{Transcriber's Note:

All square brackets [] are from the original text. Braces {} ("curlybrackets") are supplied by the transcriber. 

A caret character '^' indicates the following letters are superscriptin the original. 

More transcriber's notes are provided at the end of the text. }

LEADING ARTICLESON VARIOUS SUBJECTS. 

{Illustration: W. H. McFarlane, Lith^r Edin^rHUGH MILLER_Fac-simile of a Calotype by D. O. Hill, R. I. A. 1845. See page 184_}

MURRAY AND GIBB, EDINBURGH, PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE. 

LEADING ARTICLES

ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS. 

BY

HUGH MILLER, AUTHOR OF 'THE OLD RED SANDSTONE, ' ETC. ETC. 

_EDITED BY HIS SON-IN-LAW_, THE REV. JOHN DAVIDSON. 

_FOURTH EDITION. _

EDINBURGH:WILLIAM P. NIMMO. 1872. 

PREFACE. 

The present volume is issued in compliance with the strong solicitationsof many, to whose desire deference was due. In selecting the articles, I have been guided mainly by two considerations, --namely, thenecessity for reproducing the mature opinion of a great mind, upongreat subjects; and for making the selection so varied, as to convey tothe reader some idea of the wonderful versatility of the powerswhich could treat subjects so diverse in their nature with suchuniform eloquence and discrimination. I trust that the chapters onEducation will prove to be a valuable contribution to the speedysettlement of that question at the present crisis. Those onSutherlandshire are inserted because they possess a permanent value, in connection with the social and economical history of our country. Some of the articles are of a personal character, and are introduced, not, certainly, for the purpose of recalling old animosities, butsolely to illustrate the author's method of using some of the moreformidable figures of speech; while over against these may be set someon purely literary subjects, which show the genial tenderness of hisdisposition towards those who aspired to serve God and their generationby giving to the world the fruit of their imagination, their labour, and their leisure. 

I have not determined the selection without securing the counsel andapproval of men on whose judgment I could rely. It only remains for meto thank them, and in an especial way to thank Mr. D. O. Hill for theportrait which forms the frontispiece. An impersonal reference to asimilar portrait taken at the same time will be found at page 184, inthe article on 'The Calotype. '

JOHN DAVIDSON. 

_London, March 8, 1870. _

CONTENTS

 PAGE

 THOUGHTS ON THE EDUCATIONAL QUESTION, 1

 LORD BROUGHAM, 105

 THE SCOTT MONUMENT, 111

 THE LATE MR. KEMP, 119

 ANNIE M'DONALD AND THE FIFESHIRE FORESTER, 123

 A HIGHLAND CLEARING, 136

 THE POET MONTGOMERY, 146

 CRITICISM--INTERNAL EVIDENCE, 151

 THE SANCTITIES OF MATTER, 161

 THE LATE REV. ALEXANDER STEWART, 170

 THE CALOTYPE, 179

 THE TENANT'S TRUE QUARREL, 190

 CONCLUSION OF THE WAR IN AFFGHANISTAN, 199

 PERIODICALISM, 206

 'ANNUS MIRABILIS, ' 215

 EFFECTS OF RELIGIOUS DISUNION ON COLONIZATION, 223

 FINE-BODYISM, 232

 ORGANSHIP, 240

 BAILLIE'S LETTERS AND JOURNALS, 249

 FIRST PRINCIPLES, 262

 AN UNSPOKEN SPEECH, 269

 DISRUPTION PRINCIPLES, 280

 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CRIMEAN WAR, 293

 THE POETS OF THE CHURCH, 302

 THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA, 315

 A VISION OF THE RAILROAD, 327

 THE TWO MR. CLARKS, 337

 PULPIT DUTIES NOT SECONDARY, 358

 DUGALD STEWART, 369

 OUR TOWN COUNCILS, 378

 SUTHERLAND AS IT WAS AND IS; OR, HOW A COUNTRY MAY BE RUINED, 388

INTRODUCTORY NOTETOTHOUGHTS ON THE EDUCATIONAL QUESTION. 

The following chapters on the Educational Question first appeared as aseries of articles in the _Witness_ newspaper. They present, inconsequence, a certain amount of digression, and occasionalre-statement and explanation, which, had they been publishedsimultaneously, as parts of a whole, they would not have exhibited. The controversy was vital and active at every stage of theirappearance. Statements made and principles laid down in the earlierarticles had, from the circumstance that their truth had beenquestioned or their soundness challenged, to be re-asserted andmaintained in those which followed; and hence some little derangementin the management of the question, for which, however, the interestwhich must always attach to a real conflict may be found tocompensate. That portion of the controversy, however, which arose outof one of the articles of the series, and which some have deemedpersonal, has been struck out of the published edition of thepamphlet, and retained in but an inconsiderable number of copies, placed in the hands of a few friends. In omitting it where it has beenomitted, the writer has acted on the advice of a gentleman for whosejudgment he entertains the most thorough respect, and from a desirethat the general argument should not be prejudiced by a matternaturally, but not necessarily, connected with it. And in retaining itwhere it has been retained, he has done so in the full expectation ofa time not very distant, when it will be decided that he has neitheroutraged the ordinary courtesies of controversy, nor taken up a falseline of inference or statement; and when the importance of the subjectdiscussed will be regarded as quite considerable enough to make anyone earnest, without the necessity of supposing that he had beenpreviously angry. 

It is all-important, that on the general question of NationalEducation, the Free Church should take up her position wisely. Majorities in her courts, however overwhelming, will little availher, if their findings fail to recommend themselves to the goodsense of her people, or are palpably unsuited to the emergencies ofthe time. A powerful writer of the present age employs, in one ofhis illustrations, the bold figure of a ship's crew, that, withthe difficulties of Cape Horn full before them, content themselveswith instituting aboard their vessel a constitutional system ofvoting, and who find delight in contemplating the unanimity whichprevails on matters in general, both above decks and below. 'Butyour ship, ' says Carlyle, 'cannot double Cape Horn by its excellentplans of voting: the ship, to get round Cape Horn, will find a set ofconditions already voted for, and fixed with adamantine rigour, bythe ancient Elemental Powers, who are entirely careless how youvote. If you can by voting, or without voting, ascertain theseconditions, and valiantly conform to them, you will get round theCape: if you cannot, the ruffian Winds will blow you ever back again;the inexorable Icebergs, dumb privy councillors from Chaos, will nudgeyou with most chaotic admonition; you will be flung half-frozen onthe Patagonian cliffs, or jostled into shivers by your icebergcouncillors, and will never get round Cape Horn at all. ' Now thereis much meaning couched in this quaint figure, and meaning which theFree Church would do well to ponder. There are many questions onwhich she could perhaps secure a majority, which yet that majoritywould utterly fail to carry. On the question of College Extension, for instance, she might be able to vote, if she but selected herelders with some little care, that there should be full staffs oftheological professors at Glasgow and Aberdeen. But what would hervotes succeed in achieving? Not, assuredly, the doubling of the Cape;but the certainty of shivering her all-important EducationalInstitute on three inexorable icebergs. In the first place, hermagnificent metropolitan College, like that huge long boat, famousin story, which Robinson Crusoe was able to build, but wholly unableto launch, would change from being what it now is--a trophy of herliberality and wisdom--into a magnificent monument of her folly. Inthe second place, she would have to break faith with her existingprofessors, and to argue, mayhap, when they were becoming thin andseedy, and getting into debt, that she was not morally bound tothem for their salaries. And, in the third and last place, she wouldinfallibly secure that, some twenty years hence at furthest, everytheological professor of the Free Church should be a pluralist, andable to give to his lectures merely those fag-ends of his timewhich he could snatch from the duties of the pulpit and the care ofhis flock. And such, in doubling the Cape Horn of the Collegequestion, is all that unanimity of voting could secure to theChurch; unless, indeed, according to Carlyle, she voted in accordancewith the 'set of conditions already voted for and fixed by theadamantine powers. '

Nor does the question of Denominational Education, now that there is anational scheme in the field, furnish a more, but, on the contrary, amuch less, hopeful subject for mere voting in our church courts, thanthe question of College Extension. It is _not_ to be carried byecclesiastical majorities. Some of the most important facts in the'Ten Years' Conflict' have perhaps still to be recorded; and it is oneof these, that long after the Non-Intrusion party possessed majoritiesin the General Assembly, the laity looked on with exceedingly littleinterest, much possessed by the suspicion that the clergy werebattling, not on the popular behalf, but on their own. Even in 1839, after the Auchterarder case had been decided in the House of Lords, the apathy seemed little disturbed; and the writer of these chapters, when engaged in doing his little all to dissipate it, could address afriend in Edinburgh, to whom he forwarded the MS. Of a pamphlet throwninto the form of a letter to Lord Brougham, in the followingterms:--'The question which at present agitates the Church is a vitalone; and unless the people can be roused to take part in it (and theyseem strangely uninformed and wofully indifferent as yet), the worstcause must inevitably prevail. They may perhaps listen to one of theirown body, who combines the principles of the old with the opinions ofthe modern Whig, and who, though he feels strongly on the question, has no secular interest involved in it. ' It was about this time thatDr. George Cook said--and, we have no doubt, said truly--that he couldscarce enter an inn or a stage-coach without finding respectable meninveighing against the utter folly of the Non-Intrusionists, and theworse than madness of the church courts. For the opponents of theparty were all active and awake at the time, and its incipient friendsstill indifferent or mistrustful. The history of Church petitions inEdinburgh during the ten eventful years of the war brings out thisfact very significantly in the statistical form. From 1833, the yearof the Veto Act, to 1839, the year of the Auchterarder decision, petitions to Parliament from Edinburgh on behalf of the strugglingChurch were usually signed by not more than from four to fivethousand persons. In 1839 the number rose to six thousand. The peoplebegan gradually to awaken, and to trust. Speeches in church courtswere found to have comparatively little influence in creating opinion, or ecclesiastical votes in securing confidence; and so there wereother means of appealing to the public mind resorted to, mayhap notwholly without effect: for in 1840 the annual Church petition fromEdinburgh bore attached to it thirteen thousand signatures; and tothat of the following year (1841) the very extraordinary number oftwenty-five thousand was appended. And, save for the result, generalover Scotland, which we find thus indicated by the Church petitions ofEdinburgh, the Disruption, and especially the origination of a FreeChurch, would have been impossible events. How, we ask, was thatresult produced? Not, certainly, by the votes of ecclesiasticalcourts, --for mere votes would never have doubled the Cape Horn of theChurch question; but simply through the conviction at lengtheffectually wrought in the public mind, that our ministers werestruggling and suffering, not for clerical privileges, but for popularrights, --not for themselves, but for others. And that conviction oncefirmly entertained, the movement waxed formidable; for elsewhere, asin the metropolis, popular support increased at least fivefold; andthe question, previously narrow of base, and very much restricted toone order of men, became broad as the Scottish nation, and deep as thefeelings of the Scottish people. But as certainly as the componentstrands of a cable that have been twisted into strength and coherencyby one series of workings, may be untwisted into loose and feeblethreads by another, so certainly may the majorities of our churchcourts, by a reversal of the charm which won for them the element ofpopular strength, render themselves of small account in the nation. They became strong by advocating, in the Patronage question, popularrights, in opposition to clerical interests: they may and will becomeweak, if in the Educational one they reverse the process, and advocateclerical interests in opposition to popular rights. 

Their country is perishing for lack of a knowledge which they cannotsupply. Every seven years--the brief term during which, if ageneration fail to be educated, the opportunity of education for everpasses away--there are from a hundred and fifty to two hundredthousand of the youth of Scotland added to the adult community in anuntaught, uninformed condition. Nor need we say in how frightful aratio their numbers must increase. The ignorant children of thepresent will become the improvident and careless parents of thefuture; and how improvident and careless the corresponding class whichalready exists among us always approves itself to be, let our prisonsand workhouses tell. Our country, with all its churches, mustinevitably founder among the nations, like a water-logged vessel in atempest, if this state of matters be permitted to continue. And whypermit it to continue? Be it remembered that it is the _national_schools--those schools which are the people's own, and are yetwithheld from them--and not the schools of the Free Church, which itis the object of the Educational movement to open up and extend. Noris it proposed to open them up on a new principle. It is anunchallenged fact, that there exists no statutory provision for theteaching of religion _in them_. All that is really wanted is, totransfer them on their present statutory basis from the few to themany, --from Moderate ministers and Episcopalian heritors, to a peopleessentially sound in the faith--Presbyterian in the proportion of atleast _six_ to one, and Evangelical in the proportion of at least_two_ to one. And at no distant day this transference must and willtake place, if the ministers of the Free Church do not virtually jointheir forces to their brethren of the Establishment in behalf of analleged ecclesiastical privilege nowhere sanctioned in the word ofGod. {1}

There is another important item in this question, over which, asalready determined by inevitable laws, ecclesiastical votes, howeverunanimous, can exert no influence or control. They cannot ordain thatinadequately paid schoolmasters can be other than inferior educators. If the remuneration be low, it is impossible by any mere force ofmajorities to render the teaching high. There is a law already 'votedfor' in the case, which majorities can no more repeal than they canthe law of gravitation. And here we must take the opportunity ofstating--for there has been misrepresentation on the point--what ourinterest in the teachers of Scotland and of the Free Church really is. Certainly not indifferent to their comfort as men, or to the welfareof their profession, as one of the most important and yet worstremunerated in the community, we frankly confess that we look tosomething greatly higher than either their comfort or the professionalwelfare in general. They and their profession are but _means_; and itis to the _end_ that we mainly look, --that end being the righteducation of the Scottish people, and their consequent elevation inthe scale, moral and intellectual. We would deal by the teachers ofthe country in this matter as we would by the stone-cutters ofEdinburgh, were we entrusted with the erection of some such exquisitepiece of masonry as the Scott Monument, or that fine building recentlycompleted in St. Andrew Square. Instead of pitching our scale ofremuneration at the rate of labourers' wages, we would at once pitchit at the highest rate assigned to the skilled mechanic; and this notin order, primarily at least, that the masons engaged should becomfortable, but in order that they should be masters of theirprofession, and that their work should be of the completest and mostfinished kind. For labourers' wages would secure the services of onlybungling workmen, and lead to the production of only inferior masonry. And such is the principle on which we would befriend our poorschoolmasters, --not so much for their own sakes, as for the sake oftheir work. Further, however, it is surely of importance that, whenengaged in teaching religion, they themselves should be enabled, inconformity with one of its injunctions, to 'provide things honest inthe sight of all men. ' Nay, of nothing are we more certain, than thatthe Church has only to exert herself to the extent of the liabilitiesalready incurred to her teachers, in order to be convinced of theabsolute necessity which exists for a broad national scheme. Anydoubts which she may at present entertain regarding the question ofthe _necessity_, are, in part at least, effects of her lax viewsrespecting the question of the _liability_, and of her consequentbelief that _anything well divided_ is sufficient to discharge it. Atthe same time, however, it would be perhaps well that at least ourbetter-paid schoolmasters should be made to reflect that thecircumstances of their position are very peculiar; and that shouldthey take a zealous part against what a preponderating majority of thelaity of their Church must of necessity come to regard as the cause oftheir country, their opposition, though utterly uninfluential in thegeneral struggle, may prove thoroughly effectual in injuringthemselves. For virtually in the Free Church, as in the BritishConstitution, it is the '_Commons_' who grant the supplies. 

We subjoin the paper on the Educational Question, addressed by Dr. Chalmers to the Hon. Mr. Fox Maule, as it first appeared in the_Witness_. The reader will see that there is direct reference made toit in the following pages, and will find it better suited to repaycareful study and frequent perusal than perhaps any other document onthe subject ever written:--

 'It were the best state of things, that we had a Parliament sufficiently theological to discriminate between the right and the wrong in religion, and to encourage or endow accordingly. But failing this, it seems to us the next best thing, that in any public measure for helping on the education of the people, Government were to abstain from introducing the element of religion at all into their part of the scheme; and this not because they held the matter to be insignificant, --the contrary might be strongly expressed in the preamble of their Act, --but on the ground that, in the present divided state of the Christian world, they would take no cognizance of, just because they would attempt no control over, the religion of applicants for aid, --leaving this matter entire to the parties who had to do with the erection and management of the schools which they had been called upon to assist. A grant by the State upon this footing might be regarded as being appropriately and exclusively the expression of their value for a good secular education. 

 'The confinement for the time being of any Government measure for schools to this object we hold to be an imputation, not so much on the present state of our Legislature, as on the present state of the Christian world, now broken up into sects and parties innumerable, and seemingly incapable of any effort for so healing these wretched divisions as to present the rulers of our country with aught like such a clear and unequivocal majority in favour of what is good and true, as might at once determine them to fix upon and to espouse it. 

 'It is this which has encompassed the Government with difficulties, from which we can see no other method of extrication than the one which we have ventured to suggest. And as there seems no reason why, because of these unresolved differences, a public measure for the health of all--for the recreation of all--for the economic advancement of all--should be held in abeyance, there seems as little reason why, because of these differences, a public measure for raising the general intelligence of all should be held in abeyance. Let the men therefore of all Churches and all denominations alike hail such a measure, whether as carried into effect by a good education in letters or in any of the sciences; and, meanwhile, in these very seminaries let that education in religion which the Legislature abstains from providing for, be provided for as freely and as amply as they will by those who have undertaken the charge of them. 

 'We should hope, as the result of such a scheme, for a most wholesome rivalship on the part of many in the great aim of rearing on the basis of their respective systems a moral and Christian population, well taught in the principles and doctrines of the gospel, along with being well taught in the lessons of ordinary scholarship. Although no attempt should be made to regulate or to enforce the lessons of religion in the inner hall of legislation, this will not prevent, but rather stimulate, to a greater earnestness in the contest between truth and falsehood--between light and darkness--in the outer field of society; nor will the result of such a contest in favour of what is right and good be at all the more unlikely, that the families of the land have been raised by the helping hand of the State to a higher platform than before, whether as respects their health, or their physical comfort, or their economic condition, or, last of all, their place in the scale of intelligence and learning. 

 'Religion would, under such a system, be the immediate product, not of legislation, but of the Christian philanthropic zeal which obtained throughout society at large. But it is well when what legislation does for the fulfilment of its object tends not to the impediment, but rather, we apprehend, to the furtherance, of those greater and higher objects which are in the contemplation of those whose desires are chiefly set on the immortal wellbeing of man. 

 'On the basis of these general views, I have two remarks to offer regarding the Government scheme of education. 

 '1. I should not require a certificate of satisfaction with the religious progress of the scholars from the managers of the schools, in order to their receiving the Government aid. Such a certificate from Unitarians or Catholics implies the direct sanction or countenance by Government to their respective creeds, and the responsibility, not of _allowing_, but, more than this, of _requiring_, that these shall be taught to the children who attend. A bare allowance is but a general toleration; but a requirement involves in it all the mischief, and, I would add, the guilt, of an indiscriminate endowment for truth and error. 

 '2. I would suffer parents or natural guardians to select what parts of the education they wanted for their children. I would not force arithmetic upon them, if all they wanted was reading and writing; and as little would I force the Catechism, or any part of the religious instruction that was given in the school, if all they wanted was a secular education. That the managers of the Church of England schools shall have the power to impose their own Catechism upon the children of Dissenters, and, still more, to compel their attendance on church, I regard as among the worst parts of the scheme. 

 'The above observations, it will be seen, meet any questions which might be put in regard to the applicability of the scheme to Scotland, or in regard to the use of the Douay version in Roman Catholic schools. 

 'I cannot conclude without expressing my despair of any great or general good being effected in the way of Christianizing our population, but through the medium of a Government themselves Christian, and endowing the true religion, which I hold to be their imperative duty, not because it is the religion of the many, but because it is true. 

 'The scheme on which I have now ventured to offer these few observations I should like to be adopted, not because it is absolutely the best, but only the best in existing circumstances. 

 'The endowment of the Catholic religion by the State I should deprecate, as being ruinous to the country in all its interests. Still I do not look for the general Christianity of the people, but through the medium of the Christianity of their rulers. This is a lesson taught _historically_ in Scripture, by what we read there of the influence which the personal character of the Jewish monarchs had on the moral and religious state of their subjects; it is taught _experimentally_, by the impotence, now fully established, of the Voluntary principle; and last, and most decisive of all, it is taught _prophetically_ in the book of Revelation, when told that then will the kingdoms of the earth (_Basileiai_, or governing powers) become the kingdoms of our Lord Jesus Christ, or the Governments of the earth become Christian Governments. 

 (Signed) 'THOMAS CHALMERS. '

-----

 {1} Some of the reasonings of both the Established and Free Church courts on this matter would be amusing were they not so sad. 'Feed my lambs, ' said our Saviour, after His resurrection, to Peter; and again twice over, 'Feed my sheep. ' Now, let us suppose some zealous clergyman setting himself, on the strength of the latter injunction here, to institute a new order of preachers. As barbers frequently amuse their employers with gossip, when divesting them of their beards or trimming their heads, and have opportunities of addressing their fellow-men which are not possessed by the other mechanical professions, the zealous clergyman determines on converting them into preachers, and sets up a Normal School, in order that they may be taught the art of composing short sermons, which they are to deliver when shaving their customers, and longer ones, which they are to address to them when cutting their hair. And in course of time the expounding barbers are sent abroad to operate on the minds and chins of the community. 'There is no mention made of any such order of prelectors, ' says a stubborn layman, 'in my New Testament;' 'Nor yet in mine, ' says another. 'Sheer Atheism, --Deism at the very least!' exclaims the zealous clergyman. 'Until Christianity was fairly established in the world, there was no such thing as shaving at all; the Jews don't shave yet: besides, does not every decent Church member shave before going to church? And as for the authority, how read you the text, "Feed my sheep!'" 'Weighty argument that about the shaving, ' say the laymen; 'but really the text seems to be stretched just a little too far. The commission is given to Peter; but it confers on Peter no authority whatever to commission the barbers. Nay, our grand objection to the pseudo-successors of Peter is, that they corrupted the Church after this very manner, by commissioning the non-commissioned, until they filled the groaning land with cardinals, bishops, and abbots, monks and nuns, --

 "Eremites and friars, White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery. '"

 Now, be it remembered that we are far from placing the Church-employed schoolmaster on the level of the parson-employed barber of our illustration. _Rationally_ considered, they are very different orders indeed; but so far as _direct_ Scripture is concerned, they stand, we contend, on exactly the same ground. The laity would do well in this controversy to arm themselves with the New Testament, and, if their opponents be very intolerant, to hand them the volume, and request them to turn up their authority. And, of course, if the intolerance be very great, the authority must be very direct. Mere arguings on the subject would but serve to show that it has no actual existence. When the commission of a captain or lieutenant is legitimately demanded, it is at once produced; but were one to demand the commission of a sergeant or boatswain's mate, the man could at best only reason about it. 

THOUGHTSONTHE EDUCATIONAL QUESTION. 

CHAPTER FIRST. 

 Disputes regarding the meaning embodied by Chalmers in his Educational Document--Narrative suited to throw some light on the subject--Consideration of the Document itself--Testimony respecting it of the Hon. Mr. Fox Maule. 

One of the most important controversies which has arisen withinthe pale of the Romish Church--that between the Jansenists andJesuits--was made to hinge for many years on a case of disputedmeaning in the writings of a certain deceased author. There were fivedoctrines of a well-defined character which, the Jesuits said, were tobe found in the works of Cornelius Jansenius, umquhile Bishop ofYpres, but which, the Jansenists asserted, were not to be found inanything Jansenius had ever written. And in the attempt to decidethis simple question of fact, as Pascal calls it, the School of theSorbonne and the Court of the Inquisition were completely baffled;and zealous Roman Catholics heard without conviction the verdict ofcouncils, and failed to acquiesce in the judgment of even the Pope. 

We have been reminded oftener than once of this singular controversy, by the late discussions which have arisen in our church courtsregarding the meaning embodied by Chalmers in that posthumous documenton the Educational question, which is destined, we hold, to settle thewhole controversy. At first we regarded it as matter of wonder thatsuch discussions should have arisen; for we had held that there wasreally little room for difference respecting the meaning ofChalmers, --a man whose nature it was to deal with broad truths, notwith little distinctions; and who had always the will, and certainlydid not lack the ability, of making himself thoroughly understood. Wehave since thought, however, that as there is nothing which has onceoccurred that may not occur again, what happened to the writings ofJansenius might well happen to one of the writings of Chalmers; andfurther, that from certain conversations which we had held with theillustrious deceased a few months before his death, on the subject ofhis paper, and from certain facts in our possession regarding hisviews, we had spectacles through which to look at the document inquestion, and a key to his meaning, which most of the disputantswanted. The time has at length come when these helps to the rightunderstanding of so great an authority should be no longer withheldfrom the public. We shall betray no confidence; and should we becompelled to speak somewhat more in the first person, and ofourselves, than may seem quite accordant with good taste, our readerswill, we trust, suffer us to remind them that we do not commit thefault very often, or very offensively, and that the present employmentof the personal pronoun, just a little modified by the editorial _we_, seems inevitably incident to the special line of statement on which wepropose to enter. 

During the greater part of the years 1845 and 1846, the Editor ofthe _Witness_ was set aside from his professional labours by aprotracted illness, in part at least an effect of the perhaps tooassiduous prosecution of these labours at a previous period. He hadto cease per force even from taking a very fixed view of what theChurch was doing or purposing; and when, early in January 1847, hereturned, after a long and dreary period of rustication, in improvedhealth to Edinburgh, he at least possessed the advantage--muchprized by artists and authors in their respective walks--of beingable to look over the length and breadth of his subject with a_fresh_ eye. And, in doing so, there was one special circumstancein the survey suited to excite some alarm. We found that in all thevarious schemes of the Free Church, with but one exception, itsextensively spread membership and its more active leaders werethoroughly at one; but that in that exceptional scheme they werenot at all at one. They were at one in their views respecting theecclesiastical character of ministers, elders, and church courts, and of the absolute necessity which exists that these, and theseonly, should possess the spiritual key. Further, they were wholly atone in recognising the command of our adorable Saviour to preachthe gospel to all nations, as of perpetual obligation on theChurches. But regarding what we shall term, without taking an undueliberty with the language, the pedagogical teaching of religion, theydiffered _in toto_. Practically, and to all intents and purposes, the schoolmaster, in the eye of the membership of our Church, andof the other Scottish Churches, was simply a layman, the properbusiness of whose profession was the communication of secularlearning. And as in choosing their tailors and shoemakers thepeople selected for themselves the craftsmen who made the best andhandsomest shoes and clothes, so, in selecting a schoolmaster fortheir children, they were sure always to select the teacher who wasfound to turn out the best scholars. {2} All other things equal, theywould have preferred a serious, devout schoolmaster to one who wasnot serious nor devout, just as, _coeteris paribus_, they would havepreferred a serious shoemaker or tailor to a non-religious maker ofshoes or clothes; but religious character was not permitted to standas a compensatory item for professional skill; nay, men who might bealmost content to put up with a botched coat or a botched pair ofshoes for the sake of the good man who spoiled them, were particularlycareful not to botch, on any account whatever, the education oftheir children. In a country in which there was more importanceattached than in perhaps any other in the world to the religiousteaching of the minister, there was so little importance attached tothe religious teaching of the schoolmaster, that, when weighedagainst even a slight modicum of secular qualification, it wasfound to have no sensible weight. And with this great practical factsome of our leading men seemed to be so little acquainted, that theywere going on with the machinery of their educational scheme, on ascale at least co-extensive with the Free Church, as if, like thatChurch--all-potent in her spiritual character--it had a moving powerin the affections of the people competent to speed it on. And it wasthe great discrepancy with regard to this scheme which existedbetween the feelings of the people and the anticipations of some ofour leading men, clerical and lay, that excited our alarm. Unlessthat discrepancy be removed, we said--unless the anticipations ofthe men engaged in the laying down of this scheme be sobered to thelevel of the feelings of the lay membership of our Church, or, _vice versa_, the feelings of the lay membership of our Church beraised to the level of the anticipations of our leaders--bankruptcywill be the infallible result. From the contributions of ourlaymen can the scheme alone derive its support; and if our leaderslay it down on a large scale, and our laymen contribute on a smallone, alas for its solvency! Such were our views, and such ourinferences, on this occasion; and to Thomas Chalmers, at once ourwisest and our humblest man--patient to hear, and sagacious tosee--we determined on communicating them. 

He had kindly visited the writer, to congratulate him in his dwellingon his return to comparative health and strength; and after a long andserious conversation, in which he urged the importance of maintainingthe _Witness_ in honest independency, uninfluenced by cliques andparties, whether secular or ecclesiastical, the prospects of the FreeChurch educational scheme were briefly discussed. He was evidentlystruck by the view which we communicated, and received it in far otherthan that parliamentary style which can politely set aside, with somesoothing half-compliment, the suggestions that run counter to afavourite course of policy already lined out and determined upon. Inthe discrepancy which we pointed out to him he recognised a fact ofthe practical kind, which rarely fail to influence the affairs uponwhich they bear; and in accordance with his character--for no mancould be more thoroughly convinced that free discussion never hurts agood cause, and that second thoughts are always wiser than firstones--he expressed a wish to see the educational question brought atonce to the columns of the _Witness_, and probed to its bottom. Wecould not, however, see at that time how the thing was to beintroduced in a practical form, and preferred waiting on for anopportunity, which in the course of events soon occurred. TheGovernment came forward with its proposal of educational grants, andthe question was raised--certainly not by the writer of thesechapters--whether or no the Free Church could conscientiously availherself of these. It was promptly decided by some few of our leadingmen, clerical and lay, that she could not; and we saw in the decision, unless carried by appeal to our country ministers and the people, andby them reversed, the introduction of a further element of certaindissolution in our educational scheme. 

The status of the schoolmaster had been made so exceedinglyecclesiastical, and his profession so very spiritual, that the moneyof that Government of the country whose right and duty it is toeducate its people, was regarded as too vile and base a thing to beapplied to his support. There were even rumours afloat that ourschoolmasters were on the eve of being _ordained_. We trust, however, that the report was a false one, or, at worst, that the men whoemployed the word had made a slip in their English, and for the timeat least had forgot its meaning. _Ordination_ means that special actwhich gives status and standing within the ecclesiastical province. Itimplies the enjoined use of that spiritual key which is entrusted byChrist to His Church, that it may be employed just as _He_ directs, and in no other way. The Presbyterian Church has as much right toinstitute prelates as to ordain pedagogues. 'Remember, ' said anancient Scottish worthy, in 'lifting up his protestation' in troubloustimes, 'that the Lord has fashioned His Kirk by the uncounterfeitedwork of His own new creation; or, as the prophet speaketh, "hath madeus, and not we ourselves;" and that we must not presume to fashion anew portraiture of a Kirk, and a _new form of divine service, whichGod in His word hath not before allowed_; seeing that, were we toextend our authority further than the calling we have of God dothpermit--as, namely, if we should (as God forbid!) authorize theauthority of bishops--we should bring into the Kirk of God theordinance of man. ' If men are to depart from the 'law and thetestimony, ' we hold that the especial mode of their departure may bevery much a matter of taste, and would, for our own part, preferbishops and cardinals to poor dominies of the gospel, somewhat out atthe elbows. {3} The fine linen and the purple, the cope and the stole, would at least have the effect of giving that sort of pleasant reliefto the widespread sable of our Assemblies which they possessed ofyore, ere they for ever lost the gay uniform of the Lord HighCommissioner, the gold lace of his dragoon officers, and the glitterof his pages in silver and scarlet. 'We are two of the humblestservants of Mother Church, ' said the Prior and his companion to Wamba, the jester of Rotherwood. 'Two of the humblest servants of MotherChurch!' repeated Wamba; 'I should rather like to see her seneschals, her chief butlers, and her other principal domestics. '

We again saw Chalmers, and, in a corner apart from a social party, ofwhich his kind and genial heart formed the attractive centre, we foundhe thoroughly agreed with us in holding that the time for thediscussion of the educational question had fully come. It was aquestion, he said, on which he had not yet fully made up his mind:there was, however, one point on which he seemed clear--though, atthis distance of time, we cannot definitively say whether the remarkregarding it came spontaneously from himself, or was suggested by anyquery of ours--and that was the right and duty of a Government to_instruct_, and consequently of the governed to receive theinstruction thus communicated, if in itself good. We remarked in turn, that there were various points on which we also had to 'grope our way'(a phrase to which the reader will find him referring in his note, which we subjoin); but that regarding the inherently secularcharacter of the schoolmaster, and the right and duty of theGovernment to employ him in behalf of its people, we had no doubtwhatever. And so, parting for the time, we commenced that series ofarticles which, as they were not wholly without influence incommunicating juster views of the place and status of the schoolmasterthan had formerly obtained in the Free Church, and as they had somelittle effect in leading the Church to take at least one step inaverting the otherwise inevitable ruin which brooded over hereducational scheme, the readers of the _Witness_ may perhaps remember. We were met in controversy on the question by a man, the honesty ofwhose purpose in this, as in every other matter, and the warmth ofwhose zeal for the Church which he loved, and for which he laboured, no one has ever questioned, and no one ever will. And if, thoughpossessed of solid, though perhaps not brilliant talent, he failed onthis occasion 'in finding his hands, ' we are to seek an explanation ofhis failure simply in the circumstance that truths of principle--suchas those which establish the right and duty of every Government toeducate its people, or which demonstrate the schoolmaster to possess apurely secular, not an ecclesiastical standing--or yet truths of fact, such as that for many years the national teaching of Scotland has_not_ been religious, or that the better Scottish people will on noaccount or consideration sacrifice the secular education of theirchildren to the dream of a spiritual pedagogy, --are truths which canneither be controverted nor set aside. He did on one occasion, duringthe course--what he no doubt afterwards regretted--raise against usthe cry of infidelity, --a cry which, when employed respecting matterson which Christ or His apostles have not spoken, really means no morethan that he who employs it, if truly a good man, is bilious, or has abad stomach, or has lost the thread of his argument or the equanimityof his temper. Feeling somewhat annoyed, however, we wished to seeChalmers once more; but the matter had not escaped his quick eye, andhis kind heart suggested the remedy. In the course of the day in whichour views and reasonings were posted as infidel, we received thefollowing note from Morningside:--

 MORNINGSIDE, _March 13, 1847_. 

 MY DEAR SIR, --You are getting nobly on on education; not only groping your way, but making way, and that by a very sensible step in advance this day. 

 On my own mind the truth evolves itself very gradually; and I am yet a far way from the landing-place. Kindest respects to Mrs. Miller; and with earnest prayer for the comfort and happiness of both, I ever am, my dear Sir, yours very truly, THOMAS CHALMERS. 

 Hugh Miller, Esq. 

In short, Thomas Chalmers, by his sympathy and his connivance, hadbecome as great an infidel as ourselves; and we have submitted to ourreaders the evidence of the fact, fully certified under his ownhand. {4} There is a sort of perfection in everything; and perfectiononce reached, deterioration usually begins. And when, in bandying thephrases _infidel_ and _infidelity_--like the feathered missiles in thegame of battledore and shuttlecock--they fell upon Chalmers, we thinkthere was a droll felicity in the accident, which constitutes for itan irresistible claim of being the terminal one in the series. Theclimax reached its point of extremest elevation; for even should ourinfidel-dubbers do their best or worst now, it is not at all likelythey will find out a second Chalmers to hit. 

We concluded our course of educational articles; and though weafterwards saw the distinguished man to whom our eye so frequentlyturned, as, under God, the wise pilot of the Free Church, and werehonoured by a communication from him, dictated to his secretary, wedid not again touch on the subject of education. We were, however, gratified to learn, from men much in his confidence and company--wehope we do not betray trust in referring to the Rev. Mr. Tasker of theWest Port as one of these--that he regarded our entire course with afeeling of general approval akin to that to which he had givenexpression in his note. It further gratifies us to reflect that ourcourse had the effect of setting his eminently practical minda-working on the whole subject, and led to the production of theinestimably valuable document, long and carefully pondered, which willdo more to settle the question of national education in Scotland thanall the many volumes which have been written regarding it. As in awell-known instance in Scottish story, it is the 'dead Douglas' who isto 'win the field. '

But we lag in our narrative. That melancholy event took place whichcast a shade of sadness over Christendom; and in a few weeksafter, the posthumous document, kindly communicated to us by thefamily of the deceased, appeared in the columns of the _Witness_. Weperused it with intense interest; and what we saw in the firstperusal was, that Chalmers had gone far beyond us; and in thesecond, that, in laying down his first principles, he had looked atthe subject, as was his nature, in a broader and more general aspect, and had unlocked the difficulty which it presented in a morepractical and statesmanlike manner. _We_ had, indeed, consideredin the abstract the right and duty of the civil magistrate toeducate his people; but our main object being to ward off otherwiseinevitable bankruptcy from a scheme of our Church, and having todeal with a sort of vicious Cameronianism, that would not accept ofthe magistrate's money, even though he gave the Bible and theShorter Catechism along with it, we had merely contended thatmoney given in connection with the Bible and Shorter Catechism is avery excellent thing, and especially so to men who cannot fulfil theirobligations or pay their debts without it. But Chalmers had lookedbeyond the difficulties of a scheme, to the emergencies of a nation. 

At the request of many of our readers, we have reprinted his documentin full, as it originally appeared. {5} First, let it be remarkedthat, after briefly stating what he deemed the optimity of thequestion, he passes on to what he considered the only mode ofsettling it practically, in the present divided state of theChurch and country. And in doing so he lays down, as a preliminarystep, the absolute right and duty of the Government to educate, altogether independently of the theological differences or divisionswhich may obtain among the people or in the Churches. 'As thereseems no reason, ' he says, 'why, because of these unresolveddifferences, a public measure for the health of all, for therecreation of all, for the economic advancement of all, should beheld in abeyance, there seems as little reason why, because of thesedifferences, a public measure for raising the general intelligence ofall should be held in abeyance. ' Such is the principle which heenunciates regarding the party possessing the right to _educate_. Let the reader next mark in what terms he speaks of the party _to be_educated, or under whose immediate superintendence the education isto be conducted. Those who most widely misunderstand the Doctor'smeaning--from the circumstance, perhaps, that their views are mostessentially at variance with those which he entertained--seem to holdthat this _absolute_ right on the part of Government is somehow_conditional_ on the parties to be educated, or to superintend theeducation, coming forward to them _in the character of Churches_. They deem it necessary to the integrity of his meaning, thatPresbyterians should come forward as Presbyterians, Puseyites asPuseyites, Papists as Papists, and Socinians as Socinians; inwhich case, of course, all could be set right so far as the FreeChurch conscience was concerned in the matter, by taking the State'sgrant with the one hand, and holding out an indignant protestagainst its extension to the erroneous sects in the other. Butthat Chalmers could have contemplated anything so monstrous asthat _Scotchmen_ should think of coming forward simply as Scotchmen, they cannot believe. He must have regarded the State's _unconditional_right to educate as _conditional_ after all, and dependent on theform assumed by the party on which or through which it was to beexercised. Let the reader examine for himself, and see whetherthere exists in the document a single expression suited to favoursuch a view. Nothing can be plainer than the words 'Parliament, ''Government, ' 'State, ' 'Legislature, ' employed to designate theeducating party on the one hand; and surely nothing plainer thanthe words 'people, ' '_men_ of all Churches and denominations, ''families of the land, ' and 'society at large, ' made use of indesignating the party to be educated, or entrusted with theeducational means or machinery, on the other. There is a well-groundedconfidence expressed in the Christian and philanthropic zeal whichobtain throughout society; but the only bodies ecclesiastical whichwe find specially named--if, indeed, one of these can be regarded asat all ecclesiastical--are the 'Unitarians and the Catholics. ' It waswith the broad question of national education in its relation to twogreat parties placed in happy opposition, as the 'inner hall oflegislation' and the 'outer field of society, ' that we find Dr. Chalmers mainly dealing. And yet the document _does_ containpalpable reference to the Government scheme. There is one clause inwhich it urges the propriety of 'leaving [the matter of religion]to the parties who had to do with the erection and management ofthe schools which [the rulers of the country] had been called onto assist. ' But the greater includes the less, and the much that isgeneral in the paper is in no degree neutralized by the little in itthat is particular. The Hon. Mr. Fox Maule could perhaps throw someadditional light on this matter. It was at his special desire, andin consequence of a conversation on the subject which he held withChalmers, that the document was drawn up. The nature of therequest could not, of course, alter whatever is absolutely present inwhat it was the means of producing; but it would be something toknow whether what the statesman asked was a decision on a specialeducational scheme, or--what any statesman might well desire topossess--the judgment of so wise and great a man on the all-importantsubject of national education. 

It will be found that the following valuable letters from Dr. Guthrieand the Hon. Mr. Fox Maule determine the meaning of Dr. Chalmers onhis own authority:--

 2, LAURISTON LANE, _March 5, 1850_. 

 MY DEAR MR. MILLER, --When such conflicting statements were advanced as to the bearing of Dr. Chalmers' celebrated paper on education, although I had no doubt in my own mind that the view you had taken of that valuable document was the correct one, and had that view confirmed by a conversation I had with his son-in-law, Mr. M'Kenzie, who heard Dr Chalmers discuss the matter in London, and acted, indeed, as his amanuensis in writing that paper; yet I thought it were well also to see whether Mr. Maule could throw any light on the subject. I wrote him with that object in view; and while we must regret that we are called to differ from some most eminent and excellent friends on this important question, it both comforts and confirms us to find another most important testimony in the letter which I now send to you, in favour of our opinion, that Dr. Chalmers, had God spared him to this day, would have lifted up his mighty voice to advocate the views in which we are agreed. 

 Into the fermenting mind of the public it is the duty of every one to cast in whatever may, by God's blessing, lead to a happy termination of this great question; and with this view I send you the letter which I have had the honour to receive from Mr. Maule. --Believe me, yours ever, THOMAS GUTHRIE. 

 GROSVENOR STREET, _March 4, 1850_. 

 MY DEAR DR. GUTHRIE, --When you wrote me some time since upon the subject of the communication made to me by the late Dr. Chalmers upon the all-important question of education, I could not take upon myself to say positively (though I had very little doubt in my mind) whether that document took its origin in a desire expressed by me to have Dr. Chalmers' opinion on the general question of education, or merely upon the scheme laid down and pursued by the Committee of Privy Council. My impression has always been, that Dr. Chalmers addressed himself to the question as a whole; and on looking over my papers a few days since, I find that impression quite confirmed by the following sentence, in a note in Dr. Chalmers' handwriting, bearing date 21st May 1847:--'I hope that by to-morrow night I shall have prepared a few brief sentences on the _subject of education_. '

 None of us thought how inestimable these brief sentences were to become, forming, as they do, the last written evidence of the tone of his great mind on this subject. 

 Should you address yourself to this question, you are, in my opinion, fully justified in dealing with the _memorandum_ as referring to general and national arrangements, and not to those which are essentially of a temporary and varying character. --Believe me, with great esteem, yours sincerely, F. MAULE. 

-----

 {2} This passage has been referred to in several Free Church presbyteries, as if the writer had affirmed that the schoolmaster stands on no higher level than the shoemaker or tailor. We need scarce say, however, that the passage conveys no such meaning. By affirming that in matters of chimney-sweeping men choose for themselves the best chimney-sweeps, and in matters of indisposition or disease the best physicians, we do not at all level the physician with the chimney-sweep: we merely intimate that there is a _best_ in both professions, and that men select that best, as preferable to what is inferior or worse, on every occasion they can. 

 {3} We have learned that what was actually intended at this time was, not to _ordain_, but only to _induct_ our schoolmasters. And their _induction_ would have made, we doubt not, what Foigard in the play calls a 'very pretty sheremony. ' But no mere ceremony, however imposing, can communicate to a secular profession a spiritual status or character. 

 {4} A fac-simile of this letter was reproduced in the columns of the _Witness_. --ED. 

 {5} See Introduction. 

CHAPTER SECOND. 

 Right and Duty of the Civil Magistrate to educate the People--Founded on two distinct Principles, the one economic, the other judicial--Right and Duty of the Parent--Natural, not Ecclesiastical--Examination of the purely Ecclesiastical Claim--The real Rights in the case those of the State, the Parent, and the Ratepayer--The terms Parent and Ratepayer convertible into the one term Householder. 

Wherever mind is employed, thought will be evolved; and in allquestions of a practical character, truth, when honestly sought, isultimately found. And so we deem it a happy circumstance, that thereshould be more minds honestly engaged at the present time on theeducational problem than at perhaps any former period. To the uprightlight will arise. The question cannot be too profoundly pondered, nortoo carefully discussed; and at the urgent request of not a few of ourbetter readers, we purpose examining it anew in a course of occasionalarticles, convinced that its crisis has at length come, just as thecrisis of the Church question had in reality come when the late Dr. M'Crie published his extraordinary pamphlet;{6} and that it mustdepend on the part now taken by the Free Church in this matter, whether some ten years hence she is to posses any share, even theslightest, in the education of the country. We ask our readersseverely to test all our statements, whether of principle or of fact, and to suffer nothing in the least to influence them which is notrational, or which is not true. 

In the first place, then, we hold with Chalmers, that it isunquestionably the right and duty of the civil magistrate to educatehis people, altogether independently of the religion which _hehimself holds_, or of the religious differences which may unhappilyobtain among _them_. Even should there be as many sects in a countryas there are families or individuals, the right and duty still remain. Religion, in such circumstances, can palpably form no part of aGovernment scheme of tuition; but there is nothing in the element ofreligious difference to furnish even a pretext for excluding thoseimportant secular branches which bear reference to the principles oftrade, the qualities of matter, the relations of numbers, theproperties of figured space, the philosophy of grammar, or the formand body which in various countries and ages literature and the_belles lettres_ have assumed. And this right and duty of a Governmentto instruct, rest, we hold, on two distinct principles, --the one_economic_, the other _judicial_. Education adds immensely to the_economic_ value of the subjects of a State. The professional andmercantile men who in this country live by their own exertions, andpay the income tax, and all the other direct taxes, are educated men;whereas its uneducated men do not pay the direct taxes, and, save inthe article of intoxicating drink, very little of the indirect ones;and a large proportion of their number, so far from contributing tothe national wealth, are positive burdens on the community. And on theclass of facts to which this important fact belongs rests the_economic_ right and duty of the civil magistrate to educate. 

His _judicial_ right and duty are founded on the circumstance, thatthe laws which he promulgates are _written_ laws, and that what hewrites for the guidance of the people, the people ought to be enabledto read; seeing that to punish for the breach of a law, of theexistence of which he who breaks it has been left in ignorance, is notman-law, but what Jeremy Bentham well designates dog-law, andaltogether unjust. We are, of course, far from supposing that everyBritish subject who can read is to peruse the vast library which theBritish Acts of themselves compose; but we hold that education formsthe only direct means through which written law, as a regulator ofconduct, can be known, and that, in consequence, in its practicalbreadth and average aspect, it is only educated men who know it, andonly uneducated men who are ignorant of it. And hence the derivationof the magistrate's _judicial_ right and duty. But on this part of oursubject, with Free Churchmen for our readers, we need not surelyinsist. Our Church has homologated at least the general principle ofthe civil magistrate's right and duty, by becoming the recipient ofhis educational grant. If he has no right to give, she can have noright to receive. If he, instead of performing a duty, has perpetrateda wrong, she, to all intents and purposes, being guilty of receipt, isa participator in the crime. Nay, further, let it be remarked that, asindicated by the speeches of some of our abler and more influentialmen, there seems to exist a decided wish on the part of the FreeChurch, that the State, in its educational grants, should assume apurely secular character, and dispense with the certificate ofreligious training which it at present demands, --a certificate which, though anomalously required of sects of the most opposite tenets, constitutes notwithstanding, in this business of grants, the solerecognition of religion on the part of the Government. Now this, if afact at all, is essentially a noticeable and pregnant one, and showshow much opposite parties are in reality at one on a principleregarding which they at least _seem_ to dispute. 

The right and duty of the civil magistrate thus established, let usnext consider another main element in the question, --the right andduty of the parent. It is, we assert, imperative on every parent inScotland and elsewhere to educate his children; and on the principlethat he is a joint contributor with the Government to the support ofevery national teacher--the Government giving _salary_, and theparent _fees_--we assert further, that should the Government give itssalary 'exclusively as the expression of its value for a good_secular_ education, ' _he_ may, notwithstanding, demand that his feesshould be received as the representative of _his_ value for a good_religious_ education. Whether his principles be those of theVoluntary or of the Establishment-man, the same schoolmaster who is asecular teacher in relation to the Government, may be a religiousteacher in relation to him. For unless the State positively _forbid_its schoolmaster to communicate religious instruction, he exists tothe parent, in virtue of the fees given and received, in exactly thecircumstances of the teacher of any adventure school. 

Let us further remark, that the rights of the parent in the matter ofeducation are not _ecclesiastical_, but _natural_ rights. The writerof this article is one of the parents of Scotland; and, simply assuch, he claims for himself the right of choosing his children'steacher on his own responsibility, and of determining what hischildren are to be taught. The Rev. Dr. Thomas Guthrie is hisminister; and _he_ also is one of the parents of Scotland, and enjoys, as such, a right identical in all respects with that of hisparishioner and hearer. But it is only an identical and co-equalright. Should the writer send his boy to a Socialist or Popish school, to be taught either gross superstition or gross infidelity, theminister would have a right to interfere, and, if entreaty andremonstrance failed, to bring him to discipline for so palpable abreach of his baptismal engagement. If, on the other hand, it was theminister who had sent his boy to the Socialist or Popish school, theparishioner would have a right to interfere, and, were entreaty andremonstrance disregarded, to bring _him_ to discipline. Minister andparishioner stand, we repeat, in this matter, on exactly the samelevel. Nor have ten, twenty, a hundred, a thousand, twenty thousand, or a hundred thousand lay parents, or yet ten, twenty, a hundred, ora thousand clerical parents, whether existing as a congregation orhundreds of congregations on the one hand, or as a Presbytery, Synod, or General Assembly on the other, rights in this matter that in theleast differ in their nature from the rights possessed by the singleclergyman, Dr. Guthrie, or by the single layman, the Editor of the_Witness_. The sole right which exists in the case--that of theparent--is a _natural_ right, not an _ecclesiastical_ one; and thesole modification which it can receive from the superadded element ofChurch membership is simply that modification to which we refer asfounded on the religious duty of both member and minister, in itsrelation to ecclesiastical law and the baptismal vow. 

Nor, be it observed, does this our recognition, in our character as aChurch member, of ecclesiastical rule and authority, give our ministerany true grounds for urging that it is our bounden duty, in virtue ofour parental engagements, and from the existence of such general textsas the often quoted one, 'Train up a child, ' etc. , to send ourchildren to some school in which religion is expressly taught. Farless does it give him a right to _demand_ any such thing. We are FreeChurch in our principles; and the grand distinctive principle forwhich, during the protracted Church controversy, we never ceased tocontend, was simply the right of choosing our own religious teacher, on the strength of our own convictions, and on our own exclusiveresponsibility. We laughed to scorn the idea that the three items ofDr. George Cook's ceaseless iterations--life, literature, anddoctrine--formed the full tale of ministerial qualification: there wasyet a fourth item, infinitely more important than all the others puttogether, viz. _godliness_, or religion proper, or, in yet otherwords, the regeneration of the whole man by the Spirit of God. And onthis last item we held that it was the right and duty of the peoplewho Chose for themselves, _and for their children_, a religiousteacher, and of none others, clerical or lay, solemnly to decide. Andwhile we still hold by this sacred principle on the one hand, we seeclearly, on the other, that the sole qualifications of our Free Churchteachers, as prepared in our Normal Schools, correspond to but Dr. Cook's three items; nay, that instead of exceeding, they fall greatlyshort of these. The certificate of character which the youngcandidates bring to the institution answers but lamely to the item'_life_;' the amount of secular instruction imparted to them withinits walls answers but inadequately to the item '_literature_;' whilethe modicum of theological training received, most certainly not equalto a four years' course of theology at a Divinity Hall, answers butindifferently to the crowning item of the three--'_doctrine_. ' Thatparamount item, conversion on the part of the teacher to God, is stillunaccounted for; and we contend that, respecting that item, theparent, and the parent only, has a right to decide, all difficult anddoubtful as the decision may be: for be it remembered, that thereexist no such data on which to arrive at a judgment in cases of thisnature, as exist in the choosing of a minister. And though we woulddeem it eminently right and proper that our child should read hisdaily Scripture lesson to some respectable schoolmaster, a believer inthe divine authority of revelation, and should repeat to him hisweekly tale of questions from the National Catechism, yet to the_extempore_ religious teaching of no merely respectable schoolmasterwould we subject our child's heart and conscience. For we hold thatthe religious lessons of the unregenerate lack regenerating life; andthat whatever in this all-important department does not intenerate andsoften, rarely fails to harden and to sear. Religious preachments froma secular heart are the droppings of a petrifying spring, whichconvert all that they fall upon into stone. Further, we hold that amistake regarding the character of a schoolmaster authorized to teachreligion _extempore_ might be greatly more serious, and might involvean immensely deeper responsibility, than a similar mistake regarding aminister. The minister preaches to grown men--a large proportion ofthem members of the Church--not a few of them office-bearers in itsservice, and competent, in consequence, to judge respecting both thedoctrine which he exhibits and the mode of its exhibition; but it ischildren, immature of judgment, and extremely limited in theirknowledge, whom the religion-teaching schoolmaster has to address. Nay, more: in choosing a minister, we may mistake the character of theman; but there can be no mistake made regarding the character of theoffice, seeing that it is an office appointed by God Himself; whereasin choosing a religion-teaching schoolmaster, we may mistake thecharacter of both the man and the office too. We are responsible inthe one case for only the man; we are responsible in the other forboth the man and the office. 

We have yet another objection to any authoritative interference on thepart of ecclesiastical courts with the natural rights and enjoinedduties of the parent in the matter of education. Even though we fullyrecognised some conscientious teacher as himself in possession of thedivine life, we might regard him as very unfitted, from some naturalharshness of temper, or some coldness of heart, or some infirmity ofjudgment, for being a missionary of religion to the children under hiscare. At one period early in life we spent many a leisure hour indrawing up a gossiping little history of our native town, and found, in tracing out the _memorabilia_ of its parish school, that the Rev. John Russell, afterwards of Kilmarnock and Stirling, and somewhatfamous in Scottish literature as one of the clerical antagonists ofBurns, had taught in it for twelve years, and that several of hispupils (now long since departed) still lived. We sought them out oneby one, and succeeded in rescuing several curious passages in hishistory, and in finding that, though not one among them doubted thesincerity of his religion, nor yet his conscientiousness as aschoolmaster, they all equally regarded him as a harsh-tempered, irascible man, who succeeded in inspiring all his pupils with fear, but not one of them with love. Now, to no such type of schoolmaster, however strong our conviction of his personal piety, would we entrustthe religious teaching of our child. If necessitated to place our boyunder his pedagogical rule and superintendence, we would address himthus: Lacking time, and mayhap ability, ourselves to instruct our son, we entrust him to you, and this simply on the same division of labourprinciple on which we give the making of our shoes to a shoemaker, andthe making of our clothes to a tailor. And in order that you may notlack the power necessary to the accomplishment of your task--for wehold that 'folly is bound up in the heart of a child'--we make over toyou our authority to admonish and correct. But though we can put intoyour hands the parental rod--with an advice, however, to use itdiscreetly and with temper--there are things which we cannotcommunicate to you. We cannot make over to you our child's affectionfor us, nor yet our affection for our child: with these joys 'astranger intermeddleth not. ' And as religious teaching without love, and conducted under the exclusive influence of fear, may and must bebarren--nay, worse than barren--we ask you to leave this part of ourduty as a parent entirely to ourselves. _Our_ duty it is, and to youwe delegate no part of it; and this, not because we deem itunimportant, but because we deem it important in the highest degree, and are solicitous that no unkindly element should mar it in itseffects. Now where, we ask, is the ecclesiastical office-bearer who, in his official character, or in any character or capacity whatever, has a right authoritatively to challenge our rejection, on our ownparental responsibility, of the religious teaching of even a convertedschoolmaster, on purely reasonable grounds such as these? Or where isthe ecclesiastical office-bearer who has an authoritative right tochallenge our yet weightier Free Church objection to the religiousteaching of a schoolmaster whom we cannot avoid regarding as anunregenerate man, or whom we at least do not know to be a regenerateone? Or yet further, where is the ecclesiastical office-bearer who hasa right authoritatively to bear down or set aside our purelyProtestant caveat against a teacher of religion who, in hisprofessional capacity, has no place or standing in the word of God?The right and duty of the civil magistrate in all circumstances toeducate his people, and of parents to choose their children's teacher, and to determine what they are to be taught, we are compelled torecognise; and there seems to be a harmony between the two rights--theparental and the magisterial, with the _salary_ of the one and the_fees_ of the other--suited, we think, to unlock many a difficulty;but the authoritative standing, in this question, of the ecclesiasticas such, we have hitherto failed to see. The parent, as a Churchmember or minister, is amenable to discipline; but his natural rightsin the matter are simply those of the parent, and his political rightssimply those of the subject and the ratepayer. 

And in this educational question certain political rights _are_involved. In the present state of things, the parish schoolmasters ofthe kingdom are chosen by the parish ministers and parish heritors:the two elements involved are the ecclesiastical and the political. But while we see the parish minister as but the mere idle image of astate of things passed away for ever, and possessed in his ministerialcapacity of merely a statutory right, which, though it exists to-day, may be justly swept away to-morrow, we recognise the heritor aspossessed of a real right; and what we challenge is merely itsengrossing extent, not its nature. We regard it as just in kind, butexorbitant in degree; and on the simple principle that the money ofthe State is the money of the people, and that the people have a rightto determine that it be not misapplied or misdirected, we would, withcertain limitations, extend to the ratepayers as a body theprivileges, in this educational department, now exclusively exercisedby the heritors. In that educational franchise which we would fain seeextended to the Scottish people, we recognise two great elements, andbut two only, --the natural, or that of the parent; and the political, or that of the ratepayer. These form the two opposite sides of thepyramid; and, though diverse in their nature, let the reader mark hownicely for all practical purposes they converge into the point, _householder_. The householders of Scotland include all the ratepayersof Scotland. The householders of Scotland include also all the parentsof Scotland. We would therefore fix on the householders of a parish asthe class in whom the right of nominating the parish schoolmastershould be vested. But on the same principle of high expediency onwhich we exclude householders of a certain standing from exercisingthe political franchise in the election of a member of Parliament, would we exclude certain other householders, of, however, a much lowerstanding, from voting in the election of a parish schoolmaster. We arenot prepared to be Chartists in either department, --the educational orthe political; and this simply on the ground that Chartism in eitherwould be prejudicial to the general good. On this part of the subject, however, we shall enter at full length in our next. 

Meanwhile we again urge our readers carefully to examine forthemselves all our statements and propositions, --to take nothing ontrust, --to set no store by any man's _ipse dixit_, be he editor orelder, minister or layman. In this question, as in a thousand others, 'truth lies at the bottom of the well;' and if she be not now foundand consulted, to the exclusion of every prejudice, and the disregardof every petty little interest and sinister motive, it will be ill tenyears hence with the Free Church of Scotland in her character as aneducator. Her safety rests, in the present crisis, in the just and thetrue, and in the just and the true only. 

-----

 {6} _What ought the General Assembly to do at the present Crisis?_ (1833. )

CHAPTER THIRD. 

 Parties to whom the Educational Franchise might be safely extended--House Proprietors, House Tenants of a certain standing, Farmers, Crofters--Scheme of an Educational Faculty--Effects of the desired Extension--It would restore the National Schools to the People of the Nation. 

It is the right and duty of every Government to educate its people, whatever the kinds or varieties of religion which may obtain amongthem;--it is the right and duty of every parent to select, on hisown responsibility, his children's teacher, and to determine what hischildren are to be taught;--it is the right and duty of every memberof the commonwealth to see that the commonwealth's money, devoted toeducational purposes, be not squandered on incompetent men, and, in virtue of his contributions as a ratepayer, to possess a voicewith the parents of a country in the selection of its salariedschoolmasters. There exist, on the one hand, the right and duty ofthe State; there exist, on the other, the rights and duties of theparents and ratepayers; and we find both parents and ratepayerspresenting themselves in the aggregate, and for all practicalpurposes in this matter, as a single class, viz. The _householders_of the kingdom. But as, in dealing with these in purely politicalquestions, we exclude a certain portion of them from the exercise ofthe _political_ franchise, and that simply because, as classes, theyare uninformed or dangerous, and might employ power, if theypossessed it, to the public prejudice, so would we exclude a certainproportion of them, on similar grounds, from the _educational_franchise. In selecting, however, the safe classes of householders, we would employ tests somewhat dissimilar in their character fromthose to which the Reform Act extends its exclusive sanction, andestablish a somewhat different order of qualifications from thosewhich it erects. 

In the first place, we would fain extend the educational franchise toall those householders of Scotland who inhabit houses of their own, however humble in kind, or however low the valuation of theirrental. We know not a safer or more solid, or, in the main, moreintelligent class, than those working men of the country who, with thesavings of half a lifetime, build or purchase a dwelling forthemselves, and then sit down rent-free for the rest of their lives, each 'the monarch of a shed. ' With these men we are intimatelyacquainted, for we have lived and laboured among them; and very rarelyhave we failed to find the thatched domicile, of mayhap two littlerooms and a closet, with a patch of garden-ground behind, of whichsome hard-handed country mechanic or labourer had, through his ownexertions, become the proud possessor, forming a higher certificate ofcharacter than masters the most conscientious and discerning couldbestow upon their _employés_, or even Churches themselves upon theirmembers. Nor is this house-owning qualification much less valuablewhen it has been derived by inheritance--not wrought for; seeing thatthe man who retains his little patrimony unsquandered must be atleast a steady, industrious man, the slave of no expensive ordisreputable vice. Let us remark, however, that we would notattach the educational franchise to property as such: the proprietorof the house, whether a small house or a large one, would requireto be the _bona fide_ inhabitant of the dwelling which he occupied, for at least a considerable portion of every year. The second classto which we would fain see the educational franchise extended areall those householders of the kingdom who tenant houses of fivepounds annual rent and upwards, who settle with their landlords notoftener than twice every twelvemonth, and who are at least a yearentered on possession. By fixing the qualification thus high, andrejecting the monthly or weekly rent-payer, the country would get ridof at least nineteen-twentieths of the dangerous classes, --theagricultural labourers, who wander about from parish to parish, somesix or eight months in one locality, and some ten or twelve inanother; the ignorant immigrant Irish, who tenant the poorer hovelsof so many of our western coast parishes; and last, not least, all themigratory population of our larger towns, who rarely reside half ayear in the same dwelling, and who, though they may in someinstances pay at more than the rate of the yearly five pounds, payit weekly, or by the fortnight or month. We regret, however, thatthere is a really worthy class which such a qualification wouldexclude, --ploughmen, labourers, and country mechanics, who residepermanently in humble cottages, the property of the owner of thesoil, and who, though their course through life lies on the bleakedge of poverty, are God-fearing, worthy men, at least morallyqualified to give, in the election of a teacher, an honest and notunintelligent voice. And yet, hitherto at least, we have failed tosee any principle which a British statesman would recognise aslegitimate, on which this class could be included in the educationalfranchise, and their dangerous neighbours of the same politicalstatus kept out. There is yet a third very important class whom wewould fain see in possession of the educational franchise, --thosehouseholders of Scotland who till the soil as tenants, whetherwith or without leases, or whether the annual rent which they payamounts to three or to three thousand pounds. The tillers of thesoil are a fixed class, greatly more permanent, even where thereexists no lease, than the mere tenant householders; and theyinclude, especially in the Highlands of Scotland, and the poorerdistricts of the low country, a large proportion of the country'sparentage. They are in the main, too, an eminently safe class, andnot less so where the farms are small and the dwellings upon themmere cottages--to which, save for the surrounding croft or farm, nofranchise could attach--than where they live in elegant houses, andare the lessees of hundreds of acres. And such are the three greatclasses to which, as composing the solid body of the Scottishnation--to the exclusion of little more than the mere rags thathang loosely on its vestments--would we extend, did we possess thepower, the educational franchise. 

In order, however, to render a franchise thus liberally restrictedmore safe and salutary still, we would demand not only certainqualifications on the part of the parents and ratepayers of thecountry, without which they could not be permitted to _vote_, butalso certain other qualifications on the part of the country'sschoolmasters, without which they could not be _voted for_. Wewould thus impart to the scheme such a twofold aspect of security asthat for which in a purely ecclesiastical matter we contended, whenwe urged that none but Church members should be permitted to choosetheir own ministers; and that none but ministers pronounced dulyqualified in life, literature, and doctrine, by a competentecclesiastical court, should they be _permitted_ to choose. Thereought to exist a teaching Faculty as certainly as there exists amedical or legal Faculty, or as there exists in the Church what isessentially a preacher-licensing Faculty. The membership of a Churchare unfitted in their aggregate character to judge respecting atleast the literature of the young licentiate whom, in their own andtheir children's behalf, they call to the pastoral charge;--thepeople of a district, however shrewd and solid, are equallyunqualified to determine whether the young practitioner of medicineor of law who settles among them is competently acquainted with hisprofession, and so a fit person to be entrusted with the care oftheir health or the protection of their property. And hence thenecessity which exists in all these cases for testing, licensing, diploma-giving courts or boards, composed of men qualified to decideregarding those special points of ability or acquirement which thepeople, as such, cannot try for themselves. In no case, however, arecourts of this nature more imperatively required than in the caseof the schoolmaster. Neither the amount of literature which hepossesses, nor yet his mastery over the most approved modes ofcommunicating it, can be tested by the people, who, as parents andratepayers, possess the exclusive right to make choice of him fortheir parish or district school; and hence the necessity that whatthey cannot do for themselves should be previously done for them bysome competent court or board, and that no teacher who did not possessa licence or diploma should be eligible to at least an endowedseminary supported by the public money. With, of course, thequalifications of the mere adventure-teacher, whether supported byChurches or individuals, we would permit no board to interfere. Asto the composition of the board itself, that, we hold, might bedetermined on very simple principles. Let the College-bred teachersof Scotland, associated with its University professors, select forthemselves, out of their own number, a dean or chairman, and a courtor committee, legally qualified by Act of Parliament stringentlyto try all teachers who may present themselves before them, in orderto be rendered eligible for a national school, and to grant themlicences or diplomas, legally representative of professionalqualification. Whether a teacher, on his election by the people, might not be a second time tried, especially on behalf of the Stateand the ratepayers, by a Government inspectorship, and thus a checkon the board be instituted, we are not at present called on todetermine; but on this we are clear, that the certificate of noNormal School, in behalf of its own pupils, ought to be receivedotherwise than as a mere makeweight in the general item ofprofessional character; seeing that any such document would be asmuch a certificate of the Normal School's own ability in rearingefficient teachers, as of the pedagogical skill of the teacherswhich it reared. The vitiating element of self-interest wouldscarce fail to induce, ultimately at least, a suspicious habit ofself-recommendation. 

Such, then, in this matter, is our full tale of qualification, pedagogical and popular, of the educators of the country on theone hand, and of the educational franchise-holders of the country onthe other. And now we request the reader to mark one mighty resultof the arrangement, which no other yet set in opposition to it couldpossibly produce. There are in Scotland about one thousand onehundred national schools, supported by national resources; and, ofconsequence, though fallen into the hands of a mere sect, which insome localities does not include a tithe of the population, theyof right belong to the Scottish people. And these schools of the_people_ that extension of the educational franchise which wedesiderate would not fail to restore to the _people_. It would putthem once more in possession of what was their own property _defacto_ at the Revolution (for at that period, when, with a fewinconsiderable exceptions, they were all of one creed, the ministry ofthe Established Church virtually represented them), and of what hasbeen _de jure_ their property ever since. But by the ministry of noone Church can the people be represented now. The long rule ofModeratism, --the consequent formation of the Secession and ReliefChurches, --the growth of Independency and Episcopacy, --and last, but not least in the series, the Disruption, and the instantaneouscreation of the Free Church, have put an end to that state of thingsfor ever. The time has in the course of Providence fairly come, when the people must be permitted in this matter to representthemselves; and there is one thing sure, --the struggle may beprotracted, but the issue is certain. Important, however, as are ourparish schools, and rich in associations so intimately linked to theintellectual glory of the nation, that, were they but mere relics ofthe past, the custodiership of them might well be most desirable tothe Scottish people, they represent but a small part of the stakeinvolved in the present all-engrossing movement. It seeks also toprovide from the coffers of the State--on a broad basis of popularrepresentation, and with the reservation of a right on the part ofthe people to supplement whatever instruction the State may not orcannot supply--that fearful educational destitution of the nationwhich is sinking its tens and hundreds of thousands into abjectpauperism and barbarous ignorance, and which neither Churches norSocieties can of themselves supply. It is the _first_ hopeful movementof the age; for our own Free Church educational movement, thoughperhaps _second_ in point of importance, only serves irrefragablyto demonstrate its necessity. 

It is, we repeat, to the people of Scotland, and not to any one of theChurches of Scotland, that our scheme of a widely-based and trulypopular franchise would restore the Scottish schools. Mr. GeorgeCombe is, however, quite in the right in holding that religion is toointimately associated with the educational question, and too decidedlya force in the country, to be excluded from the national seminaries, 'unless, indeed, Government do something more than merely _omit_ thereligious element. '{7} All is lost, Mr. Combe justly infers, on thenon-religious side of the question, if the introduction of the Bibleand Shorter Catechism be not _prohibited_ by Act of Parliament; for, ifnot stringently prohibited, what Parliament merely omits doing, a Bibleand Catechism loving people will to a certainty do; and the conscienceof the phrenologist and his followers will not fail to be outraged bythe spectacle of Bible classes in the national schools, and of Stateschoolmasters instilling into the youthful mind, by means of theShorter Catechism, the doctrine of original sin and the work of theSpirit. Nay, more; as it is not in the power of mere Acts of theLegislature to eradicate from the hearts of a people those feelings ofpartiality, based on deep religious conviction and the associations ofages, with which it is natural to regard a co-religionist, moreespecially in the case of the teacher to whom one's children are toread their daily chapter and repeat their weekly tale of questions, _denomination_ must and will continue to exert its powerfulinfluence in the election of national schoolmasters popularly chosen. And as there are certain extensive districts in Scotland in which someone Church is the stronger, and other certain districts in which someother Church is the stronger, there are whole shires and provinces inwhich, if selected on the popular scheme, the national teachers would befound well-nigh all of one religious denomination. From JohnO'Groat's to Beauly, for instance, they would be all, or almost all, Free Churchmen; for in that extensive district almost all the peopleare Free Church. In the Scottish Highlands generally, nearly the sameresult would be produced, from, of course, the existence of a similarconstituency. In Inverness, and onwards along the sea-coast toAberdeen, Montrose, St. Andrews, and the Frith of Forth, the elementof old dissent would be influentially felt: the great parties amongthe people would be three--Establishment, Free Church, and Voluntary;and whichever two of them united, would succeed in defeating the third. And such unions, no doubt, frequently _would_ take place. TheVoluntaries and Free Churchmen would often unite for the carrying ofa _man_; and occasionally, no doubt, the Free Church and theEstablishment, for the carrying of a _principle_, --that principle ofreligious teaching on which, in the coming struggle, the State Churchwill be necessitated to take her stand. To the south of the Frith ofForth on to Berwick, and along the western coast from Dumbarton tothe Solway, there would be localities parcelled out into large farms, in which the Establishment would prevail; and of course, wherever it canreckon up a majority of the more solid people, it is but right andproper that the Establishment _should_ prevail; but who can doubt thateven in these districts the national teaching would be immenselyheightened by a scheme which gave to parents and ratepayers theselection of their teachers, and restricted their choice tointelligent and qualified men? Wherever there is liberty, there willbe discussion and difference; and the election of a schoolmaster wouldnot be managed quite as quietly under the anticipated state ofthings, with the whole people of a parish for his constituency, as inthe present, by a minister and factor over a social glass. But theobjection taken by anticipation to popular heats and contendings insuch cases is as old as the first stirrings of a free spirit amongthe people, and the first struggles of despotism to bind them down. We ourselves have heard it twice urged on the unpopular side, --oncewhen the rotten burghs were nodding to their fall, and once when anunrestricted patronage was imperilled by the encroachments of theVeto. There will, and must be, difference; and difference too, Scotlandbeing what it is, in which the religious element will not fail tomingle; but not the less completely on that account will the schemerestore the Scottish schools to the Scottish people, as represented bythe majority, and to the membership of the Free Church, in the _defacto_ statistical sense and proportion in which the Free Church isnational. It will not restore them to us in the theoretic sense; butthen there are at least three other true original Churches ofScotland, which in that respect will be greatly worse off thanourselves, --the true national Cameronian Church, the true nationalEpiscopalian Church, and a true compact little Church of the wholenation, that, in the form of one very excellent minister, labours inthe east. 

Meanwhile, we would fain say to our country folk and readers of thenorth of Scotland: You, of all the Free Churchmen of the kingdom, havean especial stake in this matter. Examine for yourselves, --trust toyour own good sense, --exercise as Protestants your right of privatejudgment, --and see whether, as Christian men and good Scotchmen, youmay not fairly employ the political influence given you by God andyour country, in possessing yourselves of the parish schools. Therewill be deep points mooted in this controversy, which neither you norwe will ever be in the least able to understand. You will no doubt betold of a theocratic theory of the British Government, perfectlycompatible, somehow, with the receipt of educational _grants_ fromwhich all recognition of the religious element on the part of theState is, at the express request of the Church, to be thoroughlydischarged, but not at all compatible with the receipt of aneducational _endowment_ of exactly the same character, from which thesame State recognition of the same religious element is to bedischarged in the same degree. You will, we say, not be able tounderstand this. The late Dr. Thomas Chalmers and the late Rev. Mr. Stewart of Cromarty could not understand it; we question much whetherDr. William Cunningham understands it; and we are quite sure that Dr. Guthrie and Dr. Begg do not. And you, who are poor simple laymen, willnever be able to understand it at all. But you are all able tounderstand that the parish schools of your respective districts, nowlying empty and useless, belong of right to you; and that it would bea very excellent thing to have that right restored to you, both onyour own behalf and on that of your children. 

-----

 {7} 'The sixth resolution [of the Educational Manifesto], in which the opinion of Dr. Chalmers is quoted, that Government [should] abstain from introducing the element of religion at all into their part of the scheme, must, as here introduced, be presumed to mean, that in the Act of the Legislature which shall carry the views of the resolutionists into practical effect, nothing shall be said about religious instruction; but that power shall be given to the heads of families to manage the schools, and prescribe the subjects to be taught, according to their own convictions of what is sound in religious and useful in secular instruction. But this would leave the religious rights of the minority completely unprotected. Government must do something more than _omit_ the religious element: it must limit the power of the majority to introduce this element into their schools to the injury of the minority. '--_Letter of Mr. George Combe on the Educational Movement. _

CHAPTER FOURTH. 

 Objections urged by the Free Church Presbytery of Glasgow against the Educational Movement--Equally suited to bear against the Scheme of Educational Grants--Great superiority of Territorial over Denominational Endowment--The Scottish People sound as a whole, but some of the Scottish Sects very unsound--State of the Free Church Educational Scheme. 

'Whereas attempts are now being made to reform the parish schools ofScotland, on the principle of altogether excluding religion fromnational recognition as an element in the national system ofeducation, and leaving it solely to private parties to determine ineach locality whether any or what religious instruction will beintroduced into the parochial schools, --it is humbly overtured to theVenerable the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, todeclare that this Church can be no party to any plan of educationbased on the negation of religion in the general, or of the nationalfaith in particular, ' etc. 

Such is the gist of that 'Overture on Education' which was carriedsome three weeks ago by a majority of the Free Church Presbytery ofGlasgow. It has the merit of being a clear enunciation of meaning; ofbeing also at least as well fitted to express the views of theEstablished as of the Free Church courts in Glasgow and elsewhere, anda great deal better suited to serve as a cloak to their policy; and, further, by a very slight adaptation, it could be made to bear asdirectly against State _grants_ given for educational purposes, ifdissociated from the religious certificate, as against State_endowments_ given for the same purpose, when dissociated fromstatutory religious requirement. It is the religious certificate--mostanomalously demanded of denominations diametrically opposed to eachother in their beliefs, and subversive of each other in theirteachings--that constitutes in the affair of educational grants therecognition of religion on the part of the State. Educational grantsdissociated from the religious certificate are educational grantsdissociated from the State recognition of religion. The fact that thecertificates demanded should be of so anomalous a character, is simplya reflection of the all-important fact that the British people arebroken up into antagonistic Churches and hostile denominations, andthat the British Government is representative. And that men such asthose members and office-bearers of our Church who hold the middleposition between that occupied by Mr. Gibson of Glasgow on the onehand, and Dr. Begg of Edinburgh on the other, should see no other wayof availing themselves of the educational grants, with a goodconscience, than by getting rid of the religious recognition, onlyserves to show that they are quite as sensible as their opponents inthe liberal section of the enormous difficulty of the case, and canbethink themselves of no better mode of unlocking it. For it will notbe contended, that if in the matter of grants there is to be norecognition of religion on the part of the State, the want of it couldbe more adequately supplied by sects, as such, denominationallydivided, than by the people of Scotland, as such, territoriallydivided; seeing that sects, as such, include Papists, Puseyites, Socinians, and Seceders, --Muggletonians, Juggletonians, NewJerusalemites, and United Presbyterians, --Free-thinking Christians, Free-Willers, and Free Churchmen. Nor can we see either the wisdom orthe advantage of any scheme of Government inquiry into the educationaldestitution of a locality, that, instead of supplying the want whichit found, would merely placard the place by a sort of feuingticket--destined, we are afraid, in many instances to be sadlyweather-bleached--which would intimate to the sects in general, thatwere any one of them to come forward and enact the part ofschool-builder and pedagogue, the State would undertake for a portionof the expenses. We suppose the advertisement on the ticket would runsomewhat as follows:--'WANTED BY THE GOVERNMENT, A CHURCH TO ERECT ASCHOOL. TERMS LIBERAL, AND NO CERTIFICATE OF RELIGIOUS TEACHINGDEMANDED. N. B. --PAPISTS, PUSEYITES, AND SOCINIANS PERFECTLYELIGIBLE. '{8}

Leaving, however, to profounder intellects than our own the adjustmentof the nice principles involved in this matter, let us advert to whatwe deem the practical advantages of a _territorial_ scheme ofeducational _endowments_ over a _denominational_ scheme of educational_grants_. At present, all or any of the _sects_ may come forward assuch, whatever their character or teaching, and, on fulfilling certainconditions, receive assistance from the Government in the form of aneducational grant; whereas, by the scheme which we would fain seeset in its place, it would be only the more solid people of_districts_--let us suppose parishes--that would be qualified to comeforward to choose for themselves their parochial State-endowedteachers. And at least one of the advantages of this scheme over theother must be surely obvious and plain. _Denominationally_, there ismuch unsoundness in Scotland; _territorially_, there is very little. There exist, unhappily, differences among our Scottish Presbyterians;but not the less on that account has Presbyterianism, in its threegreat divisions--Voluntary, Establishment, and Free Church--possesseditself of the land in all its length and breadth. The only other form ofreligion that has a territorial existence in Scotland at all isPopery, and Popery holds merely a few darkened districts of the outerHebrides and of the Highlands. It would fail, out of the one thousandone hundred parish schools of the country, to carry half-a-dozen;and no other form of religious error would succeed in carrying somuch as one parish school. There is no Socinian district inScotland; old Scotch Episcopacy has not its single parish; and highPuseyism has not its half, or quarter, or even tithe of a parish. That Church of Scotland which Knox founded, with its offshoots theSecession and Relief bodies, has not laboured in vain; and through theblessing of God on these labours, Scotland, as represented by itsterritorial majorities, is by far the soundest and most orthodoxcountry in the world. A wise and patriotic man--at once a good Scotand a judicious Churchman--would, we think, hesitate long ere he flungaway so solid an advantage, won to us by the labours, the contendings, the sufferings of reformers, confessors, martyrs, and ministers of thetruth, from the days of Melville and of Henderson, down to those ofthe Erskines and of Chalmers. He would at least not fail to ask himselfwhether that to which what was so unequivocally _substance_ was to besacrificed, was in itself _substance_ or _shadow_. 

Let us next remark, that the Scottish national schools, while theythus could not fail to be essentially sound on the territorialscheme--just because Scotland is itself essentially sound as anation--might, and would in very many instances, be essentiallyunsound on a denominational one. There is no form of religious errorwhich may not, in the present state of things, have, as we have said, its schools supported in part by a Government grant, and which may nothave its pupil-teachers trained up to disseminate deadly error at thepublic expense among the youthhead of the future. Edinburgh, forinstance, has its one Popish street--the Cowgate; but it has no Popishparish: it has got very little Popery in George Square and itsneighbourhood, --very little at the Bristo Port, --very little inBroughton Street; and yet in all these localities, territoriallyProtestant, Papists have got their religion-teaching schools, in whichpupil-teachers, paid by the State, are in the course of being dulyqualified for carrying on the work of perversion and proselytism. St. Patrick's school, in which, as our readers were so lately shown, boysmay spend four years without acquiring even the simple accomplishmentof reading, has no fewer than five of these embryo perverterssupported by the Government. Puseyism has, in the same way, noterritorial standing on the northern shores of the Frith of Forth; andyet at least one Free Church minister, located in one of the townswhich stud that coast, could tell of a well-equipped Puseyite schoolin his immediate neighbourhood, supported in part by the Governmentgrant, that, by the superiority of the secular education which itsupplies, is drawing away Presbyterian, nay, even Free Churchchildren, from the other schools of the locality. On the territorialprinciple, we repeat, schools such as these, which rest on thedenominational basis alone, could not possibly receive the support andcountenance of the Legislature. And let the reader remark, that shouldthe Free Church succeed in getting rid of the anomalous religiouscertificate, and yet continue to hold by the denominational basis, something worse than mere denomination would scarce fail to step in. The Combeite might then freely come forward to teach at the publicexpense, that no other soul of man has yet been ascertained to existthan the human brain, and no other superintending Providence than theblind laws of insensate matter. Nay, even Socialism, just a littledisguised, might begin to build and teach for the benefit of theyoung, secure of being backed and assisted in its work by the civilmagistrate. Further, should the grant scheme be rendered moreflexible, _i. E. _ extended to a lower grade of qualification, and thusthe public purse be applied to the maintenance and perpetuation of ahedge-school system of education, --or should it be rendered moreliberal, _i. E. _ should the Government be induced to do proportionallymore, and the school-builders be required to do proportionallyless, --superstition and infidelity would, in the carrying out of theirschemes of perversion, have, in consequence, just all the less tosacrifice and to acquire. According to the present arrangement, aschoolmaster must realize, from salary and fees united, the sum offorty-five annual pounds, and be, besides, furnished with a freehouse, ere he can receive from the Government a grant on its lowestscale, viz. Fifteen pounds;{9} and whatever judgment may be formed ofthe proportion in which the State contributes, there can be noquestion that the general arrangement is a wise one. Sermonizingdominies could be had, no doubt, at any price; and there can be aslittle doubt that, at any price, would the great bulk of them turn outto be '_doons hard bargains_;' but it is wholly impossible that acountry should have respectable and efficient teachers under fromsixty to eighty pounds a year. The thing, we repeat, is whollyimpossible; and the State, in acting, as in this arrangement, on theconviction, does but its duty to its people. The some sixty or seventypounds, however, would be as certainly realized as under the presentarrangement, were it Government that contributed the forty-fivepounds, and the denomination or society the fifteen and the freehouse; and this, of course, would be eminently liberal. But what wouldbe the effects of so happy a change? It might in some degree relievethe Free Church Scheme from financial difficulty; but would it donothing more? There are Puseyite ladies in Scotland, high in rank andinfluence, and possessed of much wealth and great zeal, who arealready building their schools, in the hope of unprotestantizing theirpoor lapsed country, spiritually ruined by the Reformation. Theliberality that might in part enable the Free Church EducationCommittee to discharge its obligations at the rate of twenty shillingsper pound, would be a wonderful godsend to them; seeing that theywould have little else to do, under a scheme so liberal, than simplyto erect schoolhouses on the widespread domains of their husbands orfathers, and immediately commence perverting the children of thenation at the national cost. It would be no less advantageous to theSociety of the Propaganda, and would enable it to spare its ownpurse, by opening to it that of the people. The Socinian, theCombeite, the semi-Socialist--none of them very much disposed toliberality themselves--would all share in that of the Government; andtheir zeal, no longer tied down to inactivity by the dread ofpecuniary sacrifice or obligation, would find wings and come abroad. Surely, with such consequences in prospect, our Free Church readerswould do well to ponder the nature and demands of the crisis at whichthey have now arrived. Our country and our Church have in reality butone set of interests; and a man cannot be a bad Scot without being abad Free Churchman too. Let them decide in this matter, not under theguidance of an oblique eye, squinted on little temporary difficultiesor hypothetical denominational advantages, but influenced byconsiderations of the permanent welfare of their country, and of theirabiding obligations to their God. 

