and it was not difficult to see the degree of authority that would fall to the lot of the weaker party. Nothing less than the question who should command the whole mind of the country was involved, and it was not fitting that merely political persons should devise and control the proposed system. Not only did he regard it as hostile to the Church, but as hostile to Revealed Religion itself. In the Government plan, religion was to be divided into "general and special," and that he considered to imply a disjunction of the most sacred truths, and the opening of the door to every kind of heresy. He said, in conclusion: You may call all this bigotry and fanaticism, but I maintain that it is the solemn sentiment of a nation, and, as such, entitled to respect. Will the noble Lord force his plan upon the country? This would be persecution; and the more ridiculous, as it would be undertaken to carry out principles which, as members of the Established Church, the Ministers must conscientiously deny. I recollect well the time when the Dissenters petitioned for the abolition of church-rates, on the ground that it was unjust to summon them to support the fabric of a Church whose doctrines they repudiated. On that occasion they pleaded conscience; the Ministers allowed the plea, and proposed a remedy. Though these Dissenters were a minority-a small minority of the whole country -yet the Government proposed to abolish, in their behalf, an impost which had subsisted for 800 years, and under which all the property of the kingdom had been taken. They now reverse the policy, and propose to force on the great majority a novel tax, for the purpose of giving instruction in creeds which the majority declare to be unscriptural and false, repugnant alike to their feelings and their religion. I know that, in making these remarks, I expose myself to the charge of bigotry and illiberality. I regret it; but I cannot consent to abate the expression of any sentiments I may have avowed this evening. I have no objection, nay, quite the reverse, to consider any plan that may tend to the moral advancement of the people of 1839.] COUNCIL ON EDUCATION CONSTITUTED. 255 England; but I will never consent to any plan that shall sever religious from secular education; and by religious education I mean the full, direct, and special teaching of all the great and distinctive doctrines of the Christian faith. The House divided on Thursday, June 20th. For Lord John Russell's motion, 180; for Lord Stanley's amendment, 175. But the matter did not rest here; a fiercer struggle awaited it in the Upper House, to which it was transferred, when the Archbishop of Canterbury moved and carried an address to the Queen praying her to revoke the Order in Council. The Queen replied firmly, and at the same time gently rebuked the peers for insinuating that she was inattentive to the interests of the Established Church. "Of the proceedings of the Committee," she said, "annual reports will be laid before Parliament, so that the House of Lords will be enabled to exercise its judgment upon them; and I trust that the funds placed at my disposal will be found to have been strictly applied to the objects for which they were granted." The Committee of Council on Education was therefore nominated-the institution by which our system of public instruction has been managed ever since. CHAPTER VII. SCOTLAND-1839. The Bull Ring, Birmingham-Poverty and Luxury in Liverpool-BoldnessThe Slave Trade-Southey-Carlisle-Afternoon Service-Sir Walter Scott -The Poet Crabbe-Architecture of Kirks--Churches, Ancient and Modern -Extempore Prayer-Edinburgh Castle-Annals of Scotland-In the Trossachs—Melancholy without Despondency-Charm of Scott's Genius— Rossie-The Northern Lights-The Carse of Gowrie-Dunkeld-Fanaticism of Early Reformers-Gaelic Life-The System of Gleaning-Descendants of Prince Charles Edward-Oban-Scotch Architects-Glasgow FactoriesDr. Macleod-Rev. Robert Montgomery-Blindness-In Courts and Alleys --Sir Archibald Alison-Cora Linn-Chillingham-Red Deer and Wild Cattle The Duchess of Northumberland--Ravensworth-Van Mildert, Bishop of Durham - Fountains Abbey- Ripon Cathedral - NewbyYork-Cathedral Services-Castle Howard-Chatsworth-Haddon HallHome-Letter from Daniel Webster-An Estrangement-Marriage of Lord Palmerston to Lady Cowper-Happy Close of the Year. ON the 9th August Lord and Lady Ashley, accompanied by their eldest son, set off for a tour in Scotland. Only once before in his Parliamentary life had he quitted London while the Houses were sitting. There were urgent reasons for his doing so now, or he would not have left when, as he says, it "is the time for Parliamentary rogues and vagabonds;" when "job may follow job, and blacken the whole surface of the Lords and Commons." A closely-written Diary of over a hundred quarto pages tells the story of his travels, penned at odd moments and in divers places during the tour. 1839.] THE SLAVE TRADE. 