from the rental in calculating the price of the estate. What is taken for the maintenance of the Clergy is not, therefore, taken out of the pocket of the Heritor; for merely as a proprietor of land, he can have no right to the tithes, either by PURCHASE OR INHERITANCE."

The conclusion, from all this, is evident. If the proprietor has no right to the tithes, to retain them from those who have a right to them would be injustice; whilst the giving them over to those for whom the State designed them, is párting with nothing that is properly the Heritor's

own.

The same reasoning and conclusion hold as to Heritors building and upholding churches, The decision of the whole Bench, on the 22d of June 1787, in the case of the Minister of Dingwall, v. Heritors of that parish, established this doctrine. That decision says, "when it becomes necessary to build a new church, the Heritors of the parish are bound to provide one sufficient for the accommodation of the parishioners capable of attending divine worship, and that this is a burden under which they acquired and hold their estates.'

From all this, it clearly appears, that there is a fund vested in the lands of Heritors, which they never purchased or paid any thing for; and that this fund is not only available for paying Ministers' stipends, but for building churches, when and where necessary, in order to accommodate all the parishioners capable of attending divine worship.

Where, then, we ask, is the evidence that Heritors pay any thing for the support of the Established Religion out of their own proper funds? Does not the very reverse appear, and that, too, from our highest legal authorities? And if the building of churches, and fitting up of seats therein, come from no proper funds of their own, but from the national fund vested in their lands, as public Trustees, where

is the justice of their claim, to be remunerated by levying rents from the seats? Such a procedure would put two kinds of funds into their hands; first, the national fund ; and, secondly, the fund drawn from the industry of the poor for these seats, by which they would not only be exonerated from paying anything, but enabled to enrich themselves both ways.

To this reasoning it is not easy to persuade Heritors to listen. It is against their interest, and therefore they are slow to believe, they would much rather hear the doctrine, that they are entitled to levy rents from all the seats in the church, and thus, by raising six and eight hundred pounds per annum, get quit of the burthen of the Established Church altogether. Indeed, this is just what the irreligious, and what all kinds of Dissenters plead for; and their reasoning, at first sight, is exceedingly specious. What right, say they, have we to be compelled to defray any proportion of the expences of a churchestablishment, which we not only dislike, but detest, and against which we have lifted the standard of revolt and hostility?

But as this plea springs from misconception of the nature of churchproperty vested in their lands, and as we are anxious to reconcile them, through just views, to the present state of things, we shall take the liberty to beg their attention to the following considerations: When an estate, or any other property, is sold to A, with a life-rent upon it payable to B, has that life-rent annuity any relation to the religious opinions of A and B? Does it after the nature of the sale, though A, the purchaser, be a Roman Catholic, and B, the life-renter, a Mahomedan or a Jew? Is not the liferent annuity a civil fund, vested in that estate for B's behoof, and payable to him, though the estate should pass into a dozen hands, having as

many different creeds? No doubt, at the end of forty, or fifty, or sixty years, if the annuitant should live so long, the succesors of A might think it a hardship to be kept so long from enjoying the whole rents of the estate; and they might feel this the more if the annuitant was a Jew, or a Catholic, or a Pagan, or one in active hostility against them; but would any, or all of these things, warrant A's successors from withhold ing B's annuity, and taking away, by force, or fraud, if you will, his liferent? We suspect no one will answer in the affirmative, that they have such a right; and if so, no one will venture to affirm, that any landowner has a right, whatever his religious opinions be, to withhold his proportion of the funds in his hands towards supporting the Established Church.

These funds have no relation to his creed. They were not vested in his hands, payable only so long as he or his successors continue attached to, and members of the Establish ment: they were a civil, not a religious burden on his lands. They had an entire and an undivided relation to the Church of Scotland and its functionaries, and to no other person or society into whatever hand the lands might come; whether Pagan or Jew, Dissenter or Churchman, the possessor was bound, by his author's charter, to pay that proportion out of this fund to the" function aries" appointed by the State for the discharge of the ecclesiastical duties required by the National Church.

