THE EXCITEMENT OF THE TIME. 213 



the name of Hugh Miller was mentioned with affection- 

 ate enthusiasm, as that of the people's own champion, 

 who among the laymen of the conflict was what Chal- 

 mers was among the clergy. I may be permitted to 

 quote here a few sentences which I have written upon 

 the subject elsewhere. ' Of the influence exerted upon 

 the public mind of Scotland by Hugh Miller's articles 

 in the Witness on the Church question, there are thou- 

 sands still living who can speak. A year or two before 

 the Disruption I passed a winter in a Highland manse. 

 I was too young to form a distinct idea of the merits of 

 the dispute. But there was a sound in the air which I 

 could not help hearing. It seems as if it were in my 

 ears still. Never have I witnessed so steady, intense, 

 enthralling an excitement. And I have no difficulty, 

 even at this distance, in discriminating the name which 

 rang loudest through the agitated land. It was that of 

 Hugh Miller, the people's friend, champion, hero ! ' 

 It was appropriate that a self-educated man should 

 speak for the commonalty of Scotland. It suited the 

 stubborn independence and self-helping vigour of the 

 race. The popular imagination, besides, ready always 

 to be moved by adventitious circumstances, found an 

 additional charm and pictures queness in his having been 

 a stone-mason, one who had actually ' bared a quarry ' 

 and hewn in a church-yard. But this rugged plebeian, 

 who stood forth to fight the people's battle, was not one 

 who required the indulgence of refined critics. No pen 

 wielded on either side in the controversy was more classic 

 than that of Hugh Miller. 



He shared the excitement which he contributed so 

 largely to produce. Not only was he animated by the 

 clearest sense of duty, and profoundly convinced that the 

 cause was that of conscience, liberty, and Scotland, but 



