PAMPHLET. 277 



merit-House criticism on a want of " tact and taste " in 

 the Paper ; its views are narrow and its spirit and policy 

 bad. The real cause of condemnation cannot be assigned, 

 but condemned it must be. 



' There are no doubt ingenious gentlemen among the 

 Free Church lawyers of the Parliament House, and it is 

 peculiarly their vocation to plead causes ; but in this 

 special cause, should the annoyance of insinuation and 

 inuendo continue, I shall not hesitate to encounter them 

 one and all. It is, I trust, in no proud or boastful spirit 

 that I say so ; and that my confidence is rather in the 

 character of the men whom I shall have to address, than 

 in any peculiar ability of my own. I shall have the 

 ministers and the people of the Free Church of Scotland 

 for judges and jury in the case, a class not particularly 

 remarkable, mayhap, for " taste, tact, or delicacy," but 

 certainly not wanting in the characteristic shrewdness of 

 their country, and most assuredly not devoid of solid 

 principle. If compelled to lay open the policy of our 

 Parliament-House friends to the landward readers of the 

 Witness, the good men will, I fear not, with all their 

 bluntness and rusticity, be quite intelligent enough to 

 understand it. Nor do I despair even of Edinburgh. 

 There has been a strong disposition evinced of late to 

 count heads in our metropolitan Free Kirk-Sessions, and 

 no high satisfaction evinced at finding the lawyerly heads 

 so numerous. 



' It is not by mere tact and management that differ- 

 ences consequent on the position of Parliament-House 

 Free Churchmen with regard to the Government, and the 

 peculiar duties of the Witness with regard to the 

 ministers and people of the Free Church, are to be 

 reconciled. So long as the Whigs continue what they 

 are, and our Free Church lawyers persist at all hazards 