A person, therefore, who would refuse to defray from this fund the expences of the Establishment, merely because he disliked it, would act in violation of the tenure by which he acquired and held his estate; and hence it has always been a source of astonishment to us how QUAKERS, a moral and religious people, governed by the rules of equity, justice, and fairness, should ever, for one moment, allow themselves to be distrained for tithes or Ministers' stipends, when they never bought the tithes, and when the fund vested in their lands was bona fide vested there by the State, for the support of the National Religion, and for which they paid nothing. The

moral, social, and religious principles of this most respectable body, if the above facts were considered as they ought, will, we are inclined to think, correct their mistaken notions of this matter, and not, henceforth, suffer them to throw away, annually, so much money on account of distress, which ought to be employed for more laudable and praiseworthy purposes.

We cannot illustrate our position as to this fund better, than by a reference to the late petition_from Lower Canada to the King. By an Act of George III., one seventh-part of all the land of Lower Canada is set apart for ever, for the support of the Protestant Clergy there. Suppose, now, that, in the course of a century or two, this seventh-part becomes so merged and incorporated with the other sixth, that it cannot be distinguished from the rest ;-suppose, too, that only a part or portion of this seventh-purt has been paid to the Clergy, and that the remainder has been retained by the proprietors of the different estates in the parish, and allowed by them to become a part of their annual income,-would it, after supposing all this, be reasonable for these proprietors to refuse the proportion they had hitherto paid, or even the whole seventh-part, if necessary, because they were not now Protestants, but had, in the lapse of time, become Roman Catholics, or Infidels, or Atheists? or supposing themselves still liable to build and uphold Protestant places of worship out of this seventh, would they be permitted to remunerate themselves by levying seat-rents from the Protestant worshippers?

Such an idea is absurd:-Dr Franklin exposes it finely, in a letter originally addressed to the Editor of the London Packet, which, while it shows us his sentiments upon this point, exhibits the integrity of the Civil Magistrate in America. "The Presbyterians," says the Doctor, "went from England to establish a new country for themselves, at their own expence, where they might enjoy the free exercise of religion in their own way. When they had purchased the territory of the natives, they granted lands out in townships, requiring for it neither purchase-money nor quit-rent; but

this condition only to be complied with, that the freeholders should for ever support a Gospel Minister (meaning, probably, one of their own persuasion) and a Free School within the township. Thus, what is commonly called Presbyterianism, became the established religion of the country. All went on well in this way, while the same religious opinions were general; the support of the Ministers and school being raised by a proportionate tax on the lands; but in process of time, some becoming Quakers, some Baptists, and, of late years, some turning to the Church of England, objections were made to the payment of a tax appropriated to the support of a Church they disapproved and had forsaken.

"The Civil Magistrate, however, continued to collect and apply the tax according to the original laws which remained in force; and he did it more freely, as thinking it just and equitable that the holders of land should pay what was contracted to be paid when they were granted, and what had been considered by all subsequent purchasers as a perpetual incumbrance on the estate, and bought, therefore, at a proportionably cheaper rate: a payment which it was thought no honest man ought to avoid under pretence of having changed his religion; and this, I suppose, is one of the best grounds for demanding tithes of the Dissenters of England*."

This is exactly to the point. Every part of this letter bears, in principle, upon the fund set apart for the support of Presbytery in Scotland. By the Decrees Arbitral of Charles I., the one-fifth of the nett or clear rental of all the land in Scotland was set aside as the fund for the support of the Presbyterian Clergy of that Church; and, therefore, while this fund is taken to pay the Clergy, or to build churches, and nothing more, (as assuredly no more will be given by Heritors,) it is as just and equit able that the parishioners should have their sittings free in the church, as that from it the Ministers should

have their stipends. The fund was given for the free exercise of religious worship to all classes; and, therefore, all classes should have their own: a fact which we think no honest man will deny them, when he knows that he holds his lands on this tenure.