But why, it may be asked of the writer, if you be thus sensible ofthe immense superiority of a territorial scheme of educationalendowments over a denominational scheme of educational grants, --whydid you yourself urge, some three years ago, that the Free Churchshould avail herself of these very grants? Our reply is sufficientlysimple. The denominational scheme of grants was the only schemebefore us at the time; these grants were, we saw, in danger of beingrejected by the Free Church on what we deemed an unsound andperilous principle, which was in itself in no degree Free Church;and last, not least, we saw further, that if the Church did notavail herself of these grants, there awaited on her EducationalScheme--ominously devoid of that direct divine mandate which all herother schemes possessed--inevitable and disastrous bankruptcy. Butcircumstances have greatly changed. The Free Church is no longer inany danger from the principle which would have rejected Governmentassistance. There is now a territorial scheme brought full before theview of the country; and, further, the Government grants have whollyfailed to preserve our Educational Scheme from the state of extremepecuniary embarrassment which we too surely anticipated. Salaries of£15 and £20 per annum are greatly less than adequate for thesupport and remuneration of even the lower order of teachers, especially in thinly-peopled districts of country, where pupils arefew and the fees inconsiderable. But at these low rates it wasdetermined, in the programme of the Free Church Educational Scheme, that about three-fourths of the Church's teachers should be paid; andthere are scores and hundreds among them who regulated theirexpenditure on the arrangement. For at least the last two years, however, the Education Committee has been paying its £15 salaries atthe reduced rate of £10, and its £20 salaries at the rate of £13, 13s. 4d. ; and those embarrassments, of which the reduction was aconsequence, have borne with distressful effect on the Committee's_employés_. However _orthodox_ their creed, their circumstanceshave in many instances become _Antinomian_; nor, while teachingreligion to others, have they been able in every instance toconform to one of its simplest demands--'Owe no man anything. '

There were several important items, let us remark, in which weover-estimated the amount of assistance which the Scheme was toreceive from the Government; and this mainly from our looking at thematter in the gross, as a question of proportion--so much granted forso much raised--without taking into account certain conditionsdemanded by the Minutes of Council on the one hand, and a certaincourse of management adopted on the part of our Education Committee onthe other. The grant is given in proportion to salary of one to two(we at present set aside the element of fees): a _salary_ of thirtypounds is supplemented by a _grant_ of fifteen pounds, --a salary offorty pounds by a grant of twenty, --a salary of fifty by a grant oftwenty-five, --and so on; and we were sanguine enough to calculate, that an aggregate sum of some ten or twelve thousand pounds raised bythe Church for salaries, would be supplemented by an aggregation ofgrants from the Government to the amount of some five or six thousandpounds more. The minimum sum regarded as essentially necessary forcarrying on the Free Church Educational Scheme had been estimated attwenty thousand pounds. If the Free Church raise but twelve thousandof these, we said, Government will give her six thousand additional inthe form of grants, and some two thousand additional, or so, for thetraining of her pupil-teachers; and the Church will thus be enabled torealize her minimum estimate. We did not take the fact into account, that of our Free Church teachers a preponderating majority should failsuccessfully to compete for the Government money; nor yet that theeducational funds should be so broken up into driblet salaries, attached to schools in which the fees were poor and the pupils few, that the schoolmaster, even though possessed of the necessary_literary_ qualification, would in many cases be some twenty, or eventhirty, pounds short of the necessary _money_ qualification, _i. E. _the essential forty-five annual pounds. We did not, we say, take thesecircumstances into account, --indeed, it was scarce possible that wecould have done so; and so we immensely over-estimated the efficacy ofthe State grant in maintaining the solvency of our Educational Scheme. We learn from Dr. Reid's recent Report to our metropolitan churchcourt, that of the forty-two Free Church teachers connected with thePresbytery of Edinburgh, and in receipt of salaries from the EducationCommittee, only thirteen have been successful in obtaining Governmentcertificates of merit. And even this is a rather high average, compared with that of the other districts; for we have ascertained, that of the six hundred and eighty-nine teachers of the Free Churchscattered over the kingdom, not more than a hundred and twenty-ninehave received the Government grant. There are, however, among theothers, teachers who have failed to attain to it, not from any want ofthe literary qualification--for some of them actually possess theparchment certificate bearing the signature of Lansdowne--but simplybecause they are unfortunate enough to lack the pecuniary one. 

That which we so much dreaded has come, we repeat, upon ourEducational Scheme. The subject is a painfully delicate one, andwe have long kept aloof from it; but truth, and truth only, can nowenable the Free Church and her people to act, in this emergency, asbecomes the character which they bear, and the circumstances in whichthey are placed. Let us not fall into the delusion of deeming themere array of our Free Church schools and teachers--their numbers andformidable length of line--any matter of congratulation; norforget, in our future calculations, that if the Free Church nowrealizes from £10, 000 to £12, 000 yearly for educational purposes, she would require to realize some £5000 or £6000 more in order toqualify her to meet her existing liabilities, estimated at thevery moderate rates laid down in the programme. The £5000 or £6000additional, instead of enabling her to erect a single additionalschool, would only enable her to pay in full her teachers' salaries. And so it is obviously a delusion to hold that our Free ChurchEducational Scheme supplies in reality two-thirds of our congregationswith teachers, seeing that these teachers are only two-thirds paid. We are still some £5000 or £6000 short of supplying the two-thirds, and some £6000 or £7000 more of supplying the whole. And even werethe whole of our own membership to be supplied, the grand query, How is our country to be educated, --our parish schools to berestored to usefulness and the Scotch people, --and Scotland herselfto resume and maintain her old place among the nations?--would comeback upon us as emphatically as now. Judging from what has beenalready done, and this after every nerve has been strained in theSisyphisian work of rolling up-hill an ever-returning stone, itseems wholly impossible that we should ever succeed in educating theyoung of even our own congregations; and how, then, save on some greatnational scheme, is a sinking nation to be educated?

-----

 {8} The following portion of a motion on the educational question, announced in the Edinburgh Presbytery of the Free Church on the 6th of February last, is specially referred to in this paragraph:--

 'That the successful working of the present Government plan would be greatly promoted by the following amendments:--

 '1_st_, The entire omission in all cases (except, perhaps, the case of the Established Church) of the certificate regarding religious instruction, and the recognition of all bodies, whether Churches or private parties and associations, as equally entitled to receive aid. 

 '2_d_, The adoption of a rule in proportioning Government grants to local efforts more flexible, and admitting of far more liberal aid in destitute localities, as compared with those which are in a better condition. 

 '3_d_, The institution, on the part of Government, of an inquiry into the destitution confessedly existing in large towns, populous neighbourhoods, and remote districts, with a view of marking out places where elementary schools are particularly needed; and the holding out of special encouragement to whatever parties may come forward as willing to plant such schools. 

 'That the preceding suggestions, if adopted, would go far to render the present Government plan unobjectionable in principle, and also to fit it in practice for ascertaining the educational wants of the country; but that a much more liberal expenditure of the public money would seem to be indispensable, as well as a less stringent application, upon adequate cause shown, of the rules by which the expenditure is regulated. '

 In bringing the motion forward in the following meeting of Presbytery, the clause recommending the 'entire omission in all cases of the certificate regarding religious instruction' was suffered to drop. 

 {9} Such are the proportions laid down in the official document for Scotland of the Committee of Her Majesty's Privy Council on Education. We understand, however, that the Government inspectors possess certain modifying powers, through which the Government grant is occasionally extended to deserving teachers whose salary and fees united fall considerably short of the specified sum of forty-five pounds. 

CHAPTER FIFTH. 

 Unskilled Labourers remunerated at a higher rate than many of our Free Church Teachers--The Teaching must be inferior if the Remuneration be low--Effect of inferior Teaching on the parties taught--Statutory Security; where are the parties to contend for it?--Necessity of a Government Inquiry--'O for an hour of Knox!'

That higher order of farm-servants which are known technically inMid-Lothian as 'sowers and stackers, ' receive, as their yearly wages, in the immediate neighbourhood of the house of the writer, eighteenpounds in money, four bolls oatmeal, two cart-loads of potatoes, andabout from twenty to thirty shillings worth of milk. The money valueof the whole amounts, at the present time, to something betweentwenty-three and twenty-four pounds sterling. We are informed by aFifeshire proprietor, that in his part of the country, a superiorfarm-servant, neither grieve nor foreman, receives eight pounds inmoney, six and a half bolls meal, three cart-loads of potatoes, andthe use of a cow, generally estimated as worth from ten to twelvepounds annually. His aggregate wages, therefore, average from abouttwenty-four to twenty-six pounds ten shillings a year. And we are toldby another proprietor of the south of Scotland, that each of thebetter hinds in his employment costs him every year about thirtypounds. In fine, to the south of the Grampians, the emoluments of ourmore efficient class of farm-servants range from twenty-three tothirty pounds yearly. We need not refer to the wages of railwaynavvies, nor yet to those of the superior classes of mechanics, suchas printers, masons, jewellers, typefounders, etc. There is not aprinter in the _Witness_ office who would be permitted by the rules ofhis profession, to make an arrangement with his employers, were he toexchange piece-work for wages, that did not secure to him twenty-fiveshillings per week. To expect that a country or Church can possiblyhave efficient schoolmasters at a lower rate of emolument than notonly skilled mechanics, but than even unskilled railway labourers, orthe 'stackers and sowers' of our large farms, is so palpably adelusion, that simply to name it is to expose it. And yet of our FreeChurch schoolmasters, especially in thinly-peopled rural districts andthe Highlands, there are scores remunerated at a lower rate thanlabourers and farm-servants, and hundreds at a rate at least as low;and if we except the fortunate hundred and twenty-nine who receive theGovernment grant, few indeed of the others rise to the level of theskilled mechanic. Greatly more than two-thirds of our teachers wereplaced originally on the £15 and £20 scale of salaries: these are nowpaid with £10 and £13, 13s. 4d. Respectively. There are manylocalities in which these pittances are not more than doubled by thefees, and some localities in which they are even less than doubled;and so a preponderating majority of the schoolmasters of the FreeChurch are miserably poor men: for what might be a competency to alabourer or hind, must be utter poverty to them. And not a few oftheir number are distressfully embarrassed and in debt. 

Now this will never do. The Church may make herself very sure, thatfor her £10 or £13 she will receive ultimately only the worth of £10or £13. She may get windfalls of single teachers for a few months oryears: superior young men may occasionally make a brief stay in herschools, in the course of their progress to something better, --asPilgrim rested for a while in the half-way recess hollowed in the sideof the Hill Difficulty; but only very mediocre men, devoid of energyenough of body or mind to make good masons or carpenters, will stickfast in them. We have learned that, in one northern locality, nofewer than eight Free Church teachers have since Martinmas last eithertendered their resignations, or are on the eve of doing so. These, itwill be found, are superior men, who rationally aspire to somethingbetter than mere ploughman's wages; but there will of course be noresignations tendered by the class who, in even the lowest depths ofthe Scheme, have found but their proper level. These, as the moreactive spirits fly off, will flow in and fill up their places, till, wherever the £10 and £13 salaries prevail, --and in what ruraldistrict do they not prevail?--the general pedagogical acquirements ofour teachers will present a surface as flat, dull, and unprofitableas ditch-water. For what, we again ask, can be expected for £10 or£13? And let the reader but mark the effect of such teaching. We haveseen placed side by side, in the same burgh town, an English school, in which what are deemed the branches suitable for mechanics andtheir children, such as reading, writing, and arithmetic, wereenergetically taught, and a grammar school in which a university-bredschoolmaster laboured, with really not much energy, especially inthose lower departments in which his rival excelled, but who was fittedto prepare his pupils for college, and not devoid of the classicalenthusiasm. And it struck us as a significant and instructive fact, that while the good English school, though it turned out smartreaders and clever arithmeticians, failed to elevate a single man fromthe lower to the middle or higher walks of life, the grammar schoolwas successful in elevating a great many. The principle on which such adifference of result should have been obtained is so obvious, that itcan scarce be necessary to point it out. The teaching of the oneschool was a narrow lane, trim, 'tis true, and well kept, but which ledto only workshops, brick-kilns, and quarries; whereas that of theother was a broad, partially-neglected avenue, which opened into thegreat professional highways, that lead everywhere. And if thedifference was one which could not be obviated by all the energy of asuperior and well-paid English teacher, how, we ask, is it to beobviated by our Free Church £10 and £13 teachers? Surely our Churchwould do well to ponder whether it can be either her interest or herduty to urge on any scheme, in opposition to a national one, whichwould have all too palpably the effect of degrading her poorermembership, so far as they availed themselves of it, into theGibeonites of the community--its hewers of wood and drawers of water. Never will Scotland possess an educational scheme truly national, andeither worthy of her ancient fame or adequate to the demands andemergencies of an age like the present, until at least every parishshall possess among its other teachers its one university-bredschoolmaster, popularly chosen, and well paid, and suited to assist intransplanting to the higher places of society those select andvigorous scions that from time to time spring up from the stock ofthe commonalty. The waking dream of running down the ignorance andmisery of a sinking country by an array of starveling teachers in thetrain of any one denomination--itself, mayhap, sufficientlyattenuated by the demands of purely ecclesiastical objects--must belikened to that other waking dream of the belated German peasant, whosees from some deep glade of his native forests a spectral huntsweep through the clouds, --skeleton stags pursued by skeleton huntsmen, mounted on skeleton horses, and surrounded by skeleton beagles; and whohears, as the wild pageant recedes into the darkness, the hollowtantivy and the spectral horns echoing loud and wildly through theangry heavens. 

It is of paramount importance that the Free Church should in thepresent crisis take up her position wisely. We have heard of invadersof desperate courage, who, on landing upon some shore on which theyhad determined either to conquer or to perish, set fire to theirships, and thus shut out the possibility of retreat. Now the FreeChurch--whether she land herself into an agitation for a scheme ofGovernment grants rendered more liberal and flexible than now, anddissociated from the religious certificate, or whether she plant herfoot on a scheme of national education based on a statutoryrecognition of the pedagogical teaching of religion--is certainly inno condition to burn her ships. Let her not rashly commit herselfagainst a third scheme, essentially one in principle with that whichthe sagacious Chalmers could regard, after long and profoundreflection, as the only one truly eligible in the circumstances of thecountry, and which she herself, some two or three years hence, may becompelled to regard in a similar light. The educational agitation isnot to be settled in the course of a few brief months; nor yet by thevotes of Presbyteries, Synods, or General Assemblies, whether theybelong to the Free or to the Established Churches. It rises direct outof the great social question of the time. Scotland as such forms oneof its battle-fields, and Scotchmen as such are the parties who are tobe engaged in the fight; and the issue, though ultimately secure, willlong seem doubtful. And so the Free Church may have quite time enoughto fight her own battle, or rather her own _two_ battles insuccession, and, when both are over, find that the great generalcontest still remains undecided. 

For what we must deem by much the better and more important battle ofthe _two_--that for a statutory demand on the part of the State thatthe Bible and Shorter Catechism should be taught in the nationalschools--we are afraid the time is past; but most happy would we beto find ourselves mistaken. The Church of Scotland, as represented bythat majority which is now the Free Church, might have succeeded incarrying some such measure ten years ago, when the parish schools wereyet in her custody; just as she might have succeeded seven yearsearlier in obviating the dire necessity which led to the Disruption, byacting upon the advice of the wise and far-seeing M'Crie. {10} But shewas not less prepared at the one date to agitate for the totalabolition of patronage, than at the other to throw open the parishschools on the basis of a statutory security for the teaching ofreligion. In both cases, the golden opportunity was suffered to passby; and Old Time presents to her now but the bald retreating occiput, which her eager hand may in vain attempt to grasp. Where, we ask, arewe to look for the forces that are to assist us in fighting thisbattle of statutory security? Has the Establishment become moreliberal, or more disposed to open the parish schools, than we ourselveswere when we composed the majority of that very Establishment? Alas!in order to satisfy ourselves on that head, we have but to look at thedecisions of her various ecclesiastical courts. Or is it the oldScottish Dissenters that are to change their entire front, and tomake common cause with us, in disregard, and even in defiance, of theirown principles, as they themselves understand them? Or are we to lookto that evangelical portion of the Episcopacy of England, with whom_Establishment_ means _Church_, and the 'good of the Establishment' asynonyme for the 'good of the Church, ' and who, to a certainty, willmove no hand against the sister Establishment in Scotland? Or are weto be aided by that portion of English Independency that has so verystrangely taken its stand equally against educational grants andeducational endowments, on the ground that there is a sort ofreligion homoeopathically diffused in all education--especially, wesuppose, in Lindley Murray's readings from the _Spectator_ and Dr. Blair--and that, as the State must not provide _religious_ teachingfor its people, it cannot, and must not, provide for them teachingof any kind? Scientific Jews are they, of the straitest sect, who, wiser than their fathers, have ascertained by the microscope, thatall meat, however nicely washed, continues to retain its molecules ofblood, and that flesh therefore must on no account be eaten. Wecannot, we say, discern, within the wide horizon of existing realities, the troops with which this battle is to be fought. They seem to be mereshadows of the past. But if the Free Church see otherwise, let her byall means summon them up, and fight it. Regarded simply as a matter ofpolicy, we are afraid the contest would be at least imprudent. 'It werewell, ' said a Scotch officer to Wolfe, when Chatham first called out theHighlanders of Scotland to fight in the wars of Britain, --'It werewell, General, that you should know the character of these Highlandtroops. Do not attempt manoeuvring with them; Scotch Highlandersdon't understand manoeuvre. If you make a feint of charging, they willthrow themselves sword in hand into the thick of the enemy, and youwill in vain attempt calling them back; or if you make a show ofretreating, they will run away in right earnest, and you will never seethem more. So do not employ them in feints and stratagems, but keep themfor the hard, serious business of the fight, and you will find themthe best troops in the world. ' Now, nearly the same character appliesto the Free Church. To set her a-fighting as a matter of policy, would be very bad policy indeed. She would find out reasons, semi-theological at least, for all her positions, however hopeless, and would continue fixed in these long after the battle had beenfought and lost, and when she ought to be engaged in retrieving herdisasters on other ground, and in a fresh and more promising quarrel. But if the Free Church does enter into this battle, let her in themeantime not forget, that after it has been fought, and at least_possibly_ lost, another battle may have still to be begun; nor lether attempt damaging, by doubtful theology, the position which apreponderating majority of her own office-bearers and members may haveyet to take up. For, ultimately at least, the damage would be allher own. Let her remark further, that should her people set theirhearts pretty strongly on those national seminaries, which in manyparts of the country would become, if opened up, wholly their own _defacto_, and which are already their own _de jure_, they might not bequite able to feel the cogency of the argument that, while it leftSocinians and Papists in the enjoyment of at once very liberal and veryflexible Government grants, challenged _their_ right to choose, ontheir own responsibility, State-paid teachers for their children; andwhich virtually assured them, that if they did not contribute largelyto the educational scheme of their own Church, she would be whollyunable to maintain it as a sort of mid-impediment between them andtheir just rights, the parish schools. They would be exceedingly apt, too, to translate any very determined and general preference manifestedby our church courts for the scheme of educational grants, into somesuch enunciation as the following:--'Give us to ourselves but amoiety of one-third of the Scottish young, and we will frankly give upthe other two-thirds, --the one-half of them to be destroyed by grossignorance, and the other half by deadly error. '{11}

There is at least one point on which we think all Free Churchmen oughtto agree. It is necessary that the truth should be known respectingthe educational condition and resources of Scotland. It will, weunderstand, be moved to-day [February 27th], in the Free ChurchPresbytery of Edinburgh, as a thing good and desirable, that Governmentshould 'institute an inquiry into the educational destitutionconfessedly existing in large towns, populous neighbourhoods, andremote districts, with a view to the marking out of places whereelementary schools are particularly needed, ' etc. Would it not bemore satisfactory to move instead, the desirableness of a GovernmentCommission of Inquiry, 1_st_, into the educational condition of all theyouth of Scotland between the years of six and fifteen, on the schemeof that inquiry recently conducted by a Free Church EducationalAssociation in the Tron parish of Glasgow; 2_d_, into the condition, character, and teaching of all the various schools of the country, whether parochial, Free Church, or adventure schools, with the actualamount of pupils in attendance at each; and 3_d_, into the generalstanding, acquirements, and _emoluments_ of all the teachers? Not onlywould the report of such a Commission be of much solid value initself, from the amount of fact which it would furnish for thedirection of educational exertion on the part of both the people andthe State; but it might also have the effect of preventing good men fromtaking up, in the coming contest, untenable and suspicious ground. Itwould lay open the true state of our parish schools, and not onlyshow how utterly useless these institutions have become, from atleast the shores of the Beauly to those of the Pentland Frith, andthroughout the Highlands generally, but also expose the grossexaggeration of the estimate furnished by Mr. Macrae, and adopted byDr. Muir. {12} Further, it would have the effect of preventing anymember of either the Free Church or the Establishment from resortingto the detestable policy of those Dissenters of England, who, inorder to secure certain petty advantages to their own miserablesects, set themselves to represent their poor country--perishing atthe time for lack of knowledge--as comparatively little in need ofeducational assistance. But we trust this at least is an enormity, atonce criminal and mean, of which no Scotchman, whatever his Church, _could_ possibly be guilty; and so we shall not do our country theinjustice of holding that, though it produced its 'fause Sir Johns' inthe past, it contains in the present one such traitor, until we atleast see the man. Further, a State Report of the kind would lay opento us, in the severe statistical form, the actual emoluments of ourown Free Church teachers. We trust, then, that this scheme of asearching Government inquiry may be regarded as a first great steptowards the important work of educating the Scottish people, in whichall ought to agree, however thoroughly at variance in matters ofprinciple or on points of detail. 

It is of mighty importance that men should look at things as theyreally are. Let us remember that it is not for the emergencies ofyesterday that we are now called on to provide, but for thenecessities of to-day, --not for Scotland in the year 1592, nor yetin the year 1700, but for Scotland in the year 1850. What might bethe best possible course in these bygone ages, may be, and is, whollyan impracticable course now. _Church_ at both these earlier datesmeant not only an orthodox communion, but also that preponderatingmajority of the nation which reckoned up as its own the great bulk ofboth the rulers and the ruled, and at once owned the best andlongest swords, and wore the strongest armour; whereas it nowmeans, _legally_ at least, merely two Erastianized Establishments, and _politically_, all the Christian denominations that possessvotes and return members to Parliament. The prism seizes on a singlewhite ray, and decomposes it into a definitely proportionedspectrum, gorgeous with the primary colours. The representativeprinciple of a Government such as ours takes up, as if by a reverseprocess, those diverse hues of the denominational spectrum thatvary the face of society, and compounds them in the Legislature intoa blank. Save for the existence of the two Establishments--strong onother than religious grounds--and the peculiar tinge which they caston the institutions of the country, the blank would be still moreperfect than it is; and this fact--a direct result of the stronglymarked hues of the denominational spectrum, operated upon by therepresentative principle--we can no more change than we can theoptical law. Let there be but the colour of one religion in thenational spectrum, and the Legislature will wear but one religiouscolour: let it consist of half-a-dozen colours, and the Legislaturewill be of none. 'O for an hour of Knox!' it has been said by agood and able man, from whom, however, in this question we greatlydiffer, --'O for an hour of Knox to defend the national religiouseducation which he was raised up to institute!' Knox, be itremembered, was wise, prudent, sagacious, in accordance with thedemands of his time. A Knox of the exact fashion of the sixteenthcentury, raised up in the middle of the nineteenth, would be but aslim, long-bearded effigy of a Knox, grotesquely attired in aGeneva cloak and cap, and with the straw and hay that stuffed himsticking out in tufts from his waistband. 'O for an hour of Knox!'The Scottish Church of the present age has already had its Knox. 'Elias hath already come. ' The large-minded, wise-hearted Knox ofthe nineteenth century died at Morningside three years ago; and hehas bequeathed, as a precious legacy to the Church, his judgment onthis very question. 'It were the best state of things, ' he said, 'thatwe had a Parliament sufficiently theological to discriminate betweenthe right and the wrong in religion, and to endow accordingly. Butfailing this, it seems to us the next best thing, that in any publicmeasure for helping on the education of the people, Governmentwere to abstain from introducing the element of religion at allinto their part of the scheme; and this not because they held thematter to be insignificant, --the contrary might be stronglyexpressed in the preamble of their Act, {13}--but on the ground that, in the present divided state of the Christian world, they wouldtake no cognizance of, just because they would attempt no controlover, the religion of applicants for aid, --leaving this matterentire to the parties who had to do with the erection and managementof the schools which they had been called upon to assist. A grantby the State on this footing might be regarded as being appropriatelyand exclusively the expression of their value for a good seculareducation. '

-----

{10} To demand of that Parliament which carried the Reform Bill the repeal of the Patronage Act, instead of enacting, on her own authority, the Veto Law. 

{11} 'I see, ' said Knox, when the Privy Council, in dividing the ecclesiastical revenues of the kingdom into three parts, determined on giving two of these to the nobility, and on dividing the remaining part between the Protestant ministry and the Court, --' I see two-thirds freely given to the devil, and the other third divided between God and the devil: if the end of this order be happy, my judgment fails me!' Our church courts, if they declare for the system of denominational grants, in opposition to the territorial endowments of a scheme truly national, will be securing virtually a similar division of the people, with but this difference, that God's share of the reserved moiety may be a very small share indeed. And can it possibly be held that the shame and guilt of such an arrangement can be obviated by the votes of Synods or Assemblies? or that, with an intelligent laity to judge in the matter, the 'end of this order' can be other than unhappy? The schools of the Free Church have already, it is said, done much good. We would, we reply, be without excuse, in taking up our present position--a position in which we have painfully to differ from so many of the friends in whose behalf for the last ten years we deemed it at once a privilege and an honour to contend--did we believe that more than six hundred Protestant schools _could_ exist in Scotland without doing _much_ good. Of nothing, however, are we more convinced, than that the good which they have done has been accomplished by them in their character as _schools_, not in their character as _denominational_. We know a little regarding this matter; for in our journeyings of many thousand miles over Scotland, especially in the Highlands and the northern counties, we have made some use of both our eyes and ears. We have seen, and sickened to see, hordes of schoolboys of ten and twelve years bandying as nicknames, with boys whose parents belonged to the Establishment, the terms of polemic controversy. 'Moderate' has become in juvenile mouths as much a term of hatred and reproach in extensive districts of our country, as we remember 'Frenchman' used to be during the great revolutionary war. Our children bid fair to get, in their state of denominational separatism, at least religion enough heartily to hate their neighbours; and, we are afraid, not much more. Now, it may be thought that the Editor of the _Witness_, himself long engaged in semi-theological warfare, ought to be silent in a matter of this kind. Be it remembered, we reply, that it was _men_, not children, whom the Editor of the _Witness_ made it his business to address; and that when, in what he deemed a good cause, he appealed to the understandings of his adult country-folk, he besought them in every instance to test and examine ere they judged and decided. He did not contemplate a phase of the controversy in which unthinking children should come from their schools to contend with other children, in the spirit of those little ones of Bethel who 'came forth out of their city' to mock and to jeer; or that immature, unreasoning minds should be torn by the she-bears of uncharitable feeling, at an age when the points really at issue in the case can be received only as prejudices, and expressed only by the mere calling of names. And seeing and knowing what he has seen and knows, he has become sincerely desirous that controversy should be left to at least the adult population of the country, and that its children of all the communions should be sent to mingle together in their games and their tasks, and to form their unselfish attachments, under a wise system of national tuition, as thoroughly Christian as may be, but at the same time as little as possible polemical or sectarian. 

{12} To the effect that there are a hundred thousand children in attendance at the parish schools of Scotland. 

{13} 'We are aware, ' says a respected antagonist, 'that Mr. Miller is no Deist; his argument, nevertheless, rests on a deistical position, --a charge to which Dr. Chalmers' letter is not liable to be exposed, in consequence of its first sentence, and of what it recommends in a Government preamble. ' If there be such virtue in a preamble, say we, let us by all means have a preamble--ten preambles if necessary--rather than a deistic principle. We would fain imitate in this matter the tolerance of Luther. 'A complaint comes that such and such a reformed preacher will not preach without a cassock. "Well, " answers Luther, "what harm will a cassock do the man? Let him have a cassock to preach in; let him have three cassocks, if he find benefit in them. '"

CHAPTER SIXTH. 

 Our previous Statement regarding the actual Condition of the Free Church Educational Scheme absolutely necessary--Voluntary Objections to a National Scheme, as stated by the Opponents of the Voluntaries; not particularly solid--Examination of the matter. 

Our episode regarding the Free Church Educational Scheme now fairlycompleted, let us return to the general question. The reader may, however, do well to note the inevitable necessity which existed on ourpart, that our wholesome, though mayhap unpalatable, statementsrespecting it should have been submitted to the Church and thecountry. The grand question which in the course of Providence had atlength arisen was, 'How is our sinking country to be educated?' We hadtaken our stand, as a Scotchman, in behalf of the Scottish people; andas the belief seemed widely to exist that our own Free Church schemewas adequate, or at least nearly so, to the education of the childrenof our own membership, and that our duty as Scotchmen could befulfilled, somehow, by concentrating all our exertions upon _it_, ithad become essentially necessary that the delusion should bedispelled. And so we have showed, that while our scheme, in orderfully to supply the educational wants of even our own people, wouldrequire to exist in the proportion of _nine_, it exists nominally inbut the proportion of _six_, and in reality in but the proportion of_four_, --seeing that the _six, i. E_. Our existing staff of teachers, amounting to but two-thirds of the number required, are but two-thirdspaid;--in short, that our educational speculation is exactly in thecircumstances of a railway company who, having engaged to cut a lineninety miles in length, have succeeded in cutting forty miles of it attheir own proper expense, and then having cut twenty miles more on_preference_ shares, find their further progress arrested by a lack offunds. And so it became necessary to show that the existence andcircumstances of our Free Church schools, instead of furnishing, ashad been urged in several of our presbyteries, any argument _against_the agitation of the general question, furnished, on the contrary, thebest possible of all arguments _for_ its agitation; and to showfurther, that the policy which brought a denominational scheme, thatdid not look beyond ourselves, into a great national engagement, inthe character of a privateer virtually on the side of the enemy, was amost perilous policy, that exposed it to damaging broadsides, andtelling shot right between wind and water. 

Let us now pass on to the consideration of a matter on which webut touched before, --the perfect compatibility of a consistentVoluntaryism with religious teaching in a school endowed by theState, on the principle of Dr. Chalmers. The _Witness_ is as littleVoluntary now as it ever was. It seems but fair, however, that aprinciple should be saddled with only the consequences thatlegitimately arise from it; and that Voluntaryism should not beexposed, in this contest, to a species of witchcraft, that firstcaricatures it in an ill-modelled image, and then sticks the uglything over with pins. 

The revenues of the State-endowed schools of this country--and, wesuppose, of every other--are derived from two distinct sources: fromGovernment, who furnishes the schoolmaster's salary, and erects thebuilding in which he teaches; and from the parents or guardians, whoremunerate him according to certain graduated rates for the kind ofinstruction which he communicates to their children or wards. And the_rationale_ of this State assistance seems very obvious. It is ofimportance to the State, both on economic and judicial grounds, thatall its people should be taught; but, on the adventure-schoolprinciple, it is impossible that they should all be taught, seeingthat adventure schools can thrive in only densely peopled localities, or where supported by wealthy families, that pay largely for theirchildren's education. And so, in order that education may be broughtdown to the humblest of the people, the State supplements, in its ownand its people's behalf, the schoolmaster's income, and builds him aschool. Such seems to be the principle of educational endowments. Now, if the State, in endowing national schoolmasters, were to signify thatit endowed them in order that, among other things, they should _teachreligion_, we can well see how a Voluntary who conscientiously holds, as such, that religion ought not to be State-endowed, might be unableto avail himself, on his children's behalf, of the State-enjoinedreligious teaching of any such functionaries; just as we can also see, that if the State _forbade_ its schoolmasters on any account to teachreligion, a conscientious holder of the Establishment principle mightbe perhaps equally unable to avail himself of services so restricted. We can at least see how each, in turn, might lodge an alternateprotest, --the one against the positive exclusion of religion by theState, the other against its positive introduction. But if, accordingto Chalmers, the State, aware of the difficulty, tenders its endowmentand builds its schools 'simply as an expression of its value for agood secular education, ' and avowedly leaves the religious part of theschool training to be determined by the parties who furnish thatmoiety of the schoolmaster's support derived from fees--_i. E. _ theparents or guardians--we find in the arrangement ground on which theVoluntary and the Establishment man can meet and agree. For the Statevirtually wills by such a settlement--and both by what it demands, andby what it does _not_ demand, but _permits_--that its salariedfunctionary should stand to his employers, the people, simply in therelation of an adventure schoolmaster. The State says virtually toits teacher in such circumstances: 'I, as the _general_ guardian ofyour pupils, do not pay you for their religious education; but their_particular_ and special guardians, the parents, are quite at libertyto make with you on that head whatever bargain they please. Fullyaware of the vast importance of religious teaching, and yet whollyunable, from the denominational differences of the time, at once toprovide for it in the national seminaries, and to render these equalto the wants of the country, I throw the whole responsibility in thismatter on the divided people, whom I cannot unite in their religion, but whose general education I am not on that account at liberty toneglect. ' On grounds such as these, we repeat, Voluntaryism and theEstablishment principle may meet and agree. 

There can be little doubt, however, that there are men on both sidessparingly gifted with common sense: for never yet was there a greatquestion widely and popularly agitated, that did not divide not onlythe wise men, but also the fools of the community; and we have heardit urged by some of the representatives of the weaker class, that aVoluntary could not permit his children to be taught religion under aroof provided by the State. Really, with all respect for the cap andbells, this is driving the matter a little too far. We have been toldby a relative, now deceased, who served on shipboard during the firstrevolutionary war, and saw some hard fighting, that at the close of ahot engagement, in which victory remained with the British, thecaptain of the vessel in which he sailed--a devout and braveman--called his crew together upon the quarter-deck, and offered upthanks to God in an impressive prayer. The noble ship in which hesailed was the property of the State, and he himself a State-paidofficial; but was there anything in either circumstance to justify aprotest from even the most rabid Voluntary against the part which heacted on this interesting occasion, simply as a Christian hero? Nay, had he sought to employ and pay out of his private purse in behalf ofhis crew an evangelical missionary, as decidedly Voluntary in hisviews as John Foster or Robert Hall, would the man have once thoughtof objecting to the work because it was to be prosecuted under theshelter of beams and planks, every one of which belonged to theGovernment? Would a pious Voluntary soldier keep aloof from aprayer-meeting on no other ground than that it was held in abarrack?--or did the first Voluntaries of Great Britain, thehigh-toned Independents that fought under Cromwell, abstain from theirpreachings and their prayers when cooped up by the enemy in agarrison? Where is the religious Voluntary who would not exhort in aprison, or offer up an unbought prayer on a public, State-providedscaffold, for some wretched criminal shivering on the verge of thegrave?

Now the schoolmaster, in the circumstances laid down by Chalmers, wehold to be in at least as favourable a position with respect to theState and the State-erected edifice in which he teaches, as theship-captain or the non-commissioned missionary--the devout Voluntarysoldier, or the pious Independents of Cromwell's Ironsides. He is, inhis secular character, a State-paid official, sheltered by an erectionthe property of the State; but the State permits him to bear in thaterection another character, in relation to another certain employer, whom it recognises as quite as legitimately in the field as itself, and permits him also--though it does not enjoin--to perform his dutiesthere as a Christian man. Though, however, the objection to religiousteaching under the State-erected roof may be suffered to drop, theremay be an objection raised--and there has been an objectionraised--against the teaching of religion in certain periods of timeduring the day, for which it is somehow taken for granted the Statepays. Hence the argument for teaching religion in certain otherperiods of time not paid for by the State--or in other words, duringseparate hours. Now the entire difference here seems to originate in avicious begging of the question. It is not the State that specifiesthe hours during each day in which State-endowed and State-erectedschools are taught; on the contrary, varying as these hours do, andmust, in various parts of the town and country--for a thinly-peopleddistrict demands one set of hours, and a densely-peopled localityanother--they are fixed, as mere matters of mutual arrangement, tosuit the convenience of the teachers and the taught. It is enough thatthe State satisfy itself, through its inspectors, that the secularinstruction for which it pays is effectually imparted to its people:it neither does nor will lay claim to any one hour of the day as itsown, whether before noon or after it. It will leave to the EnglishEstablishment its canonical hours, sacred to organ music and theLiturgy; but it will set apart by enactment no pedagogical hours, sacred to arithmetic or algebra, the construing of verbs, or thedrawing of figures. If separate hours merely mean that the master isnot to have all his classes up at once--here gabbling Latin or Greek, there discussing the primer or reciting from Scott's Collection, yonder repeating the multiplication table or running over the rules ofLindley Murray--we at once say religion must have its separate hour, just as English, the dead tongues, figuring, writing, and themathematics, have their separate hours; but if it be meant that thereligious teaching of the school must be restricted to some hour notpaid for by the State, then we reply with equal readiness that we knowof no hour specially paid for by the State, and so utterly fail torecognise any principle in the proposed arrangement, or rather in theobjection that would suggest it. 

As to the question of a separate fee for religious tuition, let usconsider how it is usually solved in the adventure schools of thecountry. The day is, in most cases, opened by the master with prayer, and then there is a portion of Scripture read by the pupils. Andneither the Scripture read nor the prayer offered up fall, we aredisposed to think, under the head of religious tuition, but under agreatly better head--that of religion itself. It is a properdevotional beginning of the business of the day. The committal of theShorter Catechism--which with most children is altogether an exerciseof memory, but which, accomplished in youth, while the intellect yetsleeps, produces effects in after years almost always beneficial tothe understanding, and not unfrequently ameliorative of the heart--weplace in a different category. It is not religion, but the teaching ofreligion; not food for the present, but store laid up for the future. With the committal to memory of the Catechism we class that species ofScripture dissection now so common in schools, which so often mangleswhat it carves. {14} And religion taught in this way is and ought to berepresented in the fee paid to the teacher, and is and ought to betaught in a class as separate from all the others as the geography orthe grammar class. Such is, we understand, a common arrangement inScottish adventure schools; nor does there exist a single good reasonfor preventing it from also obtaining in the Scottish nationalschools. If the parentage of Scotland, whether Voluntary orEstablishment, were to be vested with the power of determining that itshould be so, and of selecting their schoolmasters, the schools wouldopen with prayer and the reading of the Word--not because they wereState-endowed, but because, the State leaving the point entirely open, they were the schools of a Christian land, to which Christian parentshad sent their children, and for which, on their own properresponsibility, they had chosen, so far as they could determine thepoint, Christian teachers. And for this religious part of the servicesof the day we would deem it derogatory to the character of aschoolmaster to suppose that he _could_ receive any remuneration fromthe parents of his pupils, or from any one else. For the properdevotional services of the school we would place on exactly the samehigh disinterested level as the devotional exercises of the family, or as those of the gallant officer and his crew, who, paid for but thedefence of their country, gave God thanks on the blood-stainedquarter-deck, in their character as Christians, that He had shelteredtheir heads in one of their country's battles, and then castthemselves in faith upon His further care. We would, we say, deem itan insult to the profession to speak of a monetary remuneration forthe read word or the prayer offered up. Nay, if either was rated atbut a single penny as its price, or if there was a single pennyexpected for either, where is there the man, Voluntary or Free Church, that would deem it worth the money? The story of the footman, who, upon being told, on entering on his new place, that he would have toattend family prayers, expressed a hope that the duty would beconsidered in his wages, has become one of the standard jokes of ourjest-books. We would, however, place the religious teaching of theschool on an entirely different footing from its religious services. We would assign to _it_ its separate class and its separate time, justas we would assign a separate class and time to the teaching ofEnglish grammar, or history, or the dead languages. And whether theremuneration was specified or merely understood, we would deem it butreasonable that this branch of teaching, like all the other brancheswhich occupied the time and tasked the exertions of the teacher, should be remunerated by a fee: in this department of tuition, as inthe others, we would deem the labourer worthy of his hire. We needscarce add, however, that we would recognise no power in the majorityof any locality, or in the schoolmaster whom they had chosen, torender attendance at even the devotional services of the seminarycompulsory on the children of parents who, on religious or othergrounds, willed that they should not join in the general worship. And, of course, attendance on the religion-teaching class would bealtogether as much a matter of arrangement between the parent and theschoolmaster, as attendance on the Latin or English classes, or onarithmetic, algebra, or the mathematics. 

While, however, we can see no proper grounds for difference betweenVoluntaries and Free Churchmen, on even these details of schoolmanagement, and see, further, that they never differ regarding the wayin which the adventure schools of the country are conducted, wemust remind the reader that all on which they have really to agreeon this question, as Scotchmen and franchise-holders, is simplywhether their country ought not, in the first place, to possess anefficient system of national schools, open to all the Christiandenominations; whether, in the second, the parents ought not to bepermitted to exercise, on their own responsibility, the natural rightof determining what their children should be taught; and whether, inthe third, the householders of a district ought not to be vested inthe power, now possessed by the heritors and parish minister, ofchoosing the teacher. Agreement on these heads is really all that isnecessary towards either the preliminary agitation of the question, or in order to secure its ultimate success. The minor points wouldall come to be settled, not on the legislative platform, but in theparishes, by the householders. Voluntaryism, wise and foolish, doesnot reckon up more than a third of the population of Scotland; andfoolish, _i. E. _ extreme Voluntaries--for the sensible ones would beall with us--would find themselves, when they came to record theirvotes, a very small minority indeed. And so, though their extremeviews may now be represented as lions in the path, it would be foundultimately that, like the lions which affrighted Pilgrim in theavenue, and made the poor man run back, they are lions well chainedup--_lions_, in short, in a _minority_, like the agricultural lion in_Punch_. Let us remark, further, that if some of our friends deem thescheme proposed for Scotland too little religious, it is as certainthat the assertors of the scheme now proposed for England, andadvocated in Parliament by Mr. Fox, very decidedly object to it onthe opposite score. Like the grace said by the Rev. Reuben Butler, which was censured by the Captain of Knockdunder as too long, andby douce Davie Deans as too short, it is condemned for faults sodecidedly antagonistic in their character, that they cannot co-existtogether. One class of persons look exclusively at that lack of astatutory recognition of religion which the scheme involves, anddenounce it as _infidel_; another, at the religious character of thepeople of Scotland, and at the consequent certainty, also involvedin the scheme, that they will render their schools transcripts ofthemselves, and so they condemn it as _orthodox_. And hence theopposite views entertained by Mr. Combe of Edinburgh on the onehand, and Mr. Gibson of Glasgow on the other. {15}

-----

{14} It is not uninstructive to remark how invariably in this matter an important point has been taken for granted which has not yet been proven; and how the most serious charges have been preferred against men's principles, on the assumption that there exists in the question a certain divine truth, which may be neither divine nor yet a truth at all. Wisdom and goodness may be exhibited in both the negative and positive form--both by avoiding what is wicked and foolish, and by doing what is good and wise. And while no Christian doubts that the adorable Head of the Church manifested His character, when on earth, in both ways, at least no Presbyterian doubts that He manifested it not only by instituting certain orders in His Church, but also by omitting to institute in it certain other orders. He instituted, for instance, an order of preachers of the gospel; He did not institute an order of popes and cardinals. Neither, however, did He institute an order of 'religion-teaching' schoolmasters; and the question not yet settled, and of which, without compromising a single article in our standards, either side may be espoused, is, whether our Saviour manifested His wisdom in _not_ making use of the schoolmaster, or whether, without indicating His mind on the subject, He left the schoolmaster to be legitimately employed in an after-development of the Church. 

 Indeed, so entirely in this matter is the Free Church at sea, without chart or compass, that it has still to be determined whether the religious teaching of her schools be of a tendency to add to or to diminish the religious feeling of the country. 'I sometimes regretted to observe, ' says Dr. Reid, in his Report on the Schools in connection with the Free Presbytery of Edinburgh, 'that [their lessons in the Bible and Shorter Catechism] were taught rather too much in the style of the ordinary lessons. I do not object to _places being taken_, or any other means employed, which a teacher may consider necessary to secure attention during a Scripture lesson; but divine truth should always be communicated with solemnity. ' Now, such is the general defect of the religious teaching of the schoolroom. Nor is it to be obviated, we fear, by any expression of extra solemnity thrown into the pedagogical face, or even by the _taking of places_ or the _taws_. And there seems reason to dread that lessons of this character can have but the effect of commonplacing the great truths of religion in the mind, and hardening the heart against their after application from the pulpit. But some ten or twelve years will serve to unveil to the Free Church the real nature of the experiment in which she is now engaged. For our own part, we can have little doubt, be the matter decided as it may, that experience will serve ultimately to show how vast the inferiority really is of man's 'teachers of religion' to Christ's preachers of the gospel. 

 We shall never forget at least the more prominent particulars of a conversation on this subject which we were privileged to hold with one of the most original-minded clergymen (now, alas, no more) our Church ever produced. He referred, first, to the false association which those words of world-wide meaning, 'religious education, ' are almost sure to induce, when restricted, in a narrow, inadequate sense, to the teaching of the schoolmaster; and next, to the divine commission of the minister of the gospel. 'Perverted as human nature is, ' he remarked, 'there are cases in which, by appealing to its sentiments and affections, we may derive a very nice evidence respecting the divine origin of certain institutions and injunctions. For instance, the Chinese hold, as one of their religious beliefs, that parents have a paramount claim to the affections of their sons and daughters, long after they have been married and settled in the world; whereas our Saviour teaches that a man should leave father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the wife leave father and mother and cleave to her husband. And as, in the case of the dead and living child, Solomon sought his evidence in the feelings of the women that came before him, and determined _her_ to be the true mother in whom he found the true mother's love and regard, I would seek my evidence, in this other case, in the affections of human nature; and ask them whether they declared for the law of the Chinese Baal, or for that of Him who implanted them in the heart. And how prompt and satisfactory the reply! The love which of twain makes one flesh approves itself, in all experience, to be greatly stronger and more engrossing than that which attaches the child to the parent; and while we see the unnatural Chinese law making the weaker traverse and overrule the stronger affection, and thus demonstrating its own falsity, we find the law of Christ exquisitely concerting with the nature which Christ gave, and thus establishing its own truth. Now, regarding the commission of the minister of the gospel, ' he continued, 'I put a similar question to the affections, and receive from them a not less satisfactory reply. The God who gave the commission does inspire a love for him who truly bears it; ay, a love but even too engrossing at times, and that, by running to excess, defeats its proper end, by making the servant eclipse in the congregational mind the Master whose message he bears. But I do believe that the sentiment, like the order to which it attaches, is, in its own proper place, of divine appointment. It is a preparation for the reception in love of the gospel message. God does not will that His message should be injured by any prejudice against the bearer of it; and that His will in this matter might be adequately carried out, was one of the grand objects of our contendings in the Church controversy. But we are not to calculate on the existence of any such strong feeling of love between the children of a school and their teacher. If, founding on the experience of our own early years, we think of the schoolmaster, not in his present relation to ourselves as a fellow-citizen, or as a servant of the Church, but simply in his connection with the immature class on which he operates, we will find him circled round in their estimation (save in perhaps a very few exceptional cases) with greatly more of terror than affection. There are no two classes of feelings in human nature more diverse than the class with which the schoolmaster and the class with which the minister of the gospel is regarded by their respective charges; and right well was St. Paul aware of the fact, when he sought in the terrors of the schoolmaster an illustration of the terrors of the law. And in this fence of terror we may perhaps find a reason why Christ never committed to the schoolmaster the gospel message. ' We are afraid we do but little justice, in this passage, to the thinking of our deceased friend; for we cannot recall his flowing and singularly happy language, but we have, we trust, preserved his leading ideas; and they are, we think, worthy of being carefully pondered. We may add, that he was a man who had done much in his parish for education; but that he had at length seen, though without relaxing his efforts, that the religious teaching of his schools had failed to make the rising generation under his charge religious, and had been led seriously to inquire regarding the cause of its failure. 

{15} Mr. Combe, however, may be regarded as an extreme man; and so the following letter, valuable as illustrating the views of a not very extreme opponent, though a decided assertor of the non-religious system of tuition, may be well deemed instructive. The writer, Mr. Samuel Lucas, was for many years Chairman of that Lancashire Public School Association which Mr. Fox proposes as the model of his scheme:--

 TO THE EDITOR OF THE SCOTSMAN. 

 SIR, --In your paper of the 26th ultimo, I observe among the advertisements a set of resolutions which have been agreed to and signed by a number of parties, with the view of a national movement in favour of an unsectarian system of national education. It is perhaps too early to say, that though the names of some of the parties are well known and highly esteemed in this country, yet that the names of many who might be expected to be foremost in promoting such an object are wanting. 

 I cannot, however, help thinking, that some of these may have been prevented from signing the document in question by some considerations which have occurred to myself on the perusal of it; and as a few lines of editorial comment indicate that the project has your sanction, you will perhaps allow me briefly to say why I think the people of Scotland should give to it the most deliberate consideration before committing themselves to it. 

 Agreeing, as I do most fully, with a large proportion of the contents of the resolutions, I regret that its authors have made an attempt, which it is impossible can be successful, to unite in the national schoolhouses, and in the school hours, a sound religious with an unsectarian education. 

 What is a _sound religious education_? Will not the professors of every variety of religious faith answer the question differently?

 I think it was Bishop Berkeley who said, Orthodoxy is my doxy; heterodoxy is another man's doxy. So it is with a sound religious education. What is sound to me is hollow and superficial, or perhaps full of error, to another. 

 If it be said that the majority of heads of families must decide as to what is sound and what is unsound, I must protest against such an injustice. The minority will contribute to the support of the public schools, and neither directly nor indirectly can they with justice be deprived of the use of them. 

 It appears to me that the authors of the resolutions are flying in the face of their own great authority, in proposing to introduce religious instruction into the public schools. It is true that Dr. Chalmers proposes that Government should 'leave this matter entire to the parties who had to do with the erection and management of the schools which they had been called upon to assist;' but he was not then contemplating the erection of national schools by the public money, but schools erected by voluntary subscription, which the Government might be called on to assist. 

 His opinion on the right action of Government in the present state of things is clear. He says: 'That in any public measure for helping on the education of the people, Government [should] abstain from introducing the element of religion at all into their part of the scheme. '

 What, then, should be the course taken by the promoters of public schools, in accordance with the principles enunciated by Dr Chalmers? It appears to me to be clearly this: to make no provision whatever for, or rather directly to exclude, all religious teaching within the walls of the school, and to leave, in the words of the fifth resolution, 'the duty and responsibility of communicating religious instruction' in the hands of those 'to whom they have been committed by God, viz. To their parents, and, through them, to such teachers as they may choose to entrust with that duty. '

 This was the course pursued by the Government of Holland in the early part of the present century; and I suppose no one will venture to call in question the morality or religion of the people of that country, or to throw a doubt upon the success of the system. 

 It is as an ardent friend of National Education, both in Scotland and England, that I have ventured to make these few observations. I desire to throw no obstruction in the way of any movement calculated to attain so desirable an object. It may be that I am mistaken in supposing that it is intended to convey religious instruction, in the public schools, of a kind that will be obnoxious to a minority; and if so, the design of the authors of the resolutions will have no more sincere well-wisher than, Sir, your obedient servant, SAMUEL LUCAS. 

 LONDON, _February 4, 1850_. 

CHAPTER SEVENTH. 

 General Outline of an Educational Scheme adequate to the demands of the Age--Remuneration of Teachers--Mode of their Election--Responsibility--Influence of the Church in such a Scheme--Apparent Errors of the Church--The Circumstances of Scotland very different now from what they were in the days of Knox. 

Scotland will never have an efficient educational system at onceworthy of her ancient fame, and adequate to the demands of the age, until in every parish there be at least one central school, knownemphatically as the _Parish_ or Grammar School, and taught by asuperior university-bred teacher, qualified to instruct his pupils inthe higher departments of learning, and fit them for college. Andwith this central institute every parish must also possess itssupplementary English schools, efficient of their kind, though ofa lower standing, and sufficiently numerous to receive all theyouthful population of the district which fails to be accommodated inthe other. In these, the child of the labourer or mechanic--if, possessed of but ordinary powers, he looked no higher than theprofession of his father--could be taught to read, write, and figure. If, however, there awakened within him during the process, thestirrings of those impulses which characterize the superior mind, he could remove to his proper place--the central school--mayhap, incountry districts, some two or three miles away; but when theintellectual impulses are genuine, two or three miles in such casesare easily got over. 

We would fix for the teachers, in the first instance, on no veryextravagant rate of remuneration; for it might prove bad policy inthis, as in other departments, to set a man above his work. Thesalaries attached at present to our parish schools vary from a minimumof £25 to a maximum of about £34. Let us suppose that they varied, instead, from a minimum of £60 to a maximum of £80--not large sums, certainly, but which, with the fees and a free house, would renderevery parochial schoolmaster in Scotland worth about from £80 to £100per annum, and in some cases--dependent, of course, on professionalefficiency and the population of the locality--worth considerablymore. The supplementary English schools we would place on the averagelevel maintained at present by our parish schools, by providing theteachers with free houses, and yearly salaries of a minimum of £30 anda maximum of £40. And as it is of great importance that men should notfall asleep at their posts, and as tutors never teach more efficientlythan when straining to keep ahead of their pupils, we would fain haveprovision made that, by a permitted use of occasional substitutes, this lower order of schoolmasters should be enabled to preparethemselves, by attendance at college, for competing, as vacanciesoccurred, for the higher schools. It would be an arrangement worth £20additional salary to every school in Scotland, that the channels ofpreferment should be ever kept open to useful talent and honestdiligence, so that the humblest English teacher in the land mightrise, in the course of years, to be at the head of its highest school;nay, that, like that James Beattie who taught at one time the parishschool of Fordoun, he might, if native faculty had been given andwisely improved, become one of the country's most distinguishedprofessors. In fixing our permanent castes of schools, Grammar andEnglish, we would strongly urge that there should be no permanentcastes of teachers fixed--no men condemned to the humbler walks of theprofession if qualified for the higher. The life-giving sap would thushave free course, from the earth's level to the topmost boughs of ournational scheme; and low as an Englishman might deem our proposedrates of remuneration for university-taught men, we have no fear thatthey would prove insufficient, coupled with such a provision, for theright education of the country. 

We are not sure that we quite comprehend the sort of machinery meantto be included under the term Local or Parochial Boards. It seemsnecessary that there should exist Local _Committees_ of theeducational franchise-holders, chosen by themselves, from amongtheir own number, for terms either definite or indefinite, andrecognised by statute as vested in certain powers of examination andinquiry. But though a mere name be but a small matter, we areinclined to regard the term Board as somewhat too formidable andstiff. Let us, at least for the present, substitute the termCommittee; and as large committees are apt to degenerate intolittle mobs, and, as such, to conduct their business noisily and ill, let us suppose educational committees to consist, in at leastcountry districts or the smaller towns, of some eight or tenindividuals, selected by the householders for their intelligence, integrity, and business habits, and with a chairman at their head, chosen from among their number by themselves. A vacancy occurs, letus suppose, in either the Grammar or one of the English schools ofthe place: the committee, through their chairman, put themselves incommunication with some of the Normal schoolmasters of the south, and receive from them a few names of deserving and qualified teachers, possessed of diplomas indicating their professional standing, andfurnished, besides, with trustworthy certificates of character. Or, ifthe emoluments of the vacant school be considerable, and some of theneighbouring teachers, placed on a lower rate of income, havedistinguished themselves by their professional merits, and sorendered themselves known in the district, let us suppose that theyselect _their_ names, and to the number of some two, three, four, ormore, submit them, with the necessary credentials, to theirconstituents the householders. And these assemble on some fixed day, and, from the number placed on the list, select their men. Such, in the business of electing a schoolmaster, would, we hold, be theproper work of a committee. In all other seasons, the committeemight be recognised as vested in some of the functions now exercisedby the Established presbyteries, such as that of presiding, inbehalf of the parentage of the locality, at yearly or half-yearlyexaminations of the schools, and of watching over the generalmorals and official conduct of the teacher. But the power of trialand dismission, which, of course, would need to exist somewhere, wewould vest in other hands. Let us remark, in the passing, thatmuch might come to depend ultimately on the portioning out of thelocalities into electoral districts of a proper size, and that itwould be perhaps well, as a general rule, that there should be nosubdivisions made of the old parishes. There are few parishes inScotland in which the materials of a good committee might not befound; but there are perhaps many half, and third, and quarterparishes in which no such materials exist. Further, the householdersof some country hamlet or degraded town-suburb, populous enough torequire its school, might be yet very unfit of themselves to choosefor it a schoolmaster. And hence the necessity for maintaining alocal breadth of representation sufficient to do justice to theprinciple of the scheme, and to prevent it, if we may so speak, fromsinking in the less solid parts of the kingdom. A parochialbreadth of base would serve as if to plank over the unsounder portionsof the general surface, and give footing to a system of schools andteachers worthy, as a whole, of the character and the necessitiesof a country wise and enlightened in the main, but that totters onthe brink of a bottomless abyss. 

The power of trying, and, if necessary, of dismissing from his charge, an offending teacher, would, however, as we have said, require to existsomewhere. Every official, whether of the State or Church, or whetherdependent on a single employer or on a corporation or company, bearsalways a twofold character. He is a subject of the realm, and, assuch, amenable to its laws; he has also an official responsibility, and may be reprimanded or dismissed for offences against therequirements and duties of his office. A tradesman or mechanic maygo on tippling for years, wasting his means and neglecting his business, untouched by any law save that great economic law of Providence whichdooms the waster to ultimate want; but for the excise officer, or bankaccountant, or railway clerk, who pursues a similar course, thereexists a court of official responsibility, which anticipates the slowoperation of the natural law, by at once divesting the offender ofhis office. And the State-paid schoolmaster must have also his officialresponsibility. But it would serve neither the ends of justice northe interests of a sound policy to erect his immediate employers into acourt competent to try and condemn: their proper place would be ratherthat of parties than of judges; and as parties, we would permit themsimply to conduct against him any case for which they might hold thereexisted proper grounds. A schoolmaster chosen by a not large majority, might find in a few years that his supporters had dwindled into apositive minority: parents whose boys were careless, or naturallythick-headed, would of course arrive at the opinion that it was theteacher who was in fault; nay, a parent who had fallen into arrearswith his fees might come to entertain the design of discharging theaccount simply by discharging the schoolmaster; and thus greatinjustice might be done to worthy and efficient men, and one of themost important classes of the community placed in circumstances of ashackled dependency, which no right-minded teacher could submit tooccupy. What we would propose, then, is, that the power of trial, andof dismission if necessary, should be vested in a central nationalboard, furnished with one or more salaried functionaries to recordits sentences and do its drudgery, but consisting mainly of unpaidmembers of high character and standing, --some of them, mayhap, members_ex officio_; the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, let us suppose--thePrincipal and some of the Professors of the Edinburgh University--theRector, shall we say, of the High School--the Lord Advocate, andmayhap the Dean of Faculty. And as it would be of importance that thereshould be as little new machinery created as possible, the evidence, criminatory or exculpatory, on which such a board would have to decidecould be taken before the Sheriff Courts of the provinces, and then, after being carefully sifted by the Sheriffs or their Substitutes, forwarded in a documentary form to Edinburgh. It would scarce be wiseto attempt extemporizing an official code in a newspaper article;but the laws of such a code might, we think, be ranged under threeheads, --immorality, incompetency, and breach of trust to the parents. We would urge the dismissal, as wholly unqualified to stand in therelation of teacher to the youthhead, of the tippling, licentious, ordishonest schoolmaster; further, we would urge the dismissal (and incases of this kind the corroborative evidence of the Governmentinspector might be regarded as indispensable) of an incompetentteacher who did not serve the purpose of his appointment; and, in thethird and last place, we would urge that a teacher who made animproper use of his professional influence over his pupils, and of theopportunities necessarily afforded him, and who taught them to entertainbeliefs, ecclesiastical or semi-ecclesiastical, which their parentsregarded as erroneous, should be severely reprimanded for such anoffence in the first instance, and dismissed if he persevered in it. We would confer upon the board, in cases of this last kind, no power ofdeciding regarding the absolute right or wrong of the dogmas taught. The teacher might be a zealous Voluntary, who assured the children ofmen such as the writer of these articles that their fathers, inasserting the Establishment principle, approved themselves limbs of thatmystic Babylon which was first founded by Constantine; or he might be aconscientious Establishment-man, who dutifully pressed upon theVoluntary pupils under his care, that their parents, though theyperhaps did not know it, were atheistical in their views. And we wouldpermit no board to determine in such cases, whether Voluntaryism was inany respect or degree tantamount to atheism, or the Establishmentprinciple to Popery. But we would ask them to declare, as wise andhonest men, that no schoolmaster, under the pretext of a zeal fortruth, should with impunity break faith with the parents of his pupils, or prejudice the unformed and ductile minds entrusted to his careagainst their hereditary beliefs. Should we, however, do no violenceby such a provision, we have heard it asked, to the conscientiousconvictions of the schoolmaster? No, not in the least. If he was inreality the conscientious man that he professed to be, he would quithis equivocal position as a teacher, in which, without beingdishonest, he could not fulfil what he deemed his religious duty, and become a minister; a character in which he would find Churcheswithin which he could affirm with impunity that Dr. Chalmers was, invirtue of his Establishment views, little better than a Papist, orthat Robert Hall, seeing he was a Voluntary, must have been anunconscious atheist at bottom. 

Let us next consider what the influence of the ministers of ourChurch would be under a national scheme such as that which wedesiderate, and what the probability that the national teaching wouldbe religious. The minister, as such, would possess, nominally atleast, but a single vote; and if he were what an ordained minister mayin some cases be--merely a suit of black clothes surmounted by awhite neckcloth--the vote, _nominally_ one, would be also _really_but one; nor ought it, we at once say, to weigh in such cases aniota more than it counted. Mere black coats and white neckcloths, though called by congregations, and licensed and ordained bypresbyteries, never yet carried on the proper business of eitherChurch or school. But if the minister was no mere suit of clothes, buta Christian man, ordained and called not merely by congregations andpresbyteries, but by God Himself, his one vote in the case wouldoutweigh hundreds, simply because it would represent the votes ofhundreds. Let us suppose that, with the national schools thrownopen, a vacancy had occurred in the parish school of Cromarty duringthe incumbency of the lamented Mr. Stewart. The people of the townand parish, possessing the educational franchise, would meet; theircommittee would deliberate; there would be a teacher chosen, --inall probability, the present excellent Free Church teacher of thetown; and every man would feel that he had exercised in the electionhis own judgment on his own proper responsibility. And yet it wouldassuredly be the teacher whom the minister had deemed on the wholemost eligible for the office, that would find himself settled, invirtue of the transaction, in the parish school. How? Not, certainly, through any exercise of clerical domination, nor through anyemployment of what is still more hateful--clerical manoeuvre--but invirtue of a widespread confidence reposed by the people in the wisdomand the integrity of the minister sent them by God Himself to preachto them the everlasting gospel. In almost all the surroundingparishes--in Resolis, Rosskeen, Urquhart under the late Dr. M'Donald, Alness, Kiltearn, Kincardine, Kilmuir, etc. Etc. Etc. --insimilar cases similar results would follow; and if there arepreachers in that vast northern or north-western tract--which, withthe three northern counties, includes also almost the entireHighlands--in which such results would _not_ follow, it would befound that in most cases the fault lay rather with the ordainedsuits of black, topped by the white neckcloths, than with thepeople whom they failed to influence. 

As for the religion or the religious teaching of the schools, wehold it to be one of the advantages of the proposed scheme, that itwould really stir up both ministers and people to think seriously ofthe matter, and to secure for the country truly religious teaching, so far as it was found to be at once practicable and good. Previous tothe year 1843, when the parish schools lay fully within our power, there was really nothing done to introduce religious teaching into_them_; we had it all secure on written sheepskin, that theirteaching should and might be religious, for we had them all fastbound to the Establishment; and, as if that were enough of itself, ministers, backed by heritors and their factors, went on fillingthese parish schools with men who stood the test of the Disruptionworse, in the proportion of at least five to one, than any other classin the country, and who, if their religious teaching had but takeneffect on the people by bringing them to their own level, would haverendered that Disruption wholly an impossibility. {16} And then, whenthat great event occurred, we flung ourselves into an oppositeextreme, --eulogized our Educational Scheme as the best and mostimportant of all the Schemes of our Church, on, we suppose, theprinciple so well understood by the old divines, that whereas theother schemes were of God, and God-enjoined, this scheme was ofourselves, --introduced, further, the design of '_inducting_' ourteachers, as if an idle ceremony could be any substitute for theindispensable commission signed by the Sovereign, and could make thenon-commissioned by Him at least _half_ ecclesiastics. {17} And then, after _teaching_ our schoolmasters to _teach_ religion, we sentthem abroad in shoals--some of them, no doubt, converted men, hundredsof them unconverted, and religious but by certificate--to make thechildren of the Free Church as good Christians as themselves. And byattempting to make them half ecclesiastics, we have but succeeded inmaking them half mendicants, and somewhat more, --a character whichassuredly no efficient schoolmaster ought to bear; for while hisprofession holds in Scripture no higher place than the two _secular_branches of the learned professions, physic and the law, he is ascertainly worthy of his reward, and of maintaining an independentposition in society, as either the lawyer or the physician. Inschools truly national--with no sheepskin authority to sleep over onthe one hand, and no idle dream of semi-ecclesiastical 'induction' tobeguile on the other--the item of religious teaching, brought intoprominence by both the Free and the Established Churches in thepreliminary struggle, would assert and receive its due place. Scotland would possess what it never yet possessed, --not even sometwenty years or so after the death of Knox, --a system of schoolsworthy, in the main, of a Christian country. We are told by oldRobert Blair, in his Autobiography, that when first brought underreligious impressions (in the year 1600), 'he durst never play onthe Lord's day, though the schoolmaster, after taking an account ofthe Catechism, dismissed the children with that express direction, "Go not to the town, but to the fields, and play. " I obeyed him, 'adds the worthy man, 'in going to the fields, but refused to playwith my companions, as against the commandment of God. ' Now it isnot at all strange that there should have been such a schoolmaster, in any age of the Presbyterian Church, in one of the parishschools of our country; but somewhat strange, mayhap, considering theimpression so generally received regarding the Scottish schools ofthat period, that Blair should have given us no reason whatever toregard the case as an extreme or exceptional one. Certainly, withsuch a central board in existence as that which we desiderate, nosuch type of schoolmaster would continue to hold office in anational seminary. 

Further, it really seems difficult to determine whether the differencebetween the old educational scheme of Knox and that proposed at thepresent time by the Free Church, or the difference between thecircumstances of Scotland in his days and of Scotland in the presentday, be in truth the wider difference of the two. Knox judged it of'necessitie that every several kirk should have one schoolmasterappointed, '--'such a one at least as was able to teach grammar and theLatine tongue;' 'that there should be erected in every notable town, 'a 'colledge, in which the arts, logic, and rhethorick, together withthe tongues, should be read by masters, for whom _honest_ stipendsshould be appointed;' and further, 'that fair provision should bemade for the [support of the] poor [pupils], in especial those whocame from landward, ' and were 'not able, by their friends nor bythemselves, to be sustained at letters. ' We know that the notabletowns referred to here as of importance enough to possess collegeswere, many of them, what we would now deem far from notable. Kirkwall, the Chanonry of Ross, Brechin, St. Andrews, Inverary, Jedburgh, andDumfries, are specially named in the list; and we know further, thatwhat Knox deemed an 'honest stipend' for a schoolmaster, amounted onthe average to about two-thirds the stipend of a minister. Such, inthe sixteenth century, was the wise scheme of the liberal andscholarly Knox, the friend of Calvin, Beza, and Buchanan. Are we torecognise its counterpart in the middle of the nineteenth century, ina scheme at least three-fourths of whose teachers are paid with yearlysalaries of from £10 to £13, 13s. 4d. --about half ploughman'swages--and of whom not a fourth have passed the ordeal of a Governmentexamination, pitched at the scale of the lowest rate of attainment?The scheme of the noble Knox! Say rather a many-ringed film-spinninggrub, that has come creeping out of the old crackling parchment, inwhich the sagacious Reformer approved himself as much in advance ofhis own age, as many of those who profess to walk most closely in hissteps demonstrate themselves to be in the rear of theirs. 

Let us next mark how entirely the circumstances of the country havechanged since the days of the First Book of Discipline. With theexception of the clergy, a few lay proprietors, and a sprinkling ofthe inhabitants of the larger towns, Scotland was altogether, in theearlier period, an uneducated nation. Even for more than a centuryafter, there were landed gentlemen of the northern counties unable, asshown by old deeds, to sign their names. If the Church had not takenupon herself the education of the people in those ages, who else wasthere to teach them? Not one. Save for her exertions, the divinecommand, 'Search the Scriptures, ' would have remained to at leastnine-tenths of the nation a dead letter. But how entirely differentthe circumstances of Scotland in the present time! The country has itslapsed masses, --men in very much the circumstances, educationally, ofthe great bulk of the population in the age of Knox; and we at oncegrant that, unless the Churches of the country deal with these as Knoxdealt with the whole, there is but little chance of their ever beingrestored to society or the humanizing influences of religion, letGovernment make for them what provision it may. {18} But such is notthe condition of the membership of at least the evangelical Churches. Such is palpably not the condition of the membership of the FreeChurch, consisting as it does of parents taken solemnly bound, intheir baptismal engagements, to bring up their children in the'nurture and admonition of the Lord, ' and of the children for whomthey have been thus taken bound. Save in a few exceptional cases, _their_ education is secure, let the Church exert herself as little asshe may. She is but exhausting herself in vain efforts to do whatwould be done better without her. She has all along contemplated, weare told, merely the education of her own members; and these formexactly that portion of the people which--unless, indeed, the solemnengagements which she has deliberately laid upon them mean as littleas excise affidavits or Bow Street oaths--may be safely left to abroad national scheme, wisely based on a principle of parentalresponsibility. 

'If thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, ' said Mordecai toEsther, 'then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to theJews from another place, but thou and thy father's house shall bedestroyed. ' Scotland will have ultimately her Educational Schemeadequate to the demands of the age; but if the Free Church standaloof, and suffer the battle to be fought by others, her part or lotin it may be a very small matter indeed. What, we ask, would be hershare, especially in the Highlands, in a scheme that rendered thebasis of the educational franchise merely co-extensive with the basisof the political one? Nay, what, save perhaps in the northern burghs, would be her share in such a scheme over Scotland generally? A meremakeweight at best. But at least the lay membership of the Free Churchwill, we are assured, not long stand aloof; and this great question ofnational education being in no degree an ecclesiastical one, nor lyingwithin the jurisdiction of presbyteries or assemblies, true lovers oftheir country and of their species, whether of the Established or ofthe Free Churches, will come forward and do their duty as Scotchmen onthe political platform. In neither body does the attitude assumed bythe ecclesiastical element in this question, so far as has yet beenindicated, appear of a kind which plain, simple-minded laymen willdelight to contemplate. The Established Church courts are taking upthe ground that the teaching in their parish schools has been allalong religious, and at least one great source from which has sprungthe vitalities of the country's faith. And who does not know that tobe a poor, unsolid fiction, --a weak and hollow sham? And, on the otherhand, some of our Free Churchmen are asserting that they are not_morally_ bound to their forlorn teachers for the meagre andaltogether inadequate salaries held out to them in prospect, when theywere set down in their humble schools, divorced from all other meansof support, to regulate their very limited expenditure by thespecified incomes. Further, they virtually tell us that we cannotpossibly take our stand as Scotchmen on this matter, in the onlypractical position, without being untrue to our common Christianity, and enemies to our Church. It has been urged against our educationalarticles, that we have failed to take into account the fall of man: hewould surely be an incorrigible sceptic, we reply, who could look uponstatements such as these, and yet doggedly persist in doubting thatman has fallen. But, alas! it is not a matter on which to congratulateourselves, that when the Established Church is coming forward toarrest the progress of national education with her strange equivocalcaveat, the Free Church--the Church of the Disruption--should be alsocoming forward with a caveat which at least _seems_ scarce lessequivocal; and that, like the twin giants of Guildhall--huge, monstrous, unreal--both alike should be turning deaf and wooden earsto the great clock of destiny, as it strikes the hours of doom totheir distracted and sinking country. O for an hour of the great, thenoble-minded Chalmers! Ultimately, however, the good cause is secure. It is a cause worth struggling and suffering for. We know a littleboy, not yet much of a reader, who has learned to bring a copy ofScott's _Tales of a Grandfather_, which now opens of itself at thebattle of Bannockburn, to a little girl, his sister, somewhat more inadvance, that she may read to him, for the hundredth time, of Wallaceand the Black Douglas, and how the good King Robert struck down SirHenry Bohun with a single blow, full in the sight of both armies. Andafter drinking in the narrative, he tells that, when grown to be a bigman, he too is to be a soldier like Robert the Bruce, and to 'fightin the battle of Scotland. ' And then he asks his father when thebattle of Scotland is to begin! Laymen of the Free Church, the battleof Scotland has already begun; and 'tis a battle better worth fightingthan any other which has arisen within the political arena since thetimes of the Reform Bill. Your country has still claims upon you: theDisruption may have dissolved the tie which bound you to party; butthat which binds you to Scotland still remains entire. The parentalright is not dissolved by any traditionary requirements of the altar;nor can we urge with impunity to our country, --'It is Corban, that isto say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me. '

-----

{16} There are about one thousand one hundred parish schoolmasters in Scotland: of these, not more than eighty (strictly, we believe, seventy-seven) adhered to the Free Church at the Disruption. 

{17} The Church as such ought to employ the schoolmaster, it has been argued, in virtue of the divine injunction, 'Search the Scriptures:' what God _commands_ men to do, it is her duty to _enable_ men to do. The argument is excellent, we say, so far as it goes; but of perilous application in the case in hand. It is the Church's duty to teach those to read the Scriptures, who, _without her assistance, would not be taught to read them_. But if by teaching Latin, arithmetic, algebra, and the mathematics to _ten_, she is incapacitating herself from teaching _twenty_ to read the Bible; or if, by teaching twenty to read the Bible who would have learned to read it whether she taught them or no, she is incapacitating herself from teaching twenty others to read it, who, unless she teach them, will never learn to read it at all; then, instead of doing her recognised duty in the matter, she is doing exactly the reverse of her duty--doing what prevents her from doing her duty. Let the Free Church but take her stand on this argument, and straightway her rectors, her masters in academies, and her schoolmasters planted in towns and populous localities, to teach the higher branches, become so many bars raised by herself virtually to impede and arrest her, through the expense incurred in their maintenance, in her proper work of enabling the previously untaught and ignorant to read the word of God, in obedience to the divine injunction. 

{18} This statement has been quoted by an antagonist as utterly inconsistent with our general line of argument; but we think we may safely leave the reader to determine whether it be really so. Did we ever argue that any scheme of national education, however perfect, could possibly supersede the proper _missionary_ labours of the Churches, whether educational or otherwise? Assuredly not. What we really assert is, that if the Churches waste their energies on work not missionary, the work which, if they do it not, cannot be done must of necessity be neglected; seeing that, according to Bacon, 'charity will hardly water the ground where it must first fill a pool. '

LORD BROUGHAM. 

The history of Lord Brougham has no exact parallel in that of Britishstatesmen. Villiers Duke of Buckingham (the Duke of the times ofCharles II. ) sunk quite as low, but not from such an elevation. Of himtoo it was said, as of his Lordship, that 'he left not faction, but ofthat was left, '--that every party learned to distrust and stand alooffrom him, and that his great parts had only the effect of renderinghis ultimate degradation the more marked and the more instructive. Hume tells us that by his 'wild conduct, unrestrained either byprudence or principle, he found means to render himself in the endodious, and even insignificant. ' But the Duke of Buckingham had been amere courtier from the beginning, and no man had ever trusted orthought well of him. 

Bolingbroke bears a nearly similar character. There was a mightydifference between the influential and able minister of Queen Anne, recognised by all as decidedly one of the most accomplished statesmenof his age or country, and the same individual, --forlorn and an exile, disliked and suspected by parties the most opposite, and who agreed innothing else, --a fugitive from his own country to avoid the threatenedimpeachment of the Whigs for his Jacobitism, and a fugitive fromFrance to avoid being impeached by the Pretender for his treachery. But Bolingbroke had never very seriously professed to be the friend ofhis country, nor would his country have believed him if he had. According to the shrewd remark of Fielding, the temporal happiness, the civil liberties and properties of Europe, had been the game of hisearliest youth, and the eternal and final happiness of all mankind thesport and entertainment of his advanced age. He would have faindestroyed the freedom of his countrymen when in power, and their hopeof immortality when in disgrace. Neither can we find a parallel in thehistory of that other Lord Chancellor of England, who has beendescribed by the poet as 'the greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind. 'Two of the epithets would not suit Lord Brougham; and though heunquestionably bore himself more honourably in the season of hiselevation than his illustrious predecessor, he has as certainlyemployed himself to worse purpose in the time of his disgrace. 

Unlike Lords Bolingbroke, Buckingham, or Bacon, Lord Brougham enteredpublic life a reformer and a patriot. The subject of his firstsuccessful speech in Parliament was the slave-trade. He denounced notonly the abominable traffic itself, --the men who stole, bought, andkept the slave; but also the traders and merchants, --'the cowardlysuborners of piracy and mercenary murder, ' as he termed them, underwhose remote influence the trade had been carried on; and thesympathies of the people went along with him. He was on everyoccasion, too, the powerful advocate of popular education. Brougham isno discoverer of great truths; but he has evinced a 'curious felicity'in expressing truths already discovered: he exerted himself in sending'the schoolmaster abroad, ' and announced the fact in words whichbecame more truly his motto than the motto found for him in theHerald's Office. He took part in well-nigh every question of reform;stood up for economy, the reduction of taxes, and Queen Caroline;found very vigorous English in which to express all he ought to havefelt regarding the Holy Alliance and the massacre at Manchester; anddealt with Cobbett as Cobbett deserved, for doing what he is nowdoing himself. There was always a lack of heart about Brougham, sothat men admired without loving him. 

There were no spontaneous exhibitions of those noblenesses of naturewhich mark the true reformer, and which compel the respect of evenenemies. Luther, Knox, and Andrew Thomson were all men of ruggedstrength, --men of war, and born to contend; but they were also men ofdeep and broad sympathies, and of kindly affections: they could allfeel as well as see the right; what is even more important still, theycould all thoroughly forget themselves, and what the world thought andsaid of them, in the pursuit of some great and engrossing object: theycould all love, too, at least as sincerely as they could hate. Brougham, on the contrary, could only see without feeling the right;but then he saw clearly. Brougham could not forget himself; but thenhe succeeded in identifying himself with much that was trulyexcellent. Brougham could not love as thoroughly as he could hate; butthen his indignation generally fell where it ought. His largeintellect seemed based on an inferior nature--it was a brilliant setin lead; nor were there indications wanting all along, it has beensaid, that he was one of those patriots who have their price. But thebrilliant was a true, not a factitious brilliant, whatever the valueof the setting; and the price, if ever proffered, had not beensufficiently large. Brougham became Lord Chancellor, the Reform Billpassed into a law, and slavery was abolished in the colonies. 

The country has not yet forgotten that the Lord Chancellor of 1832 andthe two following years was no wild Radical. There was no leaven ofChartism in Lord Brougham, though a very considerable dash ofeccentricity; and really, for a man who had been contending so manyyears in the Opposition, and who had attained to so thorough a commandof sarcasm, he learned to enact the courtier wonderfully well. Neither'Tompkins' nor 'Jenkins' had as yet manifested their contempt for thearistocracy; nor had the 'man well stricken in years' writtenanonymous letters to insult his sovereign. The universal suffragescheme found no advocate in the Lord Chancellor. He could call onCobbett in his chariot, to attempt persuading the stubborn old Saxonto write down incendiarism and machine-breaking. He breathed noanticipation of the 'first cheer of the people on the first refusal ofthe soldiery to fire on them. ' As for Reform, he was very explicit onthat head: really so much had been accomplished already, that a greatdeal more could not be expected. Little could be done in the comingyears, he said, just because there had been so much done in the yearsthat had gone by. The Lord Chancellor was comparatively a cautious andprudent man in those days--on the whole, a safe card for monarchy toplay with. Radicalism had learned that Whigs in office are not veryunlike Tories in office; and to Brougham it applied the remark: norwas he at all indignant that it did so. All his superabundant energieswere expended in Chancery. We unluckily missed hearing him deliver hisfamous speech at Inverness, and that merely by an untoward chance, forwe were in that part of the country at the time; but we have seen andconversed with scores who did hear him: we are intimate, too, with thegentleman who gave his speech on that occasion to the world, and knowthat a more faithful or more accomplished reporter than the editor ofthe _Inverness Courier_ is not to be found anywhere, nor yet a man ofnicer discrimination, nor of a finer literary taste. There was nomistake made regarding his Lordship's sentiments when he spoke of theReform Bill as well-nigh a final measure; nor did his delight in thesimple-minded natives arise when he pledged himself to recommend them, by the evening mail, to the graces of good King William, from theirwishing the bill to be anything else than final. Even with itslimited franchise, he deemed it a very excellent bill; and thewoolsack, to which it had elevated him, a very desirable seat. Peopledid occasionally see that Hazlitt was in the right--that he was rathera man of speech than of action; that he was somewhat too imprudent fora leader, somewhat too petulant for a partisan; and that he wanted ina considerable degree the principle of co-operation. 

But Chatham wanted it quite as much as he; and it was deemed invidiousto measure so accomplished a man, and so sworn a friend of peace andgood order, by the minuter rules. But Napoleon should have died atWaterloo, Brougham at Dunrobin. 

