and, really, the more I see of the Kirk, the more do I begin to be of opinion that forms of ecclesiastical government are, after all, of comparatively little avail-and that here, perhaps, as elsewhere, "whate'er is best administered is best."*

Neither, after what I have heard you say so often and so well about the propriety of re-establishing the Ecclesiastical Convocation in England, can I at all doubt of your agreeing with me in admiring the institution of the General Assembly in Scotland. It may be true, that, in the present state of things, few questions of great moment are submitted to the consideration of this Court-and it may be true, that in the mode of considering such questions as are submitted to it, there is much that may call a smile into the cheek of a casual observer. But who can question that the clerical body, and through them the whole of those who adhere to the church of Scotland-receive the most substantial good from this annual meeting, which calls all their representatives together? The very fact that such a meeting takes place, is enough to satisfy one that it is prolific in benefits. From it there must be carried every year, into the remotest districts which contribute to its numbers, a spirit and an impetus that cannot fail to infuse a new life into the whole body of the ecclesiastical polity in Scotland. From it there must spring a union of purpose-a condensation of endeavoura knowledge of what ought to be done, and a wisdom concerning the mode of doing it—which I fear it is quite impossible the clergymen of a church, ruled without such convocations, should ever effectually rival. I think, in good truth, the churchmen of England should no longer permit themselves to be deprived of the advantages which a General Assembly cannot but confer-advantages, too, which it was always presumed, by the great founders of their own polity,

* Here some reflections, touching the Clergy of Wales, are omitted.

that the Church of England should and must possess. To revive any claims to that political authority, which the Convocation of England formerly possessed, would be entirely absurd and unprofitable; and I think they are not true friends to the church, who throw obstacles in the way of reestablishing the convocation by such hints as these. But there is abundant occasion for a convocation, even although it should have nothing to do with taxation, and little with politics of any kind. Beside the general reason of the thing, the example of the Church of Scotland, and the superior success with which its fabric seems to hold out against the encroachment of sectaries, should not be overlooked or disdained. If the clergy of England possessed the means of bringing their intellects into collision, and so of showing what their strength of intellect really is in the discussions of a great Ecclesiastical Court, I have no doubt the world would soon be satisfied that there is no body of men more largely entitled to the respect and confidence of their fellow-countrymen. The puny tribes of Dissenters, who keep up every where a noisy and petulant warfare against the scattered and unsupported ministers of our church, would at once be awed into silence. and insignificance by the show of intellectual might-erudition and virtue, which would beam from this majestic Assembly. The ignorant ravings of one set of your enemies, and the cold degrading cant of another still worse set of them, would be alike rebuked into nothingness by the resurrection of the slumbering genius of your Union. I know your feelings on this subject-and I know that your opinions in regard to it have been far more matured by reflection than mine; but here I see with my own eyes the actual operation of a similar engine, and I cannot refrain from expressing to you the impression it makes upon me-too happy should any hint of mine be of the least power in stimulating the zeal of one so much better able to understand and to promote the interests of a church, which, however, you can neither love more warmly, nor venerate more profoundly, than I do.

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I have, in some of my former letters, said a good deal about the sceptical style of philosophy prevalent among the Scottish Universities and Literati-and I have also said something about the general influence of the peculiar style of religious belief, adopted by the great body of the nation; but I fear that, in regard to both subjects, my mode of talking may have been calculated to leave you with somewhat erroneous impressions. Of late, since the General Assembly, I have directed my attention much more closely than I had done to the state of religion in this kingdom-I have made it my business to go from church to church in this city, and hear with my own ears all the more celebrated preachers it possesses-things which, indeed, I should have done much earlier, had it not been for the violent prejudices of my good friend, Mr. W, who insisted, Sunday after Sunday, on my accompanying him to his pew in one particular Episcopalian Chapel, and, I firmly believe, would have thought it a fine thing could he have persuaded me to quit Scotland without having heard a single sermon in a Presbyterian kirk. I rejoice, on every accou , that I broke through these trammels, and that in consequence of having done so, I shall now have it in my power to present you with much, and, I hope, interesting information, of which you must otherwise have been deprived.