We have often wondered what Parliament would say, if, after having established a fund for redeeming, if possible, from ignorance, vice, and wretchedness, the inhabitants of Ireland, they were told that it was abused and perverted to their own use and aggrandisement, by the Commissioners or Trustees appointed to manage it, that a century ago, free schools were established throughout the whole country, endowed magnificently from this fund, and every thing liberally provided to give an excellent education to the children of the several districts,—that all things went on well for half a century, but that, afterwards, corrup tion and mismanagement crept in silently upon the system; the Commissioners, that they might appropriate a large share of its revenues, first limiting the scholars to twothirds of the children in the districts, and then gradually introducing wages, till every scholar was charged from eight to twelve guineas a-year. Suppose this conduct all reported to Ministry, or to Parliament, would they, or could they believe it? Would they, on being assured of its reality, calmly suffer such attempts to defeat the object for which these schools were originally founded; and which, instead of diffusing knowledge and good morals throughout the youth of Ireland, destroyed the very means which the Legislature had appointed for the improvement and amelioration of the Irish peasantry,-rendering the said free-schools inaccessible to the poor, by the amount of their fees, and thus producing a positive exclusion of all but the children of the wealthy *?

The case is perfectly analogous to that we are considering. To civilize and instruct the poor, to en

lighten them with knowledge, and to make them a moral people, that so they may add to the energies of Government, the Scotch Parliament, as we have seen, founded and endowed churches. It set aside an ample fund for their support. It called upon all, without distinction, to attend them, without money and without price. Every thing was provided free. For above two hundred years, all went on well; till at last innovations crept in. The jurisdiction of the Ministers and Kirk-Session was broken in upon, first, as to the allotment of the church-seats. The next step was limiting the accommodation for the whole parishioners to two-thirds of the examinable persons under twelve years of age. Next came the division of the church by Sheriffs, according to the valued rent of each Heritor, which gave them the idea that that part of the church was absolutely and exclusively their own property; and then followed, of course, the idea of letting their seats, as they pleased, either by public ROUP, in the church, or by private bargain!

Innovations, once begun, proceed not with a stealthy pace; they move on with rapidity, and generally carry to destruction every thing valuable along with them. From what cause we pretend not to divine,-whether from a desire to save the land-owners, or from a design (which could not be) to drive the people from the Establishment, and to fill the houses of Dissenters with those who were deprived of all opportunity of attending divine service in the parish churches, or whether from none of these causes at all, but from some other best known to themselves, one thing is certain, that the Stewarton case came on, and was decided on a principle, which, if acted upon, must have ruined, in a short time, the Church of Scotland, and left her with only a shred and remnant of the population! Had this decision remained unaltered, her influence over the people would have been lost; and though the Legislature might still have continued to pay their stipends, like the Magistrates

of America, because destined for that purpose, yet her glory would have been shorn; her hands must have then hung down; and in the day of trial and of need, which, in revolv ing periods, come unexpectedly, the STATE would have called on her in vain to rouse the slumbering energies of her people, and to animate them to the noble daring to be free from foreign invasion and from foreign chains.

The services of the Church of Scotland to her country are many; her praises are in all lands; yet a conspiracy seems formed against her by the spirit of avarice, both in country and in town. The levying of seat-rents are driving multitudes to the Dissenters. "The lower orders attached to the Establishment, and anxious to remain with it, are compelled, many of them, to take seats in the churches of the Dissen ters, the number of whose churches have, in consequence, increased near ly in the proportion of four to one, within a very short space of time," both in Edinburgh and in Glasgow, and other large towns in Scotland! Nay, more; we know persons in the country, who, either as farmers or small land-owners, let their seats in the parish church at 12s., 18s., and 20s. a-sitter, and who go to the Dissenters and rent seats for 3s. and 4s. a-year; putting the difference in their pockets, while they deprive the parochial poor of their Sunday-collections, and thus support Secession from the rents of the parochial church!!!

