THE QUARREL. 293 



never be the representative of their views, or the advo- 

 cate or apologist of their policy. I would fain advise 

 them to term their vehicle " THE FREE CHURCH CEN- 

 TRALIZATION JOURNAL, and Parliament-House Gazette;" 

 and I shall have very great pleasure indeed in contribut- 

 ing the Prospectus. 



'EDINBURGH, 14th January, 1847.' 



In a biography of Hugh Miller an opinion on the 

 merits of this quarrel may be expected, but I am not 

 sure that I am qualified to form one with impartiality, 

 because, on the most important matter in dispute, the 

 duty of the Free Church to take her place in line of 

 battle with the Nonconformists of the realm, in order 

 to strike their bonds from the ' State institutions ' and 

 change them into Free Churches, my humble opinion 

 coincides with that of Dr Candlish. I have also had the 

 opportunity of taking note, in quite unguarded moments 

 when we happened to meet at Kilcreggan on the estuary 

 of the Clyde, and were sometimes together alone in a 

 little boat on Loch Long, of Dr Candlish's feelings 

 towards Hugh Miller in the last years of his life. Clear 

 acknowledgment of his intellectual power, satisfaction 

 with the part played by himself in bringing him to 

 Edinburgh, and a regretful, not angry, feeling that he 

 could not forget and forgive and let by-gones be by- 

 gones, these are the impressions which remain with 

 me of what I heard from Dr Candlish in 1856 respect- 

 ing Hugh Miller. 



If the readers of these pages have formed the same 

 conception of Miller as I have, they will not fail to 

 understand how offence, and just offence, might be 

 taken by him at the conduct of Dr Candlish, although 

 the latter was imperfectly conscious, or not conscious at 



