respectable body. True, the individual may have been injured, but far better to let him suffer than expose the infirmities of those who are men of rank and consideration.

"It may be said that it is the peculiar business of presbyteries to watch over the residence of their members. It is the business of presbyteries to enforce the standing laws of the Church, and see that these be executed. But it is certainly not the business of presbyteries to exceed these laws, or to exercise discretionary powers, unless expressly vested in them by an Act of Assembly.

'People indulge in a vague and general assertion that residence is essential to the constitution of presbytery. This assertion amounts to nothing, unless the word 'residence' be defined. And from what do we collect the import of the term? We can collect it from nothing but from those particular laws and decisions of the legislature, which, in an aggregate view, make up the constitution of our ecclesiastical establishment.

"Some may perhaps think that the arrogating of a discretionary power will exalt them into consequence. But they are wreathing a chain round their own necks, and the necks of all their posterity in office. They are forging for themselves a chain of inquisitorial despotism. Its oppressive influence will be felt in the minutest action of your history; every movement of freedom may be converted into a subject of presbyterial discussion. Caprice or malignity will lay hold of it; and our general meetings, instead of being devoted to mirth and to friendship, will become a scene of rancor and injustice, and of the lowest and most degrading of passions.

"Admit discretionary power, and you open a door to all the cruelties of persecution. Our courts of equity will be prostituted into the instruments of oppression. They will be the humble and convenient tools of a domineering policy. Instead of being a refuge to the injured, they will add to the pangs of that heart that is already wrung by the injustice of its enemies.

"Admit discretionary power, and farewell to the impartiality of justice. We will lend our votes to those whom we wish to accommodate. We will determine our courts' proceedings by the speculations of interest; and if we can only succeed in winning the smiles of patronage, we care not for the whims of conscience, and the dictates of a squeamish integrity. The non-residence of one man will be tolerated for years, because he is the nursling of the dominant patronage; while the non-residence of another, if only persisted in for months, will arouse all our indignation, and all our religious enthusiasm. Some people have a most admirable conscience. They have the faculty of repressing all its troublesome suggestions when they find it convenient. They bring it under due management. They can keep it under proper control.

We will suffer it to give no offense to the powerful, but will

reserve all its zeal for the helpless and unresisting victims of our injustice. Such the principles and the generosity of those who would fill the world with the fame of their sanctity. O ye scribes, pharisees, hypocrites, who strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. True, I am an obscure individual; I am an outcast from academical attentions; I am not invited to the dinners of the literati. I can give no favors, exert no interest, issue no degrees to flatter the vanity of fools, and grace the title-page of scribblers. Yet I will hold up my face with an unblushing confidence. I do not shrink at the feeling of my own insignificance, because I am addressing a Presbytery whose justice and liberality I have no reason to suspect-a Presbytery that will suffer no imputation upon their candor and consistency-a Presbytery that will spurn at the cowardice of deserting the cause of innocence, because it is unsupported.

"To correct me for non-residence would subject you to the charge of a flagrant and undeniable partiality. In what does the peculiarity of my crime consist? I have published my non-residence in the newspapers; I was unconscious of guilt, and shrunk not from public criticism. And for this I am to be made the object of presbyterial censure. It is not for the crime of non-residence, then, that I am to be denounced; it is for the crime of telling it to the world. It is for the crime of coming forward like an honest man with a blunt and undisguised declaration of my proceedings. What an appearance will such a measure have in the eyes of the public? What a fund of ridicule and triumph to the enemies of religion? To what imputations of fanaticism and hypocrisy will we be subjected? The crime is of small consideration. It is the ostentation of it that we hate. Pursue your licentious indulgences, but throw over a mask to conceal them from the eye of the public. Go on with your irregularities. You shall have no disturbance from our zeal or from our religious indignation, so long as you succeed in protecting them by the shelter of hypocrisy. But if you begin to blab out your irregularities, it is then full time that our zeal should appear, because the world expects it of us. I am much obliged to the gentlemen for the lesson of prudence that they have given me. I must from this time learn the very useful and very necessary art of concealment.

"But to be serious, I will ask these gentlemen, if in conscience they can say that in my case they discern a flagrant and criminal peculiarity? Can they lay their hands upon their heart and tell me that they were ignorant of the non-residence of my predecessor? If they knew it, what is the mighty difference? In common life, in prudence, in morality, it is always upon the certainty of your belief that you act, and not upon the kind of evidence that produced it. You pretend that the manner in which the knowledge was conveyed affects the merits of the question. This appears to me a quibble—a

subterfuge a poor and pitiful attempt at consistency-a shift that has not even plausibility to support it—a topic of sophistry that may serve to eke out a speech, and give the stress of argument to nonsense. Does any man think, in the sincerity of his heart, that the publication of my proceedings renders me a worthy object of presbyterial reprobation? I will submit, as I am bound to do, to the warrantable decisions of my superior court, and I will only ask one question-Is this the way to extend my usefulness, or to heighten the efficacy of my instructions? Will this advance the interests of religion, to attach an undeserved stigma to one of its ministers, to cover him with infamy, or render him the object of hasty and precipitate reprobation ?"

APPENDIX, F.-P. 104.

