{1} Some of the reasonings of both the Established and Free Church courts on this matter would be amusing were they not so sad. 'Feed my lambs,' said our Saviour, after His resurrection, to Peter; and again twice over, 'Feed my sheep.' Now, let us suppose some zealous clergyman setting himself, on the strength of the latter injunction here, to institute a new order of preachers. As barbers frequently amuse their employers with gossip, when divesting them of their beards or trimming their heads, and have opportunities of addressing their fellow-men which are not possessed by the other mechanical professions, the zealous clergyman determines on converting them into preachers, and sets up a Normal School, in order that they may be taught the art of composing short sermons, which they are to deliver when shaving their customers, and longer ones, which they are to address to them when cutting their hair. And in course of time the expounding barbers are sent abroad to operate on the minds and chins of the community. 'There is no mention made of any such order of prelectors,' says a stubborn layman, 'in my New Testament;' 'Nor yet in mine,' says another. 'Sheer Atheism,--Deism at the very least!' exclaims the zealous clergyman. 'Until Christianity was fairly established in the world, there was no such thing as shaving at all; the Jews don't shave yet: besides, does not every decent Church member shave before going to church? And as for the authority, how read you the text, "Feed my sheep!'" 'Weighty argument that about the shaving,' say the laymen; 'but really the text seems to be stretched just a little too far. The commission is given to Peter; but it confers on Peter no authority whatever to commission the barbers. Nay, our grand objection to the pseudo-successors of Peter is, that they corrupted the Church after this very manner, by commissioning the non-commissioned, until they filled the groaning land with cardinals, bishops, and abbots, monks and nuns,-- "Eremites and friars, White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery.'"