The ministers of the Edinburgh kirks, appointed by the same persons as the professors, may be presumed to be appointed upon the same principles; and thus, though they were conjoined with the others, in the university nominations, it would be but an increase of the evil,--the addition of the political son to that of the political father; or, as Professor Leslie would express it, “a combination of direct and retroflected dulness.” In consequence of these circumstances, the _eorum ministrorum_ have usurped every professor’s chair in the Athenian college which can be by any sophistry twisted into a compatibility with the functions of a minister of the Kirk. After the very Reverend personage who, as aforesaid, groans under the load of the principality (not of Wales), the chairs, not only of divinity, church history, and Hebrew, but of logic and rhetoric, and the belles lettres, are in the hands of the Athenian priests. Now, though a parson _in esse_ be the most likely person to teach divinity and church history, because those who are parsons _in posse_ are the only persons that are likely to dip deeply into such studies; though, in a country where Jews do not thrive, it be a matter of no great moment who shall teach Hebrew, and though logic and rhetoric, as they are usually taught, be no weighty matters, yet there are substantial reasons why no officiating clergyman in the Athens should hold any chair whatever in the college. In the first place, the Kirk of Scotland, at least according to her book of discipline, recognises no clergyman who does not perform the whole of his duties in his own person. She will have no “dumb dogs who cannot bark,” and if they bark to the extent that she points out, they will have no strength left even to hunt syllogisms in _Bar-ba-ra_, or to nozzle up Hebrew roots. The minister of the Kirk is, by its constitution, presumed not only to reside in his parish, and perform divine service every Sunday, but to devote the whole of the week, that is, as much of _every_ day of it, as other men of a similar rank in life are supposed to devote to business, to visiting his people at their houses, and receiving their visits at his own, instructing and catechising the young, recommending the destitute to the charity of the Kirk Session, praying by the bed-side of the dying, and performing a number of other little offices of religion and charity, which are supposed to be imperiously binding upon him in virtue of his solemn vow of ordination. Ministers of the Kirk are furthermore not understood to purchase their annual stock of “_Conciones Selectæ_” in the booksellers’ shop, as is the case in some other places; and thus every spare hour from the parochial duties of the week is presumed to be taken up in preparing for the pulpit duties of the Sunday. Hence a minister of the Scottish Kirk, who is in the possession of a cure, cannot, in conscientious accordance with the oath that he takes when he