Church, though perfectly in accordance with the genius of presbytery, was somewhat anomalous when compared with the general practice of presbyterian churches. They bore to the regular. ministry much the same relation which the local preacher among the Methodists bears to the ordained clergyman. But the power they wielded over their unlettered countrymen, resembled more the power with which "the man of God" of the ancient Hebrew theocracy was clothed, than aught in modern times with which it may be compared. Mighty in the Scriptures, the Bible their only book, when possessing strong natural powers-and many of them did possess superior native capacity-the effect of their religious addresses was superb.

Not long was the Witness newspaper established, when Hugh Miller, with the intuition of genius discerning the important aid "the men" were capable of rendering to the evangelical cause, commenced a series of papers illustrative at once of their genuine worth and historic position. Won to the side of non-intrusion, they were all of them faithful in the hour of trial. Not the utmost vindictiveness of the Highland lairds could shake their allegiance to the good cause. They rallied round the leaders of the Disruption with the heroic devotion their ancestors rallied for the Stuarts.

This triumph of the Free Church in the highlands and islands of Scotland speedily brought her into

sternest conflict with the Scottish nobles. That the peasantry of Scotland should have dared to think for themselves, and dared to spurn the spiritual fetters the peers of Britain had sought to forge for them, was not to be borne. The peasantry must be put down. There is incipient rebellion in the attitude they have assumed, which it is imperative to suppress at all hazards. Out of these feelings arose the great site-controversy, and for a considerable period that controversy formed a leading feature in Hugh Miller's labours. Without having adopted any peculiar theory, or homologating any extreme political views, the editor of the Witness was precisely the man to hold his own in a contest with even the aristocracy of Scotland. Where principle was at stake he spared none. From the question of sites he naturally turned to the discussion of the question of clearances, and not even the proudest nobles of the realm escaped castigation. His appeals to the Duke of Sutherland are models of controversial writing, blending faithfulness with dignity, doing justice to the man while condemning his policy. The most notable, however, of his efforts at his epoch, if not in intrinsic worth, certainly in its immense popularity, was "Lochiel's Warning." The descendant of that historic house, in answer to the petition of his tenantry for sites, had counselled them to stick by the old ship. To him, accordingly, Hugh Miller addressed the following faithful monition :—

"Of all his many square miles of bleak moor and barren hill-side, mottled over with cottages, the homes of a religious people attached, in the proportion of ten to one, to the Protesting Church, he cannot spare so much as a single useless rood, on which the children of the soil may meet under cover to worship God agreeably to the dictates of their conscience. And, inditing a very neat letter to say so, he sends it to the newspapers, that the public may see in what well-turned sentences a highland chieftain can cast himself loose for ever from the affections of his clan. Surely it needs no wizard on this occasion to warn Lochiel of the peril which he is so wantonly incurring. He lives in an unsettled time, destined apparently to witness the fall of more than one institution. The formidable masses of the country, maddened by suffering and broke loose from all moral restraint, bid fair to possess themselves by and by of a charter admirably fitted to disannul and abrogate all the charters of Lochiel. 'The Lowlands shall meet him in battle array.' And amid all the various signs of change that are starting up thick and portentous on the darkening horizon, we scarce know a sign more ominous than that Lochiel, regarded as the representative of his order, should be thus throwing loose from him his people, by coming between them and their God in the spirit of wanton persecution, and compelling them to detest and renounce him. His gallant ancestor was a wiser man. The letters of our intolerant proprietors, of which we have already furnished so many specimens to our readers, form documents of strange significancy. It was the shrewd remark of a writer of the last century, that no author was ever effectually written down save by himself. Nor are we at all sure that the truth which the remark embodies should be restricted in its application to a single class. It may refer to our men of land as certainly as to our men of literature. Our lords of the soil, after catching no harm from the pens of levellers and ten-acre men, seem now in a fair way of writing themselves down by their own.

