the world, it is probable most of them had become in a great measure weary, but which their own innate value and innate truth could not fail to render imperiously and decisively interesting, the moment they began to be handled by one possessed of the thorough manliness of tact and purpose, which Mr. Thomson cannot utter five sentences without displaying To talk, indeed, of exhausting the interest of any such topics by any method of treating them—would be an absurdity— and cannot be explained in any sense, without involving the severest of satires upon those to whom the discussion is addressed. But it is, after all, a very wonderful thing how seldom one does find a man carrying with him into the pulpit, the perfect knowledge of the world as it is-a complete acquaintance with all the evanescent manifestations of folly, existing, for the moment, in the thoughts and feelings of "the great vulgar and the small"-and it is no less wonderful, and far more pitiable to observe, with what readiness the cosmopolites of the day take up with the want of this sort of knowledge on the part of their clergyman, as a sufficient apology for slighting and neglecting the weight of his opinion in regard to matters, their own intense ignorance and noncomprehension of which is so much less excusable, or, should rather say, is so entirely unaccountable and absurd. Till the fine gentlemen of the present day perceive that you understand all that they themselves do, their self-love will not permit them to give you credit for understanding any thing which they themselves do not understand-nay-not even for thinking that things are important, about the importance or non-importance of which they themselves have never had the fortune to occupy any portion of their surpassing acumen and discernment. In a word, in order to preach with effect to the people of the world, as they are educated nowa-days, it is necessary to show that you have gone through all their own little track-and then they may perhaps be persuaded that you have gone beyond it. Now, Mr. Andrew Thomson strikes me to be, without exception, one of the most complete masters of this world's knowledge I ever heard preach on either side of the Tweed; and therefore it is that he produces a most powerful effect, by showing himself to be

I

entirely and utterly its despiser. The person who hears him preach has none of the usual resources to which many are accustomed to retreat, when something is said from the pulpit that displeases their prejudices. They cannot pretend, even to themselves, that this is a secluded enthusiast who knows no better, and would not talk so, had he seen a little more of life. It is clear, from the moment he touches upon life, that he has looked at it as narrowly as if that observation had been his ultimatum, not his mean; and the probability is, that instead of smiling at his ignorance, the hearer may rather find occasion to suspect that his knowledge surpasses his own.

Having command of this rare and potent engine, with which to humble and disarm that worldly self-love, which is among the most formidable enemies of a modern preacher's eloquence, and employing it at all times with the most fearless and unhesitating freedom,-and following it up at all times by the boldest and most energetic appeals to the native workings of the heart, which may be chilled, but are seldom extinguished, it is no wonder that this man should have succeeded in establishing for himself a firm and lasting sway over the minds of his apparently elegant and fashionable audience. It has never indeed been my fortune to see, in any other audience of the kind, so many of the plain manifestations of attentive and rational interest during divine service. As for the sighing and sobbing masters and misses which one meets with at such places as Rowland Hill's chapel, and now and then at an evening sermon in the Foundling, these are beings worked upon by quite a different set of engines-engines which a man of sagacious mind, and nervous temperament, like Mr. Thomson, would blush to employ. I rejoice in finding that Edinburgh possesses, in the heart of her society, the faithful ministrations of this masculine intellect; and it is a great additional reason for rejoicing, that by means, the effect of which could not have been calculated upon beforehand, these his faithful ministrations should have come to carry with them not only the tolerance, but the favour of those to whom they may do so much

good. It is very seldom that the stream of fashion is seen to flow in a channel so safe, and a direction so beneficial.

Of the other members of the Established Church of Edinburgh whom I have heard preach, one of those who made most impression on my mind was Dr. Thomas Macknight, son to the author of The Harmony of the Gospels, and Translation of the Epistles. I went chiefly from a desire to see the descendant of one of the few true theological writers Scotland has produced, and I found that the son inherits the learning of his father. Indeed, I have seldom heard more learning displayed in any sermon, and that, too, without at all diminishing the practical usefulness of its tendency. Another was Dr. Brunton, whom I confess I went to hear from a motive of somewhat the same kind-the wish, namely, to see the widowed husband of the authoress of Discipline, and the other novels of that striking series. He has a pale countenance, full of the expression of delicacy, and a melancholy sensibility, which is but too well accounted for by the grievous loss he has sustained. One sees that he is quite composed and resigned; but there is a settled sadness about bis eyes which does equal honour to the departed and the survivor. In his sermon he displayed a great deal of elegant conception and elegant language; and altogether, under the circumstances which attended him, he seemed to me one of the most modestly impressive preachers I have ever heard.

