e kind among the non-established Churches of Scotland.

The question of the last fifty years has been that Voluntary one which
virtually led to the striking off the roll of the Antiburgher
Secession Church, those protesting ministers who formed the nucleus of
the Original Secession, and to the excommunication and deposition of
Dr. M'Crie. The question of the preceding fifty years was that
connected with the burghal oath, which had the effect of splitting
into two antagonist sections the religious body of which the Burgher
Secession formed but one of the fragments,--a body fast rising at the
time into a position of importance, which the split prevented it from
ever fully realizing. The question of the fifty years with which the
period began was that which fixed the Cameronian body, not merely in
a condition of unsocial seclusion in its relation with all other
churches, but even detached it from its allegiance to the State, and
placed it in circumstances of positive rebellion. Perhaps the history
of this latter body, as embodied in its older testimony, and the
controversial writings of its Fairlys and Thorburns, is that from the
study of which the Free Church might derive most profit at the present
time. We live in so late an age of the world, that we have little
chance of finding much which is positively new in the writings or
speeches of our casuists. When we detect, in consequence, some of our
ministers or office-bearers sporting principles that do not
distinctively belong to the Church of the Disruption, we may be pretty
sure, if we but search well, of discovering these principles existing
as the distinctive tenets of some other Church; and the present
tendency of a most small but most respectable minority in our body is
decidedly Cameronian.

The passages of Scripture on which the Cameronians chiefly dwelt in
their testimony and controversial writings, were those discussed by
the Free Presbytery of Edinburgh on Wednesday last. As condemnatory of
what is designated the great national sin of the Union, for instance,
the testimony adduces, among other texts, Isa. viii. 12, 'Say ye not,
A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A
confederacy;' Hos. vii. 8, 9, 'Ephraim hath mixed himself among the
people; Ephraim is a cake not turned. Strangers have devoured his
strength, and he knoweth it not; yea, grey hairs are here and there
upon him, and he knoweth it not;' and above all, 2 Cor. vi. 14, 15,
'Be ye n