But if there was disappointment from the Government, there was extraordinary encouragement from the people. In 1838 he was able to announce to the General Assembly, as the fruit of four years’ labour, that there had been added to the Establishment nearly two hundred churches, and that upwards of £200,000 had been contributed for their erection. It was a result wholly unprecedented, and on all hands was regarded with amazement, and as a most wonderful testimony to the eloquence and energy with which he had advocated the cause. Worn out, and much in need of rest though he felt himself to be, he was induced to remain for some time longer at the head of the committee, and among other labours he added that of a tour over the whole country, in which he advocated his plan with his usual eloquence. But, in the Forties, the shadow of the conflict between the civil and ecclesiastical courts had fallen on the Extension Scheme, and it began to languish. In the course of his convenership the progress of the undertaking had been as follows:— In 1835, 62 churches, £65,620 1 11-¾ In 1836, 26 " 32,359 12 6-¾ In 1837, 67 " 59,311 6 0 In 1838, 32 " 41,183 1 1-¾ In 1839, 14 " 52,959 14 14-¾ In 1840, 15 " 36,055 8 8-¾ In 1841, 6 " 18,252 6 6- --- ------------------ Total, 222 " £305,741 11 3-½ Unhappily, a painful controversy arose among the home-churches out of the effort to obtain a national endowment for the new parishes. Nonconformists, for the most part, viewed the application with great dislike, and opposed it tooth and nail. It was bad enough, in their view, that a particular church should be maintained from the public funds, and enjoy peculiar social privileges; but it was not to be borne that it should receive a further grant of public money, of which, of course, nonconformists would have to pay their share. The right way to support ministers, according to the New Testament, was by the voluntary contributions of the people. This, moreover, was a benefit to the people themselves; it led them to take a greater interest in their church, and to attach more value to its ministrations. Thus it happened that every church-extension meeting was more or less an anti-voluntary meeting, the speakers who pled for the scheme vehemently upholding the principle of an establishment. Of the younger men who fought on this ground with Chalmers, none was more strenuous than the late Dr. Guthrie. But Guthrie lived to change his view; and in an autobiographical fragment he tells us, that even when he was denouncing the voluntary system, in his secret heart he honoured, and even envied, the men whose living was derived solely from the freewill offerings of their people.