But the Church had gone too far to retrace her steps, and she now raised the banner of Spiritual Independence. Other questions had come to the front which heightened and intensified the feeling that prevailed. By the equally illegal Chapel Act, also passed in 1834, chapel districts were formed into parishes _quoad sacra_, and their ministers found entitled to seats in the Church Courts. The minister of Ardoch Chapel at once took his seat in the Presbytery, and was followed in due time by the ministers of the West Church, Crieff, and the Chapel at Blairingone. The Church had been led into an _impasse_ from which there was no outlet but by secession. The secession came. In defence of their somewhat mysterious principles no fewer than 451 ministers, on the 18th day of May, 1843, left the Church. All the world wondered. It was said that in no country other than Scotland could such a spectacle have been seen. Yet one cannot help looking back with sorrow upon the blundering that made it possible. Like the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, it was "magnificent, but not war." With the addition of the chapel ministers the membership of Auchterarder Presbytery had risen to eighteen. The parish of Auchterarder was still vacant. Of the remaining seventeen, eight were found to have seceded. Of these, five were legal members of Presbytery--viz., James Carment, Comrie; Peter Brydie, Fossoway; John Reid Omond, Monzie; John Ferguson, Monzievaird; and James Thomson, Muckhart. The three others were the chapel ministers--Samuel Grant, Ardoch; Finlay Macalister, West Church, Crieff; and Andrew Noble, Blairingone. The case of Mr Brydie, of Fossoway, was somewhat peculiar. On October 13, 1843, he petitioned the Presbytery asking it to annul its judgment with regard to him, and submitted a medical certificate to the effect that at the time of his secession he was "in a state of lunacy." The Presbytery, having consulted the Synod, reponed him, on the ground that at the time he separated himself from the Church he had been in a state of unsound mind.