of his subjects; no ceremonial ritual was imposed upon their consciences; the pastors were reconciled by the prospect of preferment,[B] the dress and train of the bishops were plain and decent; the system of tythes was placed upon a moderate and unoppressive footing;[C] and, perhaps, on the whole, the Scottish hierarchy contained as few objectionable points as any system of church-government in Europe.  Had it subsisted to the present day, although its doctrines could not have been more pure, nor its morals more exemplary, than those of the present kirk of Scotland, yet its degrees of promotion might have afforded greater encouragement to learning, and objects of laudable ambition to those, who might dedicate themselves to its service.  But the precipitate bigotry of the unfortunate Charles I. was a blow to episcopacy in Scotland, from which it never perfectly recovered.

[Footnote A:  Of this the Covenanters were so sensible, as to trace (what they called) the Antichristian hierarchy, with its idolatry, superstition, and human inventions, “to the prelacy of England, the fountain whence all these Babylonish streams issue unto us.”—­See their manifesto on entering England, in 1640.]

[Footnote B:  Many of the preachers, who had been loudest in the cause of presbytery, were induced to accept of bishoprics.  Such was, for example, William Cooper, who was created bishop of Galloway.  This recreant Mass John was a hypochondriac, and conceived his lower extremities to be composed of glass; hence, on his court advancement, the following epigram was composed: 

    "Aureus heu! frugilem confregit malleus urnam."]

[Footnote C:  This part of the system was perfected in the reign of Charles I.]

It has frequently happened, that the virtues of the individual, at least their excess (if, indeed, there can be an excess in virtue), have been fatal to the prince.  Never was this more fully exemplified than in the history of Charles I. His zeal for religion, his family affection, the spirit with which he defended his supposed rights, while they do honour to the man, were the fatal shelves upon which the monarchy was wrecked.  Impatient to accomplish the total revolution, which his father’s cautious timidity had left incomplete, Charles endeavoured at once to introduce into Scotland the church-government, and to renew, in England, the temporal domination, of his predecessor, Henry VIII.  The furious temper of the Scottish nation first took fire; and the brandished footstool of a prostitute[A] gave the signal for civil dissension, which ceased not till the church was buried under the ruins of the constitution; till the nation had stooped to a military despotism; and the monarch to the block of the executioner.

[Footnote A:  “Out, false loon! wilt thou say the mass at my lug (ear),” was the well known exclamation of Margaret Geddes, as she discharged her missile tripod against the bishop of Edinburgh, who, in obedience to the orders of the privy-council, was endeavouring to rehearse the common prayer.  Upon a seat more elevated, the said Margaret had shortly before done penance, before the congregation, for the sin of fornication:  such, at least, is the tory tradition.]