PAMPHLET. 2G1 



derived historic type and sternly orthodox school. The 

 reaction in the one case is that of new liberalism against 

 old centralization ; in the other it would be a reaction 

 of old Presbyterianism against new centralization. 



' Now, I need scarce remark to any of the gentlemen 

 whom I have now the honour of addressing, that the 

 development of a spirit of this character would be one of 

 the gravest evils which could befall the Free Church. 

 It would be found mainly operative in those large and 

 most important tracts of country in which the congrega- 

 tions are self-sustaining and a little more, and which lie 

 between the outer circumference of necessity and the 

 inner focus of influence. And if once developed, it is all 

 too obvious that it might come to operate with most 

 disastrous effect on the Sustentation Fund, and, by 

 consequence, on the very existence of the Church in the 

 non-sustaining localities. And that this spirit exists in 

 a semi-latent state, I have the most direct means of 

 knowing. Sorley's five-edition pamphlet was a mere 

 straw thrown up by a man of infirm temper, in a moment 

 of excitement ; but, straw as it was, it indicated the 

 direction of a current. And be it remembered, that we 

 are tending, in the natural course of events, to a state of 

 things that must be greatly more favourable to the 

 development of the jealous spirit than the present. The 

 great and good man who now imparts lustre to the Free 

 Church by the splendour of his name, and ballasts it by 

 the moral weight of his character, is far advanced in 

 years ; nor can the eye rest on a successor who will be to 

 it what he has been. The men of the Disruption will be 

 dropping away, and leaving their places to others less 

 under the influence of the kindly feeling of a soldiery who 

 have fought side by side in the same battle. And as 

 they are removed and disappear, the scheme of unequal 



