Page:Penelope's Progress.djvu/91

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
Penelope's Progress
77

the Southern heat of passionate conviction that colored his slow Northern speech; the remoteness of his personality; the weariness of his deep-set eyes, that bespoke such fastings and vigils as he probably never practiced,—all this led to our choice of the name.

As we walked toward St. Andrew's Church and Tanfield Hall, where he insisted on taking me to get the "proper historical background," he told me about the great Disruption movement. He was extremely eloquent,—so eloquent that the image of Willie Beresford tottered continually on its throne, and I found not the slightest difficulty in giving an unswerving allegiance to the principles presented by such an orator.

We went first to St. Andrew's, where the General Assembly met in 1843, and where the famous exodus of the Free Protesting Church took place,—one of the most important events in the modern history of the United Kingdom.

The movement was promoted by the great Dr. Chalmers and his party, mainly to abolish the patronage of livings, then in the hands of certain heritors or patrons, who might appoint any minister they wished, without consulting the congregation. Needless to say, as a free-born American citizen, and never having had a heritor in the family, my blood easily boiled at the recital of such tyranny. In 1834 the Church had passed a law of its own, it seems, ordaining that no pre-