What is ex-Chancellor Brougham now? What party trusts to him? Whatsection of the community does he represent? Frost had his confidingfriends and followers, and Feargus O'Connor led a numerous andformidable body. Even Sir William Courtenay had his disciples. Whereare Brougham's disciples? What moral influence does the advocate ofpopular education, and the indignant denouncer of the iniquities ofthe slave-trade, exert? In what age or what country was there evera man so 'left by faction?' The Socialism of England and theVoluntaryism of Edinburgh entrust him with their petitions, andChartism stands on tiptoe when he rises in his place to advocateuniversal suffrage; but no one confides in him. Owen does not, nor theRev. Mr. Marshall of Kirkintilloch, nor yet the conspirators ofSheffield or Newport. Toryism scarcely thanks him for fighting itsbattles; Whiggism abhors him. There is no one credulous enough tobelieve that his aims rise any higher than himself, or blind enoughnot to see that even his selfishness is so ill-regulated as todefeat its own little object. His lack of the higher sentiments, the more generous feelings, the nobler aims, neutralizes even hisintellect. He publishes his speeches, carefully solicitous of hisfame, and provokes comparison in laboured dissertations with theoratory of Demosthenes and Cicero; he eulogizes the Duke ofWellington, and demands by inference whether he cannot praise asclassically as even the ancients themselves; but his heartlessthough well-modulated eloquence lingers in first editions, like theeffusions of inferior minds; nor is it of a kind which the 'worldwill find after many days. ' Brougham will be less known sixty yearshence than the player Garrick is at present. 

Bolingbroke, when thrown out of all public employment-gagged, disarmed, shut out from the possibility of a return to office, suspected alike by the Government and the Opposition, and thoroughlydisliked by the people to boot--could yet solace himself in his uneasyand unhonoured retirement by exerting himself to write down theMinistry. 

And his _Craftsmen_ sold even more rapidly than the _Spectator_itself. 

But the writings of Brougham do not sell; he lacks even the solace ofBolingbroke. We have said that his history is without parallel in thatof Britain. Napoleon on his rock was a less melancholy object: theimprisoned warrior had lost none of his original power--he was nomoral suicide; the millions of France were still devotedly attached tohim, and her armies would still have followed him to battle. It was nototal forfeiture of character on his own part that had rendered him soutterly powerless either for good or ill. 

_July 8, 1840. _

THE SCOTT MONUMENT. 

The foundation-stone of the metropolitan monument in memory of SirWalter Scott was laid with masonic honours on Saturday last. The daywas pleasant, and the pageant imposing. All business seemed suspendedfor the time; the shops were shut. The one half of Edinburgh hadpoured into the streets, and formed by no means the least interestingpart of the spectacle. Every window and balcony that overlooked theprocession, every house-top almost, had its crowd of spectators. According to the poet, 'Rank behind rank, close wedged, hung bellying o'er;'

while the area below, for many hundred yards on either side theintended site of the monument, presented a continuous sea of heads. Wemarked, among the flags exhibited, the Royal Standard of Scotland, apparently a piece of venerable antiquity, for the field of gold haddegenerated into a field of drab, and the figure in the centre showedless of leonine nobleness than of art in that imperfect state in whichmen are fain to content themselves with semblances doubtful andinexpressive, and less than half the result of chance. The entirepageant was such a one as Sir Walter himself could perhaps haveimproved. He would not have fired so many guns in the hollow, and thegrey old castle so near: he would have found means, too, to preventthe crowd from so nearly swallowing up the procession. Perhaps no manhad ever a finer eye for pictorial effect than Sir Walter, whetherart or nature supplied the scene. It has been well said that herendered Abbotsford a romance in stone and lime, and imparted to theking's visit to Scotland the interest and dignity of an epic poem. Still, however, the pageant was an imposing one, and illustratedhappily the influence of a great and original mind, whose energies hadbeen employed in enriching the national literature, over an educatedand intellectual people. 

It is a bad matter when a country is employed in building monuments tothe memory of men chiefly remarkable for knocking other men on thehead; it is a bad matter, too, when it builds monuments to the memoryof mere courtiers, of whom not much more can be said than that whenthey lived they had places and pensions to bestow, and that theybestowed them on their friends. We cannot think so ill, however, ofthe homage paid to genius. 

The Masonic Brethren of the several lodges mustered in great numbers. It has been stated that more than a thousand took part in theprocession. Coleridge, in his curious and highly original work, _TheFriend_--a work which, from its nature, never can become popular, butwhich, though it may be forgotten for a time, will infallibly be dugup and brought into public view in the future as an unique fossilimpression of an extinct order of mind--refers to a bygone class ofmechanics, 'to whom every trade was an allegory, and had its guardiansaint. ' 'But the time has gone by, ' he states, 'in which the detailsof every art were ennobled in the eyes of its professors by beingspiritually improved into symbols and mementoes of all doctrines andall duties. ' We could hardly think so as we stood watching theprocession, with its curiously fantastic accumulation of ornament andsymbol; it seemed, however, rather the relic of a former age than thenatural growth of the present--a spectre of the past strangelyresuscitated. 

The laugh, half in ridicule, half in good nature, with which thecrowd greeted every very gaudily dressed member, richer in symboland obsolete finery than his neighbour, showed that the day hadpassed in which such things could produce their originally intendedeffect. Will the time ever arrive in which stars and garters willclaim as little respect as broad-skirted doublets of green velvet, surmounted with three-cornered hats tagged with silver lace? Much, wesuppose, must depend upon the characters of those who wear them, andthe kind of services on which they will come to be bestowed. An UpperHouse of mere diplomatists--skilful only to overreach--imprudentenough to substitute cunning for wisdom--ignorant enough to deem thepeople not merely their inferiors in rank, but in discernmentalso--weak enough to believe that laws may be enacted with no regardto the general good--wrapped up in themselves, and acquainted withthe masses only through their eavesdroppers and dependants--wouldbring titles and orders to a lower level in half an age, than theonward progress of intellect has brought the quaintnesses ofmechanic symbol and mystery in two full centuries. We but smile atthe one, we would learn to execrate the other. Has the reader everseen Quarles' _Emblems_, or Flavel's _Husbandry and NavigationSpiritualized_? Both belong to an extinct species of literature, ofwhich the mechanic mysteries described by Coleridge, and exhibitedin the procession of Saturday last, strongly remind us. Both alikeproceeded on a process of mind the reverse of the common. Comparisongenerally leads from the moral to the physical, from the abstractto the visible and the tangible; here, on the contrary, the tangibleand the visible--the emblem and the symbol--were made to lead to themoral and the abstract. There are beautiful instances, too, of thesame school in the allegories of Bunyan, --the wonders in the houseof the Interpreter, for instance, and the scenes exhibited in thecave of the 'man named Contemplation. '

Sir Walter's monument will have one great merit, regarded as a pieceof art. It will be entirely an original, --such a piece of architectureas he himself would have delighted to describe, and the description ofwhich he, and he only, could have sublimed into poetry. There is achaste and noble beauty in the forms of Greek and Roman architecturewhich consorts well with the classic literature of those countries. The compositions of Sir Walter, on the contrary, resemble what he somuch loved to describe--the rich and fantastic Gothic, at timesludicrously uncouth, at times exquisitely beautiful. There are notfiner passages in all his writings than some of his architecturaldescriptions. How exquisite is his _Melrose Abbey_, --the external viewin the cold, pale moonshine, 'When buttress and buttress alternately Seemed formed of ebon and ivory;'

internally, when the strange light broke from the wizard's tomb! Who, like Sir Walter, could draw a mullioned window, with its 'foliagedtracery, ' its 'freakish knots, ' its pointed and moulded arch, and itsdyed and pictured panes? We passed, of late, an hour amid the ruins ofCrichton, and scarce knew whether most to admire the fine old castleitself, so worthy of its poet, or the exquisite picture of it we foundin _Marmion_. 

Sir Walter's monument would be a monument without character, if itwere other than Gothic. Still, however, we have our fears for theeffect. In portrait-painting there is the full life-size, and a sizemuch smaller, and both suit nearly equally well, and appear equallynatural; but the intermediate sizes do not suit. Make the portraitjust a very little less than the natural size, and it seems not thereduced portrait of a man, but the full-sized portrait of a dwarf. Nowa similar principle seems to obtain in Gothic architecture. 

The same design which strikes as beautiful in a model--the piecewhich, if executed in spar, and with a glass cover over it, would beregarded as exquisitely tasteful--would impress, when executed on alarge scale, as grand and magnificent in the first degree. And yetthis identical design, in an intermediate size, would possibly enoughbe pronounced a failure. Mediocrity in size is fatal to the Gothic, ifit be a richly ornamented Gothic; nor are we sure that the nobledesign of Mr. Kemp is to be executed on a scale sufficiently extended. We are rather afraid not, but the result will show. Such a monument ahundred yards in height would be one of the finest things perhaps inEurope. 

What has Sir Walter done for Scotland, to deserve so gorgeous amonument? Assuredly not all he might have done; and yet he has donemuch--more, in some respects, than any other merely literary manthe country ever produced. He has interested Europe in the nationalcharacter, and in some corresponding degree in the nationalwelfare; and this of itself is a very important matter indeed. Shakespeare--perhaps the only writer who, in the delineation ofcharacter, takes precedence of the author of _Waverley_--seems tohave been less intensely imbued with the love of country. It is quitepossible for a foreigner to luxuriate over his dramas, as the Germansare said to do, without loving Englishmen any the better inconsequence, or respecting them any the more. But the Europeancelebrity of the fictions of Sir Walter must have had the inevitableeffect of raising the character of his country, --its character as acountry of men of large growth, morally and intellectually. Besides, it is natural to think of foreigners as mere abstractions; and henceone cause at least of the indifference with which we regard them, --anindifference which the first slight misunderstanding converts intohostility. It is something towards a more general diffusion ofgoodwill to be enabled to conceive of them as men with all thosesympathies of human nature, on which the corresponding sympathieslay hold, warm and vigorous about them. Now, in this aspect has SirWalter presented his countrymen to the world. Wherever his writingsare known, a Scotsman can be no mere abstraction; and in boththese respects has the poet and novelist deserved well of hiscountry. 

Within the country itself, too, his great nationality, like that ofBurns, has had a decidedly favourable effect. The cosmopolism sofashionable among a certain class about the middle of the lastcentury, was but a mock virtue, and a very dangerous one. The 'citizenof the world, ' if he be not a mere pretender, is a man to be definedby negatives. It is improper to say he loves all men alike: he ismerely equally indifferent to all. Nothing can be more absurd than tooppose the love of country to the love of race. The latter exists butas a wider diffusion of the former. Do we not know that human nature, in its absolute perfection, and blent with the absolute and infiniteperfection of Deity, indulged in the love of country? The Saviour, when He took to Himself a human heart, wept over the city of Hisfathers. Now, it is well that this spirit should be fostered, not inits harsh and exclusive, but in its human and more charitable form. 

Liberty cannot long exist apart from it. The spirit of war andaggression is yet abroad: there are laws to be established, rights tobe defended, invaders to be repulsed, tyrants to be deposed. And whobut the patriot is equal to these things? How was the cry of 'Scotlandfor ever' responded to at Waterloo, when the Scots Greys broke througha column of the enemy to the rescue of their countrymen, and theHighlanders levelled their bayonets for the charge! A people cannotsurvive without the national spirit, except as slaves. The man whoadds to the vigour of the feeling at the same time that he lessens itsexclusiveness, deserves well of his country; and who can doubt thatSir Walter has done so?

The sympathies of Sir Walter, despite his high Tory predilections, were more favourable to the people as such than those of Shakespeare. If the station be low among the characters of the dramatist, it is aninvariable rule that the style of thinking and of sentiment is lowalso. 

The humble wool-comber of Stratford-on-Avon, possessed of a mind morecapacious beyond comparison than the minds of all the nobles andmonarchs of the age, introduced no such man as himself into hisdramas--no such men as Bunyan or Burns, --men low in place, but kinglyin intellect. Not so, however, the aristocratic Sir Walter. There isscarcely a finer character in all his writings than the youthfulpeasant of Glendearg, Halbert Glendinning, afterwards the noble knightof Avenel, brave and wise, and alike fitted to lead in the councils ofa great monarch, or to carry his banner in war. His brother Edward isscarcely a lower character. And when was unsullied integrity in ahumble condition placed in an attitude more suited to command respectand regard, than in the person of Jeanie Deans?

A man of a lower nature, wrapt round by the vulgar prejudices of rank, could not have conceived such a character: he would have transferredto it a portion of his own vulgarity, dressed up in a few borrowedpeculiarities of habit and phraseology. Even the character of Jeanie'sfather lies quite as much beyond the ordinary reach. Men such asSheridan, Fielding, and Foote, would have represented him as ahypocrite--a feeble and unnatural mixture of baseness and cunning. SirWalter, with all his prejudices and all his antipathies, not onlybetter knew the national type, but he had a more comprehensive mind;and he drew David Deans, therefore, as a man of stern and inflexibleintegrity, and as thoroughly sincere in his religion. Not but that inthis department he committed great and grievous mistakes. The maindoctrine of revelation, with its influence on character--that doctrineof regeneration which our Saviour promulgated to Nicodemus, andenforced with the sanctity of an oath--was a doctrine of which he knewalmost nothing. What has the first place in all the allegories ofBunyan, has no place in the fictions of Sir Walter. None of hischaracters exhibit the change displayed in the life of the ingeniousallegorist of Elston, or of James Gardener, or of John Newton. 

He found human nature a _terra incognita_ when it came under theinfluence of grace; and in this _terra incognita_, the field in whichhe could only grope, not see, his way, well-nigh all his mistakes werecommitted. But had his native honesty been less, his mistakes wouldhave been greater. 

He finds good even among Christians. What can be finer than thecharacter of his Covenanter's widow, standing out as it does in themost exceptionable of all his works, --the blind and desolate woman, meek and forgiving in her utmost distress, who had seen her sons shotbefore her eyes, and had then ceased to see more?

Our subject, however, is one which we must be content not to exhaust. 

THE LATE MR. KEMP. 

The funeral of this hapless man of genius took place yesterday, and excited a deep and very general interest, in which there mingledthe natural sorrow for high talent prematurely extinguished, withthe feeling of painful regret, awakened by a peculiarly melancholyend. It was numerously attended, and by many distinguished men. Theseveral streets through which it passed were crowded by saddenedspectators--in some few localities very densely; and the windowsoverhead were much thronged. At no place was the crowd greater, except perhaps immediately surrounding the burying-ground, than atthe fatal opening beside the Canal Basin, into which the unfortunateman had turned from the direct road in the darkness of night, and hadfound death at its termination. The scene of the accident is a gloomyand singularly unpleasant spot. A high wall, perforated by a low, clumsy archway, closes abruptly what the stranger might deem athoroughfare. There is a piece of sluggish, stagnant water on the onehand, thick and turbid, and somewhat resembling in form and colour abroad muddy highway, lined by low walls; not a tuft of vegetationis to be seen on its tame rectilinear sides: all is slimy and brown, with here and there dank, muddy recesses, as if for the frog andthe rat; while on the damp flat above, there lie, somewhat in thestyle of the grouping in a Dutch painting, the rotting fragments ofcanal passage-boats and coal-barges, with here and there somebroken-backed hulk, muddy and green, the timbers peering outthrough the planking, and all around heaps of the nameless lumber of adeserted boat-yard. The low, clumsy archway is wholly occupied by anarrow branch of the canal, --brown and clay-like as the main trunk, from which it strikes off at nearly right angles. It struck usforcibly, in examining the place, that in the uncertain light ofmidnight, the flat, dead water must have resembled an ordinarycart-road, leading through the arched opening in the direction of theunfortunate architect's dwelling; and certainly at this spot, justwhere he might be supposed to have stepped upon the seeming road underthe fatal impression, was the body found. 

It had been intended, as the funeral letters bore, to inter the bodyof Mr. Kemp in the vault under the Scott Monument, --a structure which, erected to do honour to the genius of one illustrious Scotsman, willbe long recognised as a proud trophy of the fine taste and vigoroustalent of another. The arrangement was not without precedent; and hadit been possible for Sir Walter to have anticipated it, we do notthink it would have greatly displeased him. The Egyptian architectinscribed the name of his kingly master on but the plaster of thepyramid, while he engraved his own on the enduring granite underneath;and so the name of the king has been lost, and only that of thearchitect has survived. And there are, no doubt, monuments in our owncountry which have been transferred in some sort, and on a somewhatsimilar principle, from their original object. There are fine statueswhich reflect honour on but the sculptor that chiselled them, andtombs and cenotaphs inscribed with names so very obscure, that theygive place in effect, if not literally, like that of the Egyptianking, to the name of the architect who reared them. Had the ScottMonument been erected, like the monument of a neighbouring square, toexpress a perhaps not very seemly gratitude for the services of sometenth-rate statesman, who procured places for his friends, and who didnot much else, it would have been perilous to convert it into the tombof a man of genius like poor Kemp. It would have been perilous had itbeen the monument of some mere _litterateur_. The _litterateur's_works would have disappeared from the public eye, while that of thehapless architect would be for ever before it. And it would be thusthe architect, not the _litterateur_, that would be permanentlyremembered. But the monument of Sir Walter was in no danger; and SirWalter himself would have been quite aware of the fact. It would nothave displeased him, that in the remote future, when all itsbuttresses had become lichened and grey, and generation aftergeneration had disappeared from around its base, the story would betold--like that connected in so many of our older cathedrals with'prentice pillars' and 'prentice aisles'--that the poor architect whohad designed its exquisite arches and rich pinnacles in honour of theShakespeare of Scotland, had met an untimely death when engaged on it, and had found under its floor an appropriate grave. 

The intention, however, was not carried into effect. It had beenintimated in the funeral letters that the burial procession shouldquit the humble dwelling of the architect--for a humble dwelling itis--at half-past one. It had been arranged, too, that the workmenemployed at the monument, one of the most respectable-looking bodiesof mechanics we ever saw, should carry the corpse to the grave. Theyhad gathered round the dwelling, a cottage at Morningside, with awreath of ivy nodding from the wall; and the appearance of both it andthem naturally suggested that the poor deceased, originally one ofthemselves, though he had risen, after a long struggle, intocelebrity, had not risen into affluence. Death had come too soon. Hehad just attained his proper position--just reached the upper edge ofthe table-land which his genius had given him a right to occupy, andon which a competency might be soon and honourably secured--when acruel accident struck him down. The time specified for the burialpassed--first one half-hour, and then another. The assembled groupwondered at the delay. And then a gentleman from the dwelling-housecame to inform them that some interdict or protest, we know notwhat--some, we suppose, perfectly legal document--had inhibited, atthis late hour, the interment of the body in the monument, and thatthere was a grave in the course of being prepared for it in one of thecity churchyards. 

ANNIE M'DONALD AND THE FIFESHIRE FORESTER. 

It was the religion of Scotland that first developed the intellectof the country. Nor would it be at all difficult to show how. It issufficiently easy to conceive the process through which earnestfeeling concentrated on the great concerns of human destiny leads toearnest thinking, and how thinking propagates itself in its abstractcharacter as such, even after the moving power which had first set itswheels in motion has ceased to operate. The Reformation was mainly areligious movement, but it was pregnant with philosophy and the arts. The grand doctrine of justification by faith, for which Luther and theother reformers contended, was wonderfully linked, by the God fromwhom it emanated, with all the great discoveries of modern science, and not a few of the proudest triumphs of literature. It drew alongwith it in the train of events, as if by a golden chain, thephilosophy of Bacon and Newton, and the poesy of Milton andShakespeare. But though the general truth of the remark has beenacknowledged, the connection which it intimates--a connectionclearly referable to the will of that adorable Being who has made'godliness profitable for all things'--has been too much lost sightof. Religious belief, transmuted in its reflex influences into mereintellectual activity, has too often assumed another nature andname, and forgotten or disowned its origin; and whatever is suitedto remind us of the certainty of the connection, or to illustratethe mode of its operations, cannot be deemed other than important. From a consideration of this character, we have been much pleased witha little work just published, which, taking up a single family in thehumblest rank, shows, without any apparent intention of the kind on thepart of the writer, how the Christianity of the country has operated onthe popular intellect; and we think we can scarce do better thanintroduce it to the acquaintance of our readers. Most of them haveperhaps seen a memoir of one Annie M'Donald, published in Edinburghsome eight or ten years ago. It is a humble production, givenchiefly, as the title-page intimates, in Annie's own words; and Annieranked among the humblest of our people. She had never seen a singleday in school. When best and most favourably circumstanced, she wasthe wife of a farm-servant, --no very exalted station surely; but still alowlier station awaited her, and she passed more than half a century inwidowhood. One of her daughters became the wife of a poor labourer, hertwo grandchildren were labourers also. It is not easy to imagine ahumbler lot, without crossing the line beyond which independencecannot be achieved; and yet Annie was a noble-hearted matron, one ofthe true aristocracy of the country. Her long life was a protractedwarfare--a scene of privation, sorrow, and sore trial; but shestruggled bravely through, ever trusting in God, dependent on Him, and Him only; and if the dignity of human nature consist in integritythe most inflexible, energy the most untiring, strong sound thinking, deep devotional feeling, and a high-toned yet chastened spirit ofindependence, then was there more true dignity to be found in the humblecottage of Annie M'Donald, than in half the proud mansions of thecountry. Many of our readers must be acquainted, as we have said, with her character, and some of the outlines of her story. Most of themare acquainted, too, with the character of another very remarkableperson, John Bethune, the Fifeshire Forester, --a man whose name, inall probability, they have never associated with Annie M'Donald. Hebelongs to quite a different class of persons. The venerable matrontakes her place among those cultivators of the moral nature who live inclose converse with their God, and on whom are re-stamped, if we mayso speak, the lineaments of the divine image obliterated at the fall. The poet, too early lost, ranks, on the other hand, among those hardycultivators of the intellectual nature who, among all the difficultiesincident to imperfect education, and a life of hardship and labour, struggle into notice through the force of an innate vigour, and impressthe stamp of their mind on the literature of their country. Much ofthe interest of the newly published memoir before us arises from theconnection which it establishes between the matron and the poet. Itpurports to be 'A Sketch of the Life of Annie M'Donald, by herGrandson, the late John Bethune. ' And scarce any one can peruse itwithout marking the powerful influence which the high religiouscharacter of the grandmother exerted on the intellectual character ofher descendant. The nobility of the humble family from which he sprungwas derived evidently from this source. That character, to borrow ahomely but forcible metaphor from Burns, was the sustaining 'stalk ofcarle hemp' which bore it up and kept it from grovelling on thedepressed level of its condition. How very interesting a subject ofthought and inquiry! A little Highland girl, when tending cattle in thefields nearly a century ago, was led, through divine grace, to'apprehend the mercy of God in Christ, ' and to close with His freeoffers of salvation; and in the third generation we can see the effectsof the transaction, not only in the blameless life and the puresentiments of a true though humble poet, but in, also, the manlyvigour of his thinking, and the high degree of culture which he wasenabled to bestow on his intellectual faculties. 

The story of Annie M'Donald is such an one as a poet of Wordsworth'scast would delight to tell. She was born in a remote and thinlyinhabited district of the Highlands, and lost her father, a Highlandcrofter, while yet an infant. She was his youngest child, but theother members of the family were all very young and helpless; and herpoor mother, a woman still in the prime of life, had to wander withthem into the low country, friendless and penniless, in quest ofemployment. And employment after a weary pilgrimage she at lengthsucceeded in procuring from a hospitable farmer in the parish ofKilmany, in Fifeshire. An unoccupied hovel furnished her with a home;and here, with hard labour, she reared her children, till they werefitted to leave her one by one, and do something for themselves, chiefly in the way of herding cattle. Annie grew up to be employedlike the rest; and when a little herd-girl in the fields, 'shefrequently fell into strains of serious meditation, ' says herbiographer, 'on the works of God, and on her own standing before Him. 'Let scepticism assert what it may, such is the nature of man. God haswritten on every human heart the great truth of man's responsibility;and the simple, ignorant herd-girl could read it there, amid thesolitude of the fields. But the inscription seemed fraught withterror: she was perplexed by alternate doubts and fears, and troubledby wildly vivid imaginings during the day, and by frightful dreams bynight. Her mother had been unable to send her to school, but she gotoccasional lessons in the evenings from a fellow-servant; and throughthe desultory assistance obtained in this way, backed by her solitaryefforts at self-instruction, she learned to read. She must have deemedthat an important day on which she found she could at length conversewith books; and the books with which she most loved to discourse weresuch as related to the spiritual state. She pored over the ShorterCatechism, and acquainted herself with her Bible. But for yearstogether, at this period, she suffered much distress of mind. Herimagination possessed a wild activity, and the scenes and shapes whichit was continually calling up before her were all of horror anddismay--the place of the lost, the appalling forms with which fancyinvests the fallen spirits, the terrors of the last day, and the dreadthrone of judgment. But a time of peace and comfort came; and she wasenabled to lay hold on God in faith and hope as _her_ God, through theall-sufficient blood of the atonement. And this hold she never afterrelinquished. 

There was no pause in her humble toils. From her early occupationsin the fields, she passed in riper youth to the labours of thefarm-house; and at the age of twenty-five experienced yet anotherchange, in becoming the wife of a farm-servant, a quiet man of solidcharacter, and whose religious views and feelings coincided with herown. Her humble home was a solitary hut on the uplands, far from evenher nearest neighbours; but it was her home, and she was happy. Withthe consent of her husband, she took her aged mother under hercare, and succeeded in repaying more than the obligations incurredin infancy; for her instructions, through the blessing of God, wererendered apparently the means of the old woman's conversion. Therewere sorrows that came to her even at the happiest, but they weremingled with comfort. She lost one of her children by small-pox ata very early age; and yet, very early as the age was, evidence wasnot wanting in its death that the Psalmist spoke with full meaningwhen he said that God can perfect praise out of the mouths of babesand sucklings. But there was a deeper grief awaiting her. After ahappy union of twelve years, her husband was seized in the nightin their lonely shieling by a mortal distemper, at a time when onlyherself and her young children were present, and ere assistancecould be procured he expired. There is something extremely touchingin the details of this event, as given by the poet, her grandson. They strongly show how real an evil poverty is, in even the mostfavourable circumstances, when the hour of distress comes. Cowperceased to envy the "'_peasant's nest_" when he thought how itssolitude made scant the means of life. ' We would almost covet thehut of Annie M'Donald as described by her grandson. 'It appeared, 'he says, 'as if separated and raised above the world by thecultureless and elevated solitude on which it stood. Around it onevery side were grey rocks, peering out from among tufted grass, heath furze, and many-coloured mosses; forming what had been, tillmore recently--when the whole was converted into a plantation--arather extensive sheep-walk. For an extent equal to more than halfthe horizon, the eye might stretch away to the distant mountains, or repose on the intervening valleys; and from the highest part ofthe hill, a little to the eastward, the dark blue of the German Oceanwas clearly visible. It must have been a cheerful spot in the clearsunny days of summer, when even heaths and moors look gay--whenthe deep blue of the hills seems as if softening its tints toharmonize with the deep blue of the sky--when the hum of the bee isheard amid the heath, and the lark high overhead. But it must havebeen a gloomy and miserable solitude on that night when thehusband of Annie lay tossing in mortal agony, and no neighbournear to counsel or assist, her weeping children around her, and withneither lamp nor candle in the cottage. It was only by the 'lightof a burning coal taken from the fire, and exchanged for another asthe flame waxed faint, that she was enabled to watch the progressof the fatal malady, and to tell at what time death set hisunalterable seal on the pallid features of her husband. '

Long years of incessant labour followed; her children were young andhelpless, and her aged mother still with her. She removed to anothercottage, where she rented an acre or two of land, that enabled her tokeep a cow, and gave her opportunity, as the place was situated besidea considerable stream, of earning a small income as a bleacher ofhome-made linen. The day, and not unfrequently the night, was spent intoil; but she was strengthened to endure, and so her children werebred up in hardy independence. 'During the weeks of harvest, ' says herbiographer, 'she was engaged as a reaper by the farmer from whom sherented her little tenement; and when her day's work was done, whileher fellow-labourers retired to rest, she employed herself in reapingher own crops, or providing grass for the cow, and often continued hertoil by the light of the harvest moon till it was almost midnight. After a number of years thus spent, the expiration of the farmer'slease occasioned her removal. Her family were now grown up; she couldafford, in consequence, to have recourse to means of subsistencewhich, if more scanty, were less laborious than those which she hadplied so long; and so, removing to a neighbouring village, she earneda livelihood for herself and her infirm mother by spinning carpetworsted at twopence a-day, the common wages for a woman at thatperiod. ' 'The cottage which she now occupied, ' we again quote, 'happened to be one of a number which the Countess of Leven charitablykept for the accommodation of poor people who were unable to pay arent. She, however, considered that she had no right to reckon herselfamong this class, so long as it should please God to afford herstrength to provide for her own necessities; and therefore she deemedit unjustifiable to deprive the truly indigent of what had beenintended exclusively for them. Influenced by these motives, sheremoved at the next term to an adjacent hamlet, and here her agedmother died. ' We need not minutely follow her after-course: it borebut one complexion to the end. She taught a school for many years, and was of signal use to not a few of her pupils. At an earlier periodshe experienced a desire to be able to write. There was a friend at adistance whom she wished to comfort, by suggesting to her those topicsof consolation which she herself had found of such solid use; and thewish had suggested the idea. And so she did learn to write. She tookup a pen, and tried to imitate the letters in her Bible; anacquaintance subsequently furnished her with a copy of the alphabetcommonly used in writing; and such was all the instruction she everreceived in an art to which in after life she devoted a considerableportion of her time, and in the exercise of which she derived no smallenjoyment. In extreme old age she was rendered unable by deafnessproperly to attend to her school, and so, with her characteristicconscientiousness, she threw it up; but bodily strength was spared toher in a remarkable degree, and her last years were not wasted inidleness. 'Her spinning-wheel was again eagerly resorted to; evenoutdoor labour, when it could be obtained, was sometimes adopted. ' Andthe editor of the memoir before us--Alexander Bethune, the brother andbiographer of John--relates that he recollects seeing her engaged inreaping, on one occasion, when in her eighty-second year; and that onthe same field her favourite nephew the poet, at that time a boy often, was also essaying the labours of the harvest. In one of thesimple but touching epistles which we owe to her singularly acquiredaccomplishment of writing--a letter to one of her daughters--we findher thus expressing herself:--

'We finished our harvest last Monday, and here again I have cause forthankfulness. I would desire to be doubly thankful to God for enablingmy old and withered arms to use the sickle almost as well as they werewont to do when I was young, and for the favourable weather andabundant crop which in His mercy He has bestowed on us. But, my dearchild, there is in very deed a more important harvest before us. Oh!may God, for Christ's sake, ripen us by the sunshine of His Spirit forthe sickle of death, and stand by us in that trying hour, that we maybe cut down as a shock of corn which is fully ripe. '

Annie survived twelve years longer; for her life was prolongedthrough three full generations. 'In the intervals of domestic duty, her book and her pen were her constant companions. ' 'The process ofcommitting her thoughts to paper was rendered tedious, latterly, bythe weakness and tremor of her hand; and her mind not unfrequentlyoutran her pen, leaving blanks in her composition, which she did notalways detect so as to enable her to fill them up. And thiscircumstance sometimes rendered her meaning a little obscure. Butwith all these deficiencies, her letters were generally appreciated bythose to whom they were addressed. Her conversation, too, was muchsought after by serious individuals in all ranks in society; andoccasionally it was pleasing to see the promiscuous visitors who metin her lowly cottage laying aside for a time the fastidiousdistinctions of birth and station, and humbly uniting in theexercise of Christian love. ' At length she could no longer leaveher bed: 'her hearing was so much impaired, that it was with thegreatest difficulty she could be made to understand what was said toher; and those friends who came to visit her were frequentlyrequested to sit down by her bedside, where she might see theirfaces, though she could no longer enjoy their conversation. Afterraising herself to a convenient position, she generally addressedthem upon the importance of preparing for another world whilehealth and strength remained; and tried to direct their attention tothe merits and sufferings of the Saviour as the only sure ground ofhope upon which sinners could rest their salvation in the hour oftrial. ' As for her own departure, she 'had a thousand reasons, ' shesaid, 'for wishing to be gone; but there was one reason whichoverbalanced them all--God's time had not yet arrived. ' But atlength it did arrive. 'Lay me down, ' she said, for the irritabilityof her nervous system had rendered frequent change of posturenecessary, and her friends had just been indulging her, --'Lay medown; let me sleep my last sleep in Jesus. ' And these were her lastwords. Her grandson John seems to have cherished, when a mere boy, years before she died, the design of writing her story; and thewhole tone of his memoir (apparently one of his earlier prosecompositions) shows how thorough was the respect which he entertainedfor her memory. She forms the subject, too, of a copy of versesevidently of later production, and at least equal to any he everwrote, in which he affectingly tells us how, when sadness anddisease pressed upon the springs of life, and he lingered insuspense and disappointment, the hopes which she had so longcherished--

 'The glorious hopes which flattered not-- Dawned on him by degrees. '

He found the Saviour whom she had worshipped; and one of the lastsubsidiary hopes in which he indulged ere he bade the world farewell, was that in the place to which he was going he should meet with hisbeloved grandmother. We have occupied so much space with ournarrative, brief as it is, that we cannot follow up our originalintention of showing how, in principle, the intellectual history ofBethune is an epitome of that of his country; but we must add that itwould be well if, in at least one important respect, the history ofhis country resembled his history more. The thoughtful piety of thegrandmother prepared an atmosphere of high-toned thought, in which thegenius of the grandson was fostered. It constituted, to vary thefigure, the table-land from which he arose; but how many of aresembling class, and indebted in a similar way, have directed theinfluence of their writings to dissipate that atmosphere--to lowerthat table-land! We refer the reader to the interesting little workfrom which we have drawn our materials. It is edited by the survivingBethune, the brother and biographer of the poet, and both a vigorouswriter and a worthy man. There are several of the passages which itcomprises of his composition; among the rest, the very strikingpassage with which the memoir concludes, and in which he adds a fewadditional facts illustrative of his grandmother's character, anddescribes her personal appearance. The description will remind ourreaders of one of the more graphic pictures of Wordsworth, that of thestately dame on whose appearance the poet remarks quaintly, butsignificantly, 'Old times are living there. '

'From the date of her birth, ' says Alexander Bethune, 'it will be seenthat she (Annie M'Donald) was in her ninety-fourth year at the time ofher death. In person she was spare; and ere toil and approaching agehad bent her frame, she must have been considerably above the middlesize. Even after she was far advanced in life, there was in herappearance a rigidity of outline and a sinewy firmness which told ofno ordinary powers of endurance. There was much of true benevolence inthe cast of her countenance; while the depth of her own Christianfeelings gave an expression of calm yet earnest sympathy to her eye, which was particularly impressive. Limited as were her resources, shehad been a regular contributor to the Bible and Missionary Societiesfor a number of years previous to her death. Nor was she slow tominister to the necessities of others according to her ability. Notwithstanding the various items thus disposed of during the latterpart of her life, she had saved a small sum of money, which at herdeath was left to her unmarried daughters. '

The touching description of the poet we must also subjoin. No one canread it without feeling its truth, or without being convinced that, tobe thoroughly true in the circumstances, was to be intensely poetical. The recollection of such a relative affectionately retained was ofitself poetry. 

 MY GRANDMOTHER. 

 Long years of toil and care, And pain and poverty, have passed Since last I listened to her prayer, And looked upon her last; Yet how she spoke, and how she smiled Upon me, when a playful child-- The lustre of her eye-- The kind caress--the fond embrace-- The reverence of her placid face, -- All in my memory lie As fresh as they had only been Bestowed and felt, and heard and seen, Since yesterday went by. 

 Her dress was simply neat-- Her household tasks so featly done: Even the old willow-wicker seat On which she sat and spun-- The table where her Bible lay, Open from morn till close of day-- The standish, and the pen With which she noted, as they rose, Her thoughts upon the joys, the woes, The final fate of men, And sufferings of her Saviour God, -- Each object in her poor abode Is visible as then. 

 Nor are they all forgot, The faithful admonitions given, And glorious hopes which flattered not, But led the soul to heaven! These had been hers, and have been mine When all beside had ceased to shine-- When sadness and disease, And disappointment and suspense, Had driven youth's fairest fancies hence, Short'ning its fleeting lease: 'Twas then these hopes, amid the dark Just glimmering, like an unquench'd spark, Dawned on me by degrees. 

 To her they gave a light Brighter than sun or star supplied; And never did they shine more bright Than just before she died. Death's shadow dimm'd her aged eyes, Grey clouds had clothed the evening skies, And darkness was abroad; But still she turned her gaze above, As if the eternal light of love On her glazed organs glowed, Like beacon-fire at closing even, Hung out between the earth and heaven, To guide her soul to God. 

 And then they brighter grew, Beaming with everlasting bliss, As if the eternal world in view Had weaned her eyes from this: And every feature was composed, As with a placid smile they closed On those who stood around, who felt it was a sin to weep O'er such a smile and such a sleep-- So peaceful, so profound; And though they wept, their tears expressed Joy for her time-worn frame at rest-- Her soul with mercy crowned. 

_August 10, 1812. _

A HIGHLAND CLEARING. 

How quickly the years fly! One twelvemonth more, and it will be a fullquarter of a century since we last saw the wild Highland valley sowell described by Mr. Robertson in his opening paragraphs. {1} And yetthe recollection is as fresh in our memory now as it was twenty yearsago. The chill winter night had fallen on the brown round hills andalder-skirted river, as we turned from off the road that winds alongthe Kyle of the Dornoch Frith into the bleak gorge of Strathcarron. The shepherd's cottage, in which we purposed passing the night, layhigh up in the valley, where the lofty sides--partially covered atthat period by the remnants of an ancient forest--approach so neareach other, and rise so abruptly, that for the whole winter quarterthe sun never falls on the stream below. There were still some ten ortwelve miles of broken road before us. The moon in its first quarterhung low over the hills, dimly revealing their rough outline, andthrowing its tinge of faint bronze on the broken clumps of wood in thehollows. A keen frost had set in; and a thick trail of fog-rime, raised by its influence in the calm, and which at the height of someeighty or a hundred feet hung over the river--scarce less defined inits margin than the river itself, for it winded wherever the streamwinded, and ran straight as an arrow wherever the stream ranstraight--occupied the whole length of the valley, like an enormoussnake lying uncoiled in its den. The numerous turf cottages on eitherside were invisible in the darkness, save that ever and anon the brieftwinkle of a light indicated their existence and their places. In arecess of the stream the torch of some adventurous fisher now gleamedred on rock and water, now suddenly disappeared, eclipsed by theoverhanging brushwood, or by some jutting angle of the bank. Thedistant roar of the stream mingled sullenly in the calm, with itsnearer and hoarser dash, as it chafed on the ledges below, filling theair with a wild music, that seemed the appropriate voice of theimpressive scenery from amid which it arose. It was late ere wereached the shepherd's cottage--a dark, raftered, dimly-lightedbuilding of turf and stone. The weather for several weeks before hadbeen rainy and close, and the flocks of the inmate had been thinned bythe common scourge of the sheep-farmer at such seasons on marshy andunwholesome farms. The rafters were laden with skins besmeared withblood, that dangled overhead to catch the conservative influences ofthe smoke; and on a rude plank table below there rose two tallpyramids of dark-coloured joints of braxy mutton, heaped up each on acorn riddle. The shepherd--a Highlander of colossal proportions, buthard and thin, and worn by the cares and toils of at least sixtywinters--sat moodily beside the fire. The state of his flocks was notparticularly cheering; and he had, besides, seen a vision of late, hesaid, that filled his mind with strange forebodings. He had gone outafter nightfall on the previous evening to a dank hollow on thehill-side, in which many of his flock had died; the rain had ceased afew hours before, and a smart frost had set in, that, as on thissecond evening, filled the whole valley with a wreath of silveryvapour, dimly lighted by the thin fragment of a moon that appeared asif resting at the time on the hill-top. The wreath stretched out itsgrey folds beneath him, for he had climbed half-way up the acclivity, when suddenly what seemed the figure of a man in heated metal--thefigure of a brazen man brought to a red heat in a furnace--sprang upout of the darkness; and after stalking over the surface of the fogfor a few seconds--in which, however, it traversed the greater part ofthe valley--as suddenly disappeared, leaving an evanescent trail offlame behind it. There could be little doubt that the old shepherd hadmerely seen one of those shooting lights that in mountain districts, during unsettled weather, so frequently startle the night traveller, and that some peculiarity of form in the meteor had been exaggeratedby the obscuring influence of the frost-rime and the briefness of thesurvey; but the apparition had filled his whole mind, as one ofstrange and frightful portent from the spiritual world. And oftensince that night has it returned to us in recollection, as a vision insingular keeping with the wild valley which it traversed, and thecredulous melancholy of the solitary shepherd, its only witness, --

 'A meteor of the night of distant years, That flashed unnoticed, save by wrinkled eld Musing at midnight upon prophecies. '

By much the greater part of Strathcarron, in those days, was in thepossession of its ancient inhabitants; and we learn from thedescription of Mr. Robertson, that it has since undergone scarce anychange. 'Strathcarron, ' he says, 'is still in the old state. 'Throughout its whole extent the turf cottages of the aborigines risedark and thick as heretofore, from amid their irregular patches ofpotatoes and corn. But in an adjacent glen, through which the Calvieworks its headlong way to the Carron, that terror of the Highlanders, a summons of removal, has been served within the last few months on awhole community; and the graphic sketch of Mr. Robertson relates boththe peculiar circumstances in which it has been issued, and thefeelings which it has excited. We find from his testimony, that theold state of things which is so immediately on the eve of being brokenup in this locality, lacked not a few of those sources of terror tothe proprietary of the country, that are becoming so very formidableto them in the newer states. A spectral poor-law sits by our waysides, wrapped up in death-flannels of the English cut, and shakes its skinnyhand at the mansion-houses of our landlords, --vision beyond comparisonmore direfully portentous than the apparition seen by the loneshepherd of Strathcarron. But in the Highlands, at least, it is merelythe landlord of the new and improved state of things--the landlord ofwidespread clearings and stringent removal-summonses--that itthreatens. The existing poor-law in Glencalvie is a self-enforcinglaw, that rises direct out of the unsophisticated sympathies of theHighland heart, and costs the proprietary nothing. 'The constitutionof society in the glen, ' says Mr. Robertson, 'is remarkably simple. Four heads of families are bound for the whole rental of £55, 13s. Ayear; the number of souls is about ninety. Sixteen cottages pay rent;three cottages are occupied by old lone women, who pay no rent, andwho have a grace from the others for the grazing of a few goats orsheep, by which they live. This self-working poor-law system, ' addsMr. Robertson, 'is supported by the people themselves; the laird, I aminformed, never gives anything to it. ' Now there must be at least somemodicum of good in such a state of things, however old-fashioned; andwe are pretty sure such of our English neighbours as leave their acresuntilled year after year, to avoid the crushing pressure of thestatute-enforced poor-law that renders them not worth the tilling, would be somewhat unwilling, were the state made theirs, to improve itaway. Nor does it seem a state--with all its simplicity, and all itsperhaps blameable indifferency to modern improvement--particularlyhostile to the development of mind or the growth of morals. 'Thepeople of Amat and Glencalvie themselves supported a teacher for theeducation of their children, ' says Mr. Robertson. 'The laird, ' headds, 'has never lost a farthing of rent. In bad years, such as 1836or 1837, the people may have required the favour of a few weeks'delay, but they are now not a single farthing in arrears. '

Mr. Robertson gives us the tragedy of a clearing in its first act. Wehad lately the opportunity of witnessing the closing scene in theafter-piece, by which a clearing more than equally extensive has beenfollowed up, and which bids fair to find at no distant day manycounterparts in the Highlands of Scotland. Rather more than twentyyears ago, the wild, mountainous island of Rum, the home ofconsiderably more than five hundred souls, was divested of all itsinhabitants, to make way for one sheep-farmer and eight thousandsheep. It was soon found, however, that there are limits beyond whichit is inconvenient to depopulate a country on even the sheep-farmsystem: the island had been rendered too thoroughly a desert for thecomfort of the tenant; and on the occasion of a clearing which tookplace in a district of Skye, and deprived of their homes many of theold inhabitants, some ten or twelve families of the number wereinvited to Rum, and may now be found squatting on the shores of theonly bay of the island, on a strip of unprofitable morass. But thewhole of the once peopled interior remains a desert, all the morelonely in its aspect from the circumstance that the solitary glens, with their green, plough-furrowed patches, and their ruined heaps ofstone, open upon shores every whit as solitary as themselves, and thatthe wide untrodden sea stretches drearily around. We spent a longsummer's day amidst its desert recesses, and saw the sun set behindits wilderness of pyramidal hills. The evening was calm and clear; thearmies of the insect world were sporting by millions in the light; abrown stream that ran through the valley at our feet yielded anincessant poppling sound from the myriads of fish that wereincessantly leaping in the pools, beguiled by the quick glancing wingsof green and gold that incessantly fluttered over them; thehalf-effaced furrows borrowed a richer hue from the yellow light ofsunset; the broken cottage-walls stood up more boldly prominent on thehill-side, relieved by the lengthening shadows; along a distanthill-side there ran what seemed the ruins of a grey stone fence, erected, says tradition, in a very remote age to facilitate thehunting of deer: all seemed to bespeak the place a fitting habitationfor man, and in which not only the necessaries, but not a few also ofthe luxuries of life, might be procured; but in the entire prospectnot a man nor a man's dwelling could the eye command. The landscapewas one without figures. And where, it may be asked, was the onetenant of the island for whose sake so many others had been removed?We found his house occupied by a humble shepherd, who had in chargethe wreck of his property, --property no longer his, but held for thebenefit of his creditors. The great sheep-farmer had gone down undercircumstances of very general bearing, and on whose after development, when in their latent state, improving landlords had failed tocalculate; the island itself was in the market, and a report wentcurrent at the time that it was on the eve of being purchased by somewealthy Englishman, who purposed converting it into a deer-forest. Thecycle--which bids fair to be that of the Highlands generally--hadalready revolved in the depopulated island of Rum. 

We have said that the sheep-farmer had gone down, in this instance, under adverse circumstances of very extensive bearing. In a beautifultransatlantic poem, a North American Indian is represented as visitingby night the tombs of his fathers, now surrounded, though reared inthe depths of a forest, by the cultivated farms and luxuriousdwellings of the stranger, and there predicting that the race bywhich _his_ had been supplaced should be in turn cast out of theirpossessions. His fancy on the subject is a wild one, though notunfitted for the poet. The streams, he said, were yielding a lowermurmur than of old, and rolling downwards a decreasing volume; thesprings were less copious in their supplies; the land, shorn of itsforests, was drying up under the no longer softened influence ofsummer suns. Yet a few ages more, and it would spread out all aroundan arid and barren wilderness, unfitted, like the deserts of the East, to be a home of man. The fancy, we repeat, though a poetic, is a wildone; but the grounds from which we infer that the clearers of theHighlands--the supplanters of the Highlanders--are themselves to becleared and supplanted in turn, is neither wild nor poetic. The voicewhich predicts in the case is a voice, not of shrinking rivulets norfailing springs, but of the 'Cloth Hall' in Leeds, and of the worstedfactories of Bradford and Halifax. Most of our readers must be awarethat the great woollen trade of Britain divides into two mainbranches--its woollen cloth manufacture, and its worsted and stuffmanufactures: and in both these the estimation in which British woolis held has mightily sunk of late years, never apparently to riseagain; for it has sunk, not through any caprice of fashion, but in thenatural progress of improvement. Mr. Dodd, in his interesting littlework on the _Textile Manufactures of Great Britain_, refersincidentally to the fact, in drawing a scene in the Cloth Hall ofLeeds, introduced simply for the purpose of showing at how slight anexpense of time and words business is transacted in this great mart oftrade. 'All the sellers, ' says Mr. Dodd, 'know all the buyers; andeach buyer is invited, as he passes along, to look at some "olives, "or "browns, " or "pilots, " or "six quarters, " or "eight quarters;" andthe buyer decides in a wonderfully short space of time whether it willanswer his purpose to purchase or not. "Mr. A. , just look at theseolives. " "How much?" "Six and eight. " "Too high. " Mr. A. Walks on, andperhaps a neighbouring clothier draws his attention to a piece, or"end, " of cloth. "What's this?" "Five and three. " "Too low. " The "toohigh" relates, as may be supposed, to the price per yard; whereas the"too low" means that the quality of the cloth is lower than thepurchaser requires. Another seller accosts him with "Will this suityou, Mr. A. ?" "_Any English wool?_" "_Not much; it is nearly allforeign_;" a question and answer which exemplify the disfavour intowhich English wool has fallen in the cloth trade. But it is not thecloth trade alone in which it has fallen into disfavour. The rapidextension of the worsted manufacture in this country, ' says the samewriter in another portion of his work, 'is very remarkable. So long asefforts were made by English wool-growers to compel the use of theEnglish wool in cloth-making--efforts which the Legislature for manyyears sanctioned by legal enactments--the worsted fabrics made werechiefly of a coarse and heavy kind, such as "camlets;" but when thewool trade was allowed to flow into its natural channels by theremoval of restrictions, the value of all the different kinds of woolbecame appreciated, and each one was appropriated to purposes forwhich it seemed best fitted. The wool of one kind of English sheepcontinued in demand for hosiery and coarse worsted goods; and the woolof the Cashmere and Angora goats came to be imported for worsted goodsof finer quality. ' The colonist and the foreign merchant have beenbrought into the field, and the home producer labours in vain tocompete with them on what he finds unequal terms. 

Hence the difficulties which, in a season of invigorated commerce andrevived trade, continue to bear on the British wool-grower, and whichbid fair _to clear_ him from the soil which he divested of theoriginal inhabitants. Every new sheep-rearing farm that springs up inthe colonies--whether in Australia, or New Zealand, or Van Diemen'sLand, or Southern Africa--sends him its summons of removal in the formof huge bales of wool, lower in price and better in quality than hehimself can produce. The sheep-breeders of New Holland and the Capethreaten to avenge the Rosses of Glencalvie. But to avenge is onething, and to right another. The comforts of our poor Highlander havebeen deteriorating, and his position lowering, for the last threeages, and we see no prospect of improvement. 

'For a century, ' says Mr. Robertson, 'their privileges have beenlessening: they dare not now hunt the deer, or shoot the grouse or theblackcock; they have no longer the range of the hills for their cattleand their sheep; they must not catch a salmon in a stream: in earth, air, and water, the rights of the laird are greater, and the rights ofthe people are smaller, than they were in the days of theirforefathers. Yet, forsooth, there is much talk of philosophers of theprogress of democracy as a progress to equality of conditions in ourday! One of the ministers who accompanied me had to become bound forlaw expenses to the amount of £20, inflicted on the people for takinga log from the forest for their bridge, --a thing they and theirfathers had always done unchallenged. '

One eloquent passage more, and we have done. It is thus we find Mr. Robertson, to whose intensely interesting sketch we again direct theattention of the reader, summing up the case of the Rosses ofGlencalvie:--

'The father of the laird of Kindeace bought Glencalvie. It was sold bya Ross two short centuries ago. The swords of the Rosses of Glencalviedid their part in protecting this little glen, as well as the broadlands of Pitcalnie, from the ravages and the clutches of hostilesepts. These clansmen bled and died in the belief that every principleof honour and morals secured their descendants a right to subsistingon the soil. The chiefs and their children had the same charter ofthe sword. Some Legislatures have made the right of the peoplesuperior to the right of the chief; British law-makers have made therights of the chief everything, and those of their followers nothing. The ideas of the morality of property are in most men the creatures oftheir interests and sympathies. Of this there cannot be a doubt, however: the chiefs would not have had the land at all, could theclansmen have foreseen the present state of the Highlands--theirchildren in mournful groups going into exile--the faggot of legalmyrmidons in the thatch of the feal cabin--the hearths of their lovesand their lives the green sheep-walks of the stranger. 

'Sad it is, that it is seemingly the will of our constituencies thatour laws shall prefer the few to the many. Most mournful will it be, should the clansmen of the Highlands have been cleared away, ejected, exiled, in deference to a political, a moral, a social, and aneconomical mistake, --a suggestion not of philosophy, but of mammon, --asystem in which the demon of sordidness assumed the shape of the angelof civilisation and of light. '

_September 4, 1844. _

-----

 {1} _The Rosses of Glencalvie_, by John Robertson, Esq. (article in the Glasgow _National_, August 1844). --ED. 

THE POET MONTGOMERY. 

The reader will find in our columns a report, as ample as our limitshave allowed, of the public breakfast given in Edinburgh on Wednesdaylast{1} to our distinguished countryman James Montgomery, and hisfriend the missionary Latrobe. We have rarely shared in a moreagreeable entertainment, and have never listened to a more pleasing orbetter-toned address than that in which the poet ran over some of themore striking incidents of his early life. It was in itself a poem, and a very fine one. An old and venerable man returning to his nativecountry after an absence of sixty years--after two whole generationshad passed away, and the grave had closed over almost all hiscontemporaries--would be of itself a matter of poetical interest, evenwere the aged visitor a person of but the ordinary cast of thought anddepth of feeling. How striking the contrast between the sunny, dream-like recollections of childhood to such an individual, and thesurrounding realities--between the scenes and figures on this side thewide gulf of sixty years, and the scenes and figures on that: yonder, the fair locks of infancy, its bright, joyous eyes, and its speakingsmiles; here, the grey hairs and careworn wrinkles of rigid old age, tottering painfully on the extreme verge of life! But if thereattaches thus a poetic interest to the mere circumstances of such avisit, how much more, in the present instance, from the character ofthe visitor, --a man whose thoughts and feelings, tinted by the warmhues of imagination, retain in his old age all the strength andfreshness of early youth!

Hogg, when first introduced to Wilkie, expressed his gratification atfinding him so young a man. We experienced a similar feeling on firstseeing the poet Montgomery. He can be no young man, who, lookingbackwards across two whole generations, can recount from recollection, like Nestor of old, some of the occurrences of the third. But there isa green old age, in which the spirits retain their buoyancy, and theintellect its original vigour; and the whole appearance of the poetgives evidence that his evening of life is of this happy and desirablecharacter. His appearance speaks of antiquity, but not of decay. Hislocks have assumed a snowy whiteness, and the lofty and full-archedcoronal region exhibits what a brother poet has well termed the 'clearbald polish of the honoured head;' but the expression of thecountenance is that of middle life. It is a clear, thin, speakingcountenance: the features are high; the complexion fresh, though notruddy; and age has failed to pucker either cheek or forehead with asingle wrinkle. The spectator sees at a glance that all the poet stillsurvives--that James Montgomery in his sixty-fifth year is all that heever was. The forehead, rather compact than large, swells out oneither side towards the region of ideality, and rises high, in a finearch, into what, if phrenology speak true, must be regarded as anamply developed organ of veneration. The figure is quite as littletouched by age as the face. It is well but not strongly made, and ofthe middle size; and yet there is a touch of antiquity about it too, derived, however, rather from the dress than from any peculiarity inthe person itself. To a plain suit of black Mr. Montgomery adds thevoluminous breast ruffles of the last age--exactly such things as, inScotland at least, the fathers of the present generation wore on theirwedding-days. These are perhaps but small details; but we notice themjust because we have never yet met with any one who took an interestin a celebrated name, without trying to picture to himself theappearance of the individual who bore it. 

There are some very pleasing incidents beautifully related in theaddress of Mr. Montgomery. It would have been false taste and delicacyin such a man to have forborne speaking of himself. His return, afteran absence equal to the term of two full generations, to his nativecottage, is an incident exquisitely poetic. He finds his father'shumble chapel converted into a workshop, and strangers sit beside thehearth that had once been his mother's. And where were that father andmother? Their bones moulder in a distant land, where the tombstonescast no shadow when the fierce sun looks down at noon upon theirgraves. 'Taking their lives in their hands, ' they had gone abroad topreach Christ to the poor enslaved negro, for whose soul at thatperiod scarce any one cared save the United Brethren; and in the midstof their labours of piety and love, they had fallen victims to theclimate. He passed through the cottage and the workshop, calling upthe dream-like recollections of his earliest scene of existence, andrecognising one by one the once familiar objects within. One object hefailed to recognise. It was a small tablet fixed in the wall. He wentup to it, and found it intimated that James Montgomery the poet hadbeen born there. Was it not almost as if one of the poets orphilosophers of a former time had lighted, on revisiting the earth asa disembodied spirit, on his own monument? Of scarce less interest ishis anecdote of Monboddo. The parents of the poet had gone abroad, aswe have said, and their little boy was left with the Brethren atFulneck, a Moravian settlement in the sister kingdom. He was one oftheir younger scholars at a time when Lord Monboddo, still so wellknown for his great talents and acquirements, and his scarce lessmarked eccentricities, visited the settlement, and was shown, amongother things, their little school. His Lordship stood among the boys, coiling and uncoiling his whip on the floor, and engaged as if incounting the nail-heads in the boarding. The little fellows were allexceedingly curious; none of them had ever seen a real live lordbefore, and Monboddo was a very strange-looking lord indeed. He wore alarge, stiff, bushy periwig, surmounted by a huge, odd-looking hat;his very plain coat was studded with brass buttons of broadest disk, and his voluminous inexpressibles were of leather. And there he stood, with his grave, absent face bent downwards, drawing and redrawing hiswhip along the floor, as the Moravian, his guide, pointed out to hisnotice boy after boy. 'And this, ' said the Moravian, coming at lengthto young Montgomery, 'is a countryman of your Lordship's. ' HisLordship raised himself up, looked hard at the little fellow, and thenshaking his huge whip over his head, 'Ah, ' he exclaimed, 'I hope hiscountry will have no reason to be ashamed of him. ' 'The circumstance, 'said the poet, 'made a deep impression on my mind; and I determined--Itrust the resolution was not made in vain--I determined in that momentthat my country should not have reason to be ashamed of me. '

Scotland has no reason to be ashamed of James Montgomery. Of all herpoets, there is not one of equal power, whose strain has been souninterruptedly pure, or whose objects have been so invariablyexcellent. The child of the Christian missionary has been the poet ofChristian missions. The parents laid down their lives in behalf of theenslaved and perishing negro; the son, in strains the most vigorousand impassioned, has raised his generous appeal to public justice inhis behalf. Nor has the appeal been in vain. All his writings bear thestamp of the Christian; many of them--embodying feelings which all thetruly devout experience, but which only a poet could express--havebeen made vehicles for addressing to the Creator the emotions of manya grateful heart; and, employed chiefly on themes of immortality, theypromise to outlive not only songs of intellectually a lower order, butof even equal powers of genius, into whose otherwise noble texture sinhas introduced the elements of death. 

_28th October 1841. _

-----

 {1} 20th October 1841. 

CRITICISM--INTERNAL EVIDENCE. 

The reader must have often remarked, in catalogues of the writings ofgreat authors--such as Dr. Johnson, and the Rev. John Cumming, of theScotch Church, London--that while some of the pieces are described as_acknowledged_, the genuineness of others is determined merely by_internal evidence_. We know, for instance, that the Doctor wrote the_English Dictionary_, not only because no other man in the world atthe time could have written it, but also because he affixed his nameto the title-page. We know, too, that he wrote some of the best ofLord Chatham's earlier speeches, just because he said so, and pointedout the very garret in Fleet Street in which they had been written. But it is from other data we conclude that, during his period ofobscurity and distress, he wrote prefaces for the _Gentleman'sMagazine_, for some six or seven years together, --data derivedexclusively from a discriminating criticism; and his claim to theauthorship of _Taylor's Sermons_ rests solely on the vigorouscharacter of the thinking displayed in these compositions, and themarked peculiarities of their style. Now, in exactly the same way inwhich we know that Johnson wrote the speeches and the Dictionary, dowe know that the Rev. John Cumming drew up an introductory essay tothe liturgy of a Church that never knew of a liturgy, and that heoccasionally contributes tales to morocco annuals, wonderful enough toexcite the astonishment of ordinary readers. To these compositions heaffixes his name, --a thing very few men would have the courage to do;and thus are we assured of their authorship. But there are othercompositions to which he does not affix his name, and it is frominternal evidence alone that these can be adjudged to him: it is frominternal evidence alone, for instance, that we can conclude him to bethe author of the article on the Scottish Church question which hasappeared in _Fraser's Magazine_ for the present month. 

May we crave leave to direct the attention of the reader for a veryfew minutes to the grounds on which we decide? It is of importance, asJohnson says of Pope, that no part of so great a writer should besuffered to be lost, and a little harmless criticism may have theeffect of sharpening the faculties. 

There is a class of Scottish ministers in the present day, who, thoughthey detest show and coxcombry, have yet a very decided leaning to thepicturesque ceremonies of the Episcopal Church. They never weary ofapologizing to our southern neighbours for what they term the baldnessof our Presbyterian ritual, or in complaining of it to ourselves. Itwas no later than last Sunday that Dr. Muir sorrowed in his lectureover the 'stinted arrangement in the Presbyterian service, that admitsof no audible response from the people;' and all his genteelerhearers, sympathizing with the worthy man, felt how pleasant a thingit would be were the congregation permitted to do for him in thechurch what the Rev. Mr. Macfarlane, erst of Stockbridge, does for himin the presbytery. Corporal Trim began one of his stories on oneoccasion, by declaring 'that there was once an unfortunate king ofBohemia;' and when Uncle Toby, interrupting him with a sigh, exclaimed, 'Ah, Corporal Trim, and was he unfortunate?' 'Yes, yourhonour, ' readily replied Trim; 'he had a great love of ships andseaports, and yet, as your honour knows, there was ne'er a ship nor aseaport in all his dominions. ' Now this semi-Episcopalian class areunfortunate after the manner of the king of Bohemia. The objects oftheir desire lie far beyond the Presbyterian territories. They arerestricted to one pulpit, they are limited to one dress; they haveactually to read and preach from the same footboard; they areprohibited the glories of white muslin; liturgy have they none. Noaudible responses arise from the congregation; the precentor issilent, save when he sings; their churches are organless; and thoughthey set themselves painfully to establish their claim to thesuccession apostolical, the Hon. Mr. Percevals of the Church whichthey love and admire see no proof in their evidence, and look downupon them as the mere preaching laymen of a sectarian corporation. 

Thrice unfortunate men! What were the unhappinesses of the king ofBohemia, compared with the sorrows of these humble but rejectedfollowers of Episcopacy!

Now, among this highly respectable but unhappy class, the Rev. JohnCumming, of the Scotch Church, London, stands pre-eminent. So grievedwas Queen Mary of England by the loss of Calais, that she alleged thevery name of the place would be found written on her heart after herdeath. The words that have the best chance of being found inscribed onthe heart of the Rev. Mr. Cumming are, bishop, liturgy, apostolicalsuccession, burial service, organ, and surplice. The ideas attached tothese vocables pervade his whole style, and form from their continualrecurrence a characteristic portion of it. They tumble up and down inhis mind like the pieces of painted glass in a kaleidoscope, andpresent themselves in new combinations at every turn. His lastacknowledged composition was a wonderful tale which appeared in the_Protestant Annual_ for the present year, and--strange subject forsuch a writer--it purported to be a _Tale of the Covenant_. HonestPeter Walker had told the same story, that of John Brown ofPriesthill, about a century and a half ago; but there had been muchleft for Mr. Cumming to discover in it of which the poor pedlar doesnot seem to have had the most distant conception. 

Little did Peter know that John Brown's favourite minister 'held thesacred and apostolical succession of the Scottish priesthood. ' Littlewould he have thought of apologizing to the English reader for 'theantique and ballad verses' of our metrical version of the Psalms. Indeed, so devoid was he of learning, that he could scarce have valuedat a sufficiently high rate the doctrines of Oxford; and so littlegifted with taste, that he would have probably failed to appreciatethe sublimities of Brady and Tate. Nor could Peter have known that the'liturgy of the heart' was in the Covenanter's cottage, and that the'litany' of the spirit breathed from his evening devotions. But it isall known to the Rev. Mr. Cumming. He knows, too, that there weresufferings and privations endured by the persecuted Presbyterians ofthose days, of which writers of less ingenuity have no adequateconception; that they were forced to the wild hill-sides, where theycould have no 'organs, ' and compelled to bury their dead without thesolemnities of the funeral service. Unhappy Covenanters! It is onlynow that your descendants are beginning to learn the extent of yourmiseries. Would that it had been your lot to live in the days of theRev. John Cumming of the Scottish Church, London!

He would assuredly have procured for you the music-box of somewandering Italian, and gone away with you to the wilds to mingleexquisite melody with your devotions, qualifying with the sweetness ofhis tones the 'antique and ballad' rudeness of your psalms; nor wouldhe have failed to furnish you with a liturgy, by means of which youcould have interred your dead in decency. Had such been thearrangement, no after writer could have remarked, as the Rev. Mr. Cumming does now, that no 'pealing organ' mingled 'its harmony ofbass, tenor, treble, and soprano' when you sung, or have recorded theatrocious fact, that not only was John Brown of Priesthill shot byClaverhouse, but actually buried by his friends without the funeralservice. And how striking and affecting an incident would it not formin the history of the persecution, could it now be told, that whensurprised by the dragoons, the good Mr. Cumming fled over hill andhollow with the box on his back, turning the handle as he went, andurging his limbs to their utmost speed, lest the Episcopalian soldieryshould bring him back and make him a bishop!

It is partly from the more than semi-Episcopalian character of thisgentleman's opinions, partly from the inimitable felicities of hisstyle, and partly from one or two peculiar incidents in his historywhich lead to a particular tone of remark, that we infer him to be thewriter of the article in _Fraser_. 

We may be of course mistaken, but the internal evidence seemswonderfully strong. The Rev. Mr. Cumming, though emphatically powerfulin declamation, has never practised argument, --a mean and undignifiedart, which he leaves to men such as Mr. Cunningham, just as thegenteel leave the art of boxing to the commonalty; and in grapplinglately with a strong-boned Irish Presbyterian, skilful of fence, hecaught, as gentlemen sometimes do, a severe fall, and beganstraightway to characterize Irish Presbyterians as a set of men veryinferior indeed. Now the writer in _Fraser_ has a fling _à la Cumming_at the Irish Presbyterians. Popular election has, it seems, donemarvellously little for them; with very few exceptions, their'ministry' is neither 'erudite, influential, nor accomplished, ' andtheir Church 'exhibits the symptoms of heart disease. ' Depend on it, some stout Irish Presbyterian has entailed the shame of defeat on thewriter in _Fraser_. Mr. Cumming, in his tale, adverts to the majorityof the Scottish Church as 'radical subverters of Church and State, whoclaim the Covenanters as precedents for a course of conduct fromwhich the dignified Henderson, the renowned Gillespie, the learnedBinning, the laborious Denham, the heavenly-minded Rutherford, thereligious Wellwood, the zealous Cameron, and the prayerful Peden, would have revolted in horror. ' The writer of the article brings outexactly the same sentiment, though not quite so decidedly, in what MegDodds would have termed a grand style of language. At no time, heasserts, did non-intrusion exist in the sense now contended for inScotland; at no time might not qualified ministers be thrust uponreclaiming parishes by the presbytery: and as for the vetoists, theyare but wild radicals, who are to be 'classified by the good sense ofEngland with those luminaries of the age, Dan O'Connell, John Frost, and others of that ilk. ' In the article there is a complaint that ourmajority are miserably unacquainted with Scottish ecclesiasticalhistory; and there is special mention made of Mr. Cunningham as anindividual not only ignorant of facts, but as even incapable of beingmade to feel their force. In the _Annual_, as if Mr. Cumming wished toexemplify, there is a passage in Scottish ecclesiastical history, ofwhich we are certain Mr. Cunningham not only knows nothing, but whichwe are sure he will prove too obstinate to credit or comprehend. 'Thecelebrated Mr. Cameron, ' says the minister of the Scottish Church, London, 'was left on Drumclog a mangled corpse. ' Fine thing to beminutely acquainted with ecclesiastical history! We illiteratenon-intrusionists hold, and we are afraid Mr. Cunningham among therest, that the celebrated Cameron was killed, not at the skirmish ofDrumclog, but at the skirmish of Airdmoss, which did not take placeuntil about a twelvemonth after; but this must result surely from ourignorance. Has the Rev. Mr. Cumming no intention of settling ourdisputes, by giving us a new history of the Church?

That portion of the internal evidence in the article before us whichdepends on style and manner, seems very conclusive indeed. Take someof the avowed sublimities of the Rev. Mr. Cumming. No man stands morebeautifully on tiptoe when he sets himself to catch a fine thought. Indescribing an attached congregation, 'The hearer's prayers rose toheaven, ' he says, 'and returned in the shape of broad impenetrablebucklers around the venerable man. A thousand broadswords leapt in athousand scabbards, as if the electric eloquence of the minister foundin them conductors and depositories. '

Poetry such as this is still somewhat rare; but mark the kindredbeauties of the writer in _Fraser_. Around such men as Mr. Tait, Dr. M'Leod, and Dr. Muir, 'must crystallize the piety and the hopesof the Scottish Church. ' What a superb figure! Only think of the Rev. Dr. Muir as of a thread in a piece of sugar candy, and the piety ofthe Dean of Faculty and Mr. Penney, joined to that of some four orfive hundred respectable ladies of both sexes besides, all stickingout around him in cubes, hexagons, and prisms, like cleft almonds in abishop-cake. Hardly inferior in the figurative is the passagewhich follows: 'The Doctor (Dr. Chalmers) rides on at a ricketytrot, --Messrs. Cunningham, Begg, and Candlish by turns whipping upthe wornout Rosenante, and making the rider believe that windmillsare Church principles, and the echoes of their thunder solid argument. A ditch will come; and when the first effects of the fall are over, the dumbfounded Professor will awake to the deception, and smitethe minnows of vetoism hip and thigh. ' The writer of this passage isunquestionably an ingenious man, but he could surely have made alittle more of the last figure. A dissertation on the hips and thighsof minnows might be made to reflect new honour on even the geniusof the Rev. Mr. Cumming. 

It is mainly, however, from the Episcopalian tone of the articlethat we derive our evidence. The writer seems to hold, with CharlesII. , that Presbyterianism is no fit religion for a gentleman. True, the Moderates were genteel men, of polish and propriety, such asMr. Jaffray of Dunbar, who never at synod or presbytery did orsaid anything that was not strictly polite; but then the Moderateshad but little of Presbyterianism in their religion, and perhaps, notwithstanding their 'quiet, amiable, and courteous demeanour, 'little of religion itself. It is to quite a different class thatthe hope of the writer turns. He states that 'melancholy facts andstrong arguments against the practical working of Presbytery is atthis moment impressing itself in Scotland on every unprejudicedspectator;' that there is a party, however, 'with whom the ministerialoffice is a sacred investiture, transmitted by succession throughpastor to pastor, and from age to age, --men inducted to theirrespective parishes, not because their flocks like or dislike them, but because the superintending authorities, after the exercise ofsolemn, minute, and patient investigation, have determined thatthis or that pastor is the fittest and best for this or that parish;'that there exist in this noble party 'the germs of a possibleunity with the southern Church;' and that there is doubtless atime coming when the body of our Establishment, 'sick of slavery underthe name of freedom, and of sheer Popery under Presbyteriancolours, shall send up three of their best men to London forconsecration, and Episcopacy shall again become the adoption ofScotland. ' Rarely has the imagination of the poet conjured up avision of greater splendour. The minister of the Scotch Church, London, may die Archbishop of St. Andrews. And such an archbishop!We are told in the article that 'the channel along which ministerialorders are to be transmitted is the pastors of the Church, whetherthey meet together in the presbytery, or are compressed andconsolidated in the bishop. ' But is not this understating the caseon the Episcopal side? What would not Scotland gain if she couldcompress and consolidate a simple presbytery, such as that ofEdinburgh--its Chalmers and its Gordon, its Candlish and itsCunningham, its Guthrie, its Brown, its Bennie, its Begg--inshort, all its numerous members--into one great Bishop John Cumming, late of the Scotch Church, London! The man who converts twenty-oneshillings into a gold guinea gains nothing by the process; but thecase would be essentially different here, for not only would therebe a great good accomplished, but also a great evil removed. As forDr. Chalmers, it is 'painfully evident, ' says the writer of thearticle, 'that he regards only three things additional to a "supernalinfluence" as requisite to constitute any one a minister--aknowledge of Christianity, and endowment, and a parish;' and asfor the rest of the gentlemen named, they are just preparing to do, in an 'ecclesiastical way in Edinburgh, what Robespierre, Marat, andothers did in a corporal way in the Convention of 1793. '

Hogarth quarrelled with Churchill, and drew him as a bear incanonicals. Had he lived to quarrel with the Rev. John Cumming, hewould in all probability have drawn him as a puppy in gown and band;and no one who knows aught of the painter can doubt that he would havestrikingly preserved the likeness. As for ourselves, we merely indulgein a piece of conjectural criticism. The other parts of the articleare cast very much into the ordinary type of that side of thecontroversy to which it belongs: there is rather more than the usualamount of misrepresentation, inconsistency, and abuse, with here andthere a peculiarity of statement. Patrons are described as the'trustees of the supreme magistrate, beautifully and devoutlyappointed to submit the presentee to the presbytery. ' Lord Aberdeen'sbill is eulogized as suited to 'confer a greater boon on the laity ofScotland than was ever conferred on them by the General Assembly. ' Theseven clergymen of Strathbogie are praised for 'having rendered untoGod the things that are God's, ' 'their enemies being judges. '

The minority of the Church contains, it is stated, its best men, and its most diligent ministers. As for the majority, they havebeen possessed by a spirit of 'deep delusion;' their only idea ofa 'clergyman is a preaching machine, that makes a prodigiousvociferation, and pleases the herd. ' They are destined to become'contemptible and base;' their attitude is an 'unrighteous attitude;'they are aiming, 'like Popish priests, ' at 'supremacy' and adeadly despotism, through the sides of the people; they are'suicidally divesting themselves of their power as clergymen, bysurrendering to the people essentially Episcopal functions;' they are'wild men, ' and offenders against the 'divine headship;' and thewriter holds, therefore, that if the Establishment is to be maintainedin Scotland, they must be crushed, and that soon, by the strong armof the law. We need make no further remarks on the subject. To employone of the writer's own illustrations, the history of Robespierrepowerfully demonstrates that great vanity, great weakness, andgreat cruelty, may all find room together in one little mind. 

_March 10, 1841. _

THE SANCTITIES OF MATTER. 

 TO THE EDITOR OF THE WITNESS. 

 SIR, --Upon hearing read aloud your remarks{1} in the _Witness_ of Saturday the 28th ultimo, upon the danger of investing the mere building in which we meet for public worship with a character of sanctity, an English gentleman asked, 'How does the writer of that article reconcile with his views our Saviour's conduct, described by St. John, ii. 14-17, and by each of the other evangelists?'

 Though quite disposed to agree with the purport of your remarks, and fully aware that the tendency of the opinions openly promulgated by a large section of the clergy of the Church of England is to give 'the Church' the place which should be occupied by a living and active faith in our Saviour, I found it difficult to meet this gentleman's objections, and only reminded him that you made a special exception in the case of the Jewish temple. Brought up from childhood, as Englishmen are, with almost superstitious reverence for the buildings 'consecrated' and set apart for religious uses, it is difficult to meet objections founded on such strong prejudices as were evident in this case. 

 If any arguments suggest themselves to you, to show that the passage above referred to cannot be fairly employed in the defence of the Church of England tenets, in favour of consecrating churches, and of reverence amounting almost to the worship of external objects devoted to religious purposes, you will oblige me by stating them. --I remain, Sir, Your obedient servant, AN ABSENTEE. 

The passage of Scripture referred to by the 'English Gentleman' hereas scarcely reconcilable with the views promulgated in the _Witness_of the 28th ult. Runs as follows:--'And Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and found in the temple those that sold oxen, and sheep, and doves, and the changers of money, sitting; and when He had made a scourge ofsmall cords, He drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep andthe oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew thetables; and said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence;make not my Father's house a house of merchandise. '

It will perhaps be remembered by our readers, that in referring to theScotch estimate of the sacredness of ecclesiastical edifices, weemployed words to the following effect:--'We (the Scotch people)have been taught that the world, since it began, saw but two trulyholy edifices; and that these, the Tabernacle and the _Temple_, wereas direct revelations from God as the Scriptures themselves, and wereas certain embodiments of His will, though they spoke in the obscurelanguage of type and symbol. ' Now the passage of Scripture herecited is in harmonious accordance with this view. It was from one ofthese truly holy edifices that our Saviour drove the sheep and oxen, and indignantly expelled the money-changers. Without, however, begging the whole question at issue--without taking for granted thevery point to be proven, _i. E. _ the intrinsic holiness of Christianplaces of worship--the text has no bearing whatever on the view takenby the 'English Gentleman. ' If buildings such as York Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, and St. Paul's, be holy in the sense in which thetemple was holy, then the passage as certainly applies to them asit applied, in the times of our Saviour, to the sacred edificewhich was so remarkable a revelation of Himself. But where is theevidence of an intrinsic holiness in these buildings? Where is theproof that the rite of consecration is a rite according to the mindof God? Where is the probability even that it is other than a piece ofmere will-worship, originated in the dark ages; or that it confersone whit more sanctity on the edifice which it professes to rendersacred, than the breaking a bottle of wine on the ship's stem, when she is starting off the slips, confers sanctity on the ship?Stands it on any surer ground than the baptism of bells, the sacrificeof the mass, or the five spurious sacraments? If it be a NewTestament institution, it must possess New Testament authority. Whereis that authority?

Can it be possible, however, that the shrewd English really differ fromus in our estimate? We think we have good grounds for holding theydo not. On a late occasion we enjoyed the pleasure of visiting not onlyYork Cathedral, but Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's, and saw quiteenough to make even the least mistrustful suspect that the professedEpiscopalian belief in the sacredness of ecclesiastical edifices is butsheer make-belief after all. The 'English Gentleman' refers to theexample of our Saviour in thrusting forth the money-changers from thetemple, as a sort of proof that ecclesiastical edifices are holy;and we show that it merely proves the temple to have been holy. Thepassage has, however, a direct bearing on a somewhat different point:it constitutes a test by which to try the reality of this ostensiblebelief of English Episcopalians in the sacredness of their churchesand cathedrals. If the English, especially English Churchmen, actwith regard to their ecclesiastical buildings in the way our Saviouracted with regard to the temple, then it is but fair to hold that theirbelief in their sacredness is real. But if, on the contrary, we findthem acting, not as our Saviour acted, but as the money-changers orthe cattle-sellers acted, then is it equally fair to conclude thattheir belief in their sacredness is not a real belief, but a piece ofmere pretence. In the north transept of York Minster there may be seen atable like a tomb of black Purbec marble, supported by an irontrellis, and bearing atop the effigy of a wasted corpse wrapped in awinding-sheet. 'This monument, ' says a little work descriptive ofthe edifice, 'was erected to the memory of John Haxby, formerlytreasurer to the church, who died in 1424; and in compliance withstipulations in some of the ancient church deeds and settlements, occasional payments of money are made on this tomb to the presentday. ' Here, at least, is one money-changing table introduced intothe consecrated area, and this not irregularly or surreptitiously, likethe money-changing tables which of old profaned the temple, but throughthe deliberately formed stipulations of ecclesiastical deeds andsettlements. The state of things in St. Paul's and Westminster, however, throws the money-table of York Minster far into the shade. The holinesses of St. Paul's we found converted into a twopenny, andthose of Westminster into a sixpenny show. For the small sum oftwopence one may be admitted, at an English provincial fair, to see theold puppet exhibition of Punch and Judy, and of Solomon in all hisglory; and for the small sum of twopence were we admitted, in likemanner, to see St. Paul's, to see choir, communion-table, and grandaltar, and everything else of peculiar sacredness within the edifice. The holinesses of Westminster cost thrice as much, but were a goodbargain notwithstanding. Would English Churchmen permit, far lessoriginate and insist in doggedly maintaining, so palpable aprofanation, did they really believe their cathedrals to be holy? Thedebased Jewish priesthood of the times of our Saviour suffered themoney-changers to traffic unchallenged within the temple; but theydid not convert the temple itself into a twopenny show: they did notmake halfpence by exhibiting the table of shew-bread, the altar ofincense, and the golden candlestick, nor lift up corners of the veilat the rate of a penny a peep. It is worse than nonsense to hold that abelief in the sacredness of ecclesiastical buildings can co-exist withclerical practices of the kind we describe: the thing is a too palpableimprobability; the text quoted by the Englishman is conclusive onthe point. Would any man in his senses now hold that the old Jewishpriests really believed their temple to be holy, had they done, whatthey had decency enough not to do--converted it into a raree-show? Andare we not justified in applying to English Churchmen the rule whichwould be at once applied to Jewish priests? The Presbyterians ofScotland do not deem their ecclesiastical edifices holy, but thereare certain natural associations that throw a degree of solemnityover places in which men assemble to worship God; and in order thatthese may not be outraged, they never convert their churches intotwopenny show-boxes. Practically, at least, the Scotch respect fordecency goes a vast deal further than the English regard for what theyprofess, very insincerely it would seem, to hold sacred. 

We have said there is quite as little New Testament authority forconsecrating a place of worship as for baptizing a bell; and if inthe wrong, can of course be easily set right. If the authorityexists, it can be no difficult matter to produce it. We would fainask the reader to remark the striking difference which obtainsbetween the Mosaic and the New Testament dispensations in all thatregards the materialisms of their respective places of worship. Wefind in the Pentateuch chapter after chapter occupied with themechanism of the tabernacle. The pattern given in the mount is asminutely described as any portion of the ceremonial law, and forexactly the same reason: the one as certainly as the other was 'afigure of things to come. ' How exceedingly minute, too, thedescription of the temple! How very particular the narrative of itsdedication! The prayer of Solomon, Heaven-inspired for the occasion, forms an impressive chapter in the sacred record, that addressesitself to all time. But when the old state of things had passedaway, --when the material was relinquished for the spiritual, theshadow for the substance, the type for the antitype, --we hear nomore of places of worship to which an intrinsic holiness attached, or of imposing rites of dedication. Not in edifices deemed sacred wasthe gospel promulgated, so long as the gospel remained pure, but in'hired houses' and 'upper rooms, ' or 'river-sides, where prayer waswont to be made, ' in chambers on the 'third loft, ' often in thestreets, often in the market-place, in the fields and by solitarywaysides, on shipboard and by the sea-shore, 'in the midst of MarsHill' at Athens, and, when persecution began to darken, amid the deepgloom of the sepulchral caverns of Rome. The time had evidentlycome, referred to by the Saviour, when neither in the temple atJerusalem, nor on the mountain deemed sacred by the Samaritans, wasthe Father to be worshipped; but all over the world, 'in spirit andin truth. ' Until Christianity had become corrupt, we do not heareven of ornate churches, far less of Christian altars, of an order ofChristian priests, of the will-worship of consecration, or of thepresumed holiness of insensate matter, --all unauthorized additions ofman's making to a religion fast sinking at the time under a load ofhuman inventions, --additions which were in no degree the moresacred, because filched, amid the darkness of superstition and error, from the abrogated Mosaic dispensation. The following is, webelieve, the first notice of _fine_ Christian churches which occursin history;--we quote from the ecclesiastical work of Dr. Welsh, and deem the passage a significant one:--'From the beginning of thereign of Gallienus till the nineteenth year of Diocletian, ' says thehistorian, 'the external tranquillity of the Church suffered nogeneral interruption. The Christians, with partial exceptions, wereallowed the free exercise of their religion. Under Diocletian openprofession of the new faith was made even in the imperial household;nor did it prove a barrier to the highest honours and employments. In this state of affairs the condition of the Church seemed in thehighest degree prosperous. Converts were multiplied throughout allthe provinces of the empire; and the ancient churches provinginsufficient for the accommodation of the increasing multitudes ofworshippers, _splendid edifices were erected in every city_, whichwere filled with crowded congregations. But with this outwardappearance of success, the purity of faith and worship becamegradually corrupted; and, still more, the vital spirit of religionsuffered a melancholy decline. Pride and ambition, emulation andstrifes, hypocrisy and formality among the clergy, and superstitionsand factions among the people, brought reproach on the Christiancause. In these circumstances the judgments of the Lord weremanifested, and the Church was visited with the severest persecutionto which it ever yet had been subjected. '

There are few more valuable chapters in Locke than the one in which hetraces some of the gravest errors that infest human life to a falseassociation of ideas. But of all his illustrations, employed toexhibit in the true light this copious source of error, there is notone half so striking as that furnished by the false association whichconnects the holiness that can alone attach to the living and theimmortal, with earth, mortar, and stone, pieces of mouldering serge, and bits of rotten wood. Nearly one half of the errors with whichPopery has darkened and overlaid the religion of the Cross, haveoriginated in this particular species of false association. Thesuperstition of pilgrimages, with all its long catalogue of crime andsuffering, inclusive of bloody wars, protracted for ages, ---

 'When men strayed far to seek In Golgotha Him dead who lives in heaven, '--

the idolatry of relics, so strangely revived on the Continent in ourown times, --the allegorical will-worship embodied in stone and lime, which Puseyism is at present so busy in introducing into the Church ofEngland, and which renders every ecclesiastical building a sort ofapocryphal temple, full, like the apocryphal books, of all manner oferror and nonsense, --a thousand other absurdities and heterodoxiesbesides, --have all originated in this cause. True, such association ismost natural to man, and, when of a purely secular character, harmless; nay, there are cases in which it may be even laudablyindulged. 'When I find Tully confessing of himself, ' says Johnson, 'that he could not forbear at Athens to visit the walks and houseswhich the old philosophers had frequented or inhabited, and recollectthe reverence which every nation, civil and barbarous, has paid to theground where merit has been buried, I am afraid to declare against thegeneral voice of mankind, and am inclined to believe that this regardwhich we involuntarily pay to the meanest relique of a man great andillustrious, is intended as an incitement to labour, and anencouragement to expect the same renown if it be sought by the samevirtues. ' We find nearly the same sentiment eloquently expounded inthe Doctor's famous passage on Iona. But there exists a granddistinction between natural feelings proper in their own place, andnatural feelings permitted to enter the religious field, and vitiatethe integrity of revelation. It is from the natural alone in suchcases that danger is to be apprehended; seeing that what is notaccording to the mental constitution of man, is of necessity at onceunproductive and shortlived. Let due weight be given to theassociative feeling, in its proper sphere, --let it dispose us toinvest with a quiet decency our places of worship, --let us, at allevents, not convert them into secular counting-rooms or twopennyshow-boxes; but let us also remember that natural association is notdivine truth--that there attaches no holiness to slated roofs or stonewalls--that under the New Testament dispensation men do not worship intemples, which, like the altar of old, sanctified the gift, but inmere places of shelter, that confer no sacredness on their services;and that the 'hour has come, and now is, when they that worship theFather must worship Him in spirit and in truth. '

_April 15, 1846. _

-----

 {1} See _First Impressions of England and its People_, ch. II. --ED. 

