sociated from his earliest
years with the civil and ecclesiastical affairs of his native country,
he has been enabled, in his time, to do the State some service; and when
the "history of Scotland in the nineteenth century" shall come to be
written, the Duke of Argyll will be mentioned with honour and grateful
regard. On these, and many other grounds that might be quoted, we are
prepared to justify the incorporation in the present series of articles
of such a name and of such a life--a name that is as familiar in the
Church Courts as in the Councils of the nation, and a life that has been
singularly pure, useful, and exemplary.

Born April, 30, 1823, his Grace is the second son of the sixth Duke of
Argyll, by his marriage with Joan, daughter of John Glassel, Esq., his
father's second wife. The present Duke is the thirty-second Knight of
Lochow, and the thirtieth Campbell in the direct line of descent. He
showed from an early age the remarkable aptitude for business and the
literary capacity which have since distinguished him in so eminent a
degree, his first work being published before he was 20. While Marquis
of Lorne he took an active part in the great controversy relating to
patronage in the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which culminated in
the Disruption of 1843. His Grace was one of the first to denounce the
obnoxious system of patronage, and he lent his great influence and high
social position to the party of which Dr. Chalmers was the recognised
head, giving it an importance which it might never otherwise have
acquired. But his Grace did more than aid the Secession by his social
influence; he also rendered yeoman service to that movement by his able
pen. One of his first productions was a _brochure_ "On the Duty and
Necessity of Immediate Legislative Interposition on behalf of the Church
of Scotland as determined by considerations of Constitutional Law." In
this publication the writer gave an historical view of the Church of
Scotland, particularly in reference to its constitutional power in
matters ecclesiastical. In another pamphlet, written in the course of
the same year, and entitled "A Letter to the Rev. Thomas Chalmers, D.D.,
on the present position of Church affairs in Scotland, and the causes
which have led to it," his Grace vindicated the right of the Church to
legislate for itself, condemned the movement then in progress among
certain members of the General Assembly to establish the Free Church by
a se