pathos, mingled with occasional drollery, just to put people in good humour, before contributions commence!

We do not happen to be acquainted with Mr Carlyle's early history; but we suspect, from the thundering tone of his denunciations against the unfortunate folks who "have gone over to the dragons," that he was cradled in Cameronian austerities; which he now jumbles with the pantheistic crudities of German gainsayers of Christianity. A more melancholy medley can hardly be conceived than Mr Carlyle presents to us of a Scotch Presbyterian allying himself with the propagators of foreign infidelity. It is not easy to say what Mr Carlyle may mature into; but at present we consider him to be a philosophical Pharisee, making war upon conjectured, religious Pharisees. "In brotherhood with the base and foolish," quoth Mr Carlyle, "I, for one, do not mean to live," and we should not counsel such a choice of fellowship to any person of judgment; but is there no medium between living in communion with the base and foolish, and extirpating them in the name of the Deity? which latter penal office Mr Carlyle most awfully assumes for himself—" I will cut them off in the name of God." Ah, Mr Carlyle, keep clear of this cutting off! You who would destroy others cannot save yourself. Sinners may smite sinners, and afterwards rue their own ruthlessness; but salvation is of God.

THE CAMERONIANS PAST AND PRESENT.

We give insertion, in another part of our journal, to a somewhat testy letter, in which the writer, Mr Scott, is pleased to rate us rather roundly for throwing out a suspicion that Mr Thomas Carlyle had been "cradled in Cameronian austerities," as serving to account for the denunciatory style in which the hero-worshipper so largely indulges. We specially adverted to the Cameronian body in the olden time, because we had a clear recollection of a certain anathematizing manner of spirit which signally characterised them; and which, to our thinking, is irreconcileable with the pure proclamation of the gospel of peace. Our correspondent takes for granted that we meant to make an onslaught on the existing religious society which still, it appears, cleaves to an old designation; but which Mr Scott authoritatively assures us is composed of "intelligent and peaceably-disposed professing Christians."

Far be it from us to doubt for a moment the correctness of Mr Scott's testimony on behalf of his co-religionists, with whom we had no desire to meddle, and whose feelings we would not willingly wound; but we are not inclined to surrender historical truth in order to appease sectarian susceptibilities. Believing ourselves to be tolerably accurate in our reminiscences regarding Scottish ecclesiastical history, and yet anxious to test the verity of our casually-expressed impressions, we have referred to some authorities of no mean note in order to quiet our own qualms on being charged with ignorance and incautiousness. The result is, a clear, conscientious conviction, that so far from our phrase "Cameronian austerities" being rebukably wrong, it only errs in being too dulcet and lukewarm; for we are certain that a much stronger form of censure would be quite warrantable. In contemplating the whole course of the religious conflict which so long desolated Scotland; the monstrous tyranny of asserted absolute authority, coupled with covert popish pretensions, exercised against a pious population; our sympathies are all in favour of the wrongfully oppressed, We retrace with horror and detestation the implacable cruelty of the powerful persecutors, whose deeds of darkness are chronicled, not only in the Church's annals of suffering, but in the very records supplied by the wicked perpetrators themselves. But it is a high part of Christian wisdom, while plainly pointing out the wickedness of persecution, to indicate, with contrite ingenuousness, the errors which may have been committed by the beloved sufferers. In this way we gather humbling instruction, and salutary reproof, which never can have place where fondness forbids impartiality and honest blame. The two great snares of the Church, in all ages, are either apathetic slackness in spiritual things; or a zeal not according to knowledge for matters which do not concern the vitality of religion. In our view, the latter has been the prevalent fault of many excellent persons in Scotland, who sleep in peace, and yet who lived in an element of war; and we surely do not violate the rigid truth of history when we allege that Richard Cameron, and his immediate followers, went to extremes of contention, which not only drew immense (and as we think needless) suffering upon themselves, but actually involved the whole of the Presbyterian body in Scotland in comprehensive calamities, from which they would have been exempt but for the Queensferry paper and the Sanquhar Declaration. These indiscreet documents were