The evils of the whole system of letting seats are lamentable and crying; and if not put an end to, will leave none in our churches but the wealthy who are able to pay high rents, effectually excluding the poor, the manufacturer, and mechanic, from having the Gospel preached unto them, at least in the Church of Scotland.

It is such an innovation upon "the whole spirit and intention of a religious establishment" in landward parishes, and such "a tax on the public exercises of religious worship," that it is impossible it can long be submitted to by an enlightened and intelligent community.

VOL. XIV.

4 T

Free seats, as well as the free exercise of religious worship, are the birth-right of Scotsmen; and that birth-right cannot be tamely surrendered to those who hold the national funds in their hands for the express purpose of giving gratuitous accommodation to all ranks in this land. Reform in other matters may be necessary; but in this it is imperatively called for. Religion lies at the very foundation of society. It is the first thing which claims attention in the framing and executing of laws; and, if Plutarch is to be credited, is so essential, that you may as easily build a city without ground, as preserve order among the citizens without a belief of the Deity." Hence it is justly styled by Plato "the bulwark of Government, the bond of society, and the firmest support of Legislation."

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Introduce it into a parish, and place the parishioners within the influence of a man of talents and piety, "to whom, from his situation, they are willing to look up for example and instruction," and he will," imperceptibly, and almost inevitably, produce that civility and decency of outward deportment, which never fails to accompany, and not seldom to generate, well-regulated moral feelings. The personal demeanour of the labourers, the appearance and clothing of their children, the state of their cottages and gardens, enable those who are at all conversant with the economy of a parochial district, to detect, without further inquiry, the presence of a clergyman who feels an interest in promoting the comfort and improving the habits of his people." "Whenever," on the other hand, "we meet," says an accurate observer of human nature, "with a group of rude, unwashed, uncombed, and squalid children, loitering at the door of a neglected and cheerless cottage, occupied by careless, discontented, and sour-looking labourers, we instantly recognise a parish deprived of the advantages which result from a faithful and active ministry."

On Sunday," instead of seeing the "labourer proceeding with his wife and children, in trim and wellpreserved suits, to his parish church,

(where he cannot, he knows, get his head in,) you will discover the cottagers dozing away the fumes of a Saturday-night's intemperance," or walking along the roads in crowds, dirty, and with their working-clothes on!

"If," adds our observer, "our parish churches (filled with faithful and conscientious Ministers) have been represented as so many reservoirs of religious, moral, and literary information, which diffuse their salutary waters over the district in which they stand,—as pebbles thrown into a stagnant lake, at regular distances, form circles, which, gradually extending themselves till they meet, produce at length a gentle undulation of the whole surface, and preserve, while they purify from corruption, the element on which they act;" if such be their operation, where seats are free, and the accommodation ample, can these good effects take place, when, either on account of the smallness of the churches, or the extravagance of their seatrents, not one-sixth or one-tenth of the population can be accommodated?

To prevent men, therefore, from attending divine service, whether it be by not furnishing them with ample church accommodation, or by the high prices of seats, is to become a partaker with other men in their sins, and to do what in us lies to undermine the basis on which the whole order and happiness of civil society is built. It is spreading ignorance and vice throughout the land,-teaching "the false swearer to take the name of God in vain,”— directing" the midnight robber to his neighbour's house, and delivering into the hands of the assassin a dagger to shed innocent blood.”

If such be the necessary effects of excluding the population, in the country, from attending public ordinances, these must be still more aggravated in CITIES and large towns, where the vast congregated mass of human beings, from all quarters, and in every stage of moral discip line, is left unprovided, on Sundays, with religious instruction.Complaints are sometimes heard, that Magistrates have not funds for building churches, and endowing