n
somewhat as follows:--'WANTED BY THE GOVERNMENT, A CHURCH TO ERECT A
SCHOOL. TERMS LIBERAL, AND NO CERTIFICATE OF RELIGIOUS TEACHING
DEMANDED. N.B.--PAPISTS, PUSEYITES, AND SOCINIANS PERFECTLY
ELIGIBLE.'{8}

Leaving, however, to profounder intellects than our own the adjustment
of the nice principles involved in this matter, let us advert to what
we deem the practical advantages of a _territorial_ scheme of
educational _endowments_ over a _denominational_ scheme of educational
_grants_. At present, all or any of the _sects_ may come forward as
such, whatever their character or teaching, and, on fulfilling certain
conditions, receive assistance from the Government in the form of an
educational grant; whereas, by the scheme which we would fain see
set in its place, it would be only the more solid people of
_districts_--let us suppose parishes--that would be qualified to come
forward to choose for themselves their parochial State-endowed
teachers. And at least one of the advantages of this scheme over the
other must be surely obvious and plain. _Denominationally_, there is
much unsoundness in Scotland; _territorially_, there is very little.
There exist, unhappily, differences among our Scottish Presbyterians;
but not the less on that account has Presbyterianism, in its three
great divisions--Voluntary, Establishment, and Free Church--possessed
itself of the land in all its length and breadth. The only other form of
religion that has a territorial existence in Scotland at all is
Popery, and Popery holds merely a few darkened districts of the outer
Hebrides and of the Highlands. It would fail, out of the one thousand
one hundred parish schools of the country, to carry half-a-dozen;
and no other form of religious error would succeed in carrying so
much as one parish school. There is no Socinian district in
Scotland; old Scotch Episcopacy has not its single parish; and high
Puseyism has not its half, or quarter, or even tithe of a parish.
That Church of Scotland which Knox founded, with its offshoots the
Secession and Relief bodies, has not laboured in vain; and through the
blessing of God on these labours, Scotland, as represented by its
territorial majorities, is by far the soundest and most orthodox
country in the world. A wise and patriotic man--at once a good Scot
and a judicious Churchman--would, we think, hesitate long ere he flung
away so solid an advantage, won to us by the labours, the contendings,
the sufferings