This question was in the hands of Principal Tulloch. In the General Assembly of 1865, Pirie had declared that the Confession was ‘the truth of the living God,’ but Tulloch had said, ‘With the spirit of the seventeenth century the Church of Scotland cannot identify itself.’ A few months later he published an address on _The Study of the Confession of Faith_, which is a remarkable piece, every word weighed, and every word in its place. He begins by brushing aside, as utterly worthless, all such knowledge of the Confession as is confined to the letter, asserting that, to be properly understood, the Confession ‘must be studied both philosophically and historically.’ The manifesto of a party, it reflects all the peculiarities which that party had gathered in the course of a struggle for ascendancy, insomuch that a historical student, well versed in the Puritan movement, could tell, by the internal evidence alone, the decade in which the document was put together, and the men who had the chief hand in the work. Further, many of the ideas used in the Confession to explain the mysteries of Christianity were borrowed from the philosophy of the age. The Confession is the embodiment of the opinions of a certain theological school, which was peculiarly under the influences and the prejudices of the period. To claim infallibility for such an instrument is the worst kind of Popery--’that Popery which degrades the Christian reason while it fails to nourish the Christian imagination.’ Macleod cheered Tulloch on, breaking into verse-- ‘Brother, up to the breach For Christ’s freedom and truth; Let us act as we teach, With the wisdom of age and the vigour of youth. Heed not their cannon-balls, Ask not who stands or falls; Grasp the sword Of the Lord, And Forward!’ CHAPTER VIII 1867-1872 INDIA--THE APEX--THE END The vision of millions upon millions in the far East worshipping idols had long haunted Macleod’s imagination, and, with his sense of apostleship waxing as the years went on, heathendom became more and more to him a mystery and a horror. The Asiatic was a man: reach his heart, it was the same as ours, and must open to the religion of humanity. To Macleod’s stamp of Christian the whole idea of foreign missions was peculiarly congenial; every enterprise in that field, whatever Church had the credit, he hailed with enthusiasm. In 1858, when Angell James was appealing for a hundred missionaries to go to China, Macleod sent forth, in the _Edinburgh Christian Magazine_, a voice to the British Churches:--