"Be this as it may, however, it is properly a concern of neither the Free Church nor of the people of Scotland, but of the proprietors themselves. The question which concerns the Church and the people is simply this, How are these hostile proprietors to be dealt with? They have unquestionably great power in their hands. Lochiel virtually possesses power enough to prevent the people of a wide district

from meeting for purposes of public worship under the cover of a roof, and this, be it remembered, in a severe and weeping climate. He has virtually power enough to prevent the minister of their choice from residing within many miles of them. He has power enough, if not to exclude the gospel from his bounds, in its character as a wayfarer, who takes up lodgings for a night and then passes on,-to exclude it as a permanent resident. It may be a foreigner travelling on his lands despite of him; but he can effectually prevent its naturalization, and declare it incompetent to have a holding on the soil. And all this he can do in virtue of the legal powers in which he is vested as a proprietor. Our intolerant proprietary take their stand on their legal rights; and nothing surely can be more obvious, than that in order adequately to meet with them in the contest, the people must be enabled to take up legal ground also. It would never do for the Highlanders of Lochiel to precipitate themselves on their chief now, as they used to precipitate themselves on his enemies a century ago. The attempt would involve both themselves and the Free Church in ruin. In refusing them a site for their place of worship, Lochiel stands on ground as perfectly legal as that on which they would stand, were they, if urged in some hour of extremity to rise and fight for him, to content themselves by just asking in reply, what he had left them to fight for. His right must be recognised as entirely legal, however oppressively exercised.

"Be it remarked, however, that legal means may be employed for the furtherance of illegal ends. A man may set himself to attain some definite object, protected at every step of his progress by some sanction of law, and yet the object itself may have no sanction of law whatever. Though the way be a well-defended covered-way, if we may so speak, the position to which it leads may lie unwalled and open. And well it is for the Church that this is specially the case at present with the hostile proprietary of Scotland. They have set themselves to effect a determinate object, through the employment of certain legal means; but though the means be legal, the proposed object is utterly unprotected by any legal line of circumvallation; and so the true way for the people to meet with them is to take up a determined position, not against their well-defended means, but against their ill-defended end-not against their covered-way, but against the

unwalled and oper position to which the way leads. And thus, in carrying on the war, the people and the proprietary of the country shall stand so far on equal ground, that the position of both will be perfectly legal.

"Let us explain. The marksman must be enabled to see the butt ere he can take aim at it with any fair chance of success; and it is of importance, in present circumstances, that the people should have a clear sight of the object at which they are to level. What do our proprietors purpose to themselves by refusing sites on their grounds for the erection of Free presbyterian churches, or of dwelling-houses for the accommodation of Free presbyterian ministers? We do not think they are at all mysterious on the point. Sir James M'Kenzie tells the eldership of Avoch, in answer to their application, 'that though a member of the Church of England himself, he is nevertheless proud to avow that, for the Church as by law established in Scotland, he entertains feelings of high respect and veneration,' and that, therefore, he will 'certainly not lend his aid either to mar its usefulness or tarnish its reputation.' 'I love and respect the Church of Scotland as by law established,' says another very great proprietor of the north, in reply to a similar requisition. Lochiel echoes the sentiment in all its fulness. Even the philosophic baronet of Coul, though not quite satisfied with the craniology of the State institution, prefers her mightily to the Free Church. She has, he thinks, a much smaller development of the organs of Wonder and of Hope, and her Veneration is a vast deal more moderate; and though miserably flat in the coronal region, 'with a forehead villainously low,' and a huge mass of propensity behind, he is determined to back her at all hazards against the tall-headed church of the people.

"Thus the palpable, nay the broadly avowed object of all these proprietors, is to bolster up the Erastian institution. They lay the Free Church under strict embargo, that the chartered corporation may trade meanwhile without danger of rivalship, and vend its damaged and unwholesome wares with complete command of the market. They employ the legal means which the rights of property put at their disposal, to accomplish the illegal end of forcing the people into the communion of a Church which they detest and abhor. We say illegal end. There are rights of toleration as certainly as rights of