"The second head of the Bishop's charge is well worthy of minute attention and study. In it the Scriptural argument is outlined with great care, and set forth with remarkable lucidity and studied moderation, to which it cannot be considered an exception that, in the strength of his own conviction of the preponderating evidence in his favour, he feels compelled to set aside "theories more or less different from this, that have been devised since the Reformation, by German and Swiss writers, in order to meet the necessities of an uncatholic position, and to justify a foregone conclusion."*

"To hope to contribute in any degree to repair the broken unity of the Church is no unworthy dream; and the Bishop has set himself to his part of the task with an earnestness of purpose, and even with an enviable sanguineness as to results, which will enable him to bear lightly the sneers which are pretty sure in some quarters to salute 'the chimerical nature" of his undertaking, as if the Divine intention must for ever be frustrated by human perversity and the inexorable facts of society, or as if Scotchmen were incapable of changing their convictions or resigning their prejudices under any pressure of 'fair, charitable, and temperate' argument."+

Through good report and bad report has Bishop Wordsworth desired the union of the Scottish Established and Episcopal Churches. He has for this been made a butt for the envenomed shafts of bigotry; his motives have been misconstrued; his aspirations derided; and his arguments held up to ridicule in some papers by anonymous correspondents wanting alike in his learning and his kindliness of heart. But he has returned undaunted to his labour of love; and has expressed himself so fully and freely on the subject near his heart that his utterances must command the attention of the higher intellects not only of the Established, but of all the other Presbyterian Churches in Scotland."‡

“What a change in a few years! Seceders and Burghers are one. They delight in splendid Gothic churches, with stained glass windows, and some of them are longing for the organ. Episcopal churches, also ornate, have sprung up here, there, and everywhere, and the middle class are moving towards Episcopalianism, following the aristocracy of Scotland, four-fifths of whom already belong to that denomination. All this is wonderful indeed; but what shall we think of a Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland maintaining that the best form of church government is that which makes the best Christians, and an Episcopalian Bishop paving the way for the union of Episcopacy and Presbyterianism. Only fancy the idea of such a union being mooted. Are the Free and United Presbyterian Churches to

become one? Will twenty years eradicate the prejudices that keep them asunder? Will other twenty bring organs and Common Prayer Books into the Church of Scotland? Let no one laugh at this as an impossibility, for causes are in operation sufficient to produce it. They do not lie, it is true, quite on the surface of society, but they are not the less active or uniform in their operation.”*

The journals from which we make these extracts contain, as our readers may have observed, more or less of opposition likewise. But the above admissions are too striking and too liberal (in the very best sense of the word) to be passed by without our cordial recognition. In our humble judgment they do great credit to the press of this northern portion of the realm.

The Glasgow Herald is somewhat less conciliatory. It is however impossible to refer to this newspaper, without bearing in mind the ready manner in which its columns have invariably been opened to communications from Episcopalians, as our fellow Churchmen in the dioceses of Glasgow and of Argyll can testify. There remains an organ of the Free Church, the Daily Review. It is distinguished, in this instance, from its contemporaries not only by its omission of any one kindly or generous word, but by a treatment of the case which we must deliberately stigmatise as dishonest. It is right to say that its Editor has since admitted a brief remonstrance (confined to a single point) from Bishop Wordsworth. Perhaps the example of the Times may seem to be sufficient authority for making no apology.

It is high time to make comments on a few of the chief arguments employed by the critics of the Charge. Some of these arguments have already been met in the very able and temperate reply to "Episcopos," which was contributed to the Edinburgh Evening Courant by the Bishop of St. Andrews; and on several other points the different newspapers have answered each others objections. From among the remaining considerations we will select that which certainly looks, which perhaps really is, the most formidable. Of Dr. Wordsworth's endeavours the Glasgow Herald asserts there is something almost ludicrous in his attempt to induce the people of Scotland, who have had long experience both of Prelacy and Presbyterianism, to throw aside the form which they find working so well, and so completely to their satisfaction, and to adopt in its stead the ecclesiastical system of the Church of England-and this at the very moment when that system is betraying its inefficiency by the incompetency of its "Convocations," and by its inability to thrust out men who are teaching doctrines at variance with the standards of the Church.

Now, if the author of the Charge had spoken of this contemplated *Elgin Courant.

union as one in which the one side had all to give and the other everything to receive, this language would not be unnatural. But this is not the case: on the contrary, Bishop Wordsworth has expressly avowed his conviction that the English Church might receive important and valuable lessons from the Established Church of Scotland, and he has even selected, by way of example, as if by anticipation, one of the very topics referred to by the Herald. Moreover, I would venture to reproduce a statement which I myself made, now ten years ago, when I first advocated this proposed union-'It is easy to foresee in many ways how great would be the advantages which both parties might mutually derive from the different experience and example of each other by such an intercommunion. The one (i.e., the Established Church of England) might be taught how to regain the influence which she has partially lost over the middle classes, and to watch more carefully than she has hitherto done against the encroachments of the civil power. The other (i.e., the Church Establishment of this country) might learn to adapt herself more extensively both to high and low, and to draw from her own resources, more than her present circumstances permit, those weapons of defence against the enemies of divine truth, which are nowhere to be found without opportunities for learned leisure and laborious research."

