tion. Now, the Duke of Sutherland (with
some of his brother proprietors) has just succeeded in showing us a
signal flaw in our scheme of religious toleration, and this at an
exceedingly critical time. He has been perpetrating a great and
palpable wrong, which, if rightly represented, must have the effect of
leading men, in exactly the old mode, to arouse themselves in behalf
of the corresponding right. If a single proprietor can virtually do
what the sovereign of Great Britain would forfeit the crown for barely
attempting to do--if a single nobleman can do what the House of Lords
in its aggregate capacity would peril its very existence for but
proposing to do--then does there exist in the British Constitution a
palpable flaw, which cannot be too soon remedied. There must be a weak
place in the barrier, if the waters be rushing out; and it cannot be
too soon rebuilt on a surer plan. Here, then, evidently, is the point
on which the generated opinion ought to be brought to bear. It has as
its proper arena the political field. It is a defect in the British
Constitution, strongly exemplified by the case of Sutherland, that the
rights of property may be so stretched as to overbear the rights of
conscience--that though toleration be the law of the land generally,
it may be so set aside by the country's proprietary, as not to be the
law in any particular part of it; and to reverse this state of
things--to make provision in the Constitution that the rights of the
proprietor be not so overstretched, and that a virtual repeal of the
toleration laws in any part of the country be not possible--are
palpably the objects to which the public mind should be directed.

We have said that the Duke of Sutherland has succeeded in showing us
this flaw in the Constitution at a peculiarly critical time. A
gentleman resident in England, for whose judgment we entertain the
highest respect, told us only a few days since, that the rising,
all-absorbing party of that kingdom, so far at least as the
Established Church and the aristocracy are concerned, still
continues to be the Puseyite party. If Puseyism does not bid fair
to possess a majority of the people of the country, it bids fair at
least to possess a majority of its acres. And we need scarce remind
the reader how peculiarly this may be the case with Scotland, whose
acres, in such large proportions, are under the control of an
incipient Puseyism already. In both countries, therefore, is it of