Such was the general tenor of Mr Morren's pursuits such the nature of the studies and occupations in which he delighted especially to indulge. For a short period, however, his most cherished studies were destined to suffer an interruption; and his pen, accustomed to nobler and less exciting topics, was devoted to the less congenial, but, at the time, not less needful duty of controversial warfare.

From his earliest years he had been attached to what is popularly denominated the Evangelical party; and whatever efforts had been made for securing what he believed to be the constitutional privileges of the private members of the Church, had received his cordial approbation and support. For several years, however, before the Secession of 1843, he, in common with several of his brethren, had become dissatisfied with many of the proceedings, and indeed with the general policy adopted by the movement party then in power; being fully satisfied, in his own mind, that these proceedings were unconstitutional and unsafe, and that, sooner or later, the result must be, either the defeat of the party or the ruin of the Establishment.

After long and earnest private consultation, it was resolved that an attempt should be made to induce the Church to remove from her statute-book that Act which had been the origin of her misfortunes, and the pertinacious retaining of which, it was believed, prevented the removal of them. Accordingly, in the month of September 1841, a meeting of ministers connected with the Synod of Glasgow and Ayr was held in the vestry of Gorbals church, Glas

b

gow, at which the "Declaration,"* afterwards quoted by Mr Morren in "Church Politics," pp. 13-14, was agreed to. In this proceeding Mr Morren took a leading part. Its great object was to strengthen the

*The following is a copy of this document, which we subjoin as embodying Mr Morren's views, the declaration having been drawn up chiefly by him.

66 DECLARATION REGARDING THE VETO ACT.

"We, the undersigned, ministers of the Church of Scotland, viewing with apprehension and alarm the present critical position of our national establishment, have resolved, after anxious and mature consideration, to make the following DECLARATION :—

"I. Believing that a National Church should be based on the affections of the people, we are prepared to employ every constitutional means in our power to procure from the legislature an enactment which shall confer on the members of our church that due influence in the settlement of their ministers, which, independently of higher considerations, we hold to be, under Providence, one of the best securities for the efficiency and permanency of a religious establishment.

"II. We are fully persuaded, however, that a very formidable obstacle will be thrown in the way of obtaining such an enactment, by any further attempt on the part of the Church to maintain in force. the 'Act of Assembly, 1835, anent calls,' commonly called the Veto Law.

"Adherence to that measure was long defended on the ground, that its repeal would have interfered with the negotiations that have been carried on for these two years past, with a view to obtain its ratification by parliament. But as every reasonable hope of its becoming the law of the land has now vanished, we cannot refrain from expressing our deep and earnest conviction, that any longer delay will only increase and aggravate the embarrassments that unhappily exist. Having failed in obtaining the concurrence of the civil authorities, both judicial and legislative, in her view of a matter which unquestionably involves civil rights secured by civil statute, the Church ought to abrogate a law which she adopted in the honest persuasion that it lay within her constitutional prerogative-which she certainly would not have passed could she have anticipated its lamentable consequences and which (as she is powerless to enforce it without the

hands of ministers entertaining kindred sentiments, throughout the Synod and the Church, in order that, in their several presbyteries, they might labour to accomplish the intended result. And though, to a certain

co-operation of the state) amounts to a virtual subversion of the Establishment in every parish where it is resisted. As it was the first source of our difficulties, we believe it to be a great hindrance to their removal; and we therefore feel ourselves called on to endeavour by every proper effort to procure its speedy abolition.

"III. Though we are deeply sensible of the great advantages which our venerable Establishment has been the means of conferring upon the country, and are anxious to see its benefits extended and perpetuated, we could not consent to purchase them at the expense of principle or the sacrifice of conscience. But neither can we incur the fearful responsibility of hazarding the existence of an institution which is the noblest birth-right of the Scottish people, by fruitless adherence to a measure which is not alleged to be of essential necessity, and which may be abandoned without any surrender either of the legitimate rights of the Christian people, or of that supreme allegiance which we owe to the Church's sole King and Head.

"May He who 'is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all churches of the saints,' speedily build up our Zion's breaches, restore harmony to her distracted counsels, and yet more and more establish her-a praise in the earth!

"Glasgow, Sept. 22, 1841."

This document was immediately printed and circulated to a considerable extent. Mr Morren, and some others, were of opinion that it should be published without delay in the newspapers. In this, however, they were overruled. It was thought advisable that, in the first instance, it should be circulated more privately, and the signatures obtained of ministers throughout the Church concurring in the views expressed. It was thus in the course of signature, when it was ascertained that the late Government, then newly entered upon office, were about to introduce a healing measure. The consequent negotiations between the Government and the Non-intrusion Committee in Edinburgh-which, for a time, all were induced to believe would be effective, and which some still confidently hold might have been so, without the smallest sacrifice of principle-brought the matter to an end. It was deemed advisable, at that time, to proceed no further with the declaration.

extent, their object was frustrated by circumstances which they could not control, the parties connected with this movement had this satisfaction-that to that document they could afterwards refer, as containing an early record of their views. They had also the farther satisfaction of believing that the steps which they had taken prepared the way for a subsequent movement, in connexion with the scheme of adjustment proposed by Sir George Sinclair a movement which, in the apprehension of many of them, tended greatly to facilitate the arrangement ultimately adopted, under which the Church of Scotland has had the privilege of seeing her vacant parishes so harmoniously supplied; and many of her people, who had for a time withdrawn, already returning to her communion, to enjoy the unimpaired privileges transmitted to them.

Not contented, however, with the steps which he had already taken, Mr Morren, at once to vindicate his consistency by fully explaining his views upon the questions at that time so keenly agitated, and to meet what he believed to be very grievous misrepresentations of the true state of these questions, consented for a brief period to relinquish his more congenial studies, and gird himself for the controversy. Under the title of "My Church Politics," he published, in rapid succession, a series of letters addressed to the members of his congregation, containing his views on the whole subject in debate, and which exhibit satisfactory evidence of the sagacity with which his mind could seize upon the main points of an argument — the skill with which he could detect a cautiously-lurking sophism, however concealed by mystifying verbiage, and draw it forth, even when it had sought refuge in

a sanctuary of sacred terms. Of this work, many thousand copies found a ready sale,-and the author enjoyed the rich reward of knowing that his labours had been the means, in very many instances, of instructing the ignorant, correcting the erring, confirming the wavering, and strengthening the weak.

When the Secession of 1843 at length occurred, it did not take Mr Morren by surprise. He lamented its origin; he grieved for many of its results; he mourned over the heart-rending separations which necessarily ensued; but, as to the line of duty, he had no doubt. He had manfully and prayerfully taken his position, at a period so early that no candid mind should have mistaken his motives—at a time, indeed, when, as far as man could see, the issue of the contest was extremely doubtful; and when, from numerous and very unequivocal omens, it was no difficult matter to divine what his fate, as a clergyman, was likely to be, in the event of the result of the contest being other than it actually proved. Opposition and obloquy awaited him; but these things moved him not. With his views, and his clear convictions, such as they were, to have acted otherwise than he did would have been to violate his conscience and sin against God. He was not the man to do so. He possessed not that convenient imbecility which, conscious of its own incapacity and indecision, is prepared at all times, even in matters of the highest import, to succumb to the opinions of others; and which, to avoid the necessity of forming an independent judgment, grasps at one ready-made and sanctioned by authority; thinking it merit enough, if it makes up by the pertinacity of its retention, for the facility of its acquirement. This talent was not