may be traced to the fact that whilst professedly Presbyterian, the Church has fallen into line with that great moderate tradition—the tradition of light and reason, of peace and concord, kindness and goodwill,' which and Patrick Episcopacy of the true Scottish type, from Cowper A'orbes to Leighton and Charteris, had endeavoured to uphold."

Mr. Mathieson's not too ferocious cat is let out of the bag by this allusion to "Episcopacy of the true Scottish type." He manifestly regards as the " saving salt" of Scottish ecclesiastical life during the struggles which ended with the Revolution—so far at least as a " moderate tradition " is con- cerned—the Scottish Episcopate of the type recalled, not by the cruel and persecuting " Sharp of that ilk," but by the saint and mystic, Leighton, whose genuine (though lay) suc- cessor within recent times was Erskine of Linlathen, and who, in spite of bitter vituperation and more serious opposition, laboured at the thankless task of bringing about a union between Presbytery and Episcopacy. The chief value of this book, indeed, is to be found in the definite position which the author assigns to the " moderate " members of the Scottish Episcopate, and in his resuscitation of the work done, or at least attempted, by—what Stevenson would have termed the "faithful failure" of—men like Spottiswoode. Of the ablest of the truly Scottish Bishops he thus writes :-

" The conduct of Patrick Forbes as Bishop of Aberdeen was such as to justify Burnet in describing him as in all things an apostolical man.' He was an earnest and indefatigable preacher ; twice in each year he submitted himself unreservedly to the cor- rection of his Synod ; every summer, accompanied by only a single servant, he made a thorough visitation of his diocese, in the course of which he was wont to test the zeal and ability of his clergy by appearing unexpectedly in their churches ; and he laboured incessantly to promote a better organisation of the parishes, disjoining many which had been united in the interest of tithe-owners, and subdividing others which were too large. Under his superintendence the colleges of Aberdeen were raised from the most wretched condition to the highest efficiency and vigour. Such was the respect entertained for him throughout the whole district that he was able to avert much litigation and' even bloodshed amongst his neighbours by presiding as arbiter in their disputes, and even in old age, when his right side was entirely paralysed, he worked on unweariedly to the last. Patrick Forbes was undoubtedly the most thoroughly able man whom the Moderates possessed during their forty years of power —more earnest than Spottiswoode and far stronger than Cowper. So long as he was able to attend the Privy Council, he is said to have strenuously resisted the efforts of Charles to assimilate the Church to the English pattern; and had he lived but three years longer, the Scottish Episcopate would hardly have perished so ingloriously as it did."

At the same time it should be noted that Mr. Mathieson does not favour Laudian pretensions :—

"It would not be difficult to show that the Revolution Settle- ment was really a reconciliation in all essential points of the two opposing tendencies the interaction of which has formed the principal subject of this work. Episcopacy in Scotland had never been more than a government super-imposed for political pur- poses on a Presbyterian Church; and the abolition of that govern- ment to which the disaffection of the Bishops forced William to consent, was rendered possible because Presbytery had now become so moderate in spirit that it might safely be emanci- pated from Episcopal control. The violence of the rabble, the harsh measures of the Revolution Parliament, the growth of sacerdotalism, and an honourable devotion to the cause of the late King prevented all but a fraction of the clergy from con- curring in this change; and the Jacobite sympathies of its members helped to consolidate that offshoot of Anglican Catholi- cism, the Church in Scotland,' which claims to have preserved the Scottish Episcopal tradition, but which in reality has pre- served that tradition only in so far as it was diverted, and we must needs add, impoverished and embittered by the influence of Laud. The naked principle of Prelacy was thus maintained ; but Prelacy had now supplanted Presbytery as the standard of rebellion and dissent; and the virtues which the former system had fostered when it was a really national institution now adhered to the latter."