"There is almost no consumption of intellectual effort in the peculiar employment of a minister. The great doctrines of revelation, though sublime, are simple. They require no labor of the midnight oil to understand them-no parade of artificial language to impress them upon the hearts of the people. A minister's duty is the duty of the heart. It is his to impress the simple and home-bred lessons of humanity and justice, and the exercises of a sober and enlightened piety. It is his to enlighten the sick-bed of age and of infirmity; to rejoice in the administrations of comfort; to maintain a friendly intercourse with his people, and to secure their affections by what no art and no hypocrisy can accomplish-the smile of a benevolent countenance, the frank and open air of an undissembled honesty. The usefulness of such a character as this requires no fatiguing exercise of the understanding to support it; no ambitious display of learning or of eloquence; no flight of mysticism; no elaborate discussion; no jargon of system or of controversy. What can we find in the peace and piety of a minister's retirement to withdraw his attention from the exalted occupations of philosophy? that philosophy which the light of mathematical science unfolded to the immortal Newton; that philosophy which has introduced us into a new creation of order and magnificence; that philosophy which has opened up to us an immense theater, where the divinity of wisdom presides, and worlds on worlds revolve in silent harmony; that philosophy which raises us in adoration to the Almighty Being, whose all-seeing eye no variety can bewilder, whose care extends to the minutest of His works, and who, while He reigns in the highest heaven, can look down on earth, to revive the spirit of the desolate, and to enlighten the sick-bed of age and of infirmity.

"Sir Isaac Newton has demonstrated to us the triumphs of the inductive philosophy when applied to the investigation of material phenomena. I will not pretend to say whether it is the same cautious and hesitating spirit of induction that has led Mr. Playfair to his won

derful discovery, to this his curious and unexpected fact in the philosophy of the mind, to this stubborn peculiarity in the science of the mathe. matics, that it should deny every clergyman of the Church of Scotland access to its mysteries. The discovery of unexpected connections is the evidence of original genius, and of a mind superior to the dull sobriety of vulgar apprehensions. Let Mr. Playfair go on and prosper. He has opened up to us a new and interesting field for original observation. I would advise him not to stop short in the career he has so successfully begun. Go on, sir, and give us some more specimens of this magical and unheard of influence. Extend your observations to all the other trades and professions in the country; record their friendly and adverse tendencies to mathematical science; you have settled the clergymen; proceed in the plenitude of your sagacity, and give us your decisions upon the physician, the lawyer, the mole-catcher, the currier of leather, etc., etc., to the enrichment of the philosophy of mind, and the great edification of patrons to university livings in all future ages.

"To encourage Mr. Playfair to attempt this new and unbeaten track of investigation, I shall unfold to him a discovery which has lately rewarded the patience and industry of my own inquiries, and promises the accession of a new set of phenomena to physical science. The author of this pamphlet, though a very young man, is old enough to have a beard, and that too of sufficient toughness and obstinacy to have seen out twelve pairs of razors since he commenced his series of inductive observations on the phenomena of shaving. The first circumstance that attracted his attention was the razor; and he has been laughed at for years by all his acquaintances for asserting that a razor with a yellow handle possesses more spirit, more smoothness, more temper, more durability, and more of all those virtues and qualifications which are set off with so much eloquence in Mr. Packwood's advertisement. But to silence all ridicule and sophistry on the subject, he fell on the following decisive experiment: He took a blade of the best temper, wrested it off its yellow handle, got a watchmaker of careful execution to fasten a black handle in its place, and what is remarkable-from the very first moment of this melancholy transformation, the blade exhibited symptoms of degeneracy; its spirit began to languish and decay; the beard of its unhappy master grew to the terror and admiration of his neighborhood; till at last decency compelled him to condemn his favorite as a piece of old and useless iron, fit only for hire to kettle-menders, or for adding to the inventory of his lumberroom. I take the opportunity of thus announcing my discovery to the public, that it may at once establish my pretensions to original genius, and at the same time serve for the great edification of barbers and natural philosophers in all future ages. In appreciating the merits of these our respective discoveries, I can not help thinking that it

required nearly an equal effort of originality to arrive at them. I have discovered the secret and mysterious influence which connects the power and execution of the blade with the color of the handle; and Mr. Playfair has discovered the no less incomprehensible influence which resides in the name, the vestments, or the situation of a clergyman—an influence that is able to obliterate the general characters of humanity, to extinguish all the fine ardors of literary ambition, and to palsy the energy of that mind on which the vigorous hand of nature had before impressed the rudiments of genius."

APPENDIX G.-P. 132.

"ST. ANDREW's, December 7, 1801.

"Mr. Thomas Chalmers has long been known to me as a young man of uncommon talents and worth, as well as eminent attainments in literature and philosophy. During the course of his academical studies at the University of St. Andrew's, he distinguished himself greatly in the various classes of that seminary, especially the mathematical, at that time under my direction, in which he acquitted himself with singular assiduity and success. Since that period, in order to enlarge his views and enrich his mind with the science and methods of other universities, he has attended the lectures of the principal masters in that of Edinburgh, with much approbation and advantage, and he is at present, with genius and ability, investigating some of the difficult and interesting subjects of Philosophy and Political Economy. To great industry, ardor, and originality in the pursuits of science, he adds the most benevolent temper and dispositions, and his moral character is at once blameless, manly, and decisive. In conducting the studies of young men intrusted to his care, he has discovered excellent talents for simplifying and conveying instruction. In ability for composition, in fitness for unfolding science and its practical uses, in energy of thought and expression, in precision and clearness of ideas, in vigor and ingenuity of conception, as well as powerful habits of abstraction and demonstration, I have reason to say, from frequent opportunities of conversing with him, that he has very few equals; and, upon the whole, he appears to me, in an uncommon degree, qualified in every respect for directing the education of youth in any department of literature where an intimate knowledge of mathematics and philosophy is required. JAMES BROWN."

APPENDIX, H.-P. 229.

Mr. Robert Mudie, who is alluded to in Mr. Chalmers's Journal as a visitor at the manse of Kilmany, was then a teacher in the academy of Dundee, of which Mr. Duncan was rector.

He is rather remarkable