degree, leaning to a republican character, but a republic may be either aristocratic or democratic: now, Lord Aberdeen has favoured the democratic tendency of the age by making the probationary examination of the candidate as much of a popular examination, and as open to the impression of objections arising with the body of the people, as could be done with any decent regard either to the rights yet recognised in the patron, or, still more, to the professional dignity of the clerical order. Upon the whole, therefore, we look upon Lord Aberdeen as a national benefactor, who has not only turned aside a current running headlong into a revolution, but in doing this exemplary service, has contrived to adjust the temperament very equitably between, 1st, the individual nominee, having often his livelihood at stake; 2dly, the patron, exercising a right of property interwoven with our social system, and not liable to any usurpation which would not speedily extend itself to other modes of property; 3dly, the church, considered as the trustee or responsible guardian of orthodoxy and sound learning; 4thly, the same church considered as a professional body, and, therefore, as interested in upholding the dignity of each individual clergyman, and his immunity from frivolous cavils, however much against him they are interested in detecting his insufficiency; and, 5thly, the body of the congregation, as undoubtedly entitled to have the qualifications of their future pastor rigorously investigated. All these separate claims, embodied in five distinct parties, Lord Aberdeen has delicately balanced and fixed in a temperate equipoise by the machinery of his bill. Whilst, if we enquire for the probable effects of this bill upon the interests of pure and spiritual religion, the promise seems every way satisfactory. The Jacobinical and precipitous assaults of the Non-intrusionists upon the rights of property are summarily put down. A great danger is surmounted. For if the rights of patrons were to be arbitrarily trampled under foot on a pretence of consulting for the service of religion; on the next day, with the same unprincipled levity, another party might have trampled on the patrimonial rights of hereditary descent, on primogeniture, or any institution whatever, opposed to the democratic fanaticism of our age. No patron can now thrust an incompetent or a vicious person upon the religious ministrations of the land. It must be through their own defect of energy, if any parish is henceforth burdened with an incumbent reasonably obnoxious. It must be the fault of the presbytery or other church court, if the orthodox standards of the church are not maintained in their purity. It must be through his own fault, or his own grievous defects, if any qualified candidate for the church ministry is henceforth vexatiously rejected. It must be through some scandalous oversight in the selection of presentees, if any patron is defeated of his right to present.