In the illustration Princess Alice is given as she represented "Spring" in the family mask in 1854. On the 18th of May, 1843, the prolonged contest between the civil and ecclesiastical courts in Scotland reached its climax--in many respects striking and noble, though it may be also one-sided, high-handed, and erring. The chief civil law-court in Scotland--the Court of Session--had overruled the decisions of the chief spiritual court--the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland--and installed, by the help of soldiers, in the parishes, which patronage had presented to them, two ministers, disliked by their respective congregations, and resolutely rejected by them, though neither for moral delinquencies nor heretical opinions. The Government, after a vain attempt to heal the breach and reconcile the contending parties, not only declined to interfere, but asserted the authority of the law of the land over a State church. Once more the representatives of the Scotch clergy and laity, of all shades of opinion, met, as their forefathers had done for centuries, in the Assembly Hall, in Edinburgh, in the month of May. Then, after the usual introductory ceremonies, the moderator, or chairman, delivered a solemn protest against the State's interference with the spiritual rights of the Church, declared that the sovereignty of its Divine Head was invaded, and, in the name of himself and his brethren, rejected, a union which compelled submission to the civil law on what a considerable proportion of the population persisted in regarding as purely spiritual questions. Four hundred and seventy ministers of one of the poorest churches in Christendom had appended their names to the protest. Churches, manses, livings were laid down, the mass following their leaders. Among them, though many a good and gifted man remained with equal conscientiousness behind, there were men of remarkable ability as well as Christian worth; and there was one, Dr. Chalmers, with a world-wide reputation for genius, eloquence, and splendid benevolence. The band formed themselves into a procession of black-coated soldiers of a King--not of this world--marched along the crowded streets of Edinburgh, hailed and cheered by an enthusiastic multitude, and entering a building temporarily engaged for the purpose, constituted themselves a separate church, and flung themselves on the liberality of their portion of the people, on whom they were thenceforth entirely dependent for maintenance. And their people, who, with their compatriots, are regarded among the nations as notably close-fisted and hard-headed, responded generously, lavishly, to the impassioned appeal. All Scotland was rent and convulsed then, and for years before and after, by the great split in what lay very near its heart--its church principles and government. These things were not done in a corner, and could not fail to arouse the interest of the Queen and Prince, whatever verdict their judgment might pronounce on the