Nearly forty years since, Dr. Chalmers, one of the parish ministers of Glasgow, preached several times in London. He was then in the zenith of his popularity as a pulpit orator. Canning and Wilberforce went together to hear him upon one occasion; and after sitting spell-bound under his eloquence, Canning said to Wilberforce when the sermon was done, 'The tarlan beats us; we have no preaching like that in England.' In October 1855, the Rev. John Caird, incumbent of the parish of Errol, in Perthshire, preached before the Queen and Court at the church of Crathie. Her Majesty was so impressed by the discourse that she commanded its publication; and the Prince Consort, no mean authority, expressed his admiration of the ability of the preacher, saying that 'he had not heard a preacher like him for ssven years, and did not expect to enjoy a like pleasure for as long a period to come.' So, at all events, says a paragraph in The Times of December 12th, 1855. It is somewhat startling to find men of cultivated taste, who are familiar with the highest class preaching of the English Church, expressing their sense of the superior effect of pulpit oratory of a very different kind. No doubt Caird and Chalmers are the best of their class; and the overwhelming effect which they and a few other Scotch preachers have often produced, is in a great degree owing to the individual genius of the men, and not to the school of preaching they belong to. Yet both are representatives of what may be called the Scotch school of preaching: and with all their genius, they never could have carried away their audience as they have done, had they been trammelled by those canons of taste to which English preachers almost invariably conform. Their manner is just the regular Scotch manner, vivified into tenfold effect by their own peculiar genius. Preaching in Scotland is a totally different thing from what it is in England. In the former country it is generally characterized by an amount of excitement in delivery and matter, which in England is only found among the most fanatical Dissenters, and is practically unknown in the pulpits of the national church. No doubt English and Scotch preaching differ in substance to a certain 'extent.' Scotch sermons are generally longer, averaging from forty minutes to an hour in the delivery. There is a more prominent and constant pressing of what is called evangelical doctrine. The treatment of the subject is more formal. There is an introduction; two or three heads of discourse, formally announced; and a practical conclusion; and generally the entire Calvinistic system is set forth in every sermon. But the main difference lies in the manner in which the discourses of the two schools are delivered. While English sermons are generally read with quiet dignity, in Scotland they are very commonly repeated from memory, and given with great vehemence and oratorical effect, and abundant gesticulation. Nor is it to be supposed that when we say the