The
mass of the ministers, after the return of Charles II. before
Worcester fight, before bloody Dunbar, were not irreconcilables. The
Auld Kirk, the Kirk Established, has some right to call herself the
Church of Scotland by historical continuity, while the opposite
claimants, the men of 1843, may seem rather to descend from people
like young Renwick, the last hero who died for their ideas, but not,
in himself, the only 'lawful minister' between Tweed and Cape Wrath.
'Other times, other manners.' All the Kirks are perfectly loyal; now
none persecutes; interference with private life, 'Kirk discipline,' is
a vanishing minimum; and, but for this recent 'garboil' (as our old
writers put it) we might have said that, under differences of
nomenclature, all the Kirks are united at last, in the only union
worth having, that of peace and goodwill. That union may be restored,
let us hope, by good temper and common sense, qualities that have not
hitherto been conspicuous in the ecclesiastical history of Scotland,
or of England.
XIV
_THE END OF JEANNE DE LA MOTTE_
In the latest and best book on Marie Antoinette and the Diamond
Necklace, _L'Affaire du Collier_, Monsieur Funck-Brentano does not
tell the sequel of the story of Jeanne de la Motte, _nee_ de
Saint-Remy, and calling herself de Valois.
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