THE LATE REV. ALEXANDER STEWART. 

Our last conveyed to our readers the mournful intelligence of theillness and death of the Rev. Alexander Stewart of Cromarty, --a manless known, perhaps, than any other of nearly equal calibre, or of aresembling exquisitiveness of mental faculty, which his country hasever produced, but whose sudden removal has, we find, created animpression far beyond the circle of even his occasional hearers, thatthe spirit which has passed away was one of the high cast which naturerarely produces, and that the consequent blank created in the existingphalanx of intellect is one which cannot be filled up. Comparativelylittle as the deceased was known beyond his own immediate walk of dutyor circle of acquaintanceship, it is yet felt by thousands, of whomthe greater part knew of him merely at second-hand by the abidingimpression which he had left on the minds of the others, that, according to the poet, 'A mighty spirit is eclipsed; a power Hath passed from day to darkness, to whose hour Of light no likeness is bequeathed--no name. '

The subject is one with which we can scarce trust ourselves. There areno writings to which we can appeal, for Mr. Stewart has left none, orat least none suited to convey an adequate impression of his powers;and yet of nothing are we more thoroughly convinced, than that theoriginality and vigour of his thinking, and the singular vividnessand force of his illustrations, added to a command of the principlesof analogical reasoning, which even a Butler might have envied, entitled him to rank with the ablest and most extraordinary men of theage. Coleridge was not more thoroughly original, nor could he impartto his pictures more vividness of colouring, or more decided strengthof outline. In glancing over our limited stock of idea, to note how wehave come by it, we find that to two Scotchmen of the present centurywe stand more largely indebted than to any of their contemporaries, either at home or abroad. More of their thinking has got into our mindthan that of any of the others; and their images and illustrationsrecur to us more frequently. And one of these is Thomas Chalmers; theother, Alexander Stewart. 

There is an order of intellect decidedly original in its cast, and ofconsiderable power, to whom notwithstanding originality is dangerous. Goldsmith, when he first entered on his literary career, found thatall the good things on the side of truth had already been said; andthat _his_ good things, if he really desired to produce any, wouldrequire all to be said on the side of paradox and error. 'When I was ayoung man, ' he states, in a passage which Johnson censured him forafterwards expunging, 'being anxious to distinguish myself, I wasperpetually starting new propositions. But I soon gave this over, forI found that generally what was new was false. ' Poor Edward Irvingformed a melancholy illustration of this species of originality. Hisstock of striking things on the side of truth was soon expended;notoriety had meanwhile become as essential to his comfort as ardentspirits to that of the dram-drinker, or his pernicious drug to that ofthe inveterate opium-eater; and so, to procure the supply of theunwholesome pabulum, without which he could not continue to exist, helaunched into a perilous ocean of heterodoxy and extravagance, andmade shipwreck of his faith. His originality formed but the crookedwanderings of a journeyer who had forsaken the right way, and losthimself in the mazes of a doleful wilderness. Not such the originalityof the higher order of minds; not such, for instance, the originalityof a Newton, of whom it has been well said by a distinguished Frenchcritic, that 'what province of thought soever he undertook, he wassure to change the ideas and opinions received by the rest of men. 'One of the most striking characteristics of Mr. Stewart's originalitywas the solidity of the truths which it always evolved. His was notthe ability of opening up new vistas in which all was unfamiliar, simply because the direction in which they led was one in which men'sthought had no occasion to travel, and no business to perform. It was, on the contrary, the greatly higher ability of enlarging, widening, and lengthening the avenues long before opened upon important truths, and, in consequence, enabling men to see new and unwonted objects inold, familiar directions. That in which he excelled all men we everknew, was the analogical faculty--the power of detecting anddemonstrating occult resemblances. He could read off as if byintuition--not by snatches and fragments, but as a consecutivewhole--that older revelation of type and symbol which God first gaveto man; and when privileged to listen to him, we have recognised, inthe evident integrity of the reading, and the profound and consistentwisdom of what the record conveyed, a demonstration of the divinity ofits origin, not less powerful and convincing than that to be found inany department of the Christian evidences yet opened up. Compared witheven the higher names in this department, we have felt under hisministry as if, when admitted to the company of some party of modern_savans_ employed in deciphering a hieroglyphic-covered obelisk of thedesert, and here successful in discovering the meaning of an insulatedsign, and there of a detached symbol, we had been suddenly joined bysome sage of the olden time, to whom the mysterious inscription wasbut a piece of common language written in a familiar alphabet, and whocould read off fluently and as a whole what the others could butdarkly and painfully guess at in detached and broken parts. 

To this singular power of tracing analogies there was added in Mr. Stewart an ability of originating the most vivid illustrations. Insome instances a single stroke produced a figure that swept acrossthe subject-matter of his discourse like the image of a lantern on awall; in others, he dwelt upon the picture produced, finishing itwith stroke after stroke, until it filled the whole imagination, and sank deep into the memory. We remember hearing him preach on oneoccasion on the return of the Jews, as a people, to Him whom theyhad rejected, and the effect which their sudden conversion could notfail to have on the unbelieving and Gentile world. Suddenly hislanguage, from its high level of eloquent simplicity, became atonce that of metaphor: 'When _Joseph_, ' he said, 'shall revealhimself to _his brethren_, the _whole house of Pharaoh_ shall _hearthe weeping_. ' Could there be an allusion of more classical beauty, or more finely charged with typical truth? And yet such was one ofthe common and briefer exercises of the illustrative faculty inthis gifted man. On another occasion we heard him dwell on that vastprofundity characteristic of the scriptural representations of God, which ever deepens and broadens the longer and the more thoroughlyit is explored, until at length the student--struck at first byits expansiveness, but conceiving of it as if it were a mere_measured_ expansiveness--finds that it partakes of the unlimitedinfinity of the divine nature itself. Naturally and simply, as ifgrowing out of the subject, like a green berry-covered misletoe on themossy trunk of a reverend oak, there sprang up one of his morelengthened illustrations. A child bred up in the interior of thecountry has been brought for the first time to the sea-shore, andcarried out to the middle of one of the noble friths that indent sodeeply our line of coast; and on his return he informs his father, with all a child's eagerness, of the wonderful expansiveness of the_ocean_ which he has seen. He went out, he tells, far amid thegreat waves and the rushing tides, till at length the huge hillsseemed diminished into mere hummocks, and the wide land itselfappeared along the waters but as a slim strip of blue. And thenwhen in mid-sea the sailors heaved the lead; and it went down, anddown, and down, and the long line slipped swiftly away over theboat-edge coil after coil, till, ere the plummet rested on the ousebelow, all was well-nigh expended. And was it not the _great_ sea, asks the boy, that was so vastly broad, and so profoundly deep?Ah! my child, exclaims the father, you have not yet seen aught of itsgreatness, --you have sailed over merely one of its little arms. Hadit been out into the wide ocean that the seamen had carried you, youwould have _seen_ no shore, and you would have _found_ no bottom. Inone rare quality of the orator, Mr. Stewart stood alone among hiscontemporaries. Pope refers, in one of his satires, to a strangepower of creating love and admiration by just 'touching the brinkof all we hate;' and Burke, in some of his nobler passages, happily exemplifies the thing. He intensified the effect of hisburning eloquence by the employment of figures so homely, nay, almost so repulsive in themselves, that a man of lower powers whoventured their use would find them efficient merely in lowering hissubject and ruining his cause. We may refer, in illustration, toBurke's celebrated figure of the disembowelled bird, which occurs inhis indignant denial that the character of the revolutionaryFrench in aught resembled that of the English. 'We have not, ' hesays, 'been _drawn_ and _trussed_, in order that we may be filled, _like stuffed birds in a museum_, with _chaff and rags_, and _paltryblurred shreds of paper_ about the rights of man. ' Into thisperilous but singularly effective department, closed against evensuperior men, Mr. Stewart could enter safely and at will. We heardhim, scarce a twelvemonth since, deliver a discourse of singularpower, on the sin-offering of the Jewish economy, as minutelyparticularized by the divine penman in Leviticus. He described theslaughtered animal--foul with dust and blood--its throat gashedacross--its entrails laid open--and steaming in its impurity tothe sun, as it awaited the consuming fire, amid the uncleanness ofashes outside the camp, --a vile and horrid thing, which no onecould see without experiencing emotions of disgust, nor touchwithout contracting defilement. The picture appeared too painfullyvivid, its introduction too little in accordance with the rules ofa just taste. It seemed a thing to be covered up, not exhibited. But the master in this difficult walk well knew what he was doing. 'And that, ' he said, as if pointing to the strongly-coloured picturehe had just completed, 'and that is SIN. ' By one stroke theintended effect was produced, and the rising disgust and horrortransferred from the revolting material image to the great moralevil. 

We had fondly hoped that for a man so singularly gifted, and who hadbut reached the ripe maturity of middle life, there remained importantwork yet to do. He seemed peculiarly fitted, if but placed in acommanding sphere, for ministering to some of the intellectual wants, and for withstanding with singular efficiency some of the moreperilous tendencies, of the religious world in the present day. ThatAthenian thirst for the new so generally abroad, and which many haveso unhappily satisfied with the unwholesome and the pernicious, hecould satisfy with provision at once sound and novel. And no man ofthe age had more thoroughly studied the prevailing theological errorsof the time in their first insidious approaches, or could moreskilfully indicate the exact point at which they diverge from thetruth. But his work on earth is for ever over; and the sense ofbereavement is deepened by the reflection that, save in the memory ofa few, he has left behind him no adequate impress of the powers of hisunderstanding or of the fineness of his genius. It is strange how muchthe lack of a single ingredient in a man's moral constitution--andthat, too, an ingredient in itself of a low and vulgar cast--mayaffect one's whole destiny. It was the grand defect of this giftedman, that that sentiment of self-esteem, which seems in many instancesso absurd and ridiculous a thing, and which some, in their littlewisdom, would so fain strike out from among the components of humancharacter, was almost wholly awanting. As the minister of an attachedprovincial congregation, a sense of duty led him to study much anddeeply; and he poured forth _viva voce_ his full-volumed andmany-sparkling tide of eloquent idea as freely and richly as thenightingale, unconscious of a listener, pours forth her melody in theshade. But he could not be made to understand or believe, that what soimpressed and delighted the privileged few who surrounded him wasequally suited to impress and delight the many outside, or that he wasfitted to speak through the press in tones which would compel theattention not merely of the religious, but also of the literary world. And so his exquisitely-toned thinking perished like the music of thebygone years, has died with himself, or, we should perhaps rather say, has gone with him to that better land, where all those fruits ofintellect that the human spirits of greatest calibre have in thisworld produced, must form but the comparatively meagre beginnings ofinfinite, never-ending acquirement. 

Mr. Stewart was one of the eminently excellent and loveable, and hisentire character of the most transparent, childlike simplicity. Thegreat realities of eternity were never far distant from his thoughts. Endowed with powers of humour at least equal to his other faculties, and a sense of the ludicrous singularly nice, he has often remindedus in his genial moments, when indulging most freely, of a happy childat play in the presence of its father. Never was there an equal amountof wit more harmlessly indulged, or from which one could pass moredirectly or with less distraction to the contemplation of the matterswhich pertain to eternity. And no one could be long in his companywithout having his thoughts turned towards that unseen world to whichhe has now passed, or without receiving emphatic testimony regardingthat Divine Person who is the wisdom and the power of God. 

We have seen it stated that Mr. Stewart 'was slow to join thenon-intrusion party, and to acquiesce in the necessity of thesecession. ' On this point we are qualified to speak. No one enjoyedmore of his society during the first beginnings of the controversy, orwas more largely honoured with his confidence, than the writer ofthese remarks; and the one point of difference between Mr. Stewart andhim in their discussions in those days was, that while the writer wassanguine enough to anticipate a successful termination to the Church'sstruggle, _his_ soberer anticipations were of a character which theDisruption in 1843 entirely verified. But with the actual result fullin view, he was yet the first man in his parish--we believe, in hispresbytery also--to take his stand, modestly and unassumingly asbecame his character, but with a firmness which never once swerved orwavered. Nay, long ere the struggle began, founding on data with whichwe pretend not to be acquainted, he declared his conviction to not afew of his parishioners, that of the Establishment, as thenconstituted, he was to be the last minister in that parish. We knownothing, we repeat, of the data on which he founded; but he himselfheld that the conclusion was fairly deducible from those sacredoracles which no man more profoundly studied or more thoroughly knew. Alas! what can it betoken our Church, that we should thus see suchmen, at once its strength and its ornament, so fast falling around us, like commanding officers picked down at the beginning of a battle, andthat so few of resembling character, and none of at least equal power, should be rising to occupy the places made desolate by their fall!

_November 13, 1847. _

THE CALOTYPE. 

There are some two or three slight advantages which real merit has, that fictitious merit has not; among the rest, an especial advantage, which, we think, should recommend it to at least the quieter members ofsociety--the advantage of being unobtrusive and modest. It pressesitself much less on public notice than its vagabond antagonist, andmakes much less noise; it walks, for a time at least, as ifslippered in felt, and leaves the lieges quite at freedom to takenotice of it or no, as they may feel inclined. It is content, in itsinfancy, to thrive in silence. It does not squall in the nursery, tothe disturbance of the whole house, like 'the major roaring for hisporridge. ' What, for instance, could be quieter or more modest, inits first stages, than the invention of James Watt? what moreobtrusive or noisy, on the contrary, than the invention of Mr. Henson?And we have illustrations of the same truth in our Scottish metropolisat the present moment, that seem in no degree less striking. Phreno-mesmerism and the calotype have been introduced to the Edinburghpublic about much the same time; but how very differently have theyfared hitherto! A real invention, which bids fair to produce some of thegreatest revolutions in the fine arts of which they have ever been thesubject, has as yet attracted comparatively little notice; an inventionwhich serves but to demonstrate that the present age, with all itsboasted enlightenment, may yet not be very unfitted for the reception ofsuperstitions the most irrational and gross, is largely occupyingthe attention of the community, and filling column after column inour public prints. We shall venture to take up the quieter invention ofthe two as the genuine one, --as the invention which will occupy mostspace a century hence, --and direct the attention of our readers tosome of the more striking phenomena which it illustrates, and some ofthe purposes which it may be yet made to subserve. There are fewlovers of art who have looked on the figures or landscapes of acamera obscura without forming the wish that, among the hiddensecrets of matter, some means might be discovered for fixing andrendering them permanent. If nature could be made her own limner, ifby some magic art the reflection could be fixed upon the mirror, couldthe picture be other than true? But the wish must have seemed an idleone, --a wish of nearly the same cast as those which all remember tohave formed at one happy period of life, in connection with the famouscap and purse of the fairy tale. Could aught seem less probable thanthat the forms of the external world should be made to convert thepencils of light which they emit into real _bona fide_ pencils, andcommence taking their own likenesses? Improbable as the thing may haveseemed, however, there were powers in nature of potency enough toeffect it, and the newly discovered art of the photographer issimply the art of employing these. The figures and landscapes of thecamera obscura can now be fixed and rendered permanent, --not yet inall their various shades of colour, but in a style scarce lessstriking, and to which the limner, as if by anticipation, has alreadyhad recourse. The connoisseur unacquainted with the results of therecent discovery, would decide, if shown a set of photographicimpressions, that he had before him the carefully finished drawingsin sepia of some great master. The stronger lights, as in sketches donein this colour, present merely the white ground of the paper; a tingeof soft warm brown indicates the lights of lower tone; a deeper andstill deeper tinge succeeds, shading by scarce perceptible degreesthrough all the various gradations, until the darker shades concentrateinto an opaque and dingy umber, that almost rivals black in itsintensity. We have at the present moment before us--and very wonderfulthings they certainly are--drawings on which a human pencil was neveremployed. They are strangely suggestive of the capabilities of theart. Here, for instance, is a scene in George Street, --part of thepavement; and a line of buildings, from the stately erection at thecorner of Hanover Street, with its proud Corinthian columns and richcornice, to Melville's Monument and the houses which form the easternside of St. Andrew Square. St. Andrew's Church rises in the middledistance. The drawing is truth itself; but there are cases in whichmere truth might be no great merit: were the truth restricted here tothe proportions of the architecture, there could be nothing gained bysurveying the transcript, that could not be gained by surveying theoriginals. In this little brown drawing, however, the truth is truthaccording to the rules of lineal perspective, unerringly deduced; andfrom a set of similar drawings, this art of perspective, so importantto the artist--which has been so variously taught, and in which so manymasters have failed--could be more surely acquired than by any othermeans. Of all the many treatises yet written on the subject, one of thebest was produced by the celebrated Ferguson the astronomer, the solefruit derived to the fine arts by his twenty years' application topainting. There are, however, some of his rules arbitrary in theirapplication, and the propriety of which he has not even attempted todemonstrate. Here, for the first time, on this square of paper, havewe the data on which perspective may be rendered a certain science. Wehave but to apply our compasses and rules in order to discover theproportions in which, according to their distances, objects diminish. Mark these columns, for instance. One line prolonged in the line oftheir architrave, and another line prolonged in the line of theirbases, bisect one another in the point of sight fixed in the distanthorizon; and in this one important point we find all the otherparallel lines of the building converging. The fact, though unknown tothe ancients, has been long familiar to the artists of comparativelymodern times, --so familiar, indeed, that it forms one of the firstlessons of the drawing-master. The rule is a fixed one; but there isanother rule equally important, not yet fixed, --that rule of proportionby which to determine the breadth which a certain extent of frontagebetween these converging lines should occupy. The principle on whichthe horizontal lines converge is already known, but the principle onwhich the vertical lines cut these at certain determinate distancesis not yet known. It is easy taking the _latitudes_ of the art, if wemay so speak, but its _longitudes_ are still to discover. At length, however, have we the lines of discovery indicated: in the architecturaldrawings of the calotype the perspective is that of nature itself;and to arrive at just conclusions, we have but to measure and compare, and ascertain proportions. One result of the discovery of thecalotype will be, we doubt not, the production of completer treatiseson perspective than have yet been given to the world. Another verycurious result will be, in all probability, a new mode of design forthe purposes of the engraver, especially for all the illustrations ofbooks. For a large class of works the labours of the artist bid fairto be restricted to the composition of _tableaux vivants_, which it willbe the part of the photographer to fix, and then transfer to theengraver. To persons of artistical skill at a distance, thesuggestion may appear somewhat wild. Such of our readers, however, ashave seen the joint productions of Mr. Hill and Mr. Adamson in thisdepartment, will, we are convinced, not deem it wild in the least. Compared with the mediocre prints of nine-tenths of the illustratedworks now issuing from the press, these productions serve admirablyto show how immense the distance between nature and her less skilfulimitators. There is a truth, breadth, and power about them which wefind in only the highest walks of art, and not often even in these. Wehave placed a head of Dr. Chalmers taken in this way beside one of themost powerful prints of him yet given to the public, and find fromthe contrast that the latter, with all its power, is but a mereapproximation. There is a _skinniness_ about the lips which is not trueto nature; the chin is not brought strongly enough out; the shadebeneath the under lip is too broad and too flat; the nose droops, andlacks the firm-set appearance so characteristic of the original; andwhile the breadth of the forehead is exaggerated, there is scarcejustice done to its height. We decide at once in favour of thecalotype--it is truth itself; and yet, while the design of the print--amere approximation as it is--must have cost a man of genius muchpains and study, the drawing in brown beside it was but the work ofa few seconds: the eye of an accomplished artist determined the attitudeof the original, and the light reflected from the form and featuresaccomplished the rest. Were that sketch in brown to be sent to a skilfulengraver, he would render it the groundwork of by far the mostfaithful print which the public has yet seen. And how interesting tohave bound up with the writings of this distinguished divine, not amere print in which there might be deviations from the truth, but thecalotype drawing itself! In some future book sale, copies of the_Astronomical Discourses_ with calotype heads of the author prefixed, may be found to bear very high prices indeed. An autograph ofShakespeare has been sold of late for considerably more than an hundredguineas. What price would some early edition of his works bear, withhis likeness in calotype fronting the title? Corporations and colleges, nay, courts and governments, would outbid one another in the purchase. Or what would we not give to be permitted to look even on a copy of the_Paradise Lost_ with a calotype portrait of the poet in front--serenelyplacid in blindness and adversity, solacing himself, with upturnedthough sightless eyes, amid the sublime visions of the ideal world?How deep the interest which would attach to a copy of Clarendon's_History of the Civil War_, with calotypes of all the more remarkablepersonages who figured in that very remarkable time--Charles, Cromwell, Laud, Henderson, Hampden, Strafford, Falkland, and Selden, --and withthese the Wallers and Miltons and Cowleys, their contemporaries andcoadjutors! The history of the Reform Bill could still be illustratedafter this manner; so also could the history of Roman CatholicEmancipation in Ireland, and the history of our Church Question inScotland. Even in this department--the department of historicillustrations--we anticipate much and interesting employment for thephotographer. 

We have two well-marked drawings before us, in which we recognisethe capabilities of the art for producing pictures of composition. They are _tableaux vivants_ transferred by the calotype. In theone[Footnote: See Frontispiece] a bonneted mechanic rests over hismallet on a tombstone--his one arm bared above his elbow; the otherwrapped up in the well-indicated shirt folds, and resting on a pieceof grotesque sculpture. There is a powerful sun; the somewhatrigid folds in the dress of coarse stuff are well marked; one halfthe face is in deep shade, the other in strong light; the churchyardwall throws a broad shadow behind, while in the foreground there is agracefully chequered breadth of intermingled dark and light in theform of a mass of rank grass and foliage. Had an old thin man ofstriking figure and features been selected, and some study-wornscholar introduced in front of him, the result would have been adesign ready for the engraver when employed in illustrating the_Old Mortality_ of Sir Walter. The other drawing presents a_tableau vivant_ on a larger scale, and of a much deeper interest. It forms one of the groups taken under the eye of Mr. Hill, asmaterials for the composition of his historic picture. In thecentre Dr. Chalmers sits on the Moderator's chair, and there aregrouped round him, as on the platform, some eighteen or twenty of thebetter known members of the Church, clerical and lay. Nothing canbe more admirable than the truthfulness and ease of the figures. Wilkie, in his representations of a crowd, excelled in introducingheads, and hands, and faces, and parts of faces into the intersticesbehind, --one of the greatest difficulties with which the artistcan grapple. Here, however, is the difficulty surmounted--surmounted, too, as if to bear testimony to the genius of the departed--in thestyle of Wilkie. We may add further, that the great massiveness of thehead of Chalmers, compared with the many fine heads around him, isadmirably brought out in this drawing. 

In glancing over these photographic sketches, one cannot avoid beingstruck by the silent but impressive eulogium which nature pronounces, through their agency, on the works of the more eminent masters. Thereis much in seeing nature truthfully, and in registering what are inreality her prominent markings. Artists of a lower order arecontinually falling into mere mannerisms--peculiarities of style thatbelong not to nature, but to themselves, just because, contented withacquirement, they cease seeing nature. In order to avoid thesemannerisms, there is an eye of fresh observation required--that abilityof continuous attention to surrounding phenomena which only superiormen possess; and doubtless to this eye of fresh observation, thisability of continuous attention, the masters owed much of theirtruth and their power. How very truthfully and perseveringly some ofthem saw, is well illustrated by these photographic drawings. Here, for instance, is a portrait exactly after the manner of Raeburn. There is the same broad freedom of touch; no nice miniaturestipplings, as if laid in by the point of a needle--no sharp-edgedstrokes: all is solid, massy, broad; more distinct at a distance thanwhen viewed near at hand. The arrangement of the lights and shadowsseems rather the result of a happy haste, in which half the effectwas produced by design, half by accident, than of great labour andcare; and yet how exquisitely true the general aspect! Every stroketells, and serves, as in the portraits of Raeburn, to do more thanrelieve the features: it serves also to indicate the prevailing moodand predominant power to the mind. And here is another portrait, quiet, deeply-toned, gentlemanly, --a transcript apparently of one ofthe more characteristic portraits of Sir Thomas Lawrence. Perhaps, however, of all our British artists, the artist whose published worksmost nearly resemble a set of these drawings is Sir Joshua Reynolds. We have a folio volume of engravings from his pictures before us; andwhen, placing side by side with the prints the sketches in brown, weremark the striking similarity of style that prevails between them, we feel more strongly than at perhaps any former period, that the friendof Johnson and of Burke must have been a consummate master of his art. The engraver, however, cannot have done full justice to the originals. There is a want of depth and prominence which the near neighbourhood ofthe photographic drawings renders very apparent: the shades in thesubordinate parts of the picture are more careless and much lesstrue; nor have the lights the same vivid and sunshiny effect. There isone particular kind of resemblance between the two which strikes asremarkable, because of a kind which could scarce be anticipated. Inthe volume of prints there are three several likenesses of the artisthimself, all very admirable as pieces of art, and all, no doubt, sufficiently like, but yet all dissimilar in some points from eachother. And this dissimilarity in the degree which it obtains, onemight naturally deem a defect--the result of some slight inaccuracy inthe drawing. Should not portraits of the same individual, if allperfect likenesses of him, be all perfectly like one another? No; notat all. A man at one moment of time, and seen from one particular pointof view, may be very unlike himself when seen at another moment oftime, and from another point of view. We have at present before us thephotographic likenesses of four several individuals--three likenessesof each--and no two in any of the four sets are quite alike. Theydiffer in expression, according to the mood which prevailed in themind of the original at the moment in which they were imprinted uponthe paper. In some respects the physiognomy seems different; and thefeatures appear more or less massy in the degree in which the lights andshadows were more or less strong, or in which the particular angle theywere taken in brought them out in higher or lower relief. 

We shall venture just one remark more on these very interestingdrawings. The subject is so suggestive of thought at the presentstage, that it would be no easy matter to exhaust it; and it will, wehave no doubt, be still more suggestive of thought by and by; but weare encroaching on our limits, and must restrain ourselves, therefore, to the indication of just one of the trains of thought which it hasserved to originate. Many of our readers must be acquainted with Dr. Thomas Brown's theory of attention, --'a state of mind, ' says thephilosopher, 'which has been understood to imply the exercise of apeculiar intellectual power, but which, in the case of attention toobjects of sense, appears to be nothing more than the co-existence ofdesire with the perception of the object to which we are said toattend. ' He proceeds to instance how, in a landscape in which theincurious gaze may _see_ many objects without _looking_ at or knowingthem, a mere desire to know brings out into distinctness every objectin succession on which the desire fixes. 'Instantly, or almostinstantly, ' continues the metaphysician, 'without our consciousness ofany new or peculiar state of mind intervening in the process, thelandscape becomes to our vision altogether different. Certain partsonly--those parts which we wished to know particularly--are seen byus; the remaining parts seem almost to have vanished. It is as ifeverything before had been but the doubtful colouring of enchantment, which had disappeared, and left us the few prominent realities onwhich we gaze; or rather as if some instant enchantment, obedient toour wishes, had dissolved every reality beside, and brought closer toour sight the few objects which we desired to see. ' Now, in thetranscript of the larger _tableau vivant_ before us--that whichrepresents Dr. Chalmers seated among his friends on the Moderator'schair--we find an exemplification sufficiently striking of the laws onwhich this seemingly mysterious power depends. They are purelystructural laws, and relate not to the mind, but to the eye, --not tothe province of the metaphysician, but to that of the professor ofoptics. The lens of the camera obscura transmits the figures to theprepared paper, on quite the same principle on which in vision thecrystalline lens conveys them to the retina. In the centre of thefield in both cases there is much distinctness, while all around itscircumference the images are indistinct and dim. We have but to fixthe eye on some object directly in front of us, and then attempt, without removing it, to ascertain the forms of objects at somedistance on both sides, in order to convince ourselves that the fieldof distinct vision is a very limited field indeed. And in thistranscript of the larger _tableau vivant_ we find exactly the samephenomena. The central figures come all within the distinct field. Notso, however, the figures on both sides. They are dim and indistinct;the shades dilute into the lights, and the outlines are obscure. Howstriking a comment on the theory of Brown! We see his mysterious powerresolved in that drawing into a simple matter of light and shade, arranged in accordance with certain optical laws. The clear centralspace in which the figures are so distinct, corresponds to the centralspace in the retina; it is the attention-point of the picture, if wemay so speak. In the eye this attention-point is brought to bear, through a simple effort of the will, on the object to be examined; andthe rest of the process, so pleasingly, but at the same time sodarkly, described by the philosopher, is the work of the eye itself. 

THE TENANT'S TRUE QUARREL. 

It has been remarked by Sir James Mackintosh, that there are fourgreat works, in four distinct departments of knowledge, which havemore visibly and extensively influenced opinion than any otherproductions of the human intellect. The first of these is the_Treatise on the Law of War and Peace_, by Grotius. It appeared abouttwo centuries ago; and from that period downwards, international lawbecame a solid fact, which all civilised countries have recognised, and which even the French Convention, during the Reign of Terror, dared, in its madness, to outrage but for a moment. The second is the_Essay on the Human Understanding_, by Locke. It struck down, as withthe blow of a hatchet, the wretched mental philosophy of the darkages, --that philosophy which Puseyism, in its work of diffusing overthe present the barbarism and ignorance of the past, would so fainrevive and restore, and which has been ever engaged, as its properemployment, in imparting plausibility to error and absurdity, and infurnishing apology for crime. The third was the _Spirit of Laws_, byMontesquieu. It placed legislation on the basis of philosophy; andstraightway law began to spring up among the nations out of a newsoil. The fourth and last great work--_An Inquiry into the Nature andCauses of the Wealth of Nations_, by Adam Smith--was by far the mostinfluential of them all. 'It is, ' says Sir James, 'perhaps the onlybook which produced an immediate, general, and irrevocable change insome of the most important parts of the legislation of all civilisedstates. Touching those matters which may be numbered, and measured, and weighed, it bore visible and palpable fruit. In a few years itbegan to alter laws and treaties, and has made its way throughout theconvulsions of revolution and conquest to a due ascendant over theminds of men, with far less than the average obstructions of prejudiceand clamour, which check the channels through which truth flows intopractice. '

And yet, though many of the seeds which this great work served toscatter sprung up thus rapidly, and produced luxuriant crops, there were others, not less instinct with the vital principles, ofwhich the germination has been slow. The nurseryman expects, in sowingbeds of the stone-fruit-bearing trees, such as the plum or thehawthorn, to see the plants spring up very irregularly. One seedbursts the enveloping case, and gets up in three weeks; anotherbarely achieves the same work in three years. And it has been thuswith the harder-coated germens of the _Wealth of Nations_. It isnow exactly eighty years since the philosopher set himself toelaborate the thinking of his great work in his mother's house inKirkcaldy, and exactly seventy years since he gave it to the world. It appeared in 1776; and now, for the first time, in 1846, theQueen's Speech, carefully concocted by a Conservative Ministry, embodies as great practical truths its free-trade principles. Theshoot--a true dicotyledon--has fairly got its two vigorous lobesabove the surface: freedom of trade in all that the farmer rears, and freedom of trade in all that the manufacturer produces; and therecannot be a shadow of doubt that it will be by and by a very vigoroustree. No Protectionist need calculate, from its rate of progress inthe past, on its rate of progress in the future. Nearly threegenerations have come and gone since, to vary the figure, thepreparations for laying the train began; but now that the trainis fairly ready and fired, the explosion will not be a matter ofgenerations at all. Explosions come under an entirely different lawfrom the law of laying trains. It will happen with the rising of thefree-trade agitation as with the rising of water against a dam-headstretched across a river. Days and weeks may pass, especially ifdroughts have been protracted and the stream low, during which therising of the water proves to be a slow, silent, inefficient sortof process, of half-inches and eighth-parts; but when the river getsinto flood, --when the vast accumulation begins to topple over thedam-dyke, --when the dyke itself begins to swell, and bulge, andcrack, and to disgorge, at its ever-increasing flaws and openings, streams of turbid water, --let no one presume to affirm that theafter-process is to be slow. In mayhap one minute more, in a fewminutes at most, stones, sticks, turf, the whole dam-dyke, in short, but a dam-dyke no longer, will be roaring adown the stream, wrapped up in the womb of an irresistible wave. Now there have beenpalpable openings, during the last few months, in the Protectionistdam-head. We pointed years since to the rising of the water, andpredicted that it would prevail at last. But the droughts wereprotracted, and the river low. Good harvests and brisk trade wenthand in hand together; and the Protectionist dam-head--though feeblecurrents and minute waves beat against it, and the accumulationwithin rose by half-inches and eighth-parts--stood sure. But the riveris now high in flood--the waters are toppling over--the yieldingmasonry has begun to bulge and crack. The Queen's Speech, when weconsider it as emanating from a Conservative Ministry, indicates atremendous flaw; the speech of Sir Robert Peel betrays an irreparablebulge; the sudden conversions to free-trade principles of officialsand place-holders show a general outpouring at opening rents andcrannies: depend on it, Protectionists, your dam-dyke, patch orprop it as you please, is on the eve of destruction; yet a verylittle longer, and it will be hurtling down the stream. 

For what purpose, do we say? Simply in the hope of awakening to asense of their true interest, ere it be too late, a class of theScottish people in which we feel deeply interested, --we mean thetenant agriculturists of the kingdom. They have in this all-importantcrisis a battle to fight; and if they do not fight and win it, theywill be irrevocably ruined by hundreds and thousands. The greatProtectionist battle--the battle in which they may make common causewith their landlords if they will, against the League, and theFree-Trade Whigs, and Sir Robert Peel, and Adam Smith, and theQueen--is a battle in which to a certainty they will be beat. Theymay protract the contest long enough to get so thoroughly wearied asto be no longer fit for the other great battle which awaits them;but they may depend on it as one of the surest things in all thefuture, that they will have to record a disastrous issue. They_must_ be defeated. We would fain ask them--for it is sad to seemen spending their strength to no end--to look fairly at the aspectthings are beginning to wear, and the ever-extending front which isarraying against them. We would ask them first to peruse thosechapters in Adam Smith which in reality form the standing-ground oftheir opponents, --chapters whose solid basis of economic philosophyhas made anti-corn-law agitation and anti-corn-law tracts andspeeches such formidable things. We would ask them next to look atthe progress of the League, at its half-million fund, its indomitableenergy and ever-growing influence. We would then ask them to lookat the recent conversions of Whig and Tory to free-trade principles, at the resignation of Sir Robert Peel, and the proof the countryreceived in consequence, that in the present extremity there is noother pilot prepared to take the helm; at the strangely marked AdamSmith cast of the Queen's Speech; and at the telling facts of SirRobert's explanatory statement. We request them to take a coolsurvey of all these things, and to cogitate for themselves the issuewhich they so clearly foretell. It seems as certain that free-tradeprinciples are at last to be established in Britain, as that thereis a sun in the sky. Nor does there seem much wisdom in fighting abattle that is inevitably to be lost. The battle which it is theirtrue interest to be preparing to fight, is one in which they mustoccupy the ground, not of agriculturists, but simply of tenants: it isa battle with the landlords, not with the free-traders. 

We believe Dr. Chalmers is right in holding that, ultimately at least, the repeal of the corn-laws will not greatly affect the condition ofour agriculturists. There is, however, a transition period from whichthey have a good deal to dread. The removal of the protective dutieson meat and wool has not had the effect of lowering the prices ofeither; but the fear of such an effect did for a time what the repealof the duties themselves failed to do, and bore with disastrousconsequences on the sheep and cattle market. And such a time may, weare afraid, be anticipated on the abolition of the corn-laws. Nay, itis probable that, even when the transition state shall be over, therewill be a general lowering of price to the average of that of theContinent and America, --an average heightened by little more than theamount of the true protective duties of the trade, --the expense ofcarriage from the foreign farm to the British market. And woe to thepoor tenant, tied down by a long lease to a money-rent rated accordingto the average value of grain under the protective duties, if thedefalcation is to fall on him! If he has to pay the landlord accordingto a high average, and to be paid by the corn-factor according to alow one, he is undone. And his real danger in the coming crisisindicates his proper battle. It is not with his old protector SirRobert that he should be preparing to fight; it is, we repeat, withhis old ally the landholder. Nay, he will find, ultimately at least, that he has no choice in the matter. With Sir Robert he _may_ fight ifit please him, and fight, as we have shown, to be beaten; but with thelandlord he _must_ fight, whether he first enter the lists with SirRobert or no. When his preliminary struggle shall have terminatedunsuccessfully, he shall then without heart, without organization, without ally, have to enter on the inevitable struggle, --a strugglefor very existence. We of course refer to landlords as a class: thereare among them not a few individuals with whom the tenant will have nostruggle to maintain, --conscientious men, at once able and willing toadjust their demands to the circumstances of the new state of things. But their character as a class does not stand so high. Many of theirnumber are in straitened circumstances, --so sorely burdened withannuities and mortgages, as to be somewhat in danger of beingaltogether left, through the coming change, without an income; and itis not according to the nature of things that the case of the tenantshould be very considerately dealt with by them. When a hapless creware famishing on the open sea, and the fierce cannibal comes to bedeveloped in the man, it is the weaker who are first devoured. Now wewould ill like to see any portion of our Scotch tenantry at the mercyof wild, unreasoning destitution in the proprietor. We would ill liketo see him vested with the power to decide absolutely in his own case, whether it was his tenant that was to be ruined, or he himself thatwas to want an income, knowing well beforehand to which side thebalance would incline. Nor would we much like to see our tenantry atthe mercy of even an average class of proprietors, by no means in theextreme circumstances of their poorer brethren, but who, with anunimpeachable bond in their hands, that enabled them to say whether itwas they themselves or their tenant neighbours who were to be thepoorer in consequence of the induced change, would be but too apt, inaccordance with the selfish bent of man's common nature, to make asomewhat Shylock-like use of it. Stout men who have fallen intoreduced circumstances, and stout paw-sucking bears in their winterlodgings, become gradually thin by living on their own fat; and quiteright it is that gross men and corpulent bears _should_ live on theirown fat, just because the fat is their own. But we would not deem itright that our proprietors should live on their farmers' fats: on thecontrary, we would hold it quite wrong, and a calamity to the country;and such, at the present time, is the great danger to which thetenantry of Scotland are exposed. Justice imperatively demands, thatif some such change is now to take place in the value of farms, asthat which took place on the regulation of the currency in the valueof money, the ruinous blunder of 1819 should not be repeated. Itdemands that their actual rent be not greatly increased through theretention of the merely nominal one; that the tenant, in short, be notsacrificed to a term wholly unchanged in sound, but altogether alteredin value. And such, in reality, is the object for which thefarm-holding agriculturists of Scotland have now to contend. It is theonly quarrel which they can prosecute with a hope of success. 

We referred, in a recent number, when remarking on the too palpableunpopularity of the Whigs, to questions which, if animated by areally honest regard for the liberties of the subject, they mightagitate, and grow strong in agitating, secure of finding a potent allyin the moral sense of the country. One of these would involve theemancipation of the tenantry of England, now sunk, through one of theprovisions of the Reform Bill, into a state of vassalage andpolitical subserviency without precedent since at least the days ofHenry VIII. It has been well remarked by Paley, that the directconsequences of political innovations are often the least important;and that it is from the silent and unobserved operation of causes setat work for different purposes, that the greatest revolutions taketheir rise. 'Thus, ' he says, 'when Elizabeth and her immediatesuccessor applied themselves to the encouragement and regulation oftrade by many wise laws, they knew not that, together with wealth andindustry, they were diffusing a consciousness of strength andindependency which could not long endure, under the forms of a mixedgovernment, the dominion of arbitrary princes. ' And again: 'When it wasdebated whether the Mutiny Act--the law by which the army is governedand maintained--should be temporal or perpetual, little else probablyoccurred to the advocates of an annual bill, than the expediency ofretaining a control over the most dangerous prerogative of theCrown--the direction and command of a standing army; whereas, in itseffect, this single reservation has altered the whole frame and qualityof the British constitution. For since, in consequence of the militarysystem which prevails in neighbouring and rival nations, as well as onaccount of the internal exigencies of Government, a standing armyhas become essential to the safety and administration of the empire, itenables Parliament, by discontinuing this necessary provision, so toenforce its resolutions upon any other subject, as to render theking's dissent to a law which has received the approbation of bothHouses, too dangerous an experiment any longer to be advised. ' Andthus the illustration of the principle runs on. We question, however, whether there be any illustration among them more striking than thatindirect consequence of the Reform Bill on the tenantry of England towhich we refer. The provision which conferred a vote on thetenant-at-will, abrogated leases, and made the tiller of the soil avassal. The farmer who precariously holds his farm from year to yearcannot, of course, be expected to sink so much capital in the soil, inthe hope of a distant and uncertain return, as the lessee certain of apossession for a specified number of years; but some capital he mustsink in it. It is impossible, according to the modern system, or indeedany system of husbandry, that all the capital committed to the earthin winter and spring should be resumed in the following summer andautumn. A considerable overplus must inevitably remain to be gatheredup in future seasons; and this overplus remainder, in the case ofthe tenant-at-will, is virtually converted into a deposit, lodged inthe hands of the landlord, to secure the depositor's politicalsubserviency and vassalage. Let him but once manifest a will and amind of his own, and vote, in accordance with his convictions, contrary to the will of the landlord, and straightway the deposit, converted into a penalty, is forfeited for the offence. It is surelynot very great Radicalism to affirm that a state of things soanomalous ought not to exist--that the English tenant should be afreeman, not a serf--and that he ought not to be bound down by aweighty penalty to have no political voice or conscience of his own. The simple principle of 'No lease, no vote, ' would set all right; and itis a principle which so recommends itself to the moral sense as just, that an honest Whiggism would gain, in agitating its recognition andestablishment, at once strength and popularity. But there are fewScotch tenants in the circumstances of vassalage so general inEngland. They are in circumstances in which they at least _may_ actindependently; and the time is fast coming in which they must eithermake a wise, unbiassed use of their freedom, or be hopelesslycrushed for ever. 

_January 28, 1846. _

CONCLUSION OF THE WAR IN AFFGHANISTAN. 

We trust we may now look back on by far the most disastrous passagewhich occurs in the military history of Great Britain, as sodefinitively concluded, that in the future we shall be unable to traceit as still disadvantageously operative in its effects. A series ofdecisive victories has neutralized, to a considerable extent, theinfluence of the most fatal campaign in which a British army was everengaged. But this is all. One of our poets, in placing in a stronglight the extreme folly of war, describes 'most Christian kings' with'honourable ruffians in their hire, ' wasting the nations with fire andsword, and then, when fatigued with murder and sated with blood, 'setting them down just where they were before. ' It is quitemelancholy enough that our most sanguine expectations with regard tothe Affghan war should be unable to rise higher by a hair's-breadththan the satiric conception of the poet. We can barely hope, aftersquandering much treasure, after committing a great deal of crime, after occasioning and enduring a vast amount of wretchedness, after awhole country has been whitened with the bones of its inhabitants, after a British army has perished miserably, --we can barely hope thatour later successes may have had so far the effect of effacing thememory of our earliest disasters, that we shall be enabled to sit downunder their cover on the eastern bank of the Indus, 'just where wewere before. ' And even this is much in the circumstances. 

We have seen the British in India repeat the same kind of fatalexperiment which cost Napoleon his crown, and from which Charles XII. Dated his downfall; and repeat it, in the first instance at least, with a result more disastrous than either the flight from Pultowa orthe retreat from Moscow. And though necessarily an expedition on asimilar scale, it seemed by no means improbable that its ultimateconsequences might bear even more disastrously on British power in theEast, than the results of the several expeditions into Russia, underCharles and Napoleon, bore on the respective destinies of Sweden andof France. That substratum of opinion in the minds of an hundredmillions of Asiatics, on which British authority in India finds itsmain foundation, bade fair to be shivered into pieces by the shock. 

There are passages in all our better histories that stand out in highrelief, if we may so speak, from the groundwork on which they arebased. They appeal to the imagination, they fix themselves in thememory; and after they have got far enough removed into the past toenable men to survey them in all their breadth, we find them caught upand reflected in the fictions of the poet and the novelist. 

But it is wonderful how comparatively slight is the effect whichmost of them produce at the time of their occurrence. It would seemas if the great mass of mankind had no ability of seeing them intheir real character, except through the medium of some superiormind, skilful enough to portray them in their true colours andproportions. Who, acquainted with the history of the plague inLondon, for instance, can fail being struck with the horrors ofthat awful visitation, as described in the graphic pages of Defoe?Who, that experienced the visitation of similar horrors whichswept away in our own times one-tenth part of the human species, could avoid remarking that the reality was less suited to impressby its actual presence, than the record by its touching picturesand its affecting appeals? The reality appealed to but the fearsof men through the instinct of self-preservation, and even thislanguidly in some cases, leaving the imagination unimpressed; whereasthe wild scenes of Defoe filled the whole mind, and impressedvividly through the influence of that sense of the poetical which, insome degree at least, all minds are capable of entertaining. 

On a nearly similar principle, the country has not yet been ablerightly to appreciate the disasters of Affghanistan. It has beenunable to bestow upon them what we shall venture to term the historicprominence. When one after one the messengers reach Job, bearingtidings of fatal disasters, in which all his children and all hisdomestics have perished, the ever-recurring 'and I only am escapedalone to tell thee, ' strikes upon the ear as one of the signs of adispensation supernatural in its character. The narrative has alreadyprepared us for events removed beyond the reach of those common lawswhich regulate ordinary occurrences. Did we find such a piece ofhistory in any of our older chronicles, we would at once set it down, on Macaulay's principle, as a ballad thrown out of its original verseinto prose, and appropriated by the chronicler, in the lack of lessquestionable materials. But finding it in the Record of eternal truth, we view it differently; for there the supernatural is not dissociatedfrom the true. How very striking, to find in the authentic annals ofour own country a somewhat similar incident; to find the 'I only amescaped alone to tell thee' in the history of a well-equipped Britisharmy of the present day! There occurs no similar incident in all ourpast history. British armies have capitulated not without disgrace. Inthe hapless American war, Cornwallis surrendered a whole army toWashington, and Burgoyne another whole army to Gates and Arnold. 

The British have had also their disastrous retreats. 

The retreat from Fontenoy was at least precipitate; and there was muchsuffered in Sir John Moore's retreat on Corunna. But such retreatshave not been wholly without their share of glory, nor have suchsurrenders been synonymous with extermination. In the annals ofBritish armies, the 'I only have escaped alone to tell thee' belongsto but the retreat from Cabul. It is a terrible passage in the historyof our country--terrible in all its circumstances. Some of its earlierscenes are too revolting for the imagination to call up. 

It is all too humiliating to conceive of it in the character of anunprincipled conspiracy of the civilised, horribly avenged byinfuriated savages. It is a quite melancholy enough object ofcontemplation, in even its latter stages. A wild scene of rocks andmountains darkened overhead with tempest, beneath covered deep withsnow; a broken and dispirited force, struggling hopelessly through thescarce passable defiles, --here thinned by the headlong assaults ofhowling fanatics, insensible to fear, incapable of remorse, andthirsting for blood, --there decoyed to destruction through thepromises of cruel and treacherous chiefs, devoid alike of the sense ofhonour and the feeling of pity; with no capacity or conduct among itsleaders; full of the frightful recollections of past massacres, hopeless of ultimate escape; struggling, however, instinctively onamid the unceasing ring of musketry from thicket and crag, exhibitingmile after mile a body less dense and extended, leaving behind it along unbroken trail of its dead; at length wholly wasting away, likethe upward heave of a wave on a sandy beach, and but one solitaryhorseman, wounded and faint with loss of blood, holding on hisperilous course, to tell the fate of all the others. And then, thelong after-season of grief and suspense among anxious and at lengthdespairing relations at home, around many a cheerless hearth, and inmany a darkened chamber, and the sadly frequent notice in theobituaries of all our public journals, so significant of the disaster, and which must have rung so heavy a knell to so many affectionatehearts, 'Killed in the Khyber Pass. ' To find passages of parallelcalamity in the history of at least civilised countries, we have toascend to the times of the Roman empire during its period of declineand disaster, when one warlike emperor, in battle with the Goth, 'in that Serbonian bog, Betwixt Damieta and Mount Cassus old, With his whole army sank;'

or when another not less warlike monarch was hopelessly overthrown bythe Persian, and died a miserable slave, exposed to every indignitywhich the invention of his ungenerous and barbarous conqueror couldsuggest. 

Britain in this event has received a terrible lesson, which we trusther scarce merited and surely most revolting successes in China willnot have the effect of wholly neutralizing. The Affghan war, regardedas a war of principle, was eminently unjust; regarded as a war ofexpediency, it was eminently imprudent. It seems to have originatedwith men of narrow and defective genius, not over largely gifted withthe moral sense. We have had to refer on a former occasion to thepolicy adopted by Lord Auckland respecting the educational grants toHindustan. An enlightened predecessor of his Lordship had decided thatthe assistance and patronage of the British Government should beextended to the exclusive promotion of European literature and scienceamong the natives of India. His Lordship, in the exercise of amiserable liberalism, reversed the resolution, and diverted noinconsiderable portion of the Government patronage to the support ofthe old Hindustanee education, --a system puerile in its literature, contemptible in its science, and false in its religion. Our readerscannot have forgotten the indignant style of Dr. Duff's remonstrance. The enlightened and zealous missionary boldly and indignantlycharacterized the minute of his Lordship, through which thisrevolution was effected, as 'remarkable chiefly for its omissions andcommissions, for its concessions and compromises, for its educationwithout religion, its plans without a Providence, and its ethicswithout a God. ' Such was the liberalism of Lord Auckland; and of atleast one of the leading men whose counsel led to the Affghanexpedition, and who perished in it, the _liberalism_, it is said, wasof a still more marked and offensive character. What do we infer fromthe fact?

Not that Providence interfered to avenge upon them the sin of theirpolicy: there would be presumption in the inference. But it may not beunsafe to infer, from the palpable folly of the Affghan expedition, that the _liberalism_ in which Lord Auckland and some one or two ofhis friends indulged is a liberalism which weak and incompetent menare best fitted to entertain. His scheme of education and hisAffghanistan expedition are specimens of mental production, if we mayso speak, that give evidence of exactly the same cast and tendencyregarding the order and scope of the genius which originated them. Wehave been a good deal struck by the shrewdness of one of Prince Eugeneof Savoy's remarks, that seems to bear very decidedly on this case. Two generals of his acquaintance had failed miserably in the conductof some expedition that demanded capacity and skill, and yet both ofthem were unquestionably smart, clever men. 'I always thought it wouldturn out so, ' said the Prince. 'Both these men made open profession ofinfidelity; and I formed so low an opinion of their taste and judgmentin consequence, that I made myself sure they would sooner or later runtheir heads into some egregious folly. '

It is satisfactory in every point of view that Britain should beat peace with China and the Affghans. War is an evil in allcircumstances. It is a great evil even when just; it is a great evileven when carried on against a people who know and respect the laws ofnations. But it is peculiarly an evil when palpably not a just war, and when carried on against a barbarous people. It has been statedin private letters, though not officially, that a soldier of the 44thwas burned alive by the Ghilzies in sight of the English troops, andthat on the approach of the latter the throat of the torturedvictim was cut to ensure his destruction. And it is the inference ofan Indian newspaper from the fact, that such wretches are not thedevoted patriots that they have been described by some, and thatthe war with them cannot, after all, be very unjust. We areinclined to argue somewhat differently. We believe the Scotch underWallace were not at all devoid of patriotism, though they werebarbarous enough to flay Cressingham, and to burn the Englishalive at Ayr. We believe further, that an unjust war is rendered nonethe less unjust from the circumstance of its being waged with asavage and cruel people. The barbarism of the enemy has but the effectof heightening its horrors, not of modifying its injustice. It ispossible for one civilised man to fight with another, and yet retainhis proper character as a man notwithstanding. But the civilised manwho fights with a wild beast must assume, during the combat, thecharacter of the wild beast. He cannot afford being generous andmerciful; his antagonist understands neither generosity nor mercy. The war is of necessity a war of extermination. And such is alwaysthe character of a war between wild and civilised men. It takes itstone, not from the civilisation of the one, but from the cruelsavageism of the other. 

_December 3, 1842. _

PERIODICALISM. 

The poet Gray held that in a neglected country churchyard, appropriatedto only the nameless dead, there might lie, notwithstanding, the remainsof undeveloped Miltons, Hampdens, and Cromwells, --men who, in morefavourable circumstances, would have become famous as poets, or greatas patriots or statesmen; and the stanzas in which he has embodied thereflection are perhaps the most popular in the language. One-half thethought is, we doubt not, just. Save for the madness of Charles, Cromwell would have died a devout farmer, and Hampden a mostrespectable country gentleman, who would have been gratefullyremembered for half an age over half a county, and then consigned toforgetfulness. But the poets rarely die, however disadvantageouslyplaced, without giving some sign. Rob Don, the Sutherlandshire bard, owed much less to nature than Milton did, and so little to learning thathe could neither read nor write; and yet his better songs promise tolive as long as the Gaelic language. And though both Burns andShakespeare had very considerable disadvantages to struggle against, weknow that neither of them remained 'mute' or 'inglorious, ' or evenless extensively known than Milton himself. It is, we believe, no easymatter to smother a true poet. The versifiers, placed in obscure andhumble circumstances, who for a time complain of neglected merit anduntoward fate, and then give up verse-making in despair, are alwaysmen who, with all their querulousness, have at least one cause ofcomplaint more than they ever seem to be aware of, --a cause ofcomplaint against the nature that failed to impart to them 'thedivine vision and faculty. ' There are powers, however, admirablyfitted to tell with effect in the literature of the country, for theyhave served to produce the most influential works which the worldever saw--works such as the _Essay_ of Locke, the _Peace and War_ ofGrotius, and the _Spirit of Laws_ of Montesquieu--which, with alltheir apparent robustness, are greatly less hardy than the poeticfaculty, and which, unless the circumstances favourable to theirdevelopment and exercise be present, fail to leave behind them anyadequate record of their existence. It is difficult to imagine asituation in life in which Burns would not have written his songs, butvery easy to imagine situations in which Robertson would not haveproduced his _Scotland_ or his _Charles V. _, nor Adam Smith his _Wealthof Nations_. We have no faith whatever in 'mute, inglorious Miltons;'but we do hold that there may be obscure country churchyards in whichuntaught Humes, guiltless of the _Essay on Miracles_, may repose, andundeveloped Bentleys and Warburtons, whose great aptitude foracquiring or capacity for retaining knowledge remained throughout life amere ungratified thirst. 

It has remained for the present age to throw one bar more in the wayof able men of this special class than our fathers ever dreamed of;and this, curiously enough, just by giving them an opportunity ofwriting much, and of thinking incessantly. It is not, it would seem, by being born among ploughmen and mechanics, and destined to live bytilling the soil, or by making shoes or hobnails, that the 'genialcurrent of the soil is frozen, ' and superior talents prevented fromaccomplishing their proper work: it is by being connected with somecheap weekly periodical, or twice or thrice a week newspaper, andcompelled to scribble on almost without pause or intermission fordaily bread. We have been led to think of this matter by aninteresting little volume of poems, chiefly lyrical, which has justissued from the Edinburgh press, --the production of Mr. ThomasSmibert, a man who has lived for many years by his pen, and whointroduces the volume by a prefatory essay, interesting from theglimpse which it gives of the literary disadvantages with which theprofessionally literary man who writes for the periodicals has tocontend. Periodical literature is, he remarks, 'to all intents andpurposes a creation of the nineteenth century, in its principalexisting phases, from Quarterly Reviews to Weekly Penny Magazines. Newspapers, ' he adds, 'may justly be accounted the growth of the samerecent era, the few previously published having been scarcely morethan mere Gazettes, recording less opinions than bare public andbusiness facts. ' The number of both classes of periodicals is nowimmensely great; and 'equally vast, of necessity, is the amount ofliterary talent statedly and unremittingly engaged on these journals, while a large additional amount of similar talent finds in themoccasional and ready outlets for its working. ' 'When one or twoleading Reviews, Quarterlies, and Monthlies alone existed, they calledfor no insignificant individual efforts of mind on the part of theirchief conductors and supporters, and those parties almost took rankwith the authors of single works of importance. But within the lasttwenty years periodical literature has become extensively hebdomadal, and even diurnal; and, as a necessary consequence, the essays of thosesustaining it in this shape have decreased in proportionate value, atonce from the larger amount of work demanded, and from the shortertime allowed for its execution. Such essays may serve the hour fairly, but can seldom be of high worth ultroneously. ' 'The extent and varietyof the labours called for at the hands of those actively engaged onmodern cheap periodicals can scarcely be conceived by the uninitiatedpublic. If their eyes were opened on the subject, they wouldcertainly wonder less why it is that the literary talent of thecurrent generation does not tend to display itself by strikingisolated efforts: they would also more readily understand whereforeparties in the situation of the present writer may well experiencesome unsatisfactory feelings in looking back on the labours of thepast. Though years spent in respectable periodical writing can by nomeans be termed misspent, yet such a career presents in the retrospectbut a multitude of disconnected essays on all conceivable themes, andsuch as too often prove their hurried composition by crudeness andimperfections. ' The consideration of such a state of things 'mayfurnish a salutary lesson to the many among the young at this day, who, possessing some literary taste, imagine that the engagements ofcommon life alone stand in the way of its successful development, andthat to be enabled to pursue a life of professional writing in anyshape would secure to them both fame and fortune to the height oftheir desires. They here err sadly. No doubt supereminent talents willsooner or later make themselves felt under almost any circumstances;but the position described assuredly offers no peculiar advantages forthe furtherance of that end. Ebenezer Elliot, leaving his forge at evewith a wearied body, could yet bring to his favourite leisure tasks amind less jaded than that of the _littérateur_ by profession. ' 'Theregular periodicalist, too, of the modern class has usually no morestable interest in his compositions than has the counting-house clerkin the cash-books which he keeps. To publishers and conductors fallthe lasting fruits. Let those among the young who feel the ambition toseek fame and fortune in the walks of literature think well of thesethings, and, above all, ponder seriously ere they quit, with suchviews, any fixed occupation of another kind. '

There is certainly food for thought here; and that, too, thought of akind in which the public has a direct interest. If such be thedissipating effect of _writing_ for newspapers and the lighterperiodicals, it is surely natural to infer that the exclusive_reading_ of such works must have a dissipating effect also. It is tooobvious that the feverish mediocrity of overwrought brains becomesinfectious among the class who place themselves in too constant andunbroken connection with it, and that from the closets of over-toiled_littérateurs_ an excited superficiality creeps out upon the age. Andhence the necessity to which we have oftener than once referred, thatmen should keep themselves in wholesome connection with the masterminds of the past. Mr. Smibert's remarks preface, as we have said, avolume of sweet and tasteful verse; and we find him saying that, 'mostof all, the operation of Periodicalism has been unfavourably felt inthe domain of poetry. '

'The position of literature, ' he adds, 'in the times of theWordsworths, Crabbes, and Campbells of the age just gone by, was morefavourable than at present to the devotion of talent to greatundertakings. These men were assuredly not beset by the same seductivefacilities as the _littérateurs_ of the current generation forexpending their powers on petty objects, --facilities all the morefascinating, as comprising the pleasures of immediate publicity, andperhaps even of repute for a day, if not also of some directremuneration. These influences of full-grown Periodicalism extend nowto all who can read and write. But it entices most especially withinits vortex those who exhibit an unusually large share of earlyliterary promise, involves them in multitudinous and multifariousoccupation, and, in short, divides and subdivides the operations oftalent, until all prominent identity is destroyed, both in works andworkers. To the growth of this modern system, beyond question, islargely to be referred the comparative disappearance from among us ofgreat literary individualities; or, to use other and more accuratewords, by that system have men of capacity been chiefly diverted fromthe composition of great individual works, and more particularly greatpoems. '

We are less sure of the justice of this remark of Mr. Smibert's, than of that of many of the others. It is not easy, we have said, tosmother a true poet; and we know that in the present age verygenuine poetry has been produced in the offices of very busynewspaper editors. Poor Robert Nicoll never wrote truer poetry thanwhen he produced his 'Puir Folk' and his 'Saxon Chapel, ' at a timewhen he was toiling, as even modern journalist has rarely toiled, forthe columns of the _Leeds Times_; and James Montgomery produced his'World before the Flood, ' 'Greenland, ' and 'The Pelican Island, 'with many a sweet lyric of still higher merit, when laboriouslyediting the _Sheffield Iris_. The 'Salamandrine' of Mr. CharlesMackay was written when he was conducting the sub-editorialdepartment of a daily London paper; nor did he ever write anythingsuperior to it. And we question whether Mr. Smibert himself, though hemight have produced longer poems, would have written better ones thansome of those contained in the present volume, even had his lifebeen one of unbroken leisure. It seems natural to literary men, whofail in realizing their own conceptions of what they had wished andhoped to perform, to cast the blame upon their circumstances. Johnsoncould speak as feelingly, not much later than the middle of thelast century, of the 'dreams of a poet doomed at last to wake alexicographer, ' as any literary man of the present time, who, whilesolicitously desirous to give himself wholly to the muses, iscompelled to labour as a periodicalist for the wants of the daythat is passing over him. But perhaps the best solace for thedissatisfaction which would thus wreak itself on mere circumstances, is that which Johnson himself supplies. 'To reach below his ownaim, ' says the moralist, 'is incident to every one whose fancy isactive, and whose views are comprehensive; nor is any man satisfiedwith himself because he has done much, but because he can conceivelittle. ' But to labour and be forgotten is the common lot; and whyshould a literary man be more disposed to repine because hisproductions perish after serving a temporary purpose, than thegardener or farmer, whose vocation it is to supply the people withtheir daily food? If the provisions furnished, whether for mind orbody, be wholesome, and if they serve their purpose, the producersmust learn to be content, even should they serve the purpose onlyonce, and but for a day. The danger of over-cropping, and ofconsequent exhaustion, is, of course, another and more serious matter;and of this the mind of the periodicalist is at least as much indanger as either field or garden when unskilfully wrought. But mererest, which in course of time restores the exhausted earth, is oftennot equally efficient in restoring the exhausted mind; nor doesmere rest, even were it a specific in the case, lie within the reachof the periodic writer. It is often the luxury for which he pants, but which he cannot command. One of the surest specifics in thecase is, the specific of working just a little more, --of working forthe work's sake, whether at poem or history, or in the prosecution ofsome science, or in some antiquarian pursuit. There is an exquisitepassage in one of the essays of Washington Irving, in which hecompares the great authors--Shakespeare, for instance--who seemproof against the mutability of language, to 'gigantic trees, that wesee sometimes on the banks of a stream, which, by their vast and deeproots, penetrating through the mere surface, and laying hold onthe very foundations of the earth, preserve the soil around them frombeing swept away by the ever-flowing current, and hold up many aneighbouring plant to perpetuity. ' And such is the service rendered bysome pervading pursuit of an intellectual character, prosecuted forits own sake, to the intellect of the journalist. It is thenecessity imposed upon him of taking up subject after subject in thedesultory, disconnected form in which they chance to arise, andthen, after throwing together a few hastily collected thoughts uponeach, of dismissing them from his mind, that induces first a habitof superficiality, and finally leaves him exhausted; and thecounteractive course open to him is just to take up some subjecton which the thinking of to-day may assist him in the thinking ofto-morrow, and on which he may be as well informed and profound ashis native capacity permits. All our really superior newspapereditors have pursued this course--more, however, we are disposed tothink, from the bent of their nature than from the necessities oftheir profession; and the poetical volume of Mr. Smibert showsthat he too has his engrossing pursuit. We recommend his little workto our readers, as one in which they will find much to interest andamuse. We have left ourselves little room for quotation; but thefollowing stanzas, striking, both from their beauty and from thecurious fact which they embody, may be regarded as no unfair specimenof the whole:--

 THE VOICE OF WOE. 

 'The language of passion, and more peculiarly that of grief, is ever nearly the same. '

 An Indian chief went forth to fight, And bravely met the foe: His eye was keen--his step was light-- His arm was unsurpassed in might; But on him fell the gloom of night-- An arrow laid him low. His widow sang with simple tongue, When none could hear or see, _Ay, cheray me!_

 A Moorish maiden knelt beside Her dying lover's bed: She bade him stay to bless his bride; She called him oft her lord, her pride; But mortals must their doom abide-- The warrior's spirit fled. With simple tongue the sad one sung, When none could hear or see, _Ay, di me!_

 An English matron mourned her son, The only son she bore: Afar from her his course was run-- He perished as the fight was done-- He perished when the fight was won-- Upon a foreign shore. With simple tongue the mother sung, When none could hear or see, _Ah, dear me!_

 A Highland maiden saw A brother's body borne From where, from country, king, and law, He went his gallant sword to draw; But swept within destruction's maw, From her had he been torn. She sat and sung with simple tongue, When none could hear or see, _Oh, hon-a-ree!_

 An infant in untimely hour Died in a Lowland cot: The parents own'd the hand of power That bids the storm be still or lour; They grieved because the cup was sour, And yet they murmured not. They only sung with simple tongue, When none could hear or see, _Ah, wae's me!_

_July 26, 1851. _

'ANNUS MIRABILIS. '

We have now reached the close of the most wonderful year the worldever saw. None of our readers can be unacquainted with the poem inwhich Dryden celebrated the marvels of the year 1666, --certainly anextraordinary twelvemonth, though the English poet, only partiallyacquainted with the events which rendered it so remarkable, restrictshimself, in his long series of vigorous quatrains, to the descriptionof the two naval battles with the Dutch which its summer witnessed, and of the great fire of London which rendered its autumn soremarkable. 

He might also have told that it was a year of great fear andexpectation among both Christians and Jews. The Jews held that theirMessiah was to come that year; and, in answer of the expectation, theimpostor Sabbatei Levi appeared to delude and disappoint the hopes ofthat unhappy nation. There was an opinion nearly equally general inthe Roman Catholic world, that it would usher in the Antichrist of NewTestament prophecy; while among English Protestants it was veryextensively believed that it was to witness the end of the world andthe final judgment. It was remarkable, too, as the year in whichoppression first compelled the Scotch Presbyterians of the reign ofCharles II. To assume the attitude of armed resistance, and asforming, in the estimate of Burnet and other intelligent Protestants, the fifth great crisis of the Reformed religion in Europe. And suchwere the wonders of the _Annus_ _Mirabilis_ of Dryden: two bloodynaval engagements; a great fire; the appearance of a false Messiah; awidely-spread fear that the end of the world and the coming ofAntichrist were at hand; the revolt from their allegiance to thereigning monarch of a sorely oppressed body of Christians, maddened bypersecution; and a perilous crisis in the general history ofProtestantism. 

The year now at its close has been beyond comparison more remarkable. In the earlier twelvemonth, no real change took place in the existingstate of things. Its striking events resembled merely the phenomena ofa mid-winter storm in Greenland, where, over a frozen ocean, movelessin the hurricane as a floor of rock or of iron, the hail beats, andthe thick whirling snows descend, and, high above head, the flashingsof aurora borealis lend their many-coloured hues of mystery to thehorrors of the tempest. Its transactions, picturesque rather thanimportant, wholly failed to affect the framework of society. Thatfloor of ice which sealed down the wide ocean of opinion retained allits mid-winter solidity, and furnished foundations as firm as beforefor the old despotic monarchies and the blood-stained persecutingchurches. But how immensely different the events of the year now at anend! Its tempests have been, not those of a Greenland winter, but of aGreenland spring: the depths of society have been stirred to the darkbottom, where all slimy and monstrous things lie hid, and, under theirresistible upheavings of the ground-swell, the ice has broken up;and amid the wide weltering of a stormy sea, cumbered with the brokenruins of ancient tyrannies, civil and ecclesiastical, the eye canscarce rest upon a single spot on which to base a better order ofthings. The 'foundations are removed. ' A time of great trouble hascome suddenly upon the kingdoms of Europe--a time of 'famines, andpestilences, and fearful sights, and great signs from heaven;' 'signsin the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earthdistress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring. '

The extreme stillness of the calm by which this wide-roaring tempesthas been preceded, forms one of not the least extraordinarycircumstances which impart to it character and effect. In the _Visionof Don Roderick_, the fated monarch is described as pausing for a timeamid the deep silence of a vast hall, pannelled and floored with blackmarble, and sentinelled by two gigantic figures of rigid bronze thatstand moveless against the farther wall. The one, bearing a scythe andsand-glass, is the old giant Time; the other, armed with an iron mace, is the grim angel of Destiny. Not a sound or motion escapes them. Inthat dim apartment nothing stirs save the sands in the glass, and theinflexible look of the stern mace-bearing sentinel marks how they ebb. The last grains are at length moving downwards--they sink, theydisappear; and now, raising his ponderous mace, he dashes intofragments the marble wall: a scene of savage warfare gleams lividthrough the opening, and the wide vault re-echoes to the hollow treadof armies, the shrill notes of warlike trumpets, the rude clash ofarms, and the wild shouts of battle. And such, during the last fewyears, has been the stillness of the preliminary pause, and such wasthe abrupt opening, when the predestined hour at length arrived, ofthose clamorous scenes of revolution and war which impart soremarkable a character to the year gone by. A twelvemonth has not yetpassed since history seemed to want incident. Time and Destiny watchedas statue-like sentinels in a quiet hall, walled round by the oldrigid conventionalities, and human sagacity failed to see aught beyondthem; the present so resembled the past, that it seemed over-boldnessto anticipate a different complexion for the future. But, amid theunbreathing stillness, the appointed hour arrived. The rigid marblecurtain of the old conventionalities was struck asunder by the ironmace of Destiny; and the silence was straightway broken by a roar asif of many waters, by the wrathful shouts of armed millions--thethunderings of cannon, blent with the rattle of musketry--the wildshrieks of dismay and suffering--the wailings of sorrow andterror--the shouts of triumph and exultation--the despairing cry ofsinking dynasties, and the crash of falling thrones. And with whatstrange rapidity the visions have since flitted along the openedchasm!

A royal proclamation forbids in Paris a political banquet; four shortdays elapse, and France is proclaimed a Republic, and Louis Philippeand his Ministers have fled. Britain at once recognises theProvisional Government; but what are the great despotisms of theContinent to do? Six days more pass, and the Canton of Neufchateldeclares itself independent of Prussia. In a few days after, the Dukeof Saxe-Cobourg-Gotha grants to his subjects a representativeconstitution, freedom of the press, and trial by jury; the King ofHanover has also to yield, and the King of Bavaria abdicates. These, however, are comparatively small matters. But still the flame spreads. There is a successful insurrection at Vienna, the very stronghold ofdespotism in central Europe; and the Prime Minister, Metternich, thegrim personification of the old policy, is compelled to resign. Thenfollows an equally successful insurrection at Berlin; Milan, Vicenza, and Padua are also in open insurrection. Venice is proclaimed aRepublic. Holstein declares itself independent of Denmark, Hungary ofAustria, Sicily of Naples. Prague and Cracow have also theirformidable outbreaks. Austria and Prussia proclaim new constitutions. Secondary revolutionary movements in both Paris and Vienna are putdown by the military. There are bloody battles fought between theAustrians and the Piedmontese on the one hand, and the Germans and theDanes on the other; and, in a state of profound peace, the people ofa British port hear from their shores the boom of the hostile cannon. The Emperor of Austria abdicates his throne, the Pope flees hisdominions, and a nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte is elected President ofFrance. Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, the ebullitions of therevolutionary element serve but to demonstrate its own weakness. Inboth England and Scotland, the moral and physical force of thecountry--in reality but one--arrays itself on the side of good orderand the established institutions. A few policemen put down, withoutthe assistance of the military, the long-threatened rebellion inIreland; and the Sovereign Lady of the empire, after journeying amongher subjects, attended by a retinue which only a few ages ago wouldhave been deemed slender for a Scotch chieftain or one of the lessernobility, and without a single soldier to protect her, and needing nosuch protection, spends her few weeks of autumn leisure in a solitaryHighland valley, --a thousand times more secure in the affections of adevoted and loyal people than any other European monarch could havebeen in the midst of an army of an hundred thousand men. Such are someof the wonderful events which have set their stamp on the year now atits close. 

We regard the old state of things as gone for ever. The foundationshave broken up on which the ancient despotisms were founded. Itwould seem as if 'the stone cut out without hands' had fallen duringthe past year on the feet of the great image, and ground down intoworthless rubbish the 'iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and thegold. ' And 'the wind, ' though not yet risen to its height, seems fastrising, which will sweep them all away, 'like the chaff of thesummer thrashing-floor;' so that 'there shall be no place found forthem. ' But while we can entertain no hope for the old decrepitdespotisms, we cannot see in the infidel liberalism--alike unwiseand immoral--by which they are in the course of being supplanted, other than a disorganizing element, out of which no settled order ofthings can possibly arise. It takes the character, not of a reformingprinciple destined to bless, but of an instrument of punishment, with which vengeance is to be taken for the crimes and errors of thepast; and, so far at least, a time when we need expect to witness butthe struggles of the two principles--the old and the new--as theyact and react against each other, stronger and weaker by turns, asthey disgust and alienate by their atrocities in their hour ofpower such of the more moderate classes as had taken part with themin their hour of weakness. It is the grand error of our leadingstatesmen, that they fail to appreciate the real character of thecrisis, and would fain deal with the consequent existing difficultiesin that petty style of diplomatic manoeuvre with which it wastheir wont to meet the comparatively light demands of the past. Itwould seem as if we had arrived at a stage in the world's history inwhich statesmanship after this style is to be tolerated no longer. How instructive, for instance, the mode in which, for the present atleast, an all-governing Providence has terminated the negotiationsof this country with the Pope! Contrary to the wishes and principlesof the sound-hearted portion of the British people, our leadingstatesmen open up by statute their diplomatic relations with thePope, palpably with the desire of governing Ireland through theinfluence of that utterly corrupt religion which has made thatunhappy island the miserable lazar-house that it is; and, lo!Providence strikes down the ghostly potentate, and virtually, forthe present, divests him of that 'property qualification' invirtue of which the relation can alone be maintained. But not lessinfatuated than our statesmen, and even less excusably so, arethose men--professedly religious and Protestant, but of narrowviews and weak understandings--who can identify the cause of Christwith the old tottering despotisms and the soul-destroying policy ofprinces such as the late Emperor of Austria, and of ministers such asMetternich. It would not greatly surprise us to see Protestants ofthis high Tory stamp, who have been zealous against Popery alltheir lives long, taking part in the 'lament of the merchants andmariners' over the perished Babylon, when they find that therepresentatives of the Roman Emperors must fall with the Roman See. There are two wild beasts, like those which Daniel saw in vision, contending together in fierce warfare, --the old Babylonish beast, horrid with the blood of saints, and its cruel executioner--themonster of Atheistic Liberalism; but Christ has identified His causewith neither. No reprieve from the prince awaits the condemnedculprit; and with the disreputable and savage executioner he willhold no intercourse. Destruction, from which there is no escape, awaits equally on both. 

We began with a reference to Dryden's _Year of Wonders:_ we concludewith an anecdote regarding that year, connected with the history ofone of the most eminent judges and best men England ever produced. Itneeds no application, showing as it does, with equal simplicity andforce, how and on what principle the terrors of years such as the'_Annus Mirabilis_' of the seventeenth century, or the '_AnnusMirabilis_' of our own, may be encountered with the greatest safetyand the truest dignity. We quote from Bishop Burnet's _Life of SirMatthew Hale_:--

'He' (Sir Matthew), says the Bishop, 'had a generous and noble idea ofGod in his mind; and this he found, above all other considerations, preserve his quiet. And, indeed, that was so well established in him, that no accidents, how sudden soever, were observed to discompose him, of which an eminent man of that profession gave me this instance:--Inthe year 1666 an opinion did run through the nation that the end ofthe world would come that year. This, whether set on by astrologers, or advanced by those who thought it might have some relation to thenumber of the beast in the Revelation, or promoted by men of illdesigns to disturb the public peace, had spread mightily among thepeople; and Judge Hale going that year the Western Circuit, ithappened that, as he was on the bench at the assizes, a most terriblestorm fell out very unexpectedly, accompanied with such flashes oflightning and claps of thunder, that the like will hardly fall out inan age; upon which a whisper ran through the crowd, "that now was theworld to end, and the day of judgment to begin. " And at this therefollowed a general consternation in the whole assembly, and all menforgot the business they were met about, and betook themselves totheir prayers. This, added to the horror raised by the storm, lookedvery dismal, insomuch that my author--a man of no ordinary resolutionand firmness of mind--confessed it made a great impression on himself. But he told me "that he did observe the judge was not a whit affected, and was going on with the business of the court in his ordinarymanner;" from which he made this conclusion: "that his thoughts wereso well fixed, that he believed, if the world had been really to end, it would have given him no considerable disturbance!'"

_December 30, 1848. _

EFFECTS OF RELIGIOUS DISUNION ON COLONIZATION. 

It is well that there should exist amongst the evangelistic churchesat least a desire for union. We do not think they will ever be weldedinto one without much heat and many blows. Popery, with mayhapInfidelity for its assistant, will have first to blow up the coals andply the hammer; but it is at least something that the various piecesof the broken and shivered Church catholic should be coming intocontact, drawn together as if by some strong attractive influence, andthat there should be so many attempts made to fit into each other, though with but indifferent success, the rough-edged inflexiblefragments. It is much that the attractive influence should exist. Among the many inventions of modern times, a singularly ingenious onehas been brought to bear on the smelting of iron. A powerful magneticcurrent is made to pass in one direction through the furnace, whichimparts to each metallic particle a loadstone-like affinity for allthe others; and no sooner has the heat set them free, than, instead ofsinking, as in the old process, through the molten stony mass to thebottom, solely in effect of their superior gravity--a tedious, and insome degree uncertain process--they at once get into motion in theline of the current, and unite, in less than half the ordinary timeunder any other circumstances, into a homogeneous, coherent mass. Maywe not indulge the expectation of similar results from the magneticcurrent of attraction, if we may so speak, which has so decidedlybegun to flow through the evangelistic churches? True, so long as thelittle bits remain unmolten, however excellent their quality, they butclash and jangle together, if moved by the influence at all; butshould the furnace come to be seven times heated, it will scarce failto give unity of motion and a prompt coherency to all the genuinemetal, however minute, in its present state, the particles into whichit is separated, or however stubborn the stony matrices whichdissociate these from the other particles, one in their origin andnature, that lie locked up in the sullen fragments around. 

Never perhaps was there a time when the great disadvantages ofdisunion were so pressed in a practical form on the notice of thechurches as at the present. It formed the complaint of one of ourbetter English writers considerably more than a century ago, thatwe had religion enough to make us hate, but not enough to make uslove, one another. At that time, however, sects, to employ one ofBacon's striking phrases, 'had not so grown to equality' as now; andstorms in the moral world, as in the natural 'at the equinoxia, 'when night and day are equal, are commonly greatest, adds thephilosopher, 'when things do grow to equality. ' The unestablishedProtestant denominations formed in the times of Queen Anne a merefeeble moiety, that could raise no efficient voice against theestablished religion; and Popery, newly thrust under feet, after aformidable struggle, that threatened to overturn the constitution ofthe country, had no voice at all. Matters are very different now:things have grown to an equality; night and day, as 'at theequinoxia, ' have become nearly equal; and society can scarce take onestep for the general benefit, without experiencing, as a thwartingand arresting influence, the effects of religious difference. Do weregret that the Government of a country such as ours should bepractically irreligious in its character? Alas! were every Governmentfunctionary in the empire a thoroughly religious man, Governmentcould not act otherwise than it does in not a few instances, justin consequence of our religious differences. Are there millions ofthe people sinking into brutality and ignorance, and do our rulersoriginate a scheme of education in their behalf?--our religiousdifferences straightway step in to arrest and cripple the design. Are there whole districts of country subjected to famine, and are weroused, both as Britons and as Christians, to contribute of oursubstance for their relief?--our religious differences immediatelyinterfere; and a Church greatly more identified by membership withthe sufferers than any other, has to fight a hard battle ere shecan be permitted to co-operate in the general cause. Is there aragged-school scheme originated in the capital, to rescue theneglected perishing young among us from out the very jaws ofdestruction?--forthwith rival institutions start up, on the groundof religious differences, to dwarf one another into inefficiency, like starveling shrubs in a nursery run wild; and projectedexertions in the cause of degraded and suffering humanity degenerateinto an attack on a benevolent Presbyterian minister, who refuses toaccept, from conscientious motives, of a directorship in a Popishinstitution. This is surely a sad state of things, --a state grownvery general, and which threatens to become more so; and in a duesense of the weakness for all good which it creates, and of thepalpable state of disorganization and decomposition favourable tothe growth of every species of evil, physical and moral, which itinduces, we recognise at least one of the causes of the generaldesire for union. To no one circumstance has Rome owed more of itssuccess than to the divisions of the Protestant Church; and great asthat success has been in our own country, where, as 'at theequinoxia, ' day and night are fast 'growing to equality, ' it is butslight compared with what she has experienced in America and thecolonies. It is a serious consideration in an age like the present, in which the country looks to emigration for relief from thepressure of a superabundant population, that religion has sufferedmore in the colonies from its sectarian divisions, than from everyother cause put together. 

