one of their altars, 'To the unknown God.' There may be a practical and most mischievous heterodoxy embodied in the preacher's idea of sermons, as certainly as he may embody a heterodoxy theoretic and doctrinal in the sermons themselves. The ordinary course of establishing a Church in any country, as specially shown by New Testament history and that of the Reformation, is first and mainly through the preaching of the word. An earnest, eloquent man--a Peter in Jerusalem--a Paul at Athens, on Mars Hill--a John Knox in Edinburgh or St. Andrews--a George Whitfield in some open field or market-place of Britain or America--or a Thomas Chalmers in some metropolitan pulpit, Scotch or English--addresses himself to the people. There is a strange power in the words, and they cannot but listen; and then the words begin to tell. The heart is affected, the judgment convinced, the will influenced and directed: ancient beliefs are, as the case may be, modified, resuscitated, or destroyed; new or revived convictions take the place of previous convictions, inadequate or erroneous; and thus churches are planted, and the face of society changed. We limit ourselves here to what--being strictly natural in the process--would operate, if skilfully applied, as directly on the side of error as of truth. It is the first essential of a book, that it be interesting enough to be read; and of a preacher, whatever his creed, that he be sufficiently engaging to be attentively listened to; and without this preliminary merit, no other merit, however great, is of any avail whatever. And when a Church possesses it in any great degree, it is sure to spread and increase. Are there churches in the Establishment which, though thinned by the Disruption, have now all their seats let, and are crammed every Sabbath to the doors? If so, be sure there is popular talent in the pulpit, and that the clergyman who officiates there does not find it a very easy matter to compose his sermons. Nay, dear as the distinctive principles of the Free Church are to the people of Scotland, with superior pulpit talent in the Establishment on the one hand, and in the ranks of the disendowed body, on the other, a goodly supply of those youthful ministers who boast that they either never write their sermons, or write them at a short sitting, we would by no means guarantee to our Church a ten years' vigorous existence. These may not be palatable truths, but we trust they are wholesome ones; and we know that the time peculiarly requires them. It is, however, not mainly with the Establishment that the Free Church has to contend. We ask the reader whether he has not marked, within the last few years, the _début_ of another and more formidable antagonist, with which all Christian Churches may be soon called on to grapple?