matters with which a
newspaper is necessitated to deal. It would be other than a newspaper
if it did not. On these questions, however, which lie so palpably
beyond the ecclesiastical pale, though the Church can have no
organ, zealous Churchmen may; and there can be no doubt whatever
that they are questions on which zealous Free Churchmen _are_ very
thoroughly divided--so thoroughly, that any single newspaper could
represent, in reference to them, only one class. The late Mr. John
Hamilton, for instance--a good and honest man, who, in his character
as a Free Churchman, determinedly opposed the return of Mr.
Macaulay--was wholly at issue regarding some of these points with the
Honourable Mr. Fox Maule, who in 1846 mounted the hustings to say
that the 'gratitude and honour of the Free Church' was involved in
Mr. Macaulay's return. And so the organ that represented the one,
could not fail to misrepresent the other. Now, we are aware that on
this, and on a few other occasions, the _Witness_ must have given very
considerable dissatisfaction in the political department to certain
members of the Free Church. It was not at all their organ on these
occasions; nay, at the very outset of its career, it had solemnly
pledged itself _not_ to be their organ.

The following passage was written by its present Editor, ere the first
appearance of his paper, and formed a part of its prospectus:--'The
_Witness_,' he said, '_will not espouse the cause of any of the
political parties which now agitate and_ _divide the country_.'
'Public measures, however, will be weighed as they present themselves
in an impartial spirit, with care proportioned to their importance,
and with reference not to the party with which they may chance to
originate, but to the principles which they shall be found to
involve.' Such was the pledge given by the Editor of the _Witness_;
and he now challenges his readers to say whether he has not honestly
redeemed it. Man is naturally a tool-making animal; and when he
becomes a politician by profession, his ingenuity in this special walk
of constructiveness is, we find, always greatly sharpened by the
exigencies of his vocation.

He makes tools of bishops, tools of sacraments, tools of Confessions
of Faith, and tools of Churches and church livings.

We had just seen, previous to the _debut_ of the _Witness_, the Church
of Scotland converted by Conservatism into a sort of mining tool,
half lever, half pickaxe, which it p