not, strictly speaking, Confessions of Faith, or avowals of church principles and discipline, but aggressive manifestoes, disowning the title, and disclaiming the authority of the then reigning monarch of these realms. To avert the future trouble of having to notice correspondents who, influenced by strong feeling, may obtrude tradition upon us in place of authentic history, we copy the following brief passages from the Sanquhar Declaration, 1680: -"We, as the representative of the true presbyterian kirk, and covenanted nation of Scotland, do by these presents disown Charles Stewart, as having any right, title to, or interest in the crown of Scotland. We declare that several years since he should have been denuded of being king, ruler, or magistrate, or of having any power to act, or to be obeyed as such." Here, we conceive, all true contending for the faith of Christ was virtually abandoned by the parties who espoused this disloyal course. There was no doctrine of the gospel which could be strained to sanction this downright invasion of the civil and political power of the Sovereign; for it was even more than resistance to the powers that be, it was fierce and unjustifiable aggression. The personal character of an evil-minded monarch has nothing to do with the matter in question. Bad as Charles II. undoubtedly was, he was not worse than Nero; yet we find the apostle Paul writing from the vicinage of the tyrant's palace, the inspired rule of Christian subjection to authority, which will be the celestial canon of obedience until time shall be no longer. The infamous double-dealing and treachery of the Stewarts, rendered it impossible for the Presbyterians of Scotland to repose any confidence in that race of royal deceivers ; but the want of trust is one thing, and revolt from rule is quite another thing; and here it was that the Cameronians grievously failed in point of discipleship to the King of kings, and Lord of lords. And we hold it impossible to recur to cotemporary history, without perceiving at a glance that the tyrannical possessors of power availed themselves of the false position of the Cameronians to extend the sphere of persecution, so as to include vast numbers of Presbyterians, who utterly repudiated the extreme errors which we have just noticed. Lest there should be ground for the allegation that we have consulted authorities of an unfriendly or doubtful cast, such as Wodrow and others, we turn to the Scots Worthies, where the bias of favouritism runs strongly on the side of the parties biographically blazoned. The narrative of Richard Cameron's Life is drawn up with the

cordial heartiness of one revering his memory, and yet we are at no loss for abundant attestation to the truth of our remarks concerning his dangerous surplusage of irrepressible zeal-zeal which did more than provoke his personal calamity, for it occasioned the widespread misery of multitudes who were in no wise participants of his erroneous principles. Richard Cameron appears to have started in his ministerial career under the influence of views which, to say the least, have more affinity to the relentless rigours of the law, than to the mild mercies of the blessed gospel; and which, we think, serve to account for what we temperately termed his "austerities." The following is Howie's amicable account of his earliest mission as a minister of Christ's gospel. "After he was licensed, they sent him at first to preach in Annandale. He said, How could he go there? he know not what sort of people they were. But Mr Welch said, Go your way Ritchie, and set the fire of hell to their tail!" This, it may be said, is characteristic of the times, and we do not deny it; but then it also serves to account for the troubles of the times, seeing that the passions of men, instead of being kept in check by the gentle glory of the gospel, were, on the contrary, lashed into darker rage by undue religious fervour. The sole business of a minister of the gospel is scripturally set forth in a brief record concerning a mission of Philip, and its happy results. Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them. And there was great joy in that city. The gospel is a proclamation of present, perfect, and eternal redemption to all who believe in the Son of God. The exposition of that wonderful mystery does not admit of being mingled with temporal themes; for no human occurrences can have any control over God's word, which liveth and abideth for ever. In casting a reverted glance on religious disputations which have led to disastrous public movements of a political character, we shall soon see that the origin of those fatal controversies which issue in deadly strife, is not traceable to the gospel, but to a departure from the simplicity that is in Christ. And this, again, must be ascribed to the frailty of our fallen nature, which is prone to let slip what can alone quell its corruptions. We do not think a whit the worse of Richard Cameron for his errors, which carried their own punishment along with them; but we demur to that objectionable partiality which would transform errors into excellencies, and thus perniciously propagate false rules of conduct.

Since writing the foregoing strictures, we have chanced to light upon a passage in Wodrow which strikingly confirms our conclusions. In consequence of Cameron's violent proceedings, whole districts were desolated where his acts were unknown. Troops were sent by order of the Council to the west and south, and the conduct of Cameron was the pretext for military excesses. "They pretended," says Wodrow, "to seek after Mr Richard Cameron and his followers; but under this colour all were again oppressed who had been denounced fugitives for non-compearance at courts. And, in short, all non-conformists were harassed, the whole country was depopulated, and dreadful severities and oppression committed."

LORD CLARENDON BETWEEN TWO RIVAL REVIEWS.

The two great political parties which have long struggled for supremacy in Great Britain were, until the last forty years, content to confine their contentions within the walls of Parliament, and the press was hardly more than the agency for diffusing their debates, and assailing or vindicating Whig or Tory sentiments. But on the establishment of the Quarterly Review (of which Canning was by far the most powerful promoter), a new field for party strife was intellectually opened, and the fourth estate (as the press has been somewhat unconstitutionally dubbed) assumed a part in influential political discussion, which it has never since relinquished. The Whig Review then was pitted against the Tory Review, and, although the former has occasionally coquetted with radicalism, and the latter has been attenuated into conservatism, yet still the "ancient grudge" subsists between the Edinburgh and the Quarterly, and the feuds of their respective factions are as bitterly fought in printed pages as in parliamentary harangues. Indeed, party enmity is so vigorous on both sides, and questions of a political cast are discussed with such implacable adherence to Whiggish or Conservative dogmas, that in nine cases out of ten the hostile arguments, like an equal array of positive and negative quantities in algebra, mutually destroy each other. A sample of this exterminating process is to be found in the mode of managing the subject named at the head of this article. In the foreview of the coming session, it is deemed desirable that the public should be