and to ascertain the number of the really {12} necessitous in each parish. The stipends of ministers were to be collected by the deacons from the tithes; but all illegal exactions were to be previously abolished, and measures taken to relieve the labourers of the ground from the oppressive manner in which the tithes had been gathered by the clergy, or by those to whom they had farmed them. The revenues of bishoprics, and of cathedral and collegiate churches, with the rents arising from the endowments of monasteries and other religious foundations, were to be divided, and appropriated to the support of the universities, or of the churches within their bounds. Nothing could be more unpalatable than doctrine of this kind to a considerable number of the protestant nobility and gentry. They had for some time fixed a covetous eye on the rich revenues of the popish clergy. Some of them had seized upon church‑lands, or retained the tithes in their own hands. Others had taken long leases of them from the clergy for small sums of money, and were anxious to have these private bargains legalized. Hence their aversion to have the Book of Discipline ratified;[18] hence the poverty and the complaints of the ministers, {13} and the languishing state of the universities. The Swiss Reformer, by his eloquence and his firmness, enabled his countrymen to gain a conquest over their avarice, which was more honourable to them than any of their other victories, when he prevailed on them to appropriate the whole revenues of the popish establishment to the support of the protestant church and seminaries of literature.[19] But it was not so easy a matter to manage the turbulent and powerful barons of Scotland, as it was to sway the minds of the burgomasters of Zurich. When we consider, however, the extent of the establishments proposed by our reformers, including the support of the ministry, of parochial schools, of city colleges, and of national universities, we cannot regard the demand which they made on the funds devoted to the church as extravagant or unreasonable. They showed themselves disinterested by the moderate share which they asked for themselves; and the worst that we can say of their plan is, that it was worthy of a more enlightened and liberal age, in which it might have met with rulers more capable of appreciating its utility, and better disposed to carry it into execution.[20]