The Sun.
London, England, 1834-03-13 00:00:00

CHURCH PATRONAGE IN SCOTLAND.

Colonel LEITH HAY presented two petitions from the
town of lnverary, and the parish of Roseburgh in Dumfries-
shire, for an alteration in the law of church patronage.
Sir WM. RAE, in supporting the petitions, stated, that in
the town of Inverness, it was the intention of government to
appoint a clergyman against the wishes of the parishioners,
and that too, as it was rumoured, upon political considerations.
He regretted that that should be the case, if it were true, which
he did not believe; but it was so reported, and he hoped that
government would disavow such an intention.

Mr. M`KENZIE supported the prayer of the petition.
Mr. WALLACE had been requested also to support the
prayer of the petition. It came from a part of the country re-
mote from where he resided, but he knew the parties
by whom it was signed, and could bear testimony to
their respectability. The petition had this extraordinary
feature that it was signed by the patron of the parish, a most
excelent and estimable gentleman, who was remarkable for
dispensing every sort of good to the community among
whom he resided. He would name him, Mr. Stewart
Monteath. The time was come when that system of church
patronage must be done away with. He did not agree with
the assertion that had been made, that the late right hon. sec-
retary the member for Tamworth had given away the patron-
age of these parishes for political purposes. The hon. member
alluded to the parish of Muirside, and another, in which the
appointments had met with great disapprobation from the
inhabitants.

Mr. C. FERGUSSON thought the hon. member had not con.
fined himself to the subject before the house. He bore testi-
mony to the respectability of the gentlemen whose signatures
were attached to the petition. He thought that the election of
the minister should be in the resident inhabitants of the
parish, being hearers and communicants. As the matter had been
referred to a committee, he thought it would be better to ab.
stain from discussing it there. There was a great difference of
opinion upon the question, but he thought that a change in the
system of church patronage was absolutely necessary, and he
would give his most substantial voice to placing the election
of the minister in the hands of the parishioners.
Mr. MURRAY said he doubted very much whether ap-
pointments to churches in Scotland were influenced either by
servility or the convivial pleasures of the bottle. With respect
to the appointments complained of by the hon. member for
Greenock, he could state that the individual so appointed was of
a distinguished character, a Mr. Macculloch ; there were only two
individuals who had shown any opposition to the appointment,
one of whom had a strong interest in a dissenting church, and
the other was a proprietor, who thought he ought to have had
the appointment himself.
Mr. WALLACE, in explanation, said he did not allude to
individuals, but to the mode of the appointment.
Mr. GILLON said that the gentleman named by the hon.
member (Mr. Murray) had been appointed without consulting
any individual in the parish, and within eight days after the
death of the incumbent.

Mr. HUME said that, as an exemplification of the system
of patronage, he knew an instance where the editor ofa violent
paper, who had been abusing him (Mr. Hume) for many years,
had been removed from Montrose and placed in a church at
Dundee for his political subserviency.—(Hear, hear, and
a laugh.) It was a matter of course, and he did not
complain of individual acts but of the system. It would be
im-
possible for a corrupt government, at least one influenced
strongly, to support individual opinions,—it required more
than human virtue to resist the applications that were made, and
he put it to his right hon. friend whether applications were not
often made in a manner that could not possibly be resisted.—
(A laugh.) It was against this temptation that he was anxious
to see some remedy adopted.
The petition was then ordered to lie on the table.