260

HISTOEY 0E ENGLAND.

CIUP.

XIII.

1088 .Compa-rativestrengthof reli-giousparties iuScotland.

It is not likely that, even if the Scottish Bishops had, asWilliam recommended, done all that meekness and prudencecould do to conciliate their countrymen, episcopacy could,under any modification, have been maintained. It was indeedasserted by writers of that generation, and has been repeatedby writers of our generation, that the Presbyterians were not,before the Revolution, the majority of the people of Scotland.*But in this assertion there is an obvious fallacy. The effectivestrength of sects is not to be ascertained merely by countingheads. An established church, a dominant church, a churchwhich has the exclusive possession of civil honours and emolu-ments, will always rank among its nominal members multitudeswho have no religion at all; multitudes who, though notdestitute of religion, attend little to theological disputes, andhave no scruple about conforming to the mode of worship whichhappens to he established; and multitudes who have scruplesabout conforming, hut whose scruples have yielded to worldlymotives. On the other hand, every member of an oppressedchurch is a man who has a very decided preference for thatchurch. A person who, in the time of Diocletian, joined incelebrating the Christian mysteries might reasonably be sup-posed to be a firm believer in Christ. But it would be a verygreat mistake to imagine that one single Pontiff or Augur in theRoman senate was a firm believer in Jupiter. In Mary’s reign,every body who attended the secret meetings of the Protestantswas a real Protestant: but hundreds of thousands went to masswho, as appeared before she had been dead a month, were notreal Roman Catholics. If, under the Kings of the House of

* See, for example, a pamphlet entitled “Some questions resolvedconcerning episcopal and presbyterian government in Scotland, 1090.” Oneof the questions is, whether Scottish presbytery be agreeable to the generalinclinations of that people. The author answers the question in the nega-tive, on the ground that the upper and middle classes had generally con-formed to the episcopal Church before the Revolution.