This mode of treatment is so unprecedented, that we cannot pass it over in silence. It may not be unconstitutional, according to the letter of the law; but if it be true, as we maintain it to be, that the people of Scotland have already protested against these measures, it does seem rather tyrannical that for the fourth time they should be compelled to organise a resistance, and to make themselves heard through petitions, lest the very absence of these should be held as an intimation of passive acquiescence. This kind of reasoning has actually been resorted to; and a very pregnant instance of it is to be found in the reported speech of the Lord Advocate upon the third reading of the Marriage Bill. "With respect to the dissenters in Scotland, there was not a single petition from them against the bill; _therefore they were to be taken as being in favour of it!_" This is a notable _sequitur_. In the first place, it is quite a new doctrine to maintain that because men do not organise meetings, or go out of their way to petition parliament against any measure, they must therefore be held as assenting. In the second place, it is rather a startling thing to find that men are expected to petition in a religious rather than in a social character. If this view be correct, no individual Anabaptist has any right to express his political opinions unless he petitions along with his congregation. No member of the Episcopal Church ought to have a voice in a secular matter unless he goes along with his diocesan. We are almost tempted to ask the question, whether congregations in Scotland are to be regarded as mere political clubs, or as associations for praise and worship? The town-councils of most of the large towns of Scotland have petitioned against the bills--are there no dissenters at any of those boards? One hundred and thirty parishes have separately recorded their detestation of the bills, not one parish has made the smallest demonstration in their favour, yet, according to the logic of the Lord Advocate, those that are silent must be held as acquiescing! It is remarkable, however, that if these bills really tend to confer such inestimable boons upon the people of Scotland, that stubborn race have been singularly reluctant to acknowledge the extent of the benefit. Nay more, it is certainly a most striking fact, that notwithstanding the religious divisions, which are more numerous here than elsewhere, it has been impossible to procure one isolated testimony, by an ecclesiastical body, in direct support of these singularly unfortunate bills. Lord Campbell, in his evidence given before the Committee of the House of Commons--of which more anon--indicates an opinion that the clergy of the Established Church of Scotland have been actuated in their unanimous and decided Opposition to the Marriage Bill by the desire to preserve a monopoly of celebrating formal marriages. If so, how is it that none of the