held that they had never been the law of the Church of Scotland. Still, he
was of opinion that the existing patronage was a great evil, that required a
total amendment. He declared it to be a hard thing upon the people of Scotland, that an individual, who might be deficient in principles, knowledge, and
morals, should dictate to the worthy and respectable the man whom they
should receive as their minister. And it was harder still, he thought, that this
patron might be of any or of no religious belief, and in either case, opposed to
the faith of those over whom he appointed a minister. But, worst of all, this
right, originally intended for the good of the people in their highest interests,
might be bought, like any marketable commodity, by a person wholly unconnected with the parish, and who had no interest in its welfare. The church,
indeed, had power to judge and decide on the qualifications of the presentees,
by previously trying them as licentiates, and finding them competent for the
work of the ministry in general, in life, doctrine, and knowledge. But the
preacher thus approved of might be unqualified for the particular charge to
which he was designated; so that, however orthodox, learned, and pious, his
manners, his habits, and mode of preaching might be such as to make him
unsuitable for the people over whom he was appointed. For all this a remedy
was necessary; and that which Dr. Macgill had long contemplated, he pro-
pounded before the Committee of the House of Commons appointed to try the
question of patronage in Scotland. For this purpose his first desideratum was,
the abolition of the act of Queen Anne for the restoration of patronage in our
church. This being obtained, he proposed to divide the representation of the
parish between three bodies, consisting of the heritors, the elders, and the male
communicants, each body to be represented by three delegates, to whom the
nomination of the future pastor might be intrusted. Let this committee of
nine, after having weighed the case, present to their constituents the person of
their choice, whom they had approved by a majority of votes; and should any
disputes afterwards arise upon the concurrence of the people, let the case be
settled by the decision of the church-courts. Such is an abstract of his plan,
by which he hoped the despotism of patronage on the one hand, and the anarchy
of popular election on the other, would be equally avoided. But subsequent
events showed that this, as well as many other such plans, was but a "devout
imagination." The agitation against patronage was followed by the Veto-law,
and finally by the Disruption. No compromise or half measures nothing short
of a total abrogation of the evil complained of, was found sufficient to satisfy the remonstrants.
After this the course of Dr. Macgill’s life went onward tranquilly but usefully; and of the events that occurred till the close, a brief notice may suffice. In 1824, in consequence of a discovery by Dr. M'Crie, the able biographer of John Knox, that our Scottish reformer was educated, not at St. Andrews, as had hitherto been supposed, but at the university of Glasgow, Dr. Macgill conceived that Glasgow was the proper place in which a monument should be erected to his memory. The idea was eagerly caught by several of the spirited citizens, and the result was that stem column on the height of the Fir Park, better known as the Glasgow Necropolis, surmounted by the statue of Knox himself, with the Bible in one hand, and the other stretched out towards the rapidly-growing city, as if he were in the act of uttering the old civic motto, " Let Glasgow flourish by the preaching of the word." In 1828, Dr. Macgill was unanimously elected to the office of moderator of the General Assembly an office which it was thought
