Nor is it the Free Church of Scotland alone which has thus, to all appearance, lost its faith in the Scriptures and in the “Standards.” The Rev. David Macrae, of Gourock, one of the most talented and popular ministers of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, declared recently in the presbytery of that body that he and very many—almost all—of his fellow-ministers had ceased to believe, and in some cases to preach, the traditional creed of the church. He, for one, was henceforth resolved to be honest, and was determined no longer to profess what he had ceased to believe, but the majority of his brethren, he thought, would continue for some time to be hypocrites. “The relation of the clergy to the Standards was not an honest one,” he said; “the professed was not the actual creed of the church; our church is professing one creed while holding, and to a large extent preaching, another. I am determined to strike a blow, even though it should be my last, to liberate the church I love from the tyranny of a narrow creed and the hypocrisy of a professed adherence to it.” The lapse of the Scotch Presbyterians into infidelity may seem to be a startling event, but it was inevitable. If the Bible could have saved them, they would have been safe; but the Bible in itself never yet saved any one, for God did not ordain that it should be written and preserved for that purpose. The Bible, indeed, points out the way to salvation; it is a finger-post directing men to the gate of heaven, but it is not that gate itself, nor even the key which opens it. All non-Catholic sects are certain, sooner or later, to lead their adherents to that pit of perdition on the brink of which the Scotch Presbyterians now seem to be standing—the blind lead the blind, and both fall into the ditch. The Catholic Church in Scotland is small and weak; it is only within a very few years that her growth there has been at all perceptible, and the hierarchy has not been re-established there since it was swept away by the Reformation. But the rapid decline of Scotch Protestantism into practical infidelity may have a favorable effect upon the interests of the church. The really pious of the people—and there are many such—may now begin to turn their eyes towards the living Teacher of God’s word, and listen to her unerring voice; and when they enter her fold they can say that they have abandoned the church of their fathers in order to return to the church of their forefathers. HOW PERCY BINGHAM CAUGHT HIS TROUT.