The way in which the mischief comes to be done is easily conceivable. The Protestant emigrants of the country quit it always, with regard totheir churchmanship, as a mere undisciplined rabble. The Episcopaliansets sail in the same vessel, and for the same scene of labour, as theIndependent--the Free Churchman with the Baptist--the Methodist withthe Original Seceder--the Voluntary with the Establishment-man; andthey squat down together on contiguous lots, amid the solitude of theforest. Were they all of one communion, there might be scarce anybreak created in their old habits of church-going and religiousinstruction. The community, considerable as a whole, though veryinconsiderable in its parts when broken up into denominational septs, would have its minister of religion from its first settlement, oralmost so; and, from the rapid increase which takes place in all newcolonies in congenial countries and climates, the charge of such aminister would be soon a very important one, and adequate to the fulldevelopment of the energies of a superior man. 

But alas for the numerous denominational septs! Years must elapse, insome instances many years, ere--few and scattered, and necessarilydeprived of every advantage of the territorial system--they canprocure for themselves religious teachers: they fall gradually, in theinterim, out of religious habits, or there rises among them ageneration in which these were never formed; and when at length asept does procure a teacher, generally, from the comparativefewness of their numbers, the extent of district over which theyare spread, and the lukewarmness induced among them by their yearsof deprivation--circumstances which make the charge of such a peopleno very desirable one to a man who can procure aught better, andwhich have some effect also in rendering their choice in suchmatters not very discriminating--he is frequently of a characterlittle suited to profit them. They succeed too often in procuring notmissionaries, nor men such as the ministers of higher standing, thatdivide the word to the congregations of the mother country, but thecountry's mere remainder preachers, who, having failed in making theirway into a living at home, seek unwillingly a bit of bread in theunbroken ground of the colonies. The circumstances of Popery as acolonizing religion are in all respects immensely more favourable. Forevery practical purpose, it is one and united: it is furnishedwith an army of clergy admirably organized, and set peculiarlyloose for movement at the will of the general ecclesiastical bodyby their law of celibacy. It possesses in prolific Ireland a vastpropelling heart, if we may so speak, ever working in sending outthe blood of a singularly bigoted Romanism to every quarter of theworld. It has already begun to influence the elections of the UnitedStates; and should the Papal superstition be destined to live solong, and should its membership continue to increase at the presentratio, there will be as many Papists a century hence in the greatvalley of the Mississippi, and the tracts adjacent, as are atpresent in all Europe. In no field in the present day has Rome moredecidedly the advantage than in that of colonization; and it issurely a serious consideration that it should owe its successes insuch large measure to the divisions of Protestantism. 

But these divisions exist, and no amount of regret for the mischiefwhich they occasion will serve to lessen them. We are not disposed togive up a single tenet which we hold as Free Churchmen; and ourbrother Protestants of the other denominations are, we find, quite astenacious of their distinctive holdings as ourselves. And so the evilsconsequent on disunion in infant colonies and settlements-evils which, when once originated, continue to propagate themselves for ages--mustcontinue, in cases of promiscuous emigration, to be educed, and Rometo profit by them. We find a vigorous attempt to grapple with thedifficulty, by rendering emigration not promiscuous, but select, originated by a branch of the New Zealand Company, which we deemworthy of notice. It is calculated, from the proportion which theybear to the entire population of the country, that from a thousand tofifteen hundred Free Church people emigrate from Scotland every year. A number equal to a large congregation quit it yearly for thecolonies; but absorbed among all sorts of people--in Canada, NewBrunswick, Nova Scotia, the United States, Australia, and SouthernAfrica, etc. Etc. --these never reappear as congregations, but aresubjected, in their scattered, atomic state, to the deterioratingprocess, religious and educational, to which we have referred asinevitable under that economy of promiscuous emigration unhappily socommon in these latter times. In an earlier age the case wasdifferent. The Pilgrim Fathers who first planted New England were somuch at one in their tenets, that they had no difficulty in making thelaws of the colony a foundation on which to erect the platform both ofa general church and of an educational institute; and till this day, the character, moral and intellectual, of that part of the Statestells of the wisdom of the arrangement. Now why, argue the Company, might not a similar result be produced in the present age, bydirecting the Free Church portion of the outward stream of emigration, or at least a sufficient part of it, into one locality? If thedisastrous effects of division cannot be prevented by reconciling thedisagreements of those who already differ, they may be obviatedsurely, to a large extent, by bringing into juxtaposition those whoalready agree. And on this simple principle the Company has foundedits Free Church colony of Otago. Of course, regarding the secularadvantages of the colony, we cannot speak. New Zealand has been longregarded as the Great Britain of the southern hemisphere. It possessesfor a European constitution peculiar advantages of climate; theneighbourhood of the settlement, for several hundred miles together, is deserted by the natives; Government is pledged to the appointmentof a Royal Commissioner to watch over the interests of Her Majesty'ssubjects in connection with the Company, and to afford themprotection; the committee for promoting the settlement of the colonyincludes some of the most respected names in the Free Church; andthus, judged by all the ordinary tests, it seems to promise at leastas well as any other resembling field of enterprise open at thepresent time. But respecting the principles involved in this scheme ofcolonization, we can speak more directly from the circumstance that wefind them recognised as just and good by the General Assembly of ourChurch. The records of the Assembly of 1845 bear the followingdeliverance on the subject:--'The General Assembly learn with greatpleasure the prospect of the speedy establishment of the Scotch colonyof New Edinburgh [now Otago] in New Zealand, consisting of members ofthe Free Church, and with every security for the colonists beingprovided with the ordinances of religion and the means of education inconnection with this Church. Without expressing any opinion regardingthe secular advantages or prospects of the proposed undertaking, theGeneral Assembly highly approve of the principles on which thesettlement is proposed to be conducted, in so far as the religious andeducational interests of the colonists are concerned; and theAssembly desire to countenance and encourage the association in theserespects. '

We have seen the waste of mind which takes place in the colonies of avery highly civilised country adverted to in a rather fanciful andrationalistic connection with the desponding reply of the captive Jewsto their spoilers: 'How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strangeland?' Ages, sometimes whole centuries, elapse, remarks thecommentator, ere the colonies of even eminently literary nations cometo possess poets and fine writers of their own. There is first astruggle for bare existence among the colonists, during which thehigher branches of learning are necessarily neglected; and when abetter time at length comes, the general mind is found to haveacquired, during the struggle, a homely and utilitarian cast, whichmilitates against the right appreciation, and of course theproduction, of what is excellent. And thus the true divinities of songfail to be sung in a foreign land. There is, we doubt not, truth inthe remark, though somewhat quaintly expressed, and somewhatdoubtfully derived. The necessities of a colony in its youth, and thepeculiar cast of mind which they serve to induce, are certainly notfavourable to the development of poetic genius. But there is, alas!another and more scriptural sense in which the 'Lord's song' too oftenceases to be sung in a strange land. We have already adverted to theprocess of deterioration, moral and religious, through which it comesto be silenced; and it is one of the advantages of the Otago scheme, that it makes provision in, we believe, the most effectual waypossible, in the present divided state of Protestantism, forpreventing a result so deplorable. Youth is an important season, ascertainly in colonies as in individuals; and we question whether thecharacteristic recklessness of Yankeeism in the far west and south maynot be legitimately traced to the neglected youthhead of the States inwhich it is most broadly apparent. The deterioration of a singlegeneration left to run wild may influence for the worse, during wholecenturies, the character of a people; and who can predicate what thesecolonies of the southern hemisphere are yet to become? They may begreat nations, influencing for good or evil the destinies of thespecies in ages of the world when Britain shall have sunk into asubordinate power, or shall have no name save in history. Thoserecords of the past, from which we learn that states and peoples, ascertainly as families and individuals, are born and die, and havetheir times of birth and of burial, may serve to convince us that themelancholy reflection of one of our later poets on this subject is byno means a fanciful one:

 'My heart has sighed in secret, when I thought That the dark tide of time might one day close, England, o'er thee, as long since it has closed On Egypt and on Tyre, --that ages hence, From the Pacific's billowy loneliness, Whose tract thy daring search revealed, some isle Might rise, in green-haired beauty eminent, And like a goddess glittering from the deep, Hereafter sway the sceptre of domain From pole to pole; and such as now thou art, Perhaps New Zealand be. For who can say What the Omnipotent Eternal One, That made the world, hath purposed?'

_June 16, 1847. _

FINE-BODYISM. 

Of all the dangers to which the Free Church is at present exposed, wedeem the danger of _fine-bodyism_ at once the least dreaded and themost imminent. And the evil is in itself no light one: it marks, better than any of the other _isms_--even the heresies themselves--thesinking of a Church that is never to rise again. Churches have beenaffected by dangerous heresies both of the hot and the cold kinds, andhave yet shaken them off and recovered. The Presbyterians ofIreland, now so sound in their creed, were extensively affected, little more than half a century ago, by Arian error and thesemi-infidelity of Socinus; and the Church that in 1843 had becomevigorous enough to dare the Disruption, recorded in the year 1796 itsvote against missions, and framed in the year 1798 its law againstchurch extension. But we know of no Church that ever recovered from_fine-bodyism_ when the disease had once fairly settled into itsconfirmed and chronic state. In at least this age and country itexists as the atrophy of a cureless decline. It were well, however, that we should say what it is we mean by _fine-bodyism_; and wefind we cannot do better than quote our definition from the firstspeech ever delivered by Chalmers in the General Assembly. 'It isquite ridiculous to say, ' remarked this most sagacious of men, 'that the worth of the clergy will suffice to keep them up in theestimation of society. This worth must be combined with importance. Give both worth and importance to the same individual, and whatare the terms employed in describing him? "A distinguished memberof society, the ornament of a most respectable profession, thevirtuous companion of the great, and a generous consolation to allthe sickness and poverty around him. " These, Moderator, appear to meto be the terms peculiarly descriptive of the appropriate characterof a clergyman, and they serve to mark the place which he ought tooccupy; but take away the importance and leave only the worth, andwhat do you make of him? What is the descriptive term applied to himnow? Precisely the term which I often find applied to many of mybrethren, and which galls me to the very bone every moment I hearit--"_a fine body_"--a being whom you may like, but whom I defyyou to esteem--a mere object of endearment--a being whom the greatmay at times honour with the condescension of a dinner, but whomthey will never admit as a respectable addition to their society. Now, all that I demand from the Court of Teinds is to be raised, and thatas speedily as possible, above the imputation of being "_a finebody_;" that they would add importance to my worth, and givesplendour and efficacy to those exertions which have for their objectthe most exalted interests of the species. '

The Free Church has for ever closed her connection with the Court ofTeinds; but her danger from _fine-bodyism_ is in consequence allthe greater, not the less. The Sustentation Fund is her Court ofTeinds now; and it is to it that she has in the first instance tolook for protection from the all-potent but insidious and vastlyunder-estimated evil under which no Church ever throve. The outedministers are comparatively safe. Unless prudence be altogetherwanting, and the wolf comes to the door, not, as in the child'sstory-book, in the disguise of a soft-voiced girl, but in that of agruff sheriff's officer, they will continue to bear through life theold status of the Establishment, heightened by the _éclat_ of theDisruption. But our younger men of subsequent appointment standon no such platform, nor will any of their contemporaries orsuccessors step upon it as a matter of course when the heroes of theconflict have dropped away, and they come to occupy their vacantplaces. Their status will be found to depend on two circumstances, neither of them derived from the men of a former time--on theirability to maintain a respectable place among the middle classes, andon their scholastic acquirements and general manners. A half-paid, half-taught, half-bred minister of religion may be a very excellentman; we have seen such, both in England and our own country, amongthe non-Presbyterian Dissenters who laboured to do well, and wereexceedingly in earnest; but no such type of minister will ever befound influential in Scotland, either in extending the limits of aChurch, or in benefiting the more intelligent classes of thepeople. And the two circumstances of acquirement and remunerationwill be found indissolubly connected. A Church of under-paidministers, however fairly it may start, will, in the lapse of ageneration, become a Church of under-taught and under-bred ministersalso. Nor is there any chance that the evil, once begun, will evercure itself, for the under-bred and the under-taught will be sureto continue the under-paid. That animating spirit of a Church, without which wealth and learning avail but little, money now, asof old, cannot buy; but the secular will be ever found to depend onthe secular, --the general rate of secular acquirement on thegeneral rate of secular remuneration; and unless both be pitchedat a level very considerably above that of the labouring laity, which constitutes the great bulk of congregations, even the betterministers of a Church need not expect to escape _fine-bodyism_. Andonce infected with this fatal indisposition, they must be content tosuffer, among other evils, the evil of being permitted to laywhatever claim to status they may choose, without challenge orcontradiction. 'Oh yes, ' it will be said, should they assert thattheir Church is the Church of the nation, and that it is theythemselves, and not the ministers of the Establishment, who are onthe true constitutional ground, --'Oh yes, Church of the nation, or, ifye will, Church of the whole world, or, in short, anything you please;for you are _fine bodies_. ' Chalmers exercised all his sagacitywhen he demanded of the Court of Teinds 'to be raised, and that asspeedily as possible, above the imputation of being a _fine body_. 'And what Chalmers demanded of the Court of Teinds, every minister ofthe Free Church ought to ask of the Sustentation Fund. 

But how is the demand to be effectually made? It is well known tostatesmen, who, when they once get a tax imposed by Parliament, canemploy all the machinery of the police and the standing army--offines, confiscations, and prisons--in exacting it, that yet, notwithstanding, in the arithmetic of finance two and two do notalways make four. There are certain pre-existing laws to bestudied--laws not of man's passing, but which arise out of man'snature and the true bearings and relations of things; and unlessthese be studied and conformed to, the Parliament-imposed tax, though backed by the constable and the jail, will realize butlittle. And if the statesman must study these laws, well may theChurch do so, who has no constables in her pay, and to whom nojail-keys have been entrusted. It ought, we think, to be regardedas one fundamental law, that whatever has been gained by the sevenyears' establishment of the Fund, should not be lightly perilled bybold and untried innovations. True, there may, on the one hand, bedanger, if let too much alone, that its growth should be arrested, and of its passing into a stunted and hide-bound condition, littlecapable of increase; but the danger is at least as great, on theother, that if subjected to fundamental changes, it might lose thatadvantage of permanency which whatever is established possessesin virtue of its being such; and which has its foundation in habit, and in that vague sense of responsibility which leads men to give, year after year, what they had been accustomed to give in the previousyears, just because they had given it. Let it not be forgotten, that though much still remains to be done in connection with thisFund, much has been done already--that a voluntary tax of abouteighty thousand pounds per annum, raised from about one-third, andthat by no means the wealthiest third, of the Scottish people, isreally not a small, but a great one--and that as great, and asworthy of being desired and equalled, do the other non-endowedChurches of the country regard it. No tampering, therefore, with itsprinciple should be attempted: he was an eminently wise man whofirst devised and instituted it, --not once in an age do churches, oreven countries, get such men to guide their affairs, --and it oughtby all means to be permitted to _set_ and consolidate in the mouldwhich he formed for it. We would apply in this case the language ofa philosophic writer of the last age, when speaking of government ingeneral:--'An established order of things, ' he said, 'has an infiniteadvantage, by the very circumstance of its being established. Totamper, therefore, to try experiments upon it, upon the credit ofsupposed fitness and improvement, can never be the part of a wise man, who will bear a reverence for what carries the marks of thestability of age; and though he may attempt some improvements forthe public good, yet will he adjust his innovations as much aspossible to the ancient fabric, and preserve entire the chiefpillars and supports of the institution. '

It ought, we hold, to be regarded as another law of the Fund, that themeans taken to increase it should be means exclusively fitted to leadthe givers to think of their _duties_, not of their _rights_. TheSustentation Fund is not the result of a tax properly so called, butan accumulation of freewill offerings rendered to the Church by menwho in this matter are responsible to God only. What the Church receiveson these terms she can divide; but what the givers do not place at herdisposal--what, on the contrary, they reserve for quite anotherpurpose--she cannot lay hold of and distribute. It is not hers, buttheirs; and the attempt to appropriate it might be very fatal. Hencethe danger of the question regarding the appropriation for generalpurposes of supplements, which was mooted two years ago, but which wasso promptly put down by the good sense of the Church. It would have ledmen to contend for their rights, and, in the struggle, to forget theirduties; and the battle would have been a losing one for the Fund. Weregard it as another law, that the distribution of the sustentationmoney entrusted to the Church should be a distribution, notdiscretionary, but fixed by definite enactment. A discretionarylicence of distribution, extended to some central board or committee, even though under the general review of the Church, could not be otherthan imminently dangerous, because opposed in spirit to the veryprinciple of Presbytery. And if Presbytery and the Sustentation Fundcome into collision in the Free Church of Scotland, it is notdifficult to say which of the two would go down. It has been shrewdlyremarked by Hume, that in monarchies there is room for discretionarypower--the laws under a great and wise prince may in some cases besoftened, or partially suspended, and carried into full effect inothers; but republics admit of no such discretionary authority--thelaws in them must in every instance be thoroughly executed, or setaside altogether. Every act of discretionary authority is treasonagainst the constitution. And so is it with Presbytery. Give to acentral board or committee the power of sitting in judgment on thecircumstances of ministers of their body, and of apportioning to onesome thirty or forty pounds additional, and of cutting down another tothe average dividend, and, for a time at least, the Presbyterianindependence is gone. But the reaction point once reached--and in theFree Church the process would not be a very tedious one--thediscretionary authority would be swept away in the first instance, andthe Sustentation Fund not a little damaged in the second. It is ofparamount importance, therefore--a law on no account to be neglectedor traversed--that the distribution of the Fund be regulated by rulesso rigid and unbending, and of such general application, that themanifestation of favour or the exercise of patronage on the part ofthe board or committee authorized to watch over it may be wholly animpossibility. 

It is, in the next place, of importance carefully to scan thesources whence the expected increase of the Fund is to come. Thegivers in the Free Church at the present time seem to lie verymuch in extremes. A considerable number, animated by the Disruptionspirit, contribute greatly more to ministerial support, in proportionto their incomes, than the old Dissenters of the kingdom; but astill larger number, reposing indolently on the exertions of these, and in whom the habit has not been cultivated or formed, giveconsiderably less. It was stated by Mr. Melvin, in the meeting ofthe United Presbyterian Synod held on Wednesday last, that, 'on anaverage, the members of weak congregations in connection with theirbody contributed to the support of their minister about 14s. 6d. Perannum, besides about 2s. 6d. For missionary purposes, while someof them contributed even as high as 25s. To 26s. ' Now, an average rateof contribution liberal as this, among the members of countrycongregations in the Free Church, would at once place the Fund inflourishing circumstances, and render it, unless its management wasvery unwise indeed, sufficient to maintain a ministry high above thedreaded level of _fine-bodyism_. Nor do we see why, if we exceptthe crushed and poverty-stricken people of some of the poorerHighland districts, Free Church congregations in the countryshould not contribute as largely to church purposes as UnitedPresbyterian congregations in the same localities. The membership ofboth belong generally to the same level of society, and, if equallywilling, are about equally able to contribute. Here, then, is afield which still remains to be wrought. Something, too, may be doneat the present time, from the circumstance that the last instalmentof the Manse Building Fund is just in the act of being paid, andthose who have been subscribing for five years to this object, andformed a habit of periodic giving in relation to it, may be inducedto transfer a portion of what they gave to the permanent fund, andso continue contributing. Ere, however, they can be expected to doso, they must be fairly assured that what they give is to beemployed in strengthening and consolidating the Church, and in raisingher ministers above the level of _fine-bodyism_, not in adding toher weakness by adding to her extent. Until a distinct pledge begiven that there shall not be so much as a single new chargesanctioned until the yearly dividend amounts to at least a hundredand fifty pounds, we must despair of the Sustentation Fund. One mayhopefully attempt the filling up of a tun, however vast its contents;but there can be no hope whatever in attempting the filling of asieve. And if what is poured into the Sustentation Fund is to bepermitted, instead of rising in the dividend, to dribble outincontinently in a feeble extension, it will be all too soondiscovered that what we have to deal with is not the tun, but thesieve; and the laity, losing all heart, will cease their exertions, and permit their ministers to sink into poverty and _fine-bodyism_. 

_May 15, 1850. _

ORGANSHIP. 

Some six or eight months after the Disruption there occurred anamusing dispute between two Edinburgh newspapers, each of whichaspired to represent the Establishment solely and exclusively, withoutcoadjutor or rival. The one paper asserted that it was the _vehicle_of the Established Church, the other that it was the Church's _organ_;and each, in asserting its own claim, challenged that of itsneighbour. The organ was sure that the vehicle lacked the truevehicular character; and the vehicle threw grave doubts on theorganship of the organ. In somewhat less than half a year, however, the dispute came suddenly to a close: the vehicle--like a lucklessopposition coach, weak in its proprietorship--was run off the road, and broke down; and the triumphant organ, seizing eager hold of thename of its defunct rival as legitimate spoil, hung it up immediatelyunder its own, as a red warrior of the West seizes hold of the scalpof a fallen enemy, and suspends it at his middle by his belt ofwampum. The controversy, however, lasted quite long enough to leadcurious minds to inquire how or on what principle a body so divided asthe Established Church could possibly have either vehicle or organ. 

If the organ, it was said, adequately represent Dr. Muir, it cannotfail very grievously to misrepresent Dr. Bryce; and if the vehiclebe adapted to give public airings to the thoughts and opinions ofthe bluff old Moderates, those of Dr. Leishman and the Forty musttravel out into the wind and the sunlight by an opposition conveyance. One organ or one vehicle will be no more competent to serve adeliberative ecclesiastical body, diverse in its components, than oneorgan or vehicle will be able to serve a deliberative political bodybroken into factions. Single parties, as such--whether secular orecclesiastical--may have their single organ apiece; but it seems aslittle possible that a Presbyterian General Assembly should have onlyone organ representative of the whole, as that a _House of Lords_ or a_House of Commons_ should have one organ representative of thewhole. An organ of the Establishment in its present state ofdisunion, if at all adequately representative, could not fail toresemble Montgomery's strange personification of war: 'A deformedgenius, with two heads, which, unlike those of Janus, were placedfront to front; innumerable arms, branching out all around hisshoulders, sides, and chest; and with thighs and legs as multitudinousas his arms. His twin faces, ' continues the poet, 'were frightfullydistorted: they glared, they grinned, they spat, they railed, andhissed, and roared; they gnashed their teeth, and bit, and butted withtheir foreheads at each other; his arms, wielding swords and spears, were fighting pell-mell together; his legs, in like manner, wereindefatigably at variance, striding contrary ways, and trampling oneach other's toes, or kicking each other's shins, as if by mutualconsent. ' Such would be the true representative of an organ thatadequately represented the Establishment. 

We are led into this vein on the present occasion by a recentdiscussion in high quarters on the organship of the Free Church, --aPresbyterian body, be it remarked, as purely deliberative in itscourts as the Parliament of the country, and at least sufficientlyaffected by the spirit of the age to include within its pale aconsiderable diversity of opinion. It is as impossible, from thiscause alone, that the Free Church should be represented by a singleorgan, as that the _House of Commons_ should be represented by asingle organ. The organ, for instance, that represented on theeducation question the Rev. Mr. Moody Stuart, would most miserablymisrepresent the party who advocate the views of the great father ofthe Free Church--the late Dr. Chalmers. 

The organ that represented the peculiar beliefs held, regarding thepersonal advent, by the party to which Mr. Bonar of Kelso belongs, would greatly misrepresent those of the party to which Mr. David Brownof Glasgow and Mr. Fairbairn of Saltoun belong. The organ thatadvocated Dr. Cunningham's and Dr. James Buchanan's views of theCollege question, would be diametrically opposed to the view of Dr. Brown of Aberdeen and Mr. Gray of Perth. The organ that contended foran ecclesiastical right to legislate on the temporalities according tothe principle of Mr. Hay of Whiterig, would provoke the determinedopposition of Mr. Makgill Crichton of Rankeillour. The organ that tookpart with the Evangelical and Sabbath Alliances in the spirit of Dr. Candlish of St. George's, would have to defend its position againstMr. King of St. Stephen's of the Barony; and the organ that espousedthe sentiments held on tests by Mr. Wood of Elie, would find itself inhostile antagonism with those entertained on the same subject by Mr. Gibson of Kingston. And such are only a few of the questions, andthese of an ecclesiastical or semi-ecclesiastical character, regardingwhich a diversity of views, sentiments, and opinions in the FreeChurch renders it impossible that it can be adequately represented byany one organ, even should that organ be of a purely ecclesiasticalcharacter. But a newspaper is _not_ of a purely ecclesiasticalcharacter; and there are subjects on which it may represent a vastmajority of the people of a Church, without in the least degreerepresenting the Church itself, simply because they are subjects onwhich a Church, as such, can hold no opinions whatever. 

It is, for instance, not for a Church to say in what degree shetrusts the Whigs or suspects the Tories--or whether her suspicion begreat and her trust small--or whether she deem it more desirable thatEdinburgh should be represented by Mr. Cowan, than mis-representedby Mr. Macaulay. These, and all cognate matters, are matters onwhich the Church, as such, has no voice, and regarding which shecan therefore have no organ; and yet these are matters with which anewspaper is necessitated to deal. It would be other than a newspaperif it did not. On these questions, however, which lie so palpablybeyond the ecclesiastical pale, though the Church can have noorgan, zealous Churchmen may; and there can be no doubt whateverthat they are questions on which zealous Free Churchmen _are_ verythoroughly divided--so thoroughly, that any single newspaper couldrepresent, in reference to them, only one class. The late Mr. JohnHamilton, for instance--a good and honest man, who, in his characteras a Free Churchman, determinedly opposed the return of Mr. Macaulay--was wholly at issue regarding some of these points with theHonourable Mr. Fox Maule, who in 1846 mounted the hustings to saythat the 'gratitude and honour of the Free Church' was involved inMr. Macaulay's return. And so the organ that represented the one, could not fail to misrepresent the other. Now, we are aware that onthis, and on a few other occasions, the _Witness_ must have given veryconsiderable dissatisfaction in the political department to certainmembers of the Free Church. It was not at all their organ on theseoccasions; nay, at the very outset of its career, it had solemnlypledged itself _not_ to be their organ. 

The following passage was written by its present Editor, ere the firstappearance of his paper, and formed a part of its prospectus:--'The_Witness_, ' he said, '_will not espouse the cause of any of thepolitical parties which now agitate and_ _divide the country_. ''Public measures, however, will be weighed as they present themselvesin an impartial spirit, with care proportioned to their importance, and with reference not to the party with which they may chance tooriginate, but to the principles which they shall be found toinvolve. ' Such was the pledge given by the Editor of the _Witness_;and he now challenges his readers to say whether he has not honestlyredeemed it. Man is naturally a tool-making animal; and when hebecomes a politician by profession, his ingenuity in this special walkof constructiveness is, we find, always greatly sharpened by theexigencies of his vocation. 

He makes tools of bishops, tools of sacraments, tools of Confessionsof Faith, and tools of Churches and church livings. 

We had just seen, previous to the _début_ of the _Witness_, the Churchof Scotland converted by Conservatism into a sort of mining tool, half lever, half pickaxe, which it plied hard, with an eye to theprostration and ejection of its political opponents the Whigs, then in office; and not much pleased to see the Church which weloved and respected so transmuted and so wielded, we solemnlydetermined that, so far at least as our modicum of influenceextended, no tool-making politician, whatever his position, shouldagain convert it unchallenged into an ignoble party utensil. WithGod's help, we have remained true to our determination; and soassured are we of being supported in this matter by the sound-heartedPresbyterian people of the Free Church, that we have no fearwhatever, should either the assertors among us of the unimpeachableconsistency of the Conservatives, or of the immaculate honesty of theWhigs, start against us an opposition vehicle to-morrow, that inless than a twelvemonth we would run it fairly off the road, andhave some little amusement with it to boot, so long as the contestcontinued. The _Witness_ is not, and, as we have shown, cannot be, the organ of the Free Church; but it is something greatly better:it is the trusted representative--against Whig, Tory, Radical, andChartist--against Erastian encroachment and clerical domination--ofthe Free Church people. There lies its strength, --a strength whichits political Free Church opponents are welcome to test when theyplease. 

We must again express our regret that the article on the Duke ofBuccleuch, which has proved the occasion of so much remark, spoken andwritten, should have ever appeared in our columns; and this, not, asthe agent of the Duke asserts, because it has been _exposed_, butbecause of the unhappy unsolidity of its facts, and because of thatdiversion of the public attention which it has effected from casessuch as those of Canobie and Wanlockhead, and from such a death-bed asthat of the Rev. Mr. Innes. Our readers are already in possession ofour explanation, and have seen it fully borne out by the incidentalstatement of Mr. Parker. We would crave leave to remind them that the_Witness_ is now in the ninth year of its existence; and that duringthat time the Editor stated many facts, from his own observation, connected with the refusal of sites, and other matters of a similarcharacter. He saw congregations worshipping on bare hill-sides in theHighlands of Sutherland, and on an oozy sea-beach on the coast ofLochiel; he sailed in the Free Church yacht the _Betsey_, andworshipped among the islanders of Eigg and of Skye. Nor did he shrinkfrom very minutely describing what he had witnessed on theseoccasions, nor yet from denouncing the persecution that had thrust outsome of the best men and best subjects of the country, to worshipunsheltered amid bleak and desert wastes, or on the bare sea-shore. 

And yet, of all the many facts which he thus communicated on his ownauthority, because resting on his own observation, not one of them hasever yet been disproved; nay, scarce one of them has ever yet been somuch as challenged. 

Of course, in reference to the statements which he has had to make onthe testimony of others, his position was necessarily different; and avery delicate matter he has sometimes found it to be, to deal withthese statements. A desire, on the one hand, to expose to thewholesome breathings of public opinion whatever was really oppressiveand unjust; a fear, on the other, lest he should compromise thegeneral cause, or injure the character of his paper, by givingpublicity to what either might not be true, or could not be proven tobe true, --have often led him to retain communications beside him forweeks and months, until some circumstance occurred that enabled him todetermine regarding their real character and value. And such--withmore, however, than the ordinary misgivings, and with an unfavourableopinion frankly and decidedly expressed--was the course which he tookwith the communicated article on the Duke of Buccleuch. 

That the testing circumstance which _did_ occur in the course of thelong period during which it was thus held _in retentis_ was notcommunicated to him, or to any other official connected with the_Witness_, he much regrets, but could not possibly help. 

In the discussion on the Sites Bill of Wednesday last, the HonourableFox Maule is made to say, that 'the _Witness_ contained many articleswhich had been condemned by the Church. '

Now this must be surely a misreport, as nothing could be more grosslyincorrect than such a statement. The voice of the Free Church--that bywhich she condemns or approves--can be emitted through but herdeliberative courts, and recorded in but the decisions of her solemnAssemblies. On the merits or demerits of the _Witness_, through theseher only legitimate organs, she has not yet spoken; and Mr. Maule is, we are sure, by far too intelligent a Churchman to mistake the voiceof a mere political coterie, irritated mayhap by the loss of anelection, for the solemn deliverance of a Church of Christ. Withrespect to his reported statement, to the effect that the _Witness_'contained many articles which had done great harm to the FreeChurch, ' the report may, we think, be quite correct. The _Witness_contained a good many articles on the special occasion when the FreeChurchmen of Edinburgh conspired--'ungratefully and dishonourably, ' asMr. Maule must have deemed it--to eject a Whig Minister, and to placein his seat, as their representative, a shrewd citizen and honestman. 

And these lucubrations accomplished, we daresay, their modicum ofharm. With regard, however, to the articles of the _Witness_ ingeneral, we think we can confidently appeal in their behalf to suchof our readers as perused them, not as they were garbled, misquoted, interpolated, and mis-represented by unscrupulous enemies, but asthey were first given to the public from the pen of the Editor. Amongthese readers we reckon men of all classes, from the peer to thepeasant--Conservative landowners, magistrates, merchants, ministers ofthe gospel. Dr. Chalmers was a reader of the _Witness_ from itsfirst commencement to his death; and he, perusing its editorialarticles as they were originally written--not as they were garbled orinterpolated in other prints--saw in them very little to blame. 

Not but that some of our sentences look sufficiently formidable inextracts when twisted from their original meaning; and this, just asthe Decalogue itself might be instanced as a code of licentiousness, violence, and immorality, were it to be exhibited in garbledquotations, divested of all the _nots_. In the _Edinburgh Advertiser_of yesterday, for instance, we find the following passage:--'It [_TheWitness_] has menaced our nobles with the horrors of the FrenchRevolution, when the guillotine plied its nightly task, and when the"bloody hearts of aristocrats dangled on button-holes in the streetsof Paris. " It has reminded them of the time when a "grey discrownedhead sounded hollow on the scaffold at Whitehall;" insinuating that, if they persisted in opposing the claims of the Free Church, a likefate might overtake the reigning dynasty of our time. '

When, asks the reader, did these most atrocious threats appear in the_Witness_?

They never, we reply, appeared in the _Witness_ as threats at all. Theone passage, almost in the language of Chateaubriand, was employed inan article in which we justified the sentence pronounced on theatheist Patterson. The other formed part of a purely historicreference--in an article on Puseyism, written ere the Free Church hadany existence--to the Canterburianism of the times of Charles I. , andthe fate of that unhappy monarch. We thought not of threatening thearistocracy when quoting the one passage, nor yet of foreboding evilto the existing dynasty when writing the other. On exactly the sameprinciple on which these passages have been instanced to ourdisadvantage, the description of the _Holoptychius Nobilissimus_, which appeared a few years ago in the _Witness_, might be paraded as apersonal attack on Sir James Graham; and the remarks on theconstruction of the _Pterichthys_, as a gross libel on the Duke ofBuccleuch. It is, we hold, not a little to the credit of the_Witness_, that, in order to blacken its character, means should beresorted to of a character so disreputable and dishonest. From truthand fair statement it has all to hope, and nothing to fear. 

_June 14, 1848. _

BAILLIE'S LETTERS AND JOURNALS. 

This is at once the handsomest and one of the best editions of thecurious and very interesting class of works to which it belongs, thathas yet been given to the public. It is scarce possible to appreciatetoo highly the tact, judgment, and research displayed by the editor;and rarely indeed, so far as externals are concerned, has thetypography of Scotland appeared to better advantage. It is a bookdecked out for the drawing-room in a suit of the newest pattern, --atall, modish, well-built book, that has to be fairly set a-talking erewe discover from its tongue and style that it is a production not ofour own times, but of the times of Charles and the Commonwealth. Thegood, simple minister of Kilwinning would fail to recognise himself inits fair open pages, that more than rival those of his old _Elzevirs_. For his old-fashioned suit of home-spun grey, we find him sportinghere a modern dress-coat of Saxony broadcloth, and a pair ofunexceptionable cashmere trousers; and it is not until we step forwardand address the worthy man, and he turns upon us his broad, honestface, that we see the grizzled moustache and peaked beard, anddiscover that his fears are still actively engaged regarding theprelatic leanings of Charles II. , 'now at Breda;' though perchance notquite without hope that the counsel of the 'wise and godly youth'James Sharpe may have the effect of setting all right again in theroyal mind. We address what we take, from the garb, to be acontemporary, and find that we have stumbled on one of the sevensleepers. 

We deem it no slight advantage to the reading public of the presentday, that it should have works of this character made so easy ofaccess. It is only a very few years since the student of Scottishecclesiastical history could not have acquainted himself with thematerials on which the historian can alone build, without passingthrough a course of study at least as prolonged as an ordinary collegecourse, and much more laborious. Let us suppose that he lived insome of the provinces. He would have, in the first place, to comeand reside in Edinburgh, and get introduced, at no slight expense oftrouble, mayhap, to the brown, half-defaced manuscripts of our publiclibraries. He would require next to study the old hand, with allits baffling contractions. If he succeeded in mastering thedifficulties of Melville's _Diary_ after a quarter of a year'shard conning, he might well consider himself a lucky man. Row's_History_ would occupy him during at least another quarter;Baillie's _Letters and Journals_ would prove work enough for twoquarters more. If he succeeded in getting access to the papers ofWoodrow, he would find little less than a twelvemonth's hard labourbefore him; Calderwood's large _History_ would furnish employment forat least half that time; and if curious to peruse it in its bestand fullest form, he would find it necessary to quit Edinburgh forLondon, to pore there over the large manuscript copy stored up inthe British Museum. As he proceeded in his course, he would becontinually puzzled by references, allusions, initials; he wouldhave to consult register offices, records of baptisms and deaths, session books, old and scarce works, hardly less difficult to beprocured than even the manuscripts themselves; and if he at lengthescaped the fate of the luckless antiquary, who produced the famoushistory of the village of Wheatfield, he might deem himself more thanordinarily fortunate. 'When I first engaged in this work, ' said thepoor man, 'I had eyes of my own; but now I cannot see even with theassistance of art: I have gone from spectacles of the first sight tospectacles of the third; the Chevalier Taylor gives my eyes over, and my optician writes me word he can grind no higher for me. ' Itwill soon be no such Herculean task to penetrate to the foundations ofour national ecclesiastical history. From publications such asthose of the Woodrow Club, and of the _Letters and Journals_, thestudent will be able to acquire in a few weeks what would haveotherwise cost him the painful labour of years. Nor can we point outa more instructive course of reading. In running over our modernhistories, however able, we almost always find our point of viewfixed down by the historian to the point occupied by himself. Wecannot take up another on our own behalf, unless we differ from himaltogether, nor select for ourselves the various subjects which weare to survey. We are in leading-strings for the time: the vigourof our author's thinking militates against the exercise of our own;his philosophy enters our minds in a too perfect form, and liesinert there, just as the condensed extract of some nourishing foodoften fails to nourish at all, because it gives no employment tothe digestive faculty. A survey of the historian's materials hasoften, on the contrary, the effect of setting the mind free. We seethe events of the times which he describes in their own light, andsimply as events, --we select and arrange for ourselves, --they call upnovel traits of character, --they lead us to draw on our experienceof men, --they confirm principles, --they suggest reflections. 

Some of our readers will perhaps remember that we noticed atconsiderable length the two first volumes of this beautiful edition ofBaillie rather more than a twelvemonth ago. The third and concludingvolume has but lately appeared. It embraces a singularly importantperiod, --extending from shortly before the rise of the unhappy andultimately fatal quarrel between the Resolutioners and Protesters, till the re-establishment of Episcopacy at the Restoration, when thecurtain closes suddenly over the poor chronicler, evidently sinkinginto the grave at the time, the victim of a broken heart. He sees astormy night settling dark over the Church, --Presbytery pulled down, the bishops set up, persecution already commenced; and, longing to bereleased from his troubles, he affectingly assures his correspondent, in the last of his many letters, that 'it was the matter of his dailygrief that had brought his bodily trouble upon him, ' and that it wouldbe 'a favour to him to be gone. ' From a very learned, concise, andwell-written Life, the production of the accomplished editor, whichserves as a clue to guide the reader through the mazes of thecorrespondence, we learn that he died three months after. 

Where there is so much that is interesting, one finds it difficult toselect. The light in which the infamous Sharpe is presented in thisvolume is at least curious. Prelacy, careful of the reputation of herarchbishops, makes a great deal indeed of the bloody death of the man, but says as little as possible regarding his life and character. Thesentimental Jacobitism of the present day--an imaginative principlethat feeds on novels, and admires the persecutors because Claverhousewas brave and had an elegant upper lip--goes a little further, andspeaks of him as the venerable Archbishop. When the famous picture ofhis assassination was exhibiting in Edinburgh, some ten or twelveyears ago, he rose with the class almost to the dignity of a martyr:there were young ladies that could scarce look at the piece withoutusing their handkerchiefs; the victim was old, greyhaired, reverend, an archbishop, and eminently saintly, as a matter of course, whateverthe barbarous fanatics might say; and all that his figure seemed towant in order to make it complete, was just a halo of yellow ochreround the head. In Baillie's _Letters_ we see him exhibited, thoughall unwittingly on the part of the writer, in his true character, andfind that the yellow ochre would be considerably out of place. Rarely, indeed, does nature, all lost and fallen as it is, produce soconsummate a scoundrel. Treachery seems to have existed as souncontrollable an instinct in the man, that, like the appropriatingfaculty of the thief, who amused himself by picking the pocket of theclergyman who conducted him to the scaffold, it seems to have beenincapable of lying still. He appears never to have had a friend whodid not learn to detest and denounce him: his Presbyterian friends, whom he deceived and betrayed, did so in the first instance; hisEpiscopalian friends, whom he at least strove to deceive and betray, did so in the second. We are assured by Burnet, that even Charles, amonarch certainly not over-nice in the moral sense, declared JamesSharpe to be one of the worst of men. His life was a continuous lie;and he has left more proofs of the fact in the form of letters underhis own hand, than perhaps any other bad man that ever lived. 

In Baillie he makes his first appearance as the Presbyterian ministerof Crail, and as one of the honest chronicler's greatest favourites. The unhappy disputes between the Resolutioners and Protesters wererunning high at the time. Baillie was a Resolutioner, Sharpe a zealousResolutioner too; and Baillie, naturally unsuspicious, and biassed inhis behalf by that spirit of party which can darken the judgment ofeven the most discerning, seems to have regarded him as peculiarly thehope of the Church. He was indisputably one of its most dexterousnegotiators; and no man of the age made a higher profession ofreligion. Burnet, who knew him well in his after character asArchbishop of St. Andrews, tells us that never, save on one solitaryoccasion, did he hear him make the slightest allusion to religion. Butin his letters to Baillie, almost every paragraph closes with theaspirations of a well-simulated devotion. They seem as if strewed overwith the fragments of broken doxologies. The old man was, as we havesaid, thoroughly deceived. He assures his continental correspondent, Spang, that 'the great instrument of God to cross the evil designs ofthe Protesters, was that _very worthy, pious, wise, and diligent youngman_, Mr. James Sharpe. ' In some of his after epistles we learn thathe remembered him in his prayers, no doubt very sincerely, as, underGod, one of the mainstays of the Church. What first strikes the readerin the character of Sharpe, as here exhibited, is his exclusivelydiplomatic cast of talent. Baillie himself was a controversialist: hewrote books to influence opinion, and delivered argumentativespeeches. He was a man of business too: he drew up remonstrances, petitions, protests, and carried on the war of his party above-board. All his better friends and correspondents, such as Douglas andDickson, were persons of a resembling cast. But Sharpe's vocation layin dealing with men in closets and window recesses: he could donothing until he had procured the private ear of the individual onwhom he wished to act. Is he desirous to influence the decisions ofthe Supreme Civil Court in behalf of his party? He straightwayingratiates himself with President Broghill, and the court becomesmore favourable in consequence. Is he wishful to propitiate theEnglish Government? He goes up to London, gets closeted with its moreinfluential members. It was this peculiar talent that pointed him outto the Church as so fit a person to treat with Charles at Breda. 

And it is when employed in this mission that we begin truly to see theman, and to discover the sort of ability on which the success of hisclosetings depended. We find Baillie holding, in his simplicity, thatin order to draw the heart of the King from Episcopacy, nothing morecould be necessary than just fairly to submit to him some soundcontroversial work, arranged on the plan of the good man's own_Ladensium_; and urging on Sharpe, that a few able divines should beemployed in getting up a compilation for the express purpose. Sharpewrites in return, in a style sufficiently quiet, that His Majesty, inhis very first address, 'has been pleased to ask very graciously aboutRobert Baillie, ' a person for whom he has a particular kindness, andwhom, if favours were dealing, he would be sure not to forget. Headds, further, that however matters might turn out in England, thePresbyterian Establishment of Scotland was in no danger of violation;and lest his Scotch friends should fall into the error of thinking toomuch about other men's business, he gives fervent expression to thehope 'that the Lord would give them to prize their own mercies, andknow their own duties. ' Even a twelvemonth after, when on the eve ofsetting out for London to be created a bishop, he writes his oldfriend, that whatever 'occasion of jealousies and false surmises hisjourney might give, ' of one thing he might be assured, 'it was not inorder to a change in the Church, ' as he 'would convince his dearfriend Mr. Baillie, through the Lord's help, when the Lord wouldreturn him. ' He has an under-plot of treachery carrying on at the sametime, that affects his 'dear friend' personally. In one of his lettersto the unsuspecting chronicler, he assures him that he was 'doing hisbest, by the Lord's help, ' to get him appointed Principal of theUniversity of Glasgow. In one of his letters to Lauderdale, afterstating that the office, 'in the opinion of many, ' would require a man'of more acrimony and weight' than 'honest Baillie, ' he urges that thepresentation should be sent him, with a blank space, in which the nameof the presentee might be afterwards inserted. 

Baillie, naturally slow to suspect, does not come fully to understandthe character of the man until a very few months before his death. Hethen complains bitterly to his continental correspondent, amid theruin of the Church, and from the gloom of his sick-chamber, thatSharpe was the traitor who, 'piece by piece, had so cunninglytrepanned them, that the cause had been suffered to sink without evena struggle. ' The apostate had gained his object, however, and become'His Grace the Lord Primate. ' There were great rejoicings. 'The newbishops were magnificklie received;' they were feasted by the LordCommissioner's lady on one night, by the Chancellor on another; and inespecial, 'the Archbishop had bought a new coach at London, at thesides whereof two lakqueys in purple did run. '

The vanity of Sharpe is well brought out on another occasion byBurnet. The main object of one of his journeys to London, undertaken alittle more than a twelvemonth after the death of Baillie, was to urgeon the King that, as Primate of Scotland, he should of right takeprecedence of the Scottish Lord Chancellor, and to crave His Majesty'sletter to that effect. In this trait, as in several others, he seemsto have resembled Robespierre. His cruelty to his old friends thePresbyterians is well illustrated by the fact that he could make thecomparative leniency of Lauderdale, apostate and persecutor asLauderdale was, the subject of an accusation against him to Charles. But there is no lack of still directer instances in the biographies ofthe worthies whom his malice pursued. His meanness, too, seems to havebeen equal to his malice and pride. When Lauderdale on one occasionturned fiercely upon him, and threatened to impeach him for_leasing-making_, he 'straightway fell a-trembling and weeping, ' and, to avoid the danger, submitted to appear in the royal presence; andthere, in the coarsest terms, to confess himself a liar. It is abishop who tells the story, and it is only one of a series. Truly thePrimate of all Scotland was fortunate in the death he died. 'Thedismal end of this unhappy man, ' says Burnet, 'struck all people withhorror, and softened his enemies into some tenderness; so that hismemory was treated with decency by those who had very little respectfor him during his life. '

In almost every page in this instructive volume the reader picks uppieces of curious information, or finds matters suggestive ofinteresting thought. There start up ever and anon valuable hints thatgerminate and bear fruit in the mind. We would instance, by way ofillustration, a hint which occurs in a letter to Lauderdale, writtenshortly after the Restoration, and which, though apparently slight, leads legitimately into a not unimportant train of thinking. Scotchmenare much in the habit of referring to the political maxim that theking can do no wrong, as a fundamental principle of the constitution, which concerns them as directly as it does their neighbours theEnglish. Dr. Chalmers alluded to it no later than last week, in hisadmirable speech in the Commission. The old maxim, that the king coulddo no wrong, he said, had now, it would seem, descended from thethrone to the level of courts co-ordinate with the Church. Would itnot be a somewhat curious matter to find that this doctrine is onewhich has in reality not entered Scotland at all? It stands inEngland, a guardian in front of the throne, transferring every blowwhich would otherwise fall on the sovereign himself, to thesovereign's ministers: it is ministers, not sovereigns, who areresponsible to the people of England. But it would at least seem, thatwith regard to the people of Scotland the responsibility extendsfurther. At least the English doctrine was regarded as _exclusively_an English one in the days of Baillie, nearly half a century prior tothe Union, and more than a whole century ahead of those times inwhich the influence of that event began to have the effect of mixingup in men's minds matters peculiar to England with matters common toBritain. We find Baillie, in his letter written immediately after thepassing of the Act Recissory, pronouncing the doctrine that the 'kingcan do no fault, ' as in his judgment 'good and wise, ' but referring toit at the same time as a doctrine, not of the Scottish Constitution, but of the 'State of England. '

The circumstance is of importance chiefly from the light which itserves to cast on an interesting passage in Scottish history. Thefamous declaration of our Scotch Convention at the Revolution, thatJames VII. Had _forfeited_ the throne, as contrasted with thesingularly inadequate though virtually corresponding declaration ofthe English Convention, that James II. 'had _abdicated_ thegovernment, and that the throne was thereby vacant, ' has been oftenremarked by the historians. Hume indirectly accounts for theemployment of the stronger word, by prominently stating that the morezealous among the Scotch Royalists, regarding the assembly as illegal, had forborne to appear at elections, and that the antagonist partycommanded a preponderating majority in consequence; whereas in Englandthe Tories mustered strong, and had to be conciliated by theemployment of softer language. Malcolm Laing, in noticing the fact, contents himself by simply contrasting the indignation on the part ofthe Scotch, which had been aroused by their recent sufferings, withthe quieter temper of the English, who had been less tried by thepressure of actual persecution, and who were anxious to impart toRevolution at least the colour of legitimate succession. And Sir JamesMackintosh, in his _Vindiciæ Gallicæ_, contents himself with simplyremarking that the 'absurd debates in the English Convention werebetter cut short by the Parliament of Scotland, when they used thecorrect and manly expression that James VII. _had forfeited thethrone_. ' We are of opinion that the very different styles of the twoConventions may be accounted for on the ground that, in the onekingdom, the monarch, according to the genius of the constitution, wasregarded as incapable of committing wrong; whereas, in the other, hewas no less constitutionally regarded as equally peccable with any ofhis subjects. A peccable monarch may _forfeit_ his throne; animpeccable one can only _abdicate_ it. The argument must of coursedepend on the soundness of Baillie's statement. Was the doctrine thatthe king can do no wrong a Scottish doctrine at the time of theRevolution, or was it not?

It was at least not a Scottish one in the days of Buchanan, --nor for acentury after, as we may learn very conclusively, not from Buchananhimself, nor his followers--for the political doctrines of a school ofwriters may be much at variance with those of their country--but fromthe many Scottish controversialists on the antagonist side, whoentered the lists against both the master and his disciples. Buchananmaintained, in his philosophical treatise, _De Jure Regni apudScotos_, that there are conditions by which the King of Scotland isbound to his people, on the fulfilment of which the allegiance of thepeople depends, and that 'it is lawful to depose, and even to punishtyrants. ' Knox, with the other worthies of the first Reformation, heldexactly the same doctrine. The _Lex Rex_ of Rutherford testifiessignificantly to the fact that among the worthies of the secondReformation it was not suffered to become obsolete. It takes aprominent place in writings of the later Covenanters, such as the_Hind let Loose_; and at the Revolution it received the practicalconcurrence of the National Convention, and of the country generally. Now the doctrine, be it remembered, was an often disputed one. Buchanan's little work was the very butt of controversy forconsiderably more than an hundred years. It was prohibited byParliament, denounced by monarchs, condemned to the flames byuniversities; great lawyers wrote treatises against it at home, andsome of the most celebrated scholars of continental Europe took thefield against it abroad. We learn from Dr. Irving, in his _ClassicalBiography_, that it was assailed among our own countrymen byBlackwood, Winzet, Barclay, Sir Thomas Craig, Sir John Wemyss, SirLewis Stewart, Sir James Turner, and last, not least, among thewriters who preceded the Revolution, by the meanly obsequious andbloody Sir George Mackenzie. And how did these Scotchmen meet with thegrand doctrine which it embodied? The 'old maxime of the state ofEngland, ' had it extended to the sister kingdom, would have at oncefurnished the materials of reply. If constitutionally the King ofScotland could do no wrong, then _constitutionally_ the King ofScotland could not be deposed. But of an entirely different complexionwas the argument of which the Scottish assailants of Buchanan availedthemselves. It was an argument subversive to the English maxim. Admitting fully that the king _could_ do wrong, they maintained merelythat, for whatever wrong he did, he was responsible, not to hissubjects, but to God only. Whatever the amount of wrong he committed, it was the duty of his subjects, they said, passively to submit to it. On came the Revolution. In England, in perfect agreement with thedoctrine of the king's impeccability--in perfect agreement, at least, so far as words were concerned--it was declared that James hadabdicated the government, and that the throne was thereby vacant; andcertainly it cannot be alleged by even the severest moralist, that ineither abdicating a government or vacating a throne, there is theslightest shadow of moral evil involved. In Scotland the decision wasdifferent. The battle fought in the Convention was exactly that whichhad been previously fought between Buchanan and his antagonists. 'Paterson, Archbishop of Glasgow, and Sir George Mackenzie, asserted, ' says Malcolm Laing, 'the doctrine of divine right, ormaintained, with more plausibility, that every illegal measure ofJames's government was vindicated by the declaration of the lateParliament, that _he was an absolute monarch, entitled to unreservedobedience_, AND ACCOUNTABLE TO NONE; while Sir James Montgomery andSir John Dalrymple, who conducted the debate on the other side, averred that the Parliament was neither competent to grant, nor theking to acquire, _an absolute power, irreconcilable with the_RECIPROCAL OBLIGATIONS DUE TO THE PEOPLE. ' The doctrines of Buchananprevailed; and the estates declared that James VII. Having, through'_the advice of evil and wicked councillors_, invaded the fundamentalconstitution of the kingdom, and altered it from a legal limitedmonarchy to an arbitrary despotic power, ' he had thereby _forfaulted_his right to the crown. ' The terms of the declaration demonstrate thatBaillie was quite in the right regarding the 'old maxime, that theking can do no fault, ' as exclusively a 'maxime of the State ofEngland. ' By acting on the advice of 'evil and wicked councillors, ' itwas declared that a peccable king had forfeited the throne. The factthat there were councillors in the case did not so much even asextenuate the offence: it was the advisers of the King who then, asnow, were accountable to the King's English subjects for the advicethey gave; it was the King in person who was accountable to hisScottish subjects for the advice he took. This principle, hithertolittle adverted to, throws, as we have said, much light on the historyof the Revolution in Scotland. 

FIRST PRINCIPLES. 

There is a passage in the _Life of Sir Matthew Hale_ which hasstruck us as not only interesting in itself, from the breadth andrectitude of judgment which it discloses, but also from the verydirect bearing of the principle involved in it on some of the recentinterdicts of the Supreme Civil Court. It serves to throw a kind ofhistoric light, if we may so speak, on the judicial talent of ourcountry in the present age as exhibited by the majority of our judgesof the Court of Session--such a light as the ecclesiasticalhistorian of a century hence will be disposed to survey it in, whencoolly exercising his judgment on the present eventful struggle. One of not the least prominent nor least remarkable features of theRebellion of 1745, says a shrewd chronicler of this curious portion ofour history, was an utter destitution of military talent among thegeneral officers of the British army. And the time is in allprobability not very distant, in which the extreme lack of judicialgenius betrayed by our courts of law in their present collisionwith the courts ecclesiastical, shall be regarded, in like manner, as one of the more striking characteristics of the _Rebellion_ ofthe present day. 

Sir Matthew Hale, as most of our readers must be aware, was a devotedRoyalist. He was rising in eminence as a barrister at the time theCivil Wars broke out, and during that troublesome period he wasemployed as counsel for almost all the more eminent men of the King'sparty who were impeached by the Parliament. He was counsel for theEarl of Strafford, for Archbishop Laud, for the Duke of Hamilton, forthe Earl of Holland, and for Lords Capel and Craven; and in everyinstance he exhibited courage the most unshrinking and devoted, andabilities of the highest order. When threatened in open court on oneoccasion by the Attorney-General, he replied that the threat might bespared: he was pleading in defence of those laws which the Governmenthad declared it would maintain and preserve, and no fear of personalconsequences should deter him in such circumstances from doing hisduty to his client. When Charles himself was brought to his trial, SirMatthew came voluntarily forward, and offered to plead for him also;but as the King declined recognising the competency of his judges, theoffer was of course rejected. We all know how Malesherbes fared foracting a similar part in France. The counsel of Louis XVI. Closed hishonourable career on the scaffold not long after his unfortunatemaster: his generous advocacy of the devoted monarch cost him hislife. But Cromwell, that 'least flagitious of all usurpers, ' accordingto even Clarendon's estimate, was no Robespierre; and were we calledon to illustrate by a single instance from the history of each thevery opposite characters of the Puritan Republicans of England and theAtheistical Republican of France, we would just set off against oneanother the fate of Malesherbes and the treatment of Sir Matthew. Cromwell, unequalled in his ability of weighing the capabilities ofmen, had been carefully scanning the course of the courageous andhonest barrister; and, convinced that so able a lawyer and so good andbrave a man could scarce fail of making an excellent judge, hedetermined on raising him to the bench. At this stage, however, adifficulty interposed, not in the liberal and enlightened policy ofthe Protector, who had no objections whatever to a conscientiousRoyalist magistrate, but in the scruples of Sir Matthew, who at firstdoubted the propriety of taking office under what he deemed a usurpedpower. 

The process of argument by which he overcame the difficulty, simple asit may seem, is worthy of all heed. Its very simplicity may beregarded as demonstrating the soundness of the understanding thatoriginated and then acted upon it as a firm first principle, especially when we take into account the exquisitely nice character ofthe conscience which it had to satisfy. It is absolutely necessary forthe wellbeing of society, argued Sir Matthew, that justice beadministered between man and man; and the necessity exists altogetherindependently of the great political events which affect the sourcesof power, by changing dynasties or revolutionizing governments. Theclaim of the supreme ruler _de facto_ may be a bad one; he may owe hispower to some act of great political injustice--to an iniquitouswar--to an indefensible revolution--to a foul conspiracy; but the flawin his title cannot be regarded as weakening in the least the claim ofthe people under him to the administration of justice among them asthe ordinance of God. The _right_ of the honest man to be protected bythe magistrate from the thief--the right of the peaceable man to beprotected by the magistrate from the assassin--is not a conditionalright, dependent on the title of the ruler: it is as clear and certainduring those periods so common in history, when the supreme power isillegitimately vested, as during the happier periods of undisputedlegitimacy. And to be a minister of God for the administration ofjustice, if the office be attainable without sin, is as certainlyright at all times as the just exercise of the magistrate's functionsis right at all times. If it be right that society be protected by themagistrate, it is as unequivocally right in the magistrate to protect. But it is wrong to recognise as legitimate the supreme ruler of acountry if his power be palpably usurped. English society, underCromwell, retains its right to have justice administered, whollyunaffected by the flaw in Cromwell's title; but it would be wrong torecognise his title, contrary to one's conviction, as void of anyflaw. In short, to use the simple language of Burnet, Sir Matthew, 'after mature deliberation, came to be of opinion, that as it wasabsolutely necessary to have justice and property kept up at alltimes, it was no sin to take a commission from usurpers, if there wasdeclaration made of acknowledging their authority. ' Cromwell hadbreadth enough to demand no such declaration from Sir Matthew, and sothe latter took his place on the bench. Nor is it necessary to say howhe adorned it. In agreement with his political views, he declinedtaking any part in trials for offences against the State; but in casesof ordinary felonies, no one could act with more vigour and decision. During the trial of a Republican soldier, who had waylaid and murdereda Royalist, the colonel of the soldier came into court to arrestjudgment, on the plea that his man had done only his duty, for thatthe person whom he had killed had been disobeying the Protector'sorders at the time; and to threaten the judge with the vengeance ofthe supreme authority, if he urged matters to an extremity againsthim. Sir Matthew listened coolly to his threats and his reasonings, and then, pronouncing sentence of death against the felon, agreeablyto the finding of the jury, he ordered him out to instant execution, lest the course of justice should be interrupted by any interferenceon the part of Government. On another occasion, in which he had topreside in a trial in which the Protector was deeply concerned, hefound that the jury had been returned, not by the sheriff or hislawful officer, but by order of the Protector himself. He immediatelydismissed them, and, refusing to go on with the trial, broke up thecourt. Cromwell, says Burnet, was highly displeased with him on thisoccasion, and on his return from the circuit in which it hadoccurred, told him in great anger that 'he was not fit to be a judge. ''Very true, ' replied Sir Matthew, whose ideas of the requirements ofthe office were of the most exalted character, --'Very true;' and sothe matter dropped. 

'It is absolutely necessary, ' argued Sir Matthew, 'to have justicekept up at all times, ' whatever flaws may exist in the title of themen in whom the supreme authority may chance to be vested. Never yetwas there a simpler proposition; but there is sublimity in itsbreadth. It involves the true doctrine of subjection to themagistrate, as enforced by St. Paul. The New Testament furnishes uswith no disquisitions on political justice: it does not say whetherthe title of Domitian to the supreme authority was a good title or no, or whether he should have been succeeded by Caligula, and Caligula byClaudius, or no; or whether or no the fact that Claudius was poisonedby the mother of Nero, derived to Nero any right to Claudius's throne. We hear nothing of these matters. The magistracy described by St. Paulis the magistracy conceived of by Sir Matthew Hale 'as necessary to bekept up at all times. ' An application of this simple principle to someof the more marked proceedings of our civil courts during the last twoyears will be found an admirable means of testing their degree ofjudicial wisdom. 'It is absolutely necessary to have justice kept upat all times, ' and this not less necessary surely within than beyondthe pale of the Church. It is necessary that a minister of the gospel'be blameless'--no drunkard, no swindler, no thief, no grossly obsceneperson; nor can any supposed flaw in the constitution of anecclesiastical court disannul the necessity. A man may sit in thatcourt in a judicial capacity whose competency to take his seat theremay not have been determined by some civil court that challenges foritself an equivocal and disputed right to decide in the matter. Theremay exist some supposed, or even some real, flaw in that supremeecclesiastical authority of the country, through the exertion of whichthe Church is to be protected from the infection of vice andirreligion; but this flaw, real or supposed, furnishes no adequatecause why justice in the Church 'should not be kept up. ' 'Justice, 'said Sir Matthew, 'must be kept up at all times, ' whatever theirregularities of title which may occur in the supreme authority. Thegreat society of the Church has a right to justice, whether it bedecided that the ministers of _quoad sacra_ parishes have what hasbeen termed a _legal_ right to sit in ecclesiastical courts or no. Thedevout and honest church member has a right to be protected from theblasphemous profanities of the wretched minister who is a thief orwretched swindler; the chaste and sober have a right to be protectedfrom the ministrations of the drunken and the obscene wretch, whosepreaching is but mockery, and his dispensations of the sacramentsacrilege. The Church has a right to purge itself of such ministers;and these sacred rights no supposed, even no real, flaw in theconstitution of its courts ought to be permitted to affect. 'Justicemay be kept up at all times. ' We have said that the principle of SirMatthew Hale serves to throw a kind of historic light on the judicialtalent of our country in the present age, as represented by themajority of our Lords of Session. It enables us, in some sort, toanticipate regarding it the decision of posterity. The list of casesof protection afforded by the civil court will of itself form acurious climax in the page of some future historian. Swindling willcome after drunkenness in the series, theft will follow afterswindling, and the miserable catalogue will be summed up by an offencewhich we must not name. And it will be remarked that all these grosscrimes were fenced round and protected in professed ministers of thegospel by the interference of the civil courts, just because amajority of the judges were men so defective in judicial genius thatthey lost sight of the very first principles of their profession, andheld that 'justice is _not_ to be kept up at all times. ' But we leaveour readers to follow up the subject. Some of the principles to whichwe have referred may serve to throw additional light on the remark ofLord Ivory, when recalling the interdict in the Southend case. 'Evenwere the objection against the competency of _quoad sacra_ ministersto be ultimately sustained, ' said his Lordship, 'I am disposed to holdthat the judicial acts and sentences of the General Assembly and itsCommission, _bona fide_ pronounced in the interim, should be giveneffect to notwithstanding. '

AN UNSPOKEN SPEECH. 

We enjoyed the honour on Wednesday last of being present as a guestat the annual soiree of the Scottish Young Men's Society, and derivedmuch pleasure from the general appearance of the meeting, and theaddresses of the members and their friends. The body of the greatWaterloo Room was crowded on the occasion with a respectable, intellectual-looking audience, including from about a hundred andfifty to two hundred members of the Society, all of them young menbanded together for mutual improvement, and most of them in thatimportant decade of life--by far the most important of the appointedseven--which intervenes between the fifteenth and the five-and-twentiethyear. The platform was equally well filled, and the Sheriff ofEdinburgh occupied the chair. We felt a particular interest in theobjects of the Society, and a deep sympathy with its members; for, aswe listened to the various speakers, and our eyes glanced over theintelligent countenances that thronged the area of the apartment, wethought of past difficulties encountered in a cause similar to thatwhich formed the uniting bond of the Society, and of not a few wreckswhich we had witnessed of men who had set out in life from the humblerlevels, with the determination of pressing their way upwards. Andfeeling somewhat after the manner that an old sailor would feel who sawa crew of young ones setting out to thread their way through somedangerous strait, the perils of which he had already encountered, or tosail round some formidable cape, which, after many an unsuccessfulattempt, he had doubled, we fancied ourselves in the position of onequalified to give them some little advice regarding the navigation ofthe seas on which they were just entering. But, be the fact ofqualification as it may, we found ourselves, after leaving the room, addressing them, in imagination, in a few plain words, regarding someof the rocks, and shoals, and insidious currents, which we knew lay intheir course. Men whose words come slowly and painfully when amongtheir fellows, can be quite fluent enough when they speak inwardswithout breaking silence, and have merely an imaginary assemblage fortheir audience; and so our short address went off glibly, withoutbreak or interruption, in the style of ordinary conversationalgossip. There are curious precedents on record for the printing ofunspoken speeches. Rejecting, however, all the higher ones, we shall bequite content to take our precedent from the famous speech which the'indigent philosopher' addresses, in one of Goldsmith's _Essays_, to Mr. Bellowsmender and the Cateaton Club. The philosopher begins, it willbe remembered, by telling his imaginary audience, that though NathanBen Funk, the rich Jew, might feel a natural interest in the state ofthe stocks, it was nothing to them, who had no money; and concludesby quoting the 'famous author called Lilly's Grammar. '

'Members of the Scottish Young Men's Society, ' we said, 'it is ratherlate in life for the individual who now addresses you to attemptacquiring the art of the public speaker. Those who have been most inthe habit of noticing the effect of the several mechanical professionson character and intellect, divide them into two classes--the_sedentary_ and the _laborious_; and they remark, that while in the_sedentary_, such as the printing, weaving, tailoring, and shoemakingtrades, there are usually a considerable proportion of fluentspeakers, in the _laborious_ trades, on the other hand, such as thoseof the mason, ship-carpenter, ploughman, and blacksmith, onegenerally meets with but taciturn, slow-speaking men. We need scarcesay in which of these schools we have been trained. You will at oncesee--to borrow from one of the best and most ancient of writers--thatwe are "not eloquent, " but "a man of slow speech, and of a slowtongue. " And yet we think we may venture addressing ourselves, in afew plain words, to an association of young men united for the purposeof mutual improvement. We ought and we do sympathize with you in yourobject; and we congratulate you on the facilities which your numbers, and your library, and your residence in one of the most intellectualcities in the world, cannot fail to afford you in its pursuit. Weourselves have known what it is to prosecute in solitude, with but fewbooks, and encompassed by many difficulties, the search afterknowledge; and we have seen year after year pass by, and the obstaclesin our way remaining apparently as great as at first. And were we tosum up the condensed result of our experience in two brief words ofadvice, it would amount simply to this, "Never despair. " We are toldof Commodore Anson--a man whose sense and courage ultimately triumphedover a series of perhaps the most appalling disasters man everencountered, and who won for himself, by his magnanimity, sagacity, and cool resolution, the applauses of even his enemies, so thatRousseau and Voltaire eulogized him, the one in history, the other inromance, --we are told, we say, of this Anson, that when raised to theBritish peerage, he was permitted to select his own motto, and that hechose an eminently characteristic one--"_Nil Desperandum_. " By allmeans let it be your motto also--not as a thing to be paraded on someheraldic label, but to be engraved upon your hearts. We wish that, amid the elegancies of this hall, we could bring up before you some ofthe scenes of our past life. They would form a curious panorama, andmight serve to teach that in no circumstances, however apparentlydesperate, should men lose hope. Never forget that it is notnecessary, in order to overcome gigantic difficulties, that one'sstrength should be gigantic. Persevering exertion is much more thanstrength. We owe to shovels and wheelbarrows, and human muscles of theaverage size and vigour, the great railway which connects the capitalsof the two kingdoms. And the difficulties which encompass the youngman of humble circumstances and imperfect education, must be regardedas coming under the same category as difficulties of the purelyphysical kind. Interrupted or insulated efforts, however vigorous, will be found to be but of little avail. It is to the element ofcontinuity that you must trust. There is a world of sense in SirWalter Scott's favourite proverb, "_Time_ and I, gentlemen, againstany two. " But though it be unnecessary, in order to secure success, that one's efforts in the contest with gigantic difficulties should bethemselves gigantic, it is essentially necessary that they shouldemploy one's whole strength. Half efforts never accomplish anything. "No man ever did anything well, " says Johnson, "to which he did notapply the whole bent of his mind. " And unless a man keep his headcool, and his faculties undissipated, he need not expect that hisefforts can ever be other than half efforts, or other than of adesultory, fitful, non-productive kind. We do not stand here in thecharacter of a modern Rechabite. But this we must say: Let no youngman ever beguile himself with the hope that he is to make a figure insociety, or rise in the world, unless, as the apostle expresses it, hebe "temperate in all things. " Scotland has produced not a fewdistinguished men who were unfortunately _not_ temperate; but it iswell known that of one of the greatest of them all--perhaps one of themost vigorous-minded men our country ever produced--the intemperatehabits were not formed early. Robert Burns, up till his twenty-sixthyear, when he had mastered all his powers, and produced some of hisfinest poems, was an eminently sober man. Climbing requires not only asteady foot, but a strong head; and we question whether any one everclimbed the perilous steep, where, according to Beattie, "Fame's proudtemple shines afar, " who did not keep his head cool during theprocess. So far as our own experience goes, we can truly state, thatthough we have known not a few working men, possessed some of them ofstrong intellects, and some of them of fine taste, and even of genius, not one have we ever known who rose either to eminence or a competencyunder early formed habits of intemperance. These indeed are thedifficulties that cannot be surmounted, and the only ones. Rather morethan thirty years ago, the drinking usages of the country were morenumerous than they are now. In the mechanical profession in which welaboured they were many: when a foundation was laid, the workmen weretreated to drink; they were treated to drink when the walls werelevelled; they were treated to drink when the building was finished;they were treated to drink when an apprentice joined the squad;treated to drink when his apron was washed; treated to drink when his"time was out;" and occasionally they learned to treat one another todrink. At the first house upon which we were engaged as a slimapprentice boy, the workmen had a royal founding-pint, and two wholeglasses of whisky came to our share. A full-grown man might not deem agill of usquebhae an over-dose, but it was too much for a boyunaccustomed to strong drink; and when the party broke up, and we gothome to our few books--few, but good, and which we had learned at evenan earlier period to pore over with delight--we found, as we openedthe page of a favourite author, the letters dancing before our eyes, and that we could no longer master his sense. The state was perhaps anot very favourable one for forming a resolution in, but we believethe effort served to sober us. We determined in that hour that nevermore would we sacrifice our capacity of intellectual enjoyment to adrinking usage; and during the fifteen years which we spent as anoperative mason, we held, through God's help, by the determination. Weare not sure whether, save for that determination, we would have hadthe honour of a place on this platform to-night. But there are otherkinds of intoxication than that which it is the nature of strong drinkor of drugs to produce. Bacon speaks of a "natural drunkenness. " Andthe hallucinations of this natural drunkenness must be avoided if youwould prosper. Let us specify one of these. Never let yourselves bebeguiled by the idea that fate has misplaced you in life, and thatwere you in some other sphere you would rise. It is true that some men_are_ greatly misplaced; but to brood over the idea is not the bestway of getting the necessary exchange effected. It is not the way atall. Often the best policy in the case is just to forget themisplacement. We remember once deeming ourselves misplaced, when, in aseason of bad health and consequent despondency, we had to work amonglabourers in a quarry. But the feeling soon passed, and we setourselves carefully to examine the quarry. Cowper describes a prisonerof the Bastile beguiling his weary hours by counting the nail-studs onthe door of his cell, upwards, downwards, and across, --

 "Wearing out time in numbering to and fro, The studs that thick emboss his iron door; Then downward and then upwards, then aslant And then alternate; with a sickly hope By dint of change to give his tasteless task Some relish; till, the sum exactly found In all directions, he begins again. "

It was idle work; for to reckon up the door-studs never so oftenwas not the way of opening up the door. But in carefully examiningand recording for our own use the appearances of the stony bars ofour prison, we were greatly more profitably employed. Nay, we hadstumbled on one of the best possible modes of escaping from ourprison. We were in reality getting hold of its bolts and itsstancheons, and converting them into tools in the work of breakingout. We remember once passing a whole season in one of the dreariestdistricts of the north-western Highlands, --a district included inthat unhappy tract of country, doomed, we fear, to poverty andsuffering, which we find marked in the rain-map of Europe with adouble shade of blackness. We had hard work, and often soaking rain, during the day; and at night our damp fuel filled the turf hut inwhich we sheltered with suffocating smoke, and afforded no light bywhich to read. Nor--even ere the year got into its wane, and whenin the long evenings we _had_ light--had we any books to read by it, or a single literary or scientific friend with whom to exchange anidea. We remember at another time living in an agricultural districtin the low country, in a hovel that was open along the ridge of theroof from gable to gable, so that as we lay a-bed we could tellthe hours of the night by the stars that were passing overhead acrossthe chasm. There were about half-a-dozen farm-servants, victims to thebothie system, that ate and slept in the same place; and often, longafter midnight, a disreputable poacher used to come stealthily in, andfling himself down on a lair of straw that he had prepared forhimself in a corner. Now, both the Highland hut and the Lowlandhovel, with their accompaniments of protracted and uncongeniallabour, might be regarded as dreary prisons; and yet we found themto be in reality useful schools, very necessary to our education. And now, when we hear about the state of the Highlands, and thecharacter of our poor Highlanders, and of the influence of the bothiesystem and of the game-laws, we feel that we know considerably moreabout such matters than if our experience had been of a more limitedor more pleasant kind. There are few such prisons in which a youngman of energy and a brave heart can be placed, in which he will notgain more by taking kindly to his work, and looking well about him, than by wasting himself in convulsive endeavours to escape. If he butlearn to think of his prison as a school, there is good hope of hisultimately getting out of it. Were a butcher's boy to ask us--youwill not deem the illustration too low, for you will remember thatHenry Kirke White was once a butcher's boy--were he to ask us howwe thought he could best escape from his miserable employment, wewould at once say, You have rare opportunities of observation; youmay be a butcher's boy in body, but in mind you may become an adeptin one of the profoundest of the sciences, that of comparativeanatomy;--think of yourself as not in a prison, but in a school, and there is no fear but you will rise. There is another delusionof that "natural drunkenness" referred to, against which you mustalso be warned. Never sacrifice your independence to a phantom. Wehave seen young men utterly ruin themselves through the vain beliefthat they were too good for their work. They were mostly lads of aliterary turn, who had got a knack of versifying, and who, in thefond belief that they were poets and men of genius, and that poetsand men of genius should be above the soil and drudgery of mechanicallabour, gave up the profession by which they had lived, poorlymayhap, but independently, and got none other to set in its place. A mistake of this character is always a fatal one; and we trustall of you will ever remember, that though a man may think himselfabove his work, no man _is_, or no man ought to think himself, abovethe high dignity of being independent. In truth, he is but a sorry, weak fellow who measures himself by the conventional status of thelabour by which he lives. Our great poet formed a correcter estimate:

 "What though on hamely fare we dine, Wear hodden grey, and a' that? Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, A man's a man for a' that. "

There is another advice which we would fain give you, though it may beregarded as of a somewhat equivocal kind: Rely upon yourselves. Theman who sets his hopes upon patronage, or the exertions of others inhis behalf, is never so respectable a man, and, save in veryoccasional instances, rarely so _lucky_ a man, as he who bends hisexertions to compel fortune in his behalf, by making himself worthy ofher favours. Some of the greatest wrecks we have seen in life havebeen those of waiters on patronage; and the greatest discontents whichwe have seen in corporations, churches, and states, have arisen fromthe exercise of patronage. Shakespeare tells us, in his exquisitevein, of a virtue that is twice blessed, --blessed in those who give, and blessed in those who receive. Patronage is twice cursed, --cursedin the incompetency which it places where merit ought to be, and inthe incompetency which it creates among the class who make it theirtrust. But the curse which you have mainly to avoid is that which sooften falls on those who waste their time and suffer their energies toevaporate in weakly and obsequiously waiting upon it. We thereforesay, Rely upon yourselves. But there is One other on whom you mustrely; and implicit reliance on Him, instead of inducing weakness, infinitely increases strength. Bacon has well said, that a dog isbrave and generous when he believes himself backed by his master, buttimid and crouching, especially in a strange place, when he is aloneand his master away. And a human master, says the philosopher, is as agod to the dog. It certainly does inspire a man with strength tobelieve that his great Master is behind him, invigorating him in hisstruggles, and protecting him against every danger. We knew in earlylife a few smart infidels--smart but shallow; but not one of them everfound their way into notice; and though we have not yet lived out ourhalf century, they have in that space all disappeared. There arevarious causes which conspire to write it down as fate, that thehumble infidel should be unsuccessful in life. In the first place, infidelity is not a mark of good sense, but very much the reverse. Wehave been much struck by a passage which occurs in the autobiographyof a great general of the early part of the last century. In relatingthe disasters and defeats experienced in a certain campaign by twosubordinate general officers, chiefly through misconduct, and a lackof the necessary shrewdness, he adds, "I ever suspected the judgmentof these men since I found that they professed themselves infidels. "The sagacious general had inferred that their profession of infidelityaugured a lack of sense; and that, when they got into command, thesame lack of sense which led them to glory in their shame would beproductive, as its necessary results, of misfortune and disaster. There is a shrewd lesson here to the class who doubt and cavil simplyto show their parts. In the second place, infidelity, on the principleof Bacon, is a weak, tottering thing, unbuttressed by that supportwhich gives to poor human nature half its strength and all itsdignity. But, above all, in the third and last place, the humbleinfidel, unballasted by right principle, sets out on the perilousvoyage of life without chart or compass, and, drifting from off thesafe course, gets among rocks and breakers, and there perishes. But wemust not trespass on your time. With regard to the conduct of yourstudies, we simply say, Strive to be catholic in your tastes. Some ofyou will have a leaning to science; some to literature. To the oneclass we would say, Your literature will be all the more solid if youcan get a vein of true science to run through it; and to the other, Your science will be all the more fascinating if you temper andgarnish it with literature. In truth, almost all the greater subjectsof man's contemplation belong to both fields. Of subjects such asastronomy and geology, for instance, the poetry is as sublime as thescience is profound. As a pretty general rule, you will perhaps findliterature most engaging in youth, and science as you grow in years. But faculties for both have been given you by the great Taskmaster, and it is your bounden duty that these be exercised aright. And so letus urge you, in conclusion, in the words of Coleridge:

 "Therefore to go and join head, heart, and hand, Active and firm to fight the bloodless fight Of science, freedom, and the truth in Christ. "

DISRUPTION PRINCIPLES. 

One of the many dangers to which the members of a disestablishedChurch just escaped from State control and the turmoil of an excitingstruggle are liable, is the danger of getting just a little wild onminute semi-metaphysical points, and of either quarrelling regardingthem with their neighbours, or of falling out among themselves. Greatcontroversies, involving broad principles, have in the history of theChurch not unfrequently broken into small controversies, involvingnarrow principles; just as in the history of the world mighty empireslike that of Alexander the Great have broken up into petty provinces, headed by mere satraps and captains, when the master-mind that formedtheir uniting bond has been removed. Independently of that stabilitywhich the legalized framework of a rightly-constituted Establishmentis almost sure to impart to its distinctive doctrines, the influenceof its temporalities has in one special direction a sobering andwholesome effect. Men carefully weigh principles for the assertion ofwhich they may be called on to sacrifice or to suffer, and are usuallylittle in danger, in such circumstances, of becoming martyrs to a merecrotchet. The first beginnings of notions that, if suffered to grow inthe mind, may at length tyrannize over it, and lead even the moralsense captive, are often exceedingly minute. 

They start up in the form of, mayhap, solitary ideas, chance-derivedfrom some unexpected association, or picked up in conversation orreading; the attention gradually concentrates upon them; auxiliaryideas, in consequence, spring up around them; they assume a logicalform--connect themselves, on the one hand, with certain revealedinjunctions of wide meaning--lay hold, on the other, on a previouslydeveloped devotional spirit or well-trained conscientiousness; and, inthe end, if the minds in which they have arisen be influential ones, they alter the aspects and names of religious bodies, and place in astate of insulation and schism churches and congregations. 

Their rise somewhat resembles that of the waves, as described byFranklin in his paper on the effects of oil in inducing a calm, or inpreserving one. 'The first-raised waves, ' he says, 'are mere wrinkles;but being continually acted upon by the wind, they are, though thegale does not increase in strength, continually increased inmagnitude, rising higher, and extending their bases so as to includein each wave vast masses, and to act with great momentum. The wind, however, ' continues the philosopher, 'blowing over water covered withoil, cannot _catch_ upon it so as to raise the first or elementarywrinkles, but slides over it, and leaves it smooth as it finds it; andbeing thus prevented from producing these first elements of waves, itof course cannot produce the waves themselves. ' In applying theillustration just a little further, we would remark, that within awholesomely-constituted religious Establishment, the influence of thetemporalities acts in preventing the rise of new notions, like thesmoothing oil. If it does not wholly prevent the formation of thefirst wrinkles of novel opinion, it at least prevents theirheightening into wavelets or seas. If the billows rise within so as todisrupt the framework of the Establishment, and make wreck of itstemporalities, it may be fairly premised that they have risen not fromany impulsion of the light winds of uncertain doctrine, but, as in theCanton de Vaud and the Church of Scotland, in obedience to the strongground-swell of sterling principle. 

Now we deem it a mighty advantage, and one which should not bewilfully neutralized by any after act of the body, that thedistinctive principles of the Free Church bear the stamp and pressureof sacrifice. The temporalities resigned for their sake do notadequately measure their value; but they at least demonstrate that, in the estimate of those who resigned them, the principles did ofa certainty possess value up to the amount resigned. The Disruptionforms a guarantee for the stamina of our Church's peculiar tenets, and impresses upon them, in relation to the conscience of the Church, the stamp of reality and genuineness. And that influence of thetemporalities to which we refer, and under which the controversygrew, had yet another wholesome influence. It prevented the wrinklingsof new, untried notions from gathering momentum, and rising intowaves. The great billows, influential in producing so much, werethe result of ancient, well-tested realities: they had rolleddownwards, fully formed, as a portion of the great ground-swell ofthe Reformation. The Headship of the adorable Redeemer--the spiritualindependence of the Church--the rights of the Christian people: thesewere not crotchets based on foundations of bad metaphysics; theywere vital, all-important principles, worthy of being maintained andasserted at any cost. It is indeed wonderful how entirely, immediatelyprevious to the Disruption, the Church of Scotland assumed all thelineaments of her former self, as she existed in the days of Knox andhis brethren. Once more, after the lapse of many years, she stood onbroad anti-patronage ground. Once more, after having been swaddled upfor an age in the narrow exclusiveness of the Act of 1799, that hadplaced her in a state of non-communion with the whole Christianworld, she occupied, through its repeal, the truly liberal positionwith regard to the other evangelistic churches of her early fathers. Once more her discipline, awakened from its long slumber, had becomeefficient, as in her best days, for every purpose of purity. Shehad become, on the eve of her disestablishment, after many anintervening metamorphosis, exactly, in character and lineament, theChurch which had been established by the State nearly three centuriesbefore. She went out as she had come in. There was a peculiarsobriety, too, in all her actings. Her sufferings and sacrificeswere direct consequents of the invasion of her province by the civilmagistrate. 

