300 EDITOR. 



black to be black and white white, calls white black and 

 black white, it is consistent with the usages of society to 

 tell said gentleman of the press that he is not a gentle- 

 man in the ordinary sense. What I had to remark, how- 

 ever, was that, all the time the Witness was striving, amid 

 the most virulent opposition, to defend a vital point of 

 the Free Church position, not one syllable of recognition 

 of the Witness as taking part in the defence, was uttered 

 by any minister, or in any Court of the Free Church. 

 The matter at length came up in the General Assembly. 

 Speaker after speaker, lay and clerical, among the 

 leading Free Churchmen, took the same view of the 

 Sir William Dunbar Case as had been taken by the 

 Witness, and the essential importance of disabusing 

 the public mind of the fallacy of comparing it to the 

 Cardross Case, except by way of contrast, was amply 

 acknowledged ; but not one syllable betrayed that the 

 Witness had done the work beforehand, or that the 

 Free Church had any manner of connection with a paper 

 called the Witness. 



The experience of the proprietors and the editor 

 on this occasion enabled them to realize with vivid- 

 ness the isolation, which, under circumstances incom- 

 parably more agitating, pressed upon the soul of 

 Hugh Miller. In times of danger and of difficulty he 

 had been the eye of the fleet, keen to discern the ap- 

 proach of peril, ready always to draw the fire of the 

 enemy upon himself and his ship ; and now, when 

 smoother waters had been reached, all the services of 

 the night, and the tempest, and the fray were forgotten, 

 and uniformed captains of the fleet, waiving him a cold 

 adieu, held on their way without acknowledging that he 

 or his ship were in existence. He never flagged in his 

 service. While he continued to breathe, his name was 



