597
her rights and liberties. The Evangelical party,
with whom he had always thoroughly agreed and
sympathized, had found themselves in a majority
in the Assembly of 1834; and had given effect to
their principles and views of the teaching of Scrip-
ture and the constitution of the Church of Scotland,
by passing the Veto Law, to prevent the intrusion
by patrons of ministers upon congregations against
the wishes of the majority of the members; and the
Chapel Act, to place the ministers of chapels of
ease on an equal footing with those of parishes as
to their ecclesiastical standing and advantages for
their work. These measures of reform had been
generally accepted by all parties, and had worked
very well and given increased popularity and effici-
ency to the church; but on a presentee to Auchter-
arder being rejected in terms of the Veto Law, an
action was raised in the Court of Session, to have it
found that the presbytery was not entitled to reject
him on account of the opposition of the people.
In the passing of the acts that led to the conflict
which was then beginning Mr. Candlish had no part;
but he was a member of the General Assembly that
met in 1839, when the House of Lords had just given
the final decision on this Auchterarder case, denying
the legality of the Veto Act, by which the church
had sought to secure the freedom of her people in
the purely spiritual matter of the calling and ordina-
tion of ministers over them. The Moderate party
proposed that that act should, without being repealed
by the church, be thenceforth disregarded, since it
had been declared illegal by the supreme civil tribunal
of the country. In the debate on this point Mr.
Candlish made his first Assembly speech. It was
in support of the view that, as the Veto Law was
not of a civil nature, it could not be given up by the
church in deference to the civil courts without
surrendering her spiritual independence as a church
of Christ; and it was more especially called forth
by a motion made by Dr. Muir, of St. Stephen's,
Edinburgh, attempting a sort of middle course or
compromise between the two opposing principles.
"The objections to the scheme were stated," says
Dr. Buchanan, "and urged with singular felicity and
force, by one who was destined from that day forward
to exert perhaps a greater influence than any other
single individual in the church, upon the conduct
and issue of this eventful controversy. The reputation
of Mr. Candlish as a preacher was already well known.
His extraordinary talents in debate and his rare
capacity for business, not hitherto having had any
adequate occasion to call them forth, were as yet
undiscovered by the public, probably undiscovered
even by himself. They seemed, however, to have
needed no process of training to bring them to ma-
turity. The very first effort found him abreast of
the most practised and powerful orators, and as much
at home in the management of affairs as those who
had made this the study of their life. There was a
glorious battle to fight, and a great work to do on
the arena of the Church of Scotland; and in him, as
well as in others evidently raised up for the emergency,
the Lord had his fitting instruments prepared."1
Mr. Candlish's powers in debate and in the con-
duct of business led to his having some of the most
important public duties in the church intrusted to
him, as new and greater complications arose, espe-
cially from the course pursued by the Presbytery of
Strathbogie in the Marnoch case. The majority of
that church court resolved, in disobedience to the
express injunctions of their ecclesiastical superiors,
and in deference to the civil court, to ordain to the
l Ten Years' Conflict, vol. i. pp. 460-1.—Ed. 1854.
charge of the parish of Marnoch a man against
whom the whole congregation solemnly protested;
and it became necessary to suspend them from their
office, not as a punishment, but simply to prevent
their committing this gross outrage in the name of
the church. A special meeting of the Commission
of Assembly was held in December, 1839, at which
Mr. Candlish moved, and carried by a majority of
121 to 14, the suspension of seven ministers of the
Presbytery of Strathbogie.
Immediately thereupon he had to go down to that
district, along with Mr. Cunningham and others, to
intimate in the parishes of the several suspended
ministers the sentence that had just been pronounced.
But before this could be done these ministers had
obtained an interdict from the Court of Session
against the sentence being intimated in their parish
churches, churchyards, or schools. This interdict,
though it was held to be unjust and oppressive, was
without hesitation obeyed; because it related only to
the use of premises which were the property of the
State, and so within the jurisdiction of the civil court.
Accordingly, it was in the open air that Mr. Candlish
preached at Huntly, and other ministers in the other
parishes, intimating the suspension of the ministers,
and supplying ordinances to their people.
Soon afterwards however the Court of Session,
on the application of these ministers, granted an
extended interdict, forbidding any minister of the
Established Church to preach anywhere within these
parishes without the authority of the legal incumbents.
As this interdict interfered directly with the purely
spiritual function of preaching the gospel, it was
deliberately disregarded; and the most grave and
godly ministers of the church willingly went, at her
appointment, to dispense the means of grace among
the people whose ministers had been suspended.
Mr. Candlish was not sent on this duty till the spring
of 1841, when he again preached in Huntly, this
time in a new place of worship that had been built
by voluntary contributions.
This act, though it was in no way different from
what the evangelical ministers of the Church of
Scotland had been systematically doing for a year
past, was made the occasion of depriving him of an
appointment for which he was highly qualified. By
the recommendation of a royal commission the
government had resolved to institute a chair of
biblical criticism in the University of Edinburgh,
and Mr. Candlish was nominated as its first occupant.
The appointment was all but completed when Lord
Aberdeen made a violent attack upon him in the
House of Lords, alleging that he had violated the
law by preaching at Huntly about a fortnight before;
and in consequence of this, Lord Normanby, the
home secretary, cancelled the appointment. In
his published letter to Lord Normanby on this sub-
ject, which at the time made a deep impression, Mr.
Candlish vindicated himself from the charge of
breaking the law, and pointed out the deep-rooted
convictions and high principles that were involved
in the unhappy conflict between the church and the
civil courts.
In the Assembly that followed, May, 1841, he
melted and almost carried away the whole house by
his persuasive and pathetic appeal to the Moderate
party to acquiesce in the passing of the Duke of
Argyll's Bill, which would have put an end to the
conflict. This and other attempts at an adjustment
proved vain, and matters went on into further com-
plications. It was no longer a question merely
about the legal competency of the Assembly to pass
the Veto Law and Chapel Act by its own authority;
for the Court of Session now claimed the right of