And yet, of all the many facts which he thus communicated on his own authority, because resting on his own observation, not one of them has ever yet been disproved; nay, scarce one of them has ever yet been so much as challenged. Of course, in reference to the statements which he has had to make on the testimony of others, his position was necessarily different; and a very delicate matter he has sometimes found it to be, to deal with these statements. A desire, on the one hand, to expose to the wholesome breathings of public opinion whatever was really oppressive and unjust; a fear, on the other, lest he should compromise the general cause, or injure the character of his paper, by giving publicity to what either might not be true, or could not be proven to be true,--have often led him to retain communications beside him for weeks and months, until some circumstance occurred that enabled him to determine regarding their real character and value. And such--with more, however, than the ordinary misgivings, and with an unfavourable opinion frankly and decidedly expressed--was the course which he took with the communicated article on the Duke of Buccleuch. That the testing circumstance which _did_ occur in the course of the long period during which it was thus held _in retentis_ was not communicated to him, or to any other official connected with the _Witness_, he much regrets, but could not possibly help. In the discussion on the Sites Bill of Wednesday last, the Honourable Fox Maule is made to say, that 'the _Witness_ contained many articles which had been condemned by the Church.' Now this must be surely a misreport, as nothing could be more grossly incorrect than such a statement. The voice of the Free Church--that by which she condemns or approves--can be emitted through but her deliberative courts, and recorded in but the decisions of her solemn Assemblies. On the merits or demerits of the _Witness_, through these her only legitimate organs, she has not yet spoken; and Mr. Maule is, we are sure, by far too intelligent a Churchman to mistake the voice of a mere political coterie, irritated mayhap by the loss of an election, for the solemn deliverance of a Church of Christ. With respect to his reported statement, to the effect that the _Witness_ 'contained many articles which had done great harm to the Free Church,' the report may, we think, be quite correct. The _Witness_ contained a good many articles on the special occasion when the Free Churchmen of Edinburgh conspired--'ungratefully and dishonourably,' as Mr. Maule must have deemed it--to eject a Whig Minister, and to place in his seat, as their representative, a shrewd citizen and honest man.