262 EDITOR. 



incomes will be coming into effect. But above all, in an 

 age in which there are great religious questions arising 

 among the governed classes, and a singularly temporizing 

 spirit manifested with regard to them by the classes that 

 govern, a suspicion on the part of the Church that the 

 central body had in any degree lent itself to party 

 purposes, or was desirous, for party ends, either to mis- 

 direct or neutralize the Church's proper influence, would 

 be of a nature peculiarly perilous, reactive, and dis- 

 organizing. Nothing can be more certain than that, 

 unless all the greater care be taken, the Parliament 

 House may prove a most unneighbourly neighbour to 

 the Sustentation Fund. There is much in prospect, 

 of a character fitted to foster the natural Presbyterian 

 jealousy of centralization ; and I must be permitted to 

 say, that the various schemes suggested during the last 

 three years for the improvement of the Witness have 

 been all of a kind suited to add to their effect. The 

 several courses recommended of steering the Paper have 

 all been courses, that bore direct upon the rock. 



* It is now about two years and a half or so since Mr 

 M'Cosh of the Northern Warder suggested to Dr Cand- 

 lish a scheme of centralizing the Free Church Press. I 

 am unacquainted with the details of the suggestion, but 

 it at least involved the control of the Witness by a 

 central Edinburgh body. The scheme met, I am in- 

 formed, Dr Candlish's approval; and, with the intention, 

 apparently, of carrying it into effect with regard to the 

 Witness, I was waited on, at the time, by Mr J. G. 

 Wood, and sounded as to whether it would be agreeable 

 to me that Mr M'Cosh should have a share given him in 

 the Proprietorship of the Paper, and to have him at the 

 same time as my Sub-Editor. I may mention, that I had 

 not yet become one of the proprietors of the Witness. 



