having become familiarized with the duties of his chair, Dr. Welsh at length
ventured to take a larger share in the general business of the church than
he had hitherto attempted. Accordingly, in 1838, he accepted the office of
vice-convener of the Colonial Committee, and in 1841, that of convener.
This situation, when conscientiously filled, involved an amount of study about
the spiritual wants of our colonies, of extensive correspondence, and delicate
influential management, as had hitherto daunted the boldest, and made them
pause perhaps too often; but in the case of Dr. Welsh, these difficult duties
were entered and discharged with the same unflinching zeal which he had so
successfully brought to his professorship. He also took a very active and
influential share in an important controversy of the day, regarding the monopoly in printing the Bible, which had so long prevailed in Scotland, but was
now felt to be an intolerable religious grievance; and on the monopoly being
abrogated, and a board of control and revision established for the new editions
of the Scriptures, Dr. Welsh was ultimately appointed by government to be
secretary of the board. How he occupied this most trying and responsible
charge is thus stated by his talented and distinguished biographer: "His fitness
was acknowledged by all, and his performance even exceeded the expectations
of the country. In the main matter of securing accuracy in the impressions
of the Scriptures, complete success may truly be said to have been achieved,
and chiefly through his care and knowledge; while the conciliatory manner in
which the control exercised by the board was carried into effect, through him,
guarded against all cause of discontent on the part of the trade, and soon did
away with those jealousies which a little indiscretion might have called into
such activity as to have greatly marred the usefulness of the measure. He
brought the whole machinery into smooth and efficient working order, and
handed it over to his successor in a state that required little more than the
ordinary care of seeing that nothing should interfere with the system as he had arranged it."
During this interval, an under-current had been going on in the life of Dr. Welsh, that was soon to assume the entire predominance. We allude to those great church questions that had been agitated from year to year, and were now to end in the Disruption. Upon these questions he had meditated deeply and conscientiously, and at every step had gone along with the evangelical party in the Church of Scotland, and at last had arrived with them at the conclusion, that further concession to the state was impossible; that all state advantages must be foregone by the church, in behalf of those principles that were part and parcel of her very existence. Such was the decision to which the controversy had come in 1842; and upon that memorable year, the decision was to be announced, and the church committed on the issue. At such a solemn period of assize, the high estimation in which Dr. Welsh was held was fully shown by his election to the office of moderator of the General Assembly; and this office, now so fraught with difficulty and deep responsibility, he undertook with fear and trembling. The faithfulness and ability with which he discharged it, is matter of history. Many important measures were passed at the sittings of this Assembly; but the most important of all was the "claim, declaration, and protest," in which the spiritual rights of the church were announced, the assumptions of the civil courts abjured, and the resolution of foregoing all the benefits of an Establishment distinctly declared, unless these rights were recognized, and the encroachments of the civil courts terminated.