I BELIEVE, therefore, most entirely in the merits of the Kirk-I have no doubt it is as well fitted as any establish

ment in Christendom could be, for promoting the cause of religion among the people of Scotland-nay, I may go far. ther, and say, that with the intellectual tendencies and habits of this people, it is now perhaps much the best they could have.

Presbytery, however, was not established in this country without a long and violent struggle, or series of struggles, in which it is too true, that the mere tyrannical aversion of the Stuart kings, was the main and most effectual enemy the Presbyterians had to contend with-but in which, notwithstanding, there was enlisted against the cause of that sect no inconsiderable nor weak array of fellow-citizens, conscientiously and devoutly adhering to an opposite system. It was a pity that the Scottish Episcopalians were almost universally Jacobites; for their adoption of that most hated of all heresies, made it a comparatively easy matter for their doctrinal enemies to scatter them entirely from the field before them. Nevertheless, in spite of all the disfayour and disgrace with which, for a length of years, they had to contend, the spirit of the Episcopalian Church did not evaporate or expire, and she has of late lifted up her head again in a style of splendour, that seems to awaken considerable feelings of jealousy and wrath in the bosoms of the more bigotted Presbyterians who contemplate it. The more liberal adherents of the Scottish Kirk, however, seem to entertain no such feelings, or, rather, they take a pleasure in doing full justice to the noble steadfastness which has been displayed through so long a period of neglect, and more than neglect, by their fellow Christians of this persuasion. To the clergy of the Episcopalian Church, in particular, they have no difficulty in conceding a full measure of that praise, which firm adherence to principle has at all times the power of commanding; and the adherence of these men has, indeed, been of the highest and most meritorious kind. With a self-denial and humility, worthy of the primitive ages of the church, they have submitted to, all manner of penury and privation, rather than depart from their inherited faith, or leave the people of their sect without the support of that spiritual instruction, for which it was

out of their power to offer any thing more than a very trivial and inadequate kind of remuneration. Nay, in the midst of all their difficulties and distresses, they have endeavoured, with persevering zeal, to sustain the character of their own body in regard to learning-and they have succeeded in doing so in a way that reflects the highest honour not only on their zeal, but their talents. Not a few names of very considerable celebrity, in the past literature of Scotland, are to be found among the scattered and impoverished members of this Apostolical Church; and even in our own time, the talents of many men have been devoted to its service, who might easily have commanded what less heroic spirits would have thought a far more precious kind of reward, had they chosen to seek, in other pursuits and professions, what they well knew this could never afford them. In Edinburgh, two very handsome new chapels have of late years been erected by the Episcopalians, and the clergymen who officiate in them possess faculties eminently calculated for extending the reputation of their church. Dr. Sandford, the Bishop of the Diocese, preaches regularly in the one, and the minister of the other is no less a person than Mr. Alison, the celebrated author of the Essays on Taste, and of those exquisite Sermons which I have so often heard you speak of in terms of rapture-and which, indeed, no man can read, who has either taste or feeling, without admiration almost as great as your's.

The Bishop is a thin pale man, with an air and aspect full of a certain devout and melancholy sort of abstraction, and a voice which is very tremulous, yet deep in its tones, and managed so as to produce a very striking and impressive effect. In hearing him, after having listened for several Sundays to the more robust and energetic Presbyterians I have described, one feels as if the atmosphere had been changed around, and the breath of a milder, gentler inspiration, had suffused itself over every sound that vibrates through the stillness of a more placid æther. Nothing can be more touching than the paternal affection, with which it is plain this good man regards his flock; it every now and then gives a gushing richness of power to his naturally fee