There can be, therefore, no good now in minimising the fact that Dr. Candlish, in his zeal to secure a political and tempting opportunity against the Tory party, was led to enter on a quarrel with Miller. The action really amounted to a motion of no confidence in his editorial management. He proposed to centralise the Church press, and to secure the intrusion of a sub-editor on the existing staff, and the conversion of the paper into an explicit and active party organ. But by this time Miller had become one of the proprietors, by undertaking to pay back by instalments the thousand pounds advanced by Johnstone to the subscribers, with the interest, year by year, of the unpaid portion till the whole debt should be extinguished. The most objectionable feature was the proposal to secure the services of some smart Parliament House 'able editor.' _The Witness_ had been accused of 'preferring Protestantism to Macaulay, and damaging the elections.' In this was shown the cloven foot, for it was an attempt to run the paper for the Whigs, and to render it the organ of the legal lights of the Parliament House in pursuit of official posts and spoil, of which Miller justly thought they had enough. Besides, the fall of a Government would mean the fall of that Government paper, and thus its influence as the organ of Free Churchmen would be damaged. Already the paper had parted with one of its best men who had been attracted to _The Times_, and in the whole scheme Miller saw 'a censorship; and the censor, assisted by the nice taste and tact of the Parliament House editor, is to be Dr. Candlish.' But, he asks, 'who was to control Dr. Candlish?' He could not see the paper jockeyed for a Government, and he stood aloof from 'Exhalations blown aslant, over the faces of even the Evangelical Churches, from the bogs and fens of a hollow Liberalism that professes to respect all religions, and believes none.' He felt that he had the people behind him, and 'possessing their confidence, I do not now feel justified in retiring from my post: Dr. Candlish and his Parliament House friends are not the ministers and people of the Free Church of Scotland--"of wiles, more inexpert, I boast not,"--the difference must either close entirely, or the people of Scotland must be made fully acquainted with the grounds on which it rests.' The unfortunate rupture closed by the very pointed question by Chalmers, 'Which of you could direct Hugh Miller?'