But Mr. Mathieson has not only to maintain his own peculiar view of Scottish ecclesiastical history, or rather, to discover beneath the accepted views of that history his special " moderate tradition," he has to tell over again the familiar story of Reformation, Restoration, and finally Revolu- tion, in which the upholders of the " moderate tradition " were never in any real sense openly triumphant, but the battle went on the side of extremists of one kind or another, such as Knoxians, or Laudians, or the persecutors of the Covenanters.

Mr. Mathieson is almost compelled, in making his purpose good, to become the antagonist of unpopular causes and the assailant of popular heroes. He thinks almost as much of Maitland of Lethington as did the late Mr. Skelton; and he is even the apologist of Mary of Lorraine. Here is Knox from the standpoint of the " moderate tradition" :—

" We are accustomed to think of Knox as a lover of truth ; and in the sense of fidelity to the best that was in him, or to what he believed to be such, no man ever served it more faithfully ; but of that other and rarer form of truth, which consists of sobriety of judgment, clearness of vision, seeing things as they really are, ho was not so much devoid as utterly incapable. His writings are merely Knox with all his intensity reflected in type—true to Nature indeed, but only to that small segment of it which happened to be embodied in Knox himself The strongest proof of Knox's failure as an ecclesiastical statesman is the signal contrast between the permanence of his spirit and the barrenness of his ideas. Aiming at the establishment of a theocracy, he endowed his Church with so hard and absolute, so intense and uncompromising a character, that its claims were rejected by the State in his own day, and that in the hands of his immediate successors it was reduced to struggle for independence within its own borders. The conflict of Church and State, which was entirely opposed to Knox's ideas, was the outcome of his spirit; for the failure to dominate the State resulted in a jealousy of State interference. Whatever it might be in form—and it was not till the eighteenth century that dissent could be openly avowed—the Knoxian Church was essentially the Church of a minority; and thus we are confronted with the singular ox that the man, whose ideal was a theocracy, a Civitas paradox

become a parent of schism, the father of Scottish Dissent."

As an offset to this curious estimate may be taken this other —no less curious—of Montrose:—

" It was the tragedy of Montrose's life, sadder far than the tragedy of his death, that he should have toiled so ungrudgingly on both sides of the Revolution without coming nearer to that adjustment of forces which he had descried from afar as the issue of the strife. His ideal of a Scotland as free as it was loyal, exempt from the insolence of preachers, from the lawless usurpa- tion of subjects, and from the tyranny of Kings, had been shattered in the irrational encounter of Episcopacy and Presby- tery, just as Maitland's ideal of a Scotland outliving its indepen- dence without prejudice to the national honour had been shattered in the struggle for supremacy between the Catholic and the Protestant faiths. Posterity has done more justice to Montrose than it has done to Maitland, for his character was cast in far simpler and in far bolder lines; and he at least is now enthroned, beyond the clouds of controversy, amongst the tutelary divinities of the Scottish race, embodying, not indeed its religious intensity, confined as that has mainly been to a particular class, but its overpowering energy, its sunless depth of feeling, its intellectual eagerness tempered by its glowing imagination and its devotion to the past."

It would not be very difficult to show that here, if Mr. Mathieson does not quite draw upon his imagination for the character of Montrose, he does undoubtedly by the help of his imagination read into that character elements of a special kind which other observers have not been able to discover. Never- theless, it is always pleasant, and sometimes profitable, to see the common facts of history—as generally understood—treated from even an eccentric point of view. In any case, Knox's reputation will outlive the criticism of Mr. Mathieson.

Mr. Mathieson writes agreeably, like a scholar, and, for a Scottish controversialist, with wonderful amenity, though here and there he hits out somewhat heavily. When he deals with (comparatively speaking) side-issues of history, like the growth of Sabbatarianism in Scotland, he is really very interesting. He has read all the popular and readily accessible literature on his subject, but not quite all the " newer lights." Thus he does not appear to be quite familiar with the latest researches into the events that preceded the battle of Dunbar. Does it not savour of pedantry not to mention the name of Jenny Geddes as among the " she-zealots " who brought about the riots in St. Giles's, Edinburgh, when the English Liturgy was read'