ay, that the _neutral_ witnesses of such un-Christian outrages have
murmured, remonstrated, protested, in every direction; and that Dr
Macfarlane, who has since corresponded with the Duke of Sutherland upon
the whole case--viz. upon the petition for land, as affected by the
shocking menaces of the Seceders--has, in no other way, been able to evade
the double mischief of undertaking a defence for the indefensible, and at
the same time of losing the land irretrievably, than by affecting an
unconsciousness of language used by his party little suited to his own
sacred calling, or to the noble simplicities of Christianity. Certainly it
is unhappy for the Seceders, that the only disavowal of the most fiendish
sentiments heard in our days, has come from an individual not authorized,
or at all commissioned by his party--from an individual not showing any
readiness to face the whole charges, disingenuously dissembling the worst
of them, and finally offering his very feeble disclaimer, which
equivocates between a denial and a palliation--not until _after_ he found
himself in the position of a petitioner for favours.

Specifically the great evil of our days, is the abiding temptation, in
every direction, to popular discontent, to agitation, and to systematic
sedition. Now, we say it with sorrow, that from no other incendiaries have
we heard sentiments so wild, fierce, or maliciously democratic, as from
the leaders of the Secession. It was the Reform Bill of 1832, and the
accompanying agitation, which first suggested the _veto_ agitation of 1834,
and prescribed its tone. From all classes of our population in turn, there
have come forward individuals to disgrace themselves by volunteering their
aid to the chief conspirators of the age. We have earls, we have
marquesses, coming forward as Corn-League agents; we have magistrates by
scores angling for popularity as Repealers. But these have been private
parties, insulated, disconnected, disowned. When we hear of Christianity
prostituted to the service of Jacobinism--of divinity becoming the
handmaid to insurrection--and of clergymen in masses offering themselves
as promoters of anarchy, we go back in thought to that ominous
organization of irreligion, which gave its most fearful aspects to the
French Revolution.

Other evils are in the rear as likely to arise out of the _funds_ provided
for the new Seceders, were the distribution of those funds confessedly
unobjectionable, but more imm