Sunday at Home.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 18, 29 July 1893, Page 10

Sunday at Home.

UPON THE WATCH TOWER. (By the Key. J. Ferguson, First Chnrch). “ I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, to see whathe will speak with me."-Hab, 11. and i. If we take our stand on that watch tower of history which is called now and look hack fifty years, setting our eyes upon the Scottish Zion, we shall see four hundred and seventy-four ministers and nearly two hundred probationers and divinity students leaving the State church and founding the Free and Protesting Church of Scotland. The ministers went not forth alone; many worthy, elders, among them some of the noblest laymen in the land, and thousands of the" best members of the church, shared the responsibility and glory of the Disruption with them. How came all this about ? Mark the words of Lord President Hope—“ The Presbyterian religion and the Presbyterian form of government are-in this country the creatures of statute. Both derive their existence and their doctrines as well as their powers from Parliament, and it is impossible that they could derive them from any other source.” Against this strange doctrine, for so it seemed, to them, the evangelical section of the church almost unanimously contended for years, holding that in civil things the State was assuredly supreme, but that in spiritual matters Jesus Christ was the sole Head, and that therefore there must be no intrusion of the secular hand into spiritual affairs. The secular hand did intrude. The Court of Session, the highest court in the Scottish realm, by a majority, supported the doctrine of its president, and the House of Lords confirmed the finding of the Scottish court. The evangelical majority could not submit to this without being, as they conceived, unfaithful to their master. Hence the Disruption. (1.) It was a supreme act of faith We cannot possibly realize the sacrifices that the protesting ministers made. Stipends, manses, glebes-, their earthly all, were surrendered, and they went forth with all dependent upon them trusting in God and in the affection of- His .children. The women were not less heroic than fathers, sons and brothel’s. Some, both men and women, lost theirs lives through their privations, and so were martyrs. It was because of the extraordinary sacrifice involved that Lord Fullarton, when he saw Dr -Chalmers and Dr Welsh at the head of the slender but seemingly continuous stream of protesting -members issuing from St. Andrews church, cried —“ The fools!” and Lord Jeffery-—“ I’m proud of my country!” It was a spectacle which drew the eyes of the Christian world. Men gazed and wondered. The bush burned but was not consumed. In its new light they saw what we even yet see, that faith is the power of God unto uttermost sacrifice.

(2.) It called forth the latent power of generosity in the hearts of believing people. The givii g of these first days was quite miraculous. When some years earlier Dr Chalmers proposed to raise £IOO,OOO for the purpose of building two hundred additional churches in Scotland he was looked upon as one that dreamed, and his success after much labour and some years was reckoned phenomenal. But in the first year after the Disruption the Free Chnrch raised over £360,000, of which the sum of £65,000 w'as for the support of the ministers, being the first fruits of the Siistentation Fund scheme, which remains to this day the financial backbone of the church, and in which are glorified both the genius of the great Chalmers and the (divine power of littles) Churches, schools, manses, eolleges, were built, and the people gave the money joyfully, or, where they had not the money, the material. There was nothing lacking in those years of abundant vital energy. (3.) It regenerated the missionary interest. All the missionaries of the

church and their converts’ came put, leaving ; behind then arid other mission properties. This was welcomed as- of : divine significance, and the Free Church entered upon the missionary 'enterprize afresh with such zeal that she speedily found the development of Christ’s cause in heathen lands her special crown of rejoicing. , ' -

(4.) The Disruption roused all the churches to fresh and intense effort. The old Scottish church was not heart-broken, but braced herself for a mighty struggle, and showed with the emphasis of work nobly done for the Master that she too knew what it was to have a single eye to His glory. In the ordinary work of the parishes, in Home and Foreign Missions, she soon learned anew that the joy of the. Lord was her strength. So with other churches, in Scotland, in England, on the Continent, and in America.

(5.) The Free Church has closely adhered to the old Presbyterian tradition that learning is the hand-maid of religion. Her ministers were 'willing that the schools should he built before their manses. To-day she has doubtless the honour of being the most learned among the Presbyterian churches, and leads them in that great and difficult question, the historic criticism of Scripture. Principal Fairbairn, the great Congregational divine, said at the jubilee meeting the other day that “ They (the Free Church) had made their colleges the admiration and the envy of Christendom. They had nursed scholars who had led all religious thought throughout the world, and they had also accomplished teachers* who were able to lead and shape modem theological thought, and they had scholars abreast of the time, yet rooted in the past, faithful to the Scripture and faithful to the church.” (6.) In the life-story of this church we have a striking object lesson in the logic Of experiience. Those who came .put in ’43 believed in a State church, and had the Government agreed to erect their ideal they would have gone back lo it. But their children are the avowed opponents of Establishment. Dr W. C. Smith in his address as Moderator of the Jubilee Assembly said —“ When Moses first appeared before Pharaoh, all he asked was that the people might be allowed to go a three days’ journey into the desert that they might offer to the Lord those sacrifices which it was not lawful to offer in Egypt, where bulls and goats were not sacrifices but deities. There was no sort of deception in that request. Moses, you may be certain, honestly meant to return as soon as the religious rites had been performed. But when Israel had left Goshen, the very first word that God said to his servant was —. “ Speak to the children of Israel that they go forward !” Such, then, are some of the things we see from our watch tower as we gaze upon the course of that church which helped to found the colony *f Hew Zealand, and particularly planted the Presbyterian church in Otago and Southland. Let us learn at least as one abiding lesson, that the headship of Christ is a truth for the individual as well as for the church, that One is our Master, even Christ, Whose we are and Whom we serve.