Cumming,
late of the Scotch Church, London! The man who converts twenty-one
shillings into a gold guinea gains nothing by the process; but the
case would be essentially different here, for not only would there
be a great good accomplished, but also a great evil removed. As for
Dr. Chalmers, it is 'painfully evident,' says the writer of the
article, 'that he regards only three things additional to a "supernal
influence" as requisite to constitute any one a minister--a
knowledge of Christianity, and endowment, and a parish;' and as
for the rest of the gentlemen named, they are just preparing to do,
in an 'ecclesiastical way in Edinburgh, what Robespierre, Marat, and
others did in a corporal way in the Convention of 1793.'

Hogarth quarrelled with Churchill, and drew him as a bear in
canonicals. Had he lived to quarrel with the Rev. John Cumming, he
would in all probability have drawn him as a puppy in gown and band;
and no one who knows aught of the painter can doubt that he would have
strikingly preserved the likeness. As for ourselves, we merely indulge
in a piece of conjectural criticism. The other parts of the article
are cast very much into the ordinary type of that side of the
controversy to which it belongs: there is rather more than the usual
amount of misrepresentation, inconsistency, and abuse, with here and
there a peculiarity of statement. Patrons are described as the
'trustees of the supreme magistrate, beautifully and devoutly
appointed to submit the presentee to the presbytery.' Lord Aberdeen's
bill is eulogized as suited to 'confer a greater boon on the laity of
Scotland than was ever conferred on them by the General Assembly.' The
seven clergymen of Strathbogie are praised for 'having rendered unto
God the things that are God's,' 'their enemies being judges.'

The minority of the Church contains, it is stated, its best men,
and its most diligent ministers. As for the majority, they have
been possessed by a spirit of 'deep delusion;' their only idea of
a 'clergyman is a preaching machine, that makes a prodigious
vociferation, and pleases the herd.' They are destined to become'
contemptible and base;' their attitude is an 'unrighteous attitude;'
they are aiming, 'like Popish priests,' at 'supremacy' and a
deadly despotism, through the sides of the people; they are
'suicidally divesting themselves of their power as clergymen, by
surrendering to the people essentially Episcopal functions;' they are
'wild m