I BELIEVE, therefore, most entirely in the merits of the Kirk—I have no doubt it is as well fitted as any establishment in Christendom could be, for promoting the cause of religion among the people of Scotland—nay, I may go farther, 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 disfavour 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 stedfastness 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.