s his own judgment, and the judgment of the vast
body of his Church, that, next to the writings and actings of Dr.
Chalmers, the leading articles of Mr. Miller in this journal did
more than anything else to give the Free Church the place it holds
in the affections of so many of our fellow-countrymen.

But Mr. Miller was far more than a Free Churchman, and did for the
Christianity of his country and the world a far higher service than
any which in that simple character and office was rendered by him.
There was nothing in him of the spirit and temper of the sectarian.
He breathed too broad an atmosphere to live and move within such
narrow bounds. In the heat of the conflict there may have been too
much occasionally of the partisan; and in the pleasure that the
sweep and stroke of his intellectual tomahawk gave to him who
wielded it, he may have forgotten at times the pain inflicted where
it fell; but let his writings before and after the Disruption be
now consulted, and it will be found that it was mainly because of
his firm belief, whether right or wrong, that the interests of
vital godliness were wrapped up in it, that he took his stand, and
played his conspicuous part, in the ecclesiastical conflict. It is
well known that for some time past,--for reasons to which it would
be altogether unseasonable to allude,--he has ceased to take any
active part in ecclesiastical affairs. He had retired even, in a
great measure, from the field of general literature, to devote
himself to the study of Geology. His past labors in this
department,--enough to give him a high and honored place among its
most distinguished cultivators,--he looked upon but as his training
for the great life-work he had marked out for himself,--the full
investigation and illustration of the Geology of Scotland. He had
large materials already collected for this work; and it was his
intention, after completing that volume which has happily been left
in so finished a state, to set himself to their arrangement. The
friends of science in many lands will mourn over the incompleted
project which, however ably it may hereafter be accomplished by
another, it were vain to hope shall ever be so accomplished as it
should have been by one who united in himself the power of accurate
observation, of log