Poetry such as this is still somewhat rare; but mark the kindred
beauties of the writer in _Fraser_. Around such men as Mr. Tait,
Dr. M'Leod, and Dr. Muir, 'must crystallize the piety and the hopes
of the Scottish Church.' What a superb figure! Only think of the Rev.
Dr. Muir as of a thread in a piece of sugar candy, and the piety of
the Dean of Faculty and Mr. Penney, joined to that of some four or
five hundred respectable ladies of both sexes besides, all sticking
out around him in cubes, hexagons, and prisms, like cleft almonds in a
bishop-cake. Hardly inferior in the figurative is the passage
which follows: 'The Doctor (Dr. Chalmers) rides on at a rickety
trot,--Messrs. Cunningham, Begg, and Candlish by turns whipping up
the wornout Rosenante, and making the rider believe that windmills
are Church principles, and the echoes of their thunder solid argument.
A ditch will come; and when the first effects of the fall are over,
the dumbfounded Professor will awake to the deception, and smite
the minnows of vetoism hip and thigh.' The writer of this passage is
unquestionably an ingenious man, but he could surely have made a
little more of the last figure. A dissertation on the hips and thighs
of minnows might be made to reflect new honour on even the genius
of the Rev. Mr. Cumming.
It is mainly, however, from the Episcopalian tone of the article
that we derive our evidence. The writer seems to hold, with Charles
II., that Presbyterianism is no fit religion for a gentleman. True,
the Moderates were genteel men, of polish and propriety, such as
Mr. Jaffray of Dunbar, who never at synod or presbytery did or
said anything that was not strictly polite; but then the Moderates
had but little of Presbyterianism in their religion, and perhaps,
notwithstanding their 'quiet, amiable, and courteous demeanour,'
little of religion itself. It is to quite a different class that
the hope of the writer turns. He states that 'melancholy facts and
strong arguments against the practical working of Presbytery is at
this moment impressing itself in Scotland on every unprejudiced
spectator;' that there is a party, however, 'with whom the ministerial
office is a sacred investiture, transmitted by succession through
pastor to pastor, and from age to age,--men inducted to their
respective parishes, not because their flocks like or dislike them,
but because the superintending authorities, after the exercise of
solemn, minute, and patient investigation, have determined that
this or that pastor is the fittest and best for this or that parish;'
that there exist in this noble party 'the germs of a possible
unity with the southern Church;' and that there is doubtless a
time coming when the body of our Establishment, 'sick of slavery under
the name of freedom, and of sheer Popery under Presbyterian
colours, shall send up three of their best men to London for
consecration, and Episcopacy shall again become the adoption of