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THE RECENT SCHISMS.

BI

TURN THEE AGAIN, THOU GOD OF HOSTS, LOOK DOWN FROM HEAVEN,

BEHOLD, AND VISIT THIS VINE.

LONDON:
EDWARDS & HUGHES, 12, AVE MARIA LANE.

THE RECENT SCHISMS.

§ I. THE POSITION OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH.

It does not fall within our immediate purpose to dwell on the wonderful and chequered history of the Church's existence in Scotland,-fraught as that history is with lessons of instruction and warning, if only we will bend our hearts, and enquire of the voices which come to us along that providential track, where our Mother's footsteps have been traced. But, before proceeding to the painful task before us, it will be well rapidly to recur to one or two points, which may the better enable us to realise our present position. The fact, to which it most concerns us in the meantime to attend, is that of the continued preservation of an independent branch of the Church Catholic in this nation. Through vicissitudes and perils of the most opposite character, our National Church has been preserved; in spite of the blighting support of worldly politicians, on the one hand, and of bitter persecution, on the other, the Divine Institution, the Ark of God's Church still remains among us. That Church remains to us, whether men will hear or whether they will forbear, our only spiritual Mother, to whose voice we are all bound to listen, and in whose bosom is our only resting place. It matters not that she now sits in the dust-that the world passes her by with proud contempt that evil tongues are around her-that false witnesses are risen up against her-that all on every side, however otherwise among themselves discordant, are agreed in confederation against her:-our home is within her fold,-hers is the guiding hand on which we must lean, she only has the Divine commission, which human power can neither give nor take away. If we be true sons, our love will glow the more warmly for our Mother's injuries. And, if God be with her, we may be sure her weakness will prove her might.

When the Church first came to our distant region, she came with nought to avouch her but her Apostolic Commission. In

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