“When Sion’s bondage God turn’d back,
Like men that dream’d were we;
Then filled with laughter was our mouth,
Our tongue with melody,” etc.
The singing was hearty.
The experience of hundreds of Free churches in Scotland was similar to that of Blinkbonny; and when we consider that the members were a moiety of what those of the Established Church had been previous to the Disruption, and that they had not been trained to systematic giving (for it is matter of history that the contributions of the Church of Scotland previous to 1843, for charitable and religious purposes, were utterly disproportionate to her wealth, and fell far short of what the Dissenters of the period raised), we are the more struck with the stream of devout and intelligent liberality which flowed into the Free Church treasury steadily and continually, and which is still flowing.
MORE TO FOLLOW.
The years 1844–1847 were severe years for the country. Owing to the potato disease and consequent dulness of trade, poverty and want came to many a door, and hundreds not only denied themselves luxuries, but many things formerly considered necessaries were more sparingly used, in order to alleviate the distresses of suffering Ireland and the Highlands, as well as the general poor; and instead of the one call interfering with the other, both were promptly and nobly met, to an extent that would have been declared unattainable a few years before.
I cannot refrain from making special mention of the cause of foreign missions. It can readily be supposed that with churches, and manses, and in many places schools, to build, and the ministry to support by spontaneous contributions, with no fixed source of income, and little experience of voluntary liberality, the Free Church would have had so much to do at home that there was neither call nor means to undertake foreign mission work.
The mission question was a perplexing one. The missionaries of the Church of Scotland, being out of the arena of immediate conflict, yet conversant with the matters in dispute, were as well qualified as any men could be to judge of the points of contention; and their decision as to whether they would declare themselves as adhering to the Established or Free Church, was anxiously looked for.