How did the Scottish clergy obey them? They erected all these jurisdictions into _bona fide_ "parishes," enjoying the plenary rights (as to church government) of the other parishes, and distinguished from them in a merely nominal way as parishes _quoad sacra_. There were added at once to the presbyteries, which are the organs of the church power, 203 clerical persons for the chapels of ease, and 42 for the highland churches--making a total of 245 new members. By the constitution of the Scottish church, an equal number of lay elders (called ruling elders) accompany the clerical elders. Consequently 490 new members were introduced at once into that particular class of courts (presbyteries) which form the electoral bodies in relation to the highest court of General Assembly. The effect of this change, made in the very teeth of the law, was twofold. First, it threw into many separate presbyteries a considerable accession of voters--_all owing their appointments to the General Assembly_. This would at once give a large bias favourable to their party views in every election for members to serve in the Assembly. Even upon an Assembly numerically limited, this innovation would have told most abusively. But the Assembly was _not_ limited; and therefore the whole effect was, at the same moment, greatly to extend the electors and the elected. Here, then, was the machinery by which the faction worked. They drew that power from Scotland rekindled into a temper of religious anxiety, which they never could have drawn from Scotland lying torpid, as she had lain through the 18th century. The new machinery, (created by Parliament in order to meet the wishes of the Scottish nation,) the money of that nation, the awakened zeal of that nation; all these were employed, honourably in one sense, that is, not turned aside into private channels for purposes of individuals, but factiously in the result, as being for the benefit of a faction; honourably as regarded the open _mode_ of applying such influence--a mode which did not shrink from exposure; but most dishonourably, in so far as privileges, which had been conceded altogether for a spiritual object, were abusively transferred to the furtherance of a temporal intrigue. Such were the methods by which the new-born ambition of the clergy moved; and that ambition had become active, simply because it had suddenly seemed to become practicable. The presbyteries, as being the effectual electoral bodies, are really the main springs of the ecclesiastical administration. To govern _them_, was in effect to govern the church. A new scheme for extending religion, had opened a new avenue to this control over the presbyteries. That opening was notoriously unlawful. But not the less, the church faction precipitated themselves ardently upon it; and but for the faithfulness of the civil courts, they would never have been dislodged from what they had so suddenly acquired.