257 August 9th, 1839.-Left London by the 2 o'clock train for Birmingham. Found Roebuck in the carriage: he was civil and by no means disagreeable. . . 10th.-Saw the Bull Ring, famous for mobs and conflagrations. These towns always affect me--the mass of human-kind, whom nothing restrains but force or habit, uninfluenced, because unreached, by any moral or religious discipline, presents a standing miracle. We imagine a force and trust to a habit; it 'Sceptra tenens mollitque animos et is neither one nor the other. temperat iras. Ni faciat !'-. Spanked along the road to Liverpool. It is quite a just remark that the Devil, if he travelled, would go by the train. Surveyed the town, admired its buildings, commended its broad streets, and wondered at its wealth. Ships, colonies, and commerce, with a vengeance, and yet (I thank God for it) there seem to be more churches here than in any town I have seen. . . . Thousands of the dirtiest, worst-clad children I ever saw, throng the streets, presenting a strange inconsistency with the signs of luxury all around. You marvel whence they come, till you get a peep into the side-alleys. We perceive at once the Irish parentage of these cheerful, but unclean, beings. But Liverpool is a town of good repute; though her merchants are princes and her traffickers the honourable of the earth,' they serve God with a portion of their wealth, and raise temples to His name and worship. . . August 12th.-Bowness. Surely no one can enjoy, as we are enjoying, a respite from public anxiety and toil, without deep, sincere, and endless acknowledgments to God who has given us the health, the time, and the means to see Him and bless Him in His beautiful works. I do hope and pray that this journey may be blessed to us both, in body and in soul; that we may acquire fresh strength, both physical and mental, a quickened zeal, and a tougher patience to labour for His honour and service, and, as He shall ordain, for the welfare of mankind in the name and merits of our only Saviour. Lord Ashley did not take any very prominent part in the great movement for the abolition of the slave trade; but his sympathies were warmly with those who were bearing the brunt of the battle, and frequent Ꭱ. references to their labours, and to the horrors of the system, are to be found in his Journal. Thus we find him, on his holiday tour, studying the latest information on the subject, in the volume just published by Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, entitled "The Slave Trade and its Remedy." Aug. 13th.-Have been reading on the journey, Buxton's account of the actual state of the Slave trade. It is enough to make a man miserable for life; and, in fact, were it not providentially ordained that we forget some things, and grow dead to others, we should, had we a spark of sentiment, be unceasingly suffering. But sympathy is useless, nay, contemptible, without corresponding action; what can we do to wipe out this 'damned spot,' and mitigate this horrid tyranny? The human arm has utterly failed; treaties, force, persuasion, the march of intellect, and the lessons of Christianity, all have stumbled like wretched infants with rickety legs and idiotic apprehensions. Let those who believe in God, and have faith in Him, cry day and night, and almost, like Jacob, wrestle, as it were, for a blessing on those peoples and nations, black though they be. But will man ever succeed? It is our duty to persevere in the holy attempt, but the triumph, I believe, is reserved for other hands and other days; for that peculiar and hallowed time when He shall undo the heavy burdens, and let the oppressed go free.' The inn here is a pattern of an inn; clean, cheerful, small, convenient, civil people, good things; with every little circumstance that a cockney imagines to constitute the charm of rustic excellence. Never was there such a day; the clouds every now and then intercepting the sun, threw such noble shadows on the hills; the outline of the mountains and the headlands unrivalled I should think in Greece, and certainly in Italy. We went to see the view from the Rayrigg; delicious; the lights varied it at every moment, the whole lake seemed to sparkle, and every succeeding hour till now, nine o'clock, has exhibited a new and peculiar beauty in the sky and in the landscape. Arthur Kinnaird joined us to-day in our boat to the Rayrigg. He is an agreeable, good-humoured man, with a |