274 EDITOR. 



mand that the whole truth should be known to the select 

 few whom, in now addressing, I constitute my judges. 

 I sincerely trust there are no such arts employed else- 

 where in the management of the more secular concerns 

 of the Free Church, as those which I found all too palp- 

 able in this intended settlement of the Witness. They 

 are arts that can lead to but doubtful advantages and 

 damaging exposures ; they form but short-lived substi- 

 tutes hurtful in their life and offensive in their death 

 for that broad and massive simplicity, profound in its 

 wisdom and immortal in its nature, which leads in a Avay 

 everlasting. And, further, they too strongly savour of 

 those wily diplomatists not of the Church, but of the 

 world whose achievements and character one of the 

 English satirists has so pointedly described, 



" Men in their loose unguarded hours they take ; 

 Not that themselves are wise, but others weak.' ' 



To one very agreeable incident connected with this affair 

 I cannot deny myself the pleasure of referring. A report 

 had gone abroad, I know not how, that I had differed on 

 business matters with certain individuals connected with 

 the Witness ; and a gentleman whom I scarce at all 

 knew, and whose sympathies had been awakened in my 

 behalf on purely literary and scientific grounds, came 

 at once forward, and generously offered, through the 

 medium of a common friend, to place a thousand pounds 

 at my disposal, 



' I may just mention, ere I pass on to something else, 

 that there has been no call made on the part of the Com- 

 mittee for money with which to enter the literary market 

 and purchase articles. 



' The fifth and last scheme of improving the Witness 

 is that which has proved the occasion of this letter. For 

 the special benefit of the Paper I am to retire, it seems, 



