HUGH MILLER 145 



corded in his Cruise of the Betsey and his Rambles of a 

 Geologist, extending over the West Coast and the Orkneys 

 when we know that much of his work consisted of 

 papers in The Witness, republished, like The Old Red 

 Sandstone, in book form with the necessary additions, 

 we shall wonder at the fertility and the quickness of the 

 mind that could, in the midst of distracting journalistic 

 demands on his time and attention, produce such a mass 

 of varied and finished work in science and literature. 

 And of the work in The Witness as a political writer, we 

 need only say that the present ecclesiastical condition of 

 Scotland bears largely his impress. Till he came and gave 

 expression to the feeling of the country in the columns 

 of his paper, the people had to a considerable extent 

 believed the question at issue to be one that concerned 

 mainly the clergy. This had been the standpoint of 

 the Moderate organs, in a wary attempt to win over the 

 laity. But by the Letter to Brougham he won the ear 

 of the people, and to the end he never lost it. By 1841 

 the political candidates in Scotland at the general elec- 

 tion had proclaimed themselves, with a single exception, 

 in favour of some distinct alteration of the law of 

 patronage. Whether Church papers are or are not a 

 blessing in England they have become a menace to 

 political action and a medium for the most offensive 

 clericalism and reactionary measures may safely be 

 left out of account in settling the question in his own 

 case, for, as we have seen, he had never consented to 

 make his paper a merely ecclesiastical organ. But of 



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