284 EDITOR. 



a strictly religious principle, a principle which, if sound 

 at all, must have been as much so ten years ago, 

 during the heat of the Voluntary controversy, as it is 

 now ; and seeing, further, that though since that time 

 the Scottish Establishment has been revolutionized and 

 degraded, no change has taken place in the constitution 

 and government of the English and Irish Establishments, 

 both of which we in the course of the controversy strenu- 

 ously defended. And, in the sixth and last place, I deem 

 it all too obvious, that the Voluntaries would not, as a 

 body, be heartily our allies in the conflict. A vast 

 majority of their number in Scotland lost their hearty 

 dislike of the Scottish Establishment when we left it ; 

 and it is to us, as manifested in the " Send back the 

 money'* business, and several other transactions of re- 

 sembling character, that the dislike now points. When 

 the vast majority of the old Dissenters of the country 

 put the slave-having Churches of America so emphatic- 

 ally under the ban, it was a clear proof, to my mind at 

 least, that the Voluntary controversy was fully over. A 

 State never dismisses its auxiliaries until its wars are 

 ended. Dr Candlish's scheme, if promulgated from 

 the platform in the Music Hall, would, I doubt 

 not, elicit the hollow hosannahs of Edinburgh Vol- 

 untaries ; but I am equally clear that it would do in- 

 finite mischief to the cause of Protestantism, by lower- 

 ing its spirit and dividing its forces. It seems all too 

 characteristic of a mind greatly more adroit in prelimin- 

 aries and details, than sagacious in the master businesses 

 to which the preliminaries should lead and the details 

 belong, a mind skilful in coasting along shallow bays 

 and miniature promontories, but that, when it launches 

 into the open sea, lacks both compass and rudder, and 

 carries with it no nicely graduated sextant, by which 