We venture indeed to think that it might be shown that the present difficulties of the English Church, however serious, have already been in great measure overruled to her benefit. The elevation to the Berch of such men as Doctors Thomson, Ellicott, Brown, and Trench, has been brought about, we understand, by the existing state of controversy, and the publication of " Replies to Essays and Reviews," and of " Aids to Faith," are most valuable accessions to her theology. At the same time we agree with the Bishop of St. Andrews in thinking that the encroachments of the civil power on the south side of the Tweed do call for resistance; and that the example and aid of Scotland might prove in this, as in some other respects, most beneficial to the Church in England.

But we turn to the other portion of the Herald's statement, and most especially to the words which we have italicised; those, namely, which describe Presbyterianism as "the form which they [the Scotch] find working so well and so completely to their satisfaction." This clause may well be taken as the basis of the greater part of what we have now to urge.

Historians—we may instance Lord Macaulay and Mr. Froudehave been struck with the way in which certain virtues and certain foibles, prominent in the English, become intensified in the Scottish character. An undue and unreasonable self-satisfaction must, we fear,

too often be justly chargeable upon Englishmen. But is not this foible even stronger in North Britain? How wrote the northern bard of old

"That all the world might see

There's nane in the right but we

Of the auld Scottish nation."

To whom was it but to Scotchmen that Cromwell addressed the words which the present Duke of Argyle seems so fond of quoting : “We beseech you—think it possible you may be mistaken." We proceed, we hope temperately and without bitterness, to specify some few among the reasons which induce us to doubt whether Presbyterianism is working so thoroughly well as our critic seems to imagine.

1. We cannot think that it is satisfactory for any communion to have a document signed by its ministers and elders which ninety-nine out of every hundred are found more or less strongly to repudiate. We are far from advocating abolition of every kind of subscriptions; we are far from denying that all Churches (the English of course among them) have their own difficulties on this score. But in all sober seriousness, we doubt whether there is a single one which, on so fundamental a question as that of the Divine attributes and governance, is so much at variance with its theoretic professions as Scottish Presbyterianism. Of course theory and practice will have their divergencies everywhere. But this is a case of all but absolute contradiction; and in all gentleness, but firmly, we would ask our Presbyterian fellow-Christians whether this can be called "working well?"

2. We cannot think it satisfactory to see a religion fail to lay hold of so many of the brightest specimens of the national genius. Undoubtedly in all ages man's intellect will prove rebellious to its Maker, as a miserably long list of highly gifted unbelievers attests. Nevertheless, from the days of the Apostle of the Gentiles downwards, sanctified intellect has been a constant product of the Church, a product that has seldom failed her, even in her darkest days. Look for one moment at England. We cast our eyes along the shelves of a very humble private library, and such titles as the following meet our eyes: Works of Shakspeare, Works of Bacon, Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, Speeches of Burke, Poems of Wordsworth, Poems of Southey, Gladstone's Homer and the Homeric Age, Sir F. Palgrave's Normandy and England, Clinton's Fasti Hellenici, Works of Dr. Johnson, Works of S. T. Coleridge, Remains of Arthur Hallam. Now, of the eminent men here named, there is scarcely one who was not a hearty and earnest member of the Church of England; scarcely one whom it would be possible even to imagine to have been either a Roman Catholic or a Dissenter.

But how different is the case in Scotland. How

many of her sons who have made themselves illustrious in letters can be claimed as hearty Presbyterians? We will just mention a few by way of illustration: Lord Chief-Justice Mansfield, Pitcairn, the great scholar Ruddiman, Earl Marischal Keith, Sir Charles Bell, Patrick Fraser Tytler, Professors Aytoun, Kelland, Innes, Laycock, Ferrier, Skene, Ramsay, Lords Lindsay and Elcho, Lockhart, Sir Walter Scott, Professor Wilson, and Sir William Hamilton. These are surely names of mark among the living and the dead; and not one among them is that of a decided Presbyterian. Indeed nearly all, except perhaps the five last named, were born or became Episcopalians. We are very far indeed from wishing to exalt beyond due measure the claims of intellect, but there must, we are convinced, be something wanting in that form of Christianity which allows so enormous a proportion of the genius of the country to escape from its grasp. We can all see this in a case where we are bystanders. We can all understand the weight of the indictment brought against the French priesthood of the eighteenth century by an earnest Roman Catholic, Count Louis de Carné-" That they allowed the sacred lamp of knowledge, one of the sevenfold gifts of the Spirit of Truth, to pass into the hands of their enemies." We all know, too, to what fatal issue that failure on the part of religion to retain the national intellect ultimately led the French nation. Well, let all due allowance be made for our prejudices; but we cannot but think it a most happy event for Scotland, that such gifted sons as we have named were not compelled to choose between Presbyterianism and unbelief. Another communion was at hand to receive them, if they did not consider the Established form to be working well and completely to their satisfaction.

3. "So much the worse for the old historical families" is the smart reply of the Herald to the remark of the Presbyterian, Dr. Tulloch, that Presbyterianism "was not destined to penetrate the old historical families of the kingdom." But will this retort bear a moment's sober examination? That eminence of any kind brings with it its own special temptations is almost a truism; and it is really very possible that rank may engender in some of its possessors an undue fastidiousness, which tends to lead men astray in the matter of religion. But this fact, which might account for some defections, cannot possibly be true of all. Professor Masson, most certainly no foe to Presbyterianism, calls attention to the fact that, in A.D. 1637 an overwhelming proportion of the Scottish nobles and gentry were Presbyterian. After mentioning some twenty of the most eminent nobles, he adds :-" These names it is all the more necessary to enumerate because most of them are still known in the highest ranks of our British peerage, although, in course of time, the Presbyterian associations, which were once their