EDITOR OF ' WITNESS ' 269 



thoroughly ' Establishment man ' he had taken but 

 slender interest in the previous Voluntary controversy, 

 but the larger and more vital conflict now in progress 

 filled him with concern. It was his firm conviction 

 that the country contained ' no other institution half so 

 valuable as the Church, or in which the people had so 

 large a stake/ The anxiety with which the situation 

 impressed him affected his sleep, and he would ask 

 himself, c Can I do nothing for my Church in her hour 

 of peril ? ' The answer which he found was to write 

 his famous Letter from one of the Scotch people to Lord 

 Brougham. This pamphlet was soon after followed by 

 another entitled. The Whiggism of the Old School, as 

 exemplified in the past history and present position of the 

 Church of Scotland. These writings, so cogent in argu- 

 ment and so vigorous in style, had a wide circulation, 

 and undoubtedly exercised much influence on the pro- 

 gress of the ecclesiastical controversy throughout the 

 country. The leaders of the non-intrusion party, with 

 whose cause he showed such keen and helpful sym- 

 pathy, soon after the appearance of the first pamphlet 

 invited Miller to confer with them in Edinburgh, and 

 offered him the editorship of their projected newspaper, 

 the Witness. With some misgiving as to his com- 

 petence to meet all the various demands of a journal 

 that was to appear twice a week, he accepted the 

 proposal. Thus, after his five years' experience as a 

 bank-accountant, he became at the beginning of 1840, 

 when he was thirty-seven years of age, the editor of 

 an important newspaper, and he retained that position 

 until his death. 



Up to this time the name of Hugh Miller was but 