But she did not on that account cease to recognise the magistrate inhis own proper walk as the minister of God. 

Her aggrieved members never once forgot that they were Scotchmen andBritons as certainly as Presbyterians, and that they had a country ascertainly as a Church to which they owed service, and which it wasunequivocally their duty to defend. 

They retreated from the Establishment, and gave up all its advantageswhen the post had become so untenable that these could be no longerretained with honour--or we should perhaps rather say, retainedcompatibly with right principle; but they did not in wholesaledesperation give up other posts which could still be conscientiouslymaintained. 

The educational establishment of the country, for instance, was notabandoned, though the ecclesiastical one was. 

The Principal of the United College of Saint Salvador and SaintLeonard's signed the Deed of Demission in his capacity as an elder ofthe Church, but in his capacity of Principal he returned to hisCollege, and in that post fought what was virtually the battle of hiscountry, and fought it so bravely and well that he is Principal of theCollege still. And the parish schoolmasters who adhered to the FreeChurch fought an exactly similar battle, though unfortunately with aless happy issue; but that issue gives at least prominence to the factthat they did not resign their charges, but were thrust from them. The other functionaries of the Assembly, uninfluenced by any wildCameronian notion, held by their various secular offices, civil andmilitary. Soldiers retained their commissions--magistrates their seatson the bench--members of Parliament their representative status. Nordid a single member of the Protesting Church possessed of thefranchise resign, in consequence of the Disruption, a single politicalright or privilege. The entire transaction bore, we repeat, the stampof perfect sobriety. It was in all its details the act of men in theirright minds. 

Now the principles held by the Church at the Disruption, and noneother, whether Voluntary or Cameronian, are the principles of the FreeChurch. A powerful majority in a Presbyterian body, or in a countrypossessed of a representative government, are vested in at least the_power_ of making whatever laws they will to make, for not onlythemselves, but for the minority also. But _power_ is not _right_; andwe would at once question the _right_ of even a preponderatingmajority in a Church such as ours to introduce new principles into herframework, and to impose them on the minority. We question, on thisprinciple, the _right_ of that act of discipline which was exercisedin the present century by a preponderating majority of the Antiburgherbody in Scotland, when they deposed and excommunicated the late Dr. M'Crie for the ecclesiastical offence of holding in every particularby the original tenets of the fathers of the Secession. 

The overt act in the case manifested their _power_, but the variousattempts made to manifest their _right_ we regard as mere abortions. They had no _right_ to do what they did. The questions on which themajority differed from their fathers ought in justice, instead ofbeing made a subject of legislation, to be left an open question. Andwe hold, on a similar principle, that whatever questions of conductor polity may arise in the Free Church, which, though new to it, yetcome to be adopted by a majority, should be left open questions also. Of course, of novelties in doctrine we do not speak, --we trust thatwithin the Free Church none such will ever arise; we refer rather tothose semi-metaphysical points of casuistry, and nice questions ofconduct, in which the differences that perplex non-establishedChurches are most liable to originate, --matters in which one man seesafter one way, and another man after another, --and which, until heapedup into importance, wave-like, as if by the wind, pertain not to theprovince of solid demonstrable truth, but to the province of loosefluctuating opinion. And be it remarked, that non-established Churchesare very apt to be disturbed by such questions. 

They are in circumstances in which the ripple passes into the wavelet, and the wavelet into the billow. On this head, as on all others, thereis great value in the teachings of history; and the Free Church mightbe worse employed than in occasionally conning the lesson. Each fiftyyears of the last century and half has been marked by its own specialquestions of the kind among the non-established Churches of Scotland. 

The question of the last fifty years has been that Voluntary one whichvirtually led to the striking off the roll of the AntiburgherSecession Church, those protesting ministers who formed the nucleus ofthe Original Secession, and to the excommunication and deposition ofDr. M'Crie. The question of the preceding fifty years was thatconnected with the burghal oath, which had the effect of splittinginto two antagonist sections the religious body of which the BurgherSecession formed but one of the fragments, --a body fast rising at thetime into a position of importance, which the split prevented it fromever fully realizing. The question of the fifty years with which theperiod began was that which fixed the Cameronian body, not merely ina condition of unsocial seclusion in its relation with all otherchurches, but even detached it from its allegiance to the State, andplaced it in circumstances of positive rebellion. Perhaps the historyof this latter body, as embodied in its older testimony, and thecontroversial writings of its Fairlys and Thorburns, is that from thestudy of which the Free Church might derive most profit at the presenttime. We live in so late an age of the world, that we have littlechance of finding much which is positively new in the writings orspeeches of our casuists. When we detect, in consequence, some of ourministers or office-bearers sporting principles that do notdistinctively belong to the Church of the Disruption, we may be prettysure, if we but search well, of discovering these principles existingas the distinctive tenets of some other Church; and the presenttendency of a most small but most respectable minority in our body isdecidedly Cameronian. 

The passages of Scripture on which the Cameronians chiefly dwelt intheir testimony and controversial writings, were those discussed bythe Free Presbytery of Edinburgh on Wednesday last. As condemnatory ofwhat is designated the great national sin of the Union, for instance, the testimony adduces, among other texts, Isa. Viii. 12, 'Say ye not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, Aconfederacy;' Hos. Vii. 8, 9, 'Ephraim hath mixed himself among thepeople; Ephraim is a cake not turned. Strangers have devoured hisstrength, and he knoweth it not; yea, grey hairs are here and thereupon him, and he knoweth it not;' and above all, 2 Cor. Vi. 14, 15, 'Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for whatfellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness, and what communionhath light with darkness, and what concord hath Christ with Belial, orwhat part hath he that believeth with an infidel?' And let the readermark how logically these Scriptures are applied. 'All associationsand confederacies with the enemies of true religion and godliness, 'says the Testimony, 'are thus expressly condemned in Scripture, andrepresented as dangerous to the true Israel of God. And if simpleconfederacies with malignants and enemies to the cause of Christ arecondemned, much more is an incorporation with them, which is anembodying of two into one, and therefore a straiter conjunction. And, taking the definition of malignants given by the declarations of bothkingdoms, joined in arms _anno_ 1643, to be just, which says, "Such aswould not take the Covenant were to be declared to be public enemiesto religion and their country, and that they are to be censured andpunished as professed adversaries and malignants, " it cannot berefused but that the prelatic party in England now joined with aresuch. Further, by this incorporating union this nation is obliged tosupport the _idolatrous_ Church of England. ' And thus the argumentruns on irrefragable in its logic, if we but grant the premises. Butto what, we ask, did it lead, assisted, of course, by other argumentsof a similar character, in the body with whom it originated? To theirwithdrawal, from the times of the Revolution till now, from everynational movement in the cause of Christ and His gospel; nay, mostconsistently, we must add--for we have ever failed to see the sense orlogic of acting a public and political part in our own or ourneighbour's behalf, and declining on principle to act it in behalf ofChristianity or its institutions--not only have they withdrawnthemselves from all political exertion in behalf of religion, but inbehalf of their country also. A Cameronian holding firm by hisprinciples of non-incorporation with _idolaters_, cannot be amagistrate nor a member of Parliament; he cannot vote in an election, nor serve in the army. 

It is one of the grand evils of questions of casuistry of this kind, that men, instead of looking at things and estimating them as theyreally exist, are contented to play games at logic--chopping with butthe imperfect signs of things--mere verbal counters, twisted fromtheir original meanings by the influence of delusive metaphors andfalse associations. 

Let us just see, in reference not to mere words, but to things, whatcan be truly meant by the terms 'apostate or apostatizing Government, 'as applied to the Government of Great Britain. The words can have ofcourse no just application, in a personal bearing, to present membersof Government, as distinguished from the members of previousGovernments, seeing that the functionaries now in office are just asmuch, or rather as little religious, as any other functionaries inoffice since the times of the Revolution or before. In a _personal_sense, England's last religious government was that of Cromwell. Theterm apostate, or apostatizing, can have only an _official_ meaning. What, then, in its official meaning, does it in reality express? Thegovernment of the United Kingdom is representative; and it is one ofthe great blessings which we enjoy as citizens that it is so, --one ofthose blessings for which we may now, as when we were younger, expressourselves thankful in the words of honest Isaac Watts, 'that we wereborn on British ground. ' At any rate, this fact of representation _is_a _fact_--a _thing_, not a mere _word_. There is another fact in thecase equally solid and certain. This representation of the empire isbased on a population of about twenty-six millions of people; twelvemillions of whom are Episcopalian, eight millions Roman Catholic, three millions Presbyterian, and three millions more divided among thevarious other Protestant sects of the country. And this also is a_fact_--a _thing_, not a mere _word_. 

In the good providence of God we were born the citizens of an empirethus representative in its government, and thus ecclesiasticallyconstituted in its population. 

And it would be a further fact consequent on the other two, that theaggregate character of the Government would represent the aggregatemoral and ecclesiastical character of the people, were every distinctportion into which the people are parcelled to exert itself inproportion to its share of political influence. But from the yetfurther fact, that the portions have _not_ always exerted themselvesin equal ratios, and from other causes, political and providential, the character of the Government has considerably fluctuated--nowrepresenting one portion more in proportion to its amount than itsmere bulk warranted, anon another. Thus, in the days of theCommonwealth, what are now the six million Presbyterians andIndependents, etc. , had a British Government wholly representative ofthemselves; while what are now the twelve million Episcopalians andthe eight million Papists had none. 

England at the time produced one of those men, of a type surpassinglygreat, that the world fails to see once in centuries; and, likeBrennus of old, he flung his sword into the lighter scale, and itstraightway outweighed the other. There then ensued a period oftwenty-eight years, in which Government represented only theEpiscopalians and Papists: and then a period of a hundred and fortyyears more, in which it represented only the Episcopalians andPresbyterians. And now--for Popery, growing strong in the interval, had been using all appliances in its own behalf, and had not been metin the proper spiritual field--it represents Episcopacy, RomanCatholicism, and a minute, uninfluential portion of the Presbyterianand other evangelistic bodies. But how, it may be asked, has thisresult taken place?

How is it only a moiety of these bodies that is represented? Mainly, weunhesitatingly reply, through the influence exerted by certaincrotchets entertained by the bodies themselves on their politicalstanding. When Government at the Revolution, instead of being as formerlyrepresentative of Episcopacy and Popery, became representative ofEpiscopacy and Presbytery, Cameronianism broke off, on the plea that thegoverning power ought to be representative of Presbytery only, andthat it was apostate because it was not; and the political influenceof the body has been ever since lost to the Protestant cause. Voluntaryism, on the other hand, neutralized _its_ influence, byholding that, though quite at freedom to exert itself in the politicalwalk in attaining secular objects, religious objects are in that walkunattainable, or at least not to be attained; and so _it_ also has beenvirtually lost to the Protestant cause. And now a cloud like a man's handarises in our own Church, to threaten a further secession from the ranksof the remaining class, who strive to stamp upon the Government, throughthe operation of the representative principle, at least a modicum ofthe evangelistic character. And all this is taking place in an age inwhich the battle for the integrity of the Sabbath as a nationalinstitute, and other similar battles, shall soon have to be decided onpolitical ground. If 'apostate' or 'apostatizing' be at all proper wordsin reference to the _things_ which we have here described, what, we ask, save the want either of weight or of exertion on the part of the_represented_ bodies who complain of it, can be properly regarded as the_cause_ of that apostasy? A representative Government, if therepresented be Episcopalian, will itself be officially Episcopalian; ifthe represented be Papist, it will itself be officially Papist; if therepresented be Presbyterian, it will itself be officially Presbyterian;if composed of all three together, the Government will bear an aggregateaverage character; but if, on some crotchet, the Presbyterians withdrawfrom the political field, while the others exert themselves in thatfield to the utmost, it will be Popish and Episcopalian exclusively. Butfor a result so undesirable--a result which, if Presbytery had beenformerly in the ascendant, might of course be called officialapostasy--it would be the Presbyterian constituency that would be toblame, not the Government. 

It will be seen that this view of the real state of _things_ was thatof Knox and Chalmers, and that they acted in due accordance with it. We are told by the younger M'Crie, in his admirable _Sketches ofScottish Church History_, 'that Knox and his brethren, perceiving thatthe whole ecclesiastical property of the kingdom bade fair to be soonswallowed up by the rapacity of the nobles, insisted that aconsiderable portion of it should be reserved for the support of thepoor, the founding of universities and schools, and the maintenance ofan efficient ministry throughout the country. At last, ' continues thehistorian, 'after great difficulty, the Privy Council came to thedetermination that the ecclesiastical revenues should be divided intothree parts, --that two of them should be given to the ejected prelatesduring their lives, which afterwards reverted to the nobility, andthat the third part should be divided between the Court and theProtestant ministry. '

'Well, ' exclaimed Knox on hearing of this arrangement, 'if the end ofthis order be happy, my judgment fails me. I see two parts freelygiven to the devil, and the third must be divided between God and thedevil. ' Strong words these. Here is a Government, according to Knox'sown statement of the case, giving five-sixths to the devil, and but aremaining sixth to God. But does Knox on that account refuse God'smoiety? Does he set himself to reason metaphysically regarding _his_degree of responsibility for either what the devil got, or what theGovernment gave the devil. Not he. He received God's part, and inapplying it wisely and honestly to God's service, wished it more; butas for the rest, like a man of broad strong sense as he assuredly was, he left the devil and the Privy Council to divide the responsibilitybetween them. And the large-minded Chalmers entertained exactly thesame views, --views which, if not in thorough harmony with the idlefictions which dialecticians employ when they treat of Governments, atleast entirely accord with the real condition of things. The officialcharacter of a representative Legislature must, as we have shown, resemble that of the constituency which it represents. In order toalter it permanently for the better, it is essentially necessary, as afirst step in the process, that the worse parts of the constituencieson which it rests be so altered. 

Now, for altering constituencies for the better, schools and churcheswere the machinery of Knox and of Chalmers; and if the funds for thesupport of either came honestly to them, unclogged with conditionsunworthy of the object, they at once received them as given on God'sbehalf, however idolatrously the givers--whether individuals orGovernments--might be employing money drawn from the same purse inother directions. 'Ought I, ' said Chalmers in reference to theEducational question, 'ought I not to use, on teetotal principles, thewater of the public pump, because another man mixes it with histoddy?' It was not because Popery was established in the colonies, orseemed in danger of being established in Ireland, that the Free Churchresigned its hold of the temporalities of the Scottish Establishment. Such endowment, instead of forming an argument for resignation, wouldform, on the contrary, an argument for keeping faster hold, in behalfof Protestantism, of the fortalice of the Establishment; just as if aninvading army had possessed itself of the Castle of Dumbarton, withthe strongholds of Fort-Augustus and Fort-William, the argument wouldbe all the stronger for the national forces defending with reneweddetermination the Castles of Stirling and of Edinburgh, and themagnificent defences of Fort-George. 

_February 9, 1848. _

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CRIMEAN WAR. 

The war now happily concluded was characterized by some veryremarkable features. It was on the part of Britain the war of a highlycivilised country, in a pre-eminently mechanical, and, with all itsfaults, singularly humane age, --in an age, too, remarkable for thediffusion of its literature; and hence certain conspicuous traitswhich belonged to none of the other wars in which our country had beenpreviously engaged. Never before did such completely equipped fleetsand armies quit our shores. The navies with which we covered the BlackSea and the Baltic were not at all what they would have been had thewar lasted for one other campaign, but they mightily exceeded anythingof the kind that Britain or the world had ever seen before. The fleetsof Copenhagen, Trafalgar, and the Nile would have cut but a sorryfigure beside them, and there was more of the _materiel_ of warconcentrated on that one siege of Sebastopol than on any half-dozenother sieges recorded in British history. In all that mechanical artcould accomplish, the late war with Russia was by far the mostconsiderable in which our country was ever engaged. It was, in respectof _materiel_, a war of the world's pre-eminently mechanical people inthe world's pre-eminently mechanical age. With this strong leadingfeature, however, there mingled another, equally marked, in which theelement was weakness, not strength. The men who beat all the world inheading pins are unable often to do anything else; for usually, inproportion as mechanical skill becomes intense, does it also becomenarrow; and the history of the two campaigns before Sebastopol broughtout very strikingly a certain helplessness on the part of the Britisharmy, part of which at least must be attributed to this cause. It issurely a remarkable fact, that in an army never more than seven milesremoved from the base line of its operations, the distress sufferedwas so great, that nearly _five_ times the number of men sank under itthat perished in battle. There was no want among them of pinheadingand pinheaded martinets. The errors of officers such as Lucan andCardigan are understood to be all on the side of severity; but inheading their pin, they wholly exhaust their art; and under theirsurveillance and direction a great army became a small one, with thesea covered by a British fleet only a few miles away. So far as thestatistics of the British portion of this greatest of sieges have yetbeen ascertained, rather more than _three_ thousand men perished inbattle by the shot or steel of the enemy, or afterwards of theirwounds, and rather more than _fifteen_ thousand men of privation anddisease. As for the poor soldiers themselves, they could do but littlein even more favourable circumstances under the pinheading martinets;and yet at least such of them as were drawn from the more thoroughlyartificial districts of the country must, we suspect, have fared allthe worse in consequence of that subdivision of labour which has somightily improved the mechanical standing of Britain in the aggregate, and so restricted and lowered the general ability in individuals. Wecannot help thinking that an army of backwoodsmen of the present day, or of Scotch Highlanders marked by the prevailing traits of the lastcentury, would have fared better and suffered less. 

Another remarkable feature of the war arose out of the singularlyready and wonderfully diffused literature of the day. Like thoseself-registering machines that keep a strict account of their ownworkings, it seemed to be engaged, as it went on, in writing, stageafter stage, its own history. The acting never got a single day aheadof the writing, and never a single week ahead of the publishing; and, in consequence, the whole civilised world became the interestedwitnesses of what was going on. The war became a great game at chess, with a critical public looking over the shoulders of the players. Itwas a peculiar feature, too, that the public _should_ have been socritical. As the literature of a people becomes old, it weakens in thepower of originating, and strengthens in the power of criticising. Reviews and critiques become the master efforts of a learned andingenious people, whose literature has passed its full blow; and thecriticism extends always, in countries in which the press is free fromthe productions of men who write in their closets, to the actings ofmen who conduct the political business of the country, or who directits fleets and armies. And with regard to them also it may be safelyaffirmed, that the critical ability overshoots and excels theoriginating ability. There seems to have been no remarkably goodgeneralship manifested by Britain in the Crimea: all the leadinggeneralship appears, on the contrary, to have been very mediocregeneralship indeed. The common men and subordinate officers did theirduty nobly; and there have been such splendid examples of skilfulgeneralship in fourth and fifth-rate commands--commands such as thatof Sir Colin Campbell and Sir George Brown--that it has been notunfrequently asked, whether we had in reality the 'right men in theright places, ' and whether there might not, after all, have beengeneralship enough in the Crimea had it been but rightly arranged. Butthe leading generalship was certainly _not_ brilliant. The criticismupon it, on the other hand, has been singularly so. The ages ofMarlborough and Wellington did not produce a tithe of the brilliantmilitary criticism which has appeared in England in newspapers, magazines, and reviews during the last two years. And yet it ispossible that, had the very cleverest of these critics been appointedto the chief command, he would have got on as ill as any of hispredecessors. In truth, the power of originating and the power ofcriticising are essentially different powers in the worlds both ofthought and of action. Talent accumulates the materials of criticismfrom the experience of the past; and thus, as the world gets older, the critical ability grows, and becomes at length formidablycomplete;--whereas the power of originating, or, what is the samething, of acting wisely, and on the spur of the moment, in new anduntried circumstances, is an incommunicable faculty, which genius, andgenius only, can possess. And genius is as rare now as it ever was. Any man of talent can be converted, by dint of study and painstaking, into a good military critic; but a Wellington or a Napoleon had ascertainly to be born what they were, as a Dante or a Milton. 

But by far the most pleasing feature of the war--of at least the parttaken in it by Britain--is to be found in that humanity, the bestevidence of a civilisation truly Christian, which has characterized itin all its stages. Generous regard for the safety and respect for thefeelings of a brave enemy, when conquered, have marked our countrymenfor centuries. But we owe it to the peculiar philanthropy of the time, that, in the midst of much official neglect, our own sick and woundedsoldiers have been cared for after a fashion in which British soldierswere never cared for before. The 'lady nurses, ' with Miss Nightingaleat their head, imparted its most distinctive character to the war. Wehave now before us a deeply interesting volume, {1} the production ofone of these devoted females, a native of the north country, or, asshe was introduced by an old French officer to some Zouaves, herfellow-passengers to the East, whom she had wished to see, a true'_Montagnarde de Ecossaise_. ' The name of the authoress is not given;but it will, we daresay, be recognised in the neighbourhood of the'capital of the Highlands' as that of a delicately nurtured lady, thedaughter of a late distinguished physician, well known to the north ofthe Grampians as an able and upright man, who, had he not sosedulously devoted himself to the profession which he adorned, mighthave excelled in almost any department of science. And in strong soundsense and genial feeling, we find the daughter worthy of such afather. Some of our more zealous Protestants professed at one time nota little alarm lest the lady nurses might be Papists in disguise; andcertainly their 'regulation dresses, ' all cut after one fashion, andof one sombre hue, did seem a little nun-like, and perhaps ratheralarming. But the following passage--which, from the amusing mixturewhich it exhibits of strong good sense and half-indignant womanlyfeeling, our readers will, we are sure, relish--may serve to show thatsome of the ladies who wore the questionable dress, liked it quite asill as the most zealous member of the Reformation Society could havedone, and were very excellent Protestants under its cover. Theauthoress of the volume before us is a Presbyterian; and the occasionof the following remarks was the meeting of the British Consul atMarseilles, and the necessity that herself and her companions felt ofgetting head-dresses for themselves, that could be looked at ereentertaining him at dinner. 'Perhaps it may be thought, ' says ourauthoress, 'that all this solicitude about our caps was unsuitable inpersons going out as what is called "Sisters of Mercy;" but I mustonce for all say that, as far as I was concerned, I neither professedto be a "Sister of Charity, " a "Sister of Mercy, " nor anything of thekind. I was, as I told a _poissarde_ of Boulogne, a British woman whohad little to do at home, and wished to help our poor soldiers, if Icould, abroad. The reason given to me for the peculiarity anduniformity of our dress was, that the soldiers might know and respecttheir nurses. It seems a sensible reason, and one which I could notobject to, even disliking, as I did, all peculiarity of attire thatseemed to advertise the nurses only as serving God, or serving Himpre-eminently, and thus conveying a tacit reproach to the rest of theworld; for the obligation lies on all the same. I did not feel then, nor do I now, that we were doing anything better or more praiseworthythan is done in a quiet, unostentatious way at home every day. On thecontrary, to many temperaments, my own among the number, it is farless difficult to engage in a new and exciting work like the one wewere then entering on there, than to pursue the uneventful monotony ofdaily doing good at home. As for the dress itself, I have nothing tosay against it. Although not perhaps of the material or texture Ishould have preferred, still the colour, grey, was one I generallywore from choice. But I must confess, that when I found myselfrestricted to it, without what seemed a good reason, an intense desirefor blue, green, red, and yellow, with all their combinations, tookpossession of me; though, now that I may wear what I please, I find myformer favour for grey has returned in full force. However, allowingthat it was desirable we should have had some uniform costume, itcertainly was unnecessary that ladies, nurses, and washerwomen shouldhave been dressed alike, as we were. That was part of the mistake Ihave already adverted to, and was productive of confusion and badfeeling. '

Despite of the uniform dresses, however, the sick and wounded soldierssoon learned to distinguish between the paid nurses and the ladies whohad left their comfortable British homes to lavish upon them theirgratuitous, priceless labours. 

 * * * * *

There is no assumption in this volume. Its authoress writes as if shehad done only her duty, and as if the task had not been an exceedinglyhard or difficult one; but the simple facts related show how very muchwas accomplished and endured. Every chapter justifies the judgmentpronounced by the tall Irish sergeant. This lady nurse is a 'real finewoman, '--a noble specimen of the class whose disinterested andself-sacrificing exertions gave to the late war its most distinctiveand brilliant feature. The bravery of British men had been longestablished; the superadded trait is the heroism of British women. Inwhat circumstances of peril and suffering that heroism was exerted, the following extract, with which we conclude, may serve to show. Itis the funeral of one of the lady nurses, who sank under an attack ofmalignant fever, that the following striking passage records:--

'The Protestant burial-ground is a dismal-looking, neglected spot. Itwas chosen from an idea that Drusilla's friends at home might preferit to the open hill where the soldiers lay; but if there had been timefor consideration and inspection, it would have been otherwisearranged: for the appearance of the place struck a chill to ourhearts--it looked so dark and dreary, with the grass more than a foothigh, and the weeds towering above it; and from its being close to thebay, and the porous nature of the soil, the grave which had been dugon the forenoon was almost filled by water; and on the words, "Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God, " we heard the coffinsplash into the half-full grave. There was a general regret afterwardsthat this burial-ground had been chosen, but poor Drusilla will notsleep the less soundly; and we all agreed, on leaving her grave, thatwhoever of us was next called to die, should be buried on the hill, inthe spot allotted to the poor soldiers, open and unprotected as itwas. Death seemed very near to us then; we had already lost twoorderlies, and many of the nurses were lying at the gates of death. Miss A---- had made an almost miraculous escape, and was not yet outof danger from relapse. The first gap had been made in our immediateparty, and who of us could tell whether she herself was not to be thenext?

'The evening was fast closing as we returned, some in caiques, andothers walking solemnly and sadly; for, besides the feelings naturallyattending such a scene, we all regretted poor Drusilla, who, althoughshe had not been long among us, was so obliging and anxious to be ofuse. She was a good-looking young woman, and immediately on herarrival had become the object of attraction to one of the clerks, whose attentions, however, she most steadily declined. He stillpersisted in showing the most extraordinary attachment to her, andduring her illness was in such a state of excitement and distress asto be utterly incapacitated for attending to his duties properly. Heused to sit on the stairs leading to her room, in the hopes of seeingsome one who could tell him how she was, and went perpetually to thepassage outside her room, entreating of the Misses Le M----, whogenerally sat up with her, to let him in to see her. This they refusedtill the night of her death, when she was quite insensible, and pastall hope of recovery; so that his visit could do her no harm. Hestayed a few minutes, and looked his last on her; for in the morningat seven o'clock she died. I shall never forget his face when he cameto my store-room, in accordance with his duty, to correct someinaccuracy in the diet-roll. He seemed utterly bewildered with sorrow;and Miss S----, who had also occasion to speak to him, said she neversaw grief so strongly marked in a human face. He insisted on followingher remains to the grave as chief mourner, and wearied himself withcarrying the coffin. No one interfered with him; for all seemed tothink he had acquired the right, by his unmistakeable affection, toperform these sad offices; and the lady superintendent, moved by hissorrow, allowed him to retain a ring of some small value which thedeceased had been accustomed to wear. '

_June 14, 1856. _

-----

 {1} _Ismeer, or Smyrna and its British Hospital in 1855. _ By a Lady. London: James Madder, 8, Leadenhall Street. 

THE POETS OF THE CHURCH. 

It is not uninteresting to mark the rise and progress of certain branchesof poetry and the _belles lettres_ in their connection with sects andChurches. They form tests by which at least the taste and literarystanding of these bodies can be determined; and the degree of successwith which they are cultivated within the same Church, in differentages, throws at times very striking lights on its condition andhistory. One wholly unacquainted with the recorded annals of the Churchof Scotland might safely infer, from its literature alone, that it faredmuch more hardly in the seventeenth century, during which the literatureof England rose to its highest pitch of grandeur, than in the previoussixteenth, in which its Knoxes, Buchanans, and Andrew Melvillesflourished; and further, that its eighteenth century was, on the whole, aquiet and tranquil time, in which even mediocrity had leisure afforded itto develope itself in its full proportions. Literature is not theproper business of Churches; but it is a means, though not an end. Andit will be found that all the better Churches have been as literary asthey could; and that, if at any time the literature has been defective, it has been rather their circumstances that were unpropitious, thanthemselves that were in fault. Their enemies have delighted torepresent the case differently. Our readers must remember the famousinstance in _Old Mortality_, so happily exposed by the elder M'Crie, inwhich Sir Walter, when he makes his Sergeant Bothwell a writer of verses, introduces Burley as peculiarly a verse-hater, and 'puts into his mouththat condemnation of elegant pursuits which he imputes to the wholeparty;' 'overlooking or suppressing the fact, ' says the Doctor, 'thatthere was at that very time in the camp of the Covenanters a man who, besides his other accomplishments, was a poet superior to any on theopposite side. ' It is equally a fact, however, and shows how thoroughlythe mind of even a highly intellectual people may be prostrated by along course of tyranny and persecution, that Scotland had properly noliterature after the extinction of its old classical school in theperson of Drummond of Hawthornden, until the rise of Thomson. The age inEngland of Milton and of Cowley, of Otway, of Waller, of Butler, ofDryden, and of Denham, was in Scotland an age without a poet vigorousenough to survive in his writings his own generation. For even thegreater part of the popular version of its Psalms, our Church wasindebted to the English lawyer Rous. Here and there we may find in it theremains of an earlier and more classical time: its version of thehundredth Psalm, for instance, with its quaintly-turned but statelyocto-syllabic stanzas, was written nearly a hundred years earlier thanmost of the others, by William Keith, a Scottish contemporary of Bezaand Buchanan, and one of the translators of the Geneva Bible. But wefind little else that is Scotch in it; the Church to which, in theprevious age, the author of the most elegant version of the Psalms evergiven to the world had belonged, had now--notwithstanding theexertions of its Zachary Boyds--to import its poetry. In the followingcentury, the Church shared in the general literature of the time. Shemissed, and but barely missed, having one of its greatest poets toherself--the poet Thomson--who at least carried on his studies so farwith a view to her ministry, as to commence delivering his probationarydiscourses. We fear, however, he would have made but an indolentminister; and that, though his occasional sermons, judging from thehymn which concludes the _Seasons_, might have been singularly fineones, they would have been marvellously few, and very often repeated. Thegreatest poet that did actually arise within the Church during thecentury was Thomson's contemporary, Robert Blair, --a man who was not anidle minister, and who, unlike his cousin Hugh, belonged to theevangelical side. The author of the _Grave_ was one of the bosom friendsof Colonel Gardiner, and a valued correspondent of Doddridge and Watts. Curiously enough, though the great merit of his piece has beenacknowledged by critics such as Southey, it has been regarded as animitation of the _Night Thoughts_ of Young. 'Blair's _Grave_, ' saysSouthey in his _Life of Cowper_, 'is the only poem I can call to mindwhich has been composed in imitation of the _Night Thoughts_;' and thoughCampbell himself steered clear of the error, we find it introduced in anote, as supplementary to the information regarding Blair given in his_Essay on English Poetry_ by his editor, Mr. Cunningham. It isdemonstrable, however, that the Scotchman could not have been theimitator. As shown by a letter in the Doddridge collection, which bearsdate more than a twelvemonth previous to that of the publication of eventhe first book of the _Night Thoughts_, Blair, after stating that hispoem, then in the hands of Isaac Watts, had been offered without successto two London publishers, states further, that the greater part of ithad been written previous to the year 1731, ere he had yet entered theministry; whereas the first book of Young's poem was not published untilthe year 1744. Poetry such as that of Blair is never the result ofimitation: its verbal happinesses are at least as great as those ofthe _Night Thoughts_ themselves, and its power and earnestnessconsiderably greater. 'The eighteenth century, ' says Thomas Campbell, 'has produced few specimens of blank verse of so powerful and simple acharacter as that of the _Grave_. It is a popular poem, not merelybecause it is religious, but because its language and imagery are free, natural, and picturesque. The latest editor of the poets has, withsingularly bad taste, noted some of the author's most nervous andexpressive phrases as vulgarisms, among which he reckons that offriendship, the "solder of society. " Blair may be a homely, and even agloomy poet, in the eye of fastidious criticism; but there is amasculine and pronounced character even in his gloom and homeliness, thatkeeps it most distinctly apart from either dulness or vulgarity. Hisstyle pleases us like the powerful expression of a countenance withoutregular beauty. ' Such is the judgment on Blair--destined, in allappearance, to be a final one--of a writer who was at once the mostcatholic of critics and the most polished of poets. There succeeded tothe author of the _Grave_, a group of poets of the Church, of whom theChurch has not been greatly in the habit of boasting. Of Home, by acurious chance the successor of Blair in his parish, little need besaid. He produced one good play and five enormously bad ones; and hisconnection with the Church was very much an accident, and soon dissolved. Blacklock, too, was as much a curiosity as a poet; and, save for hisblindness, would scarce have been very celebrated in even his own day. Nor was Ogilvie, though more favourably regarded by Johnson than mostof his Scottish contemporaries, other than a mediocre poet. He is theauthor, however, of a very respectable paraphrase--the sixty-second--ofall his works the one that promises to live longest; and we find theproductions of several other poets of the Church similarly preserved, whose other writings have died. And yet the group of Scottish _literati_that produced our paraphrases, if looking simply to literaryaccomplishment--we do not demand genius--must be regarded as a veryremarkable one, when we consider that the greater number of theindividuals which composed it were all at one time the ministers of asingle Church, and that one of the smallest. We know of no Church, either in Britain or elsewhere, that could now command such acommittee as that which sat, at the bidding of the General Assembly, considerably more than sixty years ago, to prepare the 'Translations andParaphrases. ' Of the sixty-eight pieces of which the collection iscomposed, thirty are the work of Scottish ministers; and the groundworkof most of the others, furnished in large part by the previouslyexisting writings of Watts and Doddridge, has been greatly improved, in at least the composition, by the emendations of Morrison and Logan. With all its faults, we know of no other collection equal to it as awhole. The meretricious stanzas of Brady and Tate are inanity itself incomparison. True, the later Blair, though always sensible, was ofttimesquite heavy enough in the pieces given to him to render--more so thanin his prose; though, even when first introduced to that, Cowper couldexclaim, not a little to the chagrin of those who regarded it asperfection of writing: 'Oh, the sterility of that man's fancy! if, indeed, he has any such faculty belonging to him. Dr. Blair has such abrain as Shakespeare somewhere describes, "dry as the remainder biscuitafter a voyage. '" But the fancy that Blair wanted, poor Logan had; andthe man who too severely criticises his flowing and elegant paraphraseswould do well to beware of the memories of his children. A poet whosepieces cannot be forgotten may laugh at the critics. Altogether, our'Translations and Paraphrases' are highly creditable to the literarytaste and ability of the Church during the latter half of the lastcentury; and it serves to show how very much matters changed in thisrespect in about forty years, that while in the earlier period the menfitted for such work were all to be found within the pale of theChurch's ministry, at a later time, when the late Principal Baird sethimself, with the sanction of the General Assembly, to devise means foradding to the collection, and for revising our metrical version of thePsalms, he had to look for assistance almost exclusively to poetsoutside the precincts of even its membership. 

And yet, even at this later time, the Church had its true poets--poetswho, though, according to Wordsworth, they 'wanted the accomplishmentof verse, ' were of larger calibre and greater depth than theirpredecessors. Chalmers had already produced his _AstronomicalDiscourses_, and poor Edward Irving had begun to electrify his Londonaudiences with the richly antique imagination and fiery fervour of hissingularly vigorous orations. Stewart of Cromarty, too, though butcomparatively little known, was rising, in his quiet parish church, into flights of genuine though unmeasured poetry, of an altitude towhich minor poets, in their nicely rounded stanzas, never attain. Noris the race yet extinct. Jeffrey used to remark, that he found moretrue feeling in the prose of Jeremy Taylor than in the works of allthe second-class British poets put together; and those who would nowwish to acquaint themselves with the higher and more spirit-rousingpoetry of our Church, would have to seek it within earshot of thepulpits of Bruce, of Guthrie, and of James Hamilton. Still, however, it ever affords us pleasure to find it in the more conventional formof classic and harmonious verse. A Church that possesses her poetsgives at least earnest in the fact that she is not falling beneath theliterature of her age; and much on this account, but more, we think, from their great intrinsic merit, have we been gratified by theperusal of a volume of poems which has just issued from the pressunder the name of one of our younger Free Church ministers, the Rev. James D. Burns. We are greatly mistaken if Mr. Burns be not a genuinepoet, skilled, as becomes a scholar and a student of classic lore, ingiving to his verse the true artistic form, but not the less born toinherit the 'vision and the faculty' which cannot be acquired. Mostmen of great talent have their poetic age: it is very muchrestricted, however, to the first five years of full bodilydevelopment, also particularly then a sterner and more prosaic moodfollows. But recollections of the time survive; and it is mainlythrough the medium of these recollections that in the colder periodsthe feelings and visions of the poets continue to be appreciated andfelt. It was said of Thomson the poet by Samuel Johnson, that he couldnot look at two candles burning other than poetically. The phrase wasemployed in conversation by _old_ Johnson; but it must have been theexperience of _young_ Johnson, derived from a time long gone by, thatsuggested it. It is characteristic of the poetic age, that objectswhich in later life become commonplace in the mind, are thensurrounded as if by a halo of poetic feeling. The candles were, nodoubt, an extreme illustration; but there is scarce any object innature, and there are very few in art, especially if etherealized bythe adjuncts of antiquity or association, that are not capable ofbeing thus, as it were, embathed in sentiment. With the true poet, theability of investing every object with a poetic atmosphere remainsundiminished throughout life; and we find it strikingly manifested inthe volume before us. In almost every line in some of the pieces wefind a distinct bit of picture steeped in poetic feeling. Thefollowing piece, peculiarly appropriate to the present time, we adduceas an illustration of our meaning:--

 DISCOVERY OF THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 

 'Strait of Ill Hope! thy frozen lips at last Unclose, to teach our seamen how to sift A passage where blue icebergs clash and drift, And the shore loosely rattles in the blast. We hold the secret thou hast clench'd so fast For ages, --our best blood has earned the gift. -- Blood spilt, or hoarded up in patient thrift, Through sunless months in ceaseless peril passed. But what of daring Franklin? who may know The pangs that wrung that heart so proud and brave, In secret wrestling with its deadly woe, And no kind voice to reach him o'er the wave? Now he sleeps fast beneath his shroud of snow, And the cold pole-star only knows his grave. 

 'Alone, on some sharp cliff, I see him strain, O'er the white waste, his keen, sagacious eye, Or scan the signs of the snow-muffled sky, In hope of quick deliverance--but in vain; Then, faring to his icy tent again, To cheer his mates with a familiar smile, And talk of home and kinsfolk to beguile Slow hours which freeze the blood and numb the brain. Long let our hero's memory be enshrined In all true British hearts! He calmly stood In danger's foremost rank, nor looked behind. He did his work, not with the fever'd blood Of battle, but with hard-tried fortitude; In peril dauntless, and in death resigned. 

 'Despond not, Britain! Should this sacred hold Of freedom, still inviolate, be assailed, The high, unblenching spirit which prevailed In ancient days, is neither dead nor cold. Men are still in thee of heroic mould-- Men whom thy grand old sea-kings would have hailed As worthy peers, invulnerably mailed, Because by Duty's sternest law controlled. Thou yet wilt rise and send abroad thy voice Among the nations battling for the right, In the unrusted armour of thy youth; And the oppressed shall hear it and rejoice: For on thy side is the resistless might Of Freedom, Justice, and Eternal Truth!'

This is surely genuine poetry both in form and matter; as just in itsthinking as it is vivid in its imagery and classic in its language. The vein of strong sense which runs through all the poetry of Mr. Burns, and imparts to it solidity and coherency, is, we think, notless admirable than the poetry itself, and is, we are sure, quite aslittle common. Let the reader mark how freely the thoughts arise inthe following very exquisite little piece, written in Madeira, andsuggested by the distant view of the neighbouring island of PortoSanto, one of the first colonized by the Portuguese adventurers of thefifteenth century. Columbus married a daughter of BartolomeoPerestrillo, the first governor of the island, and after his marriagelived in it for some time with his father-in-law. And on thisfoundation Mr. Burns founds his poem:--

 PORTO SANTO, AS SEEN FROM THE NORTH OF MADEIRA. 

 'Glance northward through the haze, and mark That shadowy island floating dark Amidst the seas serene: It seems some fair enchanted isle, Like that which saw Miranda's smile When Ariel sang unseen. 

 'Oh happy, after all their fears, Were those old Lusian mariners Who hailed that land the first, Upon whose seared and aching eyes, With an enrapturing surprise, Its bloom of verdure burst. 

 'Their anchor in a creek, shell-paven, They dropped, --and hence "The Holy Haven" They named the welcome land: The breezes strained their masts no more, And all around the sunny shore Was summer, laughing bland. 

 'They wandered on through green arcade Where fruits were hanging in the shades, And blossoms clustering fair; Strange gorgeous insects shimmered And from the brakes sweet minstrelsy Entranced the woodland air. 

 'Years passed, and to the island came A mariner of unknown name, And grave Castilian speech: The spirit of a great emprise Aroused him, and with flashing eyes He paced the pebbled beach. 

 'What time the sun was sinking slow, And twilight spread a rosy glow Around its single star, His eye the western sea's expanse Would search, creating by its glance Some cloudy land afar. 

 'He saw it when translucent even Shed mystic light o'er earth and heaven, Dim shadowed on the deep; His fancy tinged each passing cloud With the fine phantom, and he bowed Before it in his sleep. 

 'He hears grey-bearded sailors tell How the discoveries befell That glorify their time; "And forth I go, my friends, " he cries, "To a severer enterprise Than tasked your glorious prime. 

 '"Time was when these green isles that stud The expanse of this familiar flood, Lived but in fancy fond. Earth's limits--think you here they are? Here has the Almighty fixed His bar, Forbidding glance beyond?

 '"Each shell is murmuring on the shore, And wild sea-voices evermore Are sounding in my ear: I long to meet the eastern gale, And with a free and stretching sail Through virgin seas to steer. 

 '"Two galleys trim, some comrades stanch, And I with hopeful heart would launch Upon this shoreless sea. Till I have searched it through and through. And seen some far land looming blue, My heart will not play free. "

 'Forth fared he through the deep to rove: For months with angry winds he strove, And passions fiercer still; Until he found the long-sought land, And leaped upon the savage strand With an exulting thrill. 

 'The tide of life now eddies strong Through that broad wilderness, where long The eagle fearless flew; Where forests waved, fair cities rise, And science, art, and enterprise Their restless aim pursue. 

 'There dwells a people, at whose birth The shout of Freedom shook the earth, Whose frame through all the lands Has travelled, and before whose eyes, Bright with their glorious destinies, A proud career expands. 

 'I see their life by passion wrought To intense endeavour, and my thought Stoops backwards in its reach To him who, in that early time, Resolved his enterprise sublime On Porto Santo's beach. 

 'Methinks that solitary soul Held in its ark this radiant roll Of human hopes upfurled, -- That there in germ this vigorous life Was sheathed, which now in earnest strife Is working through the world. 

 'Still on our way, with careworn face, Abstracted eye, and sauntering pace, May pass one such as he, Whose mind heaves with a secret force, That shall be felt along the course Of far Futurity. 

 'Call him not fanatic or fool, Thou Stoic of the modern school; Columbus-like, his aim Points forward with a true presage, And nations of a later age May rise to bless his name. '

There runs throughout Mr. Burns's volume a rich vein of scripturalimagery and allusion, and much oriental description--rather quiet, however, than gorgeous--that bears in its unexaggerated sobriety theimpress of truth. From a weakness of chest and general delicatehealth, Mr. Burns has had to spend not a few of his winters abroad, under climatal influences of a more genial character than those of hisown country; and hence the truthfulness of his descriptions of sceneswhich few of our native poets ever see, and a corresponding amount ofvariety in his verse. But we have exhausted our space, and have givenonly very meagre samples of this delightful volume, and a veryinadequate judgment on its merits. But we refer our readers to thevolume itself, as one well fitted to grow upon their regards; andmeanwhile conclude with the following exquisite landscape, --no badspecimen of that ability of word-painting which is ever so certain amark of the true poet:--

 'Below me spread a wide and lonely beach, The ripple washing higher on the sands: A river that has come from far-off lands Is coiled behind in many a shining reach; But now it widens, and its banks are bare-- It settles as it nears the moaning sea; An inward eddy checks the current free, And breathes a briny dampness through the air: Beyond, the waves' low vapours through the skies Were trailing, like a battle's broken rear; But smitten by pursuing winds, they rise, And the blue slopes of a far coast appear, With shadowy peaks on which the sunlight lies, Uplifted in aërial distance clear. 

_November 8, 1854. _

THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA. 

After the labour of years, the seventh edition of the _EncyclopædiaBritannica_ has been at length completed. It is in every respect agreat work--great even as a commercial speculation. We have beenassured the money expended on this edition alone would be more thansufficient to build three such monuments as that now in the course oferection in Edinburgh to the memory of Sir Walter Scott. Andcontaining, as it does, all the more valuable matter of formereditions--all that the advancing tide of knowledge has not obliteratedor covered up, and which at one time must have represented in thecommercial point of view a large amount of capital--it must be obviousthat, great as the cost of the present edition has been, it bearsmerely some such relation to the accumulated cost of the whole, asthat borne by the expense of partial renovations and repairs in a vastedifice to the sum originally expended on the entire erection. 

It is a great work, too, regarded as a trophy of the united scienceand literature of Britain. Like a lofty obelisk, raised to mark thespot where some important expedition terminated, it stands as it wereto indicate the line at which the march of human knowledge has nowarrived. We see it rising on the extreme verge of the boundary whichseparates the clear and the palpable from the indistinct and theobscure. The explored province of past research, with all its manyparty-coloured fields, stretches out from it in long perspective onthe one hand, --luminous, well-defined, rejoicing in the light. The_terra incognita_ of future discovery lies enveloped in cloud on theother--an untried region of fogs and darkness. 

The history of this publication for the last seventy years--for soslow has been its growth, that rather more than seventy years have nowelapsed since its first appearance in the world of letters--wouldserve curiously to illustrate the literary and scientific history ofScotland during that period. The naturalist, by observing the rings ofannual growth in a tree newly cut down, can not only tell what itsexact bulk had been at certain determinate dates in the past--from itsfirst existence as a tiny sapling of a single twelvemonth, till theaxe had fallen on the huge circumference of perchance its hundredthring--but he can also form from them a shrewd guess of the variouscharacters of the seasons that have passed over it. Is the ring ofwide development?--it speaks of genial warmth and kindly showers. Isit narrow and contracted?--it tells of scorching droughts or of bitingcold. Now the succeeding editions of this great work narrate asomewhat similar story, in a somewhat similar manner. They speak ofthe growth of science and the arts during the various succeedingperiods in which they appeared. The great increase, too, at certaintimes, in particular departments of knowledge, is curiously connectedwith peculiar circumstances in the history of our country. In thepresent edition, for instance, almost all the geography is new. Theage has been peculiarly an age of exploration--a locomotive age:commerce, curiosity, the spirit of adventure, the desire of escapingfrom the tedium of inactive life, --these, and other motives besides, have scattered travellers by hundreds, during the period of our longEuropean peace, over almost every country of the world. And hence somighty an increase of knowledge in this department, that what the lastage knew of the subject has been altogether overgrown. Vastadditions, too, have been made to the province of mechanicalcontrivance: the constructive faculties of the country, stimulatedapparently by the demands of commerce and the influence of competitionboth at home and abroad, have performed in well-nigh a singlegeneration the work of centuries. 

Even the _Encyclopædia_ itself, regarded in a literary point of view, is strikingly illustrative of a change which has taken place chieflywithin the present century in the republic of letters. 

We enjoyed a very ample opportunity of acquainting ourselves with itin its infancy. More years have passed away than we at present feelquite inclined to specify, since our attention was attracted at a veryearly age to an _Encyclopædia_, the first we had ever seen, thatformed one work of a dozen or so stored on the upper shelf of a pressto which we were permitted access. It consisted of three quartovolumes sprinkled over with what seventy years ago must have beendeemed very respectable copperplates, and remarkable, chiefly in thearrangement of its contents, for the inequality of the portions, if wemay so speak, into which the knowledge it contained was broken up. Asmight be anticipated from its comparatively small size, most of thearticles were exceedingly meagre. There were pages after pages inwhich some eight or ten lines, sometimes a single line, comprised allthat the writers had deemed it necessary to communicate on thesubjects on which they touched. And yet, set full in the middle ofthese brief sentences--these mere skeletons of information--there werecomplete and elaborate treatises, --whales among the minnows. Some ofthese extended over ten, twenty, thirty, fifty pages of the work. Weremember there was an old-fashioned but not ill-written treatise on_Chemistry_ among the number, quite bulky enough of itself to fill asmall volume. There was a sensibly written treatise on _Law_, too; atreatise on _Anatomy_ not quite unworthy of the Edinburgh school; atreatise on _Botany_, of which at this distance of time we rememberlittle else than that it rejected the sexual system of Linnæus, thennewly promulgated; a treatise on _Architecture_, sufficientlyincorrect, as we afterwards found, in some of its minor details, butwhich we still remember with the kindly feeling of the pupil for hisfirst master; a treatise on _Fortification_, that at least taught ushow to make model forts in sand; treatises on _Arithmetic_, _Astronomy_, _Bookkeeping_, _Grammar_, _Language_, _Theology_, _Metaphysics_, and a great many other treatises besides. The leastinteresting portion of the work was the portion devoted to NaturalHistory: it named and numbered species and varieties, instead ofdescribing instincts and habits, and afforded little else to thereader than lists of hard words, and lines of uninteresting numerals. But our appetite for books was keen and but ill supplied at the time, and so we read all of the work that would read, --some of it oftenerthan once. The character of the whole reminded us somewhat of thatstyle of building common in some of the older ruins of the northcountry, in which we find layers of huge stones surrounded by stripsand patches of a minute pinned work composed of splinters andfragments. 

This Dictionary of the three quarto volumes was the first edition ofthe _Encyclopædia Britannica_, --the identical work in its firstbeginnings, of which the seventh edition has been so recentlycompleted. It was published in 1771--in the days of Goldsmith, andBurke, and Johnson, and David Hume--several years ere Adam Smith hadgiven his _Wealth of Nations_ or Robertson his _History of America_ tothe public, and ere the names of Burns or Cowper had any place inBRITISH LITERATURE. 

The world has grown greatly in knowledge since that period, and the_Encyclopædia Britannica_ has done much more than kept pace with itin its merits of acquirement. The three volumes have swelled intotwenty-one; and each of the twenty-one contains at least one-thirdmore of matter than each of the three. The growth and proportions of awork of genius seem to be very little dependent on the period of itsproduction. Shakespeare may be regarded as the founder of the Englishdrama. He wrote at a time when art was rude, and science comparativelylow. All agree, at least, that the subjects of Queen Victoria know avery great deal which was not known by the subjects of QueenElizabeth. There was no gas burned in front of the Globe Theatre, norwas the distant roar of a _locomotive_ ever heard within its dingyrecesses; nor did ever adventurous aeronaut look down from his dizzyelevation of miles on its tub-like proportions, or its gay flag ofmotley. And yet we question whether even Mr. Wakley himself, with allhis advantages, would venture to do more than assert his equality withthe Swan of Avon. Homer, too, wrote in a very remote period, --so veryremote and so very uncertain, that the critics have begun seriously todoubt whether the huge figure of the blind old man, as it loomsthrough the grey obscure of ages, be in reality the figure of onepoet, or of a whole school of poets rolled up into a bundle. Butthough men fight much more scientifically now than they did at Troy, and know much more about the taking and defending of walled towns, nopoet of the present day greatly excels Homer, --no, not the Scotchschoolmaster even who wrote Wolfe's Ode, or the gentleman who sends usabstruse verses which we unluckily cannot understand, and then scoldsus in perspicuous prose for not giving them a place in our columns. 

Works of genius bear no reference in their bulk and proportions, if wemay so speak, to the period at which they are produced; but it is farotherwise with works of science and general information: they growwith the world's growth; the tomes from which the father derived hisacquaintance with facts and principles, prove all inadequate tosatisfy the curiosity of the son: almost every season adds its ring tothe 'tree of knowledge;' and the measuring line which girthed andregistered its bulk in one age, fails to embrace it in the succeedingone. And hence one element at least in the superiority of this editionof the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ to every other edition, and everyother Encyclopædia. 

It appears at the period of the world's greatest experience. But thereare other very important elements, characteristic, as we have said, ofa peculiarity in the literature of the age, which have tended also tothis result. We have remarked that the first edition appeared in thedays of Hume, Robertson, and Adam Smith. None of these men wrote forit, however. 

In France the first intellects of the country were engaged on theirNational Encyclopædia, and mighty was the mischief which theyaccomplished through its means; but works of this character inBritain were left to authors of a lower standing. Smollett onceconducted a critical review; Gilbert Stuart an Edinburgh magazine;Dr. Johnson drew up parliamentary debates for two years together;Edmund Burke toiled at the pages of an Annual Register; andGoldsmith, early in his career, wrote letters for the newspapers. But, like the apothecary in Shakespeare, it was their 'poverty, nottheir will, that consented;' and when their fortunes brightened, these walks of obscure laboriousness were left to what were deemedtheir legitimate denizens--mere mediocritists and compilers. Asimilar feeling seems to have obtained regarding works of anencyclopædiacal character. The authors of the first edition of the_Encyclopædia Britannica_ were merely respectable compilers, --we knownot that any of their names would now sound familiar to the reader, with perhaps the exception of that of Smellie, an Edinburgh writer ofthe last century, whose philosophical essays one sometimes meetswith on our bookstalls. 

But among the other great changes produced by the French Revolution, there was a striking and very important change effected in ourperiodical literature. The old foundations of society seemed breakingup, and the true nature of that basis of opinion on which they had solong rested came to be everywhere practically understood. 

Minds of the larger order found it necessary to address themselvesdirect to the people; and the newspaper, the review, the magazine, thepamphlet, furnished them with ready vehicles of conveyance. Archimedes, during the siege of Syracuse, had to quit the sober quietof his study, and to mix with the armed defenders of his native city, amid the wild confusion of sallies and assaults, the rocking ofbeleaguered towers, the creaking of engines, and the hurtling ofmissiles. It was thus with some of the greatest minds of the countryduring the distraction and alarm of the French Revolution. Coleridgeconducted a newspaper; Sir James Mackintosh wrote for one; Canningcontributed to the _Anti-Jacobin_; Robert Hall of Leicester became areviewer; Southey, Jeffrey, Brougham, Scott, Giffard, all men in thefirst rank, appeared in the character of contributors to theperiodicals. 

The aspect of this department of literature suddenly changed, and theinfluence of that change survives to this day. Even now, some of ourfirst literary names are known chiefly in their connection withmagazines and reviews. Men such as Macaulay and Sidney Smith havescarce any place as authors dissociated from the _Edinburgh_; andLockhart and Wilson are most felt in the world of letters in theirconnection with _Blackwood_ and the _Quarterly_. And this changeaffected more than the periodicals. Its influence extended to works ofthe encyclopædiacal character. The two great Encyclopædias ofEdinburgh--that which bears the name of the city, and that whose namewe have placed at the head of this article--came to reckon among theircontributors the first men of the kingdom, both in science andliterature: they benefited as greatly by the change we describe as theperiodicals themselves. The Revolution, in its reflex influence, seemsto have drawn a line in the British encyclopædiacal field between thelabours of mere compilers and the achievements of original authorship;and the peculiarity of plan in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, to whichwe have already referred--that peculiarity which gives an art orscience entire as a treatise, instead of breaking it down into as manyseparate articles as it possesses technical terms--enabled this workto avail itself to the fullest extent of the improvement. No author, however great his powers, can be profound in the compass of a fewparagraphs. 

Goldsmith could assert that in an essay of a page or two it is even amerit to be superficial; and few there are who possess, withGoldsmith, the pure literary ability of being superficial with goodeffect. 

But it is not enough to say of this work that it is enriched bycontributions from not a few of the ablest writers which thepresent century has produced. It should be added, further, that itcontains some of the masterpieces of these men. No one ever excelledSir James Mackintosh in philosophical criticism. It was peculiarly his_forte_. He was rather a great judge of metaphysical power than ametaphysician. And yet it is this admirable critic who decidesthat the exquisitely classical dissertation of Dugald Stewart, written for this _Encyclopædia_, is the most magnificent of thatphilosopher's works; and remarks, in accounting for the fact, that the'memorable instances of Cicero and Milton, and still more those ofDryden and Burke, seem to show that there is some natural tendencyin the fire of genius to burn more brightly, or to blaze morefiercely, in the evening than in the morning of human life. ' We aremistaken if Sir James's own contribution to this work does not takedecidedly a first place among his productions. The present age has notproduced a piece of more exquisitely polished English, or of moretasteful or more nicely discriminating criticism. 

There is an occult beauty and elegance in some of his thoughts andexpressions, on which it is no small luxury to repose, --lines ofreflection, too, along which one must feel as well as think one'sway. 

What can be finer, for instance, than his remarks on the poetry of Dr. Thomas Brown, or what more thoroughly removed from commonplace? Hetells us how the philosophic poet 'observed man and his wider worldwith the eye of a metaphysician;' that 'the dark results of suchcontemplations, when he reviewed them, often filled his soul withfeelings which, being both grand and melancholy, were truly poetical;'that 'unfortunately, however, few readers can be touched withfellow-feeling;' for that 'he sings to few, and must be _content withsometimes moving a string in the soul of the lonely visionary, who, inthe daydreams of youth, has felt as well as meditated on the mysteriesof nature_. ' The dissertation of Playfair is also pitched on thehighest key to which that elegant writer ever attained. If we exceptthe unjust and offensive estimate of the powers of Franklin, a similarjudgment may be passed on the preliminary dissertation of Sir JohnLeslie. Jeffrey's famous theory of beauty is, of all the philosophicpieces of that accomplished writer, by far the most widely known; andSir Walter Scott's essay on the drama is at least equal to any of theserious prose compositions of its great author. There is somethingpeculiarly fascinating in the natural history of this edition, --adepartment wholly rewritten, and furnished chiefly by the singularlypleasing pen of Mr. James Wilson. It is not yet twenty years sinceConstable's supplement to the last edition appeared; and yet in thisprovince, so mightily has the tide risen, that well-nigh all the oldlines of classification have been obliterated or covered up. Vastadditions have been also made. At no former time was there half theamount of actual observation in this field which exists in it now; andit is well that there should be so skilful a workman as Mr. Wilson toavail himself of the accumulating materials. His treatises show howvery just is the estimate of his powers given to the public in_Peter's Letters_ considerably more than twenty years ago, at a timewhen he was comparatively little known. But we cannot enumerate atithe of the masterpieces of the British Encyclopædia. 

Judging from the list of contributors' names attached to the index, wemust hold that Moderatism in the field of literature and scienceis very much at a discount. But there is no lack of data of veryvarious kinds to force upon us _this_ conclusion. Among our soundnon-intrusionists we find the names of Lord Jeffrey, Sir DavidBrewster, Professor John Fleming, Professor David Welsh, ProfessorAnderson, Dr. Irvine, the Rev. Mr. Hetherington, the Rev. Mr. Omond, Mr. Alexander Dunlop, and Mr. Cowan; whereas of all the oppositeparty who record their votes in our church courts, we have succeededin finding the name of but a single individual, Dr. John Lee. 

Why has Dr. Bryce thus left the field to the fanatics? had he nothingto insert on missions? Or could not Mr. Robertson of Ellon have beengreat on the article Beza?

Was there no exertion demanded of them to save the credit of the Earlof Aberdeen's learned clergy? One of the main defects of omission inthe work (of course we merely mention the circumstance) is theomission of the name of one very great non-intrusionist. Ethical andmetaphysical philosophy are represented by Dugald Stewart and SirJames Mackintosh; mathematical and physical science by Sir DavidBrewster, Sir John Leslie, Playfair, and Robinson; political economyby Ricardo, M'Culloch, and Malthus; natural history by James Wilsonand Dr. Fleming; Hazlitt and Haydon discourse on painting and the finearts; Jeffrey on the beautiful; Sir Walter Scott on chivalry, thedrama, and romance; the classical pen of Dr. Irvine has illustratedwhat may be termed the biographical history of Scotland; physiologyfinds a meet expounder in Dr. Roget; geology in Mr. Phillips; medicaljurisprudence in Dr. Traill. But in whom does theology find anillustrator? Does our country boast in the present age of no veryeminent name in this noble department of knowledge--no name known allover Scotland, Britain, Europe, Christendom--a name whom we mayassociate with that of Dugald Stewart in ethical, or that of Sir DavidBrewster in physical science? In utter ignorance of the facts, we can, as we have said, but merely refer to the omission as one which will beassuredly marked in the future, when the din and dust of our existingcontroversies shall be laid, and when all now engaged in them who aretall enough to catch the eye of posterity, will be seen in theirgenuine colours and their true proportions. The article Theology inthe _Encyclopædia Britannica_ is written, not by Dr. Chalmers, butnew-modelled from an old article by the minister of an Independentcongregation in Edinburgh, Mr. Lindsay Alexander--we doubt not an ableand good man, but not supereminently the _one_ theologian ofScotland. 

We mark, besides, a few faults, of _commission_ in the work, apparently of a sub-editorial character, but which, unlike the defectjust pointed out, the editor of some future edition will find littledifficulty in amending. Works the production of a single mind, beargenerally an individual character; works the productions of manyminds, are marked rather by the character of the age to which theybelong. We find occasional evidence in the _Encyclopædia_ that itbelongs to the age of Catholic Emancipation, --an age in which the_true_ in science was deemed a very great matter by men to whom the_true_ in religion seemed a much less one. One at least of the mindsemployed on the minor articles of the work had palpably a papisticalleaning. 

A blaze of eulogium, which contrasts ludicrously enough with thewell-toned sobriety of what we may term its staple style, is made tosurround, like the halo in old paintings, some of the men who werehappy enough to be distinguished assertors of the Romish Church. Wewould instance, as a specimen, the biographical sketches of Bossuetand the Jesuit Bourdaloue, written by the late Dr. James Browne. These, however, are but comparatively minute flaws in a work so trulygreat, and of such immense multiplicity. They are some of theimperfections of a work to which imperfection is inevitable, andwhich, after all such deductions have been made, must be recognised asby much the least faulty and most complete of its class which theworld has yet seen. 

_April 30, 1842. _

A VISION OF THE RAILROAD. 

 [_Private. _] ----, ISLE OF SKYE. 

.... I know not when this may reach you. We are much shut out fromthe world at this dead season of the year, especially in those wildersolitudes of the island that extend their long slopes of moor to thewest. The vast Atlantic spreads out before us, blackened by tempest, asolitary waste, unenlivened by a single sail, and fenced off from theland by an impassable line of breakers. Even from the elevation whereI now write--for my little cottage stands high on the hill-side--I canhear the measured boom of the waves, swelling like the roar of distantartillery, above the melancholy moanings of the wind among the nearercrags, and the hoarser dash of the stream in the hollow below. We arein a state of siege: the isle is beleaguered on its rugged line ofwestern coast, and all communication within that quarter cut off;while in the opposite direction the broken and precarious footwaysthat wind across the hills to our more accessible eastern shores, arestill drifted over in the deeper hollows of the snow of the last greatstorm. It was only yester-evening that my cousin Eachen, with whom Ishare your newspaper, succeeded in bringing me the number publishedearly in the present month, in which you furnish your readers with areport of the great railway meeting at Glasgow. 

My cousin and I live on opposite sides of the island. We met at ourtryst among the hills, not half an hour, before sunset; and as eachhad far to walk back, and as a storm seemed brewing--for the wind hadsuddenly lowered, and the thick mists came creeping down thehill-sides, all dank and chill, and laden with frost-rime, thatsettled crisp and white on our hair--we deemed it scarce prudent toindulge in our usual long conversation together. 

'You will find, ' said Eachen, as he handed me the paper, 'that thingsare looking no better. The old Tories are going on in the old way, bitterer against the gospel than ever. They will not leave us in allSkye a minister that has ever been the means of converting a soul; andwhat looks as ill, our great Scotch railway, that broke the Sabbathlast year, in the vain hope of making money by it, is to break it thisyear at a dead loss. And this for no other purpose that people cansee, than just that an Edinburgh writer may advertise his business bymaking smart speeches about it. Depend on't, Allister, the country's_fey_. '

'The old way of advertising, ' said I, 'before it became necessary thatan elder should have at least some show of religion about him, was toget into the General Assembly, and make speeches there. If the crisiscomes, we shall see the practice in full blow again. We shall see ouranti-Sabbatarian gentlemen transmuted into voluble Moderate elders, talking hard for clients without subjecting themselves to theadvertisement duty, --and the railway mayhap keeping its Sabbaths. '

'Keeping its Sabbaths, ' replied Eachen; 'ay, but the shareholders, perhaps, have little choice in the matter. I wish you heard ourcatechist on that. Depend on't, Allister, the country's _fey_. '

'Keeping its Sabbaths? Yes, ' said I, catching at his meaning, 'if weare to be visited by a permanent commercial depression--and there aremany things less likely at the present time--the railway _may_ keepits Sabbaths, and keep them as the land of Judea did of old. It wouldbe all too easy, in a period of general distress, to touch that lineof necessarily high expenditure below which it would be ruin for thereturns of the undertaking to fall. Let but the invariably greatoutlay continue to exceed the income for any considerable time, andthe railway _must_ keep its Sabbaths. '

'Just the catechist's idea, ' rejoined my cousin. 'He spoke on thesubject at our last meeting. "Eachen, " he said, "Eachen, the thinglies so much in the ordinary course of providence, that our blindedSabbath-breakers, were it to happen, would recognise only disaster init, not judgment. I see at times, with a distinctness that my fatherwould have called the second sight, that long weary line of rail, withits Sabbath travellers of pleasure and business speeding over it, anda crowd of wretched witnesses raised, all unwittingly and unwillinglyon their own parts, to testify against it, and of coming judgment, atboth its ends. I see that the walks of the one great city into whichit opens are blackened by shoals of unemployed artisans; and that thelanes and alleys of the other number by thousands and tens ofthousands their pale and hunger-bitten operatives, that cry for workand food. They testify all too surely that judgment needs no miraclehere. Let but the evil continue to grow--nay, let but one of ourScottish capitals, our great mart of commerce and trade sink into thecircumstances of its manufacturing neighbour Paisley--and the railway_must_ keep its Sabbaths. But alas! there would be no triumph forparty in the case. Great, ere the evil could befall, would thesufferings of the country be, and they would be sufferings that wouldextend to all. " What think you, Allister, of the catechist's note?'

'Almost worth throwing into English, ' I said. 'But the fog stillthickens, and it will be dark night ere we reach home. ' And so weparted. 

Dark night it was, and the storm had burst out. But it was pleasant, when I had reached my little cottage, to pile high the fire on thehearth, and to hear the blast roaring outside, and shaking thewindow-boards, as if some rude hand were striving to unfasten them. Ilighted my little heap of moss fir on the projecting stone that servesthe poor Highlander for at once lamp and candlestick, and bent me overyour fourth page, to scan the Sabbath returns of a Scottish railroad. But my rugged journey and the beating of the storm had induced adegree of lassitude; the wind outside, too, had forced back the smoke, until it had filled with a drowsy, umbery atmosphere, the whole of mydingy little apartment: Mr. M'Neill seemed considerably less smartthan usual, and more than ordinarily offensive, and in the middle ofhis speech I fell fast asleep. The scene changed, and I found myselfstill engaged in my late journey, coming down over the hill, just asthe sun was setting red and lightless through the haze behind the darkAtlantic. The dreary prospect on which I had looked so shortly beforewas restored in all its features: there was the blank, leaden-colouredsea, that seemed to mix all around with the blank, leaden-colouredsky; the moors spread out around me, brown and barren, and studdedwith rock and stone; the fogs, as they crept downwards, were loweringthe overtopping screen of hills behind to one dead level. Through thelandscape, otherwise so dingy and sombre, there ran one long line ofsomewhat brighter hue: it was a long line of breakers tumbling againstthe coast far as the eye could reach, and that seemed interposed as asort of selvage between the blank, leaden sea, and the deep, melancholy russet of the land. Through one of those changes so commonin dreams, the continuous line of surf seemed, as I looked, to alterits character. It winded no longer round headland and bay, butstretched out through the centre of the landscape, straight as anextended cord, and the bright white saddened down to the fainter hueof decaying vegetation. The entire landscape underwent a change. Underthe gloomy sky of a stormy evening, I could mark on the one hand thedark blue of the Pentlands, and on the other the lower slopes ofCorstorphine. Arthur's Seat rose dim in the distance behind; and infront, the pastoral valley of Wester Lothian stretched away milebeyond mile, with its long rectilinear mound running through themidst, --from where I stood beside one of the massier viaducts thatrose an hundred feet overhead, till where the huge bulk seemeddiminished to a slender thread on the far edge of the horizon. 

It seemed as if years had passed--many years. I had an indistinctrecollection of scenes of terror and of suffering, of the shouts ofmaddened multitudes engaged in frightful warfare, of the cries offamishing women and children, of streets and lanes flooded with blood, of raging flames enwrapping whole villages in terrible ruin, of theflashing of arms and the roaring of artillery; but all was dimness andconfusion. The recollection was that of a dream remembered in a dream. The solemn text was in my mind, 'Voices, and thunders, and lightnings, and a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake and so great;' and I now felt as if theconvulsion was over, and that its ruins lay scattered around me. Therailway, I said, is keeping its Sabbaths. All around was solitary, asin the wastes of Skye. The long rectilinear mound seemed shaggy withgorse and thorn, that rose against the sides, and intertwisted theirprickly branches atop. The sloe-thorn, and the furze, and the bramblechoked up the rails. The fox rustled in the brake; and where his trackhad opened up a way through the fern, I could see the red and corrodedbars stretching idly across. There was a viaduct beside me: the flawedand shattered masonry had exchanged its raw hues for a crust oflichens; one of the taller piers, undermined by the stream, had drawntwo of the arches along with it, and lay adown the water-course ashapeless mass of ruin, o'ermasted by flags and rushes. A huge ivy, that had taken root under a neighbouring pier, threw up its longpendulous shoots over the summit. I ascended to the top. Half-buriedin furze and sloe-thorn, there rested on the rails what had once beena train of carriages; the engine ahead lay scattered in fragments, theeffect of some disastrous explosion, and damp, and mould, androttenness had done their work on the vehicles behind. Some hadalready fallen to pieces, so that their places could be no longertraced in the thicket that had grown up around them; others stoodcomparatively entire, but their bleached and shrivelled panels rattledto the wind, and the mushroom and the fungus sprouted from betweentheir joints. The scene bore all too palpably the marks of violenceand bloodshed. There was an open space in front, where the shatteredfragments of the engine lay scattered; and here the rails had beentorn up by violence, and there stretched across, breast-high, a rudelypiled rampart of stone. A human skeleton lay atop, whitened by thewinds; there was a broken pike beside it; and, stuck fast in the nakedskull, which had rolled to the bottom of the rampart, the rustyfragment of a sword. The space behind resembled the floor of acharnel-house--bindwood and ground-ivy lay matted over heaps of bones;and on the top of the hugest heap of all, a skull seemed as ifgrinning at the sky from amid the tattered fragments of a cap ofliberty. Bones lay thick around the shattered vehicles; a trail ofskeletons dotted the descending bank, and stretched far into aneighbouring field; and from amid the green rankness that shot uparound them, I could see soiled and tattered patches of the Britishscarlet. A little farther on there was another wide gap in the rails. I marked beside the ruins of a neighbouring hovel a huge pile of rustybars, and there lay inside the fragment of an uncouth cannon marred inthe casting. 

I wandered on in unhappiness, oppressed by that feeling of terror anddisconsolateness so peculiar to one's more frightful dreams. Thecountry seemed everywhere a desert. The fields were roughened withtufts of furze and broom; hedgerows had shot up into lines of stuntedtrees, with wide gaps interposed; cottage and manor-house had alikesunk into ruins; here the windows still retained their shatteredframes, and the roof-tree lay rotting amid the dank vegetation of thefloor; yonder the blackness of fire had left its mark, and thereremained but reddened and mouldering stone. Wild animals and dolefulcreatures had everywhere increased. The toad puffed out his freckledsides on hearths whose fires had been long extinguished, the foxrustled among its bushes, the masterless dog howled from the thicket, the hawk screamed shrill and sharp as it fluttered overhead. I passedwhat had been once the policies of a titled proprietor. The trees layrotting and blackened among the damp grass--all except one huge giantof the forest, that, girdled by the axe half a man's height from theground, and scorched by fire, stretched out its long dead arms towardsthe sky. In the midst of this wilderness of desolation lay brokenmasses, widely scattered, of what had been once the mansion-house. Ashapeless hollow, half filled with stagnant water, occupied itsimmediate site; and the earth was all around torn up, as if batteredwith cannon. The building had too obviously owed its destruction tothe irresistible force of gunpowder. 

There was a parish church on the neighbouring eminence, and it, too, was roofless and a ruin. Alas! I exclaimed, as I drew aside the rankstalks of nightshade and hemlock that hedged up the breach in the wallthrough which I passed into the interior--alas! have the churches ofScotland also perished? The inscription of a mutilated tombstone thatlay outside caught my eye, and I paused for a moment's space in thegap to peruse it. It was an old memorial of the times of the Covenant, and the legend was more than half defaced. I succeeded in decipheringmerely a few half sentences--'killing-time, ' 'faithful martyr, ''bloody Prelates;' and beneath there was a fragmentary portion of thesolemn text, 'How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge andavenge our blood?' I stepped into the interior: the scattered remainsof an altar rested against the eastern gable. There was a crackling asof broken glass under my feet, and stooping down I picked up arichly-stained fragment: it bore a portion of that much-revered sign, the pelican giving her young to eat of her own flesh and blood--thesign which Puseyism and Popery equally agree in regarding asadequately expressive of their doctrine of the real presence, andwhich our Scottish Episcopalians have so recently adopted as thecharacteristic vignette of their service-book. The toad and the newthad crept over it, and it had borrowed a new tint of brilliancy fromthe slime of the snail. Destruction had run riot along the walls ofthis parish church. There were carvings chipped and mutilated, as ifin sport, less apparently with the intention of defacing, thanrendering them contemptible and grotesque. A huge cross of stone hadbeen reared over the altar, and both the top and one of the arms hadbeen struck away, and from the surviving arm there dangled a noose. The cross had been transformed into a gibbet. Nor were there darkerindications wanting. In a recess set apart as a cabinet for relics, there were human bones all too fresh to belong to a remote antiquity;and in a niche under the gibbet lay the tattered remains of a surplicedabbled in blood. I stood amid the ruins, and felt a sense of fear andhorror creeping over me: the air darkened under the scowl of thecoming tempest and the closing night, and the wind shrieked moremournfully amid the shattered and dismantled walls. 

There came another change over my dream. I found myself wandering indarkness, I knew not whither, among bushes and broken ground; therewas the roar of a large stream in my ear, and the savage howl of thestorm. I retain a confused, imperfect recollection of a lightstreaming upon broken water--of a hard struggle in a deep ford--and ofat length sharing in the repose and safety of a cottage, solitary andhumble almost as my own. The vision again strengthened, and I foundmyself seated beside a fire, and engaged with a few grave and seriousmen in singing the evening psalm, with which they closed for the timetheir services of social devotion. 

'The period of trial wears fast away, ' said one of the number, whenall was over--a grey-haired, patriarchal-looking old man--'The periodof trial is well-nigh over, the storms of our long winter are past, and we have survived them all. Patience! a little more patience, andwe shall see the glorious spring-time of the world begin! The vial isat length exhausted. '

'How very simple, ' said one of the others, as if giving expressionrather to the reflection that the remark suggested, than speaking inreply, --'how exceedingly simple now it seems to trace to their causesthe decline and fall of Britain! The ignorance and the irreligion ofthe land have fully avenged themselves, and have been consumed in turnin fires of their own kindling. How could even mere men of the worldhave missed seeing the great moral evil that lay at the root of'--

'Ay, ' said a well-known voice that half mingled with my dreamingfancies, half recalled me to consciousness; 'nothing can be plainer, Donald. That lawyer-man is evidently not making his smart speeches orwriting his clever circulars with an eye to the pecuniary interests ofthe railroad. No person can know better than he knows that the companyare running their Sabbath trains at a sacrifice of some four or fivethousand a year. Were there not a hundred thousand that took thepledge? and can it be held by any one that knows Scotland, that theyaren't worth over-head a shilling a year to the railway? No, no;depend on't, the man is guiltless of any design of making theshareholders rich by breaking the Sabbath. He is merely supporting adesperate case in the eye of the country, and getting into all thenewspapers, that people may see how clever a fellow he is. He isavailing himself of the principle that makes men in our great towns goabout with placards set up on poles, and with bills printed largestuck round their hats. '

Two of my nearer neighbours, who had travelled a long mile through thestorm to see whether I had got my newspaper, had taken their seatsbeside me when I was engaged with my dream; and after reading yourrailway report, they were now busied in discussing the variousspeeches and their authors. My dream is, I am aware, quite unsuitedfor your columns, and yet I send it to you. There are none of itspictured calamities that lie beyond the range of possibility--nay, there are perhaps few of them that at this stage may not actually befeared; but if so, it is at least equally sure that there can be noneof them that at this stage might not be averted. 

THE TWO MR. CLARKS. 

Among the some six or eight and twenty volumes of pamphlets which havebeen already produced by our Church controversy, and which bid fair tocompose but a part of the whole, there is one pamphlet, in the form ofa Sermon, which bears date January 1840, and two other pamphlets, inthe form of Dialogues, which bear date April 1843. The Sermon and theDialogues discuss exactly the same topics. They are written in exactlythe same style. They exhibit, in the same set phrases, the same largeamount of somewhat obtrusive sanctimoniousness. They are equallystrong in the same confidence of representing, on their respectivesubjects, the true mind of Deity. They solicit the same circle ofreaders; they seem to have employed the same fount of types; they haveemanated from the same publishers. They are liker, in short, than thetwin brothers in Shakespeare's _Comedy of Errors_; and the onlymaterial dissimilarity which we have been yet able to discover is, that whereas the Sermon is a thorough-going and uncompromising defenceof our Evangelical majority in the Church, the Dialogues form anequally thorough-going and uncompromising attack upon them. This, however, compared with the numerous points of verisimilitude, thereader will, we are sure, deem but a trifle, especially when he haslearned further that they represent the same mind, and have employedthe same pen--that the Sermon was published by the Rev. AlexanderClark of Inverness in 1840, and the Dialogues by the Rev. AlexanderClark of Inverness in 1843. 

We spent an hour at the close of twilight a few evenings ago, in runningover the Sermon and the Dialogues, and in comparing them, as we wentalong, paragraph by paragraph, and sentence by sentence. We hadbefore us also one of Mr. Clark's earlier publications, his _Rights ofMembers of the Church of Scotland_, and a complete collection of hisanti-patronage speeches for a series of years, as recorded in _TheChurch Patronage Reporter_, with his speech 'anent lay patronage' inthe General Assembly, when in 1833 he led the debate on the popularside. The publications, in all, extended over a period of fourteenyears. They exhibited Mr. Clark, and what Mr. Clark had held, in 1829, in 1831, in 1832, in 1836, in 1840, and in 1843. We found that we coulddip down upon him, as we went along, like a sailor taking soundings inthe reaches of some inland frith or some navigable river, and ascertainby year and day the exact state of his opinions, and whether they wererising or falling at the time. And our task, if a melancholy, wascertainly no uninteresting one. We succeeded in bringing to the surface, from out of the oblivion that had closed over them, many a curious, glittering, useless little thing, somewhat resembling the decayedshells and phosphoric jellies that attach themselves to the bottom ofthe deep-sea lead. Here we found the tale of a peroration, set as ifon joints, that clattered husky and dry like the rattles of a snake;there an argument sprouting into green declamation, like a damaged earof corn in a wet harvest; yonder a piece of delightful egotism, set fullin sentiment like a miniature of Mr. Clark in a tinsel frame. Whatseemed most remarkable, however, in at least his earlier productions, was their ceaseless glitter of surface, if we may so speak. We foundthem literally sprinkled over with little bits of broken figures, asif the reverend gentleman had pounded his metaphors and comparisonsin a mortar, and then dusted them over his style. It is thus, thoughtwe, that our manufacturers of fancy wax deal by their mica. In his_Rights of Members_, for instance, we found in one page that 'the grosserrors of Romanism had risen _in successive tides_, until the _light oftruth suffered a fearful eclipse_ during a long period of darkness;'and we had scarce sufficiently admired the sublime height of tides thatoccasion eclipses, when we were further informed, in the pageimmediately following, that the god of this world was mustering his_multifarious hosts for the battle_, hoping, _amidst the waves_ ofpopular commotion, 'to _blot out the name_ of God from the BritishConstitution. ' Assuredly, thought we, we have the elements of nocommonplace engagement here. 'Multifarious hosts, ' fairly mustered, and 'battling' amid 'waves' in 'commotion' to 'blot out a name, 'would be a sight worth looking at, even though, like the old shepherdin the _Winter's Tale_, their zeal should lack footing amid thewaters. But though detained in the course of our search by thehappinesses of the reverend gentleman, we felt that it was not withthe genius of Mr. Clark that we had specially to do, but with hisconsistency. 

For eleven of the fourteen years over which our materials extended, wefound the Rev. Mr. Clark one of the most consistent of men. From hisappearance on the platform at Aberdeen in 1829, when he besought hisaudience not to deem it obtrusive in a stranger that he ventured toaddress them, and then elicited their loud applauses by solicitingtheir prayers for 'one minister labouring in northern parts, ' who'aspired to no higher distinction on earth than that he should spend andbe spent in the service of his dear Lord and Master, ' down to 1840, when he published his sermon on the 'Present Position of the Church, and the Duty of its Members, ' and urged, with the solemnity of anoath, that 'the Church of Scotland was engaged in assertingprinciples which the allegiance it owes to Christ would never permitit to desert, ' Mr. Clark stood forward on every occasion theuncompromising champion of spiritual independence, and of the rightsof the Christian people. He took his place far in the van. He was nomere half-and-half non-intrusionist, --no complaisant eulogist of theVeto, --no timid doubter that the Church in behalf of her peoplemight possibly stretch her powers too far, and thus separate hertemporalities from her cures. Nothing could be more absurd, heasserted, than to imagine such a thing. On parade day, when she stoodresting on her arms in the sunshine, Mr. Clark was fugleman to hisparty, --not merely a front man in the front rank, but a man far inadvance of the front rank. Nay, even after the collision had takenplace, Mr. Clark could urge on his brethren that all that wasnecessary to secure them the victory was just to go a little furtherahead, and deprive their refractory licentiates of their licences. We found that for eleven of the fourteen years, as we have said, Mr. Clark was uniformly consistent. But in the twelfth year the conflictbecame actually dangerous, and Mr. Clark all at once dropped hisconsistency. The great suddenness--the extreme abruptness--of thechange, gave to it the effect of a trick of legerdemain. The conjurerputs a pigeon into an earthen pipkin, gives the vessel a shake, and thenturns it up, and lo! out leaps the little incarcerated animal, nolonger a pigeon, but a rat. It was thus with the Rev. Mr. Clark. Adversity, like Vice in the fable, took upon herself the character of ajuggler, and stepping full into the middle of the Church question, began to play at cup and ball. Nothing, certainly, could be morewonderful than the transformations she effected; and the specialtransformation effected on the Rev. Mr. Clark surpassed in themarvellous all the others. She threw the reverend gentleman into abox, gave him a smart shake, and then flung him out again, and lo! tothe astonishment of all men, what went in Mr. Clark, came out Mr. Bisset of Bourtie. In order, apparently, that so great a marvelshould not be lost to the world, Mr. Clark has been at no littletrouble in showing himself, both before he went in and since he cameout. His pamphlet of 1840 and his pamphlets of 1843 represent him inthe two states: we see him going about in them, all over thecountry, to the extent of their circulation, like the mendicantpiper in his go-cart, --making open proclamation everywhere, 'I am theman wot changed;' and the only uncomfortable feeling one has incontemplating them as curiosities, arises solely from the air of heavysanctity that pervades equally all their diametrically opposeddoctrines, contradictory assertions, and contending views, as if Deitycould declare equally for truth and error, just as truth and errorchanced to be held by Mr. Clark. Of so solemn a cast are the reverendgentleman's belligerent pamphlets, that they serve to remind one ofantagonist witnesses swearing point blank in one another's faces atthe Old Bailey. 

