We spent an hour at the close of twilight a few evenings ago, in running over the Sermon and the Dialogues, and in comparing them, as we went along, paragraph by paragraph, and sentence by sentence. We had before us also one of Mr. Clark's earlier publications, his _Rights of Members of the Church of Scotland_, and a complete collection of his anti-patronage speeches for a series of years, as recorded in _The Church Patronage Reporter_, with his speech 'anent lay patronage' in the General Assembly, when in 1833 he led the debate on the popular side. The publications, in all, extended over a period of fourteen years. They exhibited Mr. Clark, and what Mr. Clark had held, in 1829, in 1831, in 1832, in 1836, in 1840, and in 1843. We found that we could dip down upon him, as we went along, like a sailor taking soundings in the reaches of some inland frith or some navigable river, and ascertain by year and day the exact state of his opinions, and whether they were rising or falling at the time. And our task, if a melancholy, was certainly no uninteresting one. We succeeded in bringing to the surface, from out of the oblivion that had closed over them, many a curious, glittering, useless little thing, somewhat resembling the decayed shells and phosphoric jellies that attach themselves to the bottom of the deep-sea lead. Here we found the tale of a peroration, set as if on joints, that clattered husky and dry like the rattles of a snake; there an argument sprouting into green declamation, like a damaged ear of corn in a wet harvest; yonder a piece of delightful egotism, set full in sentiment like a miniature of Mr. Clark in a tinsel frame. What seemed most remarkable, however, in at least his earlier productions, was their ceaseless glitter of surface, if we may so speak. We found them literally sprinkled over with little bits of broken figures, as if the reverend gentleman had pounded his metaphors and comparisons in a mortar, and then dusted them over his style. It is thus, thought we, that our manufacturers of fancy wax deal by their mica. In his _Rights of Members_, for instance, we found in one page that 'the gross errors of Romanism had risen _in successive tides_, until the _light of truth suffered a fearful eclipse_ during a long period of darkness;' and we had scarce sufficiently admired the sublime height of tides that occasion eclipses, when we were further informed, in the page immediately following, that the god of this world was mustering his _multifarious hosts for the battle_, hoping, _amidst the waves_ of popular commotion, 'to _blot out the name_ of God from the British Constitution.' Assuredly, thought we, we have the elements of no commonplace engagement here. 'Multifarious hosts,' fairly mustered, and 'battling' amid 'waves' in 'commotion' to 'blot out a name,' would be a sight worth looking at, even though, like the old shepherd in the _Winter's Tale_, their zeal should lack footing amid the waters.