LETTER LXI.

TO THE SAME.

P. M.

I HAVE remarked, that among the people of Scotland, conversation turns much more frequently, and much more fervently, on the character and attainments of individual clergymen, than is at all usual with us in England. Nor does it seem to me that this is any just subject of astonishment, considering what the nature of the Ecclesiastical Establishment in Scotland really is. The disdain of those external formalities,

by which elsewhere so great, and I think so proper, an impression is made on the minds of the people-the absence of all those arts which elsewhere enlist the imagination and fancy of men, on the side of that Faith which rather subdues than satisfies our finite Reason-the plain austere simplicity with which the Presbyterian Church invests herself in all her addresses to the intellect of her adherents-all these things may in themselves be rather injudicious than otherwise, in the present state of our nature-but all these things contribute, I should suppose, and that neither feebly nor indistinctly, to the importance of the individual priests, into whose hands this church intrusts the administration of her unadorned and unimposing observances. Deprived of the greater part of those time-hallowed and majestic rites, with which the notions of profound piety are in other countries so intimately linked in the minds of mankind, and by which the feelings of piety are so powerfully stimulated and sustained-deprived of all those aids which devotion elsewhere borrows from the senses and the imagination-the Presbyterian Church possesses, in her formal and external constitution, very few of those elements which contribute most effectually to the welfare of the other churches in Christendom. But the most naked ritual cannot prevent the imaginations and the feelings of men from taking the chief part in their piety, and these, debarred from the species of nourishment elsewhere afforded, are here content to seek nourishment of another kind, in the contemplation not of Forms, but of Men. To the devout Presbyterian-the image of his minister, and the idea of his superior sanctity, come instead not only of the whole calender of the Catholic Christian, but of all the splendid liturgies, and chauntings, and pealing organs of our English Cathedrals. The church of Scotland may say with the Greek,-"It is not in wide-spreading battlements, nor in lofty towers, that the security of our city consists-Men are our defence."- στοι εισιν τα τείχεα

και τα πυργωματα εισπερ εκσώζεται ημων η πολις,

How great and commanding was the influence which the early ministers of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland exerted over the minds of their people—is well known to you

and may easily indeed be gathered from all the histories of the times. In those days, of course, the natural effects of the naked ceremonial of the Kirk, were mightily augmented by the persecution which prevented her from making free and open use of its scanty services; so that the Ministers were often not the chief only, but the sole symbols of the faith of those who followed their system, and were regarded as nothing less than so many moveable tabernacles, carrying with them into the wilderness the only visible types of their primitive devotion. Even now, however, there survive no inconsiderable relics of the same prejudices, which then throve so luxuriantly in the "bare and desolated bosoms" of an oppressed and insulted people-growing like the Tannen of Childe Harold,

"Loftiest on loftiest and least sheltered rocks,
Rooted in barrenness, where nought below
Of soil sustained them 'gainst the Alpine shocks
Of eddying storms."-

A thousand proud, no less than pious recollections, are connected in Scottish minds, with that integrity of their ecclesiastical polity, which was the reward of the long sufferings and constancy of their fore-fathers-and with the persons of those whom they regard as the heirs and offspring of the principal actors in all the scenes of that eventful period. I have already said something of the attempts which were made to represent the first Tales of my Landlord as a series of wanton attacks upon the heroes of the Covenant, and insults against the presbyterian prejudices of the majority of the Scottish people. The best proof of the injustice and absurdity of these attempts, is their total failure. Had the Tale of Old Mortality been written in that spirit, it would not have taken its place, as it has already done, in the cottages of Scotland, beside the "big ha' Bible," and the original rude histories of the seventeenth century. And if more proof were wanting, it would be found in the very different fate which has attended a work of much amusement, and no inconsiderable cleverness, written really and plainly in that.