titution of the nation
which is sinking its tens and hundreds of thousands into abject
pauperism and barbarous ignorance, and which neither Churches nor
Societies can of themselves supply. It is the _first_ hopeful movement
of the age; for our own Free Church educational movement, though
perhaps _second_ in point of importance, only serves irrefragably
to demonstrate its necessity.

It is, we repeat, to the people of Scotland, and not to any one of the
Churches of Scotland, that our scheme of a widely-based and truly
popular franchise would restore the Scottish schools. Mr. George
Combe is, however, quite in the right in holding that religion is too
intimately associated with the educational question, and too decidedly
a force in the country, to be excluded from the national seminaries,
'unless, indeed, Government do something more than merely _omit_ the
religious element.'{7} All is lost, Mr. Combe justly infers, on the
non-religious side of the question, if the introduction of the Bible
and Shorter Catechism be not _prohibited_ by Act of Parliament; for, if
not stringently prohibited, what Parliament merely omits doing, a Bible
and Catechism loving people will to a certainty do; and the conscience
of the phrenologist and his followers will not fail to be outraged by
the spectacle of Bible classes in the national schools, and of State
schoolmasters instilling into the youthful mind, by means of the
Shorter Catechism, the doctrine of original sin and the work of the
Spirit. Nay, more; as it is not in the power of mere Acts of the
Legislature to eradicate from the hearts of a people those feelings of
partiality, based on deep religious conviction and the associations of
ages, with which it is natural to regard a co-religionist, more
especially in the case of the teacher to whom one's children are to
read their daily chapter and repeat their weekly tale of questions,
_denomination_ must and will continue to exert its powerful
influence in the election of national schoolmasters popularly chosen.
And as there are certain extensive districts in Scotland in which some
one Church is the stronger, and other certain districts in which some
other Church is the stronger, there are whole shires and provinces in
which, if selected on the popular scheme, the national teachers would be
found well-nigh all of one religious denomination. From John
O'Groat's to Beauly, for instance, they would be all, or almost all,
Free Churchmen; for