But of his oration there is one part that, were it only known, would grow in importance the more the cry for disestablishment was heard. The age, he says, is against, and rightly against, monopolies of every kind. To defend a State Church on the ground of treaties is idle; the question is whether it satisfies the nation. Nor does he argue for the preservation of the Establishment on any such ground as the need of a placard on the nation’s door, _Religion recognised within_. Voluntaryism is not only insufficient to meet the spiritual wants of the country, but involves the dependence of the clergy. On the other hand, the Church exists for the people, and has no interests apart from theirs. When it ceases to have the general confidence it loses its right to the endowments, which are held in trust for the common good. A national Church should therefore be comprehensive, and that to the furthest limit compatible with its existence as a Christian institution. Every ecclesiastical question, whether of government, of worship, or even of doctrine (provided only that the essential faith be kept) should be decided with a single eye to the national interest. Were he living now, Macleod would probably advocate the union of the presbyterian Churches at any cost to the Establishment except the loss of the teinds. He was no sooner released from the General Assembly than he was off to Berlin, where he fixed missionaries for the aborigines of India. Home again, he resumed his peregrinations in the country, with ‘a fire in his bones for a Mission and a Church on the point of perishing.’ Oh it is wonderful, after his so strenuous day, to see the passion and hurry with which, in spite of the burden of the flesh, he struggles onward in the falling of the eve. His religious feelings and aspirations grew more and more absorbing and intense. As his life seemed not for long in this world, he thought the more of the next. Education beyond the grave, progress everlasting, was the favourite conception of his closing years.