Such were some of the thoughts which arose in our mind when spendingan hour all alone with the Rev. Mr Clark's pamphlets. We bethought usof an Eastern story about a very wicked prince who ruined the fairfame of his brother, by assuming his body just as he might hisgreatcoat, and then doing a world of mischief under the cover of hisname and appearance. What, thought we, if this, after all, be but atrick of a similar character? Dr. Bryce has been long in Easternparts, and knows doubtless a great deal about the occult sciences. Wewould not be much surprised should it turn out, that having injectedhimself into the framework of the Rev. Mr. Clark, he is now making thepoor man appear grossly inconsistent, and both an Erastian and anIntrusionist, simply by acting through the insensate carcase. Theveritable Mr. Clark may be lying in deep slumber all this while in theghost cave of Munlochy, like one of the seven sleepers of Ephesus, orstanding entranced, under the influences of fairy-land, in some boskyrecess of the haunted Tomnahurich. We must just glance over theseDialogues again, and see whether we cannot detect Dr. Bryce in them. 

And glance over them we did. There could be no denying that the Doctorwas there, and this in a much more extreme shape than he ever yet worein his own proper person. Dr. Bryce asserts, for instance, in hisspeeches and pamphlets, that the liberty for which the Church has beencontending is a liberty incompatible with her place and standing as anEstablishment--and there he stops; but we found him asserting in Mr. Clark's Dialogues, that it is a liberty at once so dangerous andillegal, that Voluntaries must not be permitted to enjoy it either. Wesaw various other points equally striking as we went along. Ourattention, however, was gradually drawn to another matter. The_dramatis personæ_ to which the reader is introduced are a ministerand two of his parishioners, the one a Moderate, the other aConvocationist. It is intended, of course, that the clerical gentlemanshould carry the argument all his own way; and we could not helpadmiring how, with an eye to this result, the writer had succeeded inmaking the parishioners so amazingly superficial in their information, and so ingeniously obtuse in their intellects. They had both beencalled into existence with the intention of being baffled and beaten, and made, with a wise adaptation of means to the desired end, consummate blockheads for the express purpose. 'A man is a much nobleranimal than a lion, ' said the woodman in the fable to the shaggy kingof the forest; 'and if you but come to yonder temple with me, I willshow you, in proof of the fact, the statue of a man lording it overthe statue of a prostrate lion. ' 'Aha!' said the shaggy king of theforest in reply, 'but was the sculptor a lion? Let us lions becomesculptors, and then we will show you lions lording it over prostratemen. ' In Mr. Clark's argumentative Dialogues, Mr. Clark is thesculptor. It is really refreshing, however, in these days of coldingratitude, to see how the creatures called into existence by his pendraw round him, and sing _Io Pæans_ in his praise. A brace of MasterSlenders attend the great Justice Shallow, who has been literally themaking of them; and when at his bidding they engage with him in mimicwarfare, they but pelt him with roses, or sprinkle him over with _eaude Cologne_. 'Ah, ' thought we, 'had we but the true Mr. Clark here totake a part in this fray--the Mr. Clark who published the greatnon-intrusion sermon, and wrote the _Rights of Members_, and spoke allthe long anti-patronage speeches, and led the debate in the Assemblyanent the rights of the people, and declared it clear as day that theChurch had power to enact the Veto, --had we but him here, he would bethe man to fight this battle. It would be no such child's play tograpple with him. Unaccustomed as we are to lay wagers, we would stakea hundred pounds to a groat on the true Mr. Clark!'

The twilight had fallen, the flames rose blue and languid in thegrate, the deep shadows flickered heavily on the walls and ceiling;there was a drowsy influence in the hour, and a still drowsierinfluence in the Dialogues, and we think--for what followed could havebeen only a dream--we think we must have fallen asleep. At all events, the scene changed without any exertion on our part, and we foundourselves in a quiet retired spot in the vicinity of Inverness. The'hill of the ship, ' that monarch of Fairy Tomhans, rose immediately infront, gaily feathered over with larch and forest trees; and, terminating a long vista in the background, we saw Mr. Clark's WestKirk, surmounted by a vast weathercock of gilded tin. Ever and anonthe bauble turned its huge side to the sun, and the reflected lightwent dancing far and wide athwart the landscape. Immediately beneaththe weathercock there flared an immense tablet, surmounted by a leadenFame, and bordered by a row of gongs and trumpets, which bore, inthree-feet letters, that, 'in order to secure so valuable an additionto the church accommodation of the parish, the Rev. Mr. Clark had nothesitated, on his own personal risk, to guarantee the payment of threethousand pounds. ' Our eyes were at first so dazzled by the blaze ofthe lackering--for the characters shone to the sun as if on fire--thatwe could see nothing else. As we gazed more attentively, however, wecould perceive that every stone and slate of the building bore, likethe tablet, the name of Mr. Clark. The endless repetition presentedthe appearance of a churchyard inscription viewed through amultiplying glass; but what most astonished us was that the Gothicheads, carved by pairs beside the labelled windows, opened wide theirstony lips from time to time, and shouted aloud, in a voice somewhatresembling that of the domestic duck when she breaks out into suddenclamour in a hot, dry day, 'Clark, Clark, Clark!' We stood not alittle appalled at these wonders, marvelling what was to come next, when lo! one of the thickets of the Tomhan beside us opened itsinterlaced and twisted branches, and out stepped the likeness of Mr. Clark, attired like a conjurer, and armed with a rod. His portly bulkwas enwrapped in a voluminous scarf of changing-coloured silk, that, when it caught the light in one direction, exhibited the deep scarletof a cardinal's mantle, and presented, when it caught it in another, the sober tinge of our Presbyterian blue. Like the cloak of Asmodeus, it was covered over with figures. In one corner we could see theGeneral Assembly done in miniature, and Mr. Clark rising among themembers like Gulliver in Lilliput, to move against the deposition ofthe seven ministers of Strathbogie. In another the same reverendgentleman, drawn on the same large scale, was just getting on hislegs at a political dinner, to denounce his old friends and alliesthe Evangelicals, as wild destructives, 'engaged in urging on the fallof the Establishment, in the desperation of human pride. ' Here wecould see him baptizing the child of a person who, as he had fallenout of church-going habits, could get it baptized nowhere else; thereexamined in his presbytery for the offence with closed doors; yonderwriting letters to the newspapers on the subject, to say that, if he_had_ baptized the man's child, it was all because the man was, likehimself, a good hater of forced settlements. There were a great manyother vignettes besides; and the last in the series was the sceneenacted at the late Inverness Presbytery, when Mr. Clark rose tocongratulate his old associates, in all the stern severity ofconsistent virtue, on the facile and '_squeezable_' character of theirrepresentative for the Assembly. 

The conjurer came out into an open space, drew a circle around him, and then began to build up on the sward two little human figuresabout three feet high, as boys build up figures of snow at thecommencement of a thaw. Harlequin performs a somewhat similar feat inone of the pantomimes. He first sets up two carrots on end, toserve for legs; balances on them the head of a large cabbage, to servefor a body; sticks on two other carrots, to serve for arms; places around turnip between them, to serve for a head; gives the crazyerection a blow with his lath sword, and straightway off it stalks, avegetable man. Mr. Clark had, in like manner, no sooner built up hisfigures, than, with a peculiarly bland air, and in tones of thesoftest liquidity, he whispered into the ear of the one, Be you aConvocationist, and into that of the other, Be you a Moderate; andthen with his charmed rod he tapped them across the shoulders, and setthem a-walking. The creatures straightway jerked up their littleheads to the angle of his face, bowed like a brace of automatondancing-masters, and after pacing round his knees for a fewseconds, began Dialogue the first, in just the set terms in which wehad been reading it beside our own fire not half an hour before. Itseemed, for a few seconds, as if the conjurer and his creations hadjoined together in a trio, to celebrate the conjurer's own praises. 'Excellent clergyman!' said the Convocationist. 'Incomparable man!'exclaimed the Moderate. 'No minister like our minister!' said the twoin a breath. 'Ah, gentlemen, ' said the conjurer, looking modestlydown, 'even my very enemies never venture to deny that. ' 'You, sir, ' said the Convocationist, 'bring on no occasion the Churchquestion to the pulpit; you know better--you have more sense: we havequite as much of the Church question as is good for us through theweek. ' 'For you, sir, ' chimed in the Moderate, 'I have longcherished the most thorough respect; but as for your old party, Idislike them more than ever. ' 'I am not mercenary, gentlemen, ' saidthe conjurer, laying his hand on his breast; 'I am not timid, I am notidle; I am a generous, diligent, dauntless, attached pastor; Igive alms of all I possess--in especial to the public charities; Imake long prayers, --my very best friends often urge on me that myvast labours, weekly and daily, are undermining my strength; Ifast often, --I have guaranteed the payment of three thousand poundsfor the West Kirk, and three-fourths of my stipend have gone thisyear to the liquidation of self-imposed liabilities. True, I willbe _eventually repaid_, --that is, if my people don't leave me; _but Ihave no other security beyond my confidence in the goodness of thecause, and the continued liberality of my countrymen_. ' And in thisstyle would the reverend gentleman have continued down to thebottom of the fifth page in his first Dialogue, had it not been fora singularly portentous and terrible interruption. 

The haunted Tomnahurich rose, as we have said, immediately behind us, leafy and green; and not one of its multitude of boughs trembled inthe sunshine. Suddenly, however, the hill-side began to move. Therewas a low deep noise like distant thunder; and straightway the_débris_ of a landslip came rolling downwards, half obliterating inits course the circle of the conjurer. Turf, and clay, and stone layin a mingled ruin at our feet; and wriggling in the midst, like a hugeblue-bottle in an old cobweb, there was a reverend gentleman dressedin black. He gathered himself up, sprung deftly to his feet, and stoodfronting the conjurer. Wonderful to relate, the man in black proved tobe the veritable Mr. Clark of three years ago--Mr. Clark of 1840--Mr. Clark who published the great non-intrusion discourse, who wrote the_Rights of Members_, who spoke the long anti-patronage speeches, wholed the debate in the Assembly anent the rights of the people, and whodeclared it clear as day that the Church had power to enact the Veto. The conjurer started backwards like a man who receives a mortal wound:the two little figures uttered a thin scrannel shriek apiece, and thenslunk out of existence. 'Avoid ye, ' exclaimed the conjurer, 'Avoid ye!_Conjuro te, conjuro te!_' He then went on to mutter, as if by way ofexorcism, in low and very rapid tones, 'I have no anxiety to refutethe charge of inconsistency, which some have endeavoured to fasten onme, from detached portions of what I have written or spoken, duringseveral years, on what may be termed Church politics. In matters notessential to salvation, increased light or advanced experience mayproperly produce change of sentiment in the most enlightened andconscientious Christian. For a man to assert that he is subject to nochange, is to lay claim to one of the perfections----' _Dialogue 1st_, p. 6. 

'And so you won't go out, ' said the true Mr. Clark, interrupting him. 

'No, sir, ' replied the conjurer. 'I have maturely considered theproposed secession from the Established Church, and, withoutpronouncing any judgment on the motives or doings of others who maythink or act differently, I deeply feel that in such a measure Icould not join without manifest sin against the light of myconscience. '--_Dialogue 1st_, p. 4. 

'Ah, ' rejoined the true Mr. Clark, 'did I not say it would be so? I knewthere would be found a set of recreant priests, who, for a pitifulmorsel of the world's bread, would submit to be the instruments oftrampling on the blood-bought rights of the Scottish people, and callthemselves a Church, while departing from their allegiance to Him who isthe source of all true ecclesiastical authority; but never can theseconstitute the Church of Scotland!'--_Sermon_, p. 40. 

'I cannot reconcile it with the views I have long entertained of myduty to the Church and to the country, ' said the conjurer, 'to secedefrom the National Establishment, simply because it wants what itwanted when I became one of its ministers. '--_Dialogue 1st_, p. 12. 

'Wanted when you became one of its ministers!' exclaimed the trueMr. Clark. 'No, sir. The civil courts are now compelling obediencein cases in which they have no jurisdiction, and have levelledwith the ground the independent jurisdiction of the Church, --aChurch bearing in its diadem a host of martyrs, and which neverhitherto submitted to the supremacy of any power, excepting that ofthe Son of God. '--_Sermon_, pp. 59-63. 

'I won't go out, ' reiterated the conjurer. 

'Well, you have told me what you have long deemed to be your duty, 'said the true Mr. Clark. 'I shall repeat to you, in turn, what Ithree years ago recorded as mine. "It is the duty of the Church, " Isaid, "to maintain its position, confirmed as it is by solemnstatutes and by the faith of national treaties, until that shall beoverthrown by the deliberate decision of the State itself. Shouldsuch a circumstance really occur, as that the Legislature shouldinsist that the Church holds its endowments on the express conditionof its rendering to civil authority the subjection which it canconsistently yield to Christ alone, there being then a plainviolation of the terms on which the Church entered into alliancewith the State, that alliance must be dissolved, as one which canbe no longer continued, but by rendering to men what is due toGod. '"--_Sermon_, p. 28. 

'I deny entirely and _in toto_, ' said the conjurer, 'that the presentcontroversy involves the doctrine of the Headship. '--_See 2dDialogue_. 

'Admit, ' said the true Mr. Clark, 'but the right of secular courts toreview, and thus to confirm or annul, the proceedings of the ScottishChurch in one of the most important spiritual functions, and the samepower may soon be, under various pretexts, used to control all theinferior departments of its ecclesiastical procedure. Will any man saythat a society thus acknowledging the supremacy of a different powerfrom that of Christ is any longer to be regarded as a branch of theChurch whose unity chiefly exists in adherence to Him as itsHead?'--_Sermon_, p. 45. 

'The claim, ' said the conjurer, 'is essentially Papal. '--_Dialogue2d_, p. 6. 

'No, ' replied the true Mr. Clark, 'not Papal, but Protestant: ourconfessors and martyrs chose to suffer for it the loss of all theirworldly goods, and to incur the pains of death in its most appallingforms. '--_Sermon_, p. 45. 

'Papal notwithstanding, ' reiterated the conjurer. 'But it is not to bewondered at, that in the earliest stages of the Reformation, men newlycome out of the Church of Rome should have been led to assert for theoffice-bearers of their Church the prerogatives which Romanism claimedfor her own. '--_Dialogue 2d_, p. 7. 

'What!' exclaimed the true Mr. Clark, 'is not the present contestclearly for the rights of the members of Christ, --rights manifestlyrecognised in His word, and involving His Headship?'--_Sermon_, p. 37. _See also_ p. 31. 

'Not at all, ' replied the conjurer. 'The question is one of faction, and of faction only. Struggles for the victory of mere parties havebeen as injurious to vital godliness in the Church as the same causehas been to the true prosperity of the State. '--_Dialogue 1st_, p. 15. 

'Faction!' exclaimed the true Mr. Clark; 'the Church of Scotland isnow engaged in asserting principles which the allegiance it owes toChrist will never permit it to desert. And let it be rung in the earsof the people of Scotland, that the great reason why the asserting ofthe Church's spiritual jurisdiction is so clamorously condemned incertain quarters, is because it is employed to maintain the rights ofthe people. '--_Sermon_, pp. 37-39. 

'To be above the authority of the law, no Church in this countrycan be, ' said the conjurer. 'The Church courts would be able, weretheir principles fully recognised, to tread under foot the rightsof the people as effectually as ever they resisted those ofpatrons. '--_Dialogue 1st_, pp. 14 and 16. 

'Nothing can be more absurd than such insinuations, ' exclaimed thetrue Mr. Clark. 'The Church disclaims every kind of civil authority, and simply requires that there be no interference on the part of civilrulers with its spiritual functions. How that which declines ajurisdiction in civil matters, can in any sense of the word, or in anyconceivable circumstances, be injurious to civil liberty, it isimpossible to conceive. '--_Sermon_, p. 32. 

'Alas, ' said the conjurer, 'if the Church by recent events has beenexhibited in a lower position than Scotsmen ever saw it placed inbefore, this has been occasioned by the unhappy attitude of defianceof the civil tribunals in which it was unadvisedly placed, and whichno body, however venerable, can be permitted to occupy with impunityin a well-governed country. '--_Dialogue 1st_, p. 12. 

'Degradation!' indignantly exclaimed the true Mr. Clark; 'did theChurch, in consequence of the findings of the civil courts, proceedto act in opposition to what it believes and has solemnly declared tobe founded on the Scripture, and agreeable thereto, it would exhibititself to the world a disgraced and degraded society, utterly fallenfrom the faithfulness to religious duty which marked former periods ofits history. '--_Sermon_, p. 21. 

'Clear it is, ' said the conjurer, 'that the Church must not bepermitted to retain with impunity her attitude of defiance to thecivil tribunals. Were it otherwise, an ecclesiastical power might cometo be established in this kingdom, fully able to trample uncontrolledon the most sacred rights of the nation. '--_Dialogue 1st_, p. 12. 

'Nothing, I repeat, ' said the true Mr. Clark, 'can be more absurd thanthe insinuation. The liberties of the Church of Scotland have beenoften assailed by the civil authorities of the land, but uniformly bythose who were equally hostile to the civil freedom of the country. Its rights were, during one dreary period, so effectually overthrown, that none stood up to assert them but the devoted band who, in thewildest fastnesses of their country, were often compelled by theviolence of military rule to water with their blood the moors, wherethey rendered homage to the King of Zion; while, in the sunshine ofcourtly favour, ecclesiastics moved, who without fear bartered, fortheir own sordid gain, the blood-bought liberties of the Church ofGod, and showed themselves as willing to subvert the civil rights oftheir countrymen as they had been to destroy their religiousprivileges. '--_Sermon_, p. 30. 

'To be above the law, ' reiterated the conjurer, 'no Church in thiscountry can be. '--_Dialogue 1st_, p. 16. 

'There may arise various occasions, ' said the true Mr. Clark, 'onwhich the injunctions of man may interfere with the injunctions ofGod; and in every such case a Christian man must yield obedience tothe authority of the highest Lord. '--_Sermon_, p. 22. 

'Sad case that of Strathbogie!' ejaculated the conjurer. 

'Very sad, ' replied the true Mr. Clark. 'What is your version of it?'

'Listen, ' said the conjurer. 'What has been termed the Veto Law wasenacted less than ten years ago, and after lengthened legalproceedings, was declared illegal by the House of Lords, the highestjudicial authority in this kingdom. For proceedings adopted inconformity to this decision, seven ministers in the Presbytery ofStrathbogie were first suspended and then deposed from theirministerial offices, without any other charges laid against them thanthat they sought the protection of the civil courts in actingaccording to their decision. For refusing to obey a law which theHouse of Lords declared to be illegal, no minister can be lawfullydeposed from his office in this country, unless we are prepared toadopt a principle which would ultimately subvert the entire authorityof the law. The civil courts, simply on the ground that theseministers had been deposed for obeying the statutes of the realm, reversed the sentence, as what was beyond the lawful powers of anyChurch in this land, whether Voluntary or Established. And on the sameprinciple, they interfered to prevent any from treating them assuspended or deposed. '--_Dialogue 1st_, p. 10. 

'A most injurious representation of the case, ' said the true Mr. Clark. 'Seven ministers, forming the majority of the Presbytery ofStrathbogie, chose to intimate their resolution to take steps towardsthe settlement of Mr. Edwards as minister of Marnoch, in defiance ofthe opposition of almost all the parishioners, and in direct contemptof the instructions given them by the superior church courts. Thecivil courts in the meantime merely declared their opinion of the law, but they issued no injunction whatever, so as to give the presbyterythe pretext of choosing between obeying the one or the otherjurisdiction; and they violated the express injunction of the supremechurch court, without being able to plead in justification that theyhad been compelled by the civil authority to do so. They chose to actultroneously in violation of their duty to the Church. They hadsolemnly promised to obey the superior church courts, and had nevercome under any promise to obey in spiritual things any otherauthority. In proposing to take the usual steps for conferring thespiritual office of a pastor in the Church of Christ, in defiance ofthe injunction laid upon them by the supreme court of the Church ofScotland, they plainly violated their ordination engagements. And inactually ordaining Mr. Edwards, the whole procedure was a solemnmockery of holy things. '--_Sermon_, p. 26. 

'After all, ' said the conjurer, with a sigh, 'the agitated question isbut of inferior moment. '--_Dialogue 1st_, p. 3. 

'Inferior moment!' exclaimed the true Mr. Clark; 'no religiousquestion of the same magnitude and importance has come before thiscountry since the ever-memorable Revolution in 1688. The divisionsof secular partisanship sink into utter insignificance when comparedwith this. Let the principles once become triumphant for which theCourt of Session is now contending, and the Church of Scotland isruined. '--_Sermon_, pp. 7 and 59. 

'Ruined!' shouted out the conjurer; 'it is you who are ruining theChurch, by urging on the disruption. For my own part, I promised, asall ministers do at their ordination, never, directly or indirectly, to endeavour her subversion, or to follow divisive courses, but tomaintain her unity and peace against error and schism, whatsoevertrouble or persecution might arise; and now, in agreement with mysolemn ordination engagements, have I determined to hold by her to thelast. '--_Dialogue 1st_, p. 9. 

'What mean you by the _Church_?' asked the true Mr. Clark. 'TheChurch and the establishment of it are surely very different things. Men have talked of themselves as friends of the Church, becausethey were the friends of its civil establishment, and loudly declaimagainst the proceedings of the majority of its office-bearers now, as fraught with danger to this object. But what do they mean by thecivil establishment of an Erastian Church! Is it possible thatthey mean by it the receiving of certain pecuniary endowments as aprice for rendering a divided allegiance to the Son of God? If thatbe their meaning, it is time they and the country at large shouldknow that the Church of Scotland was never established on suchprinciples. '--_Sermon_, p. 42. 

'It is not true, however, ' said the conjurer, 'that the majority ofthe faithful ministers of Scotland have resolved to abandon theEstablishment, though this may be the case in some parts of thecountry. '--_Dialogue 1st_, p. 16. 

'Not true, sir!' said the true Mr. Clark; 'nothing can be moretrue. All--all will leave it except a set of recreant priests, whofor a pitiful morsel of this world's bread will submit to be theinstruments of trampling on the blood-bought rights of the Scottishpeople. '--_Sermon_, p. 42. 

'What has pained me most in all this controversy, ' remarked theconjurer, 'has been the insidious manner in which certain persons haveendeavoured to sow disunion--in some cases too successfully--betweenministers and their hearers. '--_Dialogue 1st_, p. 3. 

'Sir, ' exclaimed the true Mr. Clark, 'Sir, every individual would dowell to remember, when summoned to such a contest as this, the cursedenounced against Meroz for remaining in neutrality when the battleraged in Israel. This curse was denounced by the angel of the Lord, and is written for the admonition of all ages, as a demonstration ofthe feelings with which God regards the standing aloof, in a greatreligious struggle, by whatever motives it may be sought to bejustified. '--_Sermon_, p. 59. 

'The men who thus sow disunion, ' said the conjurer, 'neverventure to deny that they, whose usefulness they endeavour todestroy, are ministers of the gospel, --urging on the acceptance ofa slumbering world the message of celestial mercy, which must produceresults of weal or woe destined to be eternally remembered, when thestrifes of words which have agitated the Church on earth are allforgotten. '--_Dialogue 1st_, p. 4. 

'Hold, hold, sir, ' said the true Mr. Clark. 'On the event of thisstruggle depends not merely the temporal interests of our country, butthe welfare of many immortal spirits through the ceaseless ages offuture being. '--_Sermon_, p. 60. 

'It is so distracting a subject this Church question, ' said theconjurer, 'that I make it a point of duty never to bring it to thepulpit. '--_Dialogue 1st_, p. 3. 

'In that you and I differ, ' said the true Mr. Clark, 'just as we do inother matters. I have written very long sermons on the subject, ay, and published them too; and in particular beg leave to recommend toyour careful perusal my sermon on the _Present Position_, preached inInverness on the evening of the 19th January 1840. '

'I suppose you have heard it said, that I changed my views from thefear of worldly loss, ' said the conjurer. --_Dialogue 1st_, p. 4. 

'Heard it said!' said the true Mr. Clark. 'You forget that I have beenbottled up on the hill-side yonder for the last three years. '

'Sir, ' said the conjurer, with great solemnity, 'when the West Churchwas built, in order to secure this valuable addition to the churchaccommodation of the parish, I did not hesitate to undertake, on myown personal risk, to guarantee the payment of three thousandpounds. This obliged me to diminish, to no small extent, my personalexpenditure, as the only way in which the pecuniary burden could bemet, without diminishing my contributions to the public charitiesof the town, and to the numerous cases of private distress broughtcontinually under my notice, in the various walks of ministerialduty. And though the original debt is now reduced to half that amountby the liberal benefactions received from various individuals, stillnearly three-fourths of my stipend this year has been expended onthis object, in terms of my voluntary obligation. The large sumwhich I am now in advance, I believe, will be eventually repaid; butfor this I have no security beyond my confidence in the goodness ofthe cause, and the continued liberality of my countrymen. All thisrespecting the West Church is known to few, and would not have beenmentioned by me at this time, had it not been for the perseverancewith which some, inaccessible to higher motives themselves, haveendeavoured to persuade my hearers that mercenary considerations haveproduced the position I have felt it my duty to take in the presentdiscussion. '--_Dialogue 1st_, p. 5. 

For a few seconds the true Mr. Clark seemed as if struck dumb bythe intelligence. 'Ah! fast anchored!' he at length ejaculated. 'Fairly tethered to the Establishment by a stake of fifteenhundred pounds. Demas, happy man, had a silver mine to draw himaside--a positive silver mine. The West Church is merely a negativeone. Were it to get into the hands of the Moderates, it would becomewaterlogged to a certainty, and not a single ounce of the preciousmetal would ever be fished out of it; whereas you think there isstill some little chance of recovery when you remain to ply thepump yourself. Most disinterested man!--let your statement of thecase be but fairly printed, and it will serve you not only as anapology, but as an advertisement to boot. '

'Printed!' said the conjurer; 'I have already printed it in English, and Mr. M'Donald the schoolmaster is translating it into Gaelic. '

But we have far exceeded our limits, and have yet given scarce a titheof the controversy. We found ourselves sitting all alone in front ofour own quiet fire long ere it was half completed; and we recommendsuch of our readers as are desirous to see the rest of it in theoriginals, to possess themselves of the Rev. Mr. Clark's _Sermon_, andthe Rev. Mr. Clark's _Dialogues_. They form, when bound up together, one of the extremest, and at the same time one of the most tangible, specimens of inconsistency and self-contradiction that controversy hasyet exhibited; and enable us to anticipate the character and standingof the evangelic minority in the Erastian Church. 'If the salt haslost its savour, wherewithal shall it be salted?'

_April 12, 1843. _

PULPIT DUTIES NOT SECONDARY. 

There are two antagonist perils to which all evangelical Churches, whether established or unendowed, are exposed in an age in which men'sminds are so stirred by the fluctuations of opinion, that though theremay not be much progress, there is at least much motion. They lieopen, on the one hand, to the danger of getting afloat on the tide ofinnovation, and so drifting from the fixed position in which Churches, as exponents of the mind of Christ, possess an authoritative voice, into the giddy vortices of some revolving eddy of speculation, inwhich they can at best assume but the character of mere advocates ofuntried experiment; or, on the other hand, they are liable to fallinto the opposite mistake of obstinately resisting all change--howeverexcellent in itself, and however much a consequence of the onwardmarch of the species--and this not from any direct regard to thosedivine laws, of which one jot or tittle cannot pass away, but simplyout of respect to certain peculiar views and opinions entertained bytheir ancestors in ages considerably less wise than the times whichhave succeeded them. 

An evangelistic Church cannot fall into the one error withoutlosing its influential voice _as_ a Church. It may gain presentpopularity by throwing itself upon what chances to be the onwardmovement of the time; but it is a spendthrift popularity, that neverfails in the end to leave it exhausted and weak. The politicalague has always its cold as certainly as its hot fever fits: actionproduces reaction; great exertion induces great fatigue; thedesired object, even when fully gained, is sure always, like allmere sublunary objects of pursuit, to disappoint expectation; andthe Church that, forgetting where its real power lies, seeks, Antæus-like, to gather strength in this way from the earth, contracts in every instance but the soil and weakness inherent inthose earthy and unspiritual things to which it attaches itself. It, too, comes to have its cold ague fits and its reaction--periods ofexhaustion, disappointment, and decline. And the opposite error ofclinging to the worn-out and the obsolete produces ultimately thesame effect, though it operates in a different way. A Church that, in behalf of some antiquated type of thought or action, opposesitself to what is in reality the onward current of the age, is surealways to fare like stranded ice-floes, that, in a river floodedby thaw, retain the exact temperature under which they were formed, when the temperature all around them has altered. The ice-floes andthe obsolete Church may be alike successful for a time in keepingup the ancient state of things within their own lessening limits, but both are eventually absorbed and disappear. While the moreversatile ecclesiastical body, tossed by the cross currents andeddies of novel and uncertain change, loses its true course and makesshipwreck, the rigidly immoveable one, anchored over the worn-outpeculiarities of bygone days, is borne down by the irresistible rushof the stream, and founders at its moorings. 

The Free Church, as a body, is, we trust, not greatly in danger fromeither extreme. They are the extremes, however, which in the presentday constitute her true Scylla and Charybdis; and it were perhaps wellthat she should keep the fact steadily before her, by laying them downas such on their chart. Not from the gross and earthy fires ofpolitical movement in the present day, or from the cold grey ashes ofmovement semi-political in some uninspired age of the past, must thatpillar of flame now ascend which is to marshal her on her pilgrimagethrough the wilderness, at once reviving her by its heat and guidingher by its effulgence. The light borrowed from the one would butflicker idly before her, a wandering and delusive meteor; the otherwould furnish her with but an unlighted torch, unsuited to cast acrossher way a single beam of direction and guidance. Her light must bederived from an antiquity more remote than that of the uninspiredages, and her heat from a source more permanent than that of presentexcitement, social or political: the one direct from the unerringrecord of those times when God walked the earth in the flesh; theother from that living spirit without whose influence energy the mostuntiring can be influential in but the production of evil, andearnestness the most intense may be profession, but cannot be revival. Strength must be sought by her, not in the turmoil of evanescentagitation, nor in the worn-out modes of an age the fashion of whichhas perished, but in the perennial verities of the everlasting gospel. While so far adapting herself to the times as to present an armedfront to every form of error, she must preach to her people as if theprisoner of Patmos had but just completed the record of Revelation. 

There is one special error regarding this the most important portionof her proper work--the preaching of the word--to which it may be wellto advert. It has become much the fashion of the time--mostunthinkingly, surely--to speak of preaching as not the paramount, butmerely one of the subsidiary duties of a clergyman. 'He is not a manof much pulpit preparation, ' it has become customary to remark of someminister, at least liked if not admired, 'but he is diligent invisiting and in looking after his schools; and preaching is in realitybut a small part of a minister's duty. ' Or, in the event of a vacancy, the flock looking out for a pastor are apt enough to say, 'Our lastminister was an accomplished pulpit man, but what we at present wantis a man sedulous in visiting; for preaching is in reality but a smallpart of a minister's duty. ' Nay, ministers, especially ministers ofbut a few twelvemonths' standing, have themselves in some cases caughtup the remark, as if it embodied a self-evident truth; and while theydare tell, not without self-complacency, that their discourses--thingswritten at a short sitting, if written at all--cost them but littletrouble, they add further, as if by way of apology, that they are, however, 'much occupied otherwise, and that preaching is in realitybut a small part of a minister's duty. ' We have some times feltinclined to assure these latter personages in reply, that they might alittle improve the matter just by making preaching no part of theirduty at all. But where, we ask, is it taught, either by God in Hisword or by the Church in her standards, that preaching is merely oneof the minor duties of the minister, or indeed other than his firstand greatest duty? Not, certainly, in the New Testament, for there ithas invariably the paramount place assigned to it; as certainly not inour standards, for in them the emphasis is '_especially_' laid on the'preaching of the word' as God's most 'effectual means' of convertingsinners. If it be a truth that preaching is but comparatively a minorpart of a minister's duty, it is certainly neither a Scripture nor aShorter Catechism truth; and, lest it should be not only not a truthat all, but even not an innocuous _untruth_, we think all who hold itwould do well to inquire how they have come by it. 

We have our own suspicion regarding its origin. It is natural formen to exaggerate the importance of whatever good they patronize, orwhatever improvement or enterprise they advocate or recommend. Andperhaps some degree of exaggeration is indispensable. In order tocreate the impulse necessary to overcome the _vis inertiæ_ ofsociety, and induce in the particular case the required amount ofexertion, the stream of the moving power has--if we may so speak--tobe elevated to the level of hopes raised high above the point ofpossible accomplishment. To employ the language of the mechanist, thenecessary _fall_ would be otherwise awanting, and the machine wouldfail to move. If, for instance, all men had estimated the advantagesof free trade according to the sober computations of Chalmers, thecountry would have no Anti-Corn-Law League, and no repeal of theobnoxious statutes. And yet who can now doubt that the calculationsof Chalmers were in reality the true ones? In like manner, if ithad been truly seen that the 'baths for the working classes' couldhave merely extended to the humbler inhabitants of our cities thoseadvantages of ablution which the working men of our sea-coastsalready possess, but of which--when turned of forty--not one out of ahundred among them ever avails himself, we would scarce havewitnessed bath meetings, with Dukes in the chair; nor would thebaths themselves have been erected. But the natural exaggerativefeeling prevailed. Baths for the working classes were destinedsomehow to renovate society, it was thought; and so, thoughChartism be now as little content as ever, baths for the workingclasses our cities possess. And, doubtless, exaggeration of asimilar kind has tended to heighten the general estimate of the minorduties of the clergyman; and were there no invidious comparisonsinstituted between the lesser and the paramount duties, --betweenwhat is secondary in its nature magnified into primary importance, and what is primary in its nature diminished into a mere secondary, and standing as if the one had been viewed by the lesser, and theother through the greater lens of a telescope, --we would have noquarrel whatever with the absolute exaggeration in the case, regardedsimply as a mere moving force. But we must quarrel with it when wesee it leading to practical error; and so, in direct opposition tothe common remark, that preaching is but a small part of theminister's duty, we assert that it is not a small, but a verylarge, and by far the most important part of it; and that it is notour standards or the Scriptures that are in error on this specialhead, but the numerous class who, taking up the antagonist view, maintain as a self-evident proposition what has neither standingin the New Testament, nor yet guarantee in the experience of theChurch. 

No apology whatever ought to be sustained for imperfect pulpitpreparation; nay, practically at least, no apology whatever has orwill be sustained for it. It is no unusual thing to see a churchpreached empty; there have been cases of single clergymen, great intheir way, who have emptied four in succession: for people neitherought nor will misspend their Sabbaths in dozing under sermons towhich no effort of attention, however honestly made, enables them tolisten; and what happens to single congregations may well happen to awhole ecclesiastical body, should its general style of preaching fallbelow the existing average. And certainly we know nothing more likelyto produce such a result than the false and dangerous opinion, thatpreaching is comparatively a small part of a minister's duty. It issupereminently dangerous for one to form a mean estimate of one'swork, unless it be work of a nature very low and menial indeed. 'Noone, ' said Johnson, 'ever did anything well to which he did not givethe whole bent of his mind. ' It is this low estimate--this want of ahigh standard in the mind--that leads some of our young men to boastof the facility with which they compose their sermons, --a boast alikederogatory to the literary taste and knowledge and to the Christiancharacter of him who makes it. Easy to compose a sermon!--easy tocompose what, when written, cannot be read; and what, when preached, cannot be listened to. We believe it; for in cases of this kind theease is all on the part of the author. We believe further, we wouldfain say to the boaster, that you and such as you could scuttle andsink the Free Church with amazingly little trouble to yourselves. Butis it easy, think you, to mature such thoughts as Butler matured? Andyet these were embodied in sermons. Is it easy, think you, to conveyin language exquisite as that of Robert Hall, sentiments as refinedand imagery as classic as his? And yet Hall's noblest compositionswere sermons. Is it easy, think you, to produce a philosophic poem, the most sublime and expansive of any age or country? And yet such isthe true character of the Astronomical Sermons of Chalmers. Or is thatspirituality which impresses and sinks into the heart of a people, independently at times of thought of large calibre or the polish of afine literary taste, a thing easily incorporated into the tissue of alengthened sermon? Think you, did Maclaurin's well-known _Sermon onthe Cross_ cost him little trouble? or the not less noble sermon ofSir Matthew Hale, on _Christ and Him crucified_? Look, we beseech you, to your New Testaments, and see if there be ought slovenly in thestyle, or loose and pointless in the thinking, of the model sermonsgiven you there. The discourse addressed by our Saviour from the mountto the people was a sermon; as was also the magnificent address ofPaul to the Athenians, where he chose as his text the inscription onone of their altars, 'To the unknown God. ' There may be a practicaland most mischievous heterodoxy embodied in the preacher's idea ofsermons, as certainly as he may embody a heterodoxy theoretic anddoctrinal in the sermons themselves. 

The ordinary course of establishing a Church in any country, asspecially shown by New Testament history and that of the Reformation, is first and mainly through the preaching of the word. An earnest, eloquent man--a Peter in Jerusalem--a Paul at Athens, on Mars Hill--aJohn Knox in Edinburgh or St. Andrews--a George Whitfield in some openfield or market-place of Britain or America--or a Thomas Chalmers insome metropolitan pulpit, Scotch or English--addresses himself to thepeople. 

There is a strange power in the words, and they cannot but listen; andthen the words begin to tell. The heart is affected, the judgmentconvinced, the will influenced and directed: ancient beliefs are, asthe case may be, modified, resuscitated, or destroyed; new or revivedconvictions take the place of previous convictions, inadequate orerroneous; and thus churches are planted, and the face of societychanged. We limit ourselves here to what--being strictly natural inthe process--would operate, if skilfully applied, as directly on theside of error as of truth. It is the first essential of a book, thatit be interesting enough to be read; and of a preacher, whatever hiscreed, that he be sufficiently engaging to be attentively listened to;and without this preliminary merit, no other merit, however great, isof any avail whatever. And when a Church possesses it in any greatdegree, it is sure to spread and increase. Are there churches in theEstablishment which, though thinned by the Disruption, have now alltheir seats let, and are crammed every Sabbath to the doors? If so, besure there is popular talent in the pulpit, and that the clergyman whoofficiates there does not find it a very easy matter to compose hissermons. Nay, dear as the distinctive principles of the Free Churchare to the people of Scotland, with superior pulpit talent in theEstablishment on the one hand, and in the ranks of the disendowedbody, on the other, a goodly supply of those youthful ministers whoboast that they either never write their sermons, or write them at ashort sitting, we would by no means guarantee to our Church a tenyears' vigorous existence. These may not be palatable truths, but wetrust they are wholesome ones; and we know that the time peculiarlyrequires them. It is, however, not mainly with the Establishment thatthe Free Church has to contend. 

We ask the reader whether he has not marked, within the last fewyears, the _début_ of another and more formidable antagonist, withwhich all Christian Churches may be soon called on to grapple?

Our newly-instituted athenæums and philosophical associations form oneof the novel features of the time, --institutions in which at least thesecond-class men of the age--Emersons, and Morells, and Combes--withmuch that is interesting in science and fascinating in literature, blend sentiments and opinions at direct variance with the greatdoctrinal truths embodied in our standards. The press, not lessformidable now than ever, is an old antagonist; but, with all itsappliances and powers, it lacked the charm of the living voice. Thatpeculiar charm, however, the new combatant possesses. The pulpit, metby its own weapons and in its own field, will have to a certainty tomeasure its strength against it; and the standard of pulpitaccomplishment and of theological education, instead of being lowered, must in consequence be greatly elevated. The Church of this country, which in the earlier periods of her history, when Knox was her leader, and Buchanan the moderator of her General Assembly, stood far inadvance of the age in popular eloquence, solid learning, and elegantaccomplishment, and which, in the person of Chalmers in our own days, was vested in the more advanced views and the more profound policy ofa full century hence, must not be suffered to lag behind the age now. Her troops must not be permitted to fall into confusion, and to use asarms the rude, unsightly bludgeons of an untaught and undisciplinedmob, when the enemy, glittering in harness, and furnished with weaponskeen of temper and sharp of edge, is bearing down upon them in compactphalanx. 

We know what it is to have sat for many years under ministers who, possessed of great popular talent and high powers of original thought, gave much time and labour to pulpit preparation. We know how great aprivilege it is to have to look forward to the ministrations of theSabbath, --not as wearinesses, which, simply as a matter of duty, wereto be endured; but as exquisite feasts, spiritual and intellectual, which were to be greatly relished and enjoyed. And when hearing itsometimes regretted, with reference to at least one remarkable man, that he did not visit his flock quite so often as was desirable--manyof the complainants' sole idea of a ministerial visit, meanwhile, being simply that it was a long exordium of agreeable gossip, with ashort tail-piece of prayer stuck to its hinder end--we have stronglyfelt how immensely better it was that the assembled congregationshould enjoy each year fifty-two Sabbaths of their minister at hisbest, than that the tone of his pulpit services should be lowered, inorder that each individual among them might enjoy a yearly half-hourof him apart. And yet such, very nearly, was the true statement of thecase. We fully recognise the importance, in its own subordinate place, of ministerial visitation, especially when conducted--a circumstance, however, which sometimes lowers its popularity--as it ought to be. Butit must not be assigned that prominent place denied to it by ourstandards, and which the word of God utterly fails to sanction. 

It is, though an important, still a minor duty; and the Free Churchmust not be sacrificed to the ungrounded idea that it occupies a levelas high, or even nearly as high, as 'the preaching of the word. ' Tothat peculiar scheme of visitation advocated by Chalmers as a firstprocess in his work of excavation, we of course do not refer. In thosespecial cases to which he so vigorously directed himself, visitationwas an inevitable preliminary, without which the appliances of thepulpit could not be brought to bear. Philip had to open the Scriptures_tête-à-tête_ to the Ethiopian eunuch, for the Ethiopian eunuch nevercame to church. 

But even were his scheme identical with that to which we particularlyrefer, we would say to the young preacher who sheltered under hisauthority, 'Well, prepare for the pulpit as Dr. Chalmers did, evenwhen he had the West Port congregation for his audience, and we shallbe quite content to let you visit as much as you may. ' The compositionof a sermon was never easy work to him. He devoted to it much time, and the full bent of his powerful mind; and even when letting himselfdown to the humblest of the people, the philosopher of largestcapacity might profitably take his place among the hearers, and listenwith an interest never for one moment suffered to flag. 

_May 3, 1848. _

DUGALD STEWART. 

It is now more than forty years since it was remarked by Jeffrey, inhis _Review_, that metaphysical science was decidedly on thedecline in Scotland. Dugald Stewart, though in a delicate state ofhealth at the time, was in the full vigour of his faculties, and hadstill eighteen years of life before him; Thomas Brown had just beenappointed his assistant and successor in the Moral Philosophy Chairof the University of Edinburgh; and the _élite_ of the Scottishcapital were flocking in crowds to his class-room, captivated by theeloquence and ingenuity of his singularly vigorous and originallectures. Even fifteen years subsequent, Dr. Welsh could state, inthe Life of his friend, that the reception of his work on the_Philosophy of the Human Mind_ had been 'favourable to a degree ofwhich, in metaphysical writings, there was no parallel. ' It has beenrecorded as a very remarkable circumstance, that the _Essay_ ofLocke--produced at a period when the mind of Europe first awoke togeneral activity in the metaphysical province--passed through seveneditions in the comparatively brief space of fourteen years. The_Lectures_ of Dr. Brown passed through exactly seven editions in_twelve_ years, and this at a time when, according to Jeffrey, thatscience of mind of which they treated was in a state of gradualdecay. The critic was, however, in the right. The genius of Brownhad imparted to his brilliant posthumous work an interest whichcould scarce be regarded as attaching to the subject of it; and in afew years after--from about the year 1835 till after the disruptionof the Scottish Church--metaphysical science had sunk, not inScotland only, but all over Britain, to its lowest ebb. A fewretired scholars continued to prosecute their researches in theprovince of mind; but scarce any interest attached to their writings, and not a bookseller could be found hardy enough to publish at hisown risk a metaphysical work. We are old enough to remember a time, contemporaneous with the latter days of Brown, when young students, intheir course of preparation for the learned professions, especiallyfor the Church, used to be ever recurring in conversation to thestaple metaphysical questions, --occasionally, no doubt, much inthe style of Jack Lizard in the _Guardian_, who comforted hismother, when the worthy lady was so unlucky as to scald her handwith the boiling tea-kettle, by assuring her there was no such thingas heat, but which at least served to show that this branch ofliberal education fully occupied the mind of the individualsostensibly engaged in mastering it; and we remember a subsequenttime, when students--some of them very clever ones--seemed never tohave thought on these questions at all, and remained silent inconversation when they chanced to be mooted by the men of anearlier generation. During, however, the last ten years, mainlythrough the revival of a taste for metaphysical inquiry in Franceand Germany, which has reacted on this country, abstract questions onthe nature and functions of mind are again acquiring their modicumof space and importance in Scotland. Our country no longer takesthe place it once did among the nations in this department, and neveragain may; but it at least begins to remember it once was, and toserve itself heir to the works of the older masters of mind; andwe regard it as an evidence of the reaction to which we refer, that agreatly more complete edition of the writings of Dugald Stewartthan has yet appeared is at the present time in the course ofissuing from the press of one of our most respected Scotchpublishers--the inheritor of a name paramount in the annals of thetrade--Mr. Thomas Constable. 

The writings of Dugald Stewart have been unfortunate in more than thatstate of exhaustion and syncope into which metaphysical sciencecontinued to sink during the lapse of more than half a generationafter the death of their author, and the commencement of which hadbeen remarked by Jeffrey more than half a generation before. From somepeculiar views--founded, we believe, on an overweening estimate oftheir pecuniary value--the son and heir of the philosopher tabooedtheir publication; and it is only now that, in consequence of hisdeath, and of the juster views entertained on the subject by a sister, also recently deceased, that they are permitted to reappear. Thetime, however, from that awakened interest in metaphysical speculationwhich we have remarked, seems highly favourable for such anundertaking; and we cannot doubt that the work will find what itdeserves--a sure and steady, if not very rapid sale. Stewart may beregarded as not merely one of the more distinguished members of theScottish school of metaphysics, but as peculiarly its historian andexponent. The mind of Reid was cast in a more original mould, but hewanted both the elegance and the eloquence of Stewart, nor were hispowers of illustration equally great. His language, too, was not onlyless refined and flowing, but also less scientifically correct, thanthat of his distinguished exponent and successor. We would cite, forinstance, the happy substitution by the latter of the terms 'laws ofhuman thought and belief, ' for the unfortunate phrases 'common sense'and 'instinct, ' which raised so extensive a prejudice against thevigorous protest against scepticism made in other respects soeffectively by Reid; and he passes oftener from the abstractions ofhis science into the regions of life and character in which all mustfeel interested, however slight their acquaintance with the subtletiesof metaphysical speculation. The extraordinary excellence of ProfessorStewart's style has been recognised by the highest authorities. Robertson was perhaps the best English writer of his day. The courtlyWalpole, on ascertaining that he spoke Scotch, told him he washeartily glad of it; for 'it would be too mortifying, ' he added, 'forEnglishmen to find that he not only wrote, but also spoke, theirlanguage better than themselves. ' And yet the Edinburgh Reviewersrecognised Stewart as the writer of a more exquisite style than evenRobertson. And Sir James Mackintosh, no mean judge, characterizeshim as the most perfect, in an artistic point of view, of thephilosophical writers of Britain. 'Probably no writer ever exceededhim, ' says Sir James, 'in that species of eloquence which springsfrom sensibility to literary merit and moral excellence; whichneither obscures science by prodigal ornament, nor disturbs theserenity of patient attention; but, though it rather calms and soothesthe feelings, yet exalts the genius, and insensibly inspires areasonable enthusiasm for whatever is good and fair. ' Now, it issurely not unimportant that the writings of such a man, simply intheir character as literary models, should be submitted to an age likethe present, especially to its Scotchmen. It is stated by Hume, in oneof his letters to Robertson, that meeting in Paris with the lady whofirst gave to the French a translation of Charles V. , he asked herwhat she thought of the style of the work, and that she instantlyreplied, with great _naïveté_, 'Oh, it is such a style as only aScotchman could have written. ' Scotland did certainly stand high inthe age of Hume and Mackenzie, of Robertson and of Adam Smith, for notonly the vigour of its thinking, but also for the purity and excellenceof its style. We fear, however, it can no longer arrogate to itselfpraise on this special score. There have been books produced amongus during the last twenty years, which have failed in making their wayinto England, mainly in consequence of the slipshod style in whichthey were written. A busy age, much agitated by controversy, is no doubtunfavourable to the production of compositions of classic beauty. 'Therounded period, ' says an ingenious French writer, 'opens up the longfolds of its floating robe in a time of stability, authority, andconfidence. But when literature has become a means of action, instead ofcontinuing to be used for its own sake, we no longer amuse ourselveswith the turning of periods. The period is contemporary with theperuke--the period is the peruke of style. The close of the eighteenthcentury shortened the one as much as the other. The peruke reachingthe middle of the loins could not be suitable to men in haste toaccomplish a work of destruction. When was J. J. Rousseau himself givento the turning of periods? Assuredly it was not in his pamphlets!'Now the style of Stewart was first formed, we need scarce remark, during that period of profound repose which preceded the FrenchRevolution; and his after-life, spent in quiet and thoughtfulretirement, with the classics of our own and other countries, ancientand modern, for his companions, and with composition as his soleemployment--though the world around him was fiercely engaged withpolitics or with war--had nothing in it to deteriorate it. He neverheard the steam-press groaning, as the night wore late, for hisunfinished lucubrations; nay, we question if he ever wrote a carelessor hurried sentence. His naturally faultless taste had full space tosatisfy itself with whatever he deemed it necessary to perform; andhence works of finished beauty, which, as pieces of art, the younger_literati_ of Scotland would do well to study and imitate. There maybe differences of opinion regarding the standing of Stewart as ametaphysician, but there are no differences of opinion regarding hisexcellence as a writer. 

With regard to metaphysics themselves, we are disposed to acquiescein the judgment of Jeffrey, without, however, acquiescing in muchwhich he has founded upon it. To _observe_ as a mental philosopher, and to _experiment_ as a natural one, are very different things;and never will mere observation in the one field lead to resultsso splendid or so practical as experiment on the properties of matter, to which man owes his extraordinary control over the elements. Tothe knowledge acquired by his observations on the nature oroperations of mind, he owes no new power over that which he surveys:in at least its direct consequences, his science is barren. It wouldbe difficult, however, to overestimate its _indirect_ consequences. It seems impossible that the metaphysical province should longexist blank and unoccupied in any highly civilised country, especially in a country of active and acquiring intellects, such asScotland. If the philosophy of Locke or of Reid fail to occupy thefield, we find it occupied instead by that of Comte or of Combe. Owensand Martineaus take the place of Browns and of Stewarts; and badmetaphysics, of the most dangerous tendency, are taught, in the lackof metaphysics wholesome and good. All the more dangerous partiesof the present day have their foundations of principle on a basisof bad metaphysics. The same remark applies to well-nigh all thereligious heresies; and the less metaphysical an age is, all themore superficial usually are the heresies which spring up in it. Wequestion whether Morrisonianism could have originated in what wasemphatically the metaphysical age of Scotland, in the latter daysof Reid, or the earlier days of Stewart. What became in our times aheresy in the theological field, would have spent itself, as the merecrotchet of a few unripened intellects, in the metaphysical one. It would have found vent in some debating club or speculative society, and the Churches would have rested in peace. There are otherindirect benefits derived from metaphysical study. It forms thebest possible gymnastics of mind. All the great metaphysicians, ifnot merely acute, but also broad-minded men, have been great also inthe practical departments of thought. The author of the _Essay on theHuman Understanding_ was the author also of the _Treatise onGovernment_ and the _Letters on Toleration_. Hume, in those _Essays onTrade and Politics_, which are free from the stain of infidelity, was one of the most solid of thinkers; and he who produced the _Theoryof Moral Sentiments_ continues to give law at the present time, in his_Wealth of Nations_, to the commerce of the civilised world. From asubtile but comparatively narrow class of intellects, thoughdistinguished in the metaphysical province, mankind has receivedmuch less. Berkeley was one of these, and may be regarded as theirtype and representative. Save his metaphysics, --demonstrative ofthe non-existence of matter, or demonstrative rather that fire isnot conscious of heat, nor ice of cold, nor yet our enlightenedsurface of colour, --he bequeathed little else to the world thanhis tar-water; and his tar-water, no longer recognised as auniversal medicine, has had its day, and is forgotten. Withoutprofessing to know aught of German metaphysicians--for in the timeswhen we used to read Hume and Reid they were but little known inthis country--we can by no means rate them so high as the men whosewritings they are supplanting. What, we have been accustomed to ask, are their trophies in the practical? Have any of them given to theworld even tar-water? Where are their Lockes, Humes, and Adam Smiths?The man who, according to Johnson, can walk vigorously towards theeast, can walk vigorously toward the west also. How is it that theseGerman metaphysicians exhibit their vigour exclusively in walking oneway? Where are their works of a practical character, powerful enoughto give law to the species? Where their treatises like those of Lockeon _Toleration_ or on _Government_, or their essays like that ofHume or of Adam Smith on the _Balance of Power_ or the _Wealth ofNations_? Are they doing other, to use a very old illustration, thanmerely milking rams, leaving their admirers and followers to holdthe pail?

Dugald Stewart, though mayhap less an original in the domain ofabstract thought than some of his predecessors, belongs emphaticallyto the practical school. With him philosophy is simply common sense onthat large scale which renders it one of the least common things inthe world. And never, perhaps, was there a more thoroughly honestseeker after truth. Burns somewhat whimsically describes him, in arecently recovered letter given to the world by Robert Chambers, as'that plain, honest, worthy man, the Professor. I think, ' adds thepoet, 'his character, divided into ten parts, stands thus: Four partsSocrates, four parts Nathaniel, and two parts Shakespeare's Brutus. 'The estimate of Sir James Mackintosh is equally high; nor will itweigh less with many of our readers that the elder M'Crie used to giveexpression to a judgment quite as favourable. 'He was fascinated, 'says the son and biographer of the latter, 'with the _beau ideal_ ofacademical eloquence which adorned the Moral Chair in the person ofDugald Stewart. Long after he had sat under this admired leader, hewould describe with rapture his early emotions while looking on thehandsomely erect and elastic figure of the Professor--in everyattitude a model for the statuary--listening to expositions, whetherof facts or principles, always clear as the transparent stream; andcharmed by the tones of a voice which modulated into spoken musicevery expression of intelligence and feeling. An esteemed friend ofhis happening to say to him some years ago, "I have been hearing Dr. Brown lecture with all the eloquence of Dugald Stewart, " "No, sir, " heexclaimed with an air of almost Johnsonian decision, "you have not, and no man ever will. '" The first volume of the collected works ofStewart, now given to the world in a form at once worthy of theirauthor and of the name of Constable, contains the far-famed_Dissertations_, and is edited by Sir William Hamilton. It contains aconsiderable amount of original matter, now published from theauthor's manuscripts for the first time. It would be idle to attemptcriticising a work so well established; but the brief remark of one ofthe first of metaphysical critics--Sir James Mackintosh--on what hewell terms 'the magnificent Dissertations, ' may be found notunacceptable. 'These Dissertations, ' says Sir James, 'are perhaps mostprofusely ornamented of any of their author's compositions, --apeculiarity which must in part have arisen from a principle of taste, which regarded decoration as more suitable to the history ofphilosophy than to philosophy itself. But the memorable instances ofCicero, of Milton, and still more those of Dryden and Burke, seem toshow that there is some natural tendency in the fire of genius to burnmore brightly, or to blaze more fiercely, in the evening than in themorning of human life. Probably the materials which long experiencesupplies to the imagination, the boldness with which a moreestablished reputation arms the mind, and the silence of the low butformidable rivals of the higher principles, may concur in providingthis unexpected and little observed effect. '

_August 26, 1854. _

OUR TOWN COUNCILS. 

It is a grand, though doubtless natural, mistake to hold that themembers of the Town Councils of our Scottish cities and burghs reallyrepresent in opinion and feeling their nominal constituencies theelectors, through whose suffrages they have been placed in office. Invery many cases they do not represent them at all: they form anentirely dissimilar class, --a class as thoroughly different from thesolid mass of the community, on which they float like froth and spumeon the surface of the great deep, as that other class from which, because there are unhappily scarce any other men in the field, we haveto select our legislators. The subject is one of importance. In theSabbath controversy now carrying on, it has been invariably taken forgranted by the anti-Sabbatarian press of the country, that our TownCouncils _do_ represent the general constituency; and there has beenmuch founded on the assumption. We shall by and by be finding the sameassumption employed against us in the Popery endowment question; andit would be well, therefore, carefully to examine the grounds on whichit rests, and to ascertain whether there may not exist some practicalmode of testing its unsolidity. 

It is not difficult to see how that upper class to which ourlegislators of both Houses of Parliament mainly belong, should differgreatly from the larger and more solid portion of the middle classesin almost all questions of a religious character and bearing. Bacon, in his _Essay on Kings_, has quaintly, but, we are afraid, all toojustly remarked, that 'of all kind of men, God is the least beholdingunto them [kings]; for He doth most for them, and they do ordinarilyleast for Him. ' But the character applies to more than kings. Itaffects the whole upper layers of the great pyramid of society, fromits gilded pinnacle down to the higher confines of its solid middleportion; and to these upper layers of the erection our legislators, hereditary and elective, with, of course, a very few exceptions in theLower House, all belong. They are drafted from the classes with which, if we perhaps except the lowest and most degraded of all, religiousquestions weigh least. There is, of course, no class wholly divorcedfrom good; and those exceptions to which Cowper could refer twogenerations ago obtain still:

 'We boast some rich ones whom the gospel sways, And one who wears a coronet, and prays: Like gleanings of an olive tree, they show Here and there one upon the topmost bough. '

But in at least the mass, religion has not been influential among thegoverning classes in Britain since the days of the Commonwealth. Ithas formed one of the great forces on which they have calculated--aformidable power among the people, that they have striven, accordingto the nature of the emergency, to quiet or awaken, bias orcontrol, --now for the ends of party, when an antagonist faction had tobe overborne and put down, --now for the general benefit of thecountry, when a foreign enemy had to be repelled or an intestinediscord to be suppressed; but it has been peculiarly a force outsidethe governing classes--external, not internal, to them, --a power whichit has been their special work to regulate and direct, not a powerwhich has regulated and directed them. The last British Governmentwhich--God, according to Bacon, having done much for it--labouredearnestly to do much for God, was that very remarkable one whichcentred in the person of the Lord Protector. 

Hence naturally much that is unsatisfactory to the comparativelyreligious middle classes of the country, in the conduct, with regardto religious questions, of the classes on whom devolves the work oflegislation. There is no real community of feeling and belief in thesematters between the two. To the extent to which religion is involvedin the legislative enactments of the time, the middle class is inreality not represented, and the upper class does not represent. Itmay not seem equally obvious, however, how there should be a lack ofrepresentation, not only among our members of Parliament, but alsoamong our members of Council. They at least surely belong, it may besaid, to the middle classes, by whom and from among whom they arechosen for their office. Certainly in some cases they do; in manyothers, however, they form a class scarce less peculiar than thoseupper classes out of which the legislators of the country come to bedrawn, simply because there is no other class in the field out ofwhich they can be selected. 

The Reform and Municipality Bills wrought a mighty change in the TownCouncils of the kingdom. The old close burgh system, with all itsabuses, ceased for ever, save in its remains--monumental debts, and everlasting leases of town lands, granted on easy terms toofficials and their friends; and droll recollections, like thoseembalmed by Galt in our literature, of solid municipal feasting, andnot so solid municipal services, --of exclusive cliqueships, misemployed patronages, modest self-elections, --in short, of ageneral practice of jobbing, more palpable than pleasant, and thattended rather to individual advantage than corporate honour. The oldmen retired, and a set of new men were elevated by newly-createdconstituencies into their vacated places, to be disinterested ondilapidated means, and noisy on short commons. The days of long andheavy feasts had come to a close, and the days of long and heavyspeeches succeeded. No two events which this world of ours eversaw, led to so vast an amount of bad speaking as the one ReformBill that swept away the rotten burghs, and the other Reform Billthat opened the close ones. By and by, however, it came to be seenthat the old, privileged, self-elected class were succeeded in manyinstances by a class that, though elected by their neighbours, wereyet not quite like their neighbours. Their neighbours were menwho, with their own personal business to attend to, had neitherthe time nor the ambition to be moving motions or speaking speechesin the eye of the public, and who could not take the trouble tosecure elections by canvassing voters. The men who had the time, andtook the trouble, were generally a class ill-hafted in society, whohad high notions of reforming everything save themselves, and ofkeeping right all kinds of businesses except their own. The oldstate of things was, notwithstanding its many faults, a state underwhich our Scotch burghers rose into consideration by arts ofcomparative solidity. A tradesman or shopkeeper looked well to hisbusiness, --became an important man in the market-place and a goodman in the bank, --increased in weight in the same proportion thathis coffers did so, and grew influential and oracular on thestrength of his pounds sterling per annum. With altered times, however, there arose a new order of men, --

 'The wits of Charles found easier ways to fame. '

It was no longer necessary to spend the greater part of a lifetime inacquiring money and character: a glib tongue, a few high professionsof public principle, and a few weeks' canvassing, were found to servethe turn more than equally well. 

There commenced straightway a new dynasty of dignities and honours. Councillors got into print in the capacity of speechmakers, who, savefor the revolution effected, would never have got into print in anyother capacity than, mayhap, that of bankrupts in the Gazette. Eloquent men walked to church in scarlet, greatly distinguished asprovosts and bailies, who but for the happy change would have creptunseen all their lives long among the crowd. Members of Parliamentwent arm-in-arm, when they visited their constituencies, with folkaltogether unused to such consideration; and when a burgher's sonsought to be promoted to the excise, or a seaman to the coast-guardservice, it was through the new men that influence had to be exerted. And of course the new men had to approve themselves worthy of theirhonours, by making large sacrifices for the public weal. They had inmany cases not much to do: the magistracy of the bygone school, whomthey succeeded, had obligingly relieved posterity of the trouble ofhaving a too preponderous amount of municipal property to manage andlook after; but if they had not much to do, they had at least a greatdeal to say; and as they were ambitious of saying it, their ownindividual concerns were not unfrequently neglected, in order thattheir constituencies might be edified and informed. In cases not afew, the natural consequences ensued. We have in our eye one specialburgh in the north, in which every name in the Town Council, from thatof the provost down to that of the humblest councillor, had, in thecourse of some two or three years, appeared also in the _Gazette_; andthe previous provost of the place had got desperately involved withthe branch banks of the district, and had ultimately run the country, to avoid a prosecution for forgery. 

Let it not be held that we are including the entire tribe of moderntown functionaries in one sweeping condemnatory description. Weourselves, in our time (we refer to the fact with a high but surelynatural pride), held office as a town councillor, under the modern_régime_, for the space of three whole years in a parliamentary burghthat contained no fewer than forty voters. All may learn from historyhow it was that Bailie Weezle earned his municipal honours during theancient state of things in the famous burgh of Gudetown. 'BailieWeezle, ' says Galt, 'was a man not overladen with worldly wisdom, andhad been chosen into the Council principally on account of beingeasily managed. Being an idle person living on his money, and of asoft and quiet nature, he was, for the reason aforesaid, taken by oneconsent among us, where he always voted on the provost's side; for incontroverted questions every one is beholden to take a part, and thebailie thought it was his duty to side with the chief magistrate. ' Ourown special qualifications for office were, we must be permitted injustice to ourselves to state, different from Bailie Weezle's by ashade. 

It was generally held, that if there was nothing to do we would _do_nothing, and if nothing to say we would _say_ nothing; and sothoroughly did we fulfil every expectation that had been previouslyformed of us, that for three years together we said and did nothing inour official capacity with great _éclat_, and regularly absentedourselves from every meeting of Council except the first, to theentire satisfaction of our constituency. It will not be held, therefore, in the face of so important a fact, that we include in ourdescription all the town magistracies under the existing state ofthings, and most certainly not all modern town councillors. 

Nothing, however, can be more certain, we repeat, than that theydiffer from their constituencies as a class, and that they are chosento represent them in municipal affairs, just as another and higherclass is chosen to represent them in the Legislature--merely becausethere is no other class in the field. The solid middle-class men ofbusiness have, as has been said, something else to employ them, andcannot spare their services. They cannot accept of mere notoriety, with mayhap a modicum of patronate influence attached, as an adequateprice for the time and labour which their own affairs demand. It is apeculiar class in the municipal as in the literary field, that 'weighsolid pudding against empty praise, ' and come to regard the emptypraise as solid enough to outweigh the pudding. Not but that it is afine thing to be in a Town Council, and to see one's fortnightlyspeeches flourishing in the public prints. Where else could some ofour Edinburgh worthies bring themselves so prominently before the eyesof the country?

Where else, for instance, could Councillor ---- impart such universalinterest to the fact that he taught in a Sabbath school, and rode outof town every evening to attend to its duties by a Sunday train, --thusforming an invariable item, it would seem, in the average of theninety-two Sabbath journeyers that travelled by the Edinburgh andGlasgow Railway, and failed to remunerate the proprietors? Or whereelse could Councillor ---- refer with such prodigious effect to Dr. Chalmers's bloody-minded scheme of '_executing_ the heathen?' Or whereelse could Councillor ---- succeed in eliciting so general a beliefthat he was one of the poor endangered heathens over which thethreatened _execution_ hung, through his famous oath 'By Jupiter?'

By the way, is this latter gentleman acquainted with Smollett's storyof the eccentric Mr. H. , and chivalrously bent, on the same principle, in acknowledging a deity in distress? 'Mr. H. , some years ago, beingin the Campidoglio at Rome, ' says Smollett, 'made up to the bust ofJupiter, and bowing very low, exclaimed, in the Italian language, "Ihope, sir, if ever you get your head above water again, you willremember that I paid my respects to you in your adversity. " Thissally, ' continues the historian, 'was reported to the CardinalCamerlengo, and by him laid before the Pope Benedict XIV. , who couldnot help laughing at the extravagance of the address, and said to theCardinal, "Those English heretics think they have a right to go to thedevil in their own way. '"

Now, standing, as we do, either on the threshold of serious nationalcontroversies of a religious bearing, or already entered upon them, itwould be well to mark and test the facts which it is our presentobject specially to point out. It would be well to take measures forrendering it an as palpable as it is a solid truth, that the municipal_tail_ of the country's representation no more really represents it inseveral very important respects than its parliamentary _head_. Itrepresents it most inadequately on the Sabbath question now; it willrepresent it quite as inadequately in the Popish endowment question byand by; and if in reality we do not wish to see the battle goingagainst us on both issues, there must be effective means employed todemonstrate the fact. In matters of a religious bearing, theill-hafted notoriety-men of our Town Councils much more nearlyresemble the upper indifferent classes, from which our legislators aredrafted, than they do the solid bulk of the community. 

They are decidedly in the movement party, and form a portion, not ofthe ballast, but of the superfluous sail, of the State. Nor should itbe difficult to render the fact evident to all. In one of our northernburghs--Dingwall--a majority of the Town Council lately memorializedthe Directors of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway in exactly the samevein as the majority of our Edinburgh Town Council. So extreme a stepseemed rather extraordinary for Ross-shire; and a gentleman of theburgh, one of the voters, convinced that the officials were far indeedfrom representing their constituency, shrewdly set himself todemonstrate the real state of the case. First he possessed himself ofan accredited list of the voters; and then, with a memorial addressedto the Directors, strongly condemnatory of the conduct of the Council, he called upon every voter in the burgh who had not taken the oppositeside in the character of a councillor, with the exception of two, whose views he had previously ascertained to be unfavourable. Andwhat, thinks our reader, was the result? Seven councillors had votedon the anti-Sabbatarian side; and the provost, for himself and theCouncil, had afterwards signed the memorial. And of the votersoutside, four were found to make common cause with them. Two more didnot make common cause with them, but were not prepared to condemnthem, and so did not sign. There were thus fourteen in all who wereeither not opposed to the running of Sabbath trains, or who were atleast not disposed openly to denounce the parties who had memorializedthe Directors, in the name of the burgh, to the effect that Sabbathtrains should be run. Of the other electors, ten were non-resident, five more were out of town at the time, three had fallen out ofpossession since the roll had been made up, and one was dead. And allthe others, amounting to sixty-nine in number, at once signed thedocument condemnatory of the Council, and were happy to have anopportunity of doing so. The available votes of the burgh were opposedto those of their pseudo-representatives in the proportion of nearlysix to one. 

In the parliamentary burgh of Cromarty an almost similar experimentwas made. There, however, though the movement party had composed themajority of the Council only a few years since, they had been cast outof office, partly through a strong reaction which had taken placeagainst them, partly in consequence of a quarrel among themselves. Andso the existing Town Council took the initiative in memorializing theDirectors in favour of the recent resolution not to run Sunday trains. Of all the voters of the burgh, only five stood aloof; all the othersmade common cause with the Town Council in attaching their names totheir document. 

But it is a significant fact, that in the knot of five the ex-councillorsof the movement party were included; and that had _they_ been in theCouncil still, a majority would to a certainty have voted in the wake ofthe Edinburgh Town Council. There is much instruction in facts such asthese; and they may be turned to great practical account. 

Why should not the sentiments of every voter in Scotland be taken onthis same Sabbath question now? or what is there to prevent us fromtaking the sentiments of every voter in Scotland on the Popishendowment question by and by?

It is a tedious and expensive matter to get up petitions, to which alland sundry affix their names; but the franchise-holders of Scotlandare comparatively a not very numerous class; and about the same amountof labour that goes to a monthly collection for the Sustentation Fund, would be quite sufficient to place before Government and the countrythe full expression of _their_ feelings and opinions on the twoleading questions of the day. But enough for the present--'a word tothe wise. '

_January 20, 1847. _

SUTHERLAND AS IT WAS AND IS;{1}

OR, HOW A COUNTRY MAY BE RUINED. 

CHAPTER I. 

There appeared at Paris, about five years ago, a singularly ingeniouswork on political economy, from the pen of the late M. De Sismondi, awriter of European reputation. The greater part of the first volume istaken up with discussions on territorial wealth, and the condition ofthe cultivators of the soil; and in this portion of the work there isa prominent place assigned to a subject which perhaps few Scotchreaders would expect to see introduced through the medium of a foreigntongue to the people of a great continental State. We find thisphilosophic writer, whose works are known far beyond the limits of hislanguage, devoting an entire essay to the case of the late Duchess ofSutherland and her tenants, and forming a judgment on it very unlikethe decision of political economists in our own country, who have nothesitated to characterize her great and singularly harsh experiment, whose worst effects we are but beginning to see, as at oncejustifiable in itself and happy in its results. It is curious toobserve how deeds done as if in darkness and a corner, are beginning, after the lapse of nearly thirty years, to be proclaimed on thehouse-tops. The experiment of the late Duchess was not intended to bemade in the eye of Europe. Its details would ill bear the exposure. When Cobbett simply referred to it only ten years ago, the nobleproprietrix was startled, as if a rather delicate family secret was onthe eve of being divulged; and yet nothing seems more evident now thanthat civilised man all over the world is to be made aware of how theexperiment was accomplished, and what it is ultimately to produce. Itmust be obvious, further, that the infatuation of the presentproprietor, in virtually setting aside the Toleration Act on hisproperty, must have the effect of spreading the knowledge of it allthe more widely, and of rendering its results much more disastrousthan they could have possibly been of themselves. 

In a time of quiet and good order, when law, whether in the right orthe wrong, is all-potent in enforcing its findings, the argument whichthe philosophic Frenchman employs in behalf of the ejected tenantry ofSutherland, is an argument at which proprietors may afford to smile. In a time of revolution, however, when lands change their owners, andold families give place to new ones, it might be found somewhatformidable, --sufficiently so, at least, to lead a wise proprietor inan unsettled age rather to conciliate than oppress and irritate theclass who would be able in such circumstances to urge it with mosteffect. It is not easy doing justice in a few sentences to the factsand reasonings of an elaborate essay; but the line of the argumentruns somewhat thus. 

Under the old Celtic tenures--the only tenures, be it remembered, through which the lords of Sutherland derive their rights to theirlands--the _Klaan_, or children of the soil, were the proprietors ofthe soil: 'the whole of Sutherland, ' says Sismondi, belonged to 'themen of Sutherland. ' Their chief was their monarch, and a very absolutemonarch he was. 'He gave the different _tacks_ of land to hisofficers, or took them away from them, according as they showedthemselves more or less useful in war. But though he could thus, in amilitary sense, reward or punish the clan, he could not diminish inthe least the property of the clan itself;'--he was a chief, not aproprietor, and had 'no more right to expel from their homes theinhabitants of his county, than a king to expel from his country theinhabitants of his kingdom. ' 'Now, the Gaelic tenant, ' continues theFrenchman, 'has never been conquered; nor did he forfeit, on any afteroccasion, the rights which he originally possessed;'--in point ofright, he is still a co-proprietor with his captain. To a Scotchmanacquainted with the law of property as it has existed among us, ineven the Highlands, for the last century, and everywhere else for atleast two centuries more, the view may seem extreme; not so, however, to a native of the Continent, in many parts of which prescription andcustom are found ranged, not on the side of the chief, but on that ofthe vassal. 'Switzerland, ' says Sismondi, 'which in so many respectsresembles Scotland--in its lakes--its mountains--its climate--and thecharacter, manners, and habits of its children--was likewise at thesame period parcelled out among a small number of lords. If the Countsof Kyburgh, of Lentzburg, of Hapsburg, and of Gruyeres, had beenprotected by the English laws, they would find themselves at thepresent day precisely in the condition in which the Earls ofSutherland were twenty years ago. Some of them would perhaps have hadthe same taste for _improvements_, and several republics would havebeen expelled from the Alps, to make room for flocks of sheep. ' 'Butwhile the law has given to the Swiss peasant a guarantee ofperpetuity, it is to the Scottish laird that it has extended thisguarantee in the British empire, leaving the peasant in a precarioussituation. ' 'The clan--recognised at first by the captain, whom theyfollowed in war and obeyed for their common advantage, as his friendsand relations, then as his soldiers, then as his vassals, then as hisfarmers--he has come finally to regard as hired labourers, whom he mayperchance allow to remain on the soil of their common country for hisown advantage, but whom he has the power to expel so soon as he nolonger finds it for his interest to keep them. '

Arguments like those of Sismondi, however much their force may be felton the Continent, could be formidable at home, as we have said, inonly a time of revolution, when the very foundations of society wouldbe unfixed, and opinion set loose, to pull down or reconstruct atpleasure. But it is surely not uninteresting to mark how, in thecourse of events, that very law of England which, in the view of theFrenchman, has done the Highland peasant so much less, and theHighland chief so much more than justice, is bidding fair, in the caseof Sutherland at least, to carry its rude equalizing remedy along withit. Between the years 1811 and 1820, fifteen thousand inhabitants ofthis northern district were ejected from their snug inland farms, bymeans for which we would in vain seek a precedent, except, perchance, in the history of the Irish massacre. But though the interior of thecounty was thus _improved_ into a desert, in which there are manythousands of sheep, but few human habitations, let it not be supposedby the reader that its general population, was in any degree lessened. So far was this from being the case, that the census of 1821 showed anincrease over the census of 1811 of more than two hundred; and thepresent population of Sutherland exceeds, by a thousand, itspopulation before the change. The county has not been depopulated--itspopulation has been merely arranged after a new fashion. The lateDuchess found it spread equally over the interior and the sea-coast, and in very comfortable circumstances;--she left it compressed into awretched selvage of poverty and suffering, that fringes the county onits eastern and western shores. And the law which enabled her to makesuch an arrangement, maugre the ancient rights of the poor Highlander, is now on the eve of stepping in, in its own clumsy way, to make herfamily pay the penalty. The evil of a poor-law can be no longeraverted from Scotland. However much we may dislike compulsoryassessment for the support of our poor, it can be no longer avoided. Our aristocracy have been working hard for it during the whole of thepresent century, and a little longer; the disruption of the ScottishChurch, as the last in a series of events, all of which have tendedtowards it, has rendered it inevitable. Let the evidence of thepresent commissioners on the subject be what it may, it cannot be of akind suited to show that if England should have a poor-law, Scotlandshould have none. The southern kingdom must and will give us apoor-law; and then shall the selvage of deep poverty which fringes thesea-coasts of Sutherland avenge on the titled proprietor of the countyboth his mother's error and his own. If our British laws, unlikethose of Switzerland, failed miserably in _her_ day in protecting thevassal, they will more than fail, in those of her successor, inprotecting the lord. Our political economists shall have anopportunity of reducing their arguments regarding the improvements inSutherland into a few arithmetical terms, which the merest tyro willbe able to grapple with. 

We find a similar case thus strongly stated by Cobbett in his_Northern Tour_, and in connection with a well-known name:--'Sir JamesGraham has his estate lying off this road to the left. He has not been_clearing_ his estate--the poor-law would not let him do that; but hehas been clearing off the small farms, and making them into largeones, which he had a right to do, because it is he himself that isfinally to endure the consequences of that: he has a right to do that;and those who are made indigent in consequence of his so doing, have aright to demand a maintenance out of the land, according to the Act ofthe 43d of Elizabeth, which gave the people a COMPENSATION for theloss of the tithes and church lands which had been taken away by thearistocracy in the reigns of the Tudors. If Sir James Graham choose tomould his fine and large estate into immense farms, and to break upnumerous happy families in the middle rank of life, and to expose themall to the necessity of coming and demanding sustenance from hisestate; if he choose to be surrounded by masses of persons in thisstate, he shall not call them _paupers_, for that insolent term is notto be found in the compensation-laws of Elizabeth; if he choose to besurrounded by swarms of beings of this description, with feelings intheir bosoms towards him such as I need not describe, --if he choosethis, his RIGHT certainly extends thus far; but I tell him that he hasno right to say to any man born in his parishes, "You shall not behere, and you shall not have a maintenance off these lands. '"

There is but poor comfort, however, to know, when one sees a countryruined, that the perpetrators of the mischief have not ruined it totheir own advantage. We purpose showing how signal in the case ofSutherland this ruin has been, and how very extreme the infatuationwhich continues to possess its hereditary lord. We are old enough toremember the county in its original state, when it was at once thehappiest and one of the most exemplary districts in Scotland, andpassed, at two several periods, a considerable time among its hills;we are not unacquainted with it now, nor with its melancholy anddejected people, that wear out life in their comfortless cottages onthe sea-shore. The problem solved in this remote district of thekingdom is not at all unworthy the attention which it seems butbeginning to draw, but which is already not restricted to one kingdom, or even one continent. 

-----

 {1} 'I will go and inquire upon the spot whether the natives of the county of SUTHERLAND were driven from the land of their birth by the Countess of that name, and by her husband the Marquis of Stafford.... I wish to possess authentic information relative to that "CLEARING" affair; for though it took place twenty years ago, it may be just as necessary to inquire into it now. It may be quite proper to inquire into the means that were used to effect the CLEARING. '--COBBETT. 

 'It is painful to dwell on this subject' [the present state of Sutherland]; 'but as information communicated by men of honour, judgment, and perfect veracity, descriptive of what they daily witness, affords the best means of forming a correct judgment, and as these gentlemen, from their situations in life, have no immediate interest in the determination of the question, beyond what is dictated by humanity and a love of truth, their authority may be considered as undoubted. '--GENERAL STEWART of Garth. 

 'It is by a cruel abuse of legal forms--it is by an unjust usurpation--that the _tacksman_ and the tenant of Sutherland are considered as having no right to the land which they have occupied for so many ages.... A count or earl has no more right to expel from their homes the inhabitants of his county, than a king to expel from his country the inhabitants of his kingdom. '--SISMONDI. 

CHAPTER II. 

We heard sermon in the open air with a poor Highland congregation inSutherlandshire only a few weeks ago; and the scene was one which weshall not soon forget. The place of meeting was a green hill-side, near the opening of a deep, long withdrawing strath, with a riverrunning through the midst. We stood on the slope where the last of aline of bold eminences, that form the southern side of the valley, sinks towards the sea. A tall precipitous mountain, reverend andhoary, and well fitted to tranquillize the mind, from the sobersolemnity that rests on its massy features, rose fronting us on thenorth; a quiet burial-ground lay at its feet; while, on the oppositeside, between us and the sea, there frowned an ancient stronghold oftime-eaten stone--an impressive memorial of an age of violence andbloodshed. The last proprietor, says tradition, had to quit thisdwelling by night, with all his family, in consequence of someunfortunate broil, and take refuge in a small coasting vessel; aterrible storm arose--the vessel foundered at sea--and the haplessproprietor and his children were nevermore heard of. And hence, it issaid, the extinction of the race. 

The story speaks of an unsettled time; nor is it difficult to trace, in the long deep valley on the opposite hand, the memorials of a storynot less sad, though much more modern. On both sides the river the eyerests on a multitude of scattered patches of green, that seem inlaidin the brown heath. We trace on these islands of sward the marks offurrows, and mark here and there, through the loneliness, the remainsof a group of cottages, well-nigh levelled with the soil, and, haplylike those ruins which eastern conquerors leave in their track, stillscathed with fire. All is solitude within the valley, except where, at wide intervals, the shieling of a shepherd may be seen; but at itsopening, where the hills range to the coast, the cottages for milestogether lie clustered as in a hamlet. From the north of Helmsdale tothe south of Port Gower, the lower slopes of the hills are covered bya labyrinth of stone fences, minute patches of corn, and endlesscottages. It would seem as if for twenty miles the long withdrawingvalley had been swept of its inhabitants, and the accumulatedsweepings left at its mouth, just as we see the sweepings of a roomsometimes left at the door. And such generally is the present state ofSutherland. The interior is a solitude occupied by a few sheep-farmersand their hinds; while a more numerous population than fell to theshare of the entire county, ere the inhabitants were expelled fromtheir inland holdings, and left to squat upon the coast, occupy theselvage of discontent and poverty that fringes its shores. Thecongregation with which we worshipped on this occasion was drawnmainly from these cottages, and the neighbouring village of Helmsdale. It consisted of from six to eight hundred Highlanders, all devotedadherents of the Free Church. We have rarely seen a more deeplyserious assemblage; never certainly one that bore an air of such deepdejection. The people were wonderfully clean and decent; for it is illwith Highlanders when they neglect their personal appearance, especially on a Sabbath; but it was all too evident that the heavyhand of poverty rested upon them, and that its evils were now deepenedby oppression. It might be a mere trick of association; but when theirplaintive Gaelic singing, so melancholy in its tones at all times, arose from the bare hill-side, it sounded in our ears like a deep wailof complaint and sorrow. Poor people! 'We were ruined and reduced tobeggary before, ' they say, 'and now the gospel is taken from us. '

Nine-tenths of the poor people of Sutherland are adherents of theFree Church--all of them in whose families the worship of God has beenset up--all who entertain a serious belief in the reality ofreligion--all who are not the creatures of the proprietor, and havenot stifled their convictions for a piece of bread--are devotedlyattached to the disestablished ministers, and will endure none other. The residuary clergy they do not recognise as clergy at all. TheEstablished churches have become as useless in the district, as if, like its Druidical circles, they represented some idolatrous belief, long exploded--the people will not enter them; and they respectfullypetition his Grace to be permitted to build other churches forthemselves. And fain would his Grace indulge them, he says. Inaccordance with the suggestions of an innate desire, willingly wouldhe permit them to build their own churches and support their ownministers. But then, has he not loyally engaged to support theEstablishment? To permit a religious and inoffensive people to buildtheir own places of worship, and support their own clergy, would besanctioning a sort of persecution against the Establishment; and ashis Grace dislikes religious persecution, and has determined always tooppose whatever tends to it, he has resolved to make use of hisinfluence, as the most extensive of Scottish proprietors, in forcingthem back to their parish churches. If they persist in worshipping Godagreeably to the dictates of their conscience, it must be on theunsheltered hill-side--in winter, amid the frosts and snows of asevere northern climate--in the milder seasons, exposed to thescorching sun and the drenching shower. They must not be permitted theshelter of a roof, for that would be persecuting the Establishment;and so to the Establishment must the people be forced back, literallyby stress of weather. His Grace owes a debt to the nationalinstitution, and it seems to irk his conscience until some equivalentbe made. He is not himself a member--he exercises the same sort ofliberty which his people would so fain exercise; and to make amendsfor daring to belong to another Church himself (that of England), hehas determined, if he can help it, that the people shall belong to noother. He has resolved, it would seem, to compound for his own libertyby depriving them of theirs. 

How they are to stand out the winter on this exposed eastern coast, Healone knows who never shuts His ear to the cry of the oppressed. Onething is certain, they will never return to the Establishment. On thisSabbath the congregation in the parish church did not, as weafterwards learned, exceed a score; and the _quoad sacra_ chapel ofthe district was locked up. Long before the Disruption the people hadwell-nigh ceased attending the ministrations of the parish incumbent. The Sutherland Highlanders are still a devout people; they like a baldmediocre essay none the better for its being called a sermon, and readon Sabbath. The noble Duke, their landlord, has said not a little inhis letters to them about the extreme slightness of the differencewhich obtains between the Free and the Established Churches: it is adifference so exceedingly slight, that his Grace fails to see it; andhe hopes that by and by, when winter shall have thickened theatmosphere with its frost rime and its snows, his poor tenantry mayprove as unable to see it as himself. With them, however, thedifference is not mainly a doctrinal one. They believe with the oldEarls of Sutherland, who did much to foster the belief in thisnorthern county, that there is such a thing as personal piety, --thatof two clergymen holding nominally the same doctrines, and boundostensibly by the same standards, one may be a regenerate man, earnestly bent on the conversion of others, and ready to lay down hisworldly possessions, and even life itself, for the cause of thegospel; while the other may be an unregenerate man, so little desirousof the conversion of others, that he would but decry and detest themdid he find them converted already, and so careless of the gospel, that did not his living depend on professing to preach it, he wouldneither be an advocate for it himself, nor yet come within earshot ofwhere it was advocated by others. The Highlanders of Sutherland holdin deep seriousness a belief of this character. They believe, further, that the ministers of their own mountain district belong to these twoclasses--that the Disruption of the Scottish Church has thrown theclasses apart--that the residuaries are not men of personalpiety--they have seen no conversions attending their ministry--norhave they lacked reason to deem them unconverted themselves. Unlikehis Grace the Duke, the people have been intelligent enough to see twosets of principles ranged in decided antagonism in the Churchquestion; but still more clearly have they seen two sets of men. Theyhave identified the cause of the gospel with that of the-Free Churchin their district; and neither the Duke of Sutherland nor theEstablishment which he is 'engaged in endeavouring to maintain, ' willbe able to reverse the opinion. 

We have said that his Grace's ancestors, the old earls, did much tofoster this spirit. The history of Sutherland, as a county, differsfrom all our other Highland districts. Its two great families werethose of Reay and Sutherland, both of which, from an early period ofthe Reformation, were not only Protestant, but also thoroughlyevangelical. It was the venerable Earl of Sutherland who firstsubscribed the National Covenant in the Greyfriars. It was a scion ofthe Reay family--a man of great personal piety--who led the troops ofWilliam against Dundee at Killiecrankie. Their influence wasall-powerful in Sutherland, and directed to the best ends; and we findit stated by Captain Henderson, in his general view of the agricultureof the country, as a well-established and surely not uninterestingfact, that 'the crimes of rapine, murder, and plunder, though notunusual in the county during the feuds and conflicts of the clans, were put an end to about the year 1640'--a full century before ourother Highland districts had become even partially civilised. 'Piousearls and barons of former times, ' says a native of the county, in asmall work published in Edinburgh about sixteen years ago, 'encouragedand patronized pious ministers, and a high tone of religious feelingcame thus to be diffused throughout the country. ' Its piety wasstrongly of the Presbyterian type; and in no district of the southwere the questions which received such prominence in our lateecclesiastical controversy better understood by both the people andthe patrons, than in Sutherland a full century ago. We have before usan interesting document, the invitation of the elders, parishioners, and heritors of Lairg, to the Rev. Thomas M'Kay, 1748, to be theirminister, in which, 'hoping that' he would find their 'call, carriedon with great sincerity, unanimity, and order, to be a clear call fromthe Lord, ' they faithfully promise to 'yield him, in their severalstations and relations, all dutiful respect and encouragement. 'William Earl of Sutherland was patron of the parish, but we find himon this occasion exercising no patronate powers: at the head ofparishioners and elders he merely adhibits his name. He merely_invites_ with the others. The state of morals in the county wasremarkably exemplified at a later period by the regiment of SutherlandHighlanders, embodied originally in 1793, under the name of theSutherlandshire Fencibles, and subsequently in 1800 as the 93dRegiment. Most other troops are drawn from among the unsettled andreckless part of the population; not so the Sutherland Highlanders. Onthe breaking out of the revolutionary war, the mother of the presentDuke summoned them from their hills, and five hundred fighting menmarched down to Dunrobin Castle, to make a tender of their swords totheir country, at the command of their chieftainess. The regiment, therefore, must be regarded as a fair specimen of the character of thedistrict; and from the description of General Stewart of Garth, andone or two sources besides, we may learn what that character was. 

'In the words of a general officer by whom they were once reviewed, 'says General Stewart, 'they exhibited a perfect pattern of militarydiscipline and moral rectitude. '

'When stationed at the Cape of Good Hope, anxious to enjoy theadvantages of religious instruction agreeably to the tenets of theirnational Church, and there being no religious service in the garrisonexcept the customary one of reading prayers to the soldiers on parade, the Sutherland men formed themselves into a congregation, appointedelders of their own number, engaged and paid a stipend (collectedamong themselves) to a clergyman of the Church of Scotland (who hadgone out with an intention of teaching and preaching to the Caffres), and had divine service performed agreeably to the ritual of theEstablished Church.... In addition to these expenses, the soldiersregularly remitted money to their relatives in Sutherland. When theydisembarked at Plymouth in August 1814, the inhabitants were bothsurprised and gratified. On such occasions it had been no uncommonthing for soldiers to spend in taverns and gin-shops the money theyhad saved. In the present case the soldiers of Sutherland were seen inbook-sellers' shops, supplying themselves with Bibles and such booksand tracts as they required. Yet, as at the Cape, where theirreligious habits were so free of all fanatical gloom that theyoccasionally indulged in social meetings and dancing, so here, whileexpending their money on books, they did not neglect their personalappearance; and the haberdashers' shops had also their share of trade, from the purchase of additional feathers to their bonnets, and suchextra decorations as the correctness of military regulations allow tobe introduced into the uniform. Nor, while thus mindful ofthemselves--improving their mind and their personal appearance--didsuch of them as had relations in Sutherland forget their destitutecondition, _occasioned by the loss of their lands_, and the operationof the _improved state of the country_. During the short period thatthe regiment was quartered at Plymouth, upwards of £500 were lodged inone banking house to be remitted to Sutherland, exclusive of many sumssent through the Post Office and by officers. Some of the sumsexceeded £20 from an individual soldier. '

'In the case of such men, ' continues the General, 'disgracefulpunishment was as unnecessary as it would have been pernicious. Indeed, so remote was the idea of such a measure in regard to them, that when punishments were to be inflicted on others, and the troopsin camp, garrison, or quarters assembled to witness the execution, thepresence of the Sutherland Highlanders--either of the fencibles or ofthe line--was dispensed with; the effect of terror, as a check tocrime, being in their case uncalled for, "_as examples of that naturewere not necessary for such honourable soldiers_. " Such were these menin garrison. How thoroughly they were guided by honour and loyalty inthe field, was shown at New Orleans. Although many of their countrymenwho had emigrated to America were ready and anxious to receive them, there was not an instance of desertion; nor did one of those who wereleft behind, wounded or prisoners, forget their allegiance and remainin that country, at the same time that desertions from the Britisharmy were but too frequent. '

This is testimony which even men of the world will scarce suspect. Wecan supplement it by that of the missionary whom the Sutherlandshiresoldiers made choice of at Cape Town as their minister. We quote froma letter by the Rev. Mr. Thom, which appeared in the _ChristianHerald_ of October 1814:--

'When the 93d Sutherland Highlanders left Cape Town last month, 'writes the reverend gentleman, 'there were among them 156 members ofthe church (including three elders and three deacons), all of whom, sofar as man can know the heart from the life, were pious persons. Theregiment was certainly a pattern for morality and good behaviour toevery other corps. They read their Bibles; they observed the Sabbath;they saved their money in order to do good; 7000 rix-dollars (£1400currency) the non-commissioned officers and privates gave for books, societies, and the support of the gospel--a sum perhaps unparalleledin any other corps in the world, given in the short space of seventeenor eighteen months. Their example had a general good effect on boththe colonists and heathen. How they may act as to religion in otherparts is known to God; but if ever apostolic days were revived inmodern times on earth, I certainly believe some of these to have beengranted to us in Africa. '

One other extract of a similar kind: we quote from a letter to theCommittee of the Edinburgh Gaelic School Society, Fourth AnnualReport:--

'The regiment (93d) arrived in England, when they immediately receivedorders to proceed to North America; but before they re-embarked, thesum collected for your Society was made up, and has been remitted toyour treasurer, amounting to seventy-eight pounds sterling. '

We dwell with pleasure on this picture; and shall present the reader, in our next chapter, with a picture of similar character, taken fromobservation, of the homes in which these soldiers were reared. Thereverse is all too stern, but we must exhibit _it_ also, and show howthe influence which the old Earls of Sutherland employed so well, hasbeen exerted by their descendants to the ruin of their country. But wemust first give one other extract from General Stewart. It indicatesthe track in which the ruin came. 

'Men like these, ' he says, referring to the Sutherland Highlanders, 'do credit to the peasantry of the country. If this conclusion is wellfounded, the removal of so many of the people from their ancientseats, where they acquired those habits and principles, must beconsidered a public loss of no common magnitude. It must appearstrange, and somewhat inconsistent, when the same persons who are loudin their professions of an eager desire to promote and preserve thereligious and moral virtues of the people, should so frequently takethe lead in approving of measures which, by removing them from wherethey imbibed principles which have attracted the notice of Europe, andplaced them in situations where poverty, and the too frequentattendants, vice and crime, will lay the foundation of a characterwhich will be a disgrace, as that already obtained has been an honour, to this country. In the new stations where so many Highlanders are nowplaced, and crowded in such numbers as to preserve the numericalpopulation, while whole districts are left without inhabitants, howcan they resume their ancient character and principles, which, according to the reports of those employed by the proprietors, havebeen so deplorably broken down and deteriorated--a deterioration whichwas entirely unknown till the recent change in the condition of thepeople, and the introduction of that system of placing families onpatches of potato ground, as in Ireland--a system pregnant withdegradation, poverty, and disaffection, and exhibiting daily aprominent and deplorable example, which might have forewarned Highlandproprietors, and prevented them from reducing their people to asimilar state? It is only when parents and heads of families in theHighlands are moral, happy, and contented, that they can instil soundprinciples into their children, who, in their intercourse with theworld, may once more become what the men of Sutherland have alreadybeen, "an honourable example, worthy the imitation of all. '"

CHAPTER III. 

We have exhibited the Sutherland Highlanders to the reader asthey exhibited themselves to their country, when, as Christiansoldiers, --men, like the old chivalrous knight, 'without fearor reproach, '--they fought its battles and reflected honour onits name. Interest must attach to the manner in which men of sohigh a moral tone were reared; and a sketch drawn from personalobservation of the interior of Sutherland eight-and-twenty yearsago, may be found to throw very direct light on the subject. To know what the district once was, and what it is now, is toknow with peculiar emphasis the meaning of the sacred text, 'Onesinner destroyeth much good. '

The eye of a Triptolemus Yellowlee would have found exceedingly littleto gratify it in the parish of Lairg thirty years ago. The parish hadits bare hills, its wide, dark moors, its old doddered woods of birchand hazel, its extensive lake, its headlong river, and its roaringcataract. Nature had imparted to it much of a wild and savage beauty;but art had done nothing for it. To reverse the well-known antithesisin which Goldsmith sums up his description of Italy, --the only growththat had _not_ dwindled in it was man. The cottage in which we residedwith an aged relative and his two stalwart sons, might be regarded asan average specimen of the human dwellings of the district. It was alow long building of turf, consisting of four apartments on the groundfloor, --the one stuck on to the end of the other, and threadedtogether by a passage that connected the whole. From the nearest hillthe cottage reminded one of a huge black snail crawling up the slope. The largest of the four apartments was occupied by the master's sixmilk cows; the next in size was the ha', or sitting-room, --a rude butnot uncomfortable apartment, with the fire on a large flat stone inthe middle of the floor. The apartment adjoining was decentlypartitioned into sleeping places; while the fourth and last in therange--more neatly fitted up than any of the others, with furniturethe workmanship of a bred carpenter, a small bookcase containing fromforty to fifty volumes, and a box-bed of deal--was known as thestranger's room. There was a straggling group of buildings outside, inthe same humble style, --a stable, a barn, a hay-barn, a sheep-pen witha shed attached, and a milk-house; and stretching around the whole laythe farm, --a straggling patch of corn land of from twelve to fifteenacres in extent, that, from its extremely irregular outline, and theeccentric forms of the parti-coloured divisions into which it wasparcelled, reminded one of a coloured map. Encircling all was a widesea of heath studded with huge stones--the pasturage land of thefarmer for his sheep and cattle--which swept away on every hand toother islands of corn and other groups of cottages, identical inappearance with the corn land and the cottages described. 

We remember that, coming from a seaport town, where, to give toproperty the average security, the usual means had to be resorted to, we were first struck by finding that the door of our relative'scottage, in this inland parish, was furnished with neither lock norbar. Like that of the hermit in the ballad, it opened with a latch;but, unlike that of the hermit, it was not because there were nostores under the humble roof to demand the care of the master. It wasbecause that, at this comparatively recent period, the crime of theftwas unknown in the district. The philosophic Biot, when occupied inmeasuring the time of the seconds pendulum, resided for several monthsin one of the smaller Shetland islands; and, fresh from the troublesof France, --his imagination bearing about, if we may so speak, thestains of the guillotine, --the state of trustful security in which hefound the simple inhabitants filled him with astonishment. 'Here, ' heexclaimed, 'during the twenty-five years in which Europe has beendevouring herself, the door of the house I inhabit has remained openday and night. ' The whole interior of Sutherland was, at the time ofwhich we write, in a similar condition. It did not surprise us thatthe old man, a person of deep piety, regularly assembled his householdnight and morning for the purpose of family worship, and led in theirdevotions: we had seen many such instances in the low country. But itdid somewhat surprise us to find the practice universal in the parish. In every family had the worship of God been set up. One could not passan inhabited cottage in the evening, from which the voice of psalmswas not to be heard. On Sabbath morning, the whole population might beseen wending their way, attired in their best, along the blindhalf-green paths in the heath, to the parish church. The minister wasgreatly beloved, and all attended his ministrations. We still rememberthe intense joy which his visits used to impart to the household ofour relative. This worthy clergyman still lives, though theinfirmities of a stage of life very advanced have gathered round him;and at the late disruption, choosing his side, and little heeding, when duty called, that his strength had been wasted in the labour offorty years, and that he could now do little more than testify andsuffer in behalf of his principles, he resigned his hold of thetemporalities as minister of Dornoch, and cast in his lot with hisbrethren of the Free Church. And his venerable successor in Lairg, aman equally beloved and exemplary, and now on the verge of hiseightieth year, has acted a similar part. Had such sacrifices beenmade in such circumstances for other than the cause of Christ--hadthey been made under some such romantic delusion as misled of old thefollowers of the Stuarts--the world would have appreciated themhighly; but there is an element in evangelism which repels admiration, unless it be an admiration grounded in faith and love; and the appealin such cases must lie, therefore, not to the justice of the world, but to the judgment-seat of God. We may remind the reader, in passing, that it was the venerable minister of Lairg who, on quitting his manseon the Disruption, was received by his widowed daughter into a cottageheld of the Duke of Sutherland, and that for this grave crime--thecrime of sheltering her aged father--the daughter was threatened withejection by one of the Duke's creatures. Is it not somewhat necessarythat the breath of public opinion should be let in on this remotecountry? But we digress. 

A peculiar stillness seemed to rest over this Highland parish on theSabbath. The family devotions of the morning, the journey to and fromchurch, and the public services there, occupied fully two-thirds ofthe day. But there remained the evening, and of it the earlier partwas spent in what are known in the north country as fellowshipmeetings. One of these was held regularly in the 'ha'' of ourrelative. From fifteen to twenty people, inclusive of the family, metfor the purposes of social prayer and religious conversation, and thetime passed profitably away, till the closing night summoned themembers of the meeting to their respective homes and their familyduties. We marked an interesting peculiarity in the devotions of ourrelative. He was, as we have said, an old man, and had worshipped inhis family long ere Dr. Stewart's Gaelic translation of the Scriptureshad been introduced into the county; and as he was supplied in thosedays with only the English Bible, while his domestics understood onlyGaelic, he had to acquire the art, not uncommon in Sutherland at thetime, of translating the English chapter for them, as he read, intotheir native tongue; and this he had learned to do with such readyfluency, that no one could have guessed it to be other than a Gaelicwork from which he was reading. It might have been supposed, however, that the introduction of Dr. Stewart's edition would have renderedthis mode of translation obsolete; but in this and many other familiessuch was not the case. The old man's Gaelic was _SutherlandshireGaelic_. His family understood it better, in consequence, than anyother; and so he continued to translate from his English Bible, _adaperturam libri_, many years after the Gaelic edition had been spreadover the county. The fact that such a practice should have been commonin Sutherland, says something surely for the intelligence of thefamily patriarchs of the district. That thousands of the people whoknew the Scriptures through no other medium, should have beenintimately acquainted with the saving doctrines and witnesses of theirpower (and there can be no question that such was the case), is proofenough, at least, that it was a practice carried on with a dueperception of the scope and meaning of the sacred volume. One is tooapt to associate intelligence with the external improvements of acountry--with well-enclosed fields and whitewashed cottages; but theassociation is altogether a false one. As shown by the testimony ofGeneral Stewart of Garth, the Sutherland regiment was not only themost eminently moral, but, as their tastes and habits demonstrated, one of the most decidedly intellectual under the British Crown. Ourrelative's cottage had, as we have said, its bookcase, and both hissons were very intelligent men; but intelligence derived directly frombooks was not general in the county; a very considerable portion ofthe people understood no other language than Gaelic, and many of themcould not even read; for at this period about one-tenth of thefamilies of Sutherland were distant five or more miles from thenearest school. Their characteristic intelligence was of a kindotherwise derived: it was an intelligence drawn from these domesticreadings of the Scriptures and from the pulpit; and is referred mainlyto that profound science which even a Newton could recognise as moreimportant and wonderful than any of the others, but which many of theshallower intellects of our own times deem no science at all. It wasan intelligence out of which their morality sprung; it was anintelligence founded in earnest belief. 

But what, asks the reader, was the economic condition--the conditionwith regard to circumstances and means of living--of these SutherlandHighlanders? How did they fare? The question has been variouslyanswered: much must depend on the class selected from among them asspecimens of the whole, --much, too, taking for granted the honesty ofthe party who replies, on his own condition in life, and hisacquaintance with the circumstances of the poorer people of Scotlandgenerally. The county had its less genial localities, in which, for amonth or two in the summer season, when the stock of grain from theprevious year was fast running out, and the crops on the ground notyet ripened for use, the people experienced a considerable degree ofscarcity, --such scarcity as a mechanic in the south feels when he hasbeen a fortnight out of employment. But the Highlander had resourcesin these seasons which the mechanic has not. He had his cattle and hiswild pot-herbs, such as the mugwort and the nettle. It has beenadduced by the advocates of the change which has ruined Sutherland, asa proof of the extreme hardship of the Highlander's condition, that atsuch times he could have eaten as food a broth made of nettles, mixedup with a little oatmeal, or have had recourse to the expedient ofbleeding his cattle, and making the blood into a sort of pudding. Andit is quite true that the Sutherlandshire Highlander was in the habit, at such times, of having recourse to such food. It is not less true, however, that the statement is just as little conclusive regarding hiscondition, as if it were alleged there must always be famine in Francewhen the people eat the hind legs of frogs, or in Italy when they makedishes of snails. We never saw scarcity in the house of our relative, but we have seen the nettle broth in it very frequently, and theblood-pudding oftener than once; for both dishes were especialfavourites with the Highlanders. With regard to the general comfort ofthe people in their old condition, there are better tests than can bedrawn from the kind of food they occasionally ate. The country hearsoften of dearth in Sutherland now: every year in which the crop fallsa little below average in other districts, is a year of famine there;but the country never heard of dearth in Sutherland then. There werevery few among the holders of its small inland farms who had not saveda little money. Their circumstances were such, that their moral naturefound full room to develope itself, and in a way the world has rarelywitnessed. Never were there a happier or more contented people, or apeople more strongly attached to the soil; and not one of them nowlives in the altered circumstances on which they were so rudelyprecipitated by the landlord, who does not look back on this period ofcomfort and enjoyment with sad and hopeless regret. We have neverheard the system which has depopulated this portion of the countrydefended, without recurring to our two several visits to the turfcottage in Lairg, or without feeling that the defence embodied anessential falsehood, which time will not fail to render evident to theapprehensions of all. 

We would but fatigue our readers were we to run over half ourrecollections of the interior of Sutherland. They are not all of aserious cast. We have sat in the long autumn evenings in the cheerfulcircle round the turf-fire of the ha', and have heard many a traditionof old clan feuds pleasingly told, and many a song of the poet of thecounty, Old Rob Donn, gaily sung. In our immediate neighbourhood, bythe side of a small stream--small, but not without its supply of browntrout, speckled with crimson--there was a spot of green meadow land, on which the young men of the neighbourhood used not unfrequently tomeet and try their vigour in throwing the stone. The stone itself hadits history. It was a ball of gneiss, round as a bullet, that had oncesurmounted the gable of a small Popish chapel, of which there nowremained only a shapeless heap of stones, that scarce overtopped thelong grass amid which it lay. A few undressed flags indicated anancient burying-ground; and over the ruined heap, and the rudetombstones that told no story, an ancient time-hallowed tree, coevalwith the perished building, stretched out its giant arms. Even thesterner occupations of the farm had in their very variety a strongsmack of enjoyment. We found one of the old man's sons engaged, duringour one visit, in building an outhouse, after the primitive fashion ofthe Highlands, and during our other visit, in constructing a plough. The two main _cupples_ of the building he made of huge trees, dug outof a neighbouring morass; they resembled somewhat the beams of a largesloop reversed. The stones he carried from the outfield heath on asledge; the interstices in the walls he caulked with moss; the roof hecovered with sods. The entire erection was his workmanship, fromfoundation to ridge. And such, in brief, was the history of all thosecottages in the interior of Sutherland, which the poor Highlanders sonaturally deemed their own, but from which, when set on fire and burntto the ground by the creatures of the proprietor, they were glad toescape with their lives. The plough, with the exception of the ironwork, was altogether our relative's workmanship too. And such was thehistory of the rude implements of rural or domestic labour which wereconsumed in the burning dwellings. But we anticipate. 

There is little of gaiety or enjoyment among the Highlanders ofSutherland now. We spent a considerable time for two several yearsamong their thickly-clustered cottages on the eastern coast, and sawhow they live, and how it happens that when years of comparativescarcity come on they starve. Most of them saved, when in theinterior, as we have said, a little money; but the process has beenreversed here: in every instance in which they brought their savingsto the coast-side has the fund been dissipated. Each cottage has fromhalf an acre to an acre and half of corn land attached to it--justsuch patches as the Irish starve upon. In some places, by dint of sorelabour, the soil has been considerably improved; and all that seemsnecessary to render it worth the care of a family, would be just toincrease its area some ten or twelve times. In other cases, however, increase would be no advantage. We find it composed of a loose debrisof granitic water-rolled pebbles and ferruginous sand, that seemeddestined to perpetual barrenness. The rents, in every instance, seemmoderate; the money of the tenant flows towards the landlord in astream of not half the volume of that in which the money of thelandlord must flow towards the tenant when the poor-laws shall beextended to Scotland. But no rent, in such circumstances, can bereally moderate. A clergyman, when asked to say how many of hisparishioners, in one of these coast districts, realized _less_ thansixpence a-day, replied, that it would be a much easier matter for himto point out how many of them realized _more_ than sixpence, as thismore fortunate class were exceedingly few. And surely no rent can bemoderate that is paid by a man who realizes less than sixpence a-day. It is the peculiar evil produced by the change in Sutherland, that ithas consigned the population of the country to a condition in which norent _can_ be moderate--to a condition in which they but barely avoidfamine, when matters are at the best with them, and fall into it inevery instance in which the herring fishing, their main and mostprecarious stay, partially fails, or their crops are just a littlemore than usually scanty. They are in such a state, that their verymeans of living are sources, not of comfort, but of distress to them. When the fishing and their crops are comparatively abundant, they liveon the bleak edge of want; while failure in either plunges them into astate of intense suffering. And well are these Highlanders aware ofthe true character of the revolution to which they have beensubjected. Our Poor-Law Commissioners may find, in this land ofgrowing pauperism, thousands as poor as the people of Sutherland; butthey will find no class of the population who can so directly contrasttheir present destitution with a state of comparative plenty andenjoyment, or who, in consequence of possessing this sad ability, areso deeply imbued with a too well-grounded and natural discontent. 

But we have not yet said how this ruinous revolution was effected inSutherland, --how the aggravations of the _mode_, if we may so speak, still fester in the recollections of the people, --or how thoroughlythat policy of the lord of the soil, through which he now seemsdetermined to complete the work of ruin which his predecessor began, harmonizes with its worst details. We must first relate, however, adisastrous change which took place, in the providence of God, in thenoble family of Sutherland, and which, though it dates fully eightyyears back, may be regarded as pregnant with the disasters whichafterwards befell the country. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Such of our readers as are acquainted with the memoir of LadyGlenorchy, must remember a deeply melancholy incident which occurredin the history of this excellent woman, in connection with the noblefamily of Sutherland. Her only sister had been married to William, seventeenth Earl of Sutherland, --'the last of the good Earls;' 'anobleman, ' says the Rev. Dr. Jones, in his Memoir, 'who to the finestperson united all the dignity and amenity of manners and characterwhich give lustre to greatness. ' But his sun was destined soon to godown. Five years after his marriage, which proved one of the happiest, and was blessed with two children, the elder of the two, the youngLady Catherine, a singularly engaging child, was taken from him bydeath, in his old hereditary castle of Dunrobin. The event deeplyaffected both parents, and preyed on their health and spirits. It hadtaken place amid the gloom of a severe northern winter, and in thesolitude of the Highlands; and, acquiescing in the advice of friends, the Earl and his lady quitted the family seat, where there was so muchto remind them of their bereavement, and sought relief in the morecheerful atmosphere of Bath. But they were not to find it there. Shortly after their arrival, the Earl was seized by a malignant fever, with which, upheld by a powerful constitution, he struggled forfifty-four days, and then expired. 'For the first twenty-one days andnights of these, ' says Dr. Jones, 'Lady Sutherland never left hisbedside; and then at last, overcome with fatigue, anxiety, and grief, she sank an unavailing victim to an amiable but excessive attachment, seventeen days before the death of her lord. ' The period, though notvery remote, was one in which the intelligence of events travelledslowly; and in this instance the distraction of the family must haveserved to retard it beyond the ordinary time. Her Ladyship's mother, when hastening from Edinburgh to her assistance, alighted one day fromher carriage at an inn, and, on seeing two hearses standing by thewayside, inquired of an attendant whose remains they contained? Theremains, was the reply, of Lord and Lady Sutherland, on their way forinterment to the Royal Chapel of Holyrood House. And such was thefirst intimation which the lady received of the death of her daughterand son-in-law. 

The event was pregnant with disaster to Sutherland, though many yearselapsed ere the ruin which it involved fell on that hapless county. The sole survivor and heir of the family was a female infant of but ayear old. Her maternal grandmother, an ambitious, intriguing woman ofthe world, had the chief share in her general training and education;and she was brought up in the south of Scotland, of which hergrandmother was a native, far removed from the influence of thosegenial sympathies with the people of her clan, for which the old lordsof Sutherland had been so remarkable, and, what was a sorer evilstill, from the influence of the vitalities of that religion which, for five generations together, her fathers had illustrated andadorned. The special mode in which the disaster told first, wasthrough the patronages of the county, the larger part of which arevested in the family of Sutherland. Some of the old Earls had beencontent, as we have seen, to place themselves on the level of theChristian men of their parishes, and thus to unite with them incalling to their churches the Christian ministers of their choice. They knew, --what regenerate natures can alone know with the properemphasis, --that in Christ Jesus the vassal ranks with his lord, andthey conscientiously acted on the conviction. But matters were nowregulated differently. The presentation supplanted the call, andministers came to be placed in the parishes of Sutherland without theconsent and contrary to the will of the people. Churches, well filledhitherto, were deserted by their congregations, just because arespectable woman of the world, making free use of what she deemed herown, had planted them with men of the world who were only tolerablyrespectable; and in houses and barns the devout men of the districtlearned to hold numerously-attended Sabbath meetings for reading theScriptures, and mutual exhortation and prayer, as a sort of substitutefor the public services, in which they found they could no longer joinwith profit. The spirit awakened by the old Earls had survivedthemselves, and ran directly counter to the policy of theirdescendant. Strongly attached to the Establishment, the people, thoughthey thus forsook their old places of worship, still remained membersof the national Church, and travelled far in the summer season toattend the better ministers of their own and the neighbouringcounties. We have been assured, too, from men whose judgment werespect, that, under all their disadvantages, religion continuedpeculiarly to flourish among them;--a deep-toned evangelism prevailed;so that perhaps the visible Church throughout the world at the timecould furnish no more striking contrast than that which obtainedbetween the cold, bald, commonplace services of the pulpit in some ofthese parishes, and the fervid prayers and exhortations which givelife and interest to these humble meetings of the people. What a pityit is that differences such as these the Duke of Sutherland cannotsee!

The marriage of the young countess into a noble English family wasfraught with further disaster to the county. There are many Englishmenquite intelligent enough to perceive the difference between a smokycottage of turf and a whitewashed cottage of stone, whose judgment ontheir respective inhabitants would be of but little value. Sutherland, as a country of _men_, stood higher at this period thanperhaps any other district in the British empire; but, as ourdescriptions in the preceding chapter must have shown, --and weindulged in them mainly with a view to this part of our subject, --itby no means stood high as a country of farms and cottages. Themarriage of the Countess brought a new set of eyes upon it, --eyesaccustomed to quite a different face of things. It seemed a wild, rudecountry, where all was wrong, and all had to be set right, --a sort ofRussia on a small scale, that had just got another Peter the Great tocivilise it, --or a sort of barbarous Egypt, with an energetic AliPasha at its head. Even the vast wealth and great liberality of theStafford family militated against this hapless county: it enabled themto treat it as the mere subject of an interesting experiment, in whichgain to themselves was really no object, --nearly as little so as ifthey had resolved on dissecting a dog alive for the benefit ofscience. It was a still further disadvantage, that they had to carryon their experiment by the hands, and to watch its first effects withthe eyes, of others. The agonies of the dog might have had theirsoftening influence on a dissector who held the knife himself; butthere could be no such influence exerted over him, did he merely issueorders to his footman that the dissection should be completed, remaining himself, meanwhile, out of sight and out of hearing. Theplan of improvement sketched out by his English family was a planexceedingly easy of conception. Here is a vast tract of land, furnished with two distinct sources of wealth. Its shores may be madethe seats of extensive fisheries, and the whole of its interiorparcelled out into productive sheep-farms. All is waste in its presentstate: it has no fisheries, and two-thirds of its internal produce isconsumed by the inhabitants. It had contributed, for the use of thecommunity and the landlord, its large herds of black cattle; but theEnglish family saw, and, we believe, saw truly, that for every onepound of beef which it produced, it could be made to produce twopounds of mutton, and perhaps a pound of fish in addition. And it wasresolved, therefore, that the inhabitants of the central districts, who, _as they were mere Celts_, could not be transformed, it was held, into store-farmers, should be marched down to the sea-side, there toconvert themselves into fishermen, on the shortest possible notice, and that a few farmers of capital, of the industrious Lowland race, should be invited to occupy the new subdivisions of the interior. 

And, pray, what objections can be urged against so liberal andlarge-minded a scheme? The poor inhabitants of the interior had _very_serious objections to urge against it. Their humble dwellings were oftheir own rearing; it was they themselves who had broken in theirlittle fields from the waste; from time immemorial, far beyond thereach of history, had they possessed their mountain holdings, --theyhad defended them so well of old that the soil was still virginground, in which the invader had found only a grave; and their youngmen were now in foreign lands, fighting, at the command of theirchieftainess, the battles of their country, not in the character ofhired soldiers, but of men who regarded these very holdings as theirstake in the quarrel. To them, then, the scheme seemed fraught withthe most flagrant, the most monstrous injustice. Were it to besuggested by some Chartist convention in a time of revolution, thatSutherland might be still further improved--that it was really a pieceof great waste to suffer the revenues of so extensive a district to besquandered by one individual--that it would be better to appropriatethem to the use of the community in general--that the community ingeneral might be still further benefited by the removal of the onesaid individual from Dunrobin to a road-side, where he might beprofitably employed in breaking stones--and that this new arrangementcould not be entered on too soon--the noble Duke would not be a whitmore astonished, or rendered a whit more indignant, by the scheme, than were the Highlanders of Sutherland by the scheme of hispredecessor. 

The reader must keep in view, therefore, that if atrocitiesunexampled in Britain for at least a century were perpetrated in the_clearing_ of Sutherland, there was a species of at least passiveresistance on the part of the people (for active resistance therewas none), which in some degree provoked them. Had the Highlanders, on receiving orders, marched down to the sea-coast, and becomefishermen, with the readiness with which a regiment deploys on reviewday, the atrocities would, we doubt not, have been much fewer. Butthough the orders were very distinct, the Highlanders were veryunwilling to obey; and the severities formed merely a part of themeans through which the necessary obedience was ultimately secured. We shall instance a single case, as illustrative of the process. Inthe month of March 1814, a large proportion of the Highlanders ofFarr and Kildonan, two parishes in Sutherland, were summoned to quittheir farms in the following May. In a few days after, the surroundingheaths on which they pastured their cattle, and from which at thatseason the sole supply of herbage is derived (for in those northerndistricts the grass springs late, and the cattle-feeder in the springmonths depends chiefly on the heather), were set on fire and burnt up. There was that sort of policy in the stroke which men deem allowablein a state of war. The starving cattle went roaming over the burntpastures, and found nothing to eat. Many of them perished, and thegreater part of what remained, though in miserable condition, theHighlanders had to sell perforce. Most of the able-bodied men wereengaged in this latter business at a distance from home, when thedreaded term-day came on. The pasturage had been destroyed beforethe legal term, and while, in even the eye of the law, it was stillthe property of the poor Highlanders; but ere disturbing them in theirdwellings, term-day was suffered to pass. The work of demolition thenbegan. A numerous party of men, with a factor at their head, enteredthe district, and commenced pulling down the houses over the headsof the inhabitants. In an extensive tract of country not a humandwelling was left standing, and then, the more effectually toprevent their temporary re-erection, the destroyers set fire tothe wreck. In one day were the people deprived of home and shelter, and left exposed to the elements. Many deaths are said to have ensuedfrom alarm, fatigue, and cold. Pregnant women were taken withpremature labour in the open air. There were old men who took to thewoods and rocks in a state of partial insanity. An aged bedriddenman, named Macbeath, had his house unroofed over his head, and wasleft exposed to wind and rain till death put a period to hissufferings. Another man lying ill of a fever met with no tenderertreatment, but in his case the die turned up life. A bedridden woman, nearly a hundred years of age, had her house fired over her head, and ere she could be extricated from the burning wreck, the sheets inwhich she was carried were on fire. She survived but for five daysafter. In a critique on the work of Sismondi, which appeared a fewmonths since in the _Westminster Review_, the writer tells us, 'ithas even been said that an old man, having refused to quit hiscabin, perished in the flames. ' But such was not the case. Theconstituted authorities interfered; a precognition was taken by theSheriff-substitute of the county, and the case tried before theJusticiary Court at Inverness; but the trial terminated in theacquittal of the pannels. There was no punishable crime proven toattach to the agents of the proprietor. 

Their acquittal was followed by scenes of a similar character withthe scene described, and of even greater atrocity. But we must borrowthe description of one of these from the historian of the _clearing_of Sutherland, --Donald M'Leod, a native of the county, and himself asufferer in the experimental process to which it was subjected:--

'The work of devastation was begun by setting fire to the houses ofthe small tenants in extensive districts--Farr, Rogart, Golspie, and the whole parish of Kildonan. I was an eye-witness of thescene. The calamity came on the people quite unexpectedly. Strongparties for each district, furnished with faggots and othercombustibles, rushed on the dwellings of the devoted people, andimmediately commenced setting fire to them, proceeding in theirwork with the greatest rapidity, till about three hundred houseswere in flames. Little or no time was given for the removal of personsor property--the consternation and confusion were extreme--thepeople striving to remove the sick and helpless before the fireshould reach them--next struggling to save the most valuable oftheir effects--the cries of the women and children--the roaring ofthe affrighted cattle, hunted by the dogs of the shepherds amid thesmoke and the fire--altogether composed a scene that completelybaffles description. A dense cloud of smoke enveloped the wholecountry by day, and even extended far on the sea. At night, an awfullygrand but terrific scene presented itself--all the houses in anextensive district in flames at once. I myself ascended a heightabout eleven o'clock in the evening, and counted two hundred and fiftyblazing houses, many of the owners of which were my relations, andall of whom I personally knew, but whose present condition I could nottell. The conflagration lasted six days, till the whole of thedwellings were reduced to ashes or smoking ruins. During one of thesedays, a boat lost her way in the dense smoke as she approached theshore, but at night she was enabled to reach a landing-place bythe light of the flames. '

But, to employ the language of Southey, 'Things such as these, we know, must be At every famous victory. '

And in this instance the victory of the lord of the soil over thechildren of the soil was signal and complete. In little more than nineyears a population of fifteen thousand individuals were removed fromthe interior of Sutherland to its sea-coasts, or had emigrated toAmerica. The inland districts were converted into deserts, throughwhich the traveller may take a long day's journey, amid ruins thatstill bear the scathe of fire, and grassy patches betraying, when theevening sun casts aslant its long deep shadows, the half-effaced linesof the plough. The writer of the singularly striking passage we havejust quoted, revisited his native place (Kildonan) in the year 1828, and attended divine service in the parish church. A numerous anddevout congregation had once worshipped there: the congregation nowconsisted of eight shepherds and their _dogs_. In a neighbouringdistrict--the barony of Strathnaver, a portion of the parish ofFarr--the church, no longer found necessary, was razed to the ground. The timber was carried away to be used in the erection of an inn, andthe minister's house converted into the dwelling of a fox-hunter. 'Awoman well known in the parish, ' says M'Leod, 'happening to traversethe Strath the year after the burning, was asked, on her return, Whatnews? "Oh, " said she, "_sgeul bronach, sgeul bronach!_ sad news, sadnews! I have seen the timber of our kirk covering the inn atAltnaharran; I have seen the kirkyard, where our friends aremouldering, filled with tarry sheep, and Mr. Sage's study-room akennel for Robert Gun's dogs. '"

CHAPTER V. 

Let us follow, for a little, the poor Highlanders of Sutherland to thesea-coast. It would be easy dwelling on the terrors of theirexpulsion, and multiplying facts of horror; but had there been nopermanent deterioration effected in their condition, these, allharrowing and repulsive as they were, would have mattered less. Sutherland would have soon recovered the burning up of a few hundredhamlets, or the loss of a few bedridden old people, who would havedied as certainly under cover, though perhaps a few months later, aswhen exposed to the elements in the open air. Nay, had it lost athousand of its best men in the way in which it lost so many at thestorming of New Orleans, the blank ere now would have been completelyfilled up. The calamities of fire or of decimation even, howeverdistressing in themselves, never yet ruined a country: no calamityruins a country that leaves the surviving inhabitants to develope, intheir old circumstances, their old character and resources. 

In one of the eastern eclogues of Collins, where two shepherds aredescribed as flying for their lives before the troops of a ruthlessinvader, we see with how much of the terrible the imagination of a poetcould invest the evils of war, when aggravated by pitiless barbarity. Fertile as that imagination was, however, there might be found newcircumstances to heighten the horrors of the scene--circumstancesbeyond the reach of invention--in the retreat of the SutherlandHighlanders from the smoking ruins of their cottages to theirallotments on the coast. We have heard of one man, named M'Kay, whosefamily, at the time of the greater conflagration referred to byM'Leod, were all lying ill of fever, who had to carry two of his sickchildren on his back a distance of twenty-five miles. We have heard ofthe famished people blackening the shores, like the crew of some vesselwrecked on an inhospitable coast, that they might sustain life bythe shell-fish and sea-weed laid bare by the ebb. Many of theirallotments, especially on the western coast, were barren in theextreme--unsheltered by bush or tree, and exposed to the sweepingsea-winds, and, in time of tempest, to the blighting spray; and it wasfound a matter of the extremest difficulty to keep the few cattlewhich they had retained, from wandering, especially in the night-time, into the better sheltered and more fertile interior. The pooranimals were intelligent enough to read a practical comment on thenature of the change effected; and, from the harshness of theshepherds to whom the care of the interior had been entrusted, theyserved materially to add to the distress of their unhappy masters. They were getting continually impounded; and vexatious fines, in theform of trespass-money, came thus to be wrung from the alreadyimpoverished Highlanders. Many who had no money to give were obligedto relieve them by depositing some of their few portable articles ofvalue, such as bed or body clothes, or, more distressing still, watches and rings and pins--the only relics, in not a few instances, ofbrave men whose bones were mouldering under the fatal rampart at NewOrleans, or in the arid sands of Egypt--on that spot of proudrecollection, where the invincibles of Napoleon went down before theHighland bayonet. Their first efforts as fishermen were what mightbe expected from a rural people unaccustomed to the sea. The shores ofSutherland, for immense tracts together, are iron-bound, and muchexposed--open on the eastern coast to the waves of the German Ocean, and on the north and west to the long roll of the Atlantic. There couldnot be more perilous seas for the unpractised boatman to take his firstlessons on; but though the casualties were numerous, and the loss oflife great, many of the younger Highlanders became expert fishermen. The experiment was harsh in the extreme, but so far, at least, itsucceeded. It lies open, however, to other objections than those whichhave been urged against it on the score of its inhumanity. 

The reader must be acquainted with Goldsmith's remarks on the herringfishery of his days. 'A few years ago, ' he says, 'the herring fishingemployed all Grub Street; it was the topic in every coffee-house, andthe burden of every ballad. We were to drag up oceans of gold from thebottom of the sea; we were to supply all Europe with herrings upon ourown terms. At present, however, we hear no more of all this; we havefished up very little gold that I can learn; nor do we furnish theworld with herrings, as was expected. ' We have, in this brief passage, a history of all the more sanguine expectations which have beenfounded on herring fisheries. There is no branch of industry socalculated to awaken the hopes of the speculator, or so suited todisappoint them. So entirely is this the case, that were we desirousto reduce an industrious people to the lowest stage of wretchednesscompatible with industry, we would remove them to some barrendistrict, and there throw them on the resources of this fisheryexclusively. The employments of the herring fisher have all theuncertainty of the ventures of the gambler. He has first to lay down, if we may so speak, a considerable stake, for his drift of nets andhis boat involve a very considerable outlay of capital; and ifsuccessful, and if in general the fishery be _not_ successful, the_take_ of a single week may more than remunerate him. A single cast ofhis nets may bring him in thirty guineas and more. The die turns up inhis favour, and he sweeps the board. And hence those golden dreams ofthe speculator so happily described by Goldsmith. But year after yearmay pass, and the run of luck be against the fisherman. A fishinggenerally good at all the stations gluts the market, necessarilylimited in its demands to an average supply, and, from the bulk andweight of the commodity, not easily extended to distant parts: and theherring merchant first, and the fisherman next, find that they havebeen labouring hard to little purpose. Again, a fishing under average, from the eccentric character of the fish, is found almost always tobenefit a few, and to ruin a great many. The average deficiency isnever equally spread over the fishermen; one sweeps the board--anotherloses all. Nor are the cases few in which the accustomed shoal whollydeserts a tract of coast for years together; and thus the lottery, precarious at all times, becomes a lottery in which there are onlyblanks to be drawn. The wealthy speculator might perhaps watch suchchanges, and by supplementing the deficiency of one year by theabundance of another, give to the whole a character of average; butalas for the poor labouring man placed in such circumstances! Theyearly disbursements of our Scottish Fishery Board, in the way ofassistance to poverty-struck fishermen, unable even to repair theirboats, testify all too tangibly that they cannot regulate their longruns of ill luck by their temporary successes! And if such be the caseamong our hereditary fishermen of the north, who derive more than halftheir sustenance from the white fishery, how much more must it affectthose fishermen of Sutherland, who, having no market for their whitefish in the depopulated interior, and no merchants settled among themto find markets farther away, have to depend exclusively on theirherring fishing! The experiment which precipitated the population ofthe country on its barer skirts, as some diseases precipitate thehumours on the extremities, would have been emphatically a disastrousone, so far at least as the people were concerned, even did it involveno large amount of human suffering, and no deterioration ofcharacter. 

One of the first writers, of unquestioned respectability, who acquaintedthe public with the true character of the revolution which had beeneffected in Sutherland, was the late General Stewart of Garth. Hewas, we believe, the first man--and the fact says something for hisshrewdness--who saw a coming poor-law looming through the _clearing_ ofSutherland. His statements are exceedingly valuable; his inferencesalmost always just. The General--a man of probity and nice honour--hadsuch an ability of estimating the value of moral excellence in apeople, as the originators of the revolution had of estimating theantagonist merits of double pounds of mutton and single pounds ofbeef. He had seen printed representations on the subject--tissues ofhollow falsehood, that have since been repeated in newspapers andreviews; and though unacquainted with the facts at the time, he sawsufficient reason to question their general correctness, from thecircumstance that he found in them the character of the people, withwhich no man could be better acquainted, vilified and traduced. TheGeneral saw one leviathan falsehood running through the whole, and, on the strength of the old adage, naturally suspected the company inwhich he found it. And so, making minute and faithful inquiry, hepublished the results at which he arrived. He refers to the mode ofejectment by the torch. He next goes on to show how some of the ejectedtenants were allowed small allotments of moor on the coast side, of fromhalf an acre to two acres in extent, which it was their task to breakinto corn land; and how that, because many patches of green appearin this way, where all was russet before, the change has been mucheulogized as improvement. We find him remarking further, withconsiderable point and shrewdness, that 'many persons are, however, inclined to doubt the advantages of improvements which call for suchfrequent apologies, ' and that, 'if the advantage to the people were soevident, or if more lenient measures had been pursued, vindicationcould not have been necessary. ' The General knew how to pass fromthe green spots themselves to the condition of those who tilled them. The following passage must strike all acquainted with the Highlandersof Sutherland as a true representation of the circumstances to whichthey have been reduced:

'Ancient respectable tenants who have passed the greater part of lifein the enjoyment of abundance, and in the exercise of hospitality andcharity, possessing stock of ten, twenty, and thirty breeding cows, with the usual proportion of other stock, are now pining on one or twoacres of bad land, with one or two starved cows; and for thisaccommodation a calculation is made, that they must support theirfamilies, and pay the rent of their lots, not from the produce, butfrom the sea, thus drawing a rent which the land cannot afford. Whenthe herring fishing succeeds, they generally satisfy the landlord, whatever privations they may suffer; but when the fishing fails, theyfall into arrears. The herring fishing, always precarious, has for asuccession of years been very defective, and this class of people arereduced to extreme misery. At first, some of them possessed capital, from converting their farm-stock into cash, but this has been longexhausted; and it is truly distressing to view their general poverty, aggravated by their having once enjoyed abundance and independence. '

Some of the removals to which we have referred took place during thatgroup of scarce seasons in which the year 1816 was so prominent; butthe scarcity which these induced served merely to render the othersufferings of the people more intense, and was lost sight of in thegeneral extent of the calamity. Another group of hard seasons cameon, --one of those groups which seem of such certain and yet of suchirregular occurrence in our climate, that though they have attractednotice from the days of Bacon downwards, they have hitherto resistedall attempts to include them in some definite cycle. The summer andharvest of 1835 were the last of a series of fine summers and abundantharvests; and for six years after there was less than the usual heat, and more than the usual rain. Science, in connection with agriculture, has done much for us in the low country, and so our humbler populationwere saved from the horrors of a dearth of food; but on the greenpatches which girdle the shores of Sutherland, and which have beenesteemed such wonderful improvements, science had done and could donothing. The people had been sinking lower and lower during theprevious twenty years, and what would have been great hardship beforehad become famine now. One feels at times that it may be an advantageto have lived among the humbler people. We have been enabled, inconsequence, to detect many such gross misstatements as those withwhich the apologists of the disastrous revolution effected inSutherland have attempted to gloss over the ruin of that country. Inother parts of the Highlands, especially in the Hebrides, the failureof the kelp trade did much to impoverish the inhabitants; but in theHighlands of Sutherland the famine was the effect of _improvement_alone. 

The writer of these chapters saw how a late, untoward year operates onthe bleak shores of the north-western Highlands, when spending aseason there a good many years ago. He found what only a fewtwelvemonths previous had been a piece of dark moor, laid out intominute patches of corn, and bearing a dense population. The herringfishing had failed for the two seasons before, and the poor cottarswere, in consequence, in arrears with their rent; but the crops hadbeen tolerable; and though their stores of meal and potatoes were allexhausted at the time of our coming among them (the month of June), and though no part of the growing crop was yet fit for use, the whitefishing was abundant, and a training of hardship had enabled them tosubsist on fish exclusively. Their corn shot in the genial sunshine, and gave fair promise, and their potatoes had become far enoughadvanced to supplement their all too meagre meals, when, after aterrible thunder-storm, the fine weather broke up, and for thirteenweeks together there scarce passed a day without its baffling windsand its heavy chilling showers. The oats withered without ripening;the hardy bear might be seen rustling on all the more exposed slopes, light as the common rye-grass of our hay-fields, the stalks, in vastproportion, shorn of the ears. It was only in a very few of the moresheltered places that it yielded a scanty return of a dark-colouredand shrivelled grain. And to impart a still deeper shade to theprospects of the poor Highlanders, the herring fishery failed assignally as in the previous years. There awaited them all tooobviously a whole half year of inevitable famine, unless Lowlandcharity interfered in their behalf. And the recurrence of this stateof things no amount of providence or exertion on their own part, whenplaced in such circumstances, can obviate or prevent. It was aconviction of this character, based on experience, which led thewriter of these remarks to state, when giving evidence before thepresent Poor-Law Commissioners for Scotland, that though opposed tothe principle of legal assessment generally, he could yet see no othermode of reaching the destitution of the Highlands. Our humane Scottishlaw compels the man who sends another man to prison to support himthere, just because it is held impossible that within the walls of aprison a man can support himself. Should the principle alter, if, instead of sending him to a prison, he banishes him to a bleak, inhospitable coast, where, unless he receives occasional support fromothers, he must inevitably perish?

The sufferings of the people of Sutherland during the first of theseyears of destitution (1836), we find strikingly described by M'Leod:

'In this year, ' says the author, 'the crops all over Britain weredeficient, having bad weather for growing and ripening, and stillworse for gathering in. But in the Highlands they were an entirefailure; and on the untoward spots, occupied by the Sutherland smalltenants, there was literally nothing fit for human subsistence. And toadd to the calamity, the weather had prevented them from securing thepeats, their only fuel; so that, to their previous state ofexhaustion, cold and hunger were to be superadded. The sufferingsendured by the poor Highlanders in the succeeding winter truly beggardescription. Even the herring fishing had failed, and consequentlytheir credit in Caithness, which depended on its success, was at anend. Any little provision they might be able to procure was of themost inferior and unwholesome description. It was no uncommon thing tosee people searching among the snow for the frosted potatoes to eat inorder to preserve life. As the harvest had been disastrous, so thewinter was uncommonly boisterous and severe, and consequently littlecould be obtained from the sea to mitigate the calamity. The distressrose to such a height as to cause a sensation all over the island; andthere arose a general cry for Government interference, to save thepeople from death by famine. '

Public meetings were held, private subscriptions entered into, largefunds collected, the British people responded to the cry of theirsuffering fellow-subjects, and relief was extended to every portion ofthe Highlands except one. Alas for poor Sutherland! There, it wassaid, the charity of the country was not required, as the noble andwealthy proprietors had themselves resolved to interfere; and as thisstatement was circulated extensively through the public prints, andsedulously repeated at all public meetings, the mind of the communitywas set quite at rest on the matter. And interfere the proprietors atlength did. Late in the spring of 1837, after sufferings the mostincredible had been endured, and disease and death had been among thewretched people, they received a scanty supply of meal and seed-corn, for which, though vaunted at the time as a piece of munificentcharity, the greater part of them had afterwards to pay. 

In the next chapter we shall endeavour bringing these facts to bear onthe cause of the Free Church in Sutherland. We close for the presentby adding just one curious fact more. We have already shown how thebleak moors of Sutherland have been mightily improved by therevolution which ruined its people. They bear many green patches whichwere brown before. Now it so happened that rather more than ten yearsago, the idea struck the original improvers, that as green was animprovement on brown, so far as the moors were concerned, white wouldbe an equally decided improvement on black, so far as the houses wereconcerned. An order was accordingly issued, in the name of the Dukeand Duchess of Sutherland, that all the small tenants on both sidesthe public road, where it stretches on the northern coast from theconfines of Reay to the Kyle of Tongue, a distance of about thirtymiles, should straightway build themselves new houses of stone andmortar, according to a prescribed plan and specification. Pharaoh'sfamous order could not have bred greater consternation. But the onlyalternative given was summed up in the magic word _removal_; and thepoor Highlanders, dejected, tamed, broken in spirit as in means, wellknew from experience what the magic word meant. And so, as theirprototypes set themselves to gather stubble for their bricks, the poorHighlanders began to build. We again quote from M'Leod:

'Previous to this, in the year 1829, I and my family had been forcedaway, like others, being particularly obnoxious to those in authorityfor sometimes showing an inclination to oppose their tyranny, andtherefore we had to be made examples of to frighten the rest; but in1833 I made a tour of the district, when the building was going on, and shall endeavour to describe a small part of what met my eye onthat occasion. In one locality (and this was a specimen of the rest) Isaw fourteen different squads of masons at work, with the nativesattending them. Old grey-headed men, worn down by previous hardshipand present want, were to be seen carrying stones, and wheeling themand other materials on barrows, or conveying them on their backs tothe buildings, and with their tottering limbs and trembling handsstraining to raise them on the walls. The young men also, aftertoiling all night at sea endeavouring for subsistence, were obliged toyield their exhausted frames to the labours of the day. Even femalelabour could not be dispensed with; the strong as well as the weak, the delicate and sickly, and (shame to their oppressors) even thepregnant, barefooted and scantily clothed, were obliged to join inthose rugged, unfeminine labours. In one instance I saw the husbandquarrying stones, and the wife and children dragging them along in anold cart to the building. Such were the building scenes of thatperiod. The poor people had often to give the last morsel of food theypossessed to feed the masons, and subsist on shell-fish themselves. This went on for several years, in the course of which many hundredsof these houses were erected on unhospitable spots unfit for a humanresidence. '

We add another extract from the same writer:

'It might be thought, ' adds M'Leod, 'that the design of forcing thepeople to build such houses was to provide for their comfort andaccommodation, but there seems to have been quite a differentobject, --which, I believe, was the true motive, --and that was to hidethe misery that prevailed. There had been a great sensation created inthe public mind by the cruelties exercised in these districts; and itwas thought that a number of neat white houses, ranged on each side ofthe road, would take the eye of strangers and visitors, and give apractical contradiction to the rumours afloat. Hence the poorcreatures were forced to resort to such means, and to endure suchhardships and privations as I have described, to carry the scheme intoeffect. And after they had spent their remaining all, and more thantheir all, on the erection of these houses, and involved themselves indebt, for which they have been harassed and pursued ever since, whatare these erections but whitened tombs! many of them now ten years inexistence, and still without proper doors or windows, destitute offurniture and of comfort, --the unhappy lairs of a heart-broken, squalid, fast-degenerating race. '

CHAPTER VI. 

We have exhibited to our readers, in the _clearing_ of Sutherland, aprocess of ruin so thoroughly disastrous, that it might be deemedscarce possible to render it more complete. And yet, with all itsapparent completeness, it admitted of a supplementary process. Toemploy one of the striking figures of Scripture, it was possible togrind into powder what had been previously broken into fragments, --todegrade the poor inhabitants to a still lower level than that on whichthey had been so cruelly precipitated, --though persons of a not veryoriginal cast of mind might have found it difficult to say how; andthe Duke of Sutherland has been ingenious enough to fall on exactlythe one proper expedient for supplementing their ruin. All in merecircumstance and situation that could lower and deteriorate, had beenpresent as ingredients in the first process; but there still remainedfor the people, however reduced to poverty or broken in spirit, all inreligion that consoles and ennobles. Sabbath-days came round withtheir humanizing influences; and, under the teachings of the gospel, the poor and oppressed looked longingly forward to a future scene ofbeing, in which there is no poverty and no oppression. They stillpossessed, amid their misery, something positively good, of which itwas possible to deprive them; and hence the ability derived to thepresent lord of Sutherland, of deepening and rendering more signal theruin accomplished by his predecessor. 

Napoleon, when on the eve of re-establishing Popery in France, showed his conviction of the importance of national religions, byremarking that, did there exist no ready-made religion to servehis turn, he would be under the necessity of making one on purpose. And his remark, though perhaps thrown into this form merely to giveit point, and render it striking, has been instanced as a proof thathe could not have considered the matter very profoundly. It has beensaid, and said truly, that religions of stamina enough to be evenpolitically useful cannot be _made_: that it is comparatively easyto gain great battles, and frame important laws; but that to createbelief lay beyond the power of even a Napoleon. France, instead ofcrediting his manufactured religion, would have laughed at both himand it. The Duke of Sutherland has, however, taken upon himself aharder task than the one to which Napoleon could refer, probably injoke. His aim seems to be, not the comparatively simple one ofmaking a new religion where no religion existed before, but ofmaking men already firm in their religious convictions believe thatto be a religion which they believe to be no such thing. Hisundertaking involves a _discharging_ as certainly as an _injecting_process, --the erasure of an existing belief, as certainly as theinfusion of an antagonistic belief that has no existence. We haveshown how evangelism took root and grew in Sutherland, as the onlyform of Christianity which its people could recognise; how theantagonist principle of Moderatism they failed to recognise asChristianity at all; and how, when the latter was obtruded intotheir pulpits, they withdrew from the churches in which theirfathers had worshipped, for they could regard them as churches nolonger, and held their prayer and fellowship meetings in their ownhomes, or travelled far to attend the ministrations of clergymenin whose mission they _could_ believe. We have shown that this stateof feeling and belief still pervades the county. It led to an actualdisruption between its evangelized people and its moderate clergy, long ere the disruption of last May took place: that important eventhas had but the effect of marshalling them into one compact bodyunder a new name. They are adherents of the Free Church now, justbecause they have been adherents to its principles for the last twocenturies. And to shake them loose from this adherence is the objectof his Grace; to reverse the belief of ages; to render themindifferent to that which they feel and believe to be religion; and tomake them regard as religion that which they know to be none. Histask is harder by a great deal than that to which Napoleon barelyventured to advert; and how very coarse and repulsive his purposedmeans of accomplishing it!

These harmonize but too well with the mode in which the interior ofSutherland was cleared, and the improved cottages of its sea-coastserected. The plan has its two items. No sites are to be granted in thedistrict for Free churches, and no dwelling-houses for Free Churchministers. The climate is severe; the winters prolonged and stormy;the roads which connect the chief seats of population with theneighbouring counties dreary and long. May not ministers and people beeventually worn out in this way? Such is the portion of the plan whichhis Grace and his Grace's creatures can afford to present to thelight. But there are supplementary items of a somewhat darker kind. The poor cottars are, in the great majority of cases, tenants at will;and there has been much pains taken to inform them, that to the crimeof entertaining and sheltering a protesting minister, the penalty ofejection from their holdings must inevitably attach. The laws ofCharles have again returned in this unhappy district; and free andtolerating Scotland has got, in the nineteenth century, as in theseventeenth, its intercommuned ministers. We shall not say that theintimation has emanated from the Duke. It is the misfortune of suchmen that there creep around them creatures whose business it is toanticipate their wishes; but who, at times, doubtless, instead ofanticipating, misinterpret them; and who, even when not very muchmistaken, impart to whatever they do the impress of their own low andmenial natures, and thus exaggerate in the act the intention of theirmasters. We do not say, therefore, that the intimation has emanatedfrom the Duke; but this we say, that an exemplary Sutherlandshireminister of the Protesting Church, who resigned his worldly all forthe sake of his principles, had lately to travel, that he might preachto his attached people, a long journey of forty-five miles outwards, and as much in return, and all this without taking shelter under thecover of a roof, or without partaking of any other refreshment thanthat furnished by the slender store of provisions which he had carriedwith him from his new home. Willingly would the poor Highlanders havereceived him at any risk; but knowing from experience what aSutherlandshire removal means, he preferred enduring any amount ofhardship, rather than that the hospitality of his people should bemade the occasion of their ruin. We have already adverted to the caseof a lady of Sutherland threatened with ejection from her home becauseshe had extended the shelter of her roof to one of the protestingclergy--an aged and venerable man, who had quitted the neighbouringmanse, his home for many years, because he could no longer enjoy it inconsistency with his principles; and we have shown that that aged andvenerable man was the lady's own father. What amount of oppression ofa smaller and more petty character may not be expected in thecircumstances, when cases such as these are found to stand but a verylittle over the ordinary level?

The meannesses to which ducal hostility can stoop in this haplessdistrict impress with a feeling of surprise. In the parish of Dornoch, for instance, where his Grace is fortunately not the sole landowner, there has been a site procured on the most generous terms from SirGeorge Gun Munro of Poyntzfield; and this gentleman--believinghimself possessed of a hereditary right to a quarry, which, though onthe Duke's ground, had been long resorted to by the proprietors of thedistrict generally--instructed the builder to take from it the stoneswhich he needed. Here, however, his Grace interfered. Never had thequarry been prohibited before; but on this occasion a stringentinterdict arrested its use. If his Grace could not prevent a hatedFree Church from arising in the district, he could at least add to the_expense_ of its erection. We have even heard that the portion of thebuilding previously erected had to be pulled down, and the stonesreturned. 

How are we to account for a hostility so determined, and that canstoop so low? In two different ways, we are of opinion, and in bothhave the people of Scotland a direct interest. Did his Grace entertaina very intense regard for Established Presbytery, it is probable thathe himself would be a Presbyterian of the Establishment. But such isnot the case. The Church into which he would so fain force the peoplehas been long since deserted by himself. The secret of the coursewhich he pursues can have no connection therefore with religiousmotive or belief. It can be no proselytizing spirit that misleads hisGrace. Let us remark, in the first place, --rather, however, in the wayof embodying a fact than imputing a motive, --that with his presentviews, and in his present circumstances, it may not seem particularlyhis Grace's interest to make the county of Sutherland a happy ordesirable home to the people of Sutherland. It may not seem hisGrace's interest that the population of the district should increase. The _clearing_ of the sea-coast may seem as little prejudicial to hisGrace's welfare now, as the _clearing_ of the interior seemed adverseto the interests of his predecessor thirty years ago; nay, it is quitepossible that his Grace may be led to regard the _clearing_ of thecoast as the better and more important _clearing_ of the two. Let itnot be forgotten that a poor-law hangs over Scotland; that the shoresof Sutherland are covered with what seems one vast straggling village, inhabited by an impoverished and ruined people; and that the comingassessment may yet fall so weighty, that the extra profits derived tohis Grace from his large sheep-farms, may go but a small way insupporting his extra paupers. It is not in the least improbable thathe may live to find the revolution effected by his predecessor takingto itself the form, not of a crime--for that would be nothing--but ofa disastrous and very terrible blunder. 

There is another remark which may prove not unworthy the considerationof the reader. Ever since the completion of the fatal experimentwhich ruined Sutherland, the noble family through which it wasoriginated and carried on have betrayed the utmost jealousy ofhaving its real results made public. Volumes of special pleadinghave been written on the subject; pamphlets have been published;laboured articles have been inserted in widely-spread reviews;statistical accounts have been watched over with the most carefulsurveillance. If the misrepresentations of the press could havealtered the matter of fact, famine would not have been gnawing thevitals of Sutherland in every year just a little less abundant thanits fellows, nor would the dejected and oppressed people befeeding their discontent, amid present misery, with the recollectionsof a happier past. If a singularly well-conditioned and wholesomedistrict of country has been converted into one wide ulcer ofwretchedness and wo, it must be confessed that the sore has beencarefully bandaged up from the public eye; that if there has beenlittle done for its cure, there has at least been much done for itsconcealment. Now, be it remembered that the Free Church threatens toinsert a _tent_ into this wound, and so keep it open. It has beensaid that the Gaelic language removes a district more effectuallyfrom the influence of English opinion than an ocean of threethousand miles, and that the British public know better what isdoing in New York than what is doing in Lewis and Skye. And hence onecause, at least, of the thick obscurity that has so long enveloped themiseries which the poor Highlander has had to endure, and theoppressions to which he has been subjected. The Free Churchthreatens to _translate_ her wrongs into English, and to give themcurrency in the general mart of opinion. She might possibly enoughbe no silent spectator of conflagrations such as those whichcharacterized the first general improvement of Sutherland, nor yetof such Egyptian schemes of house-building as that which formed partof the improvements of a later plan. She might be somewhat apt tobetray the real state of the district, and thus render laboriousmisrepresentation of little avail. She might effect a diversion inthe cause of the people, and shake the foundations of the hithertodespotic power which has so long weighed them down. She might dofor Sutherland what Cobbett promised to do for it, but what Cobbetthad not character enough to accomplish, and what he did not liveeven to attempt. A combination of circumstances have conspired tovest in a Scottish proprietor, in this northern district, a moredespotic power than even the most absolute monarchs of the Continentpossess; and it is, perhaps, no great wonder that that proprietorshould be jealous of the introduction of an element which threatens, it may seem, materially to lessen it. And so he struggles hard toexclude the Free Church, and, though no member of the Establishmenthimself, declaims warmly in its behalf. Certain it is, that from theEstablishment, as now constituted, he can have nothing to fear, andthe people nothing to hope. 

After what manner may his Grace the Duke of Sutherland be mosteffectually met in this matter, so that the cause of toleration andfreedom of conscience may be maintained in the extensive districtwhich God, in His providence, has consigned to his stewardship? Weshall in our next chapter attempt giving the question an answer. Meanwhile, we trust the people of Sutherland will continue, ashitherto, to stand firm. The strong repugnance which they feel againstbeing driven into churches which all their better ministers have left, is not ill founded. No Church of God ever employs such means ofconversion as those employed by his Grace: they are means which havebeen often resorted to for the purpose of making men worse, never yetfor the purpose of making them better. We know that, with theirlong-formed church-going habits, the people must feel their now silentSabbaths pass heavily; but they would perhaps do well to remember, amid the tedium and the gloom, that there were good men who not onlyanticipated such a time of trial for this country, but who also madeprovision for it. Thomas Scott, when engaged in writing hisCommentary, used to solace himself with the belief that it might be ofuse at a period when the public worship of God would be no longertolerated in the land. To the great bulk of the people of Sutherlandthat time seems to have already come. They know, however, the value ofthe old divines, and have not a few of their more practical treatisestranslated into their own expressive tongue: Alleine's _Alarm_, Boston's _Fourfold State_, Doddridge's _Rise and Progress_, Baxter's_Call_, Guthrie's _Saving Interest_. Let these, and such as these, betheir preachers, when they can procure no other. The more they learnto relish them, the less will they relish the bald and miserableservices of the Residuary Church. Let them hold their fellowship andprayer meetings; let them keep up the worship of God in theirfamilies; the cause of religious freedom in the district is involvedin the stand which they make. Above all, let them possess their soulsin patience. We are not unacquainted with the Celtic character, asdeveloped in the Highlands of Scotland. Highlanders, up to a certainpoint, are the most docile, patient, enduring of men; but that pointonce passed, endurance ceases, and the all too gentle lamb starts upan angry lion. The spirit is stirred that maddens at the sight of thenaked weapon, and that, in its headlong rush upon the enemy, discipline can neither check nor control. Let our oppressedHighlanders of Sutherland beware. They have suffered much; but, so faras man is the agent, their battles can be fought on only the arena ofpublic opinion, and on that ground which the political field may besoon found to furnish. Any explosion of violence on their part wouldbe ruin to both the Free Church and themselves. 

CHAPTER VII. 

How is the battle of religious freedom to be best fought in behalf ofthe oppressed people of Sutherland? We shall attempt throwing out afew simple suggestions on the subject, which, if in the right track, the reader may find it easy to follow up and mature. 

First, then, let us remember that in this country, in whichopinion is all-potent, and which for at least a century and a halfhas been the envy of continental states for the degree of religiousfreedom which it enjoys, the policy of the Duke of Sutherlandcannot be known without being condemned. The current which he opposeshas been scooping out its channel for ages. Every great mindproduced by Britain, from the times of Milton and Locke down tothe times of Mackintosh and of Chalmers, has been giving it impetusin but one direction; and it is scarce likely that it will reverseits course now, at the bidding of a few intolerant and narrow-mindedaristocrats. British opinion has but to be fairly appealed to, inorder to declare strongly in favour of the oppressed Highlanders ofSutherland. What we would first remark, then, is, that the policy ofhis Grace the Duke cannot be too widely exposed. The press and theplatform must be employed. The frank and generous English must betold, that that law of religious toleration which did so much at acomparatively early period to elevate the character of their countryin the eye of the world, and which, in these latter times, men havebeen accustomed to regard as somewhat less, after all, than anadequate embodiment of the rights of conscience, has been virtuallyrepealed in a populous and very extensive district of the Britishempire, through a capricious exercise of power on the part of asingle man. Why, it has been asked, in a matter which lies betweenGod and conscience, and between God and the conscience only, should a third party be permitted to interfere so far as even to say, 'I tolerate you? I tolerate your Independency--your Episcopacy--yourPresbyterianism: you are a Baptist, but I tolerate you?' There is aninsult implied, it has been said, in the way in which the libertypurports to be granted. It bestows as a boon what already exists asa right. We want no despot to tell us that he gives us leave tobreathe the free air of heaven, or that he permits us to worship Godagreeably to the dictates of our conscience. Such are the views withwhich a majority of the British people regard, in these latter times, the right to tolerate; and regarding a _right_ NOT to tolerate, theymust be more decided still. The Free Church, then, must lay hercomplaint before them. She must tell them, that such is theoppression to which her people are subjected, that she would bebut too happy to see even the beggarly elements of the questionrecognised in their behalf; that she would be but too happy tohear the despot of a province pronounce the deprecated 'I tolerateyou, ' seeing that his virtual enunciation at present is, 'I do NOTtolerate you, ' and seeing that he is powerful enough, through amisapplication of his rights and influence as the most extensive ofBritish proprietors, to give terrible effect to the unjust andilliberal determination. The Free Church, on this question, mustraise her appeal everywhere to public opinion, and we entertain nodoubt that she will everywhere find it her friend. 

But how is its power to be directed? How bring it to bear upon theDuke of Sutherland? It is an all-potent lever, but it must befurnished with a fulcrum on which to rest, and a direction in which tobear. Let us remark, first, that no signal privilege or right wasever yet achieved for Britain, that was not preceded by some signalwrong. From the times of Magna Charta down to the times of theRevolution, we find every triumph of liberty heralded in by some grossoutrage upon it. The history of the British Constitution is a historyof great natural rights established piecemeal under the immediatepromptings of an indignation elicited by unbearable wrongs. It was notuntil the barrier that protected the privileges of the citizen fromthe will of the despot gave way at some weak point, that the partiesexposed to the inundation were roused up to re-erect it on a betterprinciple and a surer foundation. Now, the Duke of Sutherland (withsome of his brother proprietors) has just succeeded in showing us asignal flaw in our scheme of religious toleration, and this at anexceedingly critical time. He has been perpetrating a great andpalpable wrong, which, if rightly represented, must have the effect ofleading men, in exactly the old mode, to arouse themselves in behalfof the corresponding right. If a single proprietor can virtually dowhat the sovereign of Great Britain would forfeit the crown for barelyattempting to do--if a single nobleman can do what the House of Lordsin its aggregate capacity would peril its very existence for butproposing to do--then does there exist in the British Constitution apalpable flaw, which cannot be too soon remedied. There must be a weakplace in the barrier, if the waters be rushing out; and it cannot betoo soon rebuilt on a surer plan. Here, then, evidently, is the pointon which the generated opinion ought to be brought to bear. It has asits proper arena the political field. It is a defect in the BritishConstitution, strongly exemplified by the case of Sutherland, that therights of property may be so stretched as to overbear the rights ofconscience--that though toleration be the law of the land generally, it may be so set aside by the country's proprietary, as not to be thelaw in any particular part of it; and to reverse this state ofthings--to make provision in the Constitution that the rights of theproprietor be not so overstretched, and that a virtual repeal of thetoleration laws in any part of the country be not possible--arepalpably the objects to which the public mind should be directed. 

We have said that the Duke of Sutherland has succeeded in showing usthis flaw in the Constitution at a peculiarly critical time. Agentleman resident in England, for whose judgment we entertain thehighest respect, told us only a few days since, that the rising, all-absorbing party of that kingdom, so far at least as theEstablished Church and the aristocracy are concerned, stillcontinues to be the Puseyite party. If Puseyism does not bid fairto possess a majority of the people of the country, it bids fair atleast to possess a majority of its acres. And we need scarce remindthe reader how peculiarly this may be the case with Scotland, whoseacres, in such large proportions, are under the control of anincipient Puseyism already. In both countries, therefore, is it ofpeculiar importance, in a time like the present, that the law oftoleration should be placed beyond the control of a hostile orilliberal proprietary--so placed beyond their control, that theymay be as unable virtually to suspend its operation in any part ofthe country, as they already are to suspend its operation in thewhole of the country. We are recommending, be it remembered, no wildscheme of Chartist aggression on the rights of property--we wouldbut injure our cause by doing so: our strength in this question mustaltogether depend on the soundness of the appeal which we can carryto the natural justice of the community. We merely recommend thatthat be done in behalf of the already recognised law of toleration, which Parliament has no hesitation in doing in behalf of some railwayor canal, or water or dock company, when, for what is deemed a publicgood, it sets aside the absolute control of the proprietor over atleast a portion of his property, and consigns it at a fair price tothe corporation engaged in the undertaking. The principle of thescheme is already recognised by the Constitution, and its legislativeembodiment would be at once easy and safe. Property would be renderednot less, but more secure, if, in every instance in which aregularly-organized congregation of any denomination of Christiansto which the law of toleration itself extended, made application forground on which to erect a place of worship, the application wouldbe backed and made effectual, in virtue of an enacted law, by theauthority of the Constitution. There is no Scotch or EnglishDissenter--no true friend of religious liberty in Britain orIreland--who would not make common cause with the Free Church inurging a measure of this character on Parliament, when fairlyconvinced, by cases such as that of Sutherland, how imperativelysuch a measure is required. 

Unavoidably, however, from the nature of things, the relief whichultimately may be thus secured cannot be other than distant relief. Much information must first be spread, and the press and the platformextensively employed. Can there be nothing done for Sutherland throughan already existing political agency? We are of opinion there can. Sutherland itself is even more thoroughly a _close_ county now, thanit was ere the Reform Bill had swamped the paper votes, and swept awaythe close burghs. His Grace the Duke has but to nominate his member, and his member is straightway returned. But all the political powerwhich, directly or indirectly, his Grace possesses, is not equallysecure. Sutherland is a close county; but the Northern Burghs are notrotten burghs; on the contrary, they possess an independent andintelligent constituency; and in scarce any part of Scotland is theFree Church equally strong. And his Grace derives no inconsiderableportion of his political influence from them. The member forSutherland is virtually his Grace's nominee, but the member for theNorthern Burghs is not his Grace's nominee at all; and yet certain itis that the gentleman by whom these burghs are at present representedin Parliament is his Grace's agent and adviser in all that pertains tothe management of Sutherland, and has been so for many years. HisGrace's member for Sutherland sits in Parliament in virtue of beinghis Grace's nominee; but the sort of prime minister through which hisGrace governs his princely domains, sits in Parliament, not in virtueof being his Grace's nominee, but in virtue of his being himself a manof liberal opinions, and an enemy to all intolerance. He representsthem in the Whig interest, and in his character as a Whig. His Gracewould very soon have one member less in Parliament, did that membermake common cause with his Grace in suppressing the Free Church inSutherland. Now, the bruit shrewdly goeth, that that member does makecommon cause with his Grace. The bruit shrewdly goeth, that in this, as in most other matters, his Grace acts upon that member's advice. True, the report may be altogether idle--it may be utterly withoutfoundation; instead of being true, it may be exactly the reverse ofbeing true; but most unquestionable it is, that, whether true orotherwise, it exists, and that that member's constituency have a verydirect interest in it. He represents them miserably ill, and must be avery different sort of Whig from them, if he hold that proprietors doright in virtually setting aside the Toleration Act. The report doesone of two things, --it either does him great injustice, or it showsthat he has sat too long in Parliament for the Northern Burghs. It isin the power, then, of the highly respectable and intelligent Whigconstituency of this district to make such a diversion in favour ofthe oppressed people of Sutherland, as can scarce fail to tell uponthe country, and this in thorough consistency with the best andhighest principles of their party. Let them put themselves in instantcommunication with their member, and, stating the character of thereport which so generally exists to his prejudice, request acategorical answer regarding it, --let them request an avowal of hisopinion of the Duke's policy, equally articulate with that opinionwhich the Hon. Mr. Fox Maule submitted to the public a few weeks agoin the columns of the _Witness_, --and then, as the ascertainedcircumstances of the case may direct, let them act, and that publicly, in strict accordance with their principles. Of one thing they may beassured, --the example will tell. 

In order to raise the necessary amount of opinion for carrying theulterior object--the enactment of a law--there are various mostjustifiable expedients to which the friends of toleration in thecountry should find it not difficult to resort. Petitions addressed tothe Lower House in its legislative capacity, and to the members of theUpper House as a body of men who have, perhaps, of all others the mostdirect stake in the matter--we need scarce say how--ought, of course, to take a very obvious place on the list. Much, too, might be done bydeputations from the General Assembly of the Free Church, instructedfrom time to time to ascertain, and then publicly to report on, thestate of Sutherland. Each meeting of the Assembly might be addressedon the subject by some of its ablest men, in which case theirstatements and speeches would go forth, through the medium of thepress, to the country at large. The co-operation and assistance of allbodies of evangelical Dissenters, both at home and abroad, should besedulously sought after, and correct information on the subjectcirculated among them extensively. There has been much sympathyelicited for the Church, during her long struggle, among good meneverywhere. Her cause has been tried, and judgment given in herfavour, in France, Holland, and America, and in not a few of thecolonies. In the case of Sismondi 'On the _Clearing_ of Sutherland, 'we see the opinion of a continental philosopher re-echoed back uponour own country, not without its marked effect; and it might be wellto try whether the effect of foreign opinion might not be at leastequally influential 'On the Suppression of the Toleration Laws inSutherland. ' There is one great country with which we hold ourliterature in common, and which we can address, and by which we can bein turn addressed, in our native tongue. Unluckily, what ought to haveexisted as a bond of union and amity has been made to subserve a verydifferent purpose; and we cannot conceal from ourselves the fact, thatour own country has been mainly to blame. The manners, habits, andtastes of the Americans have been exhibited, by not a few of ourpopular writers, in the broadest style of caricature; they have beendescribed as a nation of unprincipled speculators, devoid not only ofright feeling, but even of common honesty, and remarkable for buttheir scoundrelism and conceit. Even were such descriptions just, which they are not, most assuredly would they be unwise. It is theAmerican people, rather than the American government, who make peaceand war; and the first American war with England will be one of themost formidable in which this country has yet been engaged. Thebowie-knife is no trifling weapon; and the English writer laughs at avery considerable expense, if his satires have the effect of whettingit. At present, however, the war between the two countries is but awar of libel and pasquinade, and the advantage hitherto has been onthe side of the aggressor. America has not been happy in herretaliation. We would fain direct her to aim where her darts, insteadof provoking national hostility, or exciting a bitter spirit among theentire people of a country, would but subserve the general cause ofliberty and human improvement. It is but idle to satirize our mannersand customs; we think them good. There is nothing to be gained bycasting ridicule on our peculiar modes of thinking; they are themodes to which we have been accustomed, and we prefer them to anyothers. But there are matters of a different kind, regarding which thecountry bears a conscience, and is not quite at its ease; and there weare vulnerable. We speak often, we would fain say, of slavery in yourcountry, literati of America, and justly deem it a great evil. Itmight do us good were you to remind us, in turn, that there areextensive districts in our own, in which virtually there exists notoleration law for the religion of the people, though that religion beProtestantism in its purest form. Cast your eyes upon the county ofSutherland. 

THE END. 

MURRAY AND GIBB, EDINBURGH, PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE. 

Transcriber's Notes:

 Typographical problems have been changed and are listed below. Author's archaic and variable spelling is preserved. Author's punctuation style is preserved. Passages in italics indicated by _underscores_. 

Transcriber Changes:

 (Signed) 'THOMAS CHALMERS. '{** ADDED EXTRA CLOSING SINGLE-QUOTE}

 schools of the place: the committee, through their chairman{** Was 'chair man' over line}, Saxe-Cobourg-Gotha{** Was 'Saxe-Cobourg Gotha'} grants to his subjects a representative

 old Babylonish beast, horrid with the blood{** Was 'bood'} of saints, They dropped, --and hence "The Holy Haven"{** Added closing double-quote}

 entranced, under the influences{** Was 'inflences'} of fairy-land, in some

 God agreeably{** Was 'agreebly'} to the dictates of our conscience. Such are