256

HISTORY OF ESTBLAND.

CnAP.

XIII.

1G89.

the ascetic habits and rigid discipline of the Presbyterianswished for an union as the only mode of maintaining prelacy inthe northern part of the island. In an united Parliament theEnglish members must greatly preponderate; and in Englandthe Bishops were held in high honour by the great majorityof the population. The Episcopal Church of Scotland, it wasplain, rested on a narrow basis, and would fall before the firstattack. The Episcopal Church of Great Britain might have afoundation broad and solid enough to withstand all assaults.

Whether, in 1689, it would have been possible to effect acivil union without a religious union may ivell be doubted. Butthere can be no doubt that a religious union would have beenone of the greatest calamities that could have befallen eitherkingdom. The union accomplished in 1707 has indeed been agreat blessing both to England and to Scotland. But it hasbeen a blessing because, in constituting one State, it left twoChurches. The political interest of the contracting parties wasthe same: but the ecclesiastical dispute between them was onewhich admitted of no compromise. They could therefore pre-serve harmony only by agreeing to differ. Had there been anamalgamation of the hierarchies, there never w r ould have beenan amalgamation of the nations. Successive Mitchells wouldhave fired at successive Sharpes. Five generations of Claver-houses would have butchered five generations of Camerons.Those marvellous improvements which have changed the faceof Scotland would never have been effected. Plains now richwith harvests w r ould have remained barren moors. Waterfallswhich now turn the wheels of immense factories would have re-sounded in a wilderness. New Lanark would still have been asheepwalk, and Greenock a fishing hamlet. What littlestrength Scotland could under such a system have possessedmust, in an estimate of the resources of Great Britain, havebeen, not added, but deducted